The Ocean of Time (19 page)

And there’s a lesson there. That there’s nothing natural when it comes to the works of men.

Lishka, of course, knows nothing of this. He knows only what he’s seen and experienced. The idea of reality being anything other than it is would never occur to him, nor to anyone in this age, for their belief in a rigidly preordained order to things, their fatalism, as I’d term it, is ingrained. They have no idea how
elastic
reality is, just how many ways it can be changed, and to what startling effects.

We secure our raft on the beach to the north of the harbour, then sit and wait, and sure enough, within minutes, a small group of ‘officials’ make their way down the steps and come across to us. Yet if I’m expecting a reprise of what happened at Rzhev, I’m wrong, for when their harbourmaster sees the
tysiatskii
’s pass, he is immediately as helpful and courteous as he can be, treating all three of us like honoured guests. He arranges for our cart to be brought ashore and safely stored, while we are led off to meet the
posadnik
himself.

I like this harbourmaster immensely. He’s a young and clearly vigorous man and you can see he will go far. That is, if he makes no enemies, and keeps in with the right friends. For even good men can go wrong in these times. Yes, and not just in these times. It is the way of the world that, without patronage or luck, a good man often finds himself the victim of others, less able yet less scrupulous.

While we’re waiting for the
posadnik
, I ask him his name and he tells me that it’s Saratov – Sergei Ilya Saratov. Of course, he’s smitten with Katerina, and though he tries hard not to stare, the slight colour in his cheeks betrays him. Seeing my amused smile, he gives an embarrassed nod and then leaves us, but he’s back in an instant, the
posadnik
in tow.

In appearance, the
posadnik
could quite easily be the twin of the scoundrel, Talyzin, whom we encountered in Rzhev, only they’re as different in their natures as chalk and cheese. Old he might be, and long of beard, but he’s a gay, humorous fellow and, after a cup or two of wine, we feel like long-lost relatives.

Which is a great relief. For here we must stay now, until the snows come.

The
posadnik
’s name is Belikof, and it seems he travelled much in his youth, though never as far as Novgorod. In fact, he’s such a nice old fellow that I begin to wonder how he ever came to power or managed to keep it once he’d gained it, but then his sons appear – six strapping lads, each one of them a good two or three times his size – and I begin to understand.

Two hours pass and then the harbourmaster, Saratov – though he begs us to call him Sergei – reappears to inform us that our rooms are ready. Belikof comes over to me and hugs me like I’m another of his sons – which I well could be, for they’re each as tall as me – and asks us to return later on; that there’s to be a feast of welcoming, to celebrate the beginning of a new friendship with our ‘cousins from Novgorod’.

Walking back through the narrow, log-lined alleyways of Tver’, I ask Sergei if Belikof has been
posadnik
long, and he glances at me then shakes his head. ‘Only this last year. Before then …’

I seek to draw him about the circumstances, but all he will say is ‘Not here. Not now.’ As if someone might overhear him in the street. Which intrigues me, because I had begun to think that Tver’ was a happy place. Only there seem to be undercurrents.

Our lodgings are simple but clean. The dirt floor of the room has been swept and new rush mats thrown over it. What’s more, there are linen blankets filled with duck down – an unexpected luxury – which Sergei tells me are an ‘eastern touch’.

Katerina is delighted, though Lishka – dour Lishka, who would rather spend a week on the forest floor than ten minutes in the comfort of a proper bed – moans that he’ll never get a proper night’s sleep.

Leaving Katerina to sort herself out, Lishka and I go with Sergei to inspect the cart.

As at Rzhev, they’ve placed it in the town compound, but here, I note, the guards are simply guards – not the surly, overbearing thugs of Rzhev. Belikof runs a tidy ship, so to speak, and I comment on the fact, only to have Sergei glance warningly at me again.

Alone inside the rough shed where the cart is, I stand close to Sergei and, in a quiet voice, ask him what’s going on.

He whispers back. ‘Belikof is on top, for now. He won the last vote in the
veche
. Only—’

But he doesn’t finish. At that moment the captain of the guards arrives and, without any niceties, asks Sergei what the fuck he’s doing there without his permission.

I’ve seen this kind of horn-locking often, and know well enough to keep out of it. The two young men clearly dislike each other intensely; maybe there’s a woman behind it. Even so, the sheer rudeness, the unnecessary nastiness of the captain surprises me.

We leave, Sergei fuming but apologetic, to us, anyway. Back at our lodgings he makes to go, but I reach out and hold his arm.

‘Sergei, what’s happening here?’

He turns and meets my eyes, and I realise, for the first time, that they’re a deep blue, not brown or green like most of the people here. ‘Not now, Otto. They’re watching us.’

‘They?’

He nods, but when I press him he won’t say any more, only that his duties call him. And for the first time on this journey I ache to jump right out of there and then jump back, at night maybe, and have a poke about for myself to find out what’s going on. But I can’t, and it feels like I’ve got one hand – maybe even both – tied behind my back.

When he’s gone, I turn to Lishka and Katerina and, speaking quietly, tell them to be careful, and not to say too much about our business, not until we’ve a much clearer idea what the situation is. Then, leaving them a moment, I step outside and look around, and sure enough, there’s a pair of men standing idly across the alleyway, watching our inn, though when I stare at them, they look away and begin to talk, as if it’s mere chance that they’re there.

But that tells me something. Tver’ is not the happy town it first appeared to be. There are stresses here, rivalries. And it doesn’t take much to guess that the greatest source of rivalry would be over who should be
posadnik
.

It also makes sense of the welcome we received, for what better opportunity could there be than for the
posadnik
to be able to claim the friendship – yes, and a ‘trading agreement’ – with Novgorod? If he’s desperate for support – for votes in the
veche
, which, I guess, is the bottom line – then we’re a god-given, golden opportunity, for there’s nothing the boyars value more than the chance to make money.

Only I sense that that isn’t all. That there’s something else.

One of Belikof’s sons comes for us just before nightfall. He’s not alone, either. As we step outside, I note that he has a dozen or so peasants, armed with staves, with him. That, too, sends alarm bells ringing.

Even so, the evening is a pleasant one, and the earlier tensions don’t show themselves. In fact, the atmosphere is so carefree that I begin to wonder if I’ve misread what was going on, only that doesn’t account for Sergei’s behaviour, and, because he wasn’t at the celebratory feast, there’s no way I can speak to him again.

Which makes me determined to do just that.

Back at our lodgings, I wait for Katerina and Lishka to fall asleep, then slip out quietly and make my way down to the harbour.

I’m good at this, at
skulking
, only the moon is bright, almost full, and for once I’m aware of just how crucial it is not to be seen. I’ve no real plan, of course, other than to try to locate Sergei. I’m not even sure that he lives close by; only he
is
a young man and, it seems, unattached, and as he wasn’t at the feast, I’d guess that he isn’t a wealthy man, so he won’t own one of the big houses up at the crest of the hill. Only how do you find where a man lives in a strange town in the early hours of the morning?

Luck is the answer. For he’s there, sitting out on the wooden jetty, his legs dangling over the side, looking out across the slow-moving river.

I walk out on to the jetty and stop. Sergei half turns and looks up at me, then smiles, almost as if he’s been expecting me.

‘Otto,’ he says quietly. ‘Would you like to go upriver?’

As we drift in to the right-hand bank, Sergei ships the oars and jumps ashore, using the boat’s momentum to haul it up the tiny beach. The Volga is almost a quarter of a mile wide at this point, cutting through the landscape like a dark, star-filled wound, but in seconds there’s no sign of it as I follow Sergei, who has plunged into the trees and up a slowly rising path.

Moonlight filters down through the tall birches, giving everything a stark black-and-white appearance. Emerging from the dense foliage at the top, we step out on to a massive ledge of rock that gleams like a thick, smooth piece of bone beneath the blue-black, star-spattered sky.

And there, on the far side of the ledge, is a hut.

Sergei turns to me and smiles. ‘Sanctuary,’ he says. And the way he says it seems strange, momentous somehow, and my inner antennae twitch.

Only I don’t know why.

And there, inside, the door pulled tightly shut behind me, I stare, astonished, as, switching on the electric lights, Sergei stoops down and, opening the refrigerator door, offers me a beer.

There’s a big, black, fluid-looking plasbox in the corner and a floatcouch in front of it, while on the wall …

I look to Sergei. He’s grinning now.

‘Relax,’ he says. ‘We’re safe here. There are tripwires on the path. Invisible. Laser-operated. If anyone tries to come up here they’ll be fried.’

My stomach is a tight ball of fear. ‘Who
are
you?’

Sergei holds out the beer to me. A Schmackhaft
,
I note, from the Weissenfels brewery. A twenty-fifth-century beer, and my favourite.

‘An agent,’ he says. ‘Like you.’

‘Yes, but for
who
?’

‘Don’t worry. I’m on your side. I was put here. To help you.’

My head swims. Hecht doesn’t know. He
couldn’t
know. Could he?

I take a step back mentally and try to sort through the jumble of facts that are in my head, for that’s how we do it, we agents. We’re supposed to be flexible, to be capable of making instant judgements from limited information.

The best of us, that is. The rest panic.

Oh, I don’t panic. Only this once I’m at a loss.

Instinct, then. I like him. He
says
he’s on my side. And he
must
be an agent, else why the fridge, the plasbox, the floatcouch?

‘Why don’t I know you? I know
all
our agents.’

‘Because I’m from the future.’

The words chill me. So this is the second time round. All of this. Every moment with Katerina. Or is that so? Maybe it only became so the moment I met him.

‘What’s your
real
name?’

Sergei laughs. ‘That’s unimportant. What you need now is what I know. Without it …’

‘Without it
what?
’

‘Without it you die. You and Katerina.’

I take the beer from him and pull the tab, then take a swig. It tastes wonderful.
Wonderful
.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Then brief me.’

And so we begin. The strangest evening of a strange life.

Back in Tver’, I embrace Sergei, then, conscious that dawn is only moments away, hurry back to the inn.

Katerina wakes as I enter and, sensing the night’s coldness on me, asks me sleepily where I’ve been.

‘Upriver,’ I say, and feel the sheer weight of the words I’ve uttered. ‘I’ve been upriver.’

Knowing what’s to come sometimes makes it harder.

Sometimes.

Because nothing is foreordained. Nothing is certain.

Sergei is confident, but I’ve a doubt or two. I’m not so sure that the Russians will let us get away with this.

For Sergei it’s second time round. For the Russians it could be third or fourth or fifth, for that’s the nature of things.

At best I know now for certain that my actions on the river – the anachronism of me drawing the needle-gun and firing it – has set off all kinds of reverberations in time.

At worst, I am outside it all. Impotent to change a single thing.

There’s to be a meeting of the
veche
at noon, at which the boyars are to decide the very future of Russia.

Of Russia, yes, not just of Tver’. For, contrary to our earlier analysis, it begins here,
right here
. Not in Moscow, nor Berlin; not with Peter, nor with Frederick – nor Hitler, come to that – but with Belikof.

Poor bloody Belikof.

Because he’s going to die tonight. He and his sons.

My head swims, thinking about what Sergei told me.

It’s simple and yet complex. Vast forces are at work here – the Horde, the Kievan princes – yet everything depends upon this single town, this single time, for in one timeline, the refusal of the Tver’
veche
to cooperate with the Horde will set off a chain of events that will stretch the Mongols’ fragile supply lines and snap them. An unexpected weakness in their organisational structure – allied to other factors – will result in a sudden internecine struggle and the abandonment of the West. Specifically, of Kievan Rus’.

A single vote will end the Mongol incursion. Will collapse it like a pack of flimsy cards and free Russia from Mongol control for the next two hundred and forty years.

If today’s events run true.

Which is why I’m scared, Because, in my experience, nothing
ever
goes to form.

‘Otto?’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘Why are you so tense?’

‘Am I?’

She looks down, smiling.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘only …’

‘Only what?’

Lishka is sleeping. Or seems to be. Dare I risk it?

‘Only … last night I went upriver.’

‘Upriver?’

‘With Saratov. He’s an agent.’

She stares at me. ‘What?’

‘Sergei. He’s a time agent. One of ours.’