The Shield of Time (38 page)

“Are you certain we should not tell others than him what this is all about?” Koch asked when he and Everard said their private goodbye.

The American shook his head. “Not unless a clear need for somebody to know comes up. I tell you, we’ve got trouble in carload lots without creating unnecessary sub-effects. Those could have consequences of their own that might get out of hand. So you will not drop any hint to your associates, or to any traveler who comes by in the normal course of affairs.”

“You say that soon none will.”

“Not from the future, most likely. A few may have reason to jump here from somewhere else in the present or the past.”

“But you tell me visits will dwindle till we have none. My people are bound to notice and wonder.”

“Stall them. Listen, if we resolve this and restore the proper course of history, the hiatus will never have happened. As far as Patrollers stationed here are concerned, everything will always have been normal.”
Or what passes for normal along the twisting time lanes.

“But I will have had quite a different experience.”

“Up until the turning-point moment, sometime later this year. Then, if we’re lucky, an agent will come and tell you it’s all okay. You won’t remember anything you did thenceforth, because ‘now’ you won’t do those things. Instead, you’ll simply proceed with your life and work as you did before today.”

“You mean that while I am in the wrong world, I must know that everything I do and see and think will become nothing?”

“If we succeed. I know, the prospect for you isn’t quite pleasant, but it’s not really like death. We count on your sense of duty.”

“Oh, I will carry on as best I can, but—Brr!”

“We may fail,” Everard warned. “In that case, you’ll join the other survivors of the Patrol when they meet to decide what to do.”
Will I be there myself? Very possibly not. Killed in action. I almost hope so. It’ll be a nightmare world for our sort.

He thrust away memories of his own that no longer referred to anything real. He mustn’t think about Wanda, either. “I’m on my way,” he said. “Good luck to us both.”

“God be with us,” Koch replied low. They shook hands.

I’ll skip any prayers. I’m too bewildered already.

Everard met Novak in the garage and took the rear saddle of a hopper. The Czech had been studying a geographical display on the control board. He set destination coordinates and activated.

Immediately the vehicle poised on antigravity, high aloft. Stars gleamed, a brilliant horde such as you rarely saw in the late twentieth century. The circle of the world below was divided between sheening water and a rugged land mass full of darknesses. The air lay cold and quiet, not a motor anywhere on Earth.

Novak set his optical for light amplification and magnification and peered downward. “Quite deserted, sir,” he deemed. He had already scouted ahead and found this site.

Everard studied it likewise. It was a ravine in one of the mountains that formed a semicircle behind the narrow plain around the bay on which Palermo stood. Terrain in the vicinity was steep, rocky, nurturing only scrub growth, therefore doubtless left alone by shepherds and hunters. “You’ll wait here?” he inquired needlessly.

“Yes, sir, until I get further orders.” It was equally needless to say that Novak would duck elsewhere to eat and sleep, returning within minutes, and would disappear should he notice anybody headed his way in spite of the
uninviting surroundings. He’d be back as soon as possible.

“Good soldier.”
Who does what he’s told and keeps any inconvenient questions behind his teeth.
“First bring me to the highway. Fly low. I want to know how to find you in case I have to.”

That would be if, for some reason, he couldn’t use his communicator. It was housed in what looked like a religious medallion hung around his neck under his clothes. The range ought to be adequate, but you never knew. (You dared not foreknow.) Novak was well-armed, in addition to the stun pistol that every cycle had in its luggage box. Everard, though, couldn’t be, without risking trouble with the local authorities. At least, he couldn’t overtly be. He did carry a knife like most men, a utensil for eating and odd jobs; a staff; and a variety of martial skills. Anything more might make somebody too curious.

The cycle flitted a couple of yards above the mountainside, presently above goat trails and footpaths, till it reached the flatlands and rose to avoid a peasant village. Dogs might take alarm and wake sleepers. Without artificial light to choke off night vision, people saw astonishingly well after dark. Everard fixed landmarks firmly in his mind. Novak glided back down to hover above the coast road. “Let me advance you to dawn, sir,” he suggested. “There is an inn, the Cock and Bull, two kilometers west. Whoever spies you ought to suppose you spent the night there and set off early.”

Everard whistled. “That name’s too eerily appropriate.”

“Sir?”

“Never mind.”

Novak touched his controls. The east went pale. Everard sprang to the ground. “Good hunting, sir,” Novak bade.

“Thanks.
Auf Wiedersehen.”
Machine and rider vanished. Everard set off in the direction of sunrise.

The road was dirt, rough with ruts and holes, but winter rains had not yet: turned it into a mire. When day
broke, he saw that a hint of green had begun to relieve the dustiness of plowlands, the tawniness of mountains. At a distance, to his left and ahead, shimmered the sea. After a while he made out a few sails, tiny upon it. Mariners generally fared by day, hugging coasts, and eschewed voyages of any length this late in the year. However, along Sicily you were never far from a safe harbor, and the Normans had cleared these waters of pirates.

The countryside appeared prosperous, too. Houses and sheds clustered in the middle of fields cultivated by their tenants, cottages mostly of rammed earth below thatch roofs but well made, gaily decorated upon their whitewash. Orchards were everywhere, olive, fig, citrus, chestnut, apple, even date palms planted by the Saracens when they held this island. He passed a couple of parish churches and glimpsed, afar, massive buildings that must be a monastery, perhaps an abbey.

As time and miles fell behind him, more and more traffic came onto the road. Mainly the people were peasants, men in smock coats and narrow trousers, women in coarse gowns hemmed well above their footgear, children in whatever, burdens on heads or shoulders or diminutive donkeys. They were mostly short, dark, vivacious, descended from aboriginal tribes, Phoenician and Greek colonists, Roman and Moorish conquerors, more recently and casually traders or warriors out of mainland Italy, Normandy, the south of France, Iberia. Doubtless many, perhaps the majority, were serfs, but nobody acted abused. They chattered, gesticulated, laughed, exploded into indignation and profanity, grew as quickly cheerful again. Others mingled, peddlers making their rounds, the occasional priest or monk telling his beads, individuals less identifiable.

News of the king’s death had not dampened spirits. Possibly most hadn’t yet heard. In any case, such personages and such events were as a rule remote, nearly unreal, to folk who seldom went more than a day’s walk from wherever they were born. History was something to
be endured, war, piracy, plague, taxes, tribute, forced labor, lives shattered without warning or meaning.

The common man in the twentieth century was more widely, if more shallowly, aware of his world; but did he have any more say in his fate?

Everard strode amidst a bow wave and wake of attention. At home he stood big; here he loomed, and wholly foreign. His garments were of ordinary cut and material for a wayfarer or townsman, tunic falling halfway to the knees above hose, cap trailing a long tail down his back, knife and purse at the belt, stout shoes, colors fairly subdued; but they were not quite of any regional style. In his right hand swung a staff; on his left shoulder hung a bundle of small possessions. He’d skipped shaving, beards being usual, and sported a respectable growth; but his stiff brown hair wouldn’t soon reach below his ears.

People stared and commented. Some hailed him. He replied affably, in a thick accent, without slackening his pace. Nobody tried to detain him. That might not be safe. Besides, he seemed legitimate, a stranger who’d landed at Marsala or Trapani and was bound east on some errand, very likely a pilgrimage. One saw quite a few such.

The sun climbed. More and more, farms gave way to estates. Across their walls he glimpsed terraces., gardens, fountains, mansions like those their builders had also raised in North Africa. Servants appeared, many of them black, a number of them eunuchs, attired in flowing robes, often sporting turbans. Real estate might have changed hands, but the new owners, like the Crusaders in the East, had soon fallen into the ways of the old.

Everard stood aside, head uncovered, when a Norman lord went by on a bedizened stallion. The man wore European clothes, but gaudily embroidered, a golden chain around his neck and rings aglitter on both hands. His lady—astride a palfrey, skirts hiked up but leggings preserving modesty—was as flamboyant and as haughty. Behind rode a couple of body servants and four guards.

Those were still purely Norman men-at-arms, stocky, tough, noseguards on their conical helmets, chain mail hauberks polished and oiled, straight swords at hips, kite-shaped shields at horses’ flanks.

Later a Saracen gentleman passed with his own train. This group wasn’t armed, but in a subtler fashion it was at least as sumptuous. Unlike William in England, the Normans here had given generous terms to their defeated opponents. Although rural Muslims became serfs, most in the cities kept their property and paid taxes that were reasonable. They continued to live under their own laws, administered by their own judges. Except that their muezzins could only call publicly to prayer once a year, they were free to practice their religion as well as their trades. Their learning was eagerly sought and several held high positions at court. Others provided the shock troops of the army. Arabic words were permeating the language; “admiral,” for instance, traces back to “amir.”

The Greek population, Orthodox Christian, enjoyed a similar tolerance. So did the Jews. Townsmen dwelt side by side, swapped goods and ideas, formed partnerships, embarked on ventures in the confidence that any gains would remain theirs. The result was material wealth and cultural brilliance, a Renaissance in miniature, the embryo of a whole new civilization.

It wouldn’t last more than half a dozen generations all told, but its legacy would pervade the future. Or so the Patrol’s databanks related. However, they also declared that King Roger II would live another two decades, during which Sicily reached its finest flowering. Now Roger lay in whatever grave his enemies had seen fit to give him.

Palermo drew in sight. The most splendid of its buildings did not yet grace it, but already it shone and soared behind its walls. More domes, often gorgeous with mosaic or giltwork, lifted skyward than did Catholic spires. Entering unquestioned through a gate guarded but open, Everard found streets crowded, noisy, kaleidoscopically alive—and cleaner, better smelling, than
any he had trod elsewhere in medieval Europe. Though sailing season was over, craft lay close together around that inlet from the bay which in this era was the harbor: high-castled merchantmen, lateen riggers, war galleys, types from end to end of the Mediterranean and from the North. They weren’t all idled for the winter. Business went brisk, raucous, in and out of warehouses and chandleries, as it did at booths and shops everywhere.

Following the map he had learned, the Patrolman made his way through the crowds. That wasn’t easy. He had the size and strength to force a passage but not the temperament, which most locals did. Besides, he didn’t want trouble. But damn, he was hungry and thirsty! The sun had gone low above the western range, shadows welled upward in the lanes, he’d tramped many miles.

A laden camel squeezed between walls. Slaves bore the litters of a man who was presumably a big wheel in his guild and a woman who was presumably an expensive courtesan. Several housewives gossiped, homebound from market, baskets on their heads, small children clinging to their skirts, a baby at one breast. A Jewish rug seller, cross-legged in his stall, ceased crying his wares and made obeisance as a rabbi passed grave and gray-bearded, accompanied by two young scholars who carried books. Greek voices resounded lustily from a hole-in-the-wall tavern. A Saracen potter had stopped the wheel in his little shop and prostrated himself, evidently guessing this was one of the five times for prayer. A burly artisan carried his tools. Before each church, beggars implored the layfolk who went in and out; they didn’t pester the clergy. In a square a young man played a harp and sang while half a dozen others listened. They pitched coins at his feet. He wasn’t actually a troubadour, Everard supposed, but he sang in the
langue d’oc
of Provence and must have learned his art there, the homeland of his audience. By now French and Italian immigrants outnumbered the original Normans, whose own blood was fast being diluted.

Everard slogged on.

His destination lay in Al-Qasr, near the nine-gated interior wall surrounding that district of markets and
souks.
Passing by the great Friday Mosque, he reached a Moorish house converted to a place of business. As was usual, the owner and his people also lived there. The door stood open on a large chamber. Within, silks were displayed on tables at the front. Many of the bolts and pieces were marvels of needlework. Toward the rear, apprentices trimmed, sewed, folded. They didn’t hasten. Medieval man generally worked a long day but at a leisurely pace; and he enjoyed more free time, in the form of frequent holidays, than his twentieth-century descendants.

Eyes lifted toward the huge newcomer. “I seek Master Geoffrey of Jovigny,” Everard announced in Norman French.

A short, sandy-haired person who wore a richly decorated robe advanced. “I am he. How may I serve you”—his voice stumbled—“good sir?”

“I have need to speak with you alone,” Everard said.