Island in the Sea of Time (18 page)

“The poor man,” a voice said behind him. Cofflin looked back; it was Father Gomez, from St. Mary’s.

Cofflin nodded to the priest. “Excuse me, Father.” Louder. “Ladder in here, and a stretcher.” Not much doubt about the cause of death; no need to rout someone out for an autopsy.

“The poor deluded man,” Gomez said again, crossing himself, as the blanket-covered body was carried out. Deubel’s followers looked at it as it went by, some weeping, some impassive, a few cursing or spitting at the dead cleric who’d left them to face the consequences of his preaching.

“Manichaeism is always a temptation,” Gomez went on. “Chief Cofflin, I think if I talked to some of these people . . .”

“Do you think it would do any good, Father?” Cofflin asked. He wasn’t Catholic himself, but he had a fair degree of respect for the little priest. Certainly he took his job more seriously than some of the other clergy on the island, and he’d been a voice of good sense since the Event. “They’re not exactly of your denomination.”

“We’re all Christians, Chief Cofflin,” Gomez said.

“What was that . . . Manni-something?”

“A perennial heresy—imagining that Satan is as strong as God. Poor Deubel thought that the Incarnation could be halted—which is to say that God’s will could be defied. But even Satan is part of God’s plan; He is omniscient and omnipotent, or He’s not God at all. I don’t pretend to understand what’s happened to us here, but then there are many things we’re not supposed to understand or can’t understand. Mystery is at the heart of life. If God makes many worlds, He’ll arrange them as He pleases—including when and where to send His son in this one.”

Cofflin looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, I think it might be a good idea if you
did
have a talk with these people,” he said.

“I will.” Gomez hesitated. “Not to tell you how to do your own job . . .”

“Go ahead—everyone else does. It’s a free . . . island.”

“But it might be better if any formal trial, any Town Meeting, were held off for a week or so. People were frightened enough without this, and . . .”

“ . . . frightened men are vicious, I know,” Cofflin said.
And by then I can figure out something, I hope. I’ll ask Martha.

Cofflin rubbed a hand across the back of his aching neck. “I hate this job,” he muttered.

“And that’s a very reassuring thing, my son,” Gomez said.

 

T
he coast of England was green and silent, save for birds in numbers that made the sky restless. It might have been a morning before man, except that—she focused the binoculars—there was a haze of smoke a little farther to the northeast.

Well, well,
Marian Alston said to herself. Then, aloud: “Soundings.”

“Forty feet and shoaling, ma’am. Twenty-three feet under the keel.”

“Twenty-three feet, aye,” Captain Alston replied. “Keep it comin’.”

At least they had the depthfinder; she’d have to remember to have someone trained in throwing the lead line from the bowsprit nets against the day that it unrecoverably wore out. It made her teeth stand on edge to come this close to shore when her shoal charts were useless and the only repair facilities for a steel-hulled ship were a long, long couple of thousand years away. At least the weather looked fair and the glass was steady, just enough wind to scatter whitecaps across blue ocean. Water was lighter over shoals and mudbanks, of which the area looked to have more than its share. The low coast ahead stood green and wild, marsh and tossing forest and occasional clearings. Some of it looked like second growth, scrubby trees and underbrush. Now and then they saw a plowed field green with new crops, but some of the little clusters of round huts were burned and deserted.

What wind and wave there was would be broken a little by the Isle of Wight off to the southwest, and by the sides of the estuary on either hand, safe enough in anything but a really bad blow. She didn’t dare go much farther up the Southampton Water, though, not with the bottom shoaling like this.

“Eighteen feet under the keel, ma’am.”

“Eighteen feet, aye.”

And . . .
there.
They were coasting steadily closer to the smudge of smoke that marked a settlement of some type.

“Hampshire,” she murmured.

She’d been here . . . before. It had looked nothing like this, of course. Perhaps if she was flying over it the resemblances would be more, but too many thousand years of human hands had shaped the lowlands of the coast, draining and ditching, clearing and planting. That land of tacky seaside resorts and naval bases, green fields inland with time-burnished villages and manors—it was all more distant than the moon, than the farthest star. She was adrift in the sea of time.

“On deck! Boats on the beach, there. Big ones!”

She trained her own binoculars. The beach came into view slowly, as the ship ghosted close at a bare three knots. Two boats, right enough; you could even call them ships, especially compared to the dozens of rafts and canoes and hide coracles also hauled up. About sixty footers, she estimated, pulled up on the shore above the high-tide mark. Prows curled up, carved in the likeness of a horse’s head and gaudily painted; there were decked sections fore and aft, open amidships. Masts were stepped, rather short ones—probably they could be taken down at will—but the yards and sails were elsewhere, perhaps used for the big tents she saw a little behind the vessels. Two heavy steering oars, one on either side, canted up now and held by ropes. The hulls were fairly tubby, broader amidships, but with oar ports along the sides, and black with tar or pitch. Men crowded around them, sunlight flashing on their bronze spearheads. Alston scanned right and left. The camp sprawled for the better part of a mile, tents and huts, men in kilts and women in long skirts and shawls, oxcarts, fires and rubbish heaps and . . . yes, horse-drawn chariots driving down to the edge of the water. Pretty much like illustrations she’d seen, except that the panels around them were higher at the sides than the front. All too far away to see clearly, but it was plain enough that they were getting a reception party ready.

Sensible enough,
she thought. If someone showed up off her shore in a ship fifty times the size of anything she’d seen before, she’d have the troops out, and locked and loaded too.

“Sixteen feet under the keel, ma’am.”

“Sixteen feet, aye. Prepare to strike all sail,” she said quietly. “Stand by the starboard anchor. Three shots at the water’s edge.”

Most of the
Eagle
’s poles were bare already, except for a topsail, the gaff on the mizzen, and a few of the jibsails still up to keep steerage way on her. A minute of disciplined effort and the rest were struck.

“Let go the starboard anchor!”

There was a sharp
clung
as the blackened steel dropped into the water and the chain took up the slack. The
Eagle
checked as the flukes dug into the bottom, heaved forward a little, and swung to. The other splashed home as well and then they were still, rocking slightly to the longshore swell.

“She holds, ma’am!”

“Holding, aye.”

The quartermaster’s whistle rang out across the deck. “Shift colors!”

The steaming ensign came down from the gaff. The blue Coast Guard jack broke out at the bows, and the national ensign to the mainmast.

Noise grew on the shore, faint across the half mile of waters. Shouts, screams, a weird dunting
hu-hu-hu-huhuuuu
that must be some sort of musical instrument. Tom Hiller came up beside her.

“That doesn’t look like a permanent settlement to me, Captain,” the sailing master said.

“No, I’d say they’d only been there weeks, maybe a couple of months,” she said. “Let’s get Arnstein’s tame savage up here, Mr. Hiller.”

Ohotolarix came bounding up the companionway with easy grace; the speed of his recovery had surprised the doctor. When he saw the shore he gave a great shout of joy, then threw up his arms in a gesture that looked religious somehow, palms up to the sky. They’d given him back his leather kilt; it looked a little incongruous with the blue T-shirt he was wearing.

Arnstein and the astronomer followed more slowly. They had all they could do to dam the flow of words from the young warrior, but at last they managed it. After a moment Ian turned to the captain.

“That’s his king’s camp—his
rahax,”
the academic said. He rubbed a nose peeling a little from sunburn. “Daurthunnicar.” He sounded out the name slowly. “And those are his people, the Iraiina.”

“Eka, Daurthunnicar, rahax,”
the young man said happily, smiling and pointing. More gibberish followed. Then: “Iraiina
teuatha.”

“That means ‘tribe,’ or ‘people.’ I think.”

“Can you make him understand ‘we come in peace’ and ‘we want to talk to your leader’?” Alston asked.

“I think so,” Arnstein said slowly. “We’ve been working on it.”

“Ms. Hendriksson, get the boat ready. Boat crew of the watch, and six of your people fully armed.” With the best Nantucket had had to offer, which wasn’t much. “Remember, we don’t want any conflict, but if they attack, shoot to kill.” She was sending Hendriksson because she thought Walker might be inclined to jump the gun in a tricky situation.

“Ma’am.”

“Mr. Arnstein, let’s hand him the gifts.”

First they returned the boy’s ax, which made him seem inches taller as he thonged it to his wrist. The grin grew wider as they handed over a fire ax, one of the short swords, and necklaces of plastic beads. He touched his open palm to his forehead, bowed, seemed to glow with happiness as the sailors led him away to the boat.

Captain Alston waited tensely as it stroked in toward shore. They had the island’s lone .50-caliber machine gun clamped to the rail, and a couple of sailors with scopesighted hunting rifles, but it was still tricky sending people to within arrow range. The longboat stroked away, oars flashing in unison. It halted in shallow water, and she could see Ohotolarix jump overboard and wade ashore, holding his treasures aloft. A great screaming roar went up from the crowd on the beach; there must be at least a thousand, possibly two.

“I hope to hell this works,” she muttered.

Daurthunnicar forced his hand to relax on the haft of his ax.

“He bleeds!” the
rahax
shouted. “He is no ghost!”

A sigh of relief went through the crowd as the young man held up his arm, a trickle of red running down it from where the high chief had scored it slightly. A Dead Walker back from his grave would be cold and bloodless and full of hunger for the living.

“This is a thing for the chiefs,” he said. “All of you, back to your households. Chieftains, the Wise Man—and you, our ally,” he added unwillingly, as Isketerol bowed. “Come, we will make council.” Best to include the Tartessian, who had knowledge of strange lands and peoples.

They gathered around his chariot, casting glances out over the water. The
size
of the thing! It looked small with distance, but his vision was still good for things far away, had even grown better since the first gray appeared in his beard. He could see folk moving about on it, climbing up the mountain-high masts. Five times the length of the great ships of Tartessos, and those were the wonders of the world. Like a stallion beside a rabbit.

Young Ohotolarix was still grinning like a loon. Well, a man brought back from death had a right to feel joyful. He’d been a little less pleased to give up the strange things he brought, but he knew better than to gainsay his chief and knew he could await rich gifts in recompense. Besides, the Wise Man said the things must be purified, lest they carry a curse.

“This metal, what is it?” Daurthunnicar said, turning the strange ax in his hands.

“Iron,” Isketerol said. “I think, for I’ve never seen more than a small piece shaped as a ring before. The Great King’s artisans know the secret of it, in Hatti at the eastern end of the Middle Sea. But it’s rare and very precious. Harder than bronze, I hear, and it takes a better edge, if you know how to work it.”

The
rahax
took up the ax. The head shone like silver, and it shaved bare a patch of hair from his forearm when he tested the edge. He swung it tentatively; about the heft of his own war ax, or a little heavier—the strangers must be men of strong arms, since he swung more weight than most. Not badly balanced, either. He swung it down at a stump; the blade sank deep, and when he wrenched it out it was still sharp. The sword was an even greater wonder, finer by far than the goodly weapon the Tartessian captain carried. And no one had ever seen anything like the ornaments, smooth and shining and of colors brighter than the sun. Daurthunnicar felt his greed itch. If he had gifts like this to give out, warriors would flock to him from every tribe of Sky Father’s people.

More than goods. What powers may these strangers have?
His people were in need of strong allies.

“Say again how they treated you,” he commanded.

“Lord,” Ohotolarix said. “I woke a little as they hauled me to their great ship. The next I knew, their ruler bent over me. Their ruler is
black,
lord. With skin the color of charcoal.”

A sigh that held fear rustled through the Iraiina chiefs. The robed Wise Man raised his staff to hold back evil magic, and talismans of bronze and bone clinked along its length. The Night Ones were black . . . although they did not walk in the light of day.

Isketerol leaned forward. “Was their chief flat of nose, with thick lips, and hair curled tightly, thus?” he asked.

Daurthunnicar frowned at the interruption, but felt new respect when Ohotolarix nodded.

“Strange,” the Tartessian muttered. “A Medjay, here?”

“You know of them?” the
rahax
asked.

“At Pharaoh’s court. He has warriors from far south up the Nile, in Nubia, the Medjay folk. Very fierce. And voyagers of my people who sailed far south of the Pillars say the folk there are black of skin, too, with features like that.”