The Ocean of Time (26 page)

‘Otto?’

‘It’s nothing,’ I say. ‘Only there were rumours …’

‘Rumours?’

‘That you were hurt.’

He laughs, his heavily pocked face unsmiling. ‘Haven’t you heard, Otto? God looks after me. I am his favourite. He blesses me, and not merely with the strength of will and body to carry out his purpose, but with good friends and allies to help me in that task.’

I look past him at the others. ‘So I see.’

At least five of them should not be here in Poltava at all: the two Poles, Mazeppa, Gordeenko, and Devlet Giray. In our timeline, all five disappointed Charles, depriving him of some 36,000 troops. As for Lewenhaupt, he was never consulted, never given his battle orders by his rival, Rehnskjold, and to see him there at the map table is as much a shock as anything.

‘The supplies?’ I ask.

‘Are safe,’ Charles says.

And that too is different. So different that that fact alone should swing the battle in Charles’s favour, let alone the rest.

Peter doesn’t stand a chance. The Russians, well, they might as well cut their own throats as try to contain the Swedes with such advantages as they now possess.

‘Where have you been?’ Charles asks, drawing me across to the map table and finding room for us between the hunched Mazeppa and his marshall, Rehnskjold.

‘Kiev,’ I say, and he turns to look at me questioningly.

‘Kiev?’ The others are watching now too. ‘And what were you doing there, my old friend?’

I hesitate, and in the sudden silence, old Mazeppa speaks. ‘Maybe he has a woman there.’

Charles stares at me, his steel-blue eyes intense, then shakes his head. ‘Not Otto. He is like me. A warrior. Chaste. God’s servant. The pleasures of the flesh hold no interest for him, isn’t that so, Otto?’

‘It is,’ I say with conviction, and realise just what a liar I have been in my past dealings with this man. But it has been necessary, for Charles is an intolerant and unforgiving man who has chosen a hard existence. For him women are a distraction, sent by Satan himself as a test. In this, as in much else, Charles is not like other men.

‘Then what was it?’ Devlet Giray asks, his German – which is spoken in deference to Charles, who will speak little else – softened almost to the point of incoherence.

‘Sorry?’ I say, as if I haven’t understood.

‘If not a woman, then what?’ the Turkish Khan asks, his dark, almond eyes watching me strangely.

‘For information,’ I say, the German word – ‘
Auskunfte’
– pronounced with a hardness that makes Charles’s eyes come up and study my face again.

‘Information?’ he says softly. ‘What
kind
of information?’

‘About Peter.’

He waits, and, after a moment’s hesitation, I go on. ‘He’s dying.’

Charles’s face is hard. ‘He’ll die tomorrow anyway. That is, if he dares face me and doesn’t run away again.’

There’s laughter at that, but Charles himself remains grim. He continues to study me.

‘Is that all?’ he asks finally.

I shake my head, then, quietly: ‘He means to assassinate you.’

‘He tried. Nine days back. At a little place called Nizhny Mliny, north of here on the Vorskla. We caught the fellow. Racked him. Heated him up in places.’

Again there’s laughter; but this time it’s a cruel laughter. Mazeppa finds it particularly amusing.

‘I think they’ll try again. I was told—’

‘Told by
whom
?’

I look about me, then look to Charles again, my eyes pleading for secrecy. But he ignores me. He wants to know.

‘By whom?’

‘By Patkul.’

There is a collective intake of breath. But Charles just stares at me, then shakes his head.

‘Patkul’s dead. Two years back and more. We broke him with a sledgehammer. Cut him apart and hung him on a wheel. I had his head set on a post beside the highway for his treachery.’

‘
Johann
Patkul, yes. But he had a brother.’

Charles has a doubting expression in his eyes. He doesn’t know whether to believe me or not. But I’ve never lied to him before. Not in any way he could have discovered, that is.

‘A brother …’ He shrugs. ‘And what does this brother want?’

‘To kill you. He was hoping I would help him find a way.’

‘And in exchange?’

‘
Auskunfte
.’

Charles smiles for the first time, then slowly reaches out and lays his right hand on my left shoulder. ‘Where is he now?’

‘I left him back in Kiev. But he was planning to come south. To seek you out.’

‘And what name is he travelling under?’

I shrug. ‘He wouldn’t say. Kindler, possibly. Certainly not his own.’

‘And how did
you
encounter him?’

I have rehearsed all this with Freisler, practised it a dozen times and more, just in case Charles should ask.

‘A mutual friend. A Pole, working for Menshikov. One of his agents.’

Charles nods. He doesn’t like it, but he understands the world in which I supposedly function. ‘And what is he like, this brother?’

‘Medium height and build. Dark …’

I deliberately keep it vague, for the truth is Patkul has no brother. Never had, and never will have, his mother having died giving birth to her only son.

Charles looks away thoughtfully. His hatred of the Livonian noble Patkul is quite legendary. He blames him – rightly – for starting the Great Northern War, and when the chance came to grab him, he did. In fact, he went as far as writing in a separate clause – Clause 11 in the treaty he imposed upon the Saxons and Poles, the Treaty of Altranstadt – insisting that peace was conditional on them handing over Patkul.

To find he has a brother is thus something of a shock, even if he only half believes it.

You might ask why I am doing this, but it’s very simple. Five of our agents are dead. Dead at the hands of Russian agents, we must assume. So, if I can snare just one of those agents by this means – by accusing him of being Patkul’s brother – then perhaps I can flush him out. Make him jump. And once we have one of them, we can quickly trace the rest, jumping back through time to trace them.

So this is important. This is the first step.

The conversation turns and, just as soon as seems natural, I bow to Charles and take my leave. Yet even as I turn away he reaches out and holds my arm, then tells me quietly to come to him later in his tent. After nightfall. I nod, then hurry from there, making my way through the tent city towards the town of Poltava itself, nestling to the south and west of the encampment.

Where the ground rises slightly, I turn and look back and have it confirmed for me. There are a host of Turkish troops here, and Cossacks, and – in a separate camp to the east – a contingency of Poles.

Outside the city’s hastily thrown-up earthworks, guards challenge me, then, noting the decorations on my uniform, let me pass.

The town, besieged these past few weeks, is in a state of hasty preparation for tomorrow’s battle. I find a quartermaster and attempt to commandeer a room, but it’s a good hour or more before he finds me one. It’s a poky little room on the upper floor of an inn, and I’m sharing with a cavalry captain, but the man is out, patrolling the Russian lines, finding out what Menshikov is up to.

I could save him the bother, only that’s not my purpose here. Besides, I need to be alone so I can jump, because what I’ve seen needs to be explained. We need to send agents in to find out just what changes have been made and where.

Closing the door, I haul the bed across, blocking the entrance, then shrug the pack off my back and drop it on to the bed. Lifting my hand to my chest, I’m about to jump, when I realise something.

I don’t need to go back. Not straight away. If I jump an hour from now it’s all the same. And the thing is, I’ve had no time to myself – not a single minute – since I was brought back from Krasnogorsk.

So make some time, Otto. Now. Before you get sucked back into things.

I sit, my back to the door, my pack beside me. From the window across from me come the sounds of frantic activity outside in the muddy streets of the town: shouted orders and running, booted feet; the neighing of horses and the trundle of wagons. I look up, listening for a moment, then close my eyes and squeeze my hands tight into fists.

I can see her, lying there on the cart, her beautiful dark eyes staring sightlessly at the sky, her skin so pale it looks like ice has formed beneath the surface. And I beside her. The two of us utterly detached, so far from each other that the small distance between our hands might be a thousand billion miles for all it mattered.

A tear rolls down my cheek. The first I’ve cried. The first I’ve been allowed since I returned from there.

I wipe it away, then stand, opening my eyes, looking about me determinedly.

I will not let this defeat me. I will not. They’ve killed me, sure, but I don’t have to stay dead. I’m a time agent – a
Reisende
. If anyone can avoid death, I can.

And then it strikes me. They brought her back. They brought her back through time. They had to, because there is no other explanation, unless her corpse was a fake. How do I know this? Because there were two of her – one dead and one alive – and they couldn’t manage that unless one of them was from another timeline.

But what does that mean? Did they do to Katerina what they did to Seydlitz?

Maybe. But who’s
they
? And how was the old man, Kolya, involved in all of this? Why have I never heard of him before?

Yes, and why that intense hatred of his? What have I done to him that he should hate me so?

I must get answers. Only how?

And then I laugh, because the answer’s simple. Pretend he’s here, in Poltava. Get Hecht and the others to look for him for me.

Oh, I don’t mean to neglect my task. I’ll do my best to unravel whatever’s happening here. I’ll find out who and why and how and change it back. Only I can’t leave Katerina to that fate.
I can’t
. And if a lie or two will help, I’ll lie like Loki himself.

The thought disturbs me. Loki … Someone once quipped that Loki had to be a Russian. But he’s German through and through. Or, should I say, Teuton. His inventiveness. His quick and agile mind. His ability to seem what he is not. These aren’t Russian qualities. No. Russia is a landscape; Germany an idea. And Loki, I sometimes feel, embodies the
idea
. And yet …

I pause. For some reason the image of Reichenau with his obscene double head comes to mind, and for no reason I shiver as if cold. But the day is warm. Even the slight breeze that moves the curtains cannot mask the fact.

Kolya, then. I’ll find out who Kolya is and where he comes from and who he’s working for.

And then?

But that’s asking too much. One step at a time, Otto, that’s the way.

Hecht frowns, as if my news has only clouded things further, but Freisler for once is grinning.

‘It’s a major push,’ he says. ‘It
has
to be. Why else make so many changes?’

‘Yes, but why?’ I ask. ‘Why undermine your own side?’

I look to Hecht, but he has that distracted look he always has when he’s thinking things through.

I lower my voice, then speak to Freisler again. ‘Charles bought the Patkul story.’

‘About his brother?’

I nod.

‘Good. Then that has to be your main priority. To flush out one of them. We’ll send in agents to check out the rest.’ Freisler sits back a little, then shakes his head in admiration at the Russians. ‘What audacity!’

Audacity? Or stupidity? Because how can it benefit them? If Peter loses, Russia will be close to collapse, the road to Moscow open to a decisive strike from the combined Swedish and Turkish armies, and there’s nothing the Sultan would like better than to add the Russian steppes to his vast empire.

And how can that help their cause?

Hecht clearly feels the same. I can see it in his face. Only he says nothing, merely gestures for Freisler to go.

But this
is
intriguing. Why would the Russians want to lose such a crucial battle? I go to speak, but Hecht lifts a hand. I can see he needs to think this through.

Sensing that I’m dismissed, I stand and, following Freisler’s example, leave.

Only I don’t go straight back to my own rooms. Instead I go and see an old friend.

The room I step into is long and narrow, like a railway carriage, only shelves fill both walls, stacked to bursting with files and boxes and tapes, a disorderly mish-mash from across the ages.

‘Otto?’ old Schnorr says, looking up from his desk and peering over his massive spectacles at me, the lenses of which make his eyes seem as large as gobstoppers. ‘Now here’s a stranger. Must be … oh, a good three years since you last graced us with your company.’

There are three others in the room with old Schnorr, each at their own desk, each staring across at me through a pair of identical overlarge glasses.

‘Any new faces?’ I ask, and wonder how many thousands of times he’s been asked that.

‘One or two.’

‘Anyone interesting?’

Old Schnorr smiles. ‘It depends on what you mean by that. Interesting operationally or interesting genetically?’

I smile, then hand him the slip of paper on which I’ve written Kolya’s name.

‘This all you have?’

‘I can describe him for you, if you like.’

Which I do. Schnorr sighs, then looks round at his fellows. ‘Anyone?’

Three heads shake a no, then settle. Schnorr looks back at me. ‘I’ll run it through the machine. See what comes up. But without an image …’ He hesitates, then. ‘Any reason why you want to know?’

‘He killed me.’

‘Ah …’ Schnorr nods and his chin lifts thoughtfully. ‘Then I can see why you’d want to trace him. Even so …’ One hand comes up and scratches at his cheek a moment, then he looks back at me. ‘You got an hour?’

I smile. ‘Sure. All the time in the world.’

Old Schnorr is an interesting fellow. Moreover, his job, which he created himself, is one of the strangest in Four-Oh.

Old Schnorr trawls Time for faces. Repeated faces. Faces so alike that they might be accidents of genetics, or – just as likely – the faces of agents operating in Time.