The Ocean of Time (30 page)

Svetov looks up at me, then looks away.

‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I know how difficult it must have been. I can see it. The two of you alone. Him telling you that he had a special task for you. One that – on the surface, anyway – was not merely unglamorous, but made little sense. Something that would make sense,
only when the time came
.’

His eyes come up briefly, and I know I’ve got it right, but he still won’t answer.

‘I know how hard that can be, Arkadi. Know because I’ve been there.’

‘You don’t know
anything
.’

It’s a cold, hard statement that makes me reassess things. I’ve got part of it, but not all. So what have I missed? I take a chance. ‘Does the name Reichenau mean anything to you?’

Freisler turns and stares at me, but I press on.

‘
Michael
Reichenau? Do you know anyone by that name?’

Svetov shakes his head.

‘What about Kolya?’

Svetov shrugs, as much as he can. ‘Kolya’s a common name.’

‘Not
so
common.’

‘Common enough. I know three at least, across the ages.’

It’s enough to make me wonder whether one of them is my Kolya, but I don’t pursue it. Not now, anyway. And he doesn’t seem to be hiding anything. But we’re not getting anywhere being so obtuse.

‘The agents Yastryeb sent in—’

‘What agents?’

‘The ones who ambushed our men.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘But you know that things are going wrong here? From the Russian point of view, that is.’

Svetov’s voice is almost contemptuous. ‘I know my history.’

‘Then why is Yastryeb allowing it?’

For once his silence – combined with the look on his face – suggests not resistance but an inability to answer. Svetov
doesn’t know
. And he burns to know. To understand what’s going on. And again that makes no sense.

I look to Freisler. ‘What do you want to do?’

It seems an innocent enough question, but Svetov watches us both with concern. The fact that he can’t answer makes him valueless to us. Yet we can’t just let him walk away. And even if his colleagues jump right in and change time, bringing him back to life, it’s never easy dying.

Because you can never be absolutely sure. Not when things are happening that you just don’t understand
.

This once, however, Freisler surprises me. Reaching down, he takes another capsule from his belt – like the others, but yellow-banded – and fits it in his gun. Then, without a word, he presses the mouth of the gun to Svetov’s chest and fires.

Svetov twitches violently. He looks to me pleadingly, then jerks again and falls limp.

It’s an eraser. I know by the colour of the capsule. Svetov will remember none of this. He’ll wake up with a violent headache and a gap in his memory that he’ll fill with speculation. Only he won’t jump to find out why, because he’s a sleeper. Yastryeb has told him to stay.

It’s not a permanent solution, because the first time he meets another agent he’ll tell them what happened and they’ll investigate. Only it’ll buy us time. Time, maybe, to take another of their agents and question
them
.

Only this is feeling less and less right. Less and less like the Russians have a clue what they’re doing.

Which leaves me thinking one thing.

‘Reichenau,’ I say, before Freisler can say a word. ‘It has to be Reichenau.’

Hecht looks to Freisler, who just shrugs.

I might be wrong, of course. I might be barking up completely the wrong branch of the World Tree, only if the Russians don’t know and we don’t know, then it would seem that there has to be a third party involved somehow, and the only third party I know – the only one with a platform of their own, if Gehlen is right – is Reichenau.

But how do we find that out?

The answer is we don’t. Because Hecht is not convinced. He wants me to go in again, only this time back six months. He wants to drop me in alongside our two sitting agents and find out first hand what’s going on.

‘What if they’re waiting for me?’

‘The Russians or Reichenau?’ Hecht asks.

‘Whoever. What if they’ve done what they did to Burckel? What if they’ve surrounded them with so-called “friends”?’

‘Then let’s put you in there at a distance from them. You can watch them for a while. See whether the situation looks clean.
Then
you can go in close.’

‘Okay.’ But I’m asking myself why Hecht wants to send
me
in, and why he hasn’t done this already? He could have spared an agent for the task, and it seems such an obvious thing to have done. So why has he waited?

Is he losing his touch?

Looking at him, I dismiss the thought. Hecht looks as sharp, as in control, as ever. So there must be a reason. He must have a game plan, even if he’s not sharing it with me.

Which makes me think of Svetov and Yastryeb.

Hecht looks up at me again. ‘I want you to go and see Zarah to work out the details. Oh, and while I think of it, Meister Schnorr wanted to see you. Says he has news of your friend Kolya.’

‘Ah …’

Freisler looks to me questioningly, but I’m not about to explain. Besides, I want to ask old Schnorr a few questions of my own. Things that have been nagging at me since our last little talk.

Old Schnorr welcomes me in, then, dismissing his assistants, locks the door and turns to face me again.

‘What I’m about to tell you, you must tell no one, understand me, Otto? It is a great secret. One that I have sworn to keep. One which, well, one which I have had to seek special permission to share with you.’

‘From Hecht?’

‘Urd no. The Meister must be the last to know of this.’

That shocks me.

‘Oh, I know how that must sound. Only … take a seat, Otto. There’s a little story I must tell you. A story from the days when Meister Hecht and I were young. When we were both
Reisende
like yourself.’

‘Wait,’ I say, not wishing to be rude, but conscious that unless I get a word in now, it might be some while before I can. ‘Why mustn’t Hecht
know. Is this—’

‘The story,’ old Schnorr says, and gestures towards the chair again. ‘The story will explain it all.’

I sit and wait, as old Schnorr seems to gather up his memories, his eyes, resting in that old, deeply lined face, seeming to take on a strange, youthful clarity.

‘It was long ago,’ he begins, coming closer, his hands drawing lines in the air as he speaks. ‘One hundred and fourteen years ago, to be precise. Four-Oh years, that is. As I said, I was a
Reisende
back then, based in Swabia, in the middle of the twelfth century.’

‘Barbarossa,’ I say, grinning with surprise. ‘You were assigned to Barbarossa!’

‘I was indeed,’ Schnorr answers, his eyes smiling at the memory. ‘And a grand place and time it was to be, I can tell you. Why, my young blood thrilled to be there alongside that heroic figure. And heroic he truly was. Only, well, my companion back there did not share my view. My fellow agent was, how shall I put it, more than a little sceptical about the Emperor.’

‘
Sceptical?
’ The idea shocks me. For I too have met with Barbarossa and rode with him on campaign, and a more honest and admirable man I’ve rarely met. If Nevsky is one face of kingship, then the Emperor Frederick the First, known more commonly as Frederick ‘Rothbart’ or ‘Barbarossa’ – ‘red beard’ – is the other: one of the few men to whom the epithet ‘heroic’ fits naturally.

‘By the way, I saw you once,’ Schnorr says. ‘At Gelnhausen, in the north. You would not have seen me, of course. I stood at the back of the Hall, in the shadows, but—’

Again, I am astonished. ‘You were
there
? When Frederick made me a companion?’

‘I was there. But to the matter in hand,
my
companion. He was based in the castle of Staufen, Frederick’s favourite castle, in the south of his domain. I guess you’d say he was a sleeper. As such he saw much less of Frederick than I. But there was a reason for that. You see, he had shown these tendencies before.’

‘Tendencies?’

Schnorr looks down, as if searching for the right words. ‘Tendencies to, well, to
disagree
with policy. To question things. To …’ Schnorr sniffs. ‘In short, he put the Meister’s nose firmly out of joint, and as a result was sent to Staufen to kick his heels. Under my supervision, of course.’

‘His name?’

‘Oh, you don’t need a name, Otto. If I tell you his name, you might let it slip some time. And then Hecht would know.’

‘Hecht was Meister back then?’

‘Urd no. It’s like I said. Hecht was a mere
Reisende
then. Being groomed, no doubt, but an agent like the rest of us. No, Hudner was Meister then. Irmin Hudner. A good man, if unimaginative.’

I stare at Schnorr, realising suddenly how little I know of our history, how centred my knowledge is in the Now.

‘Anyway,’ he continues, ‘things came to a head. My companion argued openly with Frederick over some trivial matter … about how Frederick treated his servants – as if servants should be treated like nobility! – and I had to jump back and sort things out. It was easily changed, but Meister Hudner had had enough. He called a special meeting of the Elders – even Gehlen was wheeled in, in his sealed tank of course – and they decided to rescind his authority, in effect, to ban him from travelling in the ages.’

‘I see. And what did he do?’

‘He appealed. Asked for exile.’

‘Exile?’

‘In the past. In nineteenth-century Prague, as it happens. He had been there and liked the place. Met a woman, it seems. Maybe part of it was due to that, but anyway, the Elders met a second time and agreed. Hecht, it seems, made a special plea for the man.’

‘They were friends?’

‘Oh, like brothers. Like you and Ernst, so I understand.’

Too like us
, I think, only I don’t say that.

‘So they allowed it?’

‘They did. And there he is, to this day. Or should I say, there he was. He’s dead now. Time-dead. Only, of course, you can always go back and see him.’

‘Fine. But why should I want to do that?’

‘Because he’s met Kolya.’

I stare at Schnorr. ‘You
knew
this?’

‘I found it out. While you were with Freisler, back at Poltava. Or should I say young Horst did. He observed Kolya visiting our exiled friend.’ Schnorr smiles. ‘You should thank the boy sometime, Otto. He clearly wanted to do his best for you.’

‘I will,’ I say. But my pulse is racing and my brain …

‘Forgive me, Meister. You say I should go and see him. Only, how? If Hecht is not to know, then—’

‘The women,’ old Schnorr answers, then wanders past me, going to his desk. ‘Go ask the women. Tell them what you need. And tell them … tell them Hecht is not to know. They’ll understand.’

Making my way back to my room, my head is in a spin. Tell them
not
to tell Hecht? It’s unheard of. Hecht knows everything, surely? But Schnorr spoke as if he knew what he was talking about.

And it’s only when I’m back in my room, the door closed behind me, that I realise that, distracted by what old Schnorr was telling me, I forgot to ask him what I meant to ask.

I call him straight away, but he’s gone. Young Horst is there, however, and – after thanking him – I ask
him,
staring down at his face in the screen.

‘It’s been bothering me,’ I say. ‘This business of Kolya kidnapping his own ancestors.’

‘In what way?’

‘It’s just … I don’t see what use it would be. I mean, they’re all taken
after
they’ve passed on their seed, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then what use
are
they? Surely he needs to protect them
before
they pass on their seed, not after? To make sure that his genetic line remains unbroken.’

Horst smiles. ‘Agreed.’

‘Then …?’

‘Don’t you see it? They’re his
expendable selves.
They’ve served their purpose genetically. Therefore he can use them. To protect the others. To ride shotgun, if you like, down the years.’

I laugh. ‘Is
that
what he’s doing?’

‘It looks like it. I didn’t see it at first, but …’

‘Can I come over?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then wait for me there. I’ll be ten minutes.’

Only I’m not. Because there’s been another development. Freisler has come back from Poltava to announce that there’s to be a parley. Peter himself has offered to meet Charles on the morning of the battle, to discuss a possible peace.

From Peter’s point of view it makes a lot of sense. Now that history’s been tinkered with, the odds are stacked high against him. But why on earth should Charles want to make a deal with Peter when he can crush him on the battlefield?

And he wants to crush him. To inflict the maximum humiliation on his rival.

‘It won’t happen,’ I say.

‘Not as things stand,’ Hecht says. ‘But you’re supposed to be meeting Charles, aren’t you? The night before the battle, alone in his tent.’

I laugh. ‘You think I can persuade him?’

Hecht shakes his head. ‘No. But you could kill him.’

I look down. It would not be the first time I’ve been used as an assassin, but I don’t feel good about this. I don’t feel …
right
. And it has nothing really to do with Charles, who’s a murderous little bastard at the best of times. Besides, they’ll only change it back. They’re bound to.

Whoever they are
.

I meet Hecht’s eyes. ‘Is that what you want me to do? Kill him?’

‘Maybe. But not yet. There’s time and plenty to deal with Charles. First we need to find out what’s happening with our agents.’

Hecht’s very calmness makes me think that he knows something. It’s such a contrast from his earlier urgency that I’m pretty much convinced that something’s happened to make him feel more relaxed. Only what?

‘Go and see Zarah,’ Hecht adds after a moment. ‘She’ll brief you. Then report back to me once you know what’s happening. And Otto … take no silly risks, okay?’