Time Patrol (58 page)

Damnation! Do my ears actually feel hot?
"We dare not complicate matters for ourselves."

Her gaze caught his and held fast. "I am not worried about that, sir. You are a professional and a gentleman."

"Well, thanks," he said, relieved. "I guess I can mind my manners."

If you mind yours!

7

Suddenly springtime billowed over the land. Warmth and lengthening days lured forth leaves. Grass glowed. The sky filled with wings and clamor. Lambs, calves, foals rollicked through meadows. Folk came from the gloom of houses, the smoke and stink of winter; they blinked in the brightness, breathed the sweetness, and set to work readying for summer.

Yet they were hungry after last year's niggard yields. Many a man was at war beyond the Rhine, and already few of them would ever come back. Edh and Heidhin still bore frost in their hearts.

They walked about her grounds, heedless of light or breeze. Workers in her fields saw how she went and dared not hail or come question her. Though the woods westward shone beneath the sun, the holy grove in the offing eastward seemed dark, as if her tower had cast its shadows that far.

"I am wrathful with you," she said. "Oh, I should send you from me forever."

"Edh—" His voice had gone harsh. Knuckles whitened above his spearshaft. "I did what I must needs do. It was clear you would have spared that Roman. The Anses had enough of a grudge against us."

"So fools have babbled."

"Then most of the tribe are fools. Edh, I go among them as you cannot, for I am a man, and only a man, not the chosen of a goddess. Folk tell me what they would quail to say straight to you." Heidhin paced on while he gathered his words together. "Nerha has been taking too much of what formerly went to the sky gods. I mind well what you and I owe her, but it is otherwise for the Bructeri, and even we twain owe much to the Anses also. If we do not make our peace with them, they will withdraw victory from us. I have read this in the stars, the weather, the flight of ravens, the bones I cast. And what if I am mistaken? The fear itself is real in men's hearts. They will begin to hang back in battle, and the foe will break them.

"Now I, in your name, have given the Anses a man, no mere thrall but a chieftain. Let this news go abroad, and see how hope comes to fresh birth among the warriors!"

Edh's look struck at him like a sword. "Ha, do you think your one little slaying will reck aught to them? Know, while you were gone, another messenger from Burhmund found me. His men killed everyone and destroyed everything at Castra Vetera. They glutted their gods."

The spear jerked in Heidhin's grip before he locked his face shut. A time went by. At last he said slowly, "How could I foresee that? It is well."

"It is
not.
Burhmund was enraged. He knows it is bound to stiffen Roman will. And now you, you have robbed me of a captive who might have been a go-between for us."

Heidhin clenched his jaws. "I could not have known," he muttered. "And what use would one man be, anyhow?"

"You have robbed me of yourself, too, it seems," Edh went on bleakly. "I had thought you would go to Colonia for me."

Surprised, he twisted his neck around to stare at her. The high cheekbones, long straight nose, full mouth stayed forward-aimed, away from him. "Colonia?"

"That was in Burhmund's message too. From Castra Vetera he is going on to Colonia Agrippinensis. He thinks they may yield. But once they hear of the slaughter—and they will ere he reaches them—why should they? Why not fight on, in hopes of relief, when they have nothing to lose? Burhmund wants me to lay my curse, the withering wrath of Nerha, on whoever breaks the terms of surrender."

His wonted shrewdness returned to Heidhin and calmed him. "Hm, so." His free hand stroked his beard. "Yes, that may well sway them in Colonia. They must know of you. The Ubii are Germans, for all they call themselves Roman. If your avouching was spoken aloud to Burhmund's host, near the wall where the defenders could see and hear—"

"Who shall utter it, now?"

"Yourself?"

"Hardly."

He nodded. "No, that's right. Best you hold aloof. Few outside the Bructeri have seen you. There is more awesomeness in a tale than in flesh and blood."

Her laugh was wolfish. "Flesh and blood which must eat, drink, sleep, rid itself of wastes, maybe catch cold, surely grow weary." The tone dropped. She lowered her head. "Indeed I am weary," she whispered. "Liefest would I be alone."

"That may well be wise," Heidhin said. "Yes. Withdraw for a while into your tower. Make known that you are thinking, brewing witchcraft, calling the goddess to you. I will bear your word into the world."

She straightened. "So I thought," she snapped. "But after what you did, how can I trust you?"

"You can. I'll swear to it"—Heidhin's voice stumbled a bit—"if our years together are not enough." At once he donned pride. "You understand you have no better spokesman. I am more than the first among your followers, I am a leader in my own right. Men heed me."

She was long silent. They walked by a paddock where a bull stood, Tiw's beast, his horns mighty beneath the sun. At last she asked: "You will give forth my words unwarped, and work in good faith to have their meaning carried out?"

He shaped his answer with skill. "It hurts that you should mistrust me, Edh."

Then she looked at him. Her eyes thawed. "All these years—dear old friend—"

They stopped where they were, on a muddy track through the swelling grass. "I would have been more than friend to you, had you let me," he said.

"You knew I never could. And you honored it. How can I do other than forgive you? Yes, go to Colonia for me."

Sternness came upon him. "I will, and wherever else you may send me, serving you as best I can, if only you do not tell me to break the vow I made on the shore of the Eyn."

"That—" Color flowed and ebbed in her face. "It was long ago."

"To me it is as if I swore it yesterday. No peace with the Romans. War while I live, and after I am dead I will harry them on their way down hell-road."

"Niaerdh could release you from it."

"I could never release myself." Like a heavily striking hammer, Heidhin bade her: "Either send me from you this day, for always, or swear that you will never ask me to make peace with Rome."

She shook her head. "I cannot do that. If they offer us, our kinfolk, all of us, our freedom—"

He turned that over in his mind before he said unwillingly, "Well, if they do, take it of them. I daresay you would have to."

"Niaerdh herself would want it. She is no bloodthirsty Ans."

"Hm, aforetime you said otherwise." Heidhin grinned. "I do not await the Romans will gladly let the western tribes and their scot to them go. But should they, then I will take me off, with whatever men will follow me, and raid them in their lands till I fall under their blades."

"May that never be!" she cried.

He laid his hands on her shoulders. "Swear to me—bring Niaerdh to witness—that you will call for war without end until the Romans leave these lands or . . . or, at the least, I am dead. If you do this, then I can work for anything else you wish, yes, even for the sparing of what Romans we catch alive."

"If you will have it thus." Edh sighed. She stepped back from him. Command rang: "Come, then, let us seek the halidom, mingle our blood on the earth and our words in the air, to fasten this bond. I want you riding to Burhmund tomorrow. Time is on our heels."

8

Once the city had been Oppidum Ubiorum, or so the Romans called it. Otherwise Germans did not build towns; but the Ubii, on the left bank of the Rhine, were under heavy Gallic influence. After Caesar's conquest, they soon came into the Empire and, unlike most of their kinsmen, were content with this, the trade, the learning, the openings to the world outside. In the reign of Claudius the town was made a Roman colony and named for his wife. Eagerly Latinizing themselves, the Ubii changed their own name to the Agrippinenses. The city waxed. It would be Köln—Cologne, to French and English speakers—but that was far in the future.

On this day the ground below its massive Roman-built walls seethed. Smoke rose from a hundred campfires, barbarian standards reared above leather tents, pelts and blankets lay spread about where those slept who had brought no shelter along. Horses neighed and stamped. Cattle lowed, sheep bleated in the wattled pens that held them until they were butchered for the army. Men milled to and fro, wild warriors from beyond the river, Gallic rabble from this side. Quieter were the armed yeomen of Batavia and its near neighbors; disciplined were Civilis's and Classicus's veterans. Apart huddled the dispirited legionaries who had been marched here from Novesium. Along the way they had endured such taunts that at last a cavalry troop of theirs said to hell with it, repudiated the pledge of allegiance given the Empire of Gaul, and struck south to rejoin Rome.

A small set of tents stood by itself near the stream. No rebel ventured within yards of it unless he had cause, and then he approached most quietly. Bructerian men-at-arms kept watch at the corners, but only as an honor guard. What warded it was a sheaf of grain to which was tied several apples, atop an erected pole—from last year, dried and faded, yet emblems of Nerha.

"Whence came you?" asked Everard.

Heidhin peered at him. The answer hissed. "If you trekked hither out of the east as you say, you know. The Angrivarri remember Wael-Edh; the Langobardi do, the Lemovii, and more. Did none among them ever say aught of her to you?"

"She passed through years ago—"

"I know they remember, for we hear from them through traders, landloupers, and the fighters lately come to Burhmund." A cloud shadow swept over the men where they sat, on a rude bench before Heidhin's pavilion. Darkening his visage, it seemed to whet the piercing stare. Wind bore a puff of smoke, a clang of iron. "Who are you truly, Everard, and what would you here in our midst?"

This is one smart cookie, and a fanatic to boot,
the Patrolman realized. Quickly: "I was about to say, it struck me how her name lives on among tribes far away, long after she passed by."

"Hm." Heidhin relaxed a trifle. His right hand, which had strayed close to his sword hilt, drew the black cloak more snugly against the wind. "I wonder why you trailed Burhmund, when you have no wish to go beneath his banner."

"It is as I told you, my lord." Heidhin didn't rate the honorific from Everard, who had not sworn him fealty, but it didn't hurt. And in truth Heidhin had become an important man among the Bructeri, a chieftain with lands and holdings, married into a noble family, above all the confidant and frequent spokesman of Veleda. "I called on him at Castra Vetera because I had heard of his fame and am seeking to learn how things are in these countries. On my way elsewhere I heard that the wise-woman was bound hither. I hoped to meet her, or at least see and hear her."

Burhmund, who made Everard welcome, had explained that the sibyl sent her representative instead. The Batavian's hospitality was perfunctory, though, as busy as he was. When he saw a chance, Everard sought Heidhin out on his own hook. A Goth was unusual enough to be received, but the conversation went awkwardly, Heidhin's thoughts on other matters until abruptly suspicion awoke.

"She has withdrawn into her tower to be alone with the goddess," he said. Belief burned in him.

Everard nodded. "So Burhmund told me. And I listened to your speech yesterday, at the gate of the city. My lord, let's not plow the same soil over again. What I asked was merely—whence came you and holy Wael-Edh? Where did you begin your wanderings, and when and why?"

"We come of the Alvarings," Heidhin said. "Belike most men in this host were unborn when we left. Why did we? The goddess called her forth." Intensity gave way to brusqueness: "I have better work on hand than enlightening a stranger. If you will abide among us, Everard, you will hear more, and maybe you and I can talk further. Today I must bid you farewell."

They stood up. "Thank you for your time, my lord," the Patrolman said. "Someday I will go back to my folk. Should you or kin of yours ever seek to the Goths, that man shall have good guesting."

Heidhin did not let the routine courtesy go by. "It may be," he replied. "Nerha's messengers—but first is this war to win. Fare you well."

Everard walked through the surrounding turbulence to a pen near Civilis's headquarters, where he claimed his horses. They were shaggy German ponies; his feet dangled just inches above ground when he mounted. But then, he was big even among these men, and they would have wondered too much about him had he lacked animals to bear him and his possessions. He rode north. Colonia Agrippinensis fell from sight behind him.

Evening light sheened golden on the river. Hills were nearly as he recalled them from his home era, but the countryside lay marred by weed-grown fields and ruined buildings where Civilis had ravaged it months before. Here and there he glimpsed bones, some human.

Desolation served his purpose. Nevertheless he waited till dark to tell Floris, "Okay, send down the truck." He mustn't be seen departing the road, and a vehicle capable of accommodating horses was more noticeable than a timecycle. She dispatched it by remote control, he led the beasts aboard, and in an instant overleaping of space he reached their camp. She joined him a minute later.

They could have sprung back to Amsterdam's comforts, but it would have wasted lifespan, not in the shuttling but in the commuting to and from quarters there, the shucking and redonning of barbarian garb, perhaps most the changes back and forth of mind-set. Let them rather dwell in this archaic land, become intimate not only with its people but with its natural world. Nature—the wilderness, the mysteries of day and night, summer and winter, storm, stars, growth, death—pervaded it and the souls of the folk. You could not really understand them, feel with them, until you had yourself entered into the forest and let it enter into you.

Floris had chosen the site, a remote hilltop overlooking woodlands that reached to every horizon. None but a rare hunter ever saw it, and quite likely none had ever climbed to the bare ridge. Northern Europe was so thinly populated; a tribe numbering fifty thousand was large, and spread over a wide territory. Another planet would have been less alien to this country than was the twentieth century.