Poul Anderson

Star of the Sea

I

By day Niaerdh roamed among the seals and whales and fish she had made. From her fingertips she cast gulls and spindrift onto the wind. At the rim of the world her daughters danced to her song, which called rain from heaven or sent light ashiver across the waters. When darkness flowed out of the east, she sought her bed that it blanketed yonder. But often she rose early, long before the sun, to watch over her sea. Upon her brow shone the morning star.

Then once Frae rode to the strand. “Niaerdh, I call you!” he shouted. Only the surf gave answer. He put the horn Gatherer to his lips and blew. Cormorants flew shrieking from the skerries. Last he drew sword and with the flat of it smote the flanks of the bull Earthshaker whereon he sat. At the bellow that sounded forth, wells spouted and dead kings woke in their barrows.

Thereat Niaerdh sought him. Angered, she sailed on an iceberg, herself clad in the fog and bearing in one hand the net in which she takes ships. “Why have you dared trouble me?” she flung at him, words like hailstones.

“I would wed you,” he told her. “From afar, the light shining off your breasts blinded me. I have sent my sister away. Earth sickens and all growth withers in the heat of my longing.”

Niaerdh laughed. “What can you give me that my brother does not?”

“A high-roofed house,” he said, “rich offerings, warm flesh in your trencher and hot blood in your cup, sway over sowing and reaping, over begetting and birth and old age.”

“Those things are great,” she yielded him, “but what if I still turn from them?”

“Then life will die from the land and, dying, curse you,” he warned. “My arrows will fly to the horses of the Sun Car and slay them. When it falls aflame, the sea will boil; afterward it will freeze beneath a night that has no dawn.”

“No,” she said, “for first I will bring the waves in over your kingdom and drown it.”

They were silent a while.

“We are both strong,” she said at last. “Best that we not wreck the world between us. I will come to you in springtime with my dowry of rain, and together we will fare about the land to bless it. Your gift to me shall be the bull that you are riding.”

“That is too much,” said Frae. “In him is the might to fill earth’s womb. He scatters the foe, gores and tramples them, lays waste their fields. Rock shudders beneath his hoofs.”

“You may keep him ashore and use him as aforetime,” answered Niaerdh, “save when I have need for him. But mine he shall be, and in the end I will call him to me forever.” After another while she went on: “Each autumn I will leave you and go back to my sea. But in spring I will come again. This shall be the year and every year henceforward.”

“I had hoped for more,” said Frae, “and I think that if we sunder our doings, the gods of war will rove more free than erstwhile. Yet it is foredoomed that you will have it thus. I will await you when the sun turns north.”

“I will come to you on the rainbow,” Niaerdh plighted.

So it was. So it is.

1

Seen from the ramparts of Old Camp, nature was terrifying enough. Eastward, in this drought year, the Rhine gleamed shrunken. The Germans crossed it with ease, while supply vessels bound for the outposts along its left bank ran often aground and, before they could escape, might well fall into enemy hands. It was as if the very rivers, the ancient defenses of the Empire, were deserting Rome. Where forest on the farther side, woodlots on this, rose out of the plain, parched leaves were already browning and dropping. Farm plots had been sere until war made them not mud, but dust beneath a brazen sky, to gray the ash and charcoal of houses.

Now that soil bore a new crop, dragon’s teeth sprouted, a barbarian horde. Big blond men surged around emblems brought from sacred groves and bloody rites, poles or litters that held skulls or rude carvings of bear, boar, wisent, aurochs, elk, stag, wildcat, wolf. Sunset light flashed on spearheads, shield bosses, the occasional helmet, rarely a coat of ring mail or a cuirass taken off a slain legionary. Most went unarmored, in tunic and close-fitting trousers or stripped to the waist, perhaps with the skin of a beast shaggy above. They growled, barked, shouted, roared, stamped, a sound akin to ongoing distant thunder.

Distant indeed. Peering past the shadows stretched toward them, Munius Lupercus made out long hair knotted at the temple or atop the head. That was the style of the Suebian tribes in the heart of Germany. It wasn’t common, those must be small bands who had followed adventurer captains here, but it showed how far the word of Civilis had gone.

The majority braided their manes; some dyed them red or soaped them into spikes, in the manner of Gauls. They were Batavi, Canninefates, Tungri, Frisii, Bructeri, others native to these parts—and more to be feared, less because of their numbers than because they had knowledge of Roman ways. Hoo, there went a squadron of Tencteri, galloping on their ponies as flowingly as centaurs, lances and pennons aloft, axes at saddle bows, cavalry for the rebels!

“We’ll have a busy night,” Lupercus said.

“How can you tell, sir?” The orderly’s voice was not quite steady. He was just a boy, hastily picked for the job after experienced Rutilius fell. When five thousand soldiers had been driven off the field and into the nearest fort, with two or three times as many camp followers, you grabbed what you could.

Lupercus shrugged. “One gets a feeling for their moods.”

Not all the signs were subtle. Beyond the river and behind the male tumult on this side, smoke curled past kettles and spits. Women and children of the region had come along to egg their men on to battle. Now again the keening had begun among them. It spread and strengthened while he listened, saw—edged, with an underlying beat, ha-ba-da ha-ba, ha-ba-da-da. More and more ears turned toward it, more and more of the chaos eddied its way.

“I shouldn’t think Civilis would want action,” said Aletus. Lupercus had detached the veteran centurion from the fragments of his command that survived, to be staff officer and counselor. Aletus gestured down the palisade topping the earthworks. “The last couple of attacks cost him plenty.”

Corpses sprawled, bloated, discolored, amidst entrails and clotted blood, broken weapons, ruins of crude testudines under which the barbarians had tried to storm the gates. In places they filled the ditch. Mouths gaped around tongues that ants and beetles were eating. Crows had plucked out many of the eyes. Several birds still pecked away, tucking in a supper before nightfall. Noses had gotten used to the stench, except when a breeze bore it straight at them, and the eventide cooling had damped it.

“He has plenty to spare,” Lupercus said.

“Still, sir, he’s no fool, nor ignorant, is he?” the centurion persisted. “He marched with us twenty years or more, I’ve heard, clear down into Italy, and got as much rank as an auxiliary can get. He must know we’re short of food and everything. Starving us out makes better sense than charging at regulars and their machines.”

“True,” Lupercus agreed. “I daresay that’s been his intent since he failed to break in. But he hasn’t got Roman control over those wild men, you know.” Wryly: “Not that our legions haven’t been known to kick over the traces of late, eh?”

His gaze sought a center of steadiness around which the enemy weltered. Metal gleamed in arrays where men rested beneath the standards of their units; horses, tethered, fed quietly on oats brought them; newly built, its wood raw but solidly carpentered, a two-story siege tower waited on its wheels. Yonder lay Claudius Civilis, who formerly served Rome, and the tribesmen who had campaigned and learned beside him.

“Something’s set the Germans afire again,” the legate went on. “Some news or inspiration or whim or . . . whatever. I’d like to know what. But I repeat, we’ve a busy time ahead of us. Let’s make ready.”

He led the way back down from the watchtower. It was almost a descent into peace. In the decades since its establishment, Old Camp had enlarged, become a kind of settlement, not everywhere in military gridiron fashion. At the moment it was choked with fugitives as well as the remnants of his expeditionary force. But he had gotten order imposed, soldiers properly quartered and posted, civilians assigned to useful work or at least out from underfoot.

Quietness dwelt in the shadows; for a moment he could close his ears to the savage chant. His mind flew free, across miles and years, over the Alps and south along blue, blue sea to the bay and majestic mountain, nestling town, house and its courtyard of roses, Julia, the children . . . Why, Publius must be shooting up toward manhood, Lupercilla quite the young lady, and had Marcus overcome those problems of his with reading? . . . Letters arrived so infrequently, so irregularly. How were they doing, how was it for them at this exact hour in Pompeii?

Dismiss them. I have my own business to handle. He went about it, inspecting, planning, issuing instructions.

Night fell. Fires leaped huge around the fort, where warriors sat at feast and drink. They had plundered countless amphorae of wine. Presently they started their hoarse war songs. In the background, their women shrilled like hawks.

One by one, gang by gang, they lumbered to their feet, took arms, and dashed themselves against the walls. In the dark, their spears, arrows, and throwing-axes clove only air. The Romans saw them plainly by the light of their fires. Javelin, sling, catapult picked them off, the gaudiest and bravest first. “An Egyptian bird hunt, by Hercules!” Aletus exulted.

“Civilis sees it too,” Lupercus replied.

In fact, after a couple of hours sparks whirled high and blinked into nothing, rakes spread wood and coals apart, boots and blankets obliterated flames. The precaution seemed to madden the Germans further. The night was moonless and a haze had blurred stars. Fighting turned well-nigh blind, hand to hand, strike where you heard a noise and spied a deeper darkness coming at you. Still the legionaries kept their discipline. From the walls they tossed stones and iron-shod stakes as well as they could aim. Where the racket told them of a ladder brought up, they pushed it back with shields, and javelins followed. In those men who reached the top, they sheathed their swords.

Sometime after midnight, combat faded away. For a space there was near silence, not even the sounds that the dying make. The Germans had found and borne off their wounded, regardless of any danger, and the Romans’ lay by lamplight under care of the surgeons. Lupercus remounted his observation post to listen. Soon he heard a voice haranguing, then shouts, then again the death chant. He shook his head. “They’ll be back.” He sighed.

First light showed him the siege tower rocking toward the praetorian gate. It went slowly, sweated along by a score or two of warriors while the rest milled impatient behind and Civilis’s elite waited aside. Lupercus had ample time to study the situation, make his decisions, get his men positioned and his military engines deployed. He had kept both soldiers and refugee artisans at the task of building those.

The tower approached the gate. Fighters climbed into it, brandishing weapons, hurling missiles, poising to spring down from above. The legate spoke. Romans on the wall brought poles and beams to the entry point. Under cover of shields and their slingers, they shoved, battered, hacked. They beat the tower to a standstill and began smashing it apart. Meanwhile their companions sallied from both sides and attacked the surrounding enemy.

Civilis led his veterans in aid. Roman engineers extended a crane arm over the top of the wall. Iron jaws at the end of a chain swung through an arc, closed on a man, plucked him off his feet. Gleeful, the engineers shifted counterweights. The arm swiveled around, the jaws opened, the captive fell to earth inside the camp. A squad awaited him.

“Prisoners!” Lupercus shouted. “I want prisoners!”

The crane reached forth again, and yet again. That was a device slow and clumsy, but also new and weird, demoralizing. Lupercus never knew how much it did toward throwing dismay into the foe. Most likely nobody could say. The destruction of the tower and the assault by trained, coordinated infantry were amply bad.

Good troops would have stood their ground, enveloped the outnumbered men of the sortie, and cut them to pieces. In the packs of the barbarians, nobody had clear command save over his immediate followers, nor any way of knowing what went on anywhere else. Those who encountered deadliness got no reinforcement. They were weary after their long night, many had lost blood, neither comrades nor gods came to their help. The heart went from them and they ran. Avalanche-like, the rest of the horde tumbled after.

“Shouldn’t we pursue, sir?” wondered the orderly.

“That would be fatal.” A part of Lupercus wondered why he explained, why he didn’t simply tell the boy to shut up. “They aren’t in real panic. Look, they’re coming to a halt by the river. Their chiefs will rally them and Civilis will bring them more or less to their senses. However, I don’t expect he’ll allow any further such attempts. He’ll settle down to blockade us.”

And try to seduce his countrymen among us, the legate’s mind added. But at least now I can get some sleep. How tired he was. His skull felt full of sand, his tongue like a strip of leather.

First he had duties. He went downstairs and along the pomoerium lane to the spot where the crane had dumped its prey. A pair lay killed, whether because they resisted too hard or the squad grew overexcited. One moaned and writhed feebly on the dust. His legs never stirred, he must have a broken back, best cut his throat. Three slumped bound under the eyes of their guards. The seventh, also with wrists tied and ankles hobbled, stood straight. The outfit of a Batavian auxiliary covered his broad frame.

Lupercus stopped before him. “Well, soldier, what have you to say for yourself?” he asked quietly.

Beard was growing around the lips and the Latin they uttered bore a guttural accent, but it came firmly. “You’ve got us. That’s all you’ve got, though.”

A legionary half lifted his sword. Lupercus waved it aside. “Mind your manners,” he advised. “I’ll have some questions for you fellows. Cooperate, and you won’t suffer the worst that can happen to traitors.”

“I’ll not betray my lord, whatever you do,” said the Batavian. His own exhaustion made the defiance toneless. “Woen, Donar, Tiw be witness.”

Mercury, Hercules, Mars. Their main gods, or so we Romans identify them. No matter. I think he means it, and torture won’t break him. We have to try, of course. Maybe his comrades will be less resolute. Not that I really believe any of them knows anything useful. What a waste all around.

Hm, one thing, A faint eagerness prickled the legate’s skin. He might well be willing to say this. “Tell me, anyhow, what possessed you? It was crazy, rushing us. Civilis must have torn his hair out.”

“He wanted to stop it,” the prisoner admitted. “But the warriors got out of hand, and he—we—could only try to make them effective.” A canine grin. “Maybe now they’ve learned their lesson and will go about the business right.”

“But what set the attack off?”

Suddenly the voice throbbed, the eyes kindled. “They were wrong about the tactics, yah, but the word was true. It is true. It came through the Bructeri who joined us. Veleda has spoken.”

“Uh, Veleda?”

“The sibyl. She’s called on every tribe to rise. Rome is doomed, the goddess tells her, and ours shall be the victory.” The Batavian squared his shoulders. “Do what you like to me, Roman. You’re a dead man, you with your whole stinking Empire.”

2

In the closing decades of the twentieth century, a minor export-import business fronted for the Amsterdam office of the Time Patrol. Its warehouse, with attached office, was in the Indische Buurt, where exotic-looking people drew scant attention.

Manse Everard’s timecycle appeared in the secret part of the building early one May morning. He had to wait a minute or so at the exit when the door indicated that somebody was passing by on the other side who shouldn’t see that it wasn’t merely a wainscot—doubtless an ordinary employee of the company. Then it opened to his key. The arrangement seemed a bit clumsy to him, but he supposed it suited local conditions.

He found his way to the manager, who was also chief of Patrol operations throughout this corner of Europe. Those were usually routine, or as routine as is possible when you deal with traffic up and down the lanes of history. This wasn’t milieu headquarters, after all. It hadn’t even appeared to be overseeing an especially important sector, till now.

“We weren’t expecting you yet, sir,” said Willem Ten Brink, surprised. “Shall I call Agent Floris?”

“No, thanks,” Everard replied. “I’ll meet her later as arranged. Just thought I’d first look around the city a little. Haven’t been here since, uh, 1952, when I spent a few days on a vacation trip. I liked it.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy yourself. Things have changed, you know. Do you wish a guide, a car, any kind of assistance? No? What about facilities for your conference?”

“No need, I think. Her message said she could best explain matters, at least to start with, at her place.” Despite the other man’s obvious disappointment, Everard let forth no hint of what the matters were. They were plenty delicate without leaking information to anybody who didn’t require it and didn’t work outside his birth era. Besides, Everard wasn’t quite sure what did threaten.

Equipped with a map, a walletful of gulden, and a few practical cues, he strolled off. At a tobacconist’s he bought refills for his pipe and a strippenkart for the public transit system. He hadn’t had Dutch instilled, but everybody he encountered possessed excellent English. Footloose, he drifted.

Thirty-four years was a long absence. (Longer than that on his personal world line, of course. He had meanwhile joined the Patrol and become an Unattached agent and snaked around through the ages, across most of the planet. Now the London of Elizabeth the First or the Pasargadae of Cyrus the Great stood him nearer than did the streets he would walk today. Had that summer really been so golden, or had he simply been young, unburdened with too much knowledge?) He half dreaded what he might find.

The following hours relieved him. Amsterdam had not become the sewer that some people nowadays called it. From the Dam to the Central Station, it pullulated with scruffy youth, but he saw no one making trouble. In alleys directly off the Damrak you could idle a delightful while in a sidewalk café or a small bar with a huge beer selection. The sleaze shops were at fairly wide intervals, tucked in among ordinary businesses and extraordinary bookstores. When he took a canal tour and the guide insouciantly pointed out the red-light district, what Everard saw was more of the centuried houses that dignified the entire old part of town. He’d been warned about pickpockets but had no need to take precautions against muggers. He’d breathed worse smog in New York and dodged more dog droppings around Gramercy Park than in any residential section here. For lunch he found a friendly little place where they cooked a mean dish of eel. The Stedelijke Museum was a letdown—as regarded modern art, he admitted being an unreconstructed philistine—but he lost himself in the Rijks, forgetting all else, till closing time.

By then he was soon due at Floris’s. The hour had been his suggestion, in their preliminary phone conversation. She hadn’t demurred. A field agent, Specialist second class, ranked fairly high, but still didn’t normally argue with an Unattached. It wasn’t too eccentric a time of day anyhow, when you could hop straight to it from whenever you were. Probably she’d skipped uptime shortly after breakfast.

For his part, this relaxed interlude hadn’t dulled alertness. On the contrary. Also, by giving him some slight acquaintance with her hometown, the background whence she sprang, it started him on a knowledge of her. He needed that. They might be working very closely together.

His route afoot from the Museumplein took him along the Singelgracht and down through part of Vondelpark. Water gleamed, leaves and grass glowed with sunlight. A boy paddled a hired canoe, his girl in the bow before his eyes; a gray-haired couple walked hand in hand under trees with more years than themselves; a band of bicyclists swept by him in a storm of shouts and laughter. He harked back to the Oude Kerk, the Rembrandts, yes, the Van Goghs he hadn’t yet seen, all the life that pulsed in the city today and in past and future, everything that begot and nourished it. And he knew their whole reality for a spectral flickering, diffraction rings across abstract, unstable space-time, a manifold brightness that at any instant could not only cease to be but cease ever having been.

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn empires, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And like this insubstantial pageant faded

Leave not a wrack behind—

No! He must never let himself brood so. It would merely shake him in his duty, which was to get on with whatever pragmatic, prosaic operations were necessary to safeguard this existence. He lengthened his stride.

The apartment building he sought was one of a row on a quiet street, handsome relics from around 1910. A directory in the entry told him that Janne Floris lived on the fourth floor. It gave her profession vaguely as bestuurder, administrator; for purposes of maintaining a local persona, she was on the payroll of Ten Brink’s company.

Otherwise Everard knew only that she did field research in the Roman Iron Age, that period when the archaeology of northern Europe began fitfully merging with recorded history. He’d been tempted to call up her service record, which he had authority to do within limits. That was surely no easy milieu for a woman of any kind, let alone a scientist from its future. He’d decided against it, at any rate till they’d talked. Better that his first impression be direct. Also, the business might turn out not to be a real crisis. Maybe investigation would show nothing worse than some kind of mistake or misunderstanding, with no corrective action required.

He found her door and pushed the bell. She opened it. For a moment they stood mute.

Was she taken aback too? Had she expected the Unattached agent to be something more impressive than a big, homely guy with a battle-dented nose and still, after all he’d been through, “Midwesterner” written upon him? He’d certainly not awaited as goodly a sight as this tall blonde in her elegantly understated gown.

“How do you do,” he managed in English. “I am—”

She smiled, broad mouth baring large teeth. Snub-nosed, heavy-browed, her features weren’t conventionally pretty, apart from eyes of changeable turquoise, but he admired them, and her figure could have belonged to an athletic Juno. “Agent Everard,” she finished for him. “An honor, sir.” The tone was warm without being subservient and she shook hands as if with an equal. “Welcome.”

Passing close as he entered, he saw that she wasn’t really young. That clear complexion had known much weather; fine lines crinkled around eyes and lips. Well, she couldn’t have accomplished what she must have to earn her rank in any few years of lifespan, and longevity treatment didn’t expunge every trace.

In the living room he glanced around. It was furnished plainly and comfortably, like his, though her things weren’t battered or faded and she displayed no souvenirs. Maybe she didn’t care to explain them away to mundane visitors—and lovers? On the walls he recognized a copy of a Cuyp landscape and an astronomical photograph of the Veil Nebula. Among books in a floor-to-ceiling case he spied stuff by Dickens, Mark Twain, Thomas Mann, Tolkien. A shame that Dutch titles conveyed nothing to him.

“Please sit down,” Floris urged. “Smoke if you wish. I have made coffee, or tea can be ready in a few minutes.”

“Thanks, coffee will be fine.” Everard took an armchair. She brought pot, cups, cream, sugar from the kitchen, put them on a low table, and settled on the couch opposite him.

“Do you prefer we use English or Temporal?” she asked.

He liked her approach, straightforward yet not brusque. “English for now,” he decided. The Patrol speech had a grammar capable of handling chronokinesis, variable time, and the associated paradoxes, but when it came to human things was as weak as artificial languages generally are. (An Esperantist who hits his thumb with a hammer will not likely yell, “Excremento!”) “I’m after a sketchy, preliminary understanding of what this is about.”

“Why, I thought you would arrive prepared. What I have here that is not at the office is—oh, pictures, small objects, the kind of things one brings back from missions, things that have no particular value to science or anyone else but hold memories. Doesn’t one?” Everard nodded. “Well, I thought if I took them from their drawer they might help give you a better feel for the milieu, or remind me of observations I made that you may find useful.”

He sipped. The coffee was the way he preferred it, hot and strong. “Good thinking. We’ll look them over later. But whenever it’s practicable, I’d rather start by hearing about a case in direct, first-hand terms. The precise details, the scholarly analysis, the broad picture, those mean more to me afterward.” In other words, I’m not an intellectual, I’m a farm boy who became first an engineer and then a cop.

“But I have not been on the scene either,” she said.

“I know. None of the corps have yet, have they? However, you’ve been informed of the problem in some circumstantiality, and I’m sure you’ve given it much thought in the light of your experience, your particular expertise. That makes you the closest thing to an observer we’ve got.”

Everard leaned forward. “Okay,” he went on, “what I can tell you is this. The Middle Command asked me if I’d investigate. They’d received a report of inconsistencies in a chronicle of Tacitus’s, and it has them worried. The events concerned evidently center on the Low Countries in the first century A.D. That happens to be your field, and you and I are more or less contemporaries”—a generation between our births, is it?—“so we should be able to cooperate more or less efficiently. That’s why I’m the Unattached agent they contacted.” Everard gestured at David Copperfield. He’d show her the two of them had something more in common. “Barkis is willin’. I called Ten Brink and then you almost immediately, and followed close behind. Maybe I should first have studied my Tacitus. I’d read him, of course, but quite a while ago on my world line and it’s gotten vague. I did glance over the material again, but just a glance, and he gets sort of convoluted, doesn’t he? Go ahead and fill me in from the ground up. If you repeat something I already know, what harm?”

Floris smiled. “You have a most disarming manner, sir,” she murmured. “Is it on purpose?” Momentarily he wondered if she was being flirtatious; but she tautened and proceeded, businesslike, well-nigh academic:

“You are certainly aware that both the Annals and the Histories came down to later centuries incomplete. Of the Histories, the oldest copy that survived contained only four books of the original twelve, and part of the fifth. That part broke off in the middle of describing what we have become troubled about. Naturally, when time travel is developed, an expedition will in due course go to his era and recover the lost sections. They are much desired. Tacitus is not the most reliable chronicler who ever wrote, but he is a notable stylist, a moralist—and for some occurrences, the single written source of any importance.”

Everard nodded. “Yeah. Explorers read the historians for clues to what they should look for and look out for, before they set off to chart what really happened.” He coughed. “Why am I telling you your business? Pardon me. Mind if I light a pipe?”

“Not at all,” Floris said absently before she continued. “Yes, the complete Histories, as well as the Germania, have been among my principal guides. I found countless details are different from what he wrote, but that is to be expected. In broad outline, and usually in particulars, his account of the great rebellion and its aftermath is trustworthy.”

She paused, then, stubbornly honest: “I have not done my research alone, you realize. Far from it. Others are busy in hundreds of years before and after my special period, in areas from Russia to Ireland. And there are those, the truly indispensable ones, who sit at home to assemble, correlate, and analyze our reports. But it chances that I operate in and around what are now the Netherlands and the nearby parts of Belgium and Germany, during the time when the Celtic influence was dying away—after the Roman conquest of Gaul—and the Germanic peoples were beginning to develop truly distinctive cultures. It is not much we have learned, either, set beside everything we do not know. We are too few.”

Too few indeed, Everard thought. With half a million years or more to guard, the Patrol’s forever undermanned, stretched thin, compromising, improvising. We get some help from civilian scientists, but most of them work out of civilizations millennia uptime; their interests are often too alien. And yet we’ve got to uncover the hidden truths of history, to have an inkling of what the moments are when it could too easily be changed. . . . From a god’s-eye viewpoint, Janne Floris, you’re probably worth more to the cause of preserving the reality that brought us into being than I am.

Her rueful laugh pulled him back from his recollections. He felt grateful; they kept recurring to plague him. “How professorish, no?” she exclaimed. “And how shopworn obvious. Please believe I generally talk better to the point. Today I am nervous.” Humor faded. Did she shiver? “I am not used to this. Confronting death, yes, but oblivion, the nothingness of everything I ever knew—” Her mouth firmed. She sat straight. “Forgive me.”

Having stoked his pipe, Everard struck a match and sent the first pungency across his tongue. “You’ll find you’re plenty tough,” he assured her. “You’ve proved it. I want to hear about your field experiences.”

“Later.” For an instant she looked away. He thought he saw hauntedness. Her gaze returned to him, her words became crisp. “Three days ago a special agent had me in for a long consultation. A research team had obtained their own text of the Histories. You heard?”

“Uh-huh.” Brief though his briefing was, Everard had been told. Sheer happenstance; or was it? (Causality can double back on itself in strange ways.) Sociologists studying Rome, early second century A.D., found on short notice that they needed to know what the upper classes thought of the Emperor Domitian, who died a couple of decades earlier. Did they really remember him as a Stalin, or concede that he’d done a few worthwhile things? The later sections of Tacitus eloquently expressed the negative view. It seemed easier to borrow his work from a private library and surreptitiously duplicate it than to send uptime for a data file. “They noticed differences from the standard version as they remembered it—if it is the standard version—and comparison showed the differences are radical.”

“Far beyond copyist’s errors, author’s revisions, or anything else reasonable,” Floris emphasized. “Detective work proved it was not a forgery, but an authentic copy of a manuscript by Tacitus himself. And, while the phrasing varies between them, as one would expect if they led toward two separate endings—the chronicle as such, the narrative line, does not split until the fifth book, very soon after the scene where the copy that survived breaks off. Is this coincidence?”

“I dunno,” Everard replied, “and better we pass that question by. Kind of spooky, huh?” He forced himself to lean back, cross shank over thigh, drain his cup, trail out a slow streamer of smoke. “Suppose you give me a synopsis of the story—the two stories. Don’t be afraid of repeating what’s elementary to you. I confess what I remember is simply that the Dutch and some of the Gauls rose against Roman rule and gave the Empire a stiff fight before they were put down. Afterward they, their descendants, were placid Roman subjects, eventually citizens.”

Starkness responded. “Tacitus goes into detail, and I have—we have—confirmed that on the whole he reports it fairly well. It began with the Batavi, a tribe living in what is now South Holland, between the Rhine and the Waal. They, with a number of others in this area, had not formally been brought under the Empire, but they had been made tributaries. All furnished soldiers to Rome, auxiliary troops, who served their terms with the legions and retired on nice pensions, whether they settled down where they were at discharge or returned to the homeland.

“But under Nero the Roman government became more and more extortionate. For instance, the Frisii were supposed to furnish a certain amount of leather every year for making shields. Instead of the hides of the dwarfish domestic cattle, the governor now demanded the much bigger and thicker hides of wild bulls, which were growing scarce, or the equivalent. It was ruinous.”

Everard grinned on the left side of his face. “Tax collection. Sounds familiar. Go on.”

Floris’s tone intensified. She stared before her, fists clenched on her lap. “You remember, at the overthrow of Nero, civil war broke out. The year of the three emperors—Galba, Otho, Vitellius—then, in the Near East, Vespasian—devastating the Empire as they contended. Each raised what forces he could, any kind, anywhere, by any means, including conscription. The Batavi, especially, saw their sons haled off, and not only to fight in a war that was meaningless to them. Some Roman officials had an appetite for comely youths.”

“Yeah. Give government an inch, and that’s what it’ll do to the people every time. Which is why the founding fathers of the United States tried to limit federal powers. Too bad their success was temporary. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Well, there was a Batavian family of noble birth-property, influence, descent claimed from the gods—which had supplied Rome with a number of soldiers. Prominent among them was a man who had taken the Latin name Claudius Civilis. At home, we have learned, he was Burhmund. He distinguished himself in many actions through a long career. Now he called the tribes to arms, the Batavi and their neighbors. He was no naïve rustic, you understand.”

“I do. Half civilized, and doubtless a smart, observant sort.”

“Ostensibly, he declared for Vespasian as against Vitellius, and told his followers that Vespasian would give them justice. That made it easy for Germanic troops elsewhere to set their orders aside and come join him. He scored several major victories. Northeastern Gaul took fire. Under Julius Classicus and Julius Tutor, the Gallic auxiliaries went over to Civilis, while they proclaimed their province an empire in its own right. In the Germanic tribe of the Bructeri, a prophetess called Veleda predicted the fall of Rome. It inspired the natives further, to heroic efforts, and their aim also became an independent confederation.”

That too sounds familiar to an American. We started in 1775 fighting for our rights as Englishmen. Then one thing led to another. Everard refrained from speaking.

Floris sighed. “Well, Vespasian’s cause prevailed. He himself remained in the Near East several months, having much on his hands there, but he wrote to Civilis requiring an end of hostilities. He was refused, of course. After that he dispatched an able general, Petillius Cerialis, to take charge in the North. Meanwhile the Gauls and the Germanic tribes quarreled, could not coordinate, bungled what opportunities came to them. You see, unified command was something outside their mental horizon. The Romans reduced them in detail. Finally Civilis agreed to meet with Cerialis and discuss terms. It is a dramatic scene in Tacitus—a bridge across the Ijssel, from which workers first removed the middle—the two men stood each at an end of the broken span and talked—”

“I remember that,” Everard said. “It’s where the manuscript ended, till the rest was recovered. As I recall, the rebels got a pretty fair offer, which they accepted.”

Floris nodded. “Yes. An end to outrages, guarantees for the future, and amnesty. Civilis retired to private life. Veleda—Tacitus does not say, except that she apparently helped arrange the armistice. I would like to find out what became of her.”

“Any ideas?”

“A sort of guess. If you go to the museums in Leiden and in Middelburg on Walcheren you will see stones from the second or third centuries, altars, votive blocks, carved and inscribed in Latin—” Floris shrugged. “No matter, probably. The fact is that those ancestors of us Dutch became provincial Romans, reasonably well content.” Her eyes widened. She clutched at the border of her cushion. “The fact was.”

Stillness dropped over them. How fragile the late afternoon sunlight and rustle of traffic seemed, beyond the windowpanes.

“That’s Tacitus One, right?” Everard said low after a while. “The version we’ve always used, and that I skimmed yesterday. I’m not quite clear on Tacitus Two. What does it tell?”

Floris answered no louder. “That Civilis did not yield, in large part because Veleda preached against peace. The war went on for another year, till the tribes were wholly subjugated. Civilis killed himself rather than go in chains to Rome for a triumph. Veleda escaped into free Germany. Many followed her. Tacitus-Two-remarks near the end of the Histories that the religion of the wild Germans has changed since he wrote his book about them. A female deity is becoming prominent, the Nerthus he described in his Germania. Now he compares her to Persephone, Minerva, and Bellona.”

Everard tugged his chin. “The goddesses of death, wisdom, and war, eh? Strange. The Anses or Aesir or whatever you call them—the male sky-gods—should’ve long since reduced the old chthonic figures to second place. . . . What does he have to say about happenings in Rome itself and elsewhere?”

“Essentially the same things as in the first text. The phrases often vary. Likewise do conversations and a number of incidents; but ancient and medieval chroniclers freely invented those, you know, or drew on traditions that might have drifted considerably from the facts. These variations do not prove that actual events changed.”

“Aside from in Germany. Well, it was the boondocks. Whatever happened there, for the first several decades, wouldn’t particularly touch the high civilizations. The long-range consequences, though—”

“They were not significant, were they?” Floris’s words trembled. “We are still here, we still exist, don’t we?”

Everard pulled hard on his pipe. “So far. And ‘so far’ is meaningless in English or Dutch or whatever. But let’s not go to Temporal yet. What we’ve got is an anomaly that needs investigation. I daresay it escaped notice earlier—yes, ‘earlier’ is meaningless too—because of its dates. Nearly all attention is elsewhere.”

Annis Domini 69 and 70. Those weren’t just the years of the Northern revolt. Nor were they just when Kwang Wu-Ti was nailing down the rule of the Later Han dynasty, or the Satavahanas were overrunning India, or Vologaeses the First was struggling against rebels and invaders of his own in Persia. (I checked the records before leaving for here. Nothing ever quite happens in isolation.) It wasn’t even when Rome was ripping itself apart, after the legions had discovered that emperors could be made elsewhere than in Rome. No, it was the time of the Jewish War. That was what detained Vespasian and his son Titus after their victory over Vitellius. The rising of the Jews, the bloody suppression of it, the destruction of the Third Temple—with everything that that was to mean for the future, Judaism, Christianity, the Empire, Europe, the world.

“A nexus, then, is it not?” Floris whispered.

Everard nodded heavily. Somehow he preserved outward calm. “Patrol units are concentrated on guarding Palestine. You can well imagine what emotions are engaged, through how many centuries. Fanatics or freeboaters who want to change what took place in Jerusalem, researchers crowding in and multiplying the chances of a fatal blunder, and the situation itself, the near-infinity of causes radiating into that episode and effects radiating out from it. . . . I don’t pretend to understand the physics, but I can sure believe what I’ve been taught, that the continuum is especially vulnerable around such moments. As far away as barbarian Germany, reality is unstable.”

“But what could have shifted it?”

“That’s what we’ve got to find out. Could be somebody taking advantage of the Patrol’s preoccupation. Or could be accident, could be—I don’t know. Maybe a Danellian could spell out the possibilities. Our job—” Everard drew breath. “Since they don’t have some improbable but safe explanation, like a forgery, these two variant texts are . . . a warning. An early sign, a ripple of change, something that may have had consequences which caused history to flow into a different channel till at last you and I and everything around us never existed—unless we heed the warning and take steps to see that this did not happen—Oh, Lord, we had better talk Temporal.”

Floris stared into her cup. “Can that wait?” she asked, barely audibly. “I need to think about this, to assimilate it. It was never more than theory to me. I did my fieldwork like, oh, a nineteenth-century explorer in darkest Africa. There were precautions to take, yes, but I was told that the pattern of events is not easily disturbed and that whatever I did, within reason, would ‘always’ have been a part of the past. Today it is as if earth dissolved beneath my feet.”

“I know.” How nightmarishly well I know. The Second Punic War—” Sure, take your time.” Time! “Collect your wits.” His smile surprised him by its genuineness. “Mine are still kind of scattered too. Look, suppose we relax and gab freely, whether about the subject on hand or anything else. In a while, let’s go out for a drink and dinner, enjoy ourselves, start getting acquainted. Tomorrow we can buckle down in earnest.”

“Thank you.” She passed a hand over the thick yellow braids coiled around her head. He recalled that ancient Germanic tribes women wore their hair long. As if she felt that magic which folk around the world laid to the human mane, strength rang anew: “Yes, tomorrow we shall cope.”

3

Winter brought rain, snow, rain again, flogged by harsh winds, weather that raged on into the springtime. Rivers ran gorged, meadows flooded, swamps overflowed. Men doled out what grain they still had stored, killed more of their huddled and shivering livestock than they wished, went hunting oftener and with less gain than they had been wont. They wondered whether the gods had wearied of last year’s drought but not of harrowing earth.

Maybe it was a hopeful sign that the night when the Bructeri met at their halidom was clear, though cold. Rags of cloud flew on the wind, ghost-white next to the full moon that sped among them. A few stars flickered wan. Trees of the grove were huge darknesses, formless save where boughs nearly bare tossed against heaven. Their creakings went like an unknown tongue, answers to the skirl and snarl of the wind.

The balefire roared. Flames leaped red and yellow from its white heart. Sparks whirled aloft to mock the stars and die. Light barely touched the great boles around the glade and made them seem to stir, uneasy as the shadows. It gleamed off the spears and eyeballs of the gathered men, brought grim faces forth out of gloom, but lost itself in their beards and shaggy coats.

Behind the fire loomed the images, rough-hewn from whole logs. Woen, Tiw, and Donar were cracked and gray, begrown with moss and toadstools. Nerha was newer, freshly painted to shine beneath the moon, and the skill of a slave from the Southlands had gone into the carving of her. In the restless glow, she might have been alive, the goddess herself. The wild boar roasting over the coals had been killed more to her than to the others.

They were not many, the men, nor were any but a few young. All who could had followed their chiefs across the Rhine last summer, to fight with Burhmund the Batavian against the Romans. They were there yet, and sorely missed at home. Wael-Edh had sent word around that the heads of households among the Bructeri should meet this night, make offering, and hear her.

The breath soughed between their teeth as she trod into sight. Her garb was moon-white, trimmed with dark fur, a necklace of raw amber aglow over her bosom. The wind made waves in her skirts and her cloak fluttered like great wings. Who knew what thoughts laired within its hood? She raised her arms, the gold rings coiled upon them shimmered snakish, and every spear dipped to her.

Heidhin, who had led in readying the boar, stood nearest the fire, apart from the others. He drew his knife, lifted blade to lips, sheathed it again. “Welcome, lady of ours,” he greeted. “Behold, they are come as you bade, they who speak for the folk, that through you the gods may speak to them. If you will, say forth.”

Edh lowered her hands. While not loud, her voice struck to its mark past the noises of the night. More than Heidhin’s, it kept an outland tone, a rise and fall like surf beating on some far shore. Maybe from this came a little of the awesomeness that forever enwrapped her.

“Hear me, sons of Brucht, for great are my tidings. The sword is aloft, the wolves and ravens eat well, the witches of Nerha fly free. Hail to the heroes!

“Let me first give you the older truth. When I called you hither, my wish was only to hearten you. The time has been long, homes guest hunger, and still the foe has stood fast. Many among you begin to wonder why we are allied with our kin beyond the river. We have shames to avenge but no yoke to cast off. We have a kingdom to build together with them but cannot if they fail.

“Yes, tribes among the Gauls have risen too, but they are a flighty lot. Yes, Burhmund has ravaged among the Ubii, those dogs of Rome, but the Romans have wasted the country of our friends the Gugernes. Yes, we have laid Moguntiacum and Castra Vetera under siege, but from the first we had to withdraw and the second has held out month after month. Yes, we have had our victories on the field, but we have had our defeats too, and always our losses were heavy. Therefore would I renew my promise to you, that Rome shall fall, the bones of the legions lie strewn and the red cock crow on every Roman roof—the vengeance of Nerha. We have but to fight on.

“Then, only today, surely by the will of the goddess, a rider reached me from Burhmund himself. Castra Vetera, the Old Camp of the enemy, has yielded. Vocula the legate, victor of Moguntiacum, is dead, and Novesium, where he died, has likewise surrendered. Colonia Agrippinensis, proud city among the Ubii, asks for terms.

“Nerha keeps faith, sons of Brucht. This is the beginning of the pledge she will wholly redeem. Rome shall fall!”

Their yells tore at the sky.

She harangued them longer, though not much longer, and ended quietly: “When at last your warriors come home, Nerha will bless their loins and they will father men to bestride the world. Now feast before her, and tomorrow bring hope to your women.” She lifted a hand. Once more they lowered their spears. She took a brand from the fire to light her way and departed into the darkness.

Heidhin led them as they pulled the offering off the grill, carved it, and devoured the smellsome flesh. However, he said little while they talked into each other’s mouths of the wonder told them. Often such a silent spell came upon him. Folk had grown used to it. Enough that he was Wael-Edh’s trusty man and, in his own right, a shrewd, swift leader. He was lean, with narrow features, white streaks in the blackness of hair and close-trimmed beard.

When the bones were cast aside onto the midden and the fire was guttering low, on behalf of everyone he bade the gods good night. Men sought the lodge nearby, where they would rest before starting back in the morning. Heidhin went a different way. His torch helped him along a dim trail until he came out from under the trees to a broad clearing, where he dropped it to die. Here the moon ran above western woodland, amidst the wind and the witchy clouds.

Before him hunched a house. Frost glistened on thatch. Within it, he knew, kine slept along one wall, folk along the other, mingled with their stores and tools, as they might anywhere else; but these served Wael-Edh. Her tower hulked beyond, heavy-timbered, iron-bound, raised for her to dwell in alone with her dreams. Heidhin walked onward.

A man stepped into his path, slanted spear, and cried, “Halt!”—then, peering through the moonlight: “Oh, you, my lord. Do you want a doss?”

“No,” Heidhin said. “Dawn’s nigh, and I’ve a horse at the lodge to bear me home. First I would call on the lady.”

The guard stood unsure. “You’d not wake her, would you?”

“I do not think she has slept,” Heidhin said. Helpless, the man let him go by.

He knocked on the door of the tower. A thrall girl woke and drew the bolt. Seeing him, she held a pine splinter to her clay lamp and used it to light a second, which he took. He climbed the ladder to the loft-room.

As he awaited—they had known one another so long—Edh sat on her high stool, staring into the shadows cast by her own lamp. They wavered big and ill-formed among the beams, the chests, the pelts and hides, the things of witchcraft and the things brought along from her wanderings. In the chill she kept her cloak wrapped around her, the hood up; when she looked his way he saw her face nighted. “Hail,” she said low. A wraith out of her lips glimmered in the dull light.

Heidhin sat down on the floor, leaning back against the panel of the shut-bed. “You should rest,” he said.

“You knew I could not, this soon.”

He nodded. “Nevertheless, you should. You grind yourself thin.”

He thought he glimpsed a half smile. “I have been doing that for many years, and am still above ground.”

Heidhin shrugged. “Well, then, sleep when you can.” It would be fitfully. “What have you been thinking of?”

“Everything, of course,” she said wearily. “What these victories mean. What we should do next.”

He sighed. “I thought so. But why? It is clear.”

The hood crinkled and uncrinkled, shadowful, as she took her head. “It is not. I understand you, Heidhin. A Roman host has fallen into our hands, and you believe we should do what warriors of old did, give everything to the gods. Cut throats, break weapons, smash wagons, cast all into a bog, that Tiw be slaked.”

“A mighty offering. It would quicken the blood in our men.”

“And enrage the Romans.”

Heidhin grinned. “I know the Romans better than you, my Edh.” Did she wince? He hastened on: “I mean, I have dealt with them and theirs, I, a war chieftain. The goddess says little to you about such everyday things, does she? I say the Romans are not like our kind. They are coldly forethoughtful—”

“Therefore you understand them well.”

“Men do call me cunning,” he said, unabashed. “Then let us make use of my wits. I tell you a slaughter will rouse the tribes and bring new warriors to us, more than it will set the foe on vengeance.” He donned gravity. “Also, the gods themselves will be glad. They will remember.”

“I have thought on this,” she told him. “The word from Burhmund is that he means to spare their men—”

Heidhin stiffened. “Ha,” he said. “Thus. He, half Roman.”

“Only in knowing them still better than you. He deems a butchery unwise. It could well enrage them into bringing their full strength against us, whatever that costs them elsewhere in their realm.” Edh raised a palm. “But wait. He also knows what the gods may want—what we here at home may think the gods want. He is sending a headman of theirs to me.”

Heidhin sat straight. “Well, that’s something!”

“Burhmund’s word is that we may kill the man in the halidom if we must, but his rede is that we stay our hands. A hostage, to swap for something worth more—” She was still for a bit. “I have spent this while mutely calling on Niaerdh. Does she want yon blood or no? She has given me no sign. I believe that means no.”

“The Anses—”

Seated above him, Edh said with sudden stiffness: “Let Woen and the rest grumble at Niaerdh, Nerha, if they like. I serve her. The captive shall live.”

He scowled at the floor and gnawed his lip.

“You know I am foe to Rome, and why,” she went on. “But this talk of bringing it down in wreck—more and more, as the war wears on, I come to see that as mere rant. It is not truly what the goddess bade me say, it is what I have told myself she wants me to say. I must needs utter it again tonight, or the gathering would have been bewildered and shaken. Yet can we really win anything but Roman withdrawal from these lands?”

“Can we gain even that much if we forsake the gods?” he blurted.

“Or is it your hopes of power and fame that we may have to forgo?” she snapped.

He glared. “From none but you would I brook that.”

She left the stool. Her voice went soft. “Heidhin, old friend, I am sorry. I meant no hurt. We should never lie at odds, we twain.”

He rose too. “I did swear once . . . I would follow you.”

She took both his hands in hers. “And well you have. How very well.” When she threw her head back to look at him, the hood fell off and he saw her face lamplit. Shadows filled the furrows in it and underlined the cheekbones but masked the gray in the brown tresses. “We’ve fared far together.”

“I did not swear I would blindly obey,” he muttered. Nor had he done so. Sometimes he went dead against her wishes. Afterward he showed her he had been right.

“Far and far,” she whispered as though she had not heard. Hazel eyes sought the murk behind him. “Did we end here, east of the great river, because the years and miles had worn us out? We should have wandered on, maybe to the Batavi. Their land opens onto the sea.”

“The Bructeri made us wholly welcome. They did everything for you that you asked.”

“Oh, yes. I was thankful. I am. But someday—a single kingdom of all the tribes—and I shall again watch the star of Niaerdh shine above the sea.”

“No such kingdom can be unless first we bleed Rome dry.”

“Do not talk of that. Later we shall have to. Now let us remember gentle things.”

Sunrise reddened heaven when he bade her farewell. Dew sheened on the mud outside. Black above it, he passed the holy grove, bound for the lodge and his horse. Peace had been on her brow, she was ready for sleep, but his fingers drew taut around the hilt of his knife.

4

Castra Vetera, Old Camp, stood near the Rhine, about where Xanten in Germany did when Everard and Floris were born. But the whole of this land in this age was Germany—Germania, reaching across upper Europe from the North Sea to the Baltic, from the River Scheldt to the Vistula, and south to the Danube. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the German state would arise out of it in the course of almost two thousand years. Today it was wilderness broken here and there by cultivation, grazing, villages, steadings, held by tribes that came and went in war, migration, eternal turbulence.

Westward, in what would be France, Belgium, Luxembourg, much of the Rhineland, the dwellers were Gauls, of Celtic language and Celtic ways. With a high culture and military capability, they had dominated the Germans with whom they were in contact—though the distinction was never absolute, and blurred in the border country—until Caesar conquered them. That was not so long ago, assimilation was not yet so far along, that memory of the old free days had died out of everyone.

It had seemed the same would befall their rivals to the east; but when Augustus lost three legions in the Teutoburg Forest, he decided to draw the frontier of the Empire at the Rhine rather than the Elbe, and only a few German tribes stayed under Roman rule. For the outermost of these, such as the Batavi and Frisii, it was not actual occupation. Like native states in India of the British Raj, they were required to pay tribute and, in general, behave as the nearest proconsul directed. They furnished a good many auxiliary troops, originally volunteers, lately conscripts. It was they that first rose in revolt; then they got allies from among their kindred to the east, while southwest of them Gauls took fire.

“Fire—I hear of a sibyl who prophesies that Rome itself shall burn,” said Julius Classicus. “Tell me about her.”

Burhmund’s bulk shifted uneasily in the saddle. “With words like that, she brought the Bructeri, Tencteri, and Chamavi to our cause,” he acknowledged, with somewhat less enthusiasm than might have been expected. “Her fame has overleaped the rivers to lay hold on us.” He glanced at Everard. “You must have heard of her too as you fared. Your trail would have crossed hers, and yon tribes have not forgotten. Warriors of theirs have been coming to us because they learned she was here, calling for war.”

“Certainly I heard,” lied the Patrolman, “but I did not know what to make of those stories. Do tell more.”

The three sat mounted under a gray sky, in a bleak breeze, near the road from Old Camp. It was a military road, paved and arrow-straight, running south along the Rhine to Colonia Agrippinensis. The Roman legions had been here that many years. Now those remnants of them that had held this fortress through fall and winter moved under guard toward Novesium, which had yielded much more quickly.

They were a sorry lot to behold, ragged, dirty, skeletally thin. Most shambled empty-eyed, making no attempt to form ranks. They were mainly Gauls, both regulars and auxiliaries, and it was to the Empire of Gaul that they had surrendered and pledged allegiance, according to the demands and cajolements of Classicus’s spokesmen. Not that they could have stood off a determined attack, as they had done again and again early in the siege. The blockade had brought them down to eating grass and whatever cockroaches a man might catch.

Their escort was nominal, a handful of fellow Gauls, well fed and smartly outfitted, soldiers themselves before they became followers of Classicus and his colleagues. More men kept watch over the ox-drawn wagons that lumbered behind, laden with spoils. Those were Germans, a few legionary veterans officering backwoodsmen armed with spears, axes, and long swords. It was plain to see that Claudius Civilis—Burhmund the Batavian—had limited faith in his Celtic associates.

He frowned. He was a big man, blunt-featured, his left eye blind and milky from an infection in the past, the right coldly blue. Since disavowing Rome he had let his beard grow, brown shot with white, and had his hair, also unclipped, dyed red in barbarian wise. But ring mail rustled about his body, a Roman helmet shone on his head, and at his hip hung a legionary blade meant for stabbing, not hewing.

“It would take the whole day to speak of Wael-Edh—Veleda,” he said. “Nor am I sure it would be lucky. That’s a strange goddess she serves.”

“Wael-Edh!” whispered in Everard’s hearing. “Her proper name, then. Latin speakers would naturally change it a little—” The three men were using the language of the Romans, the one they had in common.

Startled in his tension, Everard involuntarily glanced up. He saw only cloud cover. Above it, Janne Floris hovered on a timecycle. A woman could not very well have ridden into the rebel camp. Though he could have explained her presence away, the risk of trouble was idiotic to assume, on a mission dicey enough. Besides, she was most useful where she was. Her instruments pierced the deck, ranged widely, magnified or amplified when she desired. Through the electronics in his ornamental-looking headband, she saw and heard what he did, while bone conduction brought her words to him. Should he get into serious difficulties, she might be able to rescue him. That depended on whether she could do it without creating a sensation. No telling how these people would react—even the most sophisticated Roman believed in omens, if nothing else—and the object of the game was to preserve history. If necessary, you let your partner die.

“Anyhow,” Burhmund went on, obviously anxious to dismiss the subject, “her fierceness is lessening. Perhaps the goddess herself wants an end to the war. What gain in it, after we’ve won what we began it for?” His sigh gusted in to the wind. “I too, I’ve had my fill of strife.”

Classicus bit his lip. He was a short man, which may have fueled the ambition that blazed in him, though an aquiline countenance betokened the royal descent he claimed. In Roman service he had commanded the Treverian cavalry, and it was in the city of that Gallic tribe, Trier to be, that he and others first conspired to take advantage of the German uprising. “We have dominion to win,” he snapped, “greatness, wealth, glory.”

“Well, I’m a man of peace myself,” Everard said on impulse. If he could not stop what was to happen this day, he must at least, in so small and futile a way, protest it.

He sensed skepticism in the looks upon him. He’d better fend it off. He, a pacifist? His persona was that of a Goth, come from lands that would one day be Poland, where his tribe still dwelt. Everard Amalaric’s son was among its king’s—its war chief’s—numerous progeny, thus of a social standing that entitled him to speak freely to Burhmund. Born too late for any inheritance worth mentioning, he went into the amber trade, personally conducting the costly ware down to the Adriatic, which was where he acquired his accented Latin. Eventually he quit and struck off westward because he felt adventurous and had heard rumors of fortunes to be made in these parts. Also, he hinted, some trouble at home needed a few years to cool down.

It was an unusual but not unbelievable story. A large and formidable man, who carried little worth robbing, might well travel by himself without ever being assaulted. Indeed, he would be welcome most places, a break in monotony, a bearer of news and tales and songs. Claudius Civilis had been glad to receive Everard when the wanderer arrived. Whether or not Everard had anything helpful to tell, he offered a bit of distraction from the long campaigning.

But it was not believable that he had never fought, or that he lost any sleep after having cut a human being apart. Before he should be suspected as a spy, the Patrolman said fast, “Oh, I’ve had my share of battles, and single combats too. Whoever calls me coward will feed the ravens before nightfall.” He paused. I’ve a notion I can appeal to something in Burhmund, make him open up to me a little. We need an idea of how he, the key man in all this, thinks, if we’re to discover how it is that the time stream forks—and which is the right course, which the wrong one, for us and our world. “But I’m sensible. When you can do it, trade is better than war.”

“You will find rich commerce among us in future,” Classicus declared. “The Empire of Gaul—” Pensively: “Why not? Bring the amber straight west, overland as well as by sea. . . . I will think about that when I have time.”

“Hold,” Burhmund interrupted. “I’ve a task.” He put heels to horse and trotted off.

Classicus’s regard followed him warily. The Batavian rode to the line of surrendered troops. The tail of the sad procession was just passing by. He drew alongside a man, almost the only one, who walked erect and proudly. Ignoring practicality, the man had wrapped a toga, clean and pipe-clayed, around his starveling frame. Burhmund leaned over and spoke to him.

“What’s gotten into his head?” Classicus muttered. Immediately he turned his own and glowered at Everard. He must have remembered the newcomer would overhear. Friction between allies should not be displayed to outsiders.

I’ve got to divert him, or he may well order me begone, the Patrolman considered. Aloud: “The Empire of Gaul, did you say? Do you mean that part of the Roman Empire?”

He foreknew the answer. “It is the independent nation of all the Gallic peoples. I have proclaimed it. I am its emperor.”

Everard acted duly impressed. “I beg your pardon, sir! I hadn’t heard, being so lately arrived.”

Classicus smiled sardonically. There was more to him than vainglory. “The empire itself is very lately founded. It will be a while before I reign from a throne instead of a saddle.”

Everard drew him out. That was easy. Uncouth and uninfluential, this Goth was nevertheless somebody to talk to and, after all, an impressive figure of a man, who had seen a lot, whose interest therefore held a subtly unique flattery.

Classicus’s dream was fascinating in detail, and by no means insane. He would detach Gaul from Rome. That would cut off Britain. Thinly garrisoned, its natives restive and resentful, the island should presently fall to him. Everard knew Classicus grossly underestimated Roman strength and determination. It was a natural mistake. He could not tell that the civil wars were over and Vespasian would henceforward rule competently, unchallenged.

“But we require allies,” he admitted. “Civilis shows signs of wavering—” He clipped his mouth shut, again realizing he had said too much. “What are your intentions, Everard?” he demanded.

“I am only rambling around, sir,” the Patrolman assured him. Get the tone right, neither humble nor arrogant. “You honor me by sharing your plans. The trade prospects—”

Classicus made a dismissive gesture and looked away. Hardness settled on his face. He’s thinking, he’s reaching a decision that he may have been brooding on. I can guess what. Chill went along Everard’s backbone.

Burhmund had completed his brief discussion with the Roman. He issued an order to a guard, who accompanied the prisoner from the train toward the crude wattle—and-daub shelters the Germans had made for themselves during the siege. Meanwhile Burhmund rode over to a score of bully boys who sat mounted ten or fifteen yards off, his household troops. He addressed the smallest and slenderest of them. The lad nodded obedience and hurried toward the abandoned encampment himself, overtaking the Roman and escort. Some Germans were there yet, to keep an eye on the civilians left in the fortress. They had extra horses, supplies, and equipment he could claim.

Burhmund returned to his companions. “What was that about?” Classicus asked sharply.

“A legate of theirs, as I thought he must be,” Burhmund said. “I had resolved I would send one such to Veleda. Guthlaf goes ahead, my fastest rider, to let her know.”

“Why?”

“I have heard grumbles among my men. I know folk at home feel the same. We have had our victories, but we have suffered our defeats as well, and the war drags on. At Ascibergium—I will be honest—we lost the flower of our army, and I suffered injuries that kept me days disabled. Fresh soldiers have been reaching the enemy. Men say it’s high time we gave the gods a blood-feast, and here is this herd of foes dropped into our hands. We should slay them, wreck their gear, offer everything to the gods. Then we shall overcome.”

Everard heard a gasp from high above.

“If it will satisfy your followers, you can.” Classicus sounded more eager than cool, though the Romans had weaned the Gauls away from human sacrifice.

Burhmund cast him a steely one-eyed stare. “What? Those defenders surrendered to you, they gave you their oath.” It was clear he had disliked that idea and had gone along with it only because he must.

Classicus shrugged. “They’ll be worthless till we’ve fed them up, and afterward unreliable. Kill them if you wish.”

Burhmund stiffened. “I do not wish. And it would provoke the Romans further. Unwise.” He hesitated. “However, best we make a gesture. I am sending Veleda that dignitary. She can choose what to do with him, and persuade the people it’s the right thing.”

“As you will. Now, for my part, I have business of my own. Farewell.” Classicus clucked to his horse and cantered southward. Rapidly he passed the wagons and prisoners, dwindled in sight, disappeared where the road entered a thick stand of forest.

Yonder, Everard knew, most of the Germans were camped. Some had recently come in Burhmund’s train, some had lain outside Castra Vetera for months and were sick of huts grown filthy. Though still thinly leaved, the woods provided windbreak; they were clean and alive, like the woods of home; the wind in their treetops spoke with the voices of the darkling gods. Everard suppressed a shudder.

Burhmund squinted after his retreating confederate. “I wonder what,” he said in his native tongue. “Hm.” It could not have been a conscious idea, just a vague hunch, that made him wheel about, ride after the man in the toga and his keeper, gesture at his bodyguards. They hurried to meet him. Everard ventured to join them.

Guthlaf the courier emerged from among the huts, riding a fresh pony and leading three remounts. He trotted to the river and boarded a waiting ferry. It shoved off.

Approaching the legate, Everard got a good look at him. From his appearance, swarthily handsome despite the haggardness, he was of Italian birth. He had stopped upon command and waited with antique impassivity for whatever might befall him.

“I want to take care of this at once, lest something go awry,” Burhmund said. To the Gaul, in Latin: “Go back to your duty.” To a pair of his warriors: “You, Saeferth, Hnaef, I want you to bring this fellow to Wael-Edh among the Bructeri. Guthlaf’s barely gone, carrying word of it, but that’s as well. You’ll have to fare much easier lest you kill the Roman, the shape he’s in.” Half kindly, he told the captive in Latin: “You are going to a holy woman. I think you will be well treated if you behave yourself.”

Awe upon them, the designated warriors hustled their charge toward the former encampment to prepare for the journey. Floris’s voice trembled in Everard’s head. “Ach, nie, de arme—That must be Munius Lupercus. You know what will happen to him.”

The Patrolman subvocalized his answer. “I know what will happen all around.”

“Is there nothing we can do?”

“Not a God damned thing. This is written. Hang tough, Janne.”

“You look grim, Everard,” said Burhmund in his Germanic tongue.

“I am . . . weary,” Everard replied. Knowledge of the language had been instilled in him before he left the twentieth century (as well as Gothic, just in case). It was akin to what he had used in Britain some four centuries futureward, when the descendants of tribesmen on these North Sea shores were invading it.

“I too,” Burhmund murmured. For an instant he seemed oddly, endearingly vulnerable. “We’ve both been long on the trail, eh? Let us rest while we may.”

“Your path has been harder than mine, I think,” Everard said.

“Well, a man fares easiest alone. And earth clings to the boots when blood has made it muddy.”

A thrill drove his forebodings from Everard. This was what he’d hoped for, had been working toward since he arrived here two days ago. In many ways the Germans were childlike, unreserved, devoid of any concept of privacy. More than Julius Classicus, who simply displayed his ambitions, Claudius Civilis—Burhmund—yearned to speak into a sympathetic ear, unburden himself to somebody who laid no claims on him.

“Listen close, Janne,” Everard transmitted to Floris. “Tell me whatever questions occur to you.” In their short but intense time of ready making, he had found she was quick to understand people. Between them they might gain insight, a feel for what was going on and what it could lead to.

“I will,” she agreed jaggedly, “but I had better also keep watch on Classicus.”

“You fought for Rome since you were a youth, did you not?” Everard prompted in Germanic.

Burhmund barked a laugh. “Aye, and marched, drilled, built roads, barracked, squabbled, diced, whored, got drunk, got sick, yawned through endless dullness—the soldier’s life.”

“Yet I’ve heard you have a wife, children, landholdings.”

Burhmund nodded. “It wasn’t all pack and hike. For me and my close kinsmen, less than for the ruck of the men. We were of the kingly house, you see. Rome wanted us as much for keeping our folk quiet as for soldiering. So we made officer fast, and often got long furloughs when our units were stationed in Lower Germany. Which they were, mostly, till the troubles began. We’d go home on leave, take part in the folkmoots, speak well of Rome, besides seeing our families.” He spat. “What thanks our services gained us!”

Recollection flowed from him. The exactions of Nero’s ministers had kindled increasing anger among the tributaries, riots broke out, tax collectors and other plague dogs got killed. Civilis and a brother of his were arrested on charges of conspiracy. To Everard Burhmund said that they had merely protested, albeit in strong words. The brother was beheaded. Civilis went in chains to Rome for further interrogation, no doubt under torture, probably to be followed by crucifixion. The overthrow of Nero stalled proceedings. Galba pardoned Civilis, among various goodwill gestures, and sent him back to his duties.

Very soon Otho in turn cast Galba down, while the armies in Germany hailed Vitellius emperor and the armies in Egypt elevated Vespasian. Civilis’s debt to Galba almost got him condemned again, but that was forgotten when the Fourteenth Legion was withdrawn from Lingonian territory, taking along the auxiliaries he commanded.

Seeking to secure Gaul, Vitellius entered Treverian lands. His soldiers looted and murdered in Divodurum, Metz to be. (That helped account for the instant popular support Classicus obtained when he rebelled.) A brawl between the Batavi and the regulars could have become catastrophic but was quelled in time. Civilis took the lead in bringing matters under control. With Fabius Valens for their general, the troops marched south to aid Vitellius against Otho. Along the way Valens took large bribes from communities to keep his army from sacking them.

When he ordered the Batavi to Narbonensis, southern Gaul, to relieve beleaguered forces there, his legionaries mutinied. They cried that this would deprive them of their bravest men. The disagreement was composed and the Batavi went on as before. After he crossed the Alps and word came of another defeat for their side, at Placentia, the soldiers mutinied again, this time at his inaction. They wanted to go help.

Burhmund chuckled, deep in his throat. “He obliged us.”

The two warriors rode from the huts. The Roman was between them, clad for travel. Remounts loaded with food and gear came behind. They went down to the Rhine. The ferry was back. They boarded.

“The Othonianists tried to stop us at the Po,” Burhmund said. “That was when Valens found the legionaries had been right to keep us Germans. We swam across and cut a foothold, which we kept till the rest could follow. Once we’d forced the river, the enemy broke and fled. Great was the slaughter at Bedriacum. Shortly afterward, Otho killed himself.” He grimaced. “But Vitellius had no stronger rein on his troops. They ran wild through Italy. I saw some of that. It was ugly. This wasn’t an enemy land they’d taken, it was the land they were supposed to defend. Wasn’t it?”

That might have been part of the reason why the Fourteenth grew restless and snarly. A riot between the regulars and the auxiliaries nearly became a pitched battle. Civilis was among the officers who got things quieted. The new Emperor Vitellius ordered the legionaries to Britain and attached the Batavi to his palace troops. “But that wasn’t good either. He had no grasp of how to handle men. Mine got slack, drank on duty, fought in barracks. At last he returned us to Germany. He could do naught else, unless he wanted blood spilled, which could have included his precious own. We were sick of him.”

The ferry, a broad-beamed scow with oars, had crossed the stream. The travelers debarked and vanished into the forest.

“Vespasian held Africa and Asia,” Burhmund went on. “His general Primus now landed in Italy and wrote to me. Aye, by then I had that much of a name.”

Burhmund sent word around to his widespread connections. A feckless Roman legate agreed. Men went to hold the passes of the Alps; no Vitellianist Gauls or Germans would cross northward, while the Italians and Iberians had plenty to engage their attention where they were. Burhmund called an assembly of his tribe. Vitellius’s conscription had been the last outrage they would take. They clashed blade on shield and shouted.

Already the neighboring Canninefates and Frisii knew what was afoot. Their folkmoots yelled for men to rally to the cause. A Tungrian cohort left its base and joined. German auxiliaries, bound south for Vitellius, heard the news and defected.

Two legions moved against Burhmund. He smashed them and drove the remnants into Castra Vetera. Crossing the Rhine, he won a clash near Bonna. His couriers urged the defenders of Old Camp to come forth on behalf of Vespasian. They refused. That was when he proclaimed secession, open war for the sake of freedom.

The Bructeri, Tencteri, and Chamavi entered his league. He dispatched couriers far and wide through Germany, Adventurers flocked from the wilds to his banners. Wael-Edh foretold the doom of Rome.

“And then the Gauls,” Burhmund said, “those of them Classicus and his friends could raise. Just three tribes thus far—What’s the matter?”

Everard had started at a scream that he alone heard. “Nothing,” he said. “I thought I spied a movement, but it was nothing. Weariness does that, you know.”

“They are killing them in the forest,” Floris’s voice choked. “It is ghastly. Oh, why did we have to come to this day?”

“You remember why,” he told her. “Don’t watch it.”

They could not take years to feel out the whole truth. The Patrol could ill spare that much lifespan of theirs. Moreover, this segment of space-time was unstable; the less they from the future moved about in it, the better. Everard had decided to start with a visit to Civilis several months downtime from the split in events. Preliminary scouting suggested the Batavian would be most easily accessible when he accepted the surrender of Castra Vetera; and the occasion would add a chance to meet Classicus. Everard and Floris had hoped to get sufficient information and depart before that happened which Tacitus related.

“Did Classicus instigate it?” he asked.

“I can’t be sure,” Floris said around a sob. He didn’t blame her. He would have hated witnessing the massacre himself, and he was case-hardened. “He is among the Germans, yes, but the trees interfere with seeing and the wind with sound pickup. Does he speak their language?”

“Little if any, as far as I know, but some among them know Latin—”

“Your soul is elsewhere, Everard,” Burhmund said.

“I do feel a . . . foreboding,” the Patrolman replied. Might as well give him a hint I’ve got a bit of foresight, a touch of elflore. It could come in handy later.

Burhmund’s visage was stark. “I too, though for reasons more earthly. Best I gather my trusty men. Hold aside, Everard. Your sword is keen, yes, but you’ve not marched with the legions, and I think I’ll have need of tight discipline.” The last word was Latin.

The truth reached them, borne by a horseman a-gallop out of the woods. In a suddenly rising, roaring mob, the Germans had fallen on the prisoners. The few Gallic guards scrambled out of the way. The Germans were butchering every unarmed man and smashing the treasures. They would give the gods their hecatomb.

Everard suspected Classicus had egged them on to it. That would have been simple. Classicus wanted them committed beyond the possibility of making a separate peace. No doubt Burhmund shared the suspicion, as furious as the Batavian was. But what could he do about it?

He could not even stop his barbarians when they swarmed kill-crazy from the woods into Old Camp. Fire leaped up behind the walls. Shrieks mingled with the stench of burning human flesh.

Burhmund wasn’t actually horrified. This kind of thing was common in his world. What maddened him was the disobedience and the underhandedness that had brought it on.

“I will hale them to a weaponmoot,” he growled. “I will flay them with shame. That they may know I mean it, in their sight I will cut this hair of mine, Roman-short again, and wash the dye from it. As for plighting faith to Classicus and his empire—if he mislikes what I’ll have to say about that, let him dare take arms against me.”

“I think best I go,” Everard said. “I would only be underfoot here. Maybe we will meet anew.”

When, in the unhappy days ahead of you?

5

Wind rushed bitter, driving low clouds like smoke before it. Spatters of rain flew slantwise past unrestful boughs. Hoofs splashed puddles in the trail where horses plodded, heads drooping. Saeferth rode first; Hnaef came after, leading the laden relief animals. Between them, hunched in a sodden cloak, was the Roman. With hand-signs and the like when they stopped to eat or rest, the Batavi had learned his name was Lupercus.

From around a bend appeared a group of five, surely Bructeri, for the wayfarers had reached that land. They were, however, still in the belt where nobody lived, which German tribes liked to keep around themselves. He at the forefront was gaunt as a ferret, black as a crow save where the years had strewn whiteness over hair and beard. His right hand gripped a spear. “Hold!” he cried.

Saeferth reined in. “We come peacefully, sent by our lord Burhmund to the wise-woman Wael-Edh,” he said.

The dark man nodded. “We have had word of this.”

“That can be but a short while ago, for we left well-nigh on the heels of his messenger, though we must needs fare slower.”

“Aye. Now the time has come to act swiftly. I am Heidhin, Viduhada’s son, Wael-Edh’s foremost man.”

“I recall you,” Hnaef said, “from when my lord visited her last year. What would you of us?”

“The man you bring,” Heidhin told them. “He is the one Burhmund gives to Wael-Edh, is he not?”

“Yes.”

Aware that they talked about him, Lupercus tightened. His glance went from face to face while the guttural words rolled around his head.

“She in her turn gives him to the gods,” Heidhin said. “I have watched for you that I may do the deed.”

“What, not in your halidom, with a feast to follow?” wondered Saeferth.

“I told you there is need of haste. Several great men among us would liefer keep him in hopes of ransom, did they know. We cannot afford to aggrieve them. Yet the gods are wrathful. Look about you.” Heidhin swept his spear athwart the drenched and moaning forest.

Saeferth and Hnaef could not well gainsay him. The Bructeri outnumbered them. Besides, everybody knew how he had been with the wise-woman since leaving their faraway birthland. “Witness, all, that we fully meant to seek her, and are taking your word that this is her will instead,” Saeferth spoke.

Hnaef scowled. “Let’s get it finished,” he said.

They dismounted, as did the others, and beckoned Lupercus to do likewise. He required help, though that was because he remained weak and shaky from starvation. When they bound his wrists behind him and Heidhin uncoiled a rope with a noose, his eyes widened and he drew one sharp breath. Thereafter he steadied himself on his feet and murmured what might be something to his own gods.

Heidhin looked heavenward. “Father Woen, warrior Tiw, Donar of the thunder, hear me,” he said slowly and weightily. “Know this offering for what it is, the gift of Nerha to you. Know she was never your foe nor any thief of your honor. If men have lately given you less than erstwhile, what she received was ever on behalf of all the gods. Stand again at her side, mighty ones, and bestow on us victory!”

Saefeth and Hnaef grasped Lupercus’s arms. Heidhin trod forward to him. With the spearpoint he marked on the Roman’s brow the sign of the hammer; on his breast, slashing the tunic, he cut a fylfot. Blood welled shoutingly red into the gray air. Lupercus kept silent. They led him to the ash tree Heidhin chose, tossed the rope over a branch, laid the noose about his neck. “Oh, Julia,” he called softly. Two of Heidhin’s men hauled him aloft while the rest beat sword on shield and howled. He kicked the wind until Heidhin drove the spear into him, up the belly to the heart.

When the rest had been done that should be, Heidhin said to Saeferth and Hanaef, “Come along. I will guest you at my hall ere you go back to lord Burhmund.”

“What shall we tell him about this?” asked Hnaef.

“The truth,” answered Heidhin. “Tell the whole host. At last the gods have gotten their rightful share as of old. Now they ought wholeheartedly to fight for us.”

The Germans rode off. A raven flapped around the dead man, perched on his shoulder, pecked and swallowed. Another came, and another, and another. Their cries rang hoarse through the wind that rocked him to and fro.

6

Everard allowed Floris two days at home for rest and recovery. She was no weak sister, but she was a civilized person with a conscience, who had been witness to horror. Luckily, she hadn’t known any of the victims; there should be no survivor’s guilt to overcome. “Ask for psychotech help if the nightmares won’t go away,” he suggested. “Of course, we also have to think things over, in the light of what we’ve now directly observed, and figure out a program for ourselves.”

Toughened though he was, he too welcomed a respite in which to come to terms with the sights and sounds and smells of Old Camp. He walked the Amsterdam streets for hours on end, bathing in the decency of the twentieth-century Netherlands. Otherwise he was at the Patrol office retrieving data files—history, anthropology, political and physical geography, everything available—and having the most essential-looking items imprinted.

His advance preparation had been on the cursory side. Not that he now acquired an encyclopedic knowledge. It wasn’t available. Germanic prehistory drew few investigators; they scattered across a vast stretch of miles and centuries. So much else appeared to be so much more interesting and important. Hard information was sparse. Nobody besides him and Floris had personally researched Civilis. The rebellion hadn’t seemed worth the considerable hazards of fieldwork, when nothing came of it but a change for the better in Roman treatment of a few obscure people.

And maybe that is all, Everard thought. Maybe those variations in text have a safe origin that the Patrol detectives missed, and we’re chasing shadows. Certainly we have no evidence of anybody trying to monkey with events. Well, whatever the answer, we’ve got to find it.

On the third day he phoned Floris from his hotel and proposed dinner, as they had had on their first meeting. “We’ll relax, talk small talk, touch on our mission lightly if at all. Tomorrow we’ll lay our plans. Okay?” At his request, she named the restaurant and met him there.

The Ambrosia dealt in Surinam-Caribbean food. On Stadthouderskade, in a quiet neighborhood near the Museumplein, it was intimate, right on a canal. Besides the pretty waitress, the black cook came forth to discuss their meal with them beforehand in fluent English. The wine was just right, too. Maybe the sense of evanescence, this warmth and light and savor no more than a moment in an unbounded darkness, something that could come to never having been, gave depth to pleasure.

“I will walk back,” said Floris at the end. “The evening is so beautiful.” Her place was a mile or two distant.

“I’ll see you to your door, if I may,” Everard replied gladly.

She smiled. Her hair shone against the dusk in the windows like remembered sunlight. “Thank you. I hoped.”

They went out into mild air. It smelled of spring, for rain had cleansed it earlier and traffic was rather thin, mostly a background pulsing. A canal boat chugged by, wake a-glisten. “Thank you,” she repeated. “That was delightful. Exactly what would cheer me up.”

“Well, good.” He took tobacco pouch from pocket and started filling his pipe. “Though I’m sure you’d have rebounded quite fast in any case.”

They turned from the water and passed between old facades. “Yes, I have met terrible things before,” she assented. The mood at dinner, which they had both carefully maintained carefree, was slipping off, though her tone stayed level and her expression calm. “Not violence on that scale, no, but men dead or wounded after fights, and mortal sickness, and—many cruel fates.”

Everard nodded. “Yeah, this era of ours has seen all hell let out for noon, but scarcely more than others. The main difference is, nowadays they imagine it could be better.”

Floris sighed. “At first it was romantic, the living past, but then—”

“Well, you did pick a mighty rough milieu. At that, though, the real guignol was in Rome.”

She gave him a close look. “I cannot believe you harbor any illusions about the barbarians being nature’s noblemen. I soon lost mine. They were every bit as ruthless. They were simply less efficient.”

Everard struck match to bowl. “Why did you choose them for your specialty, if I may ask? Sure, somebody had to do the job, but with your capabilities you could have taken your pick of a lot of societies.”

She smiled. “They tried to persuade me of that, after I graduated from the Academy. One agent spent hours telling me how I would like his Duchy of Brabant. He was sweet. But I was stubborn.”

“How come?”

“The more I think back, the less clear to me my motives are. It seemed at the time that—Yes, if you don’t mind, I would like to tell you.”

He held his arm toward her. She took it. Her stride easily matched his and was more supple. His free hand cradled the little hearth of his pipe. “Please do,” he said. “I haven’t pried into your records beyond the indispensable minimum, but I can’t help feeling curious. They wouldn’t contain the true explanation anyway.”

“I suppose it goes back to my parents.” She was gazing beyond them both, the tiniest line between her brows. Her voice flowed almost dreamily. “I am their only child, born in 1950.” And by now a good deal older, along your world line, than the calendar shows, he knew. “My father grew up in what was the Dutch East Indies. Do you recollect, we Dutch founded Jakarta, and our name for it was Batavia? He was young when first the Nazi Germans invaded the Netherlands, then later the Japanese overran Southeast Asia. He fought them as a sailor in what navy we had left. My mother, at home, a schoolgirl, was involved with the resistance, the underground press.”

“Proud people,” Everard murmured.

“My parents met and married after the war, settled in Amsterdam. They are still alive, retired, he from his business, she from teaching history, Dutch history.” Yes, he thought, you return from each expedition to the day you left, because you don’t want to miss time you can see them in before they die, never knowing what you truly do. Bad enough that they’re disappointed of grandchildren. “They did not boast about their parts in the war. But I was . . . was bound? . . . yes, bound to live always with the knowledge of it, and with the whole past of my country. Patriotism? Call it what you like. These are my folk. What made them what they are? What seed, what roots? The origins fascinated me, and at the university I studied to be an archaeologist.”

Everard knew that already, as well as the fact that she had been an athlete at close to championship standards and had traveled off the tourist routes into a couple of difficult, somewhat dangerous places. It caught the attention of a Patrol recruiter, who got her to take the tests and, when she passed, revealed their meaning. His induction had gone similarly.

“Just the same,” he said, “you elected a culture where a woman is badly hampered.”

She responded a little sharply. “You must at least have seen a résumé showing that I managed. You must know about Patrol disguises.”

“Sorry. No offense. They’re fine for short visits.” It wasn’t far uptime from this year that things like whiskers and vocal registers could be faked to near perfection. Coarse, baggy fabrics, suitably padded, hid curves. Hands might be a giveaway, but hers were big for a woman and if she claimed youthfulness, their shape and lack of hair need not excite comment. “But—” Occasions could too readily arise when clothes should come off among companions, as when bathing. Or something like a fight could, perhaps brought on by a countenance that remained inescapably muliebral-effeminate, barbarians would think. No matter how well trained, a woman, in a situation where high-tech weapons were forbidden, lacked the upper-body musculature and surge strength of a man.

“Limited uses,” she admitted. “It was often frustrating. I actually considered—” She broke off.

“Changing your sex?” he inquired gently after half a minute.

Her nod was stiff.

“It needn’t have been permanent, you know.” Future operations didn’t involve surgery or hormone shots; they took place at the molecular level, rebuilding the organism from the DNA up. “Of course, it’s a pretty big deal. You’d only do it for a mission years long, at a minimum.”

Her glance challenged him. “Would you?”

“Hell, no!” he exclaimed. Thereupon he thought, Was that too strong a reaction? Intolerant? “But remember, I was born in Middle America, 1924.”

Floris laughed and squeezed his arm. “I doubted my mind, my basic personality, could change. Male, I would be a complete homosexual. In that society, a worse handicap than being a woman. Which, furthermore, I like.”

He grinned. “That’s been obvious right along.”

Down, boy. No personal involvement on the job. It could prove lethal. Intellectually, I wish she were a man.

Her feeling must have corresponded, for she shied off as well and they went on a while without speaking. It was a companionable silence, though. They were crossing the park, greenness fragrant around them, lamplight falling through leafage to dapple the path, when he broke it:

“In spite of this, I gather, you’ve carried out a major project. I didn’t pull the file on it, expecting you’d rather tell me yourself, which would be better.” He had hinted a time or two, but she had avoided, or evaded, the topic. That wasn’t hard, when they had such a heap of material to cover.

He heard and saw her drew breath. “Yes, I must,” she agreed. “You need to know what experience I have. A long story, but I could make a start here.” She hesitated. “I have come to feel more easy with you. At first I was terrified. I, to work with an Unattached agent?”

“You hid it well,” he drawled around a puff on his pipe.

“One learns in the field to hide emotions, no? But tonight I can talk freely. You are a, a comfortable kind of man.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

“I lived fifteen years with the Frisii,” she told him.

He caught the pipe before it hit the pavement. “Huh?”

“From A.D. 22 to 37,” she continued earnestly. “The Patrol wanted knowledge, more than a sketch, of life at the far western end of the Germanic range, in the period when Roman influence was replacing Celtic. Specifically, they were concerned about the upheavals among the tribes that followed the murder of Arminius. The consequences were potentially large.”

“But nothing alarming turned up, eh? Whereas Civilis, whom the Patrol figured it could safely ignore—Well, it’s staffed by fallible humans. And, of course, a detailed report on a typical society is valuable in a lot of different contexts. Go on, please.”

“Colleagues helped me establish myself. My persona was a young woman of the Chasuarii, widowed when the Cherusci attacked. She fled to Frisian territory with some possessions and a pair of men who had served her husband and stayed faithful to her. The headman of the village we found received us generously. I did bring in gold as well as news; and to them, hospitality was sacred.”

Didn’t hurt that you were, are, almighty attractive.

“Before long, I married a younger son of his,” Floris said, resolutely matter-of-fact. “My ‘servants’ excused themselves to go on a ‘venture’ and were never heard of again. Everybody supposed they had come to grief. How many ways there were to perish!”

“And?” Everard watched her profile. Vermeer might have summoned it from the surrounding twilight, under its cap of gold.

“Those were hard years. I was often homesick, sometimes in despair. But then I would think how I was learning, discovering, exploring a whole universe of ways and beliefs, knowledge, skills, people. I became very fond of the people. They were good-hearted in their rough way—within the tribe, that is—and my Garulf and I . . . we grew close. I bore him two children, and secretly made sure they would live. He hoped for more, naturally, but that was another thing I saw to, and it was common for a woman to go barren.” Her mouth bent ruefully upward. “He had his others by a farmhand girl. She and I got along, she deferred to me and—Never mind. It was a normal, accepted thing, no slur on me, and . . . I knew that someday I would be gone.”

“How did that happen?” Everard asked low.

Her voice flattened. “Garulf died. He was hunting aurochs, and a bull gored him. I grieved, but it did simplify matters for me. I should have left well before, disappeared like my attendants, but he and our children—boys in their early teens, which meant they were nearly men. Garulf’s brothers would see to their welfare.”

Everard nodded. His studies had taught him that the ancient Germans hallowed the relationship between uncle and nephew. Among the tragedies Burhmund, Civilis, endured was a break with a sister’s son, who fought and died in the Roman army.

“Nevertheless it hurt to leave them,” Floris ended. “I said I was going away for a while to mourn alone, and let them wonder ever afterward what became of me.”

And you wonder what became of them, and no doubt always shall, Everard thought. Unless, scanning from afar, you’ve followed their lives till their deaths. But I expect you’re wiser than that. So much for the adventure and glamour of service in the Time Patrol.

Floris gulped. Swallowing a few tears? Forlorn gaiety followed. “You can imagine what a cosmetic rejuvenation I needed when I returned! And hot baths, electric lights, books, shows, airplanes, everything!”

“Not least, being equal again,” Everard added.

“Yes, yes. Women had a high standing, they were more free than they would be later until the nineteenth century, but still—oh, yes.”

“It seems Veleda was out—and-out dominant.”

“That was different. She spoke for the gods, I think.”

We need to make sure.

“The mission was terminated several years ago on my personal world line,” Floris said. “My subsequent efforts have been less ambitious. Until now.”

Everard bit hard on his pipestem. “M-m, we do have that problem of sex. I don’t want to fool around with disguises, except maybe briefly. Too many limitations.”

She halted. Perforce he did. They were close to a lamp. It gave her eyes a cat-gleam. She raised her voice. “I will not merely sit in the sky and watch you, Agent Everard. I will not.”

A bicyclist sibilated past, threw them a look, continued on his way.

“It’d be useful, having you with me on the ground,” Everard granted. “Not constantly. You must agree it’s often best if one partner stays in reserve. But when we get down to the real Sherlock Holmes work, then you, with your experience—The question is, how can we?”

Turning from angry to eager, she pressed her advantage. “I will be your wife. Or your concubine or handmaiden or whatever suits the circumstances. It is not unheard of among the Germani, that a woman accompanies a man when he travels.”

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.

Two one-person shelters rested side by side in soft radiance, and savory odors drifted from a cook unit, technology futureward of his and her birthtime. Just the same, after he had gotten his horses settled by hers, Everard kindled firewood he had prepared earlier. They ate in musing silence, then turned off the lamp. The cook unit became another shadow, unobtrusively cleaning up. They sat down on the grass by the flames. Neither had said anything about it; they simply knew, in some blind way, that this was right for them.

A breeze wandered chilly. Now and then an owl hooted, low, as if asking a question of an oracle. Treetops glimmered like a sea beneath the stars. The Milky Way stretched hoar above them in the north. Higher gleamed the Great Bear, which men here knew as the Wain of the Sky Father. But what do they call it in Edh’s home country? wondered Everard. Wherever that is. If Janne didn’t recognize the name “Alvaring,” then it’s so obscure that nobody in the Patrol has heard of it.

He lit his pipe. The fire crackled, gave him its own smoke, brought Floris’s face out of the dark in flickery highlights across the braids she had uncoiled and the strong bones. “I think we’ve got to search pastward,” he said.

She nodded. “These last few days, they have confirmed Tacitus, have they not?”

Throughout them, he had necessarily still been the operative on the ground, she observing from on high. But her role had been as active as his. He was confined to his immediate vicinity. She scanned widely, and then dispatched her minute robotic spies by night to lurk unseen and relay what went on beneath selected roofs.

They witnessed—The senate of Colonia knew its position was desperate. Could they get terms of surrender less than disastrous, and would those be honored? The tribe of the Tencteri, living across the Rhine from them, sent envoys proposing unity independent of Rome. Among their demands was that the city walls be razed. Colonia demurred; it would accept only a loose league, and unhindered passage over the river only by daylight, until usage had bred more trust. It also proposed that the mediators of any such treaty be Civilis and Veleda. The Tencteri agreed. About then, Civilis-Burhmund and Classicus arrived.

Classicus would as soon, or sooner, have Colonia given to sack. Burhmund was reluctant. Among other reasons for that, the city held a son of his, taken for a hostage in the ambiguous period last year when he was still ostensibly fighting to make Vespasian emperor. Despite everything that had happened since, the boy was well treated, and Burhmund stood to get him back. Veleda’s influence could make a negotiated peace possible.

It did.

“Yeah,” Everard said. “I guess the rest will go according to the book too.” Colonia would yield, suffer no harm, and join the rebel alliance. It would, however, get new hostages, Burhmund’s wife and sister and a daughter of Classicus. That those men would lay so much on the line spoke of more than realpolitik, the value of the agreement; it spoke of Veleda’s power.

(“How many divisions does the Pope have?” Stalin would gibe. His successors would find it had never mattered. In the long run, humans live mainly by their dreams, and die by them.)

“Well, we are not at the divergence point yet,” Floris said needlessly. “We are exploring the background of it.”

“And we’re stiffening our notion that Veleda is a key to it all. Do you think we—meaning you, I suppose—could approach her directly and get acquainted?”

Floris shook her head. “No. Especially not now, when she has isolated herself. Probably she is in a state of emotional, perhaps religious crisis. An interruption could bring on . . . anything.”

“Uh-huh.” Everard puffed on his pipe for a minute. “Religion—Did you hear Heidhin’s speech to the army yesterday, Janne?”

“In part. I knew you were there, taking note.”

“You’re not an American. Nor are you any of your Calvinist ancestors. I suspect you don’t appreciate what he was doing.”

She held her hands toward the fire and waited.

“If ever I heard a stem-winding, hellfire—and-damnation revival sermon, throwing the fear of the Lord into the meeting, Heidhin delivered it,” Everard said. “Almighty effective, too. There won’t be any more Castra Vetera atrocities.”

Floris shivered. “I should hope not.”

“But . . . the whole approach. . . . I realize it wasn’t unknown to the Classical world. Especially after Jews were living everywhere around the Mediterranean. The prophets of the Old Testament came to have their influence even on paganism. But up here, among the Nordics—wouldn’t a speaker have appealed to their machismo? At most, to their obligation to abide by a promise?”

“Yes, of course. Their gods are cruel, but, well, tolerant. Which will make them, the people, vulnerable to the Christian missionaries.”

“Veleda seems to have hit the same unshielded spot,” Everard said thoughtfully, “six or seven hundred years before any Christian missionaries reach these parts.”

“Veleda,” Floris murmured. “Wael-Edh. Edh the Foreign, Edh the Strange. She has borne her message, whatever it is, across Germany. Tacitus Two says she will carry it back there after Civilis falls—and the faith of the Germans will begin to change—Yes, I believe we must follow her spoor through the past, to wherever she began.”

9

The months toiled on, slowly grinding down Burhmund’s victory.

Tacitus would record how it happened, the confusions and mistakes, dissensions and treacheries, while the weight of Roman reinforcement inexorably mounted. Already then, memory would have blurred or lost much and any single man staring at the wound from which his life drained would be quite forgotten. Such details as did survive are of interest, but for the most part unnecessary to understanding the end result. A sketch suffices.

At first Burhmund continued to enjoy success. He occupied the country of the Sunici and recruited intensively among them. At the Moselle River he defeated a band of Imperialist Germans, took some into his host, and chased the rest and their leader south.

That was a bad error. While he struggled through the Belgic woods, Classicus sat idle and Tutor was fatally slow to occupy the defenses of the Rhine and the Alps. The Twenty-first Legion took advantage, crossing into Gaul. There it linked with its auxiliaries, including a cavalry troop commanded by Julius Briganticus, nephew and implacable enemy of Civilis. Tutor was beaten, his Treveri routed. Before then, a rebel attempt on the Sequani had met disaster, and Roman units had begun moving in from Italy, Spain, and Britain.

Petillius Cerialis was now in overall charge of the Imperial effort. Though worsted nine years before by Boadicea in Britain, this relative of Vespasian had since redeemed himself by taking a major part in the capture of Rome from the Vitellianists. At Moguntiacum, Mainz to be, he sent the Gallic conscripts home, declaring that his legions would be ample. The gesture practically completed the pacification of Gaul.

Thereupon he entered Augusta Treverorum, Trier to be, city of Classicus and Tutor, birthplace of the Gallic rebellion. He gave a general amnesty and took those units that had defected back into his army. Addressing an assembly of Treveri and Lingones in bleakly reasonable style, he convinced them that they had nothing to gain and everything to lose by further insurgency.

Burhmund and Classicus had regrouped their scattered forces, minus a substantial contingent that Cerialis had trapped. They sent a herald to him, offering him the imperium of Gaul if he would join them. He merely passed the letter on to Rome.

Busy with the political side of the war, he was not well prepared for the onslaught that followed. In a hard-fought battle, the rebels captured the bridge over the Moselle. Cerialis personally led the assault that took it back. Rallying his cohorts when the barbarians were in his very camp, he caught them in disarray, plundering, and put them to flight.

Northward down the Rhine, the Agrippinenses—Ubii that were—had made their treaty with Burhmund reluctantly. Now they surprised and massacred the German garrisons among them, and appealed to Cerialis for help. He advanced by forced marches to relieve their city.

Despite some minor reverses, he got the capitulation of the Nervii and Tungri. When fresh legions had doubled his strength, he set forth for a showdown with Burhmund. In a two-day battle near Old Camp, aided by a Batavian deserter, who guided his men in a flanking movement, he broke the Germans. The war might have ended there, had the Romans had ships on hand to block their escape across the Rhine.

Upon learning of this, the remaining Treverian rebel leaders also withdrew over the river. Burhmund retreated into the Batavian island, where the men left to him waged for a while a guerrilla campaign. Among those they killed was Briganticus. Yet they could keep no ground. The fiercest fight saw Burhmund and Cerialis pitted directly against one another. The German, trying to rally his troops as they reeled back, was recognized; missiles hailed about him; he barely got away by jumping off his horse and swimming across the stream. His boats took off Classicus and Tutor, who were thenceforward no more than disconsolate hangers-on.

Cerialis had one contretemps. After going to inspect the winter quarters being constructed for the legions at Novesium and Bonna, he was on his way back down the Rhine with his fleet. From their coverts, German scouts saw a sloppiness born of overconfidence. They gathered a pair of strong bands and, on a clouded night, attacked. Those who invaded the Roman camp cut the tent ropes and slaughtered the men within. Their companions threw grapnels on several vessels and dragged them off. The great prize was the praetorian trireme, where Cerialis should have been sleeping. As it chanced, he was elsewhere—with an Ubian woman, rumor said—and emerged groggy, nearly naked, to take charge.

It was only a hit-run action. No doubt its main result was that the Romans smartened in a hurry. The Germans towed the captured trireme up the River Lippe and gave it to Veleda.

Small though it was, that setback to the Imperial cause might later have been taken for an omen. Cerialis advanced deeper into the tribal homelands. None could withstand him. But neither could he come to final grips with his foes. Rome could spare him no more troops. Supplies grew scant and irregular. All the while, marching down upon him was the Northern winter.

10

A.D. 60.

Over the highlands east of the Rhine valley trekked a caravan of thousands. For the most part the hills were thickly wooded, the ways through them little better than game trails. Horses, oxen, men strained to move wagons along; wheels groaned, brush crackled, breath rasped. Mainly folk trudged afoot, dumb with weariness and hunger.

From a height two or three miles off, Everard and Floris watched the exodus as it crossed a grassy open stretch. Hand-held opticals brought it into arm’s-length view. They could have used auditory pickups as well, but the sight was hard enough to take.

Straight-shouldered yet, a white-headed man rode at the front. Mail and spearheads gleamed where his household guards walked behind. That was the only brightness, and no merriment stirred beneath the helmets. After them, some boys herded what few scrawny cattle, sheep, and pigs were left. Here and there in the line, a cart bore a wicker cage of chickens or geese. Hardtack bread and the rare piece of cured meat went more closely watched than the bundled-up clothes, tools, and other chattels—even the crude wooden idol on its wain where gold glinted meaningless. What use had any gods been to the Ampsivarii?

Everard pointed. “That old guy in the lead,” he said. “Their chief, Boiocalus, do you think?”

“As Tacitus wrote the name,” Floris replied. “Yes, surely he. Not many in this milieu reach an age like his.” Sadly: “I imagine he regrets that he did.”

“And that he spent most of his life in Roman service. Yeah.”

A young woman, a girl really, shuffled by, cradling a baby in her arms. It wailed at a breast bared for it, from which no more milk would flow. A middle-aged man, perhaps her father, using a spear for a staff, kept his free arm ready to help her when she staggered. Her husband no doubt lay slain, tens or hundreds of miles behind them.

Everard shifted in the saddle. “Let’s go,” he said roughly. “It’s a ways to the meeting place, isn’t it? Why’d you route us by here?”

“I thought we should have a close look at this,” Floris explained. “Yes, it will haunt me too. But the Tencteri have experienced it directly. We need to know well what it is, if we hope to understand their reaction to it, and Veleda’s, and theirs to her.”

“I s’pose.” Everard clucked to his horse, pulled on the tether of his spare, which at present carried his modest baggage, and picked a way downhill. “Though compassion is mighty scarce in this century. The nearest society that ever encouraged it much is in Palestine, and that one will get scattered to the winds.”

Thereby sowing Judaism throughout the Empire, of which the harvest will be Christianity. No wonder that strife and death in the North would become the barest footnote to history.

“Kin loyalty is overwhelmingly strong,” Floris reminded, “and in the face of Rome, a feeling is in embryo among the western Germans, of a basic kinship reaching past tribal borders.”

Uh-huh, Everard remembered, and you suspect Veleda has a lot to do with it. That’s why we’re tracking her back through time—to try and discover what she signifies.

They reentered forest. Summer-green arches reached high before them, above a path walled with underbrush. Sunlight struck between leaves to spatter on moss and shadow. Squirrels ran fiery along boughs. Birdsong and fragrance wove through a mighty stillness. Already nature had swallowed up the agony of the Ampsivarii.

Like a spiderweb he saw snaring brightness in a hazel, pity reached between them and Everard. He must fare a goodly ways before it stretched so far that it broke. No use telling himself that they all died obscurely eighteen hundred years before he was born. They were here, now, as real as the refugees he had seen no great distance east of this ground, fleeing west, 1945. But these would find no succor.

Tacitus apparently got the general outline of the story right. The Ampsivarii were driven from their homes by the Chauci. A land grab; people were becoming too many for their available technology to support them on ancestral acres; overpopulation is relative, as old as the famine and war it raises, and as immortally reborn. The defeated sought the lower Rhine. They knew a considerable territory lay vacant there, cleared of its former inhabitants by the Romans, who meant to reserve it for purposes of military supply and settlement of discharged soldiers. Already two Frisian tribes had tried to take it over. They were ordered out and, when they stalled, expelled by an attack that killed many and sent many more to the slave markets. But the Ampsivarii were loyal federates. Boiocalus had suffered imprisonment when he would not go along with Arminius’s revolt forty years ago. Afterward he served under Tiberius and Germanicus, until he retired from the army to become the leader of his folk. Surely Rome would grant him and his exiles a place to lay their heads.

Rome would not. Privately, hoping to avoid trouble, the legate offered Boiocalus property for himself and his family. The chieftain refused the bribe: “We may lack a land to live in; we cannot lack one to die in.” He brought his tribe upstream to the Tencteri. Before a massed gathering he called on them, the Bructeri, and any others who found the nearness of the Empire oppressive to join him in war.

While they argued about it in their disorganized quasi-democratic fashion, the legate took his legions across the Rhine into the same country. He threatened extermination unless the newcomers were evicted. Northward out of Upper Germany marched a second army, to stand at the backs of the Bructeri. In the jaws of the vise, the Tencteri bade their guests begone.

I better not feel too self-righteous. The United States will commit a worse betrayal in Vietnam, with less excuse.

The trail debouched on something vaguely like a road, narrow, rutted, maintained solely by the feet, hoofs, and wheels that used it. Everard and Floris wound over its ups and downs for hours. Spying from invisibly high above and with the help of her robot bugs, cut—and-try work, patiently fitting together scraps of possibly useful observation, she had planned their course. It was a little dangerous for a man and woman to travel thus unescorted, though the Tencteri didn’t go in much for banditry. However, they had to be seen arriving in ordinary wise. They could use stun pistols in self-defense if they were assailed and if there weren’t a bunch of witnesses whose tale might significantly affect the society.

In the event, they had no trouble. More and more travelers came onto the road, bound the same way. All were men; almost all seemed preoccupied or anxious and talked little. An exception was a large fellow with a beer belly, who introduced himself as Gundicar. He rode beside the unusual couple and chatted away, incurably cheerful. In the nineteenth or twentieth century, Everard thought, he’d have been a well-to-do grocer or baker and daily patron of the local Brauhaus. “And how came you hither unscathed, you twain?”

The Patrolman gave him a prepared story. “Hardly that, my friend. I am of the Reudigni, north of the River Elbe; you have heard of us? . . . Trading southward. . . . The war between the Hermunduri and Chatti. . . . We were swept off, I believe I alone of my band escaped alive, my goods gone save for this bit of gear. . . . A woman left widowed, bereft of kin, happy to join me. . . . Wending homeward along the Rhine and the seaboard, hoping for fewer woes. . . . Having heard of the wise-woman from the east, and that she would speak to you Tencteri. . . .”

“Ach, in truth these are fearsome times.” Gundicar sighed. “Huge fires grieving the Ubii across the river, too.” He brightened. “I think that’s the wrath of the gods for their licking Roman boots. Maybe soon an ill doom will fall on yon whole bunch.”

“Then you’d fain have fought when the legions thrust into your land?”

“Well, now, that would have been unwise, we were unready, and hay harvest well-nigh upon us, you know. But I am not ashamed to say I howled in mourning for those poor homeless. May the Mother be kind to them! I’m hoping the spaewife Edh gives us word of a morrow when we may indeed right such wrongs. Good plunder in that Colonia burn, eh?”

Floris took over most of the conversation. Woman in a frontier society normally enjoys respect, if not complete equality. She runs everything when her man is gone from the lonely steading; should the feud-foe, the Vikings, the Indians then appear, it is she who commands the defense. Still more than the Greeks or the Hebrews did the Germanic peoples believe in the sibyl, the prophetess, the female—almost shamanistic among them—to whom a god gave powers and told of the future. Edh’s reputation had run long ahead of her, and Gundicar gossiped with everybody.

“No, it’s unknown whence she came at the first. She fared hither from among the Cherusci, and I’ve heard that ere then she abode for a time with the Langobardi. . . . I think this Nerha goddess of hers is of the Wanes, not the Anses . . . unless it’s another name for Mother Fricka. And yet . . . they say Nerha is as terrible in her rage as Tiw himself. . . . There’s something about a star and the sea, but I know nothing of that, we’re inlanders here. . . . She reached us soon after the Romans withdrew. The king guests her. He bade men come and hearken. That must have been at her wish. He would hardly gainsay it. . . .”

Floris led him on. What he told would much help her plan the next step in the search. Edh herself, the Patrol agents had better avoid meeting. Until they had more knowledge of her and whatever the forces were that she was unleashing, they would be crazy to interfere.

Late in the afternoon they arrived at a cleared vale, fields and pastures, the king’s main estate. He was basically a landholder, not above joining his tenants, hirelings, and slaves in the farm work. He presided over councils and the great seasonal sacrifices, he took command in war, but law and tradition bound him as fast as anyone else; his often riotous folk would overrule or overthrow him if that was their mood, and any scion of the royal house had a claim to the post that was as good as the fighting men he could muster to support it. No wonder these Germans can’t overcome Rome, Everard reflected. They never will, either. When their descendants—Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards, Saxons, and the rest—take over, it’ll be by default, because the Empire has crumbled from within. And besides, it’ll have taken them over before then—spiritually, by converting them to Christianity, so that the new Western civilization comes to birth where the old Classical one did, on the Mediterranean shore, not along the Rhine or the gray North Sea.

It was a flitting thought at the back of his mind, repeating what he well knew, gone again as his attention focused ahead.

The king and his household dwelt in a long, thatch-roofed timber hall. Sheds, barns, a pair of hovels where the lowly slept, and other outbuildings formed, with it, a square. A way behind it loomed a grove of ancient trees, the halidom, where the gods received their offerings and gave their omens. Most arrivals pitched camp in front, filling a meadow. Nearby, calves and swine roasted over big fires, while servants dished up horns or wooden cups of beer for all. Lavish hospitality was essential to maintaining a lord’s reputation, on which his life might well depend.

Everard and Floris established themselves inconspicuously offside and mingled with the crowd. Passing a gap between the buildings, they got a look into the courtyard. Rudely cobbled, at present it was occupied by the horses of the important visitors, who would stay in the royal house. Amidst them stood four white oxen and the wagon they had surely drawn. It was an extraordinary vehicle, beautifully carpentered, elaborately carved. Behind a driver’s seat, windowless sides rose to a shake roof. “A van,” Everard murmured. “Got to be Veleda’s—Edh’s. I wonder, does she sleep in it on the road?”

“Doubtless,” Floris said. “To preserve dignity and mystery. I suspect an image of the goddess is in there too.”

“M-m, Gundicar mentioned several men who travel with her. She may not need an armed guard, if the tribes respect her as much as I gather, but it’s impressive, and besides, somebody has to do the chores. Though I suppose being her attendants makes them heap big medicine, and they’re putting up in the sachem’s lodge along with his braves and the local chiefs. She too, do you think?”

“Certainly not. She, to lie on a bench among a lot of snoring men? Either she will use her car or the king has arranged some kind of private room for her.”

“How does she do it, anyway? What gives her that power?”

“We are trying to learn what.”

The sun slipped below western treetops. Dusk began to rise in the vale. A wind slithered chilly. Now that the guests were fed, it smelled only of woodsmoke and forest deeps. Thralls stoked the fires; flames flickered aloft, growled, spat. Overhead winged nest-bound crows and darting swallows, runes changeably scrawled on a sky gone purple in the east, cold green in the west. The evening star trembled into sight.

Horns sounded. Warriors trod from the hall, through the courtyard, onto the trampled ground outside. Their spearheads caught the dying daylight. Before them went a man in a richly patterned tunic, gold helices entwining his arms, the king. Breath hissed in the shadowed gathering until, silent, men waited. The heart knocked in Everard’s breast.

The king spoke loudly but gravely. Everard thought that, underneath, he was shaken. To them from afar, he said, had come Edh, of whose wonderworking all had heard. She wanted to prophesy for the Tencteri. In honor to her and the goddess who fared with her, he had therefore bidden the nearest dwellers tell the next, and thus across the land. In these unhappy times, whatever signs the gods sent must be carefully weighed. He warned that the words of Edh would hurt. Bear them manfully, as one bears the setting of a broken bone. Think what it meant, and what folk could or should do hereafter.

The king stood aside. Two women—wives of his?—bore out a high, three-legged stool. Edh came forth and seated herself on it.

Everard strained through the gloaming. How he wished he could use his optical to help this uneasy firelight! What he saw surprised him. He had half expected a ragged hag. She was well clad, in a short-sleeved long-skirted gown of plain white wool, a fur-trimmed blue cloak held with a gilt bronze brooch, thin leather shoes. Her head was bare, like a maiden’s, but the long brown hair hung in braids, rather than loosely, beneath a snakeskin fillet. Tall, full-boned but thin, she moved just a little awkwardly, as if she and her body were not quite one. Big eyes glowed in a long, handsomely sculptured face. When she opened her mouth, what appeared to be a full set of teeth flashed white. Why, she’s young, he thought; and: No. Mid-thirties, I’d guess. That’s middle-aged here. She could be a grandmother, though actually they say she’s never married.

His gaze left her for an instant and, with a start, he recognized the man who had accompanied her and stood at her side, dark, saturnine, somberly garbed. Heidhin. Of course. Ten years younger than when I first saw him. He doesn’t look it, or, rather, he already looks as old as then.

Edh spoke. She made no gestures, kept hands on lap, and her voice, a husky contralto, stayed soft. It carried, though; and steel was in it, and winter winds.

“Hear me and heed ye,” she uttered, eyes turned beyond them toward the evenstar, “highborn or lowborn, still in your strength or stumbling graveward, doomed to death and dreeing the weird boldly or badly. I bid ye hearken. When life is lost, alone is left, for yourself and your sons, what is said of you. Doughty deeds shall never die, but in minds of men remain forever-night and nothingness for the names of cravens! No good the gods will give to traitors, nor aught but anger unto the slothful. Who fears to fight will lose his freedom, will cringe and crawl to get moldy crusts, his children chafing in chains and shame. Hauled into whoredom, helplessly, his women weep. These woes are his. Better a brand should burn his home while he, the hero, harvests foemen till he falls defiant and fares on skyward.

“Hoofs in heaven heavily ring. Lightning leaps, blazing lances. All the earth resounds with anger. Seas in surges smite the shores. Now will Nerha naught more suffer. Wrathful she rides to bring down Rome, the war gods with her, the wolves and ravens.”

She recalled humiliations endured, wealth paid over, dead lying unavenged. Icily she lashed the Tencteri for yielding to invaders and forsaking the kindred who called on them. Yes, it had seemed they had no choice; but what they in truth chose was infamy. Let them slaughter as much as they would in the halidoms, it could not buy them back their honor. The weregild they would pay was sorrow unbounded. Rome would gather it in.

But a day would yet dawn. Abide it, and be ready when that red sun rose.

Afterward, pondering the audiovisual they had recorded, Everard and Floris felt again a little of the spell. They had well-nigh been swept away too, humbled, exalted, with the throng that lifted weapons and shouted as Edh walked back to the hall. “Total conviction,” Floris said.

“More to it than that,” Everard answered. “A gift, a power-real leadership has a touch of mystery, something transhuman. . . . But I wonder if also the time stream isn’t bearing her along.”

“North to the Bructeri, where she will settle, and then—”

As for the Ampsivarii, they wandered year after year, sometimes briefly finding refuge, sometimes harried onward, until, Tacitus wrote, “all their young were killed in a foreign country, and those who could not fight were shared out as booty.”

II

Out of the east, the morning behind them, rode the Anses into the world. Sparks flew across heaven from the wheels of their wains, which rumbled so that mountains shook. The tracks of their horses smoldered black. Their arrows darkened the air. The sound of their battle horns woke a killing rage in men.

Against these newcomers went the Wanes. Froh was at the forefront, astride his bull, the Living Sword in his hand. Wind scourged the sea until its waves foamed near the feet of the moon, who fled. Over them in her ship came Naerdha. Her right hand steered with the Ax of the Tree for oar. Her left hand cast eagles to shriek, strike, and tear. Upon her brow a star burned white as the fire’s heart.

Thus did the gods war on each other, while the eotans of the high North and the low South watched and talked of how it would clear the way for them. But the birds of Wotan saw and warned him. The head of Mim heard and warned Froh. Thereat the gods called truce, gave hostages, and held council.

In the peace they made, they apportioned the world between them. They held weddings, Anse to Wane—father to mother, wizard to wife—and Wane to Anse—huntress to craftsman, witch to warrior. By him whom they hanged, by her whom they drowned, and by their own blood that they mingled, they swore faith, which should abide until the day of doom.

Then they raised walls for their defense, a wooden stockade in the North, high-piled stones in the South; and they set themselves to their sway over those things that are under the Law.

But one among the Anses, Leokaz the Thief, half eotan, grew restless. He longed for the old wild years and felt himself now reckoned of little worth. At last he slipped unbeknownst away. South he fared to the wall of stone. At the gate he threw a sleep spell on its watchman, took the key from its hiding place, and passed into the Iron Land. There he bargained with its lords. When they gave him the spear Summer’s Bane, he gave them the key.

In this wise did the Iron Lords gain a way into the Earthworld. Their hosts came through bringing slavery and slaughter. It was the West that first knew them, and often the sun goes down into a lake of blood.

But the giant Hoadh strode northward, thinking to reach the Frost Land and make alliance with the eotans there. Wherever he went, he took what he wanted. Kine he plucked from the meadows. Houses he clubbed asunder to reave his bread. Fire he sowed and men he slew for his sport. The road he made was of wreckage.

He reached the seashore. Afar he spied Naerdha. Unawares she sat on a skerry, combing her hair. The locks shone like gold and her breasts like snow where shadows lie blue. Lust swelled. Night-softly for all his hugeness, Hoadh crept nigh, until he waded out and seized her. When she struggled, he knocked her head against the rock and stunned her. There in the surf, he ravished her.

The waters have risen over that reef, to hide the shame even at low tide. Because of this, many a ship has struck, and the breakers have taken their crews. It does not slake the wrath and grief of Naerdha.

She roused with a wildcat scream to find herself alone again. On wings of storm she rushed to her hall beyond the sunrise. “Whither has he gone?” she cried.

“We know not,” wailed her daughters, “save that he went from the sea.”

“Vengeance will follow him,” said Naerdha. She returned landward and sought the dwelling she shared with Froh, to bid him help her. But the season was spring and he had gone to quicken life, the round on which she ought to have come likewise. Hence she could not claim the bull Earthshaker either, as was her right.

Instead she called their eldest son to her and changed him into a tall black stallion. Mounting, she rode to Ansaheim. Wotan lent her his spear that never misses, Tiwaz his Helm of Dread. Off she hastened on Hoadh’s track. That was a gaunt year, when she had forsaken Froh and her sea.

Hoadh heard her coming after him. He climbed a mountain and lifted his club for battle. Night fell. The moon rose. By its light he saw, across many furlongs, the spear, the helm, and the grim stallion. His heart failed him and he bolted west. So fast did he run that she could barely keep him in sight.

Hoadh reached his fellow Iron Lords and begged their help. Shield to shield they stood before him. Naerdha cast the spear above their heads and pierced her foe. His blood flooded the lowlands.

She wended home full of anger yet at Froh for his broken promise. “I will take the bull when I choose,” she said, “and sorely will you miss him on the day of doom.” He was angry too, for what she had made of their son. They dwelt apart.

On Midwinter Eve she bore Hoadh’s get, nine sons. She turned them into hounds as black as her horse.

Thonar of the Thunders drove to her hall. “Froh left his sister and you left your brother that you twain might be together,” he said. “If you no longer are, life will die from land and sea alike. What then shall feed the gods?” Therefore in spring Naerdha returned to her husband, but not gladly. She left him once more in autumn. So has it been ever since.

“Leokaz broke the oath we swore,” said Wotan to her. “Henceforward the world will never know peace. We have dire need of my spear.”

“I will recover it for you,” answered Naerdha, “if you will lend it again and Tiwaz the helm when I go hunting.”

The flood had borne it out to sea. Long did Naerdha range in search. Many are the tales of a strange woman who came to this land or that. She repaid those who guested her by healing their hurts, righting their wrongs, and foretelling their morrows. Still she sends women wandering across the world who do as she did, in her name and at her behest. In the end she found the spear floating below the evening star.

Vengefulness cannot die within her. At the turnings of the year, and whenever else her heart freezes at the memory, she goes forth. With horse and hounds, helm and spear, she rides in the night wind, to raid the Iron Lords, harry the ghosts of evildoers, and bring ill on the foes of those folk who worship her. Fearful it is to hear that rush and clamor in the sky, horn, hoofs, howls, the Wild Hunt. Yet men who bear weapons against them she hates shall have her stern blessing.

11

A.D. 49.

Westward from the Elbe, south of where Hamburg would someday arise, stretched the realm of the Langobardi. Centuries futureward their posterity ended a migration lifetimes long by conquering northern Italy and founding what became known as the Lombard kingdom. At present they were only another German tribe, albeit a powerful one that had dealt many of the hardest blows Rome took in Teutoburger Wald. Lately their axes had hewn out the decision of who should be king among their neighbors the Cherusci. Wealthy, haughty, they drew trade and news from the Rhine to the Vistula, from the Cimbri in Jutland to the Quadi along the Danube. Floris decided she and Everard couldn’t simply ride in, claiming to be distressed travelers from somewhere else. That was feasible in 70 and 60, among peoples on the western fringe who were engaged with Rome—hostilely, servilely, or peacefully—more than with easterlings. Here the risk of making a slip would be too great.

But here and now Edh was, in a sojourn of two years. Here was where the next clue to her origin must be, as well as an opportunity to observe in more depth her effect on the folk through whom her pilgrimage went.

Luckily, though logically, an ethnographer was in residence, like Floris among her Frisii. The Patrol also wanted a sampling of central Europe during the first century, and this was a better locale than most.

Jens Ulstrup had settled down a dozen years ago. He related that he was Domar, from what was to become the Bergen area of Norway, virtual terra incognita to the landlocked Langobardi. A family feud drove him into exile. He took passage to Jutland; the southern Scandinavians had already developed rather large vessels. Thence he wandered on shank’s mare, welcomed for his songs and poetry. As was customary, the king rewarded some flattering verses with gold and an invitation to stay. Domar invested in trade goods, parlayed his fortune remarkably fast, and in due course acquired a homestead of his own. Both his mercantile interests and his curiosity about the world, natural in a scop, accounted for his frequent lengthy absences. Many of his trips really were within contemporary lands, though he might expedite them by his timecycle.

Having walked to a spot where he knew he was unobserved, he summoned the machine from its hiding place. Moments later but days earlier, he was at the camp of Everard and Floris. They had established themselves farther north, in the uninhabited stretch—the American called it the DMZ—between Langobardian and Chaucian territory.

From a bluff screened by trees they looked down over the river. It flowed broad between deeply green banks; reeds rustled, frogs croaked, fish splashed silvery, waterfowl flew in their tumultuous thousands; occasionally men paddled a boat along the opposite, Suarinian shore. “We will be a little in the life of the country,” Floris had said, “not quite like disembodied spirits flitting through.”

They sprang to their feet when Ulstrup appeared. He was a slender, sandy-haired man, as barbaric-looking as them. That did not mean bearskin kilts. His shirt, coat, and pants were of cloth well woven, tastefully patterned, and skillfully tailored. The goldsmith who made the brooch at his throat did not go by Hellenic canons, but was nonetheless an artist. His hair was combed and tied in a knot on the right side. His mustache was trimmed, and if his chin was stubbly, it was because razors were not of Gillette sharpness.

“What have you found?” Floris exclaimed.

Ulstrup’s smile showed how tired he was. “That will take a stretch to tell,” he answered.

“Give the guy a break,” Everard said. “Here, sit down.” He gestured at a mossy log. “Want some coffee? You can smell it’s fresh.”

“Coffee,” Ulstrup crooned. “I often drink it in my dreams.”

Odd, Everard thought momentarily, that we should be using twentieth-century English, we three in this scene. But no. He happens to be from then too, doesn’t he? For a while, English will sort of play the role that Latin does today. Not for as long a while.

They made very little small talk before Ulstrup turned earnest. His stare fixed upon the others as an animal might stare from a trap. He spoke with care. “Yes, I do believe you are right. This is something unique. I confess the potentials frighten me; and I have no experience with variable reality or expertise in it.

“As I told you before, I had heard tales of an itinerant sibyl or witch or whatever she was, but paid no special attention. That kind is . . . oh, not common in this culture, but not extraordinary either. I was concerned about the ongoing civil strife among the Cherusci and, frankly, resented your demand that I investigate her, an outsider. My apologies, Agent Floris, Unattached Agent Everard. Now I have encountered her. I have listened to her. I have spoken at length with a number of men about her. My Langobardian wife has told me what women are saying to each other.

“You related what a tremendous impact Edh will have on the western tribes. I suspect you did not anticipate how strong it is here, already, or how swiftly it increases. She arrived in a primitive wagon. I heard the Lemovii gave it to her, after she had come to them afoot. She will leave in a magnificent van the king is having made, drawn by his finest oxen. She arrived with four men in her train. She will leave with a dozen. She could have had far more than that—and women, too—but chose them and set the limit with intelligent practicality. I think that was on the advice of the Heidhin you described. . . . No matter. I have seen proud young warriors begging to abandon everything and follow her as servants. I have seen their lips tremble and their eyes blink hard when she refused them.”

“How does she do it?” Everard whispered.

“She bears a myth,” Floris said. “Isn’t that correct?”

Surprised, Ulstrup nodded. “How did you guess?”

“I heard her uptime, and I know well what could influence the Frisii. They cannot be greatly unlike these easterners.”

“No. Perhaps a difference comparable to that between Dutch and Germans in our period. Of course, Edh is not proclaiming the gospel of a whole new religion. That is outside the pagan mentality. In fact, I rather imagine her ideas are evolving as she goes along. She is not even adding a new deity. Her goddess is known through most of the Germanic range. The local name is Naerdha. She must be more or less identical with the Nerthus whose cult Tacitus describes. Do you remember?”

Everard nodded. The Germania told of a covered oxcart that each year drew an image in procession around the land. That was a time when war was set aside, a time of rejoicing and fertility rites. After the goddess returned to her grove, the idol was taken to a secluded lake and washed by slaves, who immediately afterward were drowned. Nobody asked “what that sight is that may only be seen by the eyes of the dying.”

“A pretty grim sort,” Everard said. The neopagans of his home milieu did not include her in their fairy tales of a prehistoric matriarchy when everybody was nice.

“It is a pretty grim life they lead,” Floris observed.

The scholar in Ulstrup took over. “This is clearly a figure in an aboriginal chthonic pantheon, the Wanes or Vanir,” he said. “It originated before the Indo-Europeans reached these parts. They brought their characteristic warlike, masculine sky-gods, the Anses or Aesir. Dim memories of the conflict between cultures survived in myths of a war between the two divine races, which was finally settled by negotiations and intermarriage. Nerthus—Naerdha—is still female. In centuries ahead she will become male, the Eddic god Njordh, father of Freyja and Frey—who today is still her husband. Njordh will be a sea god, as Nerthus is associated with the sea, though she is also an agricultural deity.”

Floris touched Everard’s arm. “Suddenly you look bleak,” she murmured.

He shook himself. “Sorry. My mind strayed. I was remembering an episode that hasn’t happened yet, among the Goths. It involved their gods. But that was quite a minor eddy in the time stream, easily damped except for what it cost the persons involved. This is different. I don’t know how it is, but I feel it in my marrow.”

Floris turned to Ulstrup. “What is Edh preaching, then?” she asked him.

He shivered. “ ‘Preaching.’ What a spooky word. Pagans don’t preach—at least, heathen Germans don’t—and at this moment Christianity is hardly more than a persecuted Jewish heresy. No, Edh does not deny Wotan and the rest. She simply tells new stories about Naerdha and Naerdha’s powers. But there is nothing simple about what they imply. And . . . by sheer intensity and eloquence, yes, it is fair to say that she delivers sermons. These tribes have never known anything of the kind before. They are . . . not immunized. It is why so many will so readily turn Christian, once those missionaries get here.” As if defensively, his tone dried. “To be sure, there will also be political and economic reasons to convert, which no doubt decide the issue in most cases. Edh offers nothing like that, unless you count her hatred of Rome and her prophecies of its downfall.”

Everard rubbed his chin. “Then she’s invented preaching, religious fervor, independently,” he said. “How? Why?”

“We must find out,” Floris responded.

“What are these new myths?” Everard inquired.

Ulstrup frowned into the distance. “It will take me long to tell you everything I have learned. And it is inchoate, not a neat theological system, you realize. And I doubt I have heard all of it, listening to her or at second hand. Certainly I have not heard what will develop as time goes on.

“But—well, she does not say it outright, perhaps she herself is not conscious of it, but she is making her goddess into a being at least as powerful, as . . . cosmic . . . as any. Naerdha is not exactly usurping Wotan’s authority over the dead, but she too receives them in her hall, she too leads them in a hunt through heaven. She is becoming as much a deity of war as Tiwaz, and the destined destroyer of Rome. Like Thonar, she commands elemental forces, weather, storm, together with the sea, rivers, lakes, all water. Hers is the moon—”

“Hecate,” Everard muttered.

“But she keeps her ancient precedence over begetting and birth,” Ulstrup finished. “Women who die in childbed go directly to her, like fallen warriors to the Eddic Odin.”

“That must appeal to women,” Floris said.

“It does, it does,” Ulstrup agreed. “Not that they have a separate faith—mystery cults, and sects for that matter, are unknown among the Germans—but here is a, a special devotion for them.”

Everard paced to and fro in the glen. His fist beat his palm. “Yeah,” he said. “That was important to the success of Christianity, in both the South and the North. It had more for women than any paganism did, even the Magna Mater. They might not convert their husbands, but they’d sure influence their children.”

“Men can behold visions too.” Ulstrup regarded Floris. “Do you see the same possibility that I do?”

“Yes,” she answered, not quite steadily. “It could happen. Tacitus Two . . . Veleda went back into free Germany after Civilis was crushed, bearing her message, and a new religion spread among the barbarians. . . . It could grow and develop onward after her death. It would have no real competition. Oh, it would not become monotheistic or anything like that. But this goddess would be the supreme figure, around whom everything gathered. She would give folk as much, spiritually, or almost as much, as Christ could. Few would ever join the Church.”

“The more so if they lacked political reason to,” Everard added. “I watched the process in viking Scandinavia. Baptism was the admission ticket to civilization, with all its commercial and cultural advantages. But a collapsed West Roman Empire won’t be anywhere near that attractive, and Byzantium is a long ways off.”

“True,” Ulstrup said. “Quite conceivably the Nerthus faith can become the seed and core of a Germanic civilization—not barbarism but a civilization, however turbulent—which has the inner richness to resist Christendom, as Zoroastrian Persia will. Already they are not mere woods-runners here, you know. They are aware of an outside world, they interact with it. When the Langobardi intervened in the dynastic quarrels of the Cherusci, it was to restore a king who had been overthrown because he was Roman-reared and sent by request from Rome. Not that the Langobardi are cat’s-paws; it was a Machiavellian move. Trade with the South increases year by year. Roman or Gallo-Roman ships sometimes ply as far as Scandinavia. The archaeologists of our time will speak of a Roman Iron Age, followed by a Germanic Iron Age. Yes, they are learning, these barbarians. They are assimilating what they find useful. It does not follow that they must inevitably be assimilated themselves.”

His voice dropped. “Of course, if they are not it will be a different future. Our twentieth century will never exist.”

“That’s what we’re trying to head off,” Everard said harshly.

A silence fell. Wind lulled, leaves rustled, sunlight skipped on the ruffled stream. The peacefulness made the landscape feel unreal.

“But we’ve got to learn how this deviation started, before we can do anything about it,” Everard went on. “Did you find where Veleda hails from?”

“I am afraid not,” Ulstrup confessed. “Poor communications, vast reaches of wilderness—and Edh does not talk about her past, nor does her associate Heidhin. He may feel a little more at ease with himself twenty-one years hence, when he mentions the Alvarings to you, whoever they are. Even then, I think, it would be dangerous to ask him for details. At present he and she are totally reticent.

“However, I did hear that she appeared first among the Rugii on the Baltic littoral, five or six years ago as nearly as I can determine from the vague accounts. They say she came in a ship, as befits the prophetess of a sea deity. That and her accent suggest to me a Scandinavian origin. I’m sorry I cannot do better for you.”

“It’ll serve,” Everard replied. “You did okay, buddy. With patience and instruments, maybe occasional inquiries on the ground, we’ll track down the place and moment of her landing.”

“And then—” Floris’s words trailed away. She gazed past the river and the forest beyond, northeasterly toward an unseen shore.

12

A.D. 43.

Right and left the strand reached, sand rising into dunes where stiff grass grew, until haze blurred sight. Kelp, shells, bones of fish and birds lay sparsely strewn on the darker stretch below the high-water line. A few gulls rode the wind. It whistled raw-cold. A taste of salt was on it, and smells from the deeps. Waves washed low onto the shore, hissed back down, came again a little higher up. Farther out they ran strong, hollowly booming, white-capped above steely gray, to a horizon that likewise lost itself in the sky. It pressed in on the world, did that sky, hueless as the sea. Tatters of cloud scudded murky beneath it. Rain walked in the west.

Inland, sedge swayed around pools whose algal green was the only lightness. Forest gloomed in the distance. A brook seeped through the marsh to the beach. Doubtless the dwellers used it to move whatever boats they owned. Their hamlet lay a mile from the coast, some wattle—and-daub cabins hunched below turf roofs. Smoke blew out of louvers, otherwise nothing stirred.

The ship brought abrupt vividness. She was a beauty, long and lean, clinker-built, stem- and sternposts curving high, mastless but swiftly driven by thirty oars. Though her red paint had weathered, the oak remained stout. To the chant of the helmsman, her crew brought her aground, leaped over the sides, and hauled her partway out.

Everard approached. They waited for him in restrained wariness. Nearing, they had seen that he stood alone. He drew close and put the butt of his spearshaft on the sand. “Hail,” he greeted.

A grizzled, scarred fellow who must be the captain asked, “Are you from yon houses?” His dialect would have been hard to understand had Everard and Floris not received an imprint. (It was of a Danish tongue four centuries uptime, the closest available. Fortunately, early Nordic languages didn’t change fast. However, the agents could not hope to pass for natives, either of the ship’s home or of this region.)

“No, I am a wayfarer. I was bound for there, wanting shelter tonight, but spied you and thought I would hear your tale first. It should be better than aught that any homefast hinds can tell. I hight Maring.”

Ordinarily the Patrolman would just have said, “Everard,” which sounded like a name in some other patois. But he’d be using it uptime when he met Heidhin, whom he hoped to buttonhole this day. He couldn’t afford recognition then—another shift in reality, with unguessable consequences. Floris had suggested this monicker, authentically southern German. She had also assisted him with a flowing blond wig and false beard, plus a Jimmy Durante nose that would keep attention off the rest of him. Given the fading of memory with years, that should serve.

A grin creased and crinkled the mariner’s face. “And I am Vagnio Thuthevar’s son, from Hariu thorp in the land of the Alvarings. Whence come you?”

“From afar.” The Patrolman jerked a thumb at the settlement. “They’re staying within their walls, hey? Afraid of you?”

Vagnio shrugged. “We could be reavers, for aught they know. This is nobody’s port of call. It’s merely the landfall we made—”

Everard already realized that. On timecycles aloft, he and Floris had observed the ship, once scanning revealed that she, among all they had checked, carried a woman. A jump into the future showed where she would halt; a jump back into the past deposited him close by. Floris stayed above the clouds. Explaining her presence away would have been too much trouble.

“-where we’ll camp the night,” Vagnio went on, “and fill our water casks in the morning. But then we coast west to the Anglii, with goods for a great market they hold this time of year. If yon folk like, they can call on us, else we’ll leave them be. Their kind has naught worth robbing.”

“Not even themselves, to sell for thralls?” The question was foul in Everard’s mouth, but natural in this age.

“No, they’d run off as soon as they saw us bound for them, and scatter what livestock they have. That’s why they built where they did.” Vagnio squinted. “You must be a landlubber not to ken that.”

“Yes, of the Marcomanni.” The tribe was safely remote, about where western Czechoslovakia would lie. “You are, uh, from Scania?”

“No. The Alvarings hold half of an island off the Geatish coast. Stay the night with us, Mating, and we’ll swap yarns—What’re you peering at?”

Sailors had crowded around, eager to hear. They were mostly tall blonds, who blocked the Patrolman’s view of their vessel. A couple of them had shifted, restless, and he got a clear look. A slender youth had just sprung out of the prow to the beach. He lifted his arms and helped the woman follow. Veleda.

No mistaking her. I’d know that face, those eyes, at the bottom of her goddess’s ocean. But how young she was today, a girl in her teens, withy-thin. The wind tossed loose brown tresses and flapped skirt around ankles. Across the ten or fifteen yards between, Everard thought he saw—what? A look that sought something beyond this place, lips that would suddenly quiver and maybe whisper, a grief, a lostness, a dream, he couldn’t say.

Certainly she showed none of the interest in him he had counted on. He wondered if she had so much as cast him a glance. The pale countenance turned away. She spoke briefly with her dark-haired companion. They walked off together, down the strand from the ship.

“Ah, her,” Vagnio deduced. Unease touched him. “An uncanny twain, those.”

“Who are they?” Everard asked. That too was a natural question, when women crossing the sea other than as captives were well-nigh unheard of. Eventually invaders from the Frisian and Jutish shores would bring their families along to Britain, but that wouldn’t happen for centuries.

Unless Scandinavian women occasionally took ship at this early date? His information didn’t say. Those lands in those years were little studied. It hadn’t seemed they would make much difference to the rest of the world until the Völkerwanderung. Surprise, surprise.

“Edh Hlavagast’s daughter and Heidhin Viduhada’s son,” Vagnio said. Everard noticed that he named her first. “They bought aboard, but not to trade alongside us. Indeed, she’d not seek the market at all, but wants we let her—them—off somewhere else, she has not yet said where.”

“Best we make ready for night, skipper,” growled a man. A mutter of agreement went among others. Darkness was hours off, and it wasn’t likely the rain would come this way. They’d rather not have talk about her, Everard realized. They’ve nothing against her, I’m sure, but she is, yes, uncanny. Vagnio was quick to assent.

Everard offered to lend a hand with setting up. Bluffly polite, for a guest was sacred, the captain expressed doubt that a landlubber could expedite matters. Everard strolled off, the way Edh and Heidhin had gone.

He saw them stop, well ahead of him. They appeared to argue. She made a gesture strangely imperious for such a slip of a lass. Heidhin wheeled about and started back with long stiff strides. Edh went onward.

“This may be my chance,” Everard subvocalized. “I’ll see if I can get the boy into conversation.”

“Have a care,” Floris replied. “I think he is upset.”

“Yeah. I’ve got to try, though, don’t I?”

It was the reason for making this rendezvous, instead of simply tracing the ship across the water, backward through time. They dared not charge blind into what might well be the source of the instability, the obscure and easily annulled event from which an entire future could spring. Here, they hoped, was an opportunity to learn something beforehand at minimal risk.

Heidhin jarred to a halt, glowering, before the foreigner. He also was in his teens, perhaps a year or two older than Edh. In this milieu that made him an adult, but he was still gangly, not quite filled out, the sharp countenance darkened by no more than fuzz. He wore wadmal, odorous in the damp air, and salt-stained boots. A sword hung at his flank.

“Hail,” said Everard amiably. That was on the surface. Cold prickles went over his scalp.

“Hail,” grunted Heidhin. The surliness would have been considered appropriate to his years in twentieth-century America. Here it meant real trouble. “What would you?” He paused before adding roughly, “Follow not the woman. She wants to be alone.”

“Is that safe for her?” Everard asked: another natural question.

“She’ll not go too far, and will return ere nightfall. Besides—” Again Heidhin fell mute. He seemed to be wrestling with himself. Everard guessed that a youthful desire to be important and mysterious won out over discretion. Yet he heard an almost frightening sincerity: “Whoso offends her shall suffer worse than death. She is the chosen of a goddess.”

Did the wind really blow keener all at once? “You know her well, then?”

“I . . . fare at her side.”

“Whither?”

“Why would you know?” flared Heidhin. “Let me be!”

“Easy, friend, easy,” Everard said. It helped being large and mature. “I do but ask, I, an outlander. Gladly would I hear more about—Edh, did the shipmaster call her? And you Heidhin, I think.”

Curiosity awoke. The boy relaxed a bit. “What of you? We wondered as we drew nigh.”

“I am a wayfarer, Maring of the Marcomanni, a folk you may never have heard of. You’ll get my tale this evening.”

“Where are you bound?”

“Wherever my luck may lead me.”

Heidhin stood still a moment. The small surf mumbled. A gull mewed. “Could you be sent?” he breathed.

Everard’s pulse raced. He forced his tone to stay casual. “Who might have sent me, and why?”

“See you,” Heidhin blurted, “Edh is going whither Niaerdh bids her, by dreams or signs. She’s now had a thought that this is where we should leave the ship and wend overland. I tried to tell her it’s a niggard country, dwellings wide-scattered, maybe outlaws running free. But she—” He gulped. The goddess was supposed to protect her. Faith struggled with common sense and found a compromise. “If a second warrior fared along—”

“Oh, wonderful!” crowed Floris’s voice.

“I don’t know how well I can act like somebody that destiny has tapped,” Everard warned her.

“At least you can draw him out in conversation.”

“I’ll try.”

To Heidhin: “This is news to me, you understand. But we can talk about it. I’ve naught else to do at once, have you? Come, let’s walk to and fro while you tell me about yourself and Edh.”

The boy looked downward. He bit his lip, reddened, whitened, reddened again. “That’s less easy than you think,” he grated.

“Yet I must know—eh?—ere I can plight faith.” Everard clapped the stooped shoulder before him. “Take your time, but tell me the whole of it.”

“Edh—She should—She will decide—”

“What is it about her that makes you, a man, wait on her word?” Show plenty of respect. “Is she a spaewife, she, a girl to behold? That would be a mighty thing.”

Heidhin looked up. He trembled. “Yes, that and more than that. The goddess came to her and, and now she is Niaerdh’s, she shall bear Niaerdh’s wrath across the world.”

“What? At whom is the goddess angry?”

“The folk of Romaburh!”

“Why, what harm have they done?” In these distant parts.

“They—they—No, this is too holy to speak of. Wait till you meet her. She will make you as wise as she deems needful.”

“This is asking much of me,” Everard protested reasonably, as a practical-minded hobo would. “You say naught of what has happened aforetime, naught of whither you would fare or why, though you’d have me ward with my life a maiden who’ll rouse lust in any rover, greed in any slaver—”

Heidhin screamed. His sword flashed from the sheath. “You dare!” The blade whirred down.

Drilled-in reflex saved Everard. He brought his spear aslant fast enough to block. Iron slammed deep. The seasoned ash did not quite break. Heidhin whipped the blade high again. Everard swept his weapon quarterstaff style. Mustn’t kill him, he’s alive in the future, and anyway he’s just a kid—Impact thudded. The blow to the head would have knocked Heidhin woozy, had the shaft not snapped. As was, he lurched.

“Hold off, you murderous lout!” Everard roared. Alarm and rage buzzed in his skull. What the hell is going on? “D’you want men for your girl or not?”

Yowling, Heidhin sprang at him. This sword slash was weak, easily sidestepped. Everard dropped the spear, got in close, grasped the tunic, took the moving body on his hip, and sent Heidhin asprawl six feet away.

The youth crawled to his feet. He fumbled for the knife at his belt. Got to end this. Everard delivered a karate kick to the solar plexus. He kept it mild. Heidhin doubled over, collapsed, lay heaving for breath. Everard hunkered down to make sure there was no serious damage or choking on vomit or any such thing.

“Wat drommel—What is this?” Floris cried in dismay.

Everard straightened. “I dunno,” he answered dully, “except that somehow, in my ignorance, I touched the wrong, inflamed nerve. He must’ve been overwrought, maybe after days or weeks of brooding. He’s very young, remember. Something I said or did triggered a hysterical break. In this culture, you know, among males, that’s apt to take the form of a killing frenzy.”

“I don’t suppose . . . you can . . . mend the situation.”

“Nope. Especially as precarious as the whole business is.” Everard looked down the beach. Edh was a dwindled bit of fluttering darkness, half lost in the sea mist, into which she drifted onward. Wrapped in her dreams, or nightmares, or whatever they were, she had not noticed the fight. “I’d better clear out. The sailors will accept that I’m bewildered—true enough, huh?—but unwilling to cut Heidhin’s throat while he’s helpless, or chance him cutting mine later, or bother negotiating a reconciliation. He’s nothing to me, I’ll say, and walk off.”

He picked up his spearhead, as Maring would, and started in the direction of the ship. They’ll be disappointed, he thought wryly. Gossip from afar is a rare treasure. Well, I’m spared rehashing that elaborate story we concocted.

“Then we may as well go straight to Öland,” said Floris, equally toneless.

“Hm?”

“Edh’s home. The captain identified it unmistakably. It is a long, narrow island off the Baltic coast of Sweden. The city of Kalmar will be built opposite it. I was there once on holiday.” The voice became wistful. “It was, will be, quite charming. Old windmills everywhere, ancient barrows, snuggled villages, and at either tip a lighthouse overlooking a sea where sailboats bob along—But that is then.”

“Sounds like a place I’d visit to visit myself,” Everard said. “Then.” Maybe. Depends on what memories I bring back from it now, nineteen hundred years earlier. He trudged on up the beach.

13

Hlavagast Unvod’s son was king of the Alvarings. His wife was Godhahild. They dwelt in Laikian, the biggest thorp their tribe had, more than a score of houses within a wall of dry-laid stone. Around it reached heath, where only sheep could thrive. Neither, though, could foemen fall on it without being seen from afar. The walk was short to the eastern strand, nor much longer to the western, and there timber grew. Southward, also, one soon found good grazing and cropland, which went for some ways before it came to its own shore.

Once the Alvarings held all the Eyn, until Geats crossed over from the mainland and, in the course of lifetimes, overran the richer northern half. At last the Alvarings fought them to a standstill. Many among the Geats said the south was not worth taking; many among the Alvarings said the fear of Niaerdh had gripped them. The Alvarings still paid her as much worship as they did the Anses, or more, whereas the Geats gave the goddess only a cow in springtime. Be that as it may, since then the two tribes had done more trading than warring.

Both had men who rowed cargoes over the sea to swap, as far as the Rugii southward or the Anglii westward. The Geats of the Eyn also held a yearly market at Kaupavik haven, which drew traffickers from widely about. To this, Alvarings brought their woolen goods, salt fish, sealskins, blubber oil, feathers and down, amber when a storm had left a hoard of it on their coast. Now and then a young man of theirs joined the crew of an outland ship; if he lived, he would come home with tales of strange countries.

Hlavagast and Godhahild lost three children early on. Then he vowed that if Niaerdh saved those who came after, when the first of them had shed all its milk teeth he would give her a man—not the two thralls, usually old and sick, that she got when she had blessed the fields, but a hale youth. A girl was born. He named her Edh, Oath, to keep the goddess reminded. The sons for whom he hoped followed her.

When the time was ripe, he took a ship and warriors across the channel. Not to stir up the mainland Geats, he fared north well beyond them and fell on a Skridhfennian camp. Of the captives he brought back, he slaughtered the choicest one in Niaerdh’s grove. The rest he sold in Kaupavik. Otherwise Hlavagast did not go warlike abroad, for he was a mild and thoughtful man.

Maybe because of her beginnings, maybe because she had only brothers, Edh grew up a quiet, withdrawn child. She had friends among the others in the thorp, but none close, and when they played together she was always at the rim of it. She was quick to learn her tasks and carried them out faithfully, but was best at those, such as weaving, that she could do by herself. She seldom chattered or giggled.

Yet when she spoke freely, girls listened. After a while boys did, and sometimes the full-grown: for she could make stories. These became more wonderful as the years passed, and she began to put verses into them, almost like a skald. They were of wide-faring men, lovely maidens, wizards, witches, talking animals, merfolk, lands beyond the sea where anything could happen. Ofttimes Niaerdh came into them, a counselor or rescuer. At first Hlavagast feared the goddess might wax wroth; but no ill smote, so he did not forbid it. After all, his daughter had a certain tie to her.

In the thorp Edh was never alone. Nobody ever was. Houses crowded against the wall. In each, stalls for cows or the horses that a few men owned ran along one side, bedsteads along the other. A stone-weighted loom stood near the door for light to weave and sew by, a bench and table at the far end, a clay hearth in the middle. Food and housewares hung from the roof beams or lay across them. The buildings opened on a yard where pigs, sheep, fowl, and gaunt dogs wandered loose around a well. Life crammed together, talking, laughing, singing, weeping, lowing, neighing, grunting, bleating, cackling, barking. Hoofs thumped, wagon wheels creaked, hammer clashed on anvil. Lying in the dark between straw and sheepskin, among the warm smells of animals, dung, hay, embers, you could hear a baby cry till Mother gave it suck, or she and Father thrash about for a while gasping and groaning, or from outside a howl at the moon, a rush of rain, the wind sough or whine or roar—and that other noise, somewhere, what was it, a night-raven, a troll, a dead man out of his howe?

There was much for a little girl to watch whenever she was free, comings and goings, breeding and bearing, hard work and hard frolic, skilled hands shaping wood, bone, leather, metal, stone, the holy days when folk offered to the gods and feasted. . . . When you grew bigger they took you with them and you saw the car of Niaerdh go by, covered that none might behold her; you wore an evergreen garland and strewed last year’s flowers in her path and sang to her in your thin voice, it was joy and renewal but also awe and an unspoken underlying fear. . . .

Edh grew onward. Bit by bit she got new tasks that took her farther and farther off. She gathered dry twigs for kindling, woad and madder for dyes, berries and blossoms in season. Later she went in a band to the woods for nuts and to the strand beyond for shells. Later yet, first with a gleaning basket, a year or two after with a sickle, she helped harvest the fields to the south. Boys herded the livestock, but often girls brought them food and might well linger most of a long, long summer’s day. Outside the brief busy times of year, folk seldom had anything to hurry for. Neither did they fear anything but sickness, baneful witchcraft, night-beings, and the anger of the gods. No bears or wolves prowled the Eyn, and no foes had sought this poor part of it within living memory.

Thus, more and more as she changed from child to maiden, Edh could stray off by herself, over the heath till her moodiness blew from her. Commonly she ended by the sea, and there she might well sit, lost in the sight, until shadows and a breeze plucked at her sleeve to say she had better go home. From the limestone heights on the western shore she looked across to the mainland, dim with distance; from the sandy east she saw only water. It was enough. In every weather it was enough. Waves danced bluer than heaven, snow streaks of foam on their shoulders, snowstorms of gulls above. They ran heavy, green and gray, their manes flew in the wind, their galloping beat through the ground into her bones. They surged, battered, bellowed, embittered the air with spindrift. They laid a molten road toward her from a low sun, they dimpled beneath oncoming rain and gave it back its rushing noise, they cloaked themselves in fog and whispered unseen of things unknown. Niaerdh was in them with dread and blessing. Hers were the kelp and upcast amber, hers the fish, fowl, seals, great whales, and ships. Hers was the quickening in the land when she came ashore to her Frae, for her sea embraced it, warded it, mourned for its winter death and called it back to life in spring. Very small amidst these things, hers was the child she had kept in this world.

So Edh grew toward womanhood, a tall, shy, slightly awkward girl with a gift for words when she chose to speak of things other than the everyday. She wondered much about them, and spent much time in a waking dream, and when alone might suddenly break into tears, not knowing quite why. Nobody shunned her, but nobody sought her out either, for she had stopped sharing the tales she made and there was otherwise something a little odd about Hlavagast’s daughter. This was the more true after her mother died and he took a new wife. They two did not get along well. Folk muttered that Edh sat too often by Godhahild’s grave.

Then one day a youth of the thorp saw her walk by. Wind blew hard over the heath and her loose brown hair tossed full of sunlight. He, who had never hung back, found that his throat froze tight and the heart fluttered in his breast. A long time passed before he could utter a word to her. She lowered her eyes and he barely heard how she answered. After a while, though, they learned to feel easier.

This was Heidhin Viduhada’s son. He was a lean, dark lad, short on merriment but sharp of wits, tough and lithe, good at weapon-play, a leader among his fellows albeit some of them hated him for his toploftiness. None cared to tease him about Edh.

When they saw how it was going, Hlavagast and Viduhada went aside for a talk. They agreed that such a linking of their families would be welcome, but a betrothal should wait. Edh’s courses had begun just last year; the youngsters might fall out, and an unhappy marriage meant trouble for everybody; abide and see, and meanwhile drink a stoup of ale to the hope of a glad outcome.

Winter passed, rain, snow, cavernous darknesses, the night of fear before the sun turned back and the day of feast that followed, lightening skies, thaw, newborn lambs, budding boughs. Spring brought leaves and northbound wings; Niaerdh rode about the land; men and women coupled in the fields where they would plow and sow. The Sun Car rolled ever higher and slower, green swelled, thunderstorms flashed and banged above the heath, rainbows glimmered far out at sea.

Time came for the market at Kaupavik. Alvaring men gathered their wares and busked themselves. Word thrilled from homestead to homestead: this year a ship had arrived from beyond the Anglii and Cimbri, from realms of the very Romans.

No one knew much about Romaburh. It lay somewhere remote in the South. But its warriors were like locusts, they had eaten land after land; and finely made things trickled out of those realms, glass and silver vessels, metal discs bearing faces, unbelievably lifelike little figures. The stream must be strengthening, for more such goods reached the Eyn every year. Now, at last, Roman chapmen had themselves made it to the country of the Geats! Those who stayed behind in Laikian watched with envy those who left.

Having scant work to do just then, they took comfort in idleness. No sign of evil marked that day a sennight later when Edh and Heidhin strolled west to the shore.

Huge reached the heath, man-empty once they left the thorp out of sight, treeless and flat, so that most of the world was sky. Dizzyingly tall the clouds loomed, dazzlingly white, in a blue without bounds. Light and heat fell from the sun like rain. Poppies flared red, gorse yellow, amidst the murky ling. When they sat down for a while they caught a scorched smell of spurrey; bees hummed in a silence through which larksong drifted earthward; then wings racketed, a grouse hastened low overhead, they looked into one another’s eyes and laughed aloud at their own astonishment. Walking, they held hands, no more, for theirs was a chaste folk and he felt himself the warder of a fragile sacredness.

Their path skirted the bluffs that stretched north from the farms and brought them through woods to a strand. Starred with wildflowers, grass grew nearly to the water’s edge. Wavelets chuckled on stones they had long since worn smooth. Farther out they gleamed and glinted. Across the channel, the mainland shadowed the horizon. Closer, cormorants on a rock dried their wings in the breeze. A stork flew by, white bearer of luck and growth.

Heidhin caught his breath. His finger leaped to point. “Look!” he cried.

Edh squinted north against the brightness. Her voice wavered. “What is it?”

“A ship,” he said, “bound this way. A big, big ship.”

“No, it can’t be. That thing above it—”

“I’ve heard about such. Men who’ve been abroad have sometimes seen them. They catch the wind and push the hull along. Yon’s the Roman ship, Edh, it has to be, headed home from Kaupavik, and we came right in time to behold!”

Rapt, they stared, forgetting all else. The vessel glided nigh. Indeed she was a wonder. Black with gold trim, she was no longer than a large Northern craft, but much wider, round-bellied to hold an untellable freight of treasures. She was decked over, men standing high above the hold. They seemed a swarm, plenty to fight off any rovers. The stempost curved grandly up and aft, while the carving of a giant swan’s neck lifted at the stern. Between them rested a wooden house. No oars drove this ship. From a great pole with a crosspiece swelled a cloth as broad as the beam. She moved along noiseless, a wave at her bow and wake aswirl behind the double steering blades.

“Surely they are beloved of Niaerdh,” Edh breathed.

“Now I can see how they clutch half the world,” Heidhin said shakenly. “What can withstand them?”

The ship changed course, nearer to the island. Youth and maiden saw crewmen peer their way. A hail rang faintly in their ears. “Why, I, I do think it’s us they look at,” Edh stammered. “What could they want?”

“Maybe . . . they would like me to join them,” Heidhin said. “I’ve heard from travelers to western parts that the Romans will take tribesmen into their war-hosts. If those are shorthanded because of sickness or something—”

Edh cast him a stricken glance. “Would you go with them?”

“No, never!” Her fingers closed tight around his. He squeezed back. “But let’s hear them out anyway, if they do land. They may want something else, and pay us well for our help.” A pulse throbbed in his throat.

The yard rattled down. What must be an anchor, though it was not a stone but a hook, went out at the end of a line. A boat trailed on another line. Sailors hauled it alongside and lowered a rope ladder. Men climbed down and seated themselves on the thwarts. Their mates handed them oars. One stood up and flapped a fine cloak he carried. “He smiles and beckons,” said Heidhin. “Yes, they have a wish they hope we can grant.”

“How beautiful, that garment,” Edh murmured. “I think Niaerdh wears the like when she visits the other gods.”

“Maybe ere sundown it will be yours.”

“Oh, I dare not ask.”

“Ho, there!” bawled a man in the boat. He was the biggest, fair-haired, doubtless a German-born interpreter. The rest were a mixed lot, some also light of hue, some darker than Heidhin. But of course the Romans had many different folk to draw on. All wore knee-length tunics over bare legs. Edh flushed and kept her gaze from the ship, where most went naked.

“Be not afraid,” the German called. “We’d fain deal with you.”

Heidhin reddened too. “An Alvaring knows no fear,” he shouted. As his voice cracked he grew redder yet.

The Romans rowed in. The two ashore waited, blood loud in their heads. The boat grounded. A man jumped forth and made fast. The one with the cloak led them up the strand. He smiled and smiled.

Heidhin clasped hard his spear. “Edh,” he said, “I like not the look of them. I think we’d be wisest if we kept out of reach—”

He was too late. The leader yelled an order. His followers dashed forward. Before Heidhin could raise his weapon, new hands grabbed it. A man stepped behind him and caught his arms in a wrestler’s lock. He struggled, screeching. A short stick, to which he had paid no heed—the gang was unarmed save for knives—struck his nape. That was a skillful blow, to stun without real harm. He sagged, and they bound him.

Edh had whirled to run. A sailor caught her hair. Two more closed in. They flung her down on the grass. She screamed and kicked. Another pair grabbed her ankles. The leader knelt between her spraddled legs. He grinned. Spit ran from a corner of his mouth. He hiked up her skirt.

“You trolls, you dog turds, I’ll kill you,” Heidhin raged weakly, out of the pain that stabbed through his skull. “I swear by every god of war, no peace shall your breed ever have with me. Your Romaburh shall burn—” Nobody listened. Where Edh lay pinned, the thing went on and on.

14

A.D. 43.

Tracing Vagnio’s voyage back to his departure from Öland was easy. With skill and persistence, it was possible to find that a boy and a girl had walked to his home from a village about twenty miles south. But what happened earlier? Some cautious inquiries on the ground were in order. First, though, Everard and Floris planned an aerial survey over the previous several months. The more clues they collected in advance, the better. Vagnio would not necessarily hear of an event such as a murder; perhaps the family could hush it up. Or he and his men might keep silent about it before a stranger. Or Everard might simply get no chance to ask before circumstances forced him from the camp on the beach.

Leaving behind their van and horses, the agents flitted off together on separate hoppers. Their search pattern was a set of leaps from point to point of a precalculated space-time grid. If they spied anything unusual, they would take as close a look through as long a duration as needful. The procedure wasn’t guaranteed to pay off, but it was better than nothing and they didn’t have infinite lifespan to spend here.

A mile above the village, they flashed from midsummer balefires to a couple of weeks later and hung in an enormous blue. Wind whittered thin and cold. The view wheeled over a sunlit Baltic Sea, Sweden’s hills and forests to the west, Öland a straitness mottled with heather, grass, woods, rock, sand—names no dweller would speak for unchronicled centuries to come.

Everard swept his scanner around. Abruptly he stiffened. “Yonder!” he exclaimed into the transmitter at his neck. “About seven o’clock—see?”

Floris whistled. “Yes. A Roman ship, is it not, anchored offshore?” Thoughtfully: “Gallo-Roman, most likely, out of some such port as Bordeaux or Boulogne, rather than the Mediterranean. They never had a regular trade directly with Scandinavia, you know, but records mention a few official visits, and occasional entrepreneurs sail to Denmark and beyond, bypassing the long chain of middlemen. Amber, especially.”

“This might be significant for us. Let’s check.” Everard increased magnification.

Floris had already done it. She screamed.

“Oh, my God,” Everard choked.

Floris swooped downward. Cloven air boomed behind her.

“Stop, you fool!” Everard yelled. “Come back!”

Floris ignored him, her popping ears, everything but that which was ahead of her dive. Still her shriek trailed after. So might a plunging hawk scream, or a wrathful Valkyrie. Everard struck fist on control console, cursed, and grimly, all but helplessly, trailed at a slower pace. He halted a few hundred feet aloft, keeping the sun at his back.

The men, clustered to watch the show or wait their turns, heard. They looked up and saw the death-horse bound for them. They wailed and scrambled in every direction. The one on the girl pulled from her, got to his knees, yanked out his knife. Maybe he meant to kill her, maybe it was only defensive reflex. No matter. A sapphire-blue energy bolt smote him through the mouth. He crumpled at her feet. From a hole in the back of his skull curled the smoke off his brain.

Floris whipped her cycle about. A man’s height above ground, she fired at the next nearest. Gut-shot, he yammered and threshed on the grass, to Everard like an overturned beetle. Floris chased a third and dropped him cleanly. She ceased then, motionless in the saddle for a minute. Sweat mingled with tears on her face, as cold as her hands.

Breath shuddered into her. She holstered her pistol and leaf-gentle descended by Edh.

Done is done, tolled through Everard. Swiftly he considered his options. In blind panic, surviving sailors spurted along the shore or toward the woods. Two had kept some wits, had waded out and were swimming for the ship, where horror boiled. The Patrolman bit his lip till blood ran. “Okay,” he said aloud, tonelessly. With jumps around space and precise aim, he killed each of those who had landed. Finally he put the wounded man out of his misery. I don’t suppose Janne left him on purpose. She just forgot. Everard rode back to a fifty-foot altitude and poised. By scanner and amplifier he observed what went on below him.

Edh sat up. Her stare was blank, but she plucked at her skirt and got it down over the red-streaked thighs. Hog-tied, Heidhin writhed toward her. “Edh, Edh,” he groaned. He stopped when the timecycle settled between. “Oh, goddess, avenger—”

Floris dismounted and knelt beside Edh. She laid her arms about the girl. “It is over, dear,” she sobbed. “It will be well with you. Nothing like this, ever again. You are free now.”

“Niaerdh,” she heard. “All-Mother, you came.”

“No use denying your divinity,” Everard snarled in Floris’s receiver. “Get the hell out before you make matters worse.”

“No,” the woman answered. “You don’t understand. I have to give her what little comfort I am able.”

Everard sat mute. The crewmen in the channel heaved frantic on halyard and anchor rode. “Loose me,” Heidhin pleaded. “Let me to her.”

“Maybe I do understand,” Everard said. “Be as quick as possible, can you?”

The daze was lifting from Edh, but unearthliness brimmed the hazel eyes. “What do you want of me, Niaerdh?” she whispered. “I am yours. As I always was?”

“Slay the Romans, all the Romans!” Heidhin bawled. “I’ll pay you for it with my life if you will.”

Poor muchacho, Everard thought, your life is already ours to take, anytime we might choose. But I could hardly expect you to act sensible right off the bat, could I?

Or ever, by my lights. You are not a scientifically educated post-Christian Western European. To you, the gods are real and your highest duty is avenging a wrong.

Floris stroked the matted hair. Her free arm drew the reeking, shivering, slight body close. “I want only your well-being, only your gladness,” she said. “I love you.”

“You saved me,” Edh stammered, “because . . . because I must—what?”

“Listen to me, Floris, for everything’s sake,” Everard called between his teeth. “The time is out of joint and you can’t set it right today. You can’t. Meddle any more, and I swear there’ll never be a Tacitus One book, maybe never a Tacitus Two. We don’t belong in these events, and that’s why the future is in danger. Leave them be!”

His partner fell altogether still.

“Are you troubled, Niaerdh?” Edh asked as a child might. “What can trouble you, the goddess? That the Romans befoul your world?”

Floris closed her eyes, opened them, and let go of the girl. “It . . . is . . . your woe, my dear,” she said. Rising: “Fare you well. Fare you bravely, free from fear and sorrow. We shall meet again.” To Everard: “Shall I release Heidhin?”

“No, Edh can take a knife and cut the rope. He can help her back to the village.”

“True. And that should do both of them good, shouldn’t it? A pitiful tiny bit of good.”

Floris mounted her timecycle. “I suppose we’d best ascend, instead of winking out of sight,” Everard said. “Come on.”

He threw a last glance down. It was as if he felt the two there looking and looking. Out on the water, sail filled, the ship bore west. Lacking several hands and, no doubt, at least a couple of officers, she might or might not make it home. If she did, the crew might or might not relate what they had seen. It would scarcely win credence. They’d be smarter to invent something more plausible. Of course, any tale could well be taken for a fabrication, an attempt to cover up a mutiny. In that case, they had an unpleasant death in store. Maybe they’d try their luck among the Germans instead, slim though the prospects be. Knowing their fate would not affect history, Everard didn’t give a damn what it was.

15

A.D. 70.

The sun was newly down, clouds lay red and gold in the west, eastward the sky deepened while night rose in a tide over the wilderness. Light lingered on a treeless hilltop in central Germany, but already the grass there was full of shadows and warmth draining from the quiet air.

Having seen to the horses, Janne Floris squatted at the blackened spot in front of the twin shelters and began assembling wood for a fire. Some remained, split and stacked, from the last time the Patrol agents had used the site, a few days ago if you counted by the turning of the planet. A gust and thump brought her to her feet. Everard swung off his vehicle.

“Why are you—I expected you back sooner,” she said half timidly.

He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I figured you might as well do the camp chores while I did mine,” he replied. “And nightfall is a logical return point. I don’t want more than a bite to eat, but then a clock dial’s worth of sleep. I’m wrung out. Aren’t you?”

She looked away. “Not yet. Too tense.” With a gulp, she made herself confront him. “Where did you go? You just told me to wait, immediately after we got here, and left.”

“I guess I did. Sorry. Wasn’t thinking. It seemed obvious.”

“I thought I was being punished.”

He shook his head more vigorously than his words would have suggested. “Good Lord, no. In fact, I’d a vague notion of sparing you a discussion. What I did was skip back to Öland, after dark on . . . that day. The kids were gone and nobody else was around, as I’d hoped. I lifted the corpses one after another, took them well out to sea, and dumped them. Not a fun job. No reason for you to be in on it.”

She stared. “Why?”

“Isn’t that obvious either?” he snapped. “Think. Same reason I shot the swine that you didn’t get around to. Minimize impact on local people, because we’ve got too flinking many variables as is. I daresay they’ll believe Edh and Heidhin, more or less, but they live in a world of gods and trolls and magic anyway. Material evidence or independent witnesses would hit them a lot harder than a doubtless incoherent story.”

“I see.” She twisted her hands together. “I am being quite stupid and unprofessional, am I not? I wasn’t trained for this kind of mission, but that is no excuse. I am very sorry.”

“Well, you caught me by surprise,” he growled. “When you skited off into action, I was dumbfounded for a second. And then what could I do? Not mess around with causality anymore, for certain, nor risk Heidhin seeing my face, to recognize it in Colonia this year. Duck back uptime, get a different disguise from the one I used on the beach, and return to the same minute? No, it wouldn’t do for mortals to see the gods quarreling; that’d confuse things worse yet. I could only play along with you.”

“I am sorry,” she said desperately. “I couldn’t help myself. There was Edh, Veleda whom I saw among the Langobardi—no woman ever impressed me more—I knew her—but this was a young girl, and those animals—”

“Yeah. Berserk rage, followed by overwhelming sympathy.”

Floris straightened. Fists doubled, she gazed squarely at Everard and said, “I am explaining, not making excuses. I will take whatever penalty the Patrol gives me, without complaint.”

He stood a few heartbeats unspeaking before he made a crooked smile and answered, “There won’t be any if you carry on honestly and competently. Which I’m sure you will. As an Unattached agent on this case, I can make summary judgments. You are hereby pardoned.”

She blinked hard, rubbed wrist over eyes, and said unevenly, “Sir, you are too kind. Because we have worked together—”

“Hey, give me credit,” he protested. “Yes, you’ve been a grand companion, but I wouldn’t let that influence me . . . much. What counts is that you’ve proved yourself a crack operative, which the outfit is always short of. More important still, this hasn’t actually been your fault.”

Bemusement: “What? I allowed my emotions to take me over—”

“Under the circumstances, that isn’t exactly to your discredit. I’m not at all sure what I’d’ve done myself, though maybe sneakier; and I’m not a woman. It didn’t bother me killing those vermin. I didn’t enjoy it, mind you, especially since they hadn’t a chance against me, but as long as it had to be done, I’ll sleep okay.” Everard paused. “You know, in my salad days, before I joined the Patrol, I favored the death penalty for forcible rape, till a lady pointed out to me that then the bastard would have an incentive to murder his victim and no motive not to. My feelings stayed the same. If I remember right, you twentieth-century Dutch, in your civilized, clinical fashion, treat the problem with castration.”

“Nevertheless, I—”

“Get off that guilt trip. What are you, some kind of a liberal or something? Let’s put sentiment on the shelf and think about the matter from a Patrol point of view. Listen. It seems fairly clear—do you agree?—those were merchant seamen who’d finished whatever business they’d done on Öland, if any, and were bound elsewhere, probably home. They happened to see Edh and Heidhin on that lonely shore and seized an opportunity. That sort of thing is common throughout the ancient world. Maybe they didn’t intend to come back, or maybe it’d be to a different tribe—from the air, I got an impression the island’s divided—or maybe they figured nobody would know. Whichever, they trapped the kids. If we hadn’t interfered, they’d have taken Heidhin off to sell for a slave. Edh too, unless they injured her so badly it was only worthwhile slitting her throat for one last bit of sport. That’s what would have happened. An incident like thousands of others, important to nobody but those who suffer, and they soon dead, forgotten, lost forever.”

Floris crossed fists over breasts. The waning light glimmered in her eyes. “Instead—”

Everard nodded. “Yeah. Instead, we appeared. We’ll want to seek out her home town, a few years after she left it, settle down for a while as visitors, ask discreet questions, get to know her people. Then maybe we’ll have some idea of how poor little Edh became terrible Veleda.”

Floris grimaced. “I think I do. In a, a general way. I can imagine myself into her. I think she was more intelligent and sensitive than most, yes, devout, if we can say that of a heathen. This dreadful thing came upon her, fear, shame, despair, not simply her body but her spirit crushed under those heaving, thrusting weights; and suddenly the veritable goddess arrived, to slay them and embrace her. From the bottom of hell, up to glory. . . . But afterward, afterward! The defilement, the sense of having been made worthless, it will not ever quite leave a woman, Manse. Worse for her, because in Iron Age Germany the blood, the womb, is sacred to the clan and a wife’s adultery is punished by the most brutal death. They would not blame her for what she could not help, I suppose, but she would be contaminated and—and the element of the supernatural would rouse fear, I think, more than reverence. Pagan gods are tricky, often cruel. I wonder if Edh and Heidhin dared say much. Perhaps they said nothing; and that would itself make a tearing conflict in them.”

Everard wished for his pipe but didn’t believe he should go to his hopper’s carrier box for it. Floris had become too vulnerable. She never called me by my first name before, as careful as we’ve been to avoid entanglements. I doubt she’s aware she did. “You’re probably right,” he agreed. “At the same time, there the supernatural occurrence was. It had left them alive and free. If her body was degraded, her soul couldn’t really be. Somehow, she was worthy of the goddess. It must be because she had a destiny, she was chosen for something enormous. Only what? Well, with Heidhin talking to her, over and over, full of male revengefulness—In terms of her culture, it would make sense. She was appointed to bring about the destruction of Rome.”

“She could accomplish nothing on her backwater island,” Floris finished. “Nor could she any longer fit into its life. She would wander west, confident of the goddess’s protection. Heidhin went with her. Between them they scraped together enough goods to buy passage across the sea. What they saw and heard of Roman doings as they traveled fueled their hatred, their sense of her mission. But I think, in spite of everything, and rare though it is in their society, I think he loved her.”

“I suspect he does yet. Remarkable, when it’s pretty plain she never let him into her bed.”

“Understandable.” Floris sighed. “For her, after that experience—and he, if nothing else, he would not force himself on a vessel of the goddess. I heard he has a wife and children among the Bructeri.”

“Uh-huh. Well, what we’ve found is the irony that our investigation of a disturbance to the plenum is what brought it about. To be quite frank, that sort of nexus is by no means unprecedented. Another reason for not condemning you, Janne. Often a causal loop has a powerful and subtle force to it. What we’ve got to do is prevent it from developing into a causal vortex. We have to forestall the events that would lead to Tacitus Two, while not unduly perturbing those that are described in Tacitus One.”

“How?” she asked despairingly. “Dare we meddle more? Should we not appeal for help from . . . the Danellians?”

Everard smiled the least bit. “M-m, the situation doesn’t look that bad to me. We’re expected to handle everything we can, you know, economizing on lifetime of other agents. First, as I remarked, it seems wise to spend a while on Öland, researching background. Then we’ll return to this year, the Batavi, the Romans, and—well, I have some preliminary thoughts, but I want to discuss them with you in depth, and you’ll be vital to whatever we do.”

“I will try.”

They stood silent. The air grew colder. Night rose up the hillside. Sunset colors smoldered to gray. Above them kindled the evening star.

Everard heard a ragged breath. Through the dusk, he saw Floris shudder and hug herself. “Janne, what’s the matter?” he asked, already guessing.

She looked out over the darkness. “All this death and pain, loss and grief.”

“The norm of history.”

“I know, I know, but—And I thought living among the Frisii had hardened me, but today, in this today of mine, I killed men, and, and I will not sleep soundly—”

He stepped close, laid hands on shoulders, murmured. She spun about to throw her arms around him. What could he do but the same? When she raised her face to his, what could he do but kiss her?

She responded wildly. Her lips tasted salt. “Oh, Manse, yes, yes, please, don’t you yourself need to forget for this night?”

16

Sleet hissed, blown out of unseen heaven across a land that rain had already half drowned. Vision soon lost itself; flat acres, withered grass, leafless trees tossing in the wind, the burnt-out remnant of a house, dissolved in a noontide murk. As dank as the chill was, clothing gave little defense. The north wind smelled of the swamps over which it had roared, of the sea beyond, and of winter striding down from the Pole.

Everard hunched in the saddle, cloak drawn tight. Water dripped from the hood past his face. The horse’s hoofs went plop-squelp, plop-squelp in pastern-deep mud. Yet this was the entryway through an estate to a manor house.

The building hove in view before him. In modified Mediterranean style, tile-roofed, stuccoed, it had been raised by Burhmund when he was Civilis, ally and officer of Rome. His wife was its matron, his children filled it with laughter. Now it served as headquarters for Petillius Cerialis.

Two sentries stood in the portico. Like those at the gate, they challenged the Patrolman when he drew rein at the foot of the stairs. “I am Everardus the Goth,” he told them. “The general is expecting me.”

One soldier gave his companion an inquiring glance. The latter nodded. “I’ve been instructed,” he said. “In fact, I escorted the preliminary courier.” Was he snatching at any scrap of pride, of importance? He snuffled and sneezed. Probably the first man was a last-minute replacement for a ranker who lay fevered, teeth chattering, in sick bay. Although they appeared to be of Gallic breed, both these were pretty wretched themselves. Their metal was tarnished, their kilts hung sodden, gooseflesh studded their arms, sunken cheeks spoke of short rations.

“Pass,” the second legionary said. “We’ll call a groom to stable your mount.”

Everard entered a gloomy atrium, where a slave took his cloak and knife. Several men sitting slumped, staff with nothing to do, gave him stares in which, perhaps, a sudden feeble hope flickered. An aide came to conduct the visitor to a room in the south wing. He knocked on the door, heard a gruff “Open,” obeyed, and announced: “Sir, the German delegate is here.”

“Send him in,” rumbled the voice. “Leave us alone but stand outside, just in case.”

Everard entered. The door shut behind him. Scant light seeped through a leaded window. Candles stood around in holders. Tallow, not wax, they smoked and stank. Shadows bulked in corners and slid across a table strewn with papyrus dispatches. Otherwise there were a couple of stools and a chest that might hold changes of clothing. An infantry sword and its sheath hung side by side on a wall. A charcoal brazier had warmed the air but made it stuffy.

Cerialis sat behind the table. He wore merely a tunic and sandals: a burly man with a hard square face whose clean-shavenness revealed deep furrows. His eyes raked the newcomer. “You are Everardus the Goth, eh?” he greeted. “The go-between said you speak Latin. You’d better.”

“I do.” This’ll be tricky, the Patrolman thought. It wouldn’t be in character for me to grovel, but he might decide I’m arrogant and he’s not going to take any lip from any Jupiter-damned native. His nerves must be worn thin, like everybody else’s. “The general is both kind and wise to receive me.”

“Well, frankly, by now I’d listen to a Christian, if he claimed he’d something to offer. If it turned out he didn’t, I could at least have the pleasure of crucifying him.”

Everard feigned puzzlement. “A Jew sect,” Cerialis grunted. “Heard about the Jews? Another pack of mutinous ingrates. But you, your tribe’s way to the east. Why in Tartarus are you running errands hereabouts?”

“I thought that was explained to the general. I am no enemy of yours, nor of Civilis either. I’ve spent time in the Empire as well as in different parts of Germany. I got to know Civilis a bit, and lesser chieftains a bit more. They trust me to speak straightforwardly for them, because of my being an outsider whom you have nothing against. And because of knowing Roman ways somewhat, I can bring them your words clear, not scrambled. As for myself, I’m a trader who’d like to do business with this region. I stand to benefit from peace and their thankfulness.”

Persuading them had been more complicated than that, but not very much more. The rebels were in fact weary and discouraged. The Goth might be granted personal access to the Imperial commander, where he might do some good and could scarcely do worse harm than already went on. After heralds had carried the request, the ease with which arrangements were made surprised the Germans. Everard had awaited it. He knew better than they, from Tacitus and from aerial observation, how badly off the Romans were too.

“I do know!” Cerialis snapped. “Except that they didn’t mention what was in it for you. Very well, we’ll talk. I warn you, get that long-winded again and I’ll boot you out myself. Sit down. No, pour us wine first. It makes this frog-marsh country a hair less horrible.”

Everard filled two silver goblets from a graceful glass decanter. The seat he took was likewise handsome, and the drink tasted well, if a tad too sweet for his preferences. This must all have belonged to Civilis. To civilization.

I’ll never be fond of the Romans, but they do bring other things with them than slave traders, tax farmers, and sadistic games. Peace, prosperity, a widened world—those don’t last, but when the tide ebbs it leaves behind, scattered through the wreckage, books, technologies, faiths, ideas, memories of what once was, stuff for later generations to salvage and treasure and build with again. And among the memories is that there was, for a while, a life not given over entirely to naked survival.

“So the Germans are ready to surrender, are they?” Cerialis prompted.

“I beg the general’s pardon if we gave the wrong impression. We are not masters of the Latin language.”

Cerialis thumped the table. “I told you, stop pussyfooting or get out! You’re royal at home, descended from Mercury. Got to be, the way you bear yourself. And I’m the emperor’s kinsman, but he and I are plain soldiers who’ve pulled heavy duty. We two can be blunt with each other, here while we’re alone.”

Everard ventured a grin. “As you wish, sir. I daresay you did not really misunderstand us. Then why don’t you come to the point? The chieftains who sent me do not propose to go under the yoke or chained in a triumph. But they’d like an end to this war.”

“What gall have they got, to demand terms? What have they left to fight with? We hardly even see a hostile any more. Civilis’s last attempt worth mentioning was a naval demonstration in fall. I wasn’t worried, I was astonished that he bothered. Nothing came of it and he withdrew across the Rhine. Since then we’ve ravaged his homeland.”

“I’ve seen, including the fact that you spared his properties.”

Cerialis fired off a laugh. “Of course. Drive a wedge between him and the rest. Make ’em wonder why they should bleed and die for his benefit. I know they’re pretty well fed up. You came on behalf of a clutch of tribal chiefs, not him.”

That’s true, and you’re shrewd, mister. “Communication is slow. Besides, we Germans are used to acting independently. It does not mean that they sent me to betray him.”

Cerialis swallowed from his cup, slammed it down, and said, “All right, let’s hear. What am I offered?”

“Peace, I told you,” Everard declared. “Can you afford to refuse? You’re in as much trouble as they are. You claim you don’t see enemy fighters any more. That’s because you aren’t advancing any farther. You’re bogged down in a land picked bare, every road a quagmire, your troops cold, wet, hungry, sickening, miserable. Your supply problems are hideous, and it won’t get better till the state has recovered from the civil war, which will take longer than you can wait.” I wish I could quote that great line of Steinbeck’s, about the flies having conquered the flypaper. “Meanwhile Burhmund, Civilis, is recruiting in Germany. You could lose, Cerialis, the way Varus lost in the Teutoburg Forest, with the same long-range consequences. Better come to terms while you’ve got the chance. There, was that plain-spoken enough?”

The Roman had flushed and knotted his hands. “It was insolent. We’ll not reward rebellion. We cannot.”

Everard softened his tone. “It seems to . . . those whose mouth I’m being . . . that you’ve punished it adequately. If the Batavi and their allies return to their allegiance and to quietness beyond the river, haven’t you reached your objective? What they ask in exchange is no more than they owe to their people to get. No decimation, no enslavements, no captives for the triumph or the arena. Instead, amnesty for all, including Civilis. Restoration of tribal lands, where these are occupied. Correction of the abuses that brought the revolt on in the first place. This means, mostly, reasonable tribute, local autonomy, access to trade, and an end to conscription. Given that, you’ll once again get as many volunteers enlisting as Rome can use.”

“That’s no small set of demands,” Cerialis said. “It goes beyond my authority.”

Ah, he’s willing to consider it. A thrill coursed through Everard. He leaned forward. “General, you’re of Vespasian’s house, Vespasian for whom Civilis fought too. The emperor will listen to you. Everybody says he’s a hardheaded man who’s interested in making things work, not in hollow glory. The Senate will . . . listen to the emperor. You can bring this treaty about, general, if you want to, if you’ll make the effort. You can be remembered not as a Varus but as a Germanicus.”

Cerialis peered slit-eyed across the table. “You talk almighty knowing for a barbarian,” he said.

“I’ve been around, sir,” Everard answered.

Oh, I have, I have, around the whole globe, up and down the centuries. Most recently at the wellspring of your sorest woes, Cerialis.

How long ago it already felt, that idyll on Öland, no, on the Eyn. Twenty-five years past by the calendar. Hlavagast and Viduhada and most of those who had been so hospitable were likeliest dead by now, bones in the earth and names on tongues wearing down toward oblivion. Gone with them were the pain and puzzlement left behind by children whom strangeness had called away. But for Everard it was scarcely a month since he and Floris bade farewell to Laikian. Man and wife, wanderers from the far South who had gotten passage over the sea for themselves and their horses, and would like to pitch their tent for a while close to this friendly thorp. . . . It was extraordinary, therefore enchanting; it caused people to talk more freely than ever before in their lives; but there were also the hours alone, in the tent or out on the summery heath. . . . Afterward the Patrol agents got floggingly busy.

“And I have my connections,” Everard said.

The histories, the data files, the great coordinating computers, the experts of the Time Patrol. The knowledge that this is the proper configuration of a plenum that has powerful negative feedback. We’ve identified the random factor that could bring on an avalanching change; what we must do is damp it.

“Hm,” Cerialis said. “I’ll want a fuller account.” He cleared his throat. “Later. Today we’ll stick to business. I do want my men out of the mud.”

I find that I kind of like this guy. In many ways he reminds me of George Patton. Yes, we can dicker.

Cerialis weighed his words. “Tell your lordlings this, and have them pass it on to Civilis. I see one big stumbling block. You speak of the Germans beyond the Rhine. I can’t concede what he wants and pull the legions out while they are faunching for somebody to whistle them up all over again.”

“He would not, I assure you,” Everard said. “Under the conditions proposed, he’d have won what he was fighting for, or at least a decent compromise. Who else might start a new war?”

Cerialis’s mouth tightened. “Veleda.”

“The sibyl among the Bructeri?”

“The witch. D’you know, I’ve thought about a strike into that country just to seize her. But she’d vanish into the woods.”

“And if you did somehow succeed, it’d be like snatching a hornets’ nest.”

Cerialis nodded. “Every crazy tribesman from the Rhine to the Suebian Sea up in arms.” He meant the Baltic, and he was right. “But it might well be worse, for my grandchildren if not me, to let her go on spewing her venom amongst them.” He sighed. “Except for that, the furor could die down. But as is—”

“I think,” said Everard weightily, “if Civilis and his allies are promised honorable terms, I think we can get her to call for peace.” Cerialis goggled. “You mean that?”

“Try it,” Everard said. “Negotiate with her as well as with the male leaders. I can carry word between you.”

Cerialis shook his head. “We couldn’t leave her running loose. Too dangerous. We’d have to keep an eye on her.”

“But not a hand.”

Cerialis blinked, then chuckled. “Ha! I see what you mean. You’ve got a gift of gab, Everardus. True, if ever we arrested her or anything like that, we’d likely get a whole new rebellion. But what if she provoked it? How can we know she’ll behave herself?”

“She will, once she’s reconciled with Rome.”

“What’s that worth? I know barbarians. Flighty as geese.” Evidently it didn’t occur to the general that he might offend the emissary, unless he didn’t care. “From what I’ve gathered, that’s a war goddess she serves. What if Veleda takes it into her head that this Bellona’s hollering for blood once more? We could have another Boadicea on our hands.”

A sore point with you, huh? Everard sipped of his wine. The sweetness glowed down his throat, invoking summers and southlands against the weather that ramped outside. “Give it a try,” he said. “What can you lose by exchanging messages with her? I think a settlement that everybody can live with is possible.”

Whether in superstition or in metaphor, Cerialis replied, surprisingly quietly, “That will depend on the goddess, won’t it?”

17

The early sunset smoldered above the forest. Boughs were like black bones athwart it. Puddles in field and paddock glowed dull red with it beneath a greenish sky as cold as the wind that eddied whimpering across them. A flight of crows passed. Their hoarse cries sounded for a while after the dusk had swallowed them up.

A hind carrying hay between stack and house shivered, not only because of the weather, when he saw Wael-Edh go by. She was not unkindly, in her stark way, but she was in league with the Powers, and now she walked from the halidom. What there had she heard and said? For months no man had fared hither to speak with her, as often erstwhile. By day she paced her grounds or sat under a tree and brooded, alone. It was surely at her own behest—but why? This was a grim time, even for the Bructeri. Too many of their men had come home from Batavian or Frisian lands with tales of mishap or woe, or had not come home at all. Could the gods be turning from their spaewife? The hind muttered a luck-spell and hastened his steps.

Her tower loomed dark ahead of the woman. The warrior on watch dipped his spear to her. She nodded and opened the door. In the room beyond, a pair of thralls sat cross-legged at a low hearthfire, palms held close. Smoke drifted around bitter until it found its outlet. Their breath mingled with it, wan in the light of two lamps. They scrambled to their feet. “Does my lady want food or drink?” the man asked.

Wael-Edh shook her head. “I will sleep,” she answered.

“We will guard your dreaming well,” the girl said. It was needless, nobody save Heidhin would dare climb the ladder unbidden, but she was new here. She gave her mistress one of the lamps and Wael-Edh went up.

A ghost of daylight lingered in a window covered with thin-scraped gut, and the flame burned yellow. Nonetheless the loft-room was already heavy with gloom, wherein her things crouched like trolls underground. Not yet wishing for her shut-bed, she put the lamp on a shelf and sat down on her high three-legged witch-seat, cloak drawn tight. Her gaze sought the shifty shadows.

Air whuffed in her face. The floor groaned beneath a sudden heavy weight. Edh leaped back. The stool clattered to the boards. She gasped.

Soft radiance flowed out of a ball atop the horns of the thing that stood before her. Two saddles were on its back, it was the bull of Frae, cast in iron, and on it rode the goddess who had claimed it from him.

“Niaerdh, oh, Niaerdh—”

Janne Floris got off the timecycle and stood as stately as might be. Last time, caught unawares, she had been garbed like any Germanic woman of the Iron Age. It hadn’t mattered then, but no doubt memory made her more impressive, and for this visit she had outfitted herself with care. Her gown draped lustrous white, jewels glinted in the belt, a silver pectoral had the pattern of a fishnet, and her hair hung in twin amber-hued braids below a diadem.

“Fear not,” she said. The tongue she used was the dialect of Edh’s girlhood. “Speak low. I have returned to you as I promised.”

Edh straightened, pressed hands to breasts, swallowed once or twice. Her eyes stood huge in the thin, strong-boned countenance. The hood had fallen back and light picked out the gray that was stealing across her head. For a few seconds she only breathed. Then, amazingly fast, a sort of calm flowed into her, an acceptance more stoic than exalted but altogether willing.

“Ever I knew you would,” she said. “I am ready to go.” A whisper: “How very ready.”

“Go?” asked Floris.

“Down hell-road. You will bring me to darkness and peace.” Anxiety fluttered. “Will you not?”

Floris tautened. “Ach, what I want of you is harder than death.”

Edh was silent a little before she replied, “As you will. I am no stranger to pain.”

“I would not hurt you!” Floris blurted. She regained due gravity. “You have served me for long years.”

Edh nodded. “Since you gave me back my life.”

Floris could not stifle a sigh. “A life lamed and twisted, I fear.”

Emotion quickened. “You did not save me for nothing, I know. It was for all the others, wasn’t it? All the women ravished, men slain, children bereft, free folk laid in bonds. I was to call their avenging down upon Rome. Was I not?”

“You are no longer sure?”

Tears glinted on lashes. “If I was wrong, Niaerdh, why did you let me go on?”

“You were not wrong. But child, hearken.” Floris held out her hands. Like a small girl in truth, Edh took them. Hers were cold and faintly atremble. Floris drew breath. The majestic words rolled forth.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

Awe looked at her. “I hear you, goddess.”

“It is olden wisdom, Edh. Hear onward. You have wrought well, you have sown for me as I would have you. But your work is not yet done. Now gather in the harvest.”

“How?”

“Thanks to the will that you aroused in them, the westfolk have fought for their rights, until at last the Romans would fain yield them back what was robbed. But they, the Romans, still fear Veleda. As long as you might cry again for their downfall, they dare not withdraw their hosts. It is time that you, in my name, call for peace.”

Rapture blazed. “They will go away then? We shall be rid of them?”

“No. They will take their tribute and have their warders among the tribes as erstwhile.” In haste: “But they will be righteous; and dwellers on this side of the Rhine will also gain by the trade and the lawfulness.”

Edh blinked, shook her head violently, crooked fingers into claws at her sides. “No real freedom? No revenge? Goddess, I cannot—”

“This is my will,” Floris commanded. “Obey.” Once more she gentled her voice. “And for you, child, there shall be reward, a new home, a place of calm and comfort, where you shall tend my shrine, that will henceforward be the halidom of peace.”

“No,” Edh stammered. “You, you must be aware—I have sworn—”

“Tell me!” Floris exclaimed. After an instant: “I . . . wish you to make yourself clear to yourself.”

The shaking, straining figure before her gained back its balance. Edh had long coped with menaces and horrors. She could overcome bewilderment. Briefly, she sounded almost wistful. “I wonder if I ever have been. . . .” She stiffened herself. “Heidhin and I, he got me to swear I would never make peace while he lives and Romans remain in German lands. We mingled our blood in the grove before the gods. Were you elsewhere?”

Floris scowled. “He had no right.”

“He—invoked the Anses—”

Floris donned haughtiness. “I will deal with the Anses. You are free of that oath.”

“Heidhin would never—He has been faithful through all these years,” Edh faltered. “Would you have me cast him out like a dog? For he will never end war against the Romans, whatever other men or you gods yourselves may do.”

“Tell him I gave you my bidding.”

“I know not, I know not!” ripped from Edh’s throat. She sank to the floor and buried her face on the knees she hugged. Her shoulders quivered.

Floris glanced aloft. Roof beams and rafters were lost in blackness. Light had left the window and cold crept inward. The wind hooted.

“We have a crisis, I fear,” she subvocalized. “Loyalty is the highest morality these people know. I’m not certain Edh can bring herself to break that pledge. Or if she does, she may be shattered.”

“Which’d leave her incapable,” sounded Everard’s English in her head, “and we’ve got to have her authority to make this deal work. Besides, poor tortured woman—”

“We must make Heidhin release her from the vow. I hope he will heed me. Where is he?”

“I was just checking on that. He’s at home.” They had bugged it some time ago. “M-m, it happens Burhmund is with him, riding circuit among the trans-Rhine chiefs, you know. I’ll find another day for you to approach him.”

“No, wait. This may be a stroke of luck.” Or the world lines tightening as they seek to regain their proper configuration? “Since Burhmund is trying to rouse the tribes to a new effort—”

“We’d better not pull any epiphanies on him. No telling how he’d react.”

“Of course not. I mean, I won’t appear directly to him. But if he sees Heidhin the implacable suddenly converted—”

“Well . . . okay. It’s dicey whatever we do, so I’ll trust your judgment, Janne.”

“Hsh!”

Edh looked up. Tears streaked her cheekbones, but she had fought the weeping off. “What can I do?” she asked colorlessly.

Floris moved to stand above her, bent, again offered her hands. She helped the other rise, clasped arms about her, stood thus for a minute giving what warmth her body was able. Stepping back, she said: “Yours is a clean soul, Edh. You need not betray your friend. We will go together and speak with him. Then he ought to understand.”

Wonder and dread became one. “We twain?”

“Is that wise?” Everard questioned. “M-m, yeah, I suppose having her along will reinforce you.”

“Love may be as strong as religion, Manse,” Floris said.

To Edh: “Come, mount my steed behind me. Hold fast to my waist.”

“The holy bull,” Edh breathed. “Or the hell horse?”

“No,” Floris said. “I told you, yours is a harder road than the way under.”

18

Fire sprang and crackled in a trench down the middle of Heidhin’s house. Smoke did not rise well toward the louvers, but hazed and made stinging an air that the flames hardly warmed. Their red light wrestled with darknesses among the pillars and beams. It wavered across the men on the benches and the women who brought them drink. Most sat wordless. Although Heidhin’s home was as grand as many a royal hall, it had commonly known less mirth than a crofter’s hut. This eventide there was none. Outside, wind shrilled through a deepening dusk.

“Naught can come of it save treachery,” Heidhin snarled.

Seated beside him, Burhmund slowly shook his grizzled head. The fire threw a bloodshot shimmer over the milkiness of his blind eye. “I know not,” he answered. “Yon Everard is an odd one. He may be able to bring something about.”

“The best he, or anybody, could bear back to us is a refusal. Any offer would be meant for our ruin. You should never have let him go.”

“How could I have stopped him? It was the lords of the tribes whom he spoke with, and they who sent him off. I told you how I did not hear till lately, when I was already on this quest.”

Heidhin’s lips writhed. “They dared!”

“They had the right.” Burhmund’s tone fell dull to the ground. “They do not forswear themselves merely by talk with the foe. I think, now, I would not have tried to forbid them, had I been on hand. They are sick of this war. Maybe Everard can find them a hope. I too am death-weary.”

“I thought better of you,” fleered Heidhin.

Burhmund showed no anger; but then, Wael-Edh’s oath-brother stood well-nigh as high as he did. “Easy for you,” said the Batavian patiently. “Your house has not been riven. My sister’s son fell in battle against me. My wife and another sister lie hostage in Colonia; I know not whether they yet live. My homeland is laid waste.” He stared down into his drinking horn. “Are the gods done with me?”

Heidhin sat spear-straight. “Only if you yield,” he said. “I never will.”

A knock sounded on the door. The man seated nearest took an ax and went to open it. Wind gusted in; the flames jumped and streamed sparks. Murk rimmed the shaped that trod through.

Heidhin leaped up. “Edh!” he cried, and started toward her.

“Lady,” Burhmund whispered. A mumble went around the hall. Men got to their feet.

Unhooded, she moved a ways alongside the fire trench. They saw she was stiff and pale, and that her gaze went beyond them. “How, how came you here?” Heidhin stumbled. The sight of him, the relentless, thus shaken, daunted every heart. “Why?”

She halted. “I must speak with you alone,” she said. Fate rang in her low voice. “Follow me. None else.”

“But—you—what—”

“Follow me, Heidhin. Mighty tidings are come. You others, abide them.” Wael-Edh turned and strode back out.

Like a sleepwalker, Heidhin went after her. At the entry, his hand of itself plucked a spear from the weapons left leaning against the wall. The two of them passed into the dark. Shuddering, a man crept to close the door.

“No, bar it not,” Burhmund told him. “We will wait here as she bade till she returns or morning does.”

The first stars winked faint overhead. Buildings crouched shapeless. Edh led the way from the yard to the open ground beyond. Sere grass and wind-ruffled puddles faded off into blindness. Near the edge of sight stood a great oak at which Heidhin offered to the Anses. From behind it spilled a steady white light. Heidhin jarred to a stop. He made a noise in his gullet.

“You must be brave tonight,” Edh said. “Yonder is the goddess.”

“Niaerdh . . . she . . . has come back?”

“Yes, to my tower, whence she fetched me hither. Come.” Edh went steadily on. Her cloak flapped in the wind, which threw the loosened hair about the head she bore so high. Heidhin gripped his spearshaft hard and trailed her.

Gnarled boughs reached widely, half seen by the glow. The wind clicked their twigs together. Dead leaves squelched wet underfoot. The two came around the bole and saw her who stood next to a bull or a horse cast in steel.

“Goddess,” Heidhin moaned. He dropped to a knee and bent his neck. But when he rose again, he held firm. If his spear shook, it was with the same wild gladness that burst from his lips. “Will you now lead us to the last fight?”

Floris’s look searched over him. He stood lean and dark, somberly clad, face etched and locks streaked by the hunter years, the iron of his weapon asheen above them. Her lamp cast his shadow across Edh. “No,” said Floris. “The time for war is past.”

Breath rattled between his jaws. “The Romans are dead? You slew them all for us?”

Edh flinched.

“They live,” Floris said, “as your folk shall live. Too many have died in every tribe, theirs also. They will make peace.”

Heidhin’s left hand joined his right, clutching the spearshaft. “I never will,” he rasped. “The goddess heard my vow I made at the shore. When they go, I will dog their heels, I will harry them by day and raid them by night—Shall I give you my kills, Niaerdh?”

“The Romans are not going. They will remain. But they will restore to the folk their rights. Let that suffice.”

Heidhin shook his head as if smitten. He gaped from woman to woman for a whole minute before he whispered, “Goddess, Edh, do you both betray them? I will not believe it.”

He seemed unaware that Edh reached toward him. The wind ran between them. Her tone pleaded. “The Batavi and the rest, they are no tribe of ours. We have done enough for them.”

“I tell you, the terms will be honorable,” Floris said. “Your work is ended. You have won what will content Burhmund himself. But Veleda must make known that this is what the gods want and men should lay down their arms.”

“I—you—We swore, Edh.” Heidhin sounded puzzled. “Never would you make peace while the Romans held on and I lived. We swore to it. We mingled our blood in the earth.”

“You will set her free of that vow,” Floris commanded, “as I already have done.”

“I cannot. I will not.” Raw with pain, the words suddenly lashed at Edh. “Have you forgotten how they made you their slut? Do you no longer care for your honor?”

She fell to her knees. Her hands fended. Her mouth stretched wide. “No,” she keened, “don’t, no, no.”

Floris moved toward the man. In the night above, Everard aimed a stun pistol. “Have done,” she said. “Are you a wolf, to rip her whom you love?”

Heidhin flung an arm wide, baring his breast to her. “Love, hate—I am a man. I swore to the Anses.”

“Do as you like,” Floris said, “but spare my Edh. Remember you owe me your life.”

Heidhin slumped. Leaning on his spear, Edh huddled at his feet, he shadowed her while the wind blew around them and the tree creaked like a gallows rope.

All at once he laughed, squared his shoulders, and looked straight into Floris’ eyes. “You speak truth, goddess,” he said. “Yes, I will let go.”

He lowered the spear, gripped it with hands below the head, and stabbed the point into his throat. In a single swording motion he slashed the edge from side to side.

Edh’s shriek overrode Floris’s. Heidhin went down in a heap. Blood spouted, blackly aglisten. He kicked and clawed at the grass, blind reflex.

“Stop!” Everard rapped. “Don’t try to save him. This damned warrior culture—it’s his only way out.”

Floris didn’t trouble to subvocalize. A goddess might well use an unknown tongue to sing the soul on its way. “But the horror of it—”

“Yeah. Think, though, think about everybody who will not die, if we work this right.”

“Can we, now? What will Burhmund think?”

“Let him wonder. Tell Edh not to answer any questions about it. An apparition of her, when she’d been miles away—the man who wanted no end to violence, dead by it—Veleda speaking for peace—The mystery will lend force, though I suppose people will draw the obvious conclusions, which’ll be a big help.”

Heidhin lay still. He looked shrunken. Blood pooled around him and soaked into the ground.

“It is Edh we must help first,” Floris said.

She went to the other woman, who had risen and stood numbed. Blood had splashed onto Edh’s cloak and gown. Heedless of it, Floris laid arms around her.

“You are free,” Floris murmured. “He bought your freedom with his life. Cherish it.”

“Yes,” Edh said. She stared into the dark.

“Now you may cry peace over the land. You shall.”

“Yes.”

Floris warmed her for a while and a while.

“Tell me how,” Edh said. “Tell me what to say. The world has gone empty.”

“Oh, my child,” Floris breathed into the graying tresses. “Be of good heart. I have promised you a new home, a new hope. Would you like to hear about it? It is an island, low and green, open to the sea.”

Life stirred a little in the answer. “Thank you. You are kind. I will do my best . . . in your name.”

“Now come,” Floris said. “I will bear you back to your tower. Sleep. When you have slept your fill, send forth that you would fain speak to the kings and chiefs. When they are gathered before you, give them the word of peace.”

19

New-fallen snow covered ash heaps that had been homesteads. Where junipers had caught some of it in their deep green, it lay like whiteness’s self. Low to the south, the sun cast their shadows across it, blue as heaven. Thin ice on the river had thawed with morning but still crusted dried reeds along the banks, while bits of it drifted in midstream, slowly northward. A gloom on the eastern horizon marked the edge of wilderness.

Burhmund and his men rode west. Hoofs struck muffled on hard ground beneath, baring the ruts of a road. Breath steamed from nostrils and made rime in beards. Metal gleamed frosty. The riders spoke seldom. Shaggy in wadmal and fur, they rode from the forest to the river.

Ahead of them lifted the stump of a wooden bridge. Piers jutted naked out of the water beyond. On the opposite shore stood the other fragment. Workers who demolished the middle had rejoined the legionaries ranked on that side. They were few, like the Germans. Their armor gave back the light but kilts, cloaks, legwear, all cloth hung worn and dirty. The plumes of officers’ helmets were faded.

Burhmund drew rein, got down, and stepped onto the bridge. His boots thudded hollow over the planks. He saw that Cerialis already stood in place. That was a friendly gesture, when it was Burhmund who requested a parley-though it did not mean much, because the understanding had been clear that they would hold one.

At the end of his section, Burhmund stopped. The two thick-set men regarded one another across a dozen feet of winter air. The river clucked below them on its way to the sea.

The Roman unfolded his arms and lifted his right hand. “Hail, Civilis,” he greeted. Accustomed to addressing troops, he easily cast his voice the needful distance.

“Hail, Cerialis,” Burhmund responded in like manner.

“You would discuss terms,” said Cerialis. “That is difficult to do with a traitor.”

His tone was matter-of-fact, his words an opening. Burhmund took it. “But I am no traitor,” he replied gravely, in Latin. He pointed out that this was no legate of Vitellius with whom he met; Cerialis was Vespasian’s. Burhmund the Batavian, Claudius Civilis, went on to number the services he had rendered over the years to Rome and its new emperor.

III

Gutherius was the name of a hunter who often went hunting in the wildwood, for he was poor and his acres meager. One blustery day in autumn he set forth, armed with bow and spear. He did not really expect to take any big game, which had grown scarce and wary. He would set snares for squirrel and hare, then leave them overnight while he pushed on in hopes of knocking down a capercaillie or the like. However, should he come on anything better, he would be ready.

His path took him around a bay. Surf dashed wildly over the reefs outside and whitecaps chopped on the half-sheltered water, although the tide was in ebb. An old woman walked the sand, stooped low, searching for whatever she might find, mussels laid bare or a fish dead but not too rotten. Toothless, fingers knotty and weak, she moved as if every step hurt. Her rags fluttered in the bitter wind.

“Good day, granny,” said Gutherius. “How goes it?”

“Not at all,” said the crone. “If nothing turns up for me to eat, I fear I cannot creep home.”

“Well, now, that would be a pity,” said Gutherius. From his pouch he took the bread and cheese he bore along. “I will give you half of this.”

“You have a warm heart,” she quavered.

“I remember my mother,” he said, “and it honors Nehalennia.”

“Could you spare me the whole of that?” she asked. “You are young and strong.”

“No, I must keep that strength if I am to feed my wife and children,” said Gutherius. “Take what I give and be grateful.”

“I am that,” said the old woman. “You shall have reward. But because you withheld some of it, first you shall have woe.”

“Be still!” cried Gutherius. He hurried onward to get away from the ill-omened words.

Reaching the forest, he set off on trails he knew. Suddenly from the brush bounded a stag. It was a mighty beast, well-nigh big as an elk, and snowy white. Its antlers spread like an ancient oak. “Halloo!” shouted Gutherius. He flung his spear but missed. The stag did not leap in flight. It poised there ahead of him, a dimness against the shadows. He strung bow, nocked arrow, and shot. At the thrum of the string, the animal fled. Yet it went no faster than a man could run, and Gutherius did not see his arrow anywhere. He thought maybe it had struck and he could chase the wounded quarry down. Recovering his spear, he dashed in pursuit.

On and on that hunt went, ever deeper into the wilderness. Always the white stag glimmered just in sight. Somehow Gutherius never tired, the breath never failed him, he ran without cease. He was drunk with running, beyond himself, everything forgotten save the chase.

The sun sank. Twilight welled up. As light failed, the stag put on a burst of speed and vanished. Wind piped among the trees. Gutherius came to a halt, overwhelmed by weariness, hunger, and thirst. He saw that he was lost. “Did yon hag truly curse me?” he wondered. Fear blew through him, colder than the oncoming night. He rolled in the blanket he carried and lay wakeful the whole of the dark hours.

All the next day he blundered about, finding nothing he recognized. Indeed this was an eldritch part of the forest. No beast scuttered in its undergrowth, no bird called from its depths, there was only the wind soughing in the crowns and tearing dead leaves loose. No nuts or berries grew, nor even mushrooms, only moss on fallen logs and misshapen stones. Cloud veiled the sun, by which he might have taken bearings. Wildly he ranged.

Then at dusk he found a spring. He cast himself on his belly to quench his withering thirst. This gave him back his wits, and he looked around him. He had entered a glade, whence he got a sight of the sky, which was clearing. In violet-blue shone the evening star.

“Nehalennia,” he prayed, “have mercy. To you I offer what I should have given freely.” Thirsty as he was, he had been unable to chew his food. He scattered it under the trees for whatever creatures it might help. By the spring he lay down to sleep.

During the night a great storm roared up. Trees groaned and tossed. Branches torn loose hurtled on the wind. Rain flew like spears. Gutherius groped blind in search of shelter. He bumped into a trunk which he felt was hollow. There he huddled through the night.

Morning broke calm and sunny. Raindrops glittered many-hued on twigs and moss. Wings passed overhead. As Gutherius stretched his stiffened body, a dog stepped out of a brake and approached him. It was no mongrel but a tall gray hunting hound. Joy wakened in the man. “Whose are you?” he asked. “Lead me to your master.”

The dog turned and trotted off. Gutherius followed. Presently they came on a game trail and took it. Yet he spied never a sign of humanity. The knowledge grew in him. “You are the hound of Nehalennia,” he dared say. “She has bidden you lead me home, or at least to a berry bush or a hazel where I can still my hunger. I thank the goddess.”

The dog answered naught, merely padded on. Nothing such as the man hoped for came in sight. Instead, after a while the woods opened. He heard the sea and smelled the salt wind off it. The dog sprang to one side and vanished among the shadows. Gutherius must needs trudge on ahead. Worn though he was, happiness burned in him, for he knew that if he followed the shoreline south, he would reach a fisher village where he had kinfolk.

At the strand he stopped, amazed. A ship lay in the shadows, driven aground by the storm, dismasted and unseaworthy though not wholly wrecked. The crew had survived. They sat about in despair, being foreigners who kenned nothing of this coast.

Gutherius went to them and discovered their plight. By signs he told them he could be their guide. They fed him and left some men on guard while others took rations and accompanied him.

In this wise did Gutherius gain the reward he had been promised: for the ship bore a rich cargo and the procurator ruled that he who saved the crew was entitled to a fair share. Gutherius thought the old woman must have been Nehalennia herself.

Because she is goddess of ships and trade, he invested his gains in a vessel that plied the Britain run. Ever did she enjoy fair weather and a following wind, while the wares she bore commanded high prices. Gutherius became a wealthy man.

Mindful of thanks he owed, he raised an altar to Nehalennia, where after each voyage he made generous offering; and whenever he saw the evening star or the morning star shine forth, he bowed low, for they too are Nehalennia’s.

Hers are the trees, the vine, and the fruits thereof. Hers are the sea and the ships that plow it. Hers are the well-being of mortals and peace among them.

20

“I just got your letter,” Floris had said on the phone. “Oh, yes, Manse, do come as soon as you can.” Everard hadn’t wasted time aboard a jet. He stuck his passport in a pocket and hopped directly from the Patrol’s New York office to the one in Amsterdam. There he drew some Dutch money and got a cab to her place.

When he entered the apartment and they embraced, her kiss was tender rather than passionate and soon ended. He was unsure whether that surprised him or not, disappointed or relieved. “Welcome, welcome,” she breathed in his ear. “It has been too long.” Yet the litheness pressed lightly against him and moved quickly back. His pulse began to slow.

“You’re looking great as always,” he said. True. A brief black gown hugged the tall figure and set off the amber braids. Her sole jewelry was a silver thunderbird pin above her left breast. In his honor?

A small smile curved her mouth. “Thank you, but look closer. I am very tired, very ready for my holiday.”

In and around the turquoise eyes he did see hauntedness. What more has she witnessed since last we said good-bye? he thought. What have I been spared? “I understand. Yeah, better than I like to. You had ten people’s work loaded on you. I should have stayed and helped.”

She shook her head. “No. I realized it then, and I still do. Once the crisis was resolved, the outfit had much better uses for you, the Unattached agent. You had authority to assign yourself to the remainder of the mission, but a higher claim on your lifespan.” Again she smiled. “Old dutiful Manse.”

Whereas you, the Specialist who really knows the milieu, must see the job through. With whatever assistance you got from your fellow researchers and from auxiliaries newly trained for the purpose—not much, huh?—you must watch over events; make certain they continued on the Tacitus One course; no doubt intervene, most carefully, now and then, here and there: till at last they were out of the unstable space-time zone and could safely be left to themselves.

Oh, you have earned your holiday, all right.

“How long were you in the field?” he asked.

“From 70 to 95 A.D. Of course, I skipped about, so on my world line it totalled . . . somewhat over a year. You, Manse? What have you been busy with?”

“Frankly, nothing except recuperation,” he admitted. “I knew you’d return to this week because of your parents, as well as your public persona, so I went directly to it, allowed us a few days’ rest, then wrote you.”

Was that fair? I’ve bounced back. For one thing, I’m less sensitive than you; what happens in history racks me less savagely. For another, you’ve endured those added months yonder.

It was as if her gaze sought behind his face. “You’re sweet.” Hastily laughing, she seized his hands. “But why do we stand here? Come, let us be comfortable.”

They proceeded to the room of pictures and books. She had set the low table with coffee, canapés, miscellaneous accessories, the Scotch she knew he liked—yes, the very Glenlivet, which he couldn’t even recall ever mentioning specifically to her. Side by side they took the sofa. She leaned back and beamed. “Comfort?” she purred. “No, luxury. Once again I am learning to appreciate my birth era.”

Is she really relaxing, or is that a pretense? I sure can’t. Everard sat on the edge of his cushion. He poured coffee for them both and a neat whisky for himself. When he cast her a glance, she gestured no and took her cup. “This is early for me,” she said.

“Hey, I wasn’t proposing to tie one on,” he assured her. “We’ll take it easy, and talk, and go out to dinner, I hope. How about that delightful little Caribbean place? Or I can wreak havoc on a rijstaffel, if you prefer.”

“And afterward?” she asked quietly.

“Well, uh—” He felt the blood in his cheeks.

“You see why I need to keep my head clear.”

“Janne! Do you think I—”

“No, certainly not. You are an honorable man. More honorable than is quite good for you, I believe.” She laid a hand on his knee. “We will, as you suggest, talk.”

The hand lifted before he could throw an arm around her. Through an open window drifted the mildness of spring. Traffic sounded like distant surf.

“It is no use playing merry,” she said after a while.

“I guess not. We may as well go straight to the serious.” Oddly, that eased him a trifle. He sat back, glass in hand. You inhaled this delicate smokiness as much as you sipped it.

“What will you do next, Manse?”

“Who knows? We never have a dearth of problems.” He turned to look at her. “I want to hear about your doings. You succeeded, obviously. I’d have been informed if there were any anomalies.”

“Such as more copies of Tacitus Two?”

“None. That single manuscript exists, and whatever transcriptions the Patrol made of it, but now it’s just a curiosity.”

He felt her slight shiver. “An object uncaused, formed out of nothing for no reason. What a terrifying universe. It was easier being ignorant about variable reality. Sometimes I regret I was recruited.”

“And also when you are present at certain episodes. I know.” He wanted to kiss the unhappiness off her lips. Should I try? Could I?

“Yes.” The bright head lifted, the voice throbbed. “But then I think of the exploring, the discovering, the helping, and I am glad again.”

“Good lass. Well, tell me about your adventures.” A slow lead-up to the real question. “I haven’t retrieved your report yet, because I wanted to hear it from you personally.”

Her spirit flagged. “You had better get the report if you are interested,” she said, looking across the room to the picture of the Veil Nebula.

“What? . . . Oh. Tough for you to talk about.”

“Yes.”

“But you did succeed. You did get history secured, and in the right pattern, with peace and justice.”

“A measure of peace and justice. For a time.”

“That’s the best human beings can ever expect, Janne.”

“I know.”

“We’ll skip the details.” Were they really that gory? My impression was that reconstruction went pretty smoothly, and the Low Countries did rather well in the Empire till it started coming apart. “But can’t you tell me a few things? What about the people we met? Burhmund?”

Floris’s tone lightened a bit. “He received amnesty, like everyone else. His wife and sister were restored to him unharmed. He retired to his lands in Batavia, where he ended his days modestly prosperous, a kind of elder statesman. The Romans, too, respected and often consulted him.

“Cerialis became governor of Britain, where he conquered the Brigantes. Tacitus’s father-in-law Agricola served under him, and you may recall that the historian rates him well.

“Classicus—”

“Never mind for now,” Everard interrupted. “Veleda-Edh?”

“Ah, yes. After bringing about that meeting at the river, she disappears from the chronicle.” The complete chronicle, retrieved by time travelers.

“I remember. How come? Did she die?”

“Not for another twenty years. A ripe old age in that era.” Floris frowned. Did dread touch her anew? “I wondered. You would think her fate would interest Tacitus enough for him to mention it.”

“Not if she went into obscurity.”

“She didn’t, quite. Could it be that I was making my own change in the past? When I reported my doubts, I was ordered to proceed and told that in fact this was a proper part of history.”

“Okay, then it was. Don’t worry. It could be a trivial glitch in causality. If so, it doesn’t matter. That kind happens a lot, and has no consequences of any importance. Or it could straightforwardly be due to Tacitus not knowing or caring what became of Veleda after she ceased to be a political force. She did, didn’t she?”

“In a way. Although—The program I thought of and suggested, and that the Patrol approved, it occurred to me because of what I knew, what I had seen, before I had any idea the Patrol exists. I heartened Edh, foretold what she would and must do, saw to the necessary arrangements, watched over her, appeared to her whenever she seemed to need her goddess—” Again Everard saw Floris troubled. “The future was creating the past. I hope I will escape any more such experiences. Not that this was horrible. No, it was worthwhile, I felt that it justified my life. But—” Her voice faded away.

“Eerie,” Everard supplied. “I know.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “you have your own secrets, don’t you?”

“Not from the Patrol.”

“From those you care about. Things that would hurt you too much to speak of, or would hurt them too much to hear.”

This is cutting near the bone. “Okay, what about Edh? I trust you made her as happy as possible.” Everard paused. “I’m sure you did.”

“Were you ever on the island of Walcheren?” Floris asked.

“M-m, no. Down close to the Belgian border, isn’t it? Wait. I’ve a vague recollection you once made a remark about archaeological finds there.”

“Yes. They are mostly stones with Latin inscriptions, from about the second and third centuries. Thank offerings, usually for a safe voyage to Britain and back. The goddess to whom they are dedicated had a temple at one of the North Sea ports of embarkation. She is represented on some of the stones, with a ship or a dog, often bearing a horn of plenty or surrounded by fruit and grain. Her name was Nehalennia.”

“Fairly important, then, at least in that area.”

“She did what gods are supposed to do, gave courage and solace, made men a little more decent than they might otherwise have been, and sometimes opened their eyes to beauty.”

“Wait!” Everard sat straight. A prickling went up his spine and over his scalp. “That deva of Veleda’s—”

“The ancient Nordic goddess of fertility and the sea, Nerthus, Niaerdh, Naerdha, Nerha, many different versions of the name. Veleda made her the avenging deity of war.”

Everard regarded Floris for an intense moment before he said, “And you got Veleda to proclaim her once more peaceful and bring her south. That’s as . . . as marvelous an operation as I’ve ever heard of.”

Her glance dropped from his. “No, not really. The potential was there, above all in Edh herself. What a woman she was. What might she have done in a luckier age? . . . On Walcheren the goddess was called Neha. She had become minor, even as an agricultural and maritime divinity. A primitive association with hunting still clung to her. Veleda arrived, revitalized the cult, gave it fresh elements suited to the civilization that was transforming her people. They came to speak of the goddess with a Latin tag, Neha Lenis, Neha the Gentle. In time that turned into Nehalennia.”

“She must have mattered a lot, if they worshiped her centuries later.”

“Evidently. Sometime I would like to trace out the history, if the Patrol can spare that much lifespan of mine.” Floris sighed. “In the end, of course, the Empire collapsed, the Franks and Saxons ravaged around, and when a new order of things arose it was Christian. But I like to imagine that something of Nehalennia lingered on.”

Everard nodded. “Me too, from what you say. It could well have. A lot of medieval saints were pagan gods in disguise, and those that were historical often took on attributes of the gods, in folklore or in the Church itself. Midsummer fires were still lighted, though it was now the Eve of Saint John. Saint Olaf fought trolls and monsters like Thor before him. Even the Virgin Mary has aspects of Isis, and I daresay quite a few legends about her were originally local myths. . . .” He shook himself. “You’re familiar with this. And it is straying kind of far. How was Edh’s life?”

Floris looked beyond him and this year. Her words flowed slow. “She grew old in honor. She never married, but she was like a mother to the people. The island was low, a birthplace of ships, like her girlhood home, and the temple of Nehalennia stood on the edge of her beloved sea. I think—I can’t be sure, for how much can a goddess know of a mortal’s heart?—I think she became . . . serene. Is that what I am trying to say? Certainly as she lay dying—” The voice caught. “—as she lay on her deathbed—” Floris fought the tears and lost.

Everard drew her to him, put her head on his shoulder and stroked her hair. Her fingers clutched at his shirt. “Easy, lass, easy,” he whispered. “Some memories will always hurt. You came to her that one last time, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she mumbled against him. “What else could I do?”

“Sure. How could you not have? You eased her passing. What’s wrong with that?”

“She—she asked—and I promised—”

Floris wept.

“A life beyond the grave,” Everard realized. “A life with you, forever in the sea-home of Niaerdh. And she went happily into the dark.”

Floris tore from him. “It was a lie!” she yelled. She sprang to her feet, stumbled around the coffee table, paced back and forth on the floor. Sometimes her hands strained against one another, sometimes fist beat palm, over and over. “All those years were a lie, a trick, I was using her! And she believed in me!”

Everard decided he had better stay seated. He poured himself a new drink. “Calm down, Janne,” he urged. “You did what you had to, for the whole world’s sake. And you did it lovingly. As for Edh, you gave her everything she could have wished for.”

“Bedriegerij—false, empty, like so much else I have done.”

Everard ran the silky fire over his tongue. “Listen, I’ve gotten to know you rather well. You’re as honest a person as I’ve ever met. Too damn honest, in fact. You’re also a very kind person by nature, which matters more. Sincerity is the most overrated virtue in the catalogue. Janne, you’re wrong when you imagine there’s anything here to forgive. But go ahead anyway, put your common sense in gear and forgive yourself.”

She stopped, confronted him, gulped, wiped the tears, and spoke with a gradually strengthening steadiness: “Yes, I . . . understand. I, I thought about this . . . for days . . . before I made my proposal to the Patrol. Afterward I s-s-stuck by it. You are right, it was necessary, and I know that many stories people live by are myths, and many myths were manufactured. Pardon this scene. It was quite a short while ago, on my world line, that Veleda died in the arms of Nehalennia.”

“And the memory overwhelmed you. Sure. I’m sorry.”

“It was not your fault. How could you have known?” Floris drew a long breath. The hands clenched at her sides. “But I do not want to lie more than I must. I never want to lie to you, Manse.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, half in fear, half in foreknowledge.

“I have been thinking about us,” she said. “Thinking hard. I suppose what we did, coming together, was wrong—”

“Well, ordinarily it would’ve been, but in this case it didn’t foul us up in our job. If anything, I felt inspired. It was damn wonderful.”

“It was for me.” Still she grew inexorably more and more calm. “You came here today in hopes of renewing it, did you not?”

He attempted a grin. “I plead guilty. You’re hell on wheels in bed, darling.”

“You are no prutsener.” The faint smile died. “What further had you in mind?”

“More of the same. Often.”

“Always?”

Everard sat mute.

“It would be difficult,” Floris said. “You Unattached, I a Specialist field agent. We would spend most of our lives apart.”

“Unless you transferred to data coordination or something else where you could work at home.” Everard leaned forward. “You know, that’s an excellent idea in itself. You’ve got the brains for it. Be done with all that risk and hardship and, yes, witness of suffering which you’re forbidden to prevent.”

She shook her head. “I do not wish to. In spite of everything, I feel I am worth most in the field, my field, and will be until I am too old and feeble.”

If you survive so long. “Yeah. Challenge, adventure, fulfillment, and the occasional chance to help. You’re that sort.”

“I could come to hate the man who made me give them up. I do not wish this either.”

“Well, uh—” Everard rose. “All right,” he said. It felt like bailing out of a plane. You gave yourself to your parachute. “Not much domestic bliss, but in between missions, something extra special and entirely our own. Are you game?”

“Are you?” she answered.

In midstride toward her, he halted.

“You are aware of what my work can require,” she said. Her face had gone pale. It’s not a blushing matter, he thought at the back of his mind. “On this past mission, too. I was not all the time a goddess, Manse. Now and then I found it useful to be a Germanic woman far from home. Or I simply wanted a night’s forgetfulness.”

The blood thudded in his temples. “I’m no prude, Janne.”

“But you are a Middle American farm boy. You have told me so, and I have learned it is true. I can be your friend, your partner, your mistress, but never, down inside you, anything more. Be honest.”

“I’m trying,” he said harshly.

“It would be worse for me,” Floris finished. “I would have to keep too much from you. I would feel I was betraying you. That makes no sense, no, but it is what I would feel. Manse, we had better not fall more in love. We had better say good-bye.”

They spent the next few hours together, talking. Then she laid her head on his breast, he hugged her for a minute, and he departed.

IV

Mary, mother of God, mother of sorrows, mother of salvation, be with us now and at the hour of our death.

Westward we sail, but night overtakes us. Watch over us through the dark and bring us on into day. Grant that this our ship bear the most precious of cargoes, your blessing.

Pure as yourself, your evenstar shines above the sunset. Guide us by your light. Lay your gentleness on the seas, breathe us forward in our faring and home again to our loves, carry us at last by your prayers into Heaven.

Ave Stella Maris!

Content

Poul Anderson
Star of the Sea

I

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

II

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

III

20

IV