The Shield of Time (40 page)

Perforce, Everard related the adventures of Sir Manfred. The wine, which was excellent, smoothed his tongue, soothed his impatience, and conferred inventiveness as to details. Having duly visited the sacred places, bathed in the Jordan, et cetera, Manfred had gotten in a little fighting against the Saracens, a little boozing and wenching, prior to embarkation for his homeward voyage. The ship landed him at Brindisi,
whence he continued on horseback. One servant had succumbed to illness, another in a skirmish with bandits; for King Roger’s ruthless warfare, year by year, had left much desolation and desperate men were many.

“Ah, we’ll clean them out,” Lorenzo said. “I thought of spending the winter in the South, scouring for them, but travelers are few that time of year, the outlaws will withdraw into whatever wretched dens are theirs, and … I am not fain to play hangman, however necessary the task be. Go on with your tale, I pray you.”

Nobody else had molested Sir Manfred, which was understandable considering his size. He planned to visit the shrines of Rome and there engage new attendants. Anagni was hardly out of his way, and he had longed to meet the illustrious Sir Lorenzo de Conti, whose exploit last year at Rignano—

“Alas, my friend, I fear you will come back to evil,” sighed the Italian. “Do not cross the Alps without strong escort.”

“I have heard somewhat. Can you give me fuller news?” was natural for Sir Manfred to say.

“I suppose you know that our valiant ally, the Emperor Lothair, died in December while homebound,” Lorenzo explained. “Well, the succession is disputed, and factional strife has led to open war. I fear the Empire will be troubled for a long time to come.”

Till Frederick Barbarossa at last restores order
, Everard knew.
If
history runs the same course that far uptime.

Lorenzo brightened. “Yet as you’ve seen, the cause of righteousness is prevailing without its help,” he went on. “Now that the blasphemous devil Roger is fallen, his realm crumbles before us like a sand castle under a rainstorm. I take it for a sign of God’s grace that his eldest son and namesake perished with him. He would have been almost as able an enemy. Alfonso, the successor they got—well, I’ve spoken of him.”

“Ah, that became a famous day,” Everard attempted, “and you carried it. How I have thirsted to hear the tale of it from your very lips.”

Lorenzo smiled but rushed ahead on the tide of his enthusiasm: “Rainulf, I told you, is making the southern duchies his own; nobody else counts for much any longer in those parts. And Rainulf is a true son of the Church, loyal to the Holy Father. This January—have you heard?—the false Pope Anacletus died, leaving none to dispute Innocent’s right.”
In my history, Roger II got a new anti-Pope elected, but that one abdicated within a few months. However, Roger had the personal and political strength to keep on defying Innocent, and eventually took him prisoner. In this history, Alfonso was unable to field even a feeble rival.
“The new Sicilian king does continue to claim the apostolic legateship, but Innocent has denounced that mistaken bull and preached a fresh crusade against the house of Hauteville. We’ll cast it into the sea and bring the island back to Christ!”

To the Inquisition, when it gets founded. To the persecution of Jews, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians. To the burning of heretics.

And nonetheless Lorenzo came across as a decent sort by the standards of his epoch. Wine had set him aflame. He sprang to his feet, paced to and fro, gestured wildly, spoke in trumpet tones.

“Then we’ve our brother Christians in Spain to aid, driving the last Moors from their soil. We’ve the Kingdom of Jerusalem to fortify for eternity. Roger was gaining a foothold in Africa; already those conquests are falling away, but we’ll get them back, and more. That too was once a Christian land, you know. It shall be again. There is the heretic emperor in Constantinople to humble, the true Church to restore for his people. Oh, boundless glory to win! I own to it, sinful I, my lust for a name like—let me not dare say Alexander’s or Caesar’s—like Roland’s, the first of Charlemagne’s paladins. But of course it’s the reward in Heaven we must think of, the infinite reward for faithful service. I know that isn’t won merely on the battlefield. All around us are the poor, the afflicted, they who mourn and they who are
oppressed. They shall have comfort, justice, peace. Only give me the power to bestow their due on them.”

He leaned down, clasped Everard’s shoulders, said almost imploringly, “Abide with us, Manfred! I can well judge might in a man. Yours must be the strength of ten. Go not back to your hopeless home. Not yet. You’re a Saxon. So you surely hold by your duke, who holds by the cause of the Pope. You can better aid it here. Charlemagne sprang from your country, Manfred. Let us stand ready to be knights of a new Charlemagne!”

As a matter of fact
, Everard recalled,
he was a Frank, who massacred the Old Saxons with Stalin-like thoroughness. But the Carolingian myth has taken hold. The
Chanson de Roland
won’t be composed for a while yet, the romances not till later still. However, popular stories and ballads are already in circulation. Lorenzo would be bound to seize on them. I’m dealing with a romantic, a dreamer
—
who’s also a warrior as formidable as they come. Dangerous combination. I can almost see a nimbus of destiny around that head.

The thought hauled the Patrolman back to his purpose. “Well, we can talk about it,” he said cautiously. Given his bulk, he felt the wine much less, just a glow in his veins which the tightly trained mind kept channeled. “I do wish to hear of your deeds.”

Lorenzo laughed. “Oh, you shall, you shall. My pridefulness is the despair of my confessor.” He took another turn around the room. “Stay. Sup with us this eventide.” That would be a light repast, soon served. The main meal was at midday, and given the poor illumination, people rarely sat up much past nightfall. “You’ve no business at a lousy inn. What must you think of my hospitality? A bed here shall you have, for as long as you wish, beginning at once. I’ll send boys after your animals and baggage.” With his elders at Rome, he was obviously in charge. Flinging himself back onto his bench, he reached for his beaker. “Tomorrow I’ll take you hawking. We can talk freely then, out in the wind.”

“I look forward, and thank you greatly.” A tingle went
through Everard.
This looks like the moment to try my luck.
“I have heard extraordinary things. Especially about Rignano. They say a saint appeared to you. They say that only by a miracle could you have charged through the foe as you did.”

“Ha, they say whatever comes onto their tongues,” Lorenzo snorted. “Commoners’ gabble.” Quickly: “Not but what God alone gave us our victory, and I’ve no doubt St. George and my patron watched over me. I’ve lighted many candles to them, and when I’ve won the means, I intend to endow an abbey at least.”

Everard stiffened. “But nobody saw … anything supernatural … upon that day?”
That’s how medieveal people would look on a time traveler and his works.

Lorenzo shook his head. “No. Not I, and I’ve heard no such claims from anyone else who matters. True, it’s easy to get confused in a fight, outright delirious; but your own experience must have taught you to discount that.”

“Nothing remarkable earlier, either?”

Lorenzo gave Everard a puzzled glance. “No. If Roger’s Saracens were attempting witchcraft, the will of God thwarted them. What makes you ask so intently?”

“Rumors,” Everard mumbled. “You understand, being a pilgrim, I’m especially interested in any signs from Heaven—or from hell.” He rallied himself, tossed off a mouthful, and managed a grin. “Mainly, though, as a soldier, I’m interested in what did happen there. It was no ordinary battle.”

“It was not. In truth, I felt the hand of God upon me when first I lowered lance and spurred horse toward the prince’s standard.” Lorenzo crossed himself. “Otherwise everything was of this world, tumult and turmoil, hardly a moment free for awareness, let alone any real thinking. Tomorrow I’ll be glad to relate what my memory keeps of it.” He smiled. “Not now. The story has grown stale in our household. Indeed, I myself would rather dwell on what we’ll do next.”

I’ll ask, I’ll get every detail I can from him and everybody else, before Sir Manfred regretfully decides that duty calls him back to Saxony after all. Maybe, maybe I’ll pick up a clue to somebody who came out of time and disrupted fate. But I doubt it.
The knowledge was freezingly cold.

30 October (Julian calendar).

Beneath a pale sky, those few cottages that were the village of Rignano huddled by a road running from the mountains in the west to Siponto on the Adriatic coast., Low above stubblefields and in woodlots and orchards going sere, sunrise mists blurred the horizons of North Apulia. The air was cold and still. Banners drooped, pavilions sagged wet, in the opposing camps.

A mile or so of mostly bare earth separated them, divided by the road. Smoke rose straight upward from a few fires, but only a few. Clang and clatter, shout and shriek of readymaking violated silence.

Yesterday King Roger and Duke Rainulf had conferred. None less than Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, revered by whole nations, strove to avert bloodshed. But Rainulf was vengefully determined on battle and Roger flushed with victories. Moreover, Bernard was of the party of Pope Innocent.

Today they would fight.

The king trod forth, hauberk darkly shining, and
smote fist in palm. “Up and at them!” he exulted. His voice was lionlike. Leonine too were the black-bearded features; but the eyes were viking-blue. He glanced at the man who had shared his tent, beguiling with tales those hours after plans had been laid and before sleep would come. “What, still glum on this day of all days?” he asked jovially. “I should think a djinni like you—Are you afraid yon priest will stuff you back into your bottle?”

Manson Everard forced a smile. “At least let it be a Christian bottle, with some wine in it.” His jest was harsh of tone.

For a space more Roger regarded him. Big though the king was, his companion hulked over him. That was not the sole thing strange about the fellow, either.

His story sounded straightforward enough. Bastard of an Anglo-Norman knight, Manson Everard left England years ago to seek his fortune. Like many of his countrymen, eventually he joined the Varangian Guard of the emperor in Constantinople, fought the barbarian Pechenegs, but as a Catholic felt reluctant when the Byzantines moved against the Crusader domains. Discharged, with a fair amount of money from pay and spoils, he drifted west till he landed in Bari, not far from here. There he spent a while taking his ease and pleasure, and heard much about King Roger, whose third son, Tancred, had been made prince of the city. When Roger, having subdued the rebels of Campania and Naples, crossed the Apennines, Manson rode to meet the army and offer his sword.

So might any footloose adventurer do. Manson, though, drew the royal notice by more than his size. He had much to tell, notably about the Eastern Empire. Half a century ago, Roger’s uncle Robert Guiscard had come near taking Constantinople; barely did the Greeks and their Venetian allies turn that tide. The house of Hauteville, like others in western Europe, still cherished ambitions yonder.

But there were certain curious gaps in what Manson
related; and he bore an underlying bleakness, as though some hidden sin or sorrow forever gnawed him—

“No matter,” Roger decided. “Let’s to our harvest. Will you ride with me?”

“By your leave, sire, I think I could better serve under your son the Duke of Apulia,” said the wanderer.

“As you like. Dismissed.” The king’s attention went elsewhere.

Everard pushed through roaring swarms. Heedless of the papal ban, the host had said its prayers at dawn; now oaths ripped across commands, japes, yells in half a dozen languages. Standard-bearers waved their staffs to mark locations. Men-at-arms brawled their way into formation, pikes and axes bared aloft. Archers and slingers deferred to them; not yet was the bowman the master of infantry. Horses neighed, mail flashed, lances whipped on high like reeds in a storm. These were Normans, native Sicilians, Lombards and other Italians, Frenchmen, miscellaneous bullyboys from across half of Europe. In flowing white above their armor, silent but wildness aquiver in them, waited the dreaded Saracen corps.

Manson and his two attendants, hired in Bari, had set up camp in the open, until the king summoned him yesterday after returning from parley. In the city he had also purchased—or so everybody else believed—mounts, a pack horse, and a charger, the last a great barb that nickered, tossed head, stamped hoofs, ha, ha among the trumpets. “Quick, help me on with my outfit,” he ordered.

“Do you really have to go, sir?” asked Jack Hall. “Damn risky, I reckon. Worse’n fightin’ Injuns.” He looked upward. Invisibly high, riders poised on their cycles and scanned the field through instruments that could count the drops of sweat on a man’s face. “Can’t they take out that hombre you’re after—quiet-like, you know, with a stun beam from above?”

“Get cracking!” Everard snapped. “No, you idiot, we’re steering too bloody close to the wind as is.”

Hall reddened and Everard realized he had been unfair. You couldn’t expect an instant grasp of crisis theory from an ordinary agent in place, hastily co-opted. This man was a cowboy till 1875, when the Patrol recruited him. Like the large majority of personnel, he worked in his own milieu, maintaining his original persona among the people who knew him. His secret self was a contact for such time travelers as came by, informant, guide, policeman, whatever they needed. If anything really untoward happened, he was to send for qualified help. It simply chanced that he d been taking a vacation in the Pleistocene, hunting game and girls, when Everard had been, and that he was good with horses.

“Sorry,” Everard said, “but I am in a hurry. Action starts in less than half an hour.” Given the information he brought from Anagni, Patrolmen had “already” charted the fatally wrong course of the battle. Now he would seek to turn it back.