“You sure a five-years-too-young Acca will do the trick for practice?”
Alexander, who had on many occasions told King stories of the woman’s beauty, just smiled. He had that far-away look King had seen so many times, when the man thought of his wife. Then he nodded. “Yes. She changed little in those years, when our sons were grown men. And after the incident…” Alexander always referred to her death as ‘the incident’, “…her face was shriveled from blood loss. Nearly unrecognizable. But it needs to be perfect.” Alexander had rarely spoken of the twin sons he had had with Acca, but when he did, it was always obliquely and brief. King got the impression that Alexander didn’t like his sons much, so when the man mentioned them again now, he let the comment pass.
Alexander had long ago described the full scope of his plan. King ran through it all in his head again. They would surreptitiously contact Acca, explain about the details of her death and how Alexander had come back to save her. They would leave the pseudo-corpse for Young Alexander to find and mourn over, setting in action a course of events that would lead them back in time. While Alexander’s younger self grieved, they would use a machine in another of his laboratories to get home — separately. King didn’t know where or when Alexander considered home. They’d lived a lifetime as brothers now. But that was one secret Alexander had yet to reveal.
“This isn’t far from Rome,” King observed.
“You mean, from where Rome will be,” Alexander clarified and then shook his head. “Only about twenty miles. But there’s a village to the south where we can get rooms. They make great wine too.”
“Where are we most likely to spot her?” King asked, as they left the view across the lake behind and turned for the village. King’s body was now deeply tanned, his healing abilities strangely not affecting the pigment in his skin. His hair was longer now too, down below his shoulders, and to fit in with the era, he had grown a thick luxuriant beard. The few times he caught a reflection of himself in shined metal, he thought he looked more and more like Alexander. The robes and sandals helped with that image.
“Either in the village or we’ll make a call up at my villa at some point.” A wistful look came over the big man’s face. “We spent a lot of time there.”
“Let’s get some wine before you start crying.”
Alexander smiled. “You have a way with words, Jack.” The two had become close friends over the years, and King had long since forgiven him for the abduction that led to their travel into the past.
But King had yet to shake the pain he hid. He spent time every morning, sitting in the glow of the rising sun, eyes closed. To the observer, he was praying or meditating, but all he was really doing was remembering. He played the events of his modern life through his mind each morning, when his imagination was most fertile, and he watched his life like an ongoing TV show, watching key events repeatedly like reruns. He thought about Fiona and Sara most of all, but his parents and Asya were always present in his mind, as were Zelda, Stan, Erik, Shin and Tom. At first, he’d thought of them by their callsigns, but three years ago he had trouble recalling Bishop’s name. He’d had to ask Alexander. Knowing he and Alexander were closer to their goal filled him with an anxious tension that threatened to tear down the mental blocks he kept in place through hardened discipline. If those barriers ever broke and the full weight of the despair he felt from missing his loved ones washed over him, he would be useless. So he fought, and worked toward Alexander’s goal and the promise of home, in the arms of his girls, with the same passion as Alexander, who was near the end of his much longer, but similar struggle.
“I still haven’t seen why you needed me on this little adventure of yours,” King said, distracting himself from thoughts of home.
“As I’ve said before, I needed someone I could trust — and we have yet to face any real problems.”
“Real problems?” King asked with a raised eyebrow. “You nearly lost your head in Corsica.”
“How was I to know that arrogant bastard was a Prince?
“Prince or not, you didn’t have to urinate on him…”
“He was a ponce.” Alexander let out a guffaw.
The two joked as they wandered into the nearby village, which was a collection of low buildings and ramshackle wooden structures nestled between picturesque chestnut and olive trees. King watched a man walking toward them. Unlike most of the people he saw, this man looked like he was taking in all the sights around him for the first time, the way King felt he must look every time they traveled. But the man’s manner didn’t resemble that of a stranger to the region. Rather, he was nodding to himself at things he saw, as if he were ticking things off a mental checklist. King didn’t think of the man as a threat — hardly anyone was a threat to him and Alexander. Still, he found the man’s manner interesting.
The man looked to be in his forties, and had a graying beard, with a high tanned forehead and a receding gray hairline. His eyes were a pale blue, nearly gray. Small crow’s feet around the man’s eyes lent wisdom to his already intelligent face. Like King, he wore a robe and sandals. As the man neared, King was about to move his eyes away from the man, when something on the man’s arm caught King’s eye. The man had faded rope wrapped around his forearm like a bracelet, but underneath it, King could have sworn he had seen a glint of metal or glass. Circular…like a watch.
Before he could be sure, the man had walked past them. King turned to Alexander and put his hand on the big man’s bicep to stop him from walking on.
“Did you see that?” King asked.
Alexander whipped his head around and instantly noted the man to whom King was referring. He mumbled a name that sounded like, “David,” and added “Steer clear of that man, Jack. He’s nothing but trouble.”
With that, Alexander turned and strode on toward the village.
Shrugging, King followed. If Alexander didn’t come forth with a full explanation on something, no amount of cajoling would get it out of the man. King knew if the story was important enough, it would come out eventually — usually with wine.
Alexander found a place he remembered and told King it had the best bread he would ever taste, when suddenly the large man stopped in his tracks and grabbed King painfully by the arm.
King turned his head and looked. He quickly identified the man Alexander had seen. His hair was shorter, and he wore a thin cloth band around his forehead that looked like a kind of crown. His robes were far richer than those King wore — dyed fabrics, and elaborately stitched roses along the hem. The man’s bearing was regal, as if he thought himself far above the people around him. People stepped out of the way as the man moved through, as if they knew and feared him.
King was looking at Alexander. The young Alexander.
He turned and looked up at his friend, who had grown his hair and beard long, and who was dressed in a poor man’s robes, like King. King’s Alexander was over 2800 years older, but to see the man’s face, he was just ten or twenty years the senior of the man in the wealthy robes. The resemblance was there, but you’d have to know to look for it. The hair and disparity in appearance of wealth made a large difference. Anyone besides King was unlikely to link the two men, even if they stood near each other.
King looked back to the younger Alexander with the burgundy robe and took in the man’s bravado. King’s Alexander had certainly mellowed over the years. This younger man acted like a hoodlum, pushing into people who got in his way, talking loudly with shopkeepers, and bragging about everything. King had learned several of the Etruscan dialects during his years in the past, and this man, naturally, spoke with a wealthy, educated dialect.