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
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.”