Everard shook himself. Stop that gush! He was no fresh recruit, tenderhearted and appalled. He was a veteran, an Unattached operative of the Time Patrol, who understood full well that history is what humans endure.
Or maybe I feel the least bit guilty. Why? That makes still less sense. Who’s been hurt? Certainly not he, even potentially. The artificial viruses implanted in him destroyed any and every germ that sickened people anytime throughout the ages. So he couldn’t have passed anything on to Atossa either, besides memories. And it would not have been natural for Meander the Illyrian to forgo such an opportunity. I’ve taken more of them along my lifeline than I remember, and not always because I needed to stay in character on a mission.
Okay, okay, shortly before starting out on this one I had a date with Wanda Tamberly. So what? None of her business either, was it?
He grew aware that Hipponicus was talking: “Very well. No offense. Don’t worry, you’ll be quite free to wander around most of the time. I’ll be busy. I’ll tell you the best places to go, and maybe once in a while I can join you, but mostly you’ll be on your own. And at my house, no questions.”
“Thanks,” Everard replied. “Sorry if I was gruff. Tired, hot, thirsty.”
Good, he thought. It turns out I’m in luck. I can look up Chandrakumar without any problems, and in addition, I may well learn something useful from Hipponicus’ acquaintances. Admittedly, he’d be a trifle more conspicuous than he had planned on. However, in cosmopolitan Bactra he’d cause no sensation. He needn’t seriously fear alerting his quarry.
“We’ll soon take care of that,” the merchant promised.
As if to bear him out, the road swung sharply around a stand of chedar trees and the city which they had been glimpsing sprang into full view. Massive, turreted, tawny, its walls reared above riverside docks. From within their seven-mile perimeter lifted the smoke of hearths and workshops, drifted the noise of wheels and hoofs, while traffic flowed in and out the great gates, walking, riding, driving. Settlements clustered close around a strip kept clear for defense: houses, inns, industries, gardens.
Like the caravaneers, the dwellers were predominantly Iranian. Their ancestors founded the town, naming it Zariaspa, the City of the Horse. To the Greeks it was Bactra, and the nearer to it you came, the more Greeks you saw. Some of their kind had entered this country when the Persian Empire held it. Often that movement was involuntary, the Achaemenid shahs deporting troublesome Ionians. After Alexander took it, immigration increased, for Bactria had turned into a land of opportunity, which finally made itself an independent kingdom ruled by Hellenes. The large majority of them were in the cities, or in the military, or plying trade routes that reached west to the Mediterranean, south to India, east to China.
Everard recalled hovels, medieval ruins, impoverished farmers and herders, mostly Turkic-Mongolian Uzbegs. But that was in Afghanistan, 1970, not far below the Soviet border. A lot of change and chance would blow from the steppes in the millennia to come. Too damn much.
He clucked at his mount. Hipponicus’ had broken into a trot. The camel drivers made their own beasts shamble faster, and the men afoot happily kept pace. They were almost home.
Home to war, Everard knew.
They entered by the Scythian Gate. It stood open, but a squad of soldiers kept watch, helmets, shields, cuirasses, greaves, pikeheads ablaze in the sunlight. They turned a wary eye on everybody who passed. The bustle also seemed rather subdued, folk speaking less loudly and more curtly than was usual in the East. Pulled by oxen or donkeys, quite a few wooden carts were laden with family goods, the peasants who drove them accompanied by wives and children—seeking refuge behind the walls, if they could afford it.
Hipponicus noticed. His mouth tightened. “Bad news has come,” he opined to Everard. “Only rumors, I’m sure, but truth hard on their heels. Hermes rates a sacrifice from me, that we arrived no later than now.”
Yet everyday life went on. It always does, somehow, till the jaws close shut upon it. Between buildings generally blank-fronted but often vividly painted, people thronged the streets. Wagons, beasts of burden, porters, women balancing water jugs or market baskets on their heads, maneuvered among artisans, laborers, household slaves. A wealthy man in a litter, an officer on horseback, once a war elephant and its mahout, thrust straight through, leaving bow waves and wakes of human turbulence. Wheels groaned, hoofs clopped, sandals slapped cobblestones. Gabbling, laughter, anger, a snatch of song, a flute-lilt or drum-thump, roiled odors of sweat, dung, smoke, cookery, incense. In the shade of foodstalls, men sat cross-legged, sipping wine, playing board games, watching the world brawl past.
Along the Sacred Way were a library, an odeon, a gymnasium, marble-faced, stately with pillars and friezes. At intervals rose those ithyphallic stone posts, topped by bearded heads, known as herms. Elsewhere, Everard knew, were schools, public baths, a stadium, a hippodrome, and a royal palace modeled on the one in Seleucid Antioch. This main thoroughfare boasted side-walks, elevated above manure and garbage, with stepping stones at the crossings. Thus far had the seeds of Greek civilization spread.
Yet it mattered not that the Greeks identified Anaitis with Aphrodite Ourania and built her a fane in their own style. She remained an Asian goddess, her cult the largest; and west of Bactria the upstart kingdom of Parthia would presently create a new Persian Empire.
The temple of Anaitis loomed beside the Stoa of Nicanor, principal marketplace in town. Booths crowded the square: silk, linens, woolens, wine, spices, sweetmeats, drugs, gems, brasswork, silverwork, goldwork, ironwork, talismans—With the sellers crying their wares and the shoppers haggling over prices mingled vendors, dancers, musicians, soothsayers, wizards, prostitutes, beggars, idlers—The faces, the many-hued and many-formed garments had come from China, India, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Anatolia, Europe, the wild highlands and the savage northern plains—
To Everard the scene was eerily half-familiar. He had witnessed its like in a score of different lands, in as many different centuries. Each was unique, but a prehistorically ancient kinship vibrated in them all. He had never been here before. The Balkh of his own birthtime held scarcely a ghost of Hellenic Bactra. But he knew his way around. A subtle electronics had printed into his brain the map, the history, the chief languages, and information that was never chronicled but that Chandrakumar’s patience had gleaned.
So much preparation, so long and risky an effort, to clap hands on four fugitives.
They threatened his world’s existence.
“This way!” yelled Hipponicus, gesturing from the saddle. His caravan struggled on, into a less crowded district, to stop at a warehouse. There a couple of hours went by while the goods were unloaded, inventoried, and stored. Hipponicus gave his men five drachmas apiece on account and instructions about the stabling and care of the animals. He would meet them tomorrow at the bank where he kept most of his money and pay them off. Right now, everybody wanted to go home, hear what had been happening, celebrate as merrily as that news would allow.
Everard waited. He missed his pipe, and a cold beer would have been overwhelmingly welcome. But a Time Patrolman learned how to outlast tedium. He half observed what went on, half daydreamed. After a while, he noticed he was remembering an afternoon two thousand years and more beyond this moment.