"Marlow established an identity and enlisted in the Order. He spent a dozen years working his way up in it, till he became a close companion of a ranking knight and was let into the secrets. Then, on the eve of Philip's hit, that knight seized him and confined him incommunicado in a house. Marlow'd talked too much."
"What?" she wondered, puzzled. "He was—is—conditioned, isn't he?"
"Sure. Incapable of telling any unauthorized person he's from the future. But you have to give operatives plenty of leeway, let 'em use their own judgment as situations arise, and—" Everard shrugged. "Marlow's a scientist, an academic type, not a cop. Softhearted, maybe."
"Still, he'd have to be tough and smart to survive in that filthy period, wouldn't he?" she said.
"Uh-huh. I'll be downright eager to quiz him and learn what beans he did spill, and how." Everard paused. "To be quite fair, he did have to show a bit of occult power—forecasting events now and then, that kind of thing, if he was to advance within the Templars in anything like a reasonable time. Similar claims were common throughout the Middle Ages, and winked at if a blueblood thought they were genuine and useful to him. Marlow had permission to do it. Probably he overdid it.
"Anyhow, he got this knight, one Fulk de Buchy, believing that disaster with the king and the Inquisition was imminent. The conditioning wouldn't let him go into detail, and my guess is that Fulk realized it'd take impossibly long to get the ear of the Grand Master and convince him, if it could be done at all. However that is, what happened was that Fulk nabbed Marlow, with the idea of turning him over to the authorities as a sorcerer if the dire prediction came true. He could hope it'd count in the Templars' favor, show they actually were good Christians and so on."
"Hmm." Wanda frowned. "How does the Patrol know this?"
"Why, naturally, Marlow has a miniature radiophone in a crucifix he always carries. Nobody would take that away from him. Once he was locked up alone, he called the milieu base and told them his problem."
"Sorry. I'm being stupid."
"Nonsense." Everard strode across to lay a hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him. "You're simply not accustomed to the devious ways of the Patrol, even after the experiences you've had."
Her smile vanished. "I hope this operation of yours will be . . . devious, not dangerous," she said slowly.
"Aw, now, don't worry. You don't get paid for it. All I have to do is snatch Marlow out of his room."
"Then why do they want you to do it?" she challenged. "Any officer could hop a timecycle into there, take him aboard, and hop back out."
"Um-m, the situation is a bit delicate."
"How?"
Everard sought his drink again and paced as he talked. "That's a critical point in a critical timespan. Philip isn't simply wrecking the Templars, he's undermining his feudal lords, drawing more and more power to himself. The Church, too. I said he has Pope Clement in his pocket. The Babylonian Captivity of the Popes in Avignon begins during Philip's reign. They'll return to Rome eventually, but they'll never be the same. In other words, what's in embryo there is the modern, almighty state, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Stalin, IRS." Everard considered. "I don't say that aborting it might not be a nice idea in principle, but it's part of our history, the one the Patrol is here to preserve."
"I see," Wanda replied low. "This calls for a top-notch operator. All kinds of hysteria about the Templars, fanned by the king's party. Any incident that looked like sorcery in action—or divine intervention, for that matter, I suppose—it could make the whole scene explode. With unforeseeable consequences to later events. We can't afford to blunder."
"Yeah. You are a smart girl. At the same time, you understand, we've got to rescue Marlow. He's one of ours. Besides, if he gets questioned under torture . . . he can't admit to the fact of time travel, but what the Inquisition can wring out of him could lead it to our other agents. They'd skip, sure, but that would be the end of our presence in Philip's France. And it is, I repeat, a milieu we need to keep a close eye on."
"We did remain there, though. Didn't we?"
"Yes. In our history. That doesn't mean we inevitably did. I have to make certain."
Wanda shuddered. Then she rose, went to him, took his pipe from him and laid it in an ashtray, caught both his hands in hers, and said almost calmly, "You'll come home safe and successful, Manse. I know you."
She did not know that he would. The hazards of paradox and the wounds to the soul would be overmuch, did Time Patrol people go back to visit their beloved dead or forward to see what was to become of their beloved living.
HARFLEUR, WEDNESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 1307
The chief seaport of northwestern France was a logical site for operations headquarters. Where men and cargoes arrived from many different lands and internationally ranging bargains were struck, occasional strange features, manners, or doings drew relatively scant attention. Inland, all except criminals lived in a tightly pulled net of regulations, duties, social standing, tax collection, expectations of how to act and speak and think—"sort of like late twentieth-century USA," Everard grumbled to himself. It made discretion difficult, often precarious.
Not that it was ever easy, even in Harfleur. Since first Boniface Reynaud came here from his birthtime nine hundred years futureward, he had spent two decades creating the career of Reinault Bodel, who worked his way from youthful obscurity to the status of a respectable dealer in wool. He did it so well that nobody wondered much about a dockside shed that he kept locked. Suffice it that he had freely shown the proper officials it was empty; if it stood idle, that was his affair, and indeed he talked about someday expanding his business. Nor did anybody grow unduly suspicious of the outsiders who came and went, conferring alone with him. He had chosen his servants, laborers, apprentices, and wife most carefully. To his children he was a kindly father, as medieval fathers went.
Everard's timecycle appeared in the secret space about 9 A.M. He let himself out with a Patrol key and walked to the merchant's place. Big in his own era, gigantic in this, he left a wake of stares. However, his rough garb suggested he was a mariner, likeliest English, not one to mess with. He had sent a dispatch capsule ahead and was admitted immediately to Maistre Bodel's upstairs parlor. Its door closed behind him.
In one corner were a high stool and a table cluttered with things pertaining to business and religion or personal items—ledgers, quills, an inkwell, assorted knives, a fanciful map, a small image of the Virgin, on and on. Otherwise the chamber was rather stately. A single window admitted sufficient light but no real view of the outside, for the glass in the cames, although reasonably clear, was blurringly wavy. It was noise that seeped through, Asianlike clamor of the street below, mumble and bustle of work within, once bell-thunder from the cathedral nearby. Smells were of wool, smoke, bodies, and clothes not washed very often. Yet, beneath everything, Everard had a sense of crackling energy. Harfleur—Hareflot, they still called it, as had its Norman founders—was a rookery of merchant adventurers. From harbors like this, a few lifetimes hence, men would set sail for the New World.
He took a chair across the table from Reynaud's. They had backs, armrests, and cushions, an unusual luxury. After a few hasty courtesies, he snapped in Temporal, "What can you tell me about Marlow and his situation?"
"When last he called, the situation appeared unchanged," replied the portly man in the fur-trimmed robe. "He is confined to the strongroom. It has a pallet for him to sleep on. His guards bring him food and water twice a day, and at such times a boy empties his chamber pot for him. They speak to him no more than is barely necessary. I think my message described the neighbors as being wary of the Templars and therefore leaving them strictly alone."