Astley leaned forward, concern at last springing out all over his face.
"If anything happens," he protested quickly, "your family—"
"I have no family. All dead." With a lifted hand I forestalled what else he was going to say. "Goodbye, Astley. Tomorrow, at this time, have a fresh veal carcass, or a fat pig, brought here. That's for me to materialize myself back."
And I stepped two paces forward, into and through the misty veil.
At once I felt a helpless lightness, as though whisked off my feet by a great wave of the ocean. Glancing quickly behind me, momentarily I saw the room and all in it, but somehow vague and transparent—the fading image of the walls, the windows, my openwork reflector-apparatus, Astley starting to his feet from the armchair. Then all vanished into white light.
That white light beat upon me with an intensity that sickened. I tasted pungency, my fibres vibrated to a humming, bruising rhythm. There was a moment of hot pain, deafening noise, and a glare of blinding radiance.
Then peace, lassitude. Something seemed to materialize as a support under my feet. Again I saw the transparent ghost of a scene, this time full of human figures. That, too, thickened, and I heard many voices, chattering excitedly. Then all was color, life, reality.
One voice dominated the others, speaking in resonant Italian: "The miracle has come!"
CHAPTER II The First Half Hour
At those words, all fell silent and gazed at me in awe. It seemed unbelievable, but all this was happening to me in the back yard of—yes, of Tomasulo's tavern. It was a changed back yard, though, dominated by a simpler, newer building.
I seemed to have trouble with my memory. It lagged, as though I had been stunned. And the differences helped to confuse me. Here were no flagstones, no clutter of innkeeper's jetsam—only a level stretch of turf, hedged around with some tall, close bushes of greenery. And my audience was grouped below rather than before me. I seemed to be standing high on a platform or pedestal of cut and mortared stone.
The altar of the ox-sacrificing cult! I had made the journey back through time, from the Twentieth Century that just now hung dim and veiled in my mind, like something I had known in childhood instead of brief seconds ago.
"Kneel," intoned the same voice that had hailed me as a miracle.
At once the group before me dropped humbly down. There were a dozen or so, of both sexes, and most of them shabbily dressed. The men wore drab or faded blouses and smocks, with patched hose on their legs, and the women were untidily tricked out in full skirts, bodices, and coifs or caps. Men and women alike wore long hair, and several were as blond as myself.
I was quite evidently taken for some strange manifestation of the god or spirit they worshipped. Realizing this, I felt that I had an advantage. I sprang lightly down from the altar.
"Do not be afraid," I told them, in my best Italian. "Rise up. Which is the chief among you?"
They came to their feet, in a shy group around me, and the tallest of them moved forward.
"I am master of this coven," he murmured, respectfully, but fixing me with shrewd, calculating eyes. "What is your will?"
"First, lend me that red cloak of yours."
He quickly unclasped it from about his throat. I draped it over my nakedness, and felt more assured before this mixed audience.
"Now," I continued, "hark you all! Did you worship here because you sought a miraculous gift from heaven?"
"Not from heaven, exactly," said the man who had given me his cloak.
He was the best clad of the entire group, wearing plum-colored hose and a black velvet surcoat that fell to his knees. His narrow waist—he was an inch taller than I, and as gaunt as a rake—was clasped by a leather belt with a round silver buckle. His sharp face was decorated by a pointed beard of foxy red, and above this jutted a fine-cut long nose. His eyes, so intent upon me, were large and deep, the wisest eyes I had ever seen, and his broad brow, from which the hair receded as though beginning to wear away, was high and domed.
There was something about him to suggest Shakespeare—Shakespeare's face, that is, much more alert and enigmatic than generally pictured, and set upon the body of Ichabod Crane. I described him thus carefully because of the impression he made upon me then, and because of the importance he has since had in my life and career.
"Not from heaven," he said again. "Rather from our Father in the Lowest." He gestured downward, with a big but graceful hand. "Why do you ask? Have you not been sent by him?"
This was a definite challenge, and I made haste to simulate a grasp of the situation. With an effort I remembered the study I had made of this very incident, the prayer of a sorcerers' cult for rain, on April 30, 1470.
"I am sent as your friend," I announced. "This ox, which you have offered—"
I gestured behind me toward the altar, then turned to look. The stones were bare, save for a slight, dark moisture. I paused, thought quickly, and went on:
"This ox which you have offered has been transmuted into me, so that I may be your friend and guest."
There was more truth in that than my interrogator in the velvet surcoat thought, I told myself triumphantly. But I did not know him yet. I also congratulated myself that there had been an entire ox, for my time reflector seemed to have left little of it after the process of reassembling.
"As to the rain," I finished, "that will come, doubt it not." For I had seen, on the horizon beyond the lowest stretch of hedge, a lifting bank of cloud.
"Thank you, O messengerl" breathed an elderly cultist at my side, and "Thank you, thank you!" came prayerfully from the others.
The lean spokesman bowed a little, but I could discern the hint of a growing mockery in those deep, brilliant eyes.
"Your visit is far more than we poor worshipers had the presumption to hope for," he said silkily, "Will you suffer these servants of the true belief to depart? And will you come with me to my poor dwelling yonder?"
I nodded permission, and he spoke briefly in dismissal of the others. They retired through a gap in the hedge, respectfully, but without the awe a miracle might be thought to call forth. I was surprised, even a little piqued. Then the rationalization came to me. This was the Fifteenth Century, and the people were more naive, more credulous. They had come to this strange ceremony in expectation of a wonder. And when it came—even when there was more than they hoped for, as my volunteer host had suggested—it did not prostrate them with emotional amazement. I was strange, but I was understandable.
When the last had departed, I faced the gaunt man. I have compared his body to that of Ichabod Crane, but he was surer of his long limbs than the schoolmaster of Sleepy Hollow. Indeed, he seemed almost elegant, with his feet planted wide apart and one big hand bracketed upon his bony hip.
"How are you called?" I asked him.
"My name is Guaracco," he said readily. "The master, I say, of the coven which has just done worship here. But, if you are truly a messenger from him we delight to serve, why do you not know these things without my telling?"
A sneer was in his voice, and I felt that I had best establish my defenses.
"Ser Guaracco," I addressed him bleakly, "you will do well to show courtesy to me. I did not come here to be doubted."
"Assuredly you did not," he agreed, with a sort of triumphant good humor that yet made me uneasy. "And now, once more, will you come with me into my home?"
He made another of his graceful gestures, this time toward the back door of the stone house that I knew for Tomasulo's inn—at least for what would one day be Tomasulo's inn. I nodded agreement, and we walked together across the turf to the door.
That thought of mine—for what would one day be Tomasulo's inn. ... It behooved me to learn a new procession of thought, one that came two ways to the present. I must remember, not only from the past, but from that future, four centuries off.