“Don’t call me George. Call me Jud,” I said boldly.
“Jud?”
“Jud.”
“Why should I call you this?”
“It’s my inner name. My real name, the one I feel. George is just — well, a name I use.”
“Jud. Jud. Such a name I have never heard. You are from a strange land! You are!”
I gave her a sphinxy smile. “I love you,” I said, and nibbled her nipples to change the subject.
“So strange,” she murmured. “So different. And yet I felt drawn to you from the first moment. You know, I’ve long dreamed of being as wicked as this, but I never dared. Oh, I’ve had offers, dozens of offers, but it never seemed worth the trouble. And then I saw you, and I felt this fire in me, this — this hunger. Why? Tell me why? You are neither more nor less attractive than many of the men I might have given myself to, and yet you were the one. Why?”
“It was destiny,” I told her. “As I said before. An irresistible force, pulling us together, across the—”
— centuries—
“—sea,” I finished lamely.
“You will come to me again?” she said.
“Again and again and again.”
“I’ll find ways for us to meet. Leo will never know. He spends so much of his time at the bank — you know, he’s one of the directors — and in his other businesses, and with the emperor — he hardly pays attention to me. I’m one of his many pretty toys. We’ll meet, Jud, and we’ll know pleasure together often, and—” her dark eyes flashed “—and perhaps you’ll give me a child.”
I felt the heavens open and rain thunderbolts upon me.
“Five years of marriage and I have no child,” she went on. “I don’t understand. Perhaps I was too young, at first — I was so young — but now, nothing. Nothing. Give me a child, Jud. Leo will thank you for it — I mean, he’ll be happy, he’ll think it’s his — you even have a Ducas look about you, in the eyes, perhaps, there’d be no trouble. Do you think we made a child tonight?”
“No,” I said.
“No? How can you be sure?”
“I have ways,” I said. I stroked her silkiness. Let me go twenty more days without my pill, though, and I could plant babies aplenty in you, Pulcheria! And knot the fabric of time beyond all unraveling. My own great-great-multi-great-grandfather? Am I seed of my own seed? Did time recurve on itself to produce me? No. I’d never get away with it. I’d give Pulcheria passion, but not parturition. “Dawn’s here,” I whispered.
“You’d better leave. Where can I send messages to you?”
“At Metaxas’.”
“Good. We’ll meet again two days hence, yes? I’ll arrange everything.”
“I’m yours, whenever you say it, Pulcheria.”
“Two days. But now, go. I’ll show you out.”
“Too risky. Servants will be stirring. Go to your room, Pulcheria. I can get out by myself.”
“But — impossible—”
“I know the way.”
“Do you?”
“I swear it,” I said.
She needed some convincing, but at length I persuaded her to spare herself the risk of getting me out of the palace. We kissed once more, and she donned her wrap, and I caught her by the arm and pulled her to me, and released her, and she went out of the room. I counted sixty seconds off. Then I set my timer and jumped six hours up the line. The party was going full blast. Casually I walked through the building, avoiding the room where my slightly earlier self, not yet admitted to Pulcheria’s joyous body, was chatting with Emperor Alexius. I left the Ducas palace unnoticed. In the darkness outside, beside the sea wall along the Golden Horn, I set my timer again and shunted down the line to 1204. Now I hurried to the inn where I had left my sleeping tourists. I reached it less than three minutes after my departure — seemingly so many days ago — for Pulcheria’s era.
All well. I had had my incandescent night of passion, my soul was purged of longings, and here I was, back at my trade once more, and no one the wiser. I checked the beds.
Mr. and Mrs. Haggins, yes.
Mr. and Mrs. Gostaman, yes.
Miss Pistil and Bilbo, yes
Palmyra Gostaman, yes.
Conrad Sauerabend, yes? No.
Conrad Sauerabend—
No Sauerabend. Sauerabend was missing. His bed was empty. In those three minutes of my absence, Sauerabend had slipped away.
Where?
I felt the early pricklings of panic.
49.
Calm. Calm. Stay calm. He went out to the pissoir, is all. He’ll be right back.
Item One, a Courier must remain aware of the location of all of the tourists in his care at all times. The penalty—
I kindled a torch at the smoldering hearth and rushed out into the hall.
Sauerabend? Sauerabend?
Not pissing. Not downstairs rummaging in the kitchen. Not prowling in the wine cellar.
Sauerabend?
Where the devil are you, you pig?
The taste of Pulcheria’s lips was still on my own. Her sweat mingled with mine. Her juices still crisped my short hairs. All the delicious forbidden joys of transtemporal incest continued to tingle in my soul.
The Time Patrol will make a nonperson out of me for this, I thought. I’ll say, “I’ve lost a tourist,” and they’ll say, “How did it happen?” and I’ll say, “I stepped out of the room for three minutes and he vanished,” and they’ll say, “Three minutes, eh? You aren’t supposed to—” and I’ll say, “It was only three minutes. Christ, you can’t expect me to watch them twenty-four hours a day!” And they’ll be sympathetic, but nevertheless they’ll have to check the scene, and in the replay they’ll discover me wantonly shunting out for some other point on the line, and they’ll track me to 1105 and find me with Pulcheria, and see that not only am I guilty of negligence as a Courier, but also that I’ve committed incest with my great-great-multi-great—
Calm. Calm.
Into the street now. Flash the torch around. Sauerabend? Sauerabend? No Sauerabend.
If I were a Sauerabend, where would I sneak off to?
To the home of some twelve-year-old Byzantine girl? How would he know where to find one? How to get in? No. No. He couldn’t have done that. Where is he, though? Strolling through the town? Out for fresh air? He should be asleep. Snoring. No. I realized that when I left he hadn’t been asleep, hadn’t been snoring; he’d been bothering Palmyra Gostaman. I hurried back to the inn. There wasn’t any point in roaming Constantinople at random for him.
In mounting panic I woke up Palmyra. She rubbed her eyes, complained a little, blinked. Torchlight glittered off her flat bare chest.
“Where did Sauerabend go?” I whispered harshly.
“I told him to leave me alone. I told him if he didn’t stop bothering me I’d bite his thing off. He had his hand right here, and he—”
“Yes, but where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He just got up and went away. It was dark in here. I fell asleep maybe two minutes ago. Why’d you have to wake me up?”
“Some help you are,” I muttered. “Go back to sleep.”
Calm, Judson, calm. There’s an easy solution to this. If you weren’t in such a flutter, you’d have thought about it long ago. All you have to do is edit Sauerabend back into the room, the way you edited Marge Hefferin back to life.
It’s illegal, of course. Couriers are not supposed to engage in time corrections. That’s for the Patrol to do. But this will be such a small correction. You can handle it quickly and no one will be the wiser. You got away with the Hefferin revision, didn’t you? Yes. Yes. It’s your only chance, Jud.
I sat down on the edge of my bed and tried to plan my actions properly. My night with Pulcheria had dulled the edge of my intellect. Think, Jud. Think as you never thought before.