Ides of March (Time Patrol) (2 page)

The Spartans were speaking in subdued tones, no bragging. Having conversations that only the prospect of imminent death could unlock from deep within a man’s soul.

“When you take this map,” Leonidas said, “will you stay with it or do you deliver it somewhere?”

“I will know when I have it.”
So, this was about a map,
Scout thought
. Dane had been vague in the briefing, but that went to the essence of this battle against the Shadow’s attempts to change the timeline.

“And after you fulfill whatever task has been laid on you, will you go back to the Oracle?”

“I don’t know my fate.” That, at least, was true.

“If you survive somehow and stay in Greece, will you do me a favor?”

“Yes, if it is within my power.”

Leonidas smiled. “I believe it is indeed within your power. Go to my home. Tell my wife how I died.”

“I can do that,” Scout lied.

“I’m not done yet,” Leonidas said. “I have grown to admire you during our journey here from the Oracle. I want you to teach my daughter.”

Scout had no clue what had happened on that journey. “What would you like me to teach her?”

“To be like you.”

Scout hated this next lie. “I will.”

It is 480 B.C. The world’s population is roughly 100 million humans. Troops from Rome, far from being an Empire yet, march against the Vientes, the richest Etruscan tribe; Zhong You, a disciple of Confucius dies; the Imperial Treasury at the Persepolis Palace in Persia is completed after three decades of work; artists begin the detail ‘Musicians and Dancers’ on the wall paintings in the Tomb of the Lionesses in Tarquinia, Italy; it will be completed a decade later.

Scout sensed a presence. She got to her feet.

Some things change; some don’t.

“What is it?” Leonidas was up, putting his helmet on. “The Persians come in the dark?”

“No.” Scout took a step toward the grisly barricade of Persian bodies and stones. “Someone like me.”

“The Sibyl Pandora that the Oracle spoke of?” Leonidas asked.

Scout shivered and realized the danger she faced was not Xerxes, or his troops, or even the pending battle. The Shadow had sent one with the Sight against her: Pandora.

Newburgh, New York, 1783 A.D.

THE WHIP RIPPING INTO
flesh made a distinctive sound. Eagle was jolted by the sound and the immediate scream of agony. He lunged forward, made two steps, and was tripped. He sprawled face down into straw covered dirt, hearing the whip strike home once more.

“Easy,” a deep voice hissed. “Easy.”

A hand was on Eagle’s back, not keeping him down, but slowing him from jumping up, forcing him to take in his situation. The hand belonged to an older black man, who was now kneeling next to Eagle, shaking his head ever so slightly.

Behind them were four other black men, standing shoulder to shoulder. They were inside a barn, the horses skittish in their bays. The other slaves glanced askance at him, before returning their attention to the lesson being inflicted.

The source of the scream was a young black woman, her wrist shackles hooked on a spike high enough over her head to put her on her toes and keep her in place. She was twisting and cringing, as much as she could, but the mark for the man holding the whip was impossible to miss: her naked back.

Which was crisscrossed with old scars, now being torn asunder once more.

The source of the whip was a short, squat redheaded man who was doing this with the nonchalance of someone performing a task he’d done countless times before. His face was blank, and a corncob pipe dangled from one side of his mouth. He took a puff between each stroke.

It is 1783 A.D. The world’s population is roughly 900 million, of which only 3.6 million are part of the fledgling United States, announced seven years ago on the 4
th
of July; even though fighting with Britain had stopped, the war was technically not over on the 15
th
of March; that would happen in September with the Treaty of Paris; Catherine the Great of the Russian Empire annexes the Crimean Khanate, finishing off the final remnant of the Mongol Golden Horde; the last celebration of Massacre Day is held in Boston; the first public demonstration of a parachute jump is done in France by a man leaping from an observatory; the 1783 Great Meteor passes over the North Sea, Great Britain and France prompting fear and scientific speculation; the Cedula of Population is made into law in Spain, allowing any who swears fealty to Spain and the Catholic Church to settle in Trinidad and Tobago.

Eagle was in a place he had no desire to be.

Some things change; some don’t.

“I do not take pleasure from this,” another man said. The early afternoon sun streaming through the barn door silhouetted his tall figure, easily over six feet. “It is the law and we must respect the law. It is what makes us a nation. You all know this is only a last resort. But she did not just attempt to run away. She tried to go to the British carrying some of my correspondence. That is treason and I have had white men executed for less. I am being merciful.”

The man was keeping his distance, as if by doing so, he distanced himself from the act of his overseer. “That’s enough,” he ordered after the whip struck home once more. The overseer wiped blood off the twisted leather braids with a dirty rag, then coiled it. He hung it on a hook on the side of his belt.

The man giving the orders stepped into the barn and Eagle recognized him. Dressed in a blue uniform, brocaded with gold trimming: George Washington.

Ravenna, Capitol of the Remains of the Western Roman Empire, 493 A.D.

ROLAND SLIPPED IN THE MUD AND BLOOD,
which saved his life as the spear struck his chest armor obliquely.

The Goth didn’t get a second chance as Roland took his head off with a single swipe of the sword, the decapitated body tumbling to join three others corpses.

They really had to get better with the timing on this time travel thing
, Roland thought as he spun about, ready for more enemies. Twenty feet away, a fifth person, a woman wearing a long black robe, took a step back and vanished into a black Gate. It was gone a second later.

That was different
, Roland mused. Now there was no one on the cart path other than four bodies. He checked the forest to either side, not taking the time to ponder the vanishing woman or even the bodies, focusing on staying alive for the moment.

“Centurion!” Several soldiers came running around a bend in the path, swords drawn. Roland went on guard, but recognized they were equipped with the same uniform and armor he wore, and not that of the bodies, which Nada would have said didn’t prove they were on the same side. So, Roland lowered the tip of his sword a little less than an inch, until he could be certain they meant no harm. While one checked the bodies, the others spread out, providing security, which he took as a friendly sign.

It is 493 A.D. The world’s population is roughly 190 million humans; in China, Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei begins his campaigns against Southern Qi, which culminates against the opposing Emperor Ming; Patrick, who would become the patron saint of Ireland, dies; the Byzantine Empire, once known as the Eastern Roman Empire, besieges and captures Cappadocia under the command of General John the Hunchback; Christianity has spread far beyond its start point in the Middle East; Buddhism reaches Burma and Indonesia.

And here on a muddy road in the middle of forest, Roland had once more killed.

Some things change; some don’t.

Thirteen riders came around the bend. Astride a warhorse in the midst of them was a man wearing a purple robe over his shiny, for-show armor, which indicated he was some big muckety-muck, since Roland knew the type from his time in the army. Remembering the briefing, Roland realized this guy was probably
the
big muckety-muck. The reason he was here.

Unless Dane and the Time Patrol had made a big mistake, which Roland didn’t rule out, and Nada would have expected.

But Nada was dead.

Odoacer, First King of Italy, sometimes calling himself Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, although technically he’d overthrown the last one, history just didn’t know it yet, leaned forward in the saddle. “Did you kill all four, Centurion?”

“Yes, sir,” Roland said, figuring he, whoever he was before he, Roland, became aware of being here, had taken out the other three. Mac would have been impressed with that leap of logic on Roland’s part. But Mac was elsewhere; same day, different year. Doc would have been astounded at Roland’s instant ability to accept an improbable, yet logical, concept, but Doc was also, well, same deal.

Roland didn’t think it would be smart to mention the disappearing woman. Another person, traveling back in time and suddenly appearing in the midst of a fight for their lives might have doubted what they saw, but Roland never doubted what he saw. It was one of his strengths.

“I need a man like you close to me. A killer. Especially this day.” Odoacer raised his right hand, while he pointed with his left at Roland. “You are now one of my twelve; a Protector.” He gestured imperiously, which Kings actually get to do, at one of the riders around him. “Give him your horse.”

The guy didn’t look thrilled, but dismounted.

Roland liked the sound of that title, Protector, as his mind processed the implanted data: it meant he was still the equivalent of a centurion, but in the King/Emperor’s personal guard, the
Palatini
. Of course, like every army, it meant more responsibility, but the same pay; Then again, he was going to get to ride instead of walk, so that was something. Upgraded from the Infantry to the Cavalry;
why walk when you can ride?
was a rule of thumb in every army.
Why ride when you can fly?
was still quite a few centuries off. And the faux promotion meant he was a soldier on his way up in rank, except Roland’s future here was limited to 24 hours; and the First King of Italy, who had taken power from the last true Emperor of Rome, Romulus Augustus, in 476 A.D., had even less time than that.

Andes Mountains, Argentina

IT HAD TAKEN MOMS FIVE DAYS
of her leave to make it up to this altitude, battling snow and weather the entire way. The effort had called upon all her cold-weather training and experience in the military. Going uphill in snow was battling a vicious combination of gravity and the elements.

But she was finally here.

In a flat piece of terrain, about a hundred meters from where the plane wreckage had been there was a stone pile with a makeshift iron cross. Pieces of the wreckage were also mixed with the stones.

Most of the wreckage of Uruguayan Flight 571 was gone, burned by a search party that had buried the human remains.

The remains of the people from the plane. Moms was here for someone else. She read the inscription on a metal plaque, automatically translating the Spanish:

The World to its Uruguayan brothers. Close, oh God, to you.

Appropriate,
Moms thought. She moved two hundred meters away to a large boulder. She pulled out her snow shovel, unfolded it, and began to dig into a drift piled against the rock.

It took a while. How long, Moms didn’t care. What was time after all? A variable.

Until you ran out of it.

She reached the corpse, well preserved from the cold, altitude, snow, and ice covering it since 1972. The body was missing a hand, the stub still covered by Moms’ bandage. She gently brushed snow and ice from the face.

“Pablo, I buried your dog tags at your lover’s grave. I thought it’s what you would have wanted.”

She sat down in the snow.

She recited the prayer they’d shared just before he died.
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

Moms didn’t believe in prayer; her mother had prayed all the time in their rundown house out in the middle of nowhere Kansas. And look how those had been answered?

But Pablo had and that was all that mattered. The dead had to be honored.

She repeated the prayer three times. Then she pulled off a glove and placed her hand on his frozen face. “I remember your name. Pablo Correa.”

Then her satphone went off:
Send Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Duty called.

Roland: Eastern Coast of England.

“THIS IS WHERE I LANDED
with the Vikings,” Roland told Neeley.

Surf pounded the beach, the waves riled by a storm offshore, somewhere between England and Scandinavia. There was no sign of civilization in either direction.

Neeley was a tall woman, almost six feet, with short dark hair, now with some grey. But Roland towered half a foot over her and while she was slender and lean, he was broad chested and well-muscled. They were both accomplished killers, which an observer might think was the attraction between the two, but it was really their differences that had drawn them together.

Roland was a simple man; not simple-minded, as his teammates sometimes joked, especially Mac, but it was more a case of having a direct and linear way of looking at life and dealing with situations. Perhaps it was a result of his large physique, but Roland went through things, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Neeley, coopted by a terrorist cell as a teenager, saved by a covert operative when her terrorist boyfriend betrayed her, trained in the dark arts, then coopted by the Cellar to be an assassin, tended to be more circumspect. Each respected the difference in the other, and respect is the foundation of any relationship.

Roland recalled his bubble of time here in 999 AD. “It was foggy.” He pointed inland, to the right. “Come.”