Times Without Number (20 page)

"Now explain yourself!" the Margrave said, letting fall the door-flap
of his ornately striped and scalloped pavilion. It bore the arms of the
Temporal College: a silver clockface on black, with the order of the
figures running in reverse around the dial.
"It seems to me you have more to explain than I," Father Ramón countered.
The Margrave shook his head vigorously and plumped into a chair. "You've
invoked the bull. I can choose to co-operate, or I can choose to resist.
Persuade me."
"As you wish." Father Ramón set his sharp elbows on the table separating
them. "To begin with, contrary to what I imagine you're thinking, we're
not here to complain about your pilfering a few tons of ore from ground
which is to become Imperial territory by treaty with the Mohawk Nation
several centuries from now. Right now there's probably a sounder legal
claim for freebooter's rights in the ore than for Mohawk rights. They
were nowhere near this part of the world -- I correct myself: they are
nowhere near, and indeed I doubt they could be found to exist as a
precedent tribal unit."
The Margrave was by this time unashamedly bewildered. He made to speak,
but the Jesuit raised his hand.
"Hear me out! On the subject of the Mohawks, then: it's no secret that
they're the Empire's uneasiest allies. But this doesn't imply that
they're automatically friends of yours, does it?"
The Margrave's face set into an impassive mask, and he sat up very
straight in his chair. Don Miguel attempted to look as though he knew
what Father Ramón was talking about, but he was as confused now as the
Margrave had been a moment earlier. What had the Empire-Mohawk alliance
to do with this shameless temporal poaching?
"Now it's true that you're perilously close to a breach of the Treaty
of Prague. If it weren't deliberately framed to be unbreakable in all
foreseeable circumstances, you'd have broken it already. We want to keep
the Treaty intact."
"Doubletalk," the Margrave said curtly, and Don Miguel found himself
inclined to agree.
"Are you determined to act in breach of the Treaty of Prague?" snapped
Father Ramón.
"Of course not! As you just said, it's framed so as to be virtually
unbreakable."
"But you think the Empire-Mohawk alliance is not," said Father Ramón.
There was a long, cold silence. Finally the Margrave rose to his feet. His
voice had changed completely when he spoke again. It was heavier and
somehow rang false, like a counterfeit coin.
"Very well. I'll clear the site and call the operation off."
Whatever had happened, it was effective, but Don Miguel still hadn't
figured out why when he found himself charged by Father Ramón to
supervise the removal from this day and age of all the equipment used
by the poachers, an order grudgingly acceded to by the Margrave, who
looked as though the sky had fallen on his head. The clerks provided
fair copies of the equipment manifests so that Don Miguel could confirm
they were taking back every item whose presence might linger though a
thousand years, and he checked them off until his head was swimming:
picks, drills, sieves, shovels, chisels, crowbars, saws, hatchets, axes,
guns, shot, powderhorns . . .
The sluices and sedimentation troughs were chopped into fragments and
piled on a vast bonfire, the tents were struck and rolled, the pit-props
were hauled out from the mine galleries by teams of men tugging on ropes,
and even the nails were torn loose and bagged for return to the twentieth
century. Scowling, cursing, but compelled to obey, the poachers sweated
at their tasks and at last, in the gathering dusk, faded back to where
they had come from, leaving the valley once more as empty as it had been.
Except for Father Ramón and Don Miguel, who now at last had the chance
to utter the question which had plagued him all day long.
"Father, what on earth did you do to convince the Margrave? I simply
don't understand anything about this -- neither what they were up to
here, nor what you meant by your references to the Mohawk alliance,
nor why they packed up and went home so tamely when there were two of
us and over two hundred of them . . . !"
"I'm hardly surprised," Father Ramón said wryly. "I confess I hadu't
expected to be shown so spectacularly right. I was more guessing than
certain of the reason for this ridiculous adventure by the Confederacy."
The last of the poachers vanished into the gloom; there was the inevitable
wash of heat, like the opening of a furnace door, which accompanied temporal
displacements. Father Ramón waited like a statue for long seconds. Then
he said, "Have you means of making a light?"
"Yes."
"Come with me, then."
He started across the now deserted valley towards the mouth of the gallery
which Two Dogs was to show to Don Miguel a thousand years hence. It was of
course closed by the counterpoised boulder, but that was freshly placed,
and the shifting of the earth which would later call for the strength
of two men to make it roll had not yet occurred. Father Ramón set his
shoulder to it and gave a gentle heave; before Don Miguel could come to
his aid it had settled into the adjacent cup-shaped depression.
"Strike your light," the Jesuit said briskly.
Don Miguel complied, holding up the fizzing fusee at the full stretch
of his arm.
"Now carry it into the gallery. Search carefully along the walls and
floor right to the end."
Much puzzled, Don Miguel did so. He found nothing except various footmarks
left by the workmen and the scars of their excavating toals. And, as he was
coming back, he realised what Father Ramón was implying. "It's not here!"
he exclaimed, emerging into the open and tossing the burnt-out fusee away.
"You mean this?" Father Ramón felt in a pouch at his waist and produced
the cracked drill-bit which Two Dogs had given to Don Miguel, the
key to the whole affair. "No, I didn't think it would be. Before my
departure from Londres I made some inquiries of -- well, of certain
trusted agents. I'm prepared to state that this drill-bit was purchased
in Augsburg over the counter of an ordinary shop, the winter before last;
I mean, naturally, in our own time. And it was purchased by a Mohawk."
He tossed it up and caught it again. Dim twilight glinted on the shiny
broken edges. "Replace the stone, please, my son. I think we should
go back and put a few questions to your affable acquaintance the mine
manager -- Two Dogs, isn't that his name? I think we'll discover he's
not merely what he claims, but someone of far superior calibre and very
much more dangerous."
Bending to replace the boulder, Don Miguel said explosively, "But I knew
already! I had the equipment manifests in my hands, and I checked that
the number of drill-bits returned to the present was the same as the
total brought here!"
"Yes, I watched that phase of the operation with considerable attention.
You have many admirable qualities, including the ability to see the grand
pattern from a few clues and hints, but I can't say that attention to small
details is your especial forte . . . is it?" But his eyes were twinkling
as he uttered the formal reproof.
"Come now, hurry along. We've already had a long day here, and now we must
go back and face another."
VII
It was always the strangest quirk of time-travel that a man might go back
a thousand years to a later time of day, and feel below the conscious level
of his mind that he had travelled forward, while by returning from a late
hour to an earlier one he would; feel he had travelled back. It was
dizzying, as usual, to emerge from the evening dusk of the year 984 to
the high noon glare of 1989.
Several Licentiates of the Society were gathered to greet them, headed
by Don Rodrigo, who -- possibly to atone for his discourtesy towards
Father Ramón last night -- did not at once pester them with questions,
but urged them to come sit in the shade of an awning and ordered wine
and food to be brought.
That was very welcome. Having gulped down a long refreshing draught of
wine chilled by standing in a mountain stream, Don Miguel felt prepared to
cope with the world again. Rejecting Don Rodrigo's solicitous suggestion
of a pipe of tobacco with a word of thanks, he glanced around to see who
precisely had assembled to hear Father Ramón's report. Don Arturo was here,
naturally, and so was Don Felipe; so too was the Inquisitor, Brother Vasco.
But in addition, several -- indeed, if memory served him, all -- the
Mohawk Licentiates present at the site had come together, and their
faces were like stone masks.
Of course. Roan Horse was killed, and he was one of their company.
Don Miguel started as he realised that that episode had not even been
mentioned during their confrontation with the Margrave.
That was something the Mohawks here would not enjoy being told.
"Well now, Father Ramón!" Don Rodrigo said importantly. "What news have
you brought?"
"The affair is dealt with," the Jesuit said. "The poachers have ceased
operations and the matter is closed."
There was silence. Everyone was expecting him to say something more,
even Don Miguel. When at length it became clear he had no intention of
doing so, Don Rodrigo said feebly, "But -- "
"But nothing, my son. I told you: the matter is closed."
The people around exchanged startled glances. On the fringe of the group
Don Miguel saw one of the Mohawk Licentiates whisper to a friend, and then
slip away. For a moment he let his gaze follow; then an outburst from
Brother Vasco drew back his attention.
"But -- Fatherl You haven't even told us who they were!"
"A group of misguided adventurers from the Confederacy. Unmasked, they
went home like whipped curs, their tails between their legs, and will
certainly not trouble us again." Don Miguel could detect that Father
Ramón was forcing himself to be patient, but equally sympathised with
the listeners who wanted more positive information.
The same Mohawk whose friend had whispered to him just now shouldered
through the group of Licentiates and confronted Father Ramón. "That's
not good enough!" he barked. "What about the death of Roan Horse?"
"The identity of the man responsible is known. We shall demand full
recompense from the Confederacy."
A buzz of comment was going around now, like the droning of flies in
the hot sunlight. The Mohawk spoke again.
"That's disgraceful! What compensation is adequate for the life of a
good friend and a brave man?"
There was a chorus of agreement. Don Felipe put in, "And surely, Father,
the fact stands: taking the ore they stole is temporal contrabandage!"
"To the infernal fires with your gold and silver!" the Mohawk cried.
"We're concerned with the fate of a man who was brutally shot down!"
It was then that facts clicked together in Don Miguel's mind. The only
excuse he could offer himself for having overlooked the obvious twice
in one day was that he was confused by tiredness.
"Felipe!" he snapped, bounding to his feet, and Don Felipe Basso whirled
to face him. "Sword -- quickly! And with me over the hill!"
He shoved his way unceremoniously through the circle of Licentiates,
and Felipe -- not knowing why, but impressed by his friend's urgency --
came after him,
"Wait, you!" the Mohawk snapped, and strode to block Don Miguel's way.
"We want to hear from you about all this, as well as Father Ramón!"
Almost, Don Miguel unsheathed his sword, but as yet he had only suspicion
to go on. Instead he placed one palm flat on the Mohawk's chest and hooked
a toe behind his ankle, sending him sprawling. The sudden commotion had
bewildered everyone, but he saw that Don Arturo appeared to have kept
his head, and barked at him.
"Hold this man -- call for help and detain his companions! Stop 'em chasing
us over the hill! One of them has slipped away, though, and we may already
be too late!"
Not waiting to see how well the instruction was obeyed, he gestured to
Don Felipe and began to run up the hillside track towards the home of Two
Dogs. Behind him there was a shouting and a stamping of feet, but he dared
not glance behind for fear of losing his footing on the rough pathway.
Breasting the rise after a short eternity, he found he was indeed
too late.
Alongside the mud-plastered house where he had spent so many nights as a
guest, he saw Tomás standing inscrutable in his colourful serape. He was
shading his eyes to look towards a cloud of dust on the road that led
to the sea -- and in that cloud of dust could be discerned two horses,
not the stumbling burros of the locality, but horses of the finest racing
stock, being ridden as though to outpace the devil himself.
"Miguel!" panted Don Felipe, drawing abreast of his friend. "What's all
the fuss about?"
"The birds have flown -- and there's the whole continent and ocean
for them to hide in!" Don Miguel pointed. "Go call some men together,
give them the best horses we have, and send them in pursuit. One of
those fugitives is Two Dogs, and he's probably the most dangerous man
in the world!"
Don Felipe threw up his hands in hopeless bewilderment, but turned back.
Instantly he uttered a wordless exclamation, and Don Miguel also swung
round. With a sinking heart he saw that down in the other valley there
was a flashing of steel, and some of it was smeared with red. Red, too,
was spreading across the dark habit of the bird-like figure seated in
the shade of the awning.
"Father Ramón!" Don Miguel cried, drawing his sword. Together with Don
Felipe he launched himself back down the slope.
"He told me himself!" Don Miguel mourned as he set aside the leather
water-bottle from which he had slaked his dreadful thirst. "He told me
in plain words, and fool that I am I didn't understand!"
"Told you what?" Don Arturo demanded eagerly. He and all the other
non-Mohawk Licentiates were hanging on Don Miguel as though his words
were pearls of perfect wisdom. They were leaning on him as they had been
used to lean on Father Ramón.
But Father Ramón was dead. And he was not the only one.
If they knew how little I've actually learned, how much is simply a
guess . . .
Don Miguel dared not speak that thought, though. For better or worse,
he was the man on whom this crisis turned.
Wearily he said, "He told me that calling him a Mohawk was like calling
me a Spaniard. There's Spanish blood in my veins all right, I speak
Spanish and bear a Spanish name, but I'm not a Spaniard. I'm a citizen
of the Empire, and I may well never set foot in Spain before I die. So
too with a Mohawk like Two Dogs; an accident of history makes us call
him by the name of a tribe whose hunting-grounds are thousands of miles
away, and in his veins there's more blood from other tribes, equally
proud, mortally resentful that thanks to us intruders from Europe their
nationhood, their identity, has been effaced. We say Mohawk because
it was our alliance with the Mohawk Nation which enabled that tribe to
become the dominant power on the continent, subjugating the Crees and the
Cherokees and the Apaches and the Sioux . . . Oh, scores of them, scores
of separate peoples! But it wasn't their intrinsic superiority which
brought about their supremacy. It was the guns we gave them, the Arab
horses that could out-gallop the little ponies the other tribes owned,
the wagons that carried their armoury of powder and shot on the trails to
the west! Suppose we'd become the major power in Europe thanks not to our
own skills and persistence, but to being patronised by the Moors -- would
you expect the French and English and Dutch to have any love for us, hey?"
He glared fiercely around the circle of his audience to see if they
understood what he was telling them.
Don Rodrigo, his left arm in a sling thanks to a wild slash by one of the
Mohawk Licentiates they had had to put under arrest, uttered a doubtful
grunt. "You say they hate us because they're not all genuinely Mohawk by
extraction. But I've worked for years with -- with native Licentiates
at New Madrid. Certainly some of them were Mohican rather than Mohawk,
and others were Oneida and Seneca and Algonquin. But it never seemed to
make any difference; we all got along very well."
"These Indians are proud people," Don Miguel said with a sigh. "They
do not show that they are humiliated -- it goes against their code. But
they remember that they're humiliated, and sooner or later comes the day
when they set the score to rights." He glanced to his left, spotting
the bowed weary figure of Brother Vasco approaching. "But don't take
my word unsupported. In a moment we may hear solid facts instead of
mere deductions."
Leaning forward, he called to the Inquisitor. "Is he alive?"
"The man who tried to stop you going after Two Dogs?" Falling into
a chair, Brother Vasco nodded. "Yes, he's not too badly injured to
talk. And what I've learned is . . . Well, Don Miguel, I must admit it
frightens me!"
"Explain!"
"They told me before I saw him that his name was Red Cloud. But when I
gave him some of my relaxing draught and, as is customary, asked him how
he was named to find out whether his tongue was yet unlocked by the drug,
he said he was called Bloody Axe."
"And is he talking now -- freely?"
"Yes, that's what I came to report to you."
"Then let's go to him, quickly, and get at the truth behind this horror!"
Don Miguel jumped to his feet and strode towards the tent where the
injured Mohawk was being interrogated. Angered at having to leave his
chair just after sitting down, Brother Vasco followed.
The modern techniques in use by the Holy Office were, as Don Miguel
had discovered while investigating the matter of the contraband Aztec
mask, extremely refined, extremely subtle and almost unbelievably
efficient. Knowing this, however, scarcely lessened the eerie impact of
watching and hearing a man who consciously would have preferred to die
rather than give away his secrets yielding full and detailed answers to
every one of Brother Vasco's questions.
Two Dogs? That was an alias, the injured man said without being able
to stop himself; his tribal name was Hundred Scalps, but he had most
commonly been known as Broken Tree. At that, one of Don Rodrigo's New
World-born -- but non-Mohawk -- Licentiates drew breath sharply and
identified the name as that of a brilliant student at the Mexicological
Institute several years before.
That fitted . . .
The information obtained from Bloody Axe pieced together with the clues
dropped by Father Ramón before he was killed to make a terrifying unity
in Don Miguel's mind. As usual in human affairs, the crisis turned out
to be rooted in the festering compost of greed.
The Confederacy of the East was only "of the East" in the sense that
that was the direction in which it lay relative to the Empire. In fact,
its expansion was barred on that side, partly by the contrary expansion
of Cathay with its old, stable and highly evolved civilisation, partly
by the hostile winters which yearly locked up so much of the territory
it nominally controlled. It was small consolation to suspect that mineral
wealth beyond the dreams of avarice might be discovered in Siberia, when
it was buried under earth frozen to the hardness of rock. By contrast,
the Empire's alliance with the Mohawk Nation gave them free access to a
continent over most of which the climate was equable and whose resources
had been charted at leisure during the past century and a half.
But -- as Two Dogs had correctly pointed out to Don Miguel -- just as
there were still a handful of revanchists in England who railed against
the Spanish domination of their island, so too there were Indians who
resented being crammed into a single tribal category. To be a genuine
Mohawk, like Red Bear, was to be the heir of a great and proud tradition;
to be a courtesy Mohawk was to be deprived of beth traditions and
national identity.
Over the past decade or so a group of fanatical Indians out here in
the very far west of North America had sought means to drive a wedge
between the uneasy allies. A first and obvious step was to approach
the Confederacy and let it be understood that they and their supporters
would switch their allegiance in return for help. But the Confederacy
was reluctant, seeing little profit for themselves in having friends
on the Pacific Coast of America when they had no seaboard of their own
on that ocean; the Cathayans had exercised sound strategic judgment and
barred all the available routes.
What persuaded them in the end was the offer of secret survey data,
prepared on behalf of the Empire by Indian mineralogists like Two Dogs,
showing rich veins of gold, silver and copper ore as yet unexploited by
the Imperial miners. A single season's work in the past could yield
hundreds of tons of valuable metal. The gamble was worth taking,
especially since the Indians promised to conceal all traces of their
interference. Even if by mischance some of them eventually came to
light, they argued, the only consequence would be to show the world the
truth about the flimsiness of the Empire-Mohawk alliance, which would
splinter, and at least some of those splinters could be picked up by
the Confederacy.
In return, the Indians were to be supplied with arms and money enabling
them to declare a new independent state of Shasklapima, with its frontier
on the Sierra Maestra, extending from Nootka Sound in the north to the
southernmost tip of the California peninsula.
At least, that was the ostensible goal of the operation. In fact, as was
known only to a small inner group of conspirators, there was no intention
of concealing the Confederacy's theft of ore from the past. The real plan
called for the deed to be pinned squarely on the perpetrators as soon as
possible, and Don Miguel's arrival in New Madrid on his way to spend a
furlough in California suggested an ideal opportunity.
But for the fact that Father Ramón's agents had traced the purchase of
the broken drill-bit and reported it as having been bought by a Mohawk --
a Mohawk subject, rather -- the outcome would have been precisely what
the Indians expected, especially in view of the panicky shooting of Roan
Horse. A formal charge of temporal contrabandage would have been brought,
and tried in a Vatican court. The only possible verdict must be one of
guilty, and the Confederacy would be ordered to give an undertaking that
they would never again attempt a similiar operation.
Whereupon the Indians would produce evidence upon evidence that
they had broken their pledge. All over the continent there were
mining sites cunningly faked by Indian time-travellers, salted with
such incontrovertible proof of Confederate responsibility as knives
of Augsburg steel, ale-bottles overlooked in a heap of ore-failings,
the odd coin that fell from a worker's pocket . . .
In the face of the Confederacy's frantic denials of guilt, more and
more evidence of wholesale plundering would be found. Suspicion would
mount, accusations would fly, perhaps even the Vatican might be deceived
and support the Empire in their dispute. The injured innocence of the
Confederacy would no doubt eventually turn to cynicism, determination
to be hanged for a sheep rather than a nonexistent lamb.
So the likeliest outcome would be war. The millstones across the sea were
to be set grinding again, and from between them -- so it was assumed in the
grandiose vision to which Two Dogs had dedicated himself -- the unwilling
subjects of the Mohawk Nation would escape into the freedom they craved.
Not for them a piddling little new republic, forced to bend the knee
despite its nominal independence before the world's two most powerful
nations -- they wanted to see the Empire and the Confederacy destroy
each other, and leave Indians the masters of their own continent.
Stunned by the ingenuity of the plan and the narrowness of their escape,
Don Miguel put one last question to Bloody Axe. Suppose the plan was
discovered and thwarted, as indeed it had been?
The answer struck cold and hurtful as that chopping blade for which he had
been named. "We took our solemn oath upon the war-drum. In that event --
rather than endure the Empire's vengeance -- we have sworn to bring it
down around your ears, and all of history with it if need be!"
VIII
"We have to deal with a madman!" cried the Prince.
Don Miguel swallowed hard and gave a nod. "There's little doubt of that,
sir. Two Dogs is a megalomaniac, whose ambitions have wiped out all traces
of empathy from his mind."
"But why didn't the Holy Offrice detect this when he was a student at
the Mexicological Institute? Surely insanity on that scale must have
shown up like a beacon-fire on a hill-top! Brother Vasco, what have you
got to say about that?"
Beside Don Miguel the Dominican shifted uneasily in his chair. In a
defensive tone he said, "It appears that the full onset of his condition
must be recent. Our investigations have shown that he covered his tracks
very cleverly, and used many aliases which he picked according to the
old Indian custom whereby a child is named for the first ominous thing
the father sees after leaving the birth-teepee. He has been variously
known as Broken Tree, Hundred Scalps, Storm of Rain, Puma Claw, and --
oh, the list is longer than I can recall. As for Bloody Axe, who passed
as Red Cloud when he became a Licentiate of the Society, his career is
nearly as chequered. Worse yet, almost sixty of the Licentiates granted
their time-licences in New Castile have proved to be associated with
one or other of these two."
"Then we have to deal not only with one madman, but with a conspiracy
of lunaticst" snapped Red Bear. His long coppery face was shiny with
sweat, and his braided hair hung lank and dull as though tarnished with
strain and worry. No one could question his allegiance to the Empire
and the Mohawk Nation -- he was pure Mohawk for ten generations back --
but it was clear he took this crisis as a personal affront. "Moreover
it seems there are lunatics outside the conspiracy too: I mean in the
Confederacy! That was what impelled me to take a decision independently
of the Full Council of the Society, and authorise the creation of local
causative loops in order to bring us together via time apparatus rather
than waiting for the slow Atlantic passage of a ship."
Don Miguel started. Though he had been astonished to find the General
Officers here in New Madrid, he had not realised that was how they
had made the journey; he had assumed that the Prince had sent for them
some time in the past, perhaps a month ago, and they had just reached
the city. Burromeo had sternly forbidden the use of time apparatus for
present-time journeys, and until now the rule had been obeyed because
the effect of travellers arriving fractions of a second before they left
could not be calculated.
But this crisis, granted, was without precedent . . .
"I think it right that you should be told," Red Bear continued, "that we
passed news of this calamity via diplomatic contacts to the Confederacy
as soon as possible, and some -- some
fools
over there are hindering
the co-operation of the Temporal College with us, arguing that for the
Empire to crash about our ears would be no bad thing for the Confederacy."
"They're out of their minds!" moaned the Prince. His face was grey with
pure unmitigated terror; it was the first time Don Miguel had seen a man's
face literally lose all colour. One day, he suspected, he might look in
the glass on rising from one of his sleepless nights and see that same
greyness on his own tanned skin.
And expressions of equal dismay were to be found on every side. This
assembly was no mere private meeting in the Prince's chamber of audience;
this was the first meeting of the Full Council of the Society to be
held in New Madrid since the one called to establish the New Castile
Chapter, sixty years ago. And, as Red Bear had just announced to those
who were not party to the secret, many of them had arrived here before
they left Londres. It was
that
much of an emergency. There had never
been one like it. There might never be another similar -- never, until
the Last Judgment.
These were the sober, just and upright men appointed under the bull