Timeline. Part 34

Marek fell back into soggy, rotting straw, slippery and stinking. Chris tumbled down alongside him, sliding on the mush. The cell door clanged shut. They were at the end of a corridor, with cells on all three sides. Through the bars, Marek saw the guards leaving, laughing as they went. One said, "Hey, Paolo, where do you think you are going? You stay here and guard them."

"Why? They are not going anywhere. I want to see the tourney."

"It is your watch. Oliver wants them guarded."

There was some protesting and swearing. More laughing, and footsteps going away. Then one heavyset guard came back, peered in through the bars at them, and swore. He wasn't happy; they were the reason he was missing the show. He spat on the floor of their cell, then walked a short distance away, to a wooden stool. Marek could not see him anymore, but he saw his shadow on the opposite wall.

It looked as though he was picking his teeth.

Marek walked up to the bars, trying to see into the other cells. He could not really see into the cell to the right, but directly across from them he saw a figure back against the wall, seated in the darkness.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw it was the Professor.

30:51:09.

Stern sat in the private dining room of ITC. It was a small room with a single table, white tablecloth, set for four. Gordon sat opposite him, eating hungrily, scrambled eggs and bacon. Stern watched the top of Gordon's crew-cut head bob up and down as he scooped the eggs with his fork. The man ate fast.

Outside, the sun was already climbing in the sky, above the mesas to the east. Stern glanced at his watch; it was six o'clock in the morning. The ITC technicians were releasing another weather balloon from the parking lot; he remembered that Gordon had told them they did it every hour. The balloon rose quickly into the sky, then disappeared into high clouds. The men who had released it didn't bother to watch it go, but walked back to a nearby laboratory building.

"How's your French toast?" Gordon said, looking up. "Rather have something else?"

"No, it's good," Stern said. "I'm just not very hungry."

"Take some advice from an old military man," Gordon said. "Always eat at a meal. Because you never know when your next one will be."

"I'm sure that's right," Stern said. "I'm just not hungry."

Gordon shrugged and resumed eating.

A man in a starched waiter's jacket came into the room. Gordon said, "Oh, Harold. Do you have coffee ready?"

The man in the jacket said, "I do, sir. Cappuccino if you prefer."

"I'll have it black."

"Certainly, sir."

"How about you, David?" Gordon said. "Coffee?"

"Nonfat latte, if you have it," Stern said.

"Certainly, sir." Harold went away.

Stern stared out the window. He listened to Gordon eat, listened to his fork sc.r.a.pe across the plate. Finally, he said, "Let me see if I understand this. At the moment, they can't can't come back, is that right?" come back, is that right?"

"That's right."

"Because there is no landing site."

"That's right."

"Because debris blocks it."

"That's right."

"And how long until they can can come back?" come back?"

Gordon sighed. He pushed away from the table. "It's going to be all right, David," he said. "Things are going to turn out fine."

"Just tell me. How long?"

"Well, let's count it off. Another three hours to clear the air in the cave. Add an hour for good measure. Four hours. Then two hours to clear the debris. Six hours. Then you have to rebuild the water s.h.i.+elds."

"Rebuild the water s.h.i.+elds?" Stern said.

"The three rings of water. They're absolutely essential."

"Why?"

"To minimize transcription errors."

Stern said, "And what exactly are transcription errors?"

"Errors on the rebuild. When the person is reconstructed by the machine."

"You told me there weren't any errors. That you could rebuild exactly."

"For all intents and purposes, we can, yes. As long as we're s.h.i.+elded."

"And if we're not s.h.i.+elded?"

Gordon sighed. "But we will will be s.h.i.+elded, David." He glanced at his watch. "I wish you'd stop worrying. There's several hours more before we can fix the transit site. You're upsetting yourself needlessly." be s.h.i.+elded, David." He glanced at his watch. "I wish you'd stop worrying. There's several hours more before we can fix the transit site. You're upsetting yourself needlessly."

"It's just that I keep thinking," Stern said, "that there must be something we can do. Send a message, make some kind of contact...."

Gordon shook his head. "No. No message, no contact. It's just not possible. For the moment, they're entirely cut off from us. And there's not a thing we can do about it."

30:40:39.

Kate Erickson flattened herself against the wall, feeling damp stone on her back. She had ducked inside one of the cells in the corridor, and now she waited, holding her breath, while the guards who had locked up Marek and Chris walked back past her. The guards were laughing, and they seemed in good humor. She heard one of them say, "Sir Oliver was sore displeased with that Hainauter, to make a fool of his lieutenant."

"And the other one was worse! He rides like a flopping rag, and yet he breaks two lances with Tete Noire!" General laughter.

"Sooth, he made a fool of Tete Noire. For that, Lord Oliver will take their heads before nightfall."

"Else I miss my guess, he will chop their heads before supper."

"No, after. The crowd will be larger." More laughter.

They moved down the corridor, their voices fading. Soon she could hardly hear them. Now there was a short silence-had they started back up the stairs? No, not yet. She heard them laughing once again. And the laughter continued. It had an odd, forced quality.

Something was wrong.

She listened intently. They were saying something about Sir Guy and Lady Claire. She couldn't really make it out. She heard "... much vexed by our Lady ..." and more laughter.

Kate frowned.

Their voices were no longer quite so faint.

Not good. They were coming back.

Why? she thought. What happened?

She glanced toward the door. And there, on the stone floor, she saw her own wet footprints, going into the cell.

Her shoes had been soaked from the gra.s.s near the stream. So had the shoes of everyone else, and the center of the stone corridor was a wet, muddy track of many footprints. But one set of footprints veered off, toward her cell.

And somehow they had noticed.

d.a.m.n.

A voice: "When does the tourney draw closed?"

"By high nones."

"Faith, then it is nigh finished."

"Lord Oliver will haste to sup, and prepare for the Archpriest."

She listened, trying to count the different voices. How many guards had there been? She tried to remember. At least three. Maybe five. She hadn't paid attention at the time.

d.a.m.n.

"They say the Archpriest brings a thousand men-at-arms...."

A shadow crossed the floor, outside her door. That meant they were now on both sides of the cell door.

What could she do? All she knew was that she couldn't let herself be captured. She was a woman; she had no business here; they would rape her and kill her.

But, she reflected, they didn't know she was a woman. Not yet. There was silence outside the door, then a scuffling of feet. What would they do next? Probably send one man into the cell while the others waited outside. And meanwhile the others would get set, draw their swords, and raise them high- She couldn't wait. Crouching low, she bolted.

She banged into a guard as he came through the door, hitting him at knee level from the side, and with a howl of pain and surprise, he fell backward. There were shouts from the other guards, but then she was through the door, a sword clanged down against stone behind her, spitting sparks, and she was running up the corridor.

"A woman! A woman!"

They ran after her.

She was in the spiral staircase now, going up fast. From somewhere below, she heard the clank of their armor as they started up after her. But then she had reached the ground floor, and without thinking, she did the immediate thing: she ran straight into the great hall.

It was deserted, the tables set for a feast, the food not yet laid out. She ran past the tables, looking for a place to hide. Behind the tapestries? No, they were flat to the wall. Under the tablecloths? No, they would look there and find her. Where? Where? Where? She saw the huge fireplace, the fire still burning high. Wasn't there a secret pa.s.sage out of the dining room? Was that pa.s.sage here in Castelgard, or was it in La Roque? She couldn't remember. She should have paid more attention. She saw the huge fireplace, the fire still burning high. Wasn't there a secret pa.s.sage out of the dining room? Was that pa.s.sage here in Castelgard, or was it in La Roque? She couldn't remember. She should have paid more attention.

In her mind's eye she saw herself, wearing khaki shorts and a Polo T-s.h.i.+rt and Nike sneakers, moving lazily through the ruins, taking notes on her pad. Her concerns-to the extent she'd had any at all-had been to satisfy her scholarly peers.

She should have paid more attention!

She heard the men approaching. There was no more time. She ran toward the nine-foot-high fireplace and stepped behind the huge gilded circular screen. The fire was blazing hot, waves of heat radiating against her body. She heard the men coming into the room, shouting, running, looking. She crouched behind the screen, held her breath and waited.

She heard kicking and banging, the clatter of dishes on tables as they searched. She could not make out their voices clearly; they merged with the roar of the flames behind her. There was a metal clang clang as something fell over; it sounded like a torch stand, something big. as something fell over; it sounded like a torch stand, something big.

She waited.

One man barked a question, and she heard no reply. Another shouted a question, and this time she heard a soft answer. It didn't sound like a man. Who were they talking to? It sounded like a woman. Kate listened: Yes, it was a woman's voice. She was sure of it.

Another exchange, and then the sound of clanking armor as the men ran from the room. Peering around the edge of the gilded screen, she saw them vanish through the doorway.

She waited a moment, then stepped from behind the screen.

She saw a young girl of ten or eleven. She wore a white cloth that wrapped over her head, so only her face showed. She had a loose sort of dress, rose-colored, that came almost to the floor. She carried a gold pitcher, and was pouring water into goblets at the tables.

The girl met her eyes and just stared.

Kate waited for her to cry out, but she did not. She just stared curiously at Kate for a moment and then said, "They went upstairs."

Kate turned and ran.

Inside the cell, Marek heard the blare of trumpets, and the distant roar of the tournament crowds, drifting in from one of the high windows. The guard looked up unhappily, swore at Marek and the Professor, and then walked back to his stool.

The Professor said quietly, "Do you still have a marker?"

"Yes," Marek said. "I do. Do you have yours?"

"No, I lost it. About three minutes after I got here."

The Professor had landed, he said, in the forested flatlands near the monastery and the river. ITC had a.s.sured him this would be a deserted spot, but ideally situated. Without going far from the machine, he could see all the princ.i.p.al sites of his dig.

What happened was pure bad luck: the Professor landed just as a party of woodcutters was heading into the forest to work for the day, their axes over their shoulders.

"They saw the flashes of light, and then they saw me, and they all fell to their knees, praying. They thought they had seen a miracle. Then they decided they hadn't, and the axes came off their shoulders," the Professor said. "I thought they were going to kill me, but fortunately I knew Occitan. I convinced them to take me to the monastery. Let the monks settle it."