Robert Asprin: For King and Country

Very few people in the hill fort slept that night. Bonfires were built high and messengers were sent round every hour with word of Artorius' condition. Artorius was one of the few who did sleep, resting quietly and lying so still he scarcely seemed to be breathing. With painful slowness, his pulse gradually strengthened beneath Morgana's fingertips. His color improved. The waxen grey tint slowly left his skin, which flushed with a rosier, healthier hue. By dawn, Morgana was certain.

"He's past the crisis," she murmured, leaning against Ancelotis. "He will live."

Word raced through the hill fort, through the camps below, on the plain, where a great shout went up from the assembled armies of Britain. Morgana sent Medraut and Keelin away to bed, reeling on their feet. When they'd gone, Ancelotis murmured, "You're exhausted as well, Morgana. You must get some rest."

"Bring another bed then, and place it beside his. I will not leave him. Not even for a moment."

Ancelotis hesitated. "Tell me truly, Morgana. Will he recover ?"

She met his eyes, bit one lip. "I don't know. The poison paralyzes, weakens the muscles. It will take time, perhaps a great deal of time, to rebuild his strength, to teach him to use those damaged muscles again."

"How long? How long will you and I need to stay by his side? To... protect these people?"

She could see the worry burning in his eyes, knew that it was Stirling, as much as Ancelotis, who was asking. She phrased the answer in English. "It may take years. I—" She hesitated. "I'm afraid I don't know Arthurian lore very well, never mind the history behind it. Do you know how many years were supposed to pass between this battle and Artorius' last one, the battle he was to be killed in?"

Stirling replied, also in English. "From Badon Hill to Camlann? Thirty-five, maybe forty years. And, Brenna, it isn't just the Saxons we need to worry about, getting ready for Camlann. There's more than just the loss of their war leader that led to the Britons' destruction. There's this ruddy volcano that's going to erupt. I read about it on the train, on the way up from London. You've heard about the explosion of Krakatoa in the 1800s, I'm sure? Well, it blew apart in AD 536 or so, as well. So violently, it caused weather disruption like nuclear winter for ten years. The crops will fail, Brenna, worldwide. And when that happens, the Briton kingdoms will fall, weakened by starvation and plague."

Brenna's eyes widened. "My God. The wasteland... "

He nodded gravely. "If I am still here, thirty-six years from now, I will do everything in my power to make sure they're ready for it." He managed a smile. "They say Lancelot became a wandering hermit, preaching Christianity everywhere he went. I think Ancelotis and I may take up that challenge, when Gwalchmai is old enough to take his throne. And there's much we can do before then, as well. I'd like to spread the word about Joseph and the seven fat and lean cows, that lovely parable about being prepared for famine. I may not have the holy grail to heal the king and bring the land back to life, but I can at least urge these people to build granaries in every town, every village, every hill fort."

She touched his cheek, wonderingly. "You will, too, won't you?" She found herself swallowing hard. "You can't know how very sorry I am, that I didn't meet you a long time ago, Trevor Stirling."

Very, very gently, he kissed her lips. "And you can't know how very glad I am, that I met you when I did. Even if I did spend several weeks thinking you were the enemy."

He waited for the smile that touched her eyes, happy to see it displace some of the terrible bleakness. He sighed then and glanced toward Artorius. "Where will you take him for his rehabilitation?"

"Ynys Manaw. The Nine Ladies who taught me the healing arts will help me care for him." She chuckled. "You know, we Irish call the Isle of Man the 'Apple Isle' in Gaelic."

Very softly, Trevor Stirling began to laugh.

It was the most joyous sound Brenna McEgan had ever heard.

In a laboratory tucked away in the Lowlands of Scotland, an aging, white-haired man stepped out of his car and crossed the graveled car park to a heavy steel door. He slid a card through the reader, pulled the door open, stepped inside. He had not been back to this place in many, many years, but the sight which waited for him beyond the bustle of technicians, the scientists and scholars working under close military supervision, brought painful memories rushing back.

There had once been three bodies lying in the quiet little transfer room, hooked into the computers that had sent their minds plunging back through the centuries. Cedric Banning was dead, long since. He had died within weeks of his departure, in fact, suffering a massive coronary and stroke that killed him almost instantly. Ogilvie had not mourned Banning's death. The information they had dug up on his background had turned Ogilvie grey with cold horror. No, he would never mourn that one's death.

But Brenna McEgan and Trevor Stirling...

When Colonel Ogilvie stepped into the transfer room, saw them lying there, still as death, their hair greyed, their faces wrinkled with age, muscles wasted from nearly four decades of coma, tears came to his eyes. They had not come home. Not even when the computers had finally been shut down, a year after their departure. Time had fractured, so the scientists had told him forty years previously, spawning a new timeline in which they were trapped, leaving their bodies in this timeline, to slowly age without them.

Ogilvie stood silent for a long time, just looking at them. The uniform Stirling's body still wore had been decorated, long ago, with a Victoria Cross, an honor Ogilvie himself had placed with trembling hands. Another Victoria Cross shone beneath Brenna McEgan's long, greying hair, awarded by special act of Parliament at the request of His Majesty. No woman, no man could have risked more for king, for country.

Very slowly, with tears in his eyes, Ogilvie saluted them.

Then he turned to leave, his last mission before retirement finally completed.

Wherever they were, he wished them well.