Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

“Right.” Everard guessed that now going straight to business would be kindest. “Have you gotten any word since your first report?”

“Yes. I have not yet passed it on, because it is very incomplete. Better to assemble a coherent picture first, I assume.” As a matter of fact, it was not, but Everard didn’t press the point. “I never expected an … Unattached agent … so soon.”

Volstrup straightened where he sat and forced firmness into his voice: “A band of Roger’s men who escaped from the battlefield made their way to Reggio, got a boat across the strait, and continued here. Their officer has reported at the palace. I have my paid listeners among the servants there, of course. The story is that Rainulf’s total victory, the slaying of the king and prince, was due to a young knight from Anagni, one Lorenzo de Conti. But this is mere hearsay, you understand. It is gossip that reached them after the fact, in fragments, as they straggled homeward through a country in upheaval, full of people who hated their kind. It may be worthless.”

Everard rubbed his furry chin. “Well, it needs looking into,” he said slowly. “Something that specific ought to have some truth behind it. I’ll want to sound out the officer. You can fix that up for me, can’t you, in a plausible way? And then, if it seems this Lorenzo fellow may be the key to it all—” Again the hunter’s tingle went through his skin and along his backbone. “Then I’ll try to zero in on him.”

To Anagni on its high hill, some forty miles from Rome, came a rider one crisp autumn day. Folk stared, for horse and man were uncommonly large; bearing sword and shield though at present unarmored, he was clearly of rank; a baggage mule followed on a tether; yet he fared alone. The guards at the city gate to which he came answered respectfully when he drew up and hailed them in rough Tuscan. Advised by them, he passed through and wound his way to a decent inn. There he got his gear unloaded and his beasts stabled and fed, while he took a pot of ale and a gab with the landlord. He was affable in a gusty German fashion and readily learned whatever he wanted to know. Presently he gave a coin to one of the boys and bade him carry a message to the right place: “Sir Manfred von Einbeck of Saxony sends his respects to Sir Lorenzo de Conti, the hero of Rignano, and would fain call upon him.”

They brewed a grand local beer at Einbeck in those nineteenth and twentieth centuries that Manse Everard remembered. He needed a little whimsy to keep him going, keep him from too much silent crying out to his ghosts.

The title he used, Italian “Signor,” German “Herr,” bore a less definite meaning than it would later, when the institutions and orders of chivalry had fully developed. However, it bespoke a fighting man of good birth, and that sufficed. Eventually, on the Continent, it would merely signify “Mister”—or would it, in the strange world uptime?

The boy sped back with an invitation to come at once, Outsiders were always welcome for the news they could convey. Everard changed into a robe, which a Patrol technician had judiciously given the wear and tear of travel, and accompanied his guide on foot. The streets were cleaner than most because a recent rain had washed their steepness. Narrow between walls and overhanging upper stories, they were filling with gloom, but in a strip of sky he glimpsed evening light ruddy-gold on the cathedral that reared at the summit of the hill.

His destination was lower down but near where the Palazzo Civico stood forth from the hillside on arches. The Conti and Gaetani were the chief families in Anagni, which had gained importance during the past several generations. This house was large, its limestone little marked as yet by time, which would at last obliterate it. A fine colonnade and glass in the windows relieved its ruggedness. Servants in blue-and-yellow livery, all Italians, all Christian, reminded Everard how far from Sicily he had come, in spirit if not in miles or years. A footman took over, conducting him through halls and chambers rather sparsely outfitted. Lorenzo was a younger son, rich only in honors, still unmarried, staying here because he could not afford Rome. Decayed though the great city was, landowning nobility in the backward, agricultural papal territories preferred to inhabit fortress-like mansions there, visiting their rural properties occasionally.

Lorenzo was in a two-room suite at the back, easier to keep warm than the larger spaces. Everard’s first sense when he entered was of vividness. Even quietly seated, the man somehow blazed. He rose from his bench as a panther might. Expression went across his face like sun-flickers on water where a breeze blew. That countenance was sharply, almost classically sculptured, with big eyes whose gold-brown-russet seemed as changeable instant by instant; it appeared older than his twenty-four years, yet also ageless. Wavy black hair fell to his shoulders. Beard and mustaches were trimmed to points. He was tall for the era, slim but broad-shouldered. His garb was not the usual robe of a gentleman indoors, but blouse, tunic, hose, as if he wanted always to be ready for action.

Everard introduced himself. “Welcome, sir, in the name of Christ and this house.” Lorenzo’s baritone rang. “You honor us.”

“The honor is mine, sir, thanks to your graciousness,” Everard responded, equally polite.

A smile flashed. Teeth that good were a rarity nowadays. “Let’s be frank, shall we? I itch for talk about faring and fighting. Do you not? Come, make yourself easy.”

A buxom young woman, who had been holding her hands near the charcoal brazier that somewhat staved off chill, took Everard’s cloak and poured wine, undiluted, from a pitcher into goblets on a table. Sweetmeats and shelled nuts had been set forth too. At a gesture from Lorenzo, she genuflected, bobbing her head, and retired to the adjacent room. Everard noticed a crib there. The door closed behind her.

“She must remain,” Lorenzo explained. “The infant is not well.” Plainly she was his current mistress, no doubt a peasant girl of the neighborhood, and they had had a baby. Everard nodded without expressing hope for its quick recovery. That was a poor bet. Men didn’t invest much love in a child till it had survived the first year or two.

They sat down, across the table from each other. Daylight was waning, but three brass lamps served vision. By their shadowful glow, the warriors in a fresco behind Lorenzo—a scene from the Iliad, or maybe the Aeneid, Everard guessed—came half alive. “You have been on pilgrimage, I see,” Lorenzo said. Everard had taken care to display a palmer’s cross.

“To the Holy Land, for my sins,” the Patrolman told him.

Eagerness leaped: “And how fares the kingdom? We hear ill tidings.”

“The Christians hold on.” They would for another forty-nine years, till Saladin retook Jerusalem … unless that part of history was also gone awry. A torrent of questions rushed over Everard. He’d briefed himself pretty thoroughly, but had trouble with some, as shrewd as they were. In several cases, where he couldn’t well admit ignorance, he invented plausible answers.

“Body of Christ, could I be there!” Lorenzo exclaimed. “Well, someday, God willing. I’ve a mort to do first, nearer home.”

“Everywhere I stopped, on my way up through Italy, I heard how mightily you’ve wrought,” Everard said. “Last year—”

Lorenzo’s hand chopped air. “God and St. George aid our cause. We’ve well-nigh finished driving the Sicilians out. This new King Alfonso of theirs is a bold rogue, but lacks his father’s cunning and skill. We’ll chase him onto his island soon, I vow, and finish the crusade. But for the moment there’s scant action. Duke Rainulf wants to make sure of his hold on Apulia, Campania, and what we’ve won of Calabria before he proceeds farther. So I’ve returned, and been yawning till my jaws ache. Man, it’s good to meet you! Tell me about—”