Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

As for the Church, well, it wouldn’t die, nor even break up in a Reformation, but it would become a creature of the state, and probably share the death agonies.

Unless a crippled Patrol could uproot this destiny, without sowing something worse.

At the palace stables Everard dismounted and turned his horse over to a groom. Like a walled city within the city, the compound loomed hard by. The mews were inside but he, self-acknowledged (falsely) as inexperienced, had no hawk to care for. The forecourt seemed full of bustle. To avoid it, he walked around to the rear gate. Steel dimly ashine in the waning light, its guards recognized him and let him by with a genial greeting. They were good joes, whatever they’d done in the past. War was war, throughout the ages. Everard had been a soldier too.

The gravel of a path scrunched softly beneath his boots. A formal garden stretched fragrant to right and left. He heard a fountain splash. As clear sounded the strings of a lute. Hidden from Everard by hedges and bowers, a man lifted his voice in song. Most likely a young lady listened, for the words were amorous. The language was southern German. The troubadours were gone with the Provençal civilization that the Albigensian Crusade destroyed; but no few minnesingers crossed the Alps to seek Frederick’s court.

The palace sprawled ahead. Medieval heaviness was a bit relieved by wings added more recently. Many windows shone. They hadn’t the brightness of electric lamps behind plate glass—this world might well never know that—but a dull yet warm flame-glow seeped through small leaded panes. When Everard entered, he came into a hallway illuminated down its length by bracketed lamps.

Nobody else was in view. The servants were taking a light supper in their quarters, prior to making things ready for the night. (The main meal was early in the afternoon. Frederick himself, and therefore his entourage, ate once a day.) Everard mounted a staircase. Although the emperor honored him by giving him a room here, naturally it lay offside and he shared it with his man.

He opened the door and went in. The space was small, its furniture hardly more than a double bed, a couple of stools, a clothes chest, and a chamber pot. Novak rose and snapped to attention. “At ease,” Everard said in American English. “How often must I tell you, your Middle European Ordnungsliebe isn’t necessary around me?”

The Czech’s stocky frame quivered. “Sir—”

“One moment.” Each of them called Jack Hall sometime during every twenty-four hours, so the man at the timecycle would know they were okay. This was Everard’s first chance today to do it privately. Novak had mentioned being noticed a couple of times when he believed himself alone, and getting odd glances, though nobody braced him. It should seem a religious observance, of which there were countless sorts. Everard pulled out the medallion that hung from a chain under his tunic, brought it to his mouth, thumbed the switch. “Reporting,” he said. “Back in the palace. No developments yet, worse luck. Hang on, old boy.” It must be dull, simply waiting yonder, but cowboy life had schooled Hall in patience.

How so small a device could generate a radio wave reaching so far, Everard didn’t know. Some quantum effect, he supposed. He turned it off, to save the power cell, and restored it to his bosom. “All right,” he said. “If you want to be of service, fix me a sandwich and pour me a drink. I know you keep a stash.”

“Yes, sir.” Novak was clearly curbing ants in his pants. From the chest he produced a loaf of bread, a cheese, a sausage, and a clay bottle. Thirsty, Everard reached for that, unstoppered it, and swigged.

“Vino rozzo indeed,” he snorted. “Haven’t you any beer?”

“I thought you had found out for yourself, sir,” replied Novak. “In this era, too, Italians cannot brew a drinkable beer. Especially since we lack refrigeration.” He drew his knife and started slicing, using the chest lid for a table. “How was your day?”

“Fun, in a strained fashion, and educational.” Everard scowled. “Except, blast it, I didn’t get a single useful hint. More reminiscences, but none of them old enough to suggest where or when the turning point was. I give us one more week, then we’ll say to hell with it and hop back to base.” He sat down. “I hope you haven’t been too bored.”

“On the contrary, sir.” Novak looked up. The broad face tensed, the voice hoarsened. “I believe I have gotten some important information.”

“What? Say on!”

“I spent more than an hour talking with Sir Giacomo de Mora.”

Everard whistled. “You—a hireling, damn near a masterless man?”

Novak seemed glad to keep his hands occupied. “I was astounded myself, sir. After all, one of the emperor’s chief counselors, his general against the Mongols, his personal ambassador to the king of England, and—Well, he sent for me, received me alone, and was really quite friendly, considering the difference in our ranks. He said he wants to learn everything he can about foreign lands. What you had told, sir, was most interesting, but humble men also see and hear things, often things their superiors don’t notice, and since he happened to have today idle—”

Everard gnawed his lip. He felt his pulse accelerate. “I’m not sure I like this.”

“Nor I, sir.” Savagely, Novak finished his cutting and slapped a sandwich together. “But what could I do? Play simpleminded, as best I was able. I’m afraid playacting isn’t a talent of mine.” He straightened. Slowly: “I managed to slip in a few questions of my own. I tried to make them sound like normal curiosity. He obliged. He told me something about himself and … his ancestry.”

He handed the sandwich over. Everard took it automatically. “Go on,” he mumbled, while iciness crawled over his scalp.

Again Novak stood at attention. “I had what you call a hunch, sir. I led him to speak of his family. You know how conscious of their backgrounds these aristocrats are. His father was from—Well, but his mother was a Conto of Anagni. When I heard that, I am afraid I lost my stupid mask for a minute. I said I had heard tell of a famous knight, Lorenzo de Conti, about a hundred years ago. Was that any kin of his? And, yes, sir,” Novak exploded, “Giacomo is a great-grandson of that man. Lorenzo had one legitimate child. Soon after, he went off on the Second Crusade, fell sick, and died.”

Everard stared before him. “Lorenzo again,” he whispered.

“I don’t understand this. Like some magical spell, isn’t it?” Novak shivered. “I don’t want that to be so.”

“No,” Everard answered tonelessly. “It isn’t. Nor a coincidence, I think. Blind chance, always underneath that skin we call reality—” He swallowed. “The Patrol’s dealt with nexuses, points in space-time where it’s all too easy to change the course of the world. But can’t a nexus be, not an event that does or does not happen, but a person? Lorenzo was, is, some kind of a, a lightning rod; and the lightning strikes through him onward beyond his death—what Giacomo’s meant to Frederick’s career—”

He climbed to his feet. “There’s our clue, Karel. You found it for us. Lorenzo can’t have died at Rignano. He must be active yet in that same crisis year to which we’ve sent Wanda.”

“Then we must go to her,” Novak said unsteadily. Only now, it seemed, did he see the full meaning of the fact he had unearthed.

“Of course—”

The door flew open. Everard’s heart banged. Breath hissed between Novak’s teeth.

The man who confronted them was in his forties, leanfaced, dark hair graying at the temples. His athletic body was clad for action, leather doublet over the shirt, close-fitting hose, sword naked in hand. Behind him, four men-at-arms grasped falchions and halberds.