Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

The man stood still an instant. Something cold stirred along Tamberly’s nerves. He was a child of his era, but tough and smart and not naive about human things. “On your knees!” she urged, and rose to hers, hands clasped before her.

“Yes. Yes.” He stumbled toward the angelic form. “God show me what is right. Christ strengthen my will and my sword arm.”

He knelt before Everard, clasped the Patrolman’s legs, laid his head against the shining robe.

“Enough,” said Everard awkwardly. “Go and sin no more.”

Lorenzo released him, lifted his arms as if to implore. Then in an instant he brought his left hand down, a vicious chop, across Everard’s right knuckles. The crucifix spun free of that grasp. Lorenzo well-nigh flew erect, leaped back. His blade hissed from the sheath. Sunlight burned along the steel.

“Angel?” he shouted. “Or demon?”

“What the hell?” Everard moved to regain his stunner.

Lorenzo pounced, blocked the way. “Hold where you are, or I hew,” rattled from him. “Say forth … your true nature … and be gone to your rightful place.”

Everard braced himself. “Dare you defy Heaven’s messenger?”

“No. If that is what you are. God help me, I must know.”

It whirled through Tamberly: He’s alerted. How? I do recall, yes, Manse said there are stories about devils disguising themselves to entrap people, yes, even taking on the appearance of Jesus. If Lorenzo got a suspicion—

“Merely behold me,” Everard said.

“I have felt you,” Lorenzo snarled.

Uh-huh, Tamberly realized. Angels aren’t supposed to have genitals, are they? Oh, we’re dealing with somebody brilliant as well as fearless. No wonder the whole future turns on him.

She went to all fours. The stunner lay about ten feet from her. If Everard could hold Lorenzo’s attention while she sneaked across to it, maybe they could still save their plan.

“Why should Satan want you to go on crusade?” the Patrolman argued.

“Lest I be of service here? If Roger the wolf decides to rob us of more than Sicily?” Lorenzo looked skyward. “Lord,” he appealed, “am I in error? Grant me a sign.”

Manse can’t so much as flap those wings.

Everard darted for his vehicle. On it he’d be in control of everything. Lorenzo yelled, sprang at him, slashed. Everard barely dodged. Blood welled over the torn robe, from a cut deep in his right shoulder and down the chest.

“There’s my sign!” Lorenzo howled. “No demon, you, nor angel. Die, wizard!”

His rush sent Everard in retreat from the cycle, with not a second free to take out his communicator and summon help. Tamberly scrambled for the stunner. She laid hands around it, jumped to her feet, found that she didn’t know how to work it in its disguise.

“You too?” screamed Lorenzo. “Witch!”

He bounded at her. The sword flamed on high. Fury writhed inhuman over the face.

Everard attacked. His right arm lamed, he had only time before the blade fell to hit with his left fist. The blow smote under the angle of the jaw, all his muscle and desperation behind it. A crack resounded.

The sword arced loose, glittering like water flung down the fall. Lorenzo went a yard, bonelessly tossed, before he crashed.

“Are you okay, Wanda?” jerked out of Everard’s throat.

“Yes, I, I’m not hurt, but—him?”

They went to see. Lorenzo lay crumpled, unstirring, eyes wide to the sky. The mouth hung horribly open, tongue protruding above a displaced chin. His head was cocked at a nasty angle.

Everard hunkered down, examined him, rose. “Dead,” he told her slowly. “Broken neck. I didn’t intend that. But he’d’ve killed you.”

“And you. Oh, Manse.” She laid her head on his bloody breast. His left arm embraced her.

After a while he said, “I’ve got to return to base and have them patch me up before I pass out.”

“Can you … take him along?”

“And get him revived and repaired? No. Too dangerous in every way. This surprise we’ve had—it should never have happened. Hardly made sense, did it? But … the tide was carrying him … trying to preserve its twisted future—Let’s hope we’ve broken the spell at last.”

He moved unsteadily toward the cycle. His words came ever more harsh and faint, through lips turning grayish. “If it’ll help you any, Wanda—I didn’t tell you before, but in … the Frederick world … when he went crusading, he died of sickness. I suspect … he would’ve … again. Fever, vomiting, diarrhea, helplessness. He deserved this way, no?”

Everard let Tamberly assist him into the saddle. A little strength returned to his voice. “You’ve got to play the game out. Run back screaming. Tell how you were set upon by robbers. The blood—He’ll’ve wounded one or two. Since you escaped, they decided they’d better scram. People will honor his memory in Anagni. He died like a knight, defending a lady.”

“Uh-huh.” And Bartolommeo will press his suit, and before long marry the hero’s sorrowing bride. “Just a minute.” She scampered to the sword, brought it back, rubbed it over his red-drenched garment. “Bandit blood.”

He smiled a bit. “Bright girl,” he whispered.

“On your way, boy. Quick.” She gave him a hasty kiss and moved backward. Vehicle and man vanished.

She stood alone with the corpse and the sun, the sword yet in her clasp. I’m sort of gory myself, she thought in a remote fashion. Setting her teeth, she made a pair of superficial cuts above her left ribs. Nobody would examine or question her closely. Detective methods belonged to the distant morrow, her tomorrow, if it existed. In Cencio’s house grief would overwhelm thought, until pride brought its stern consolations.

She knelt, closed Lorenzo’s fingers around the hilt, wanted to shut the eyes but decided better not. “Goodbye,” she said under her breath. “If there is a God, I hope He makes this up to you.”

Rising, she started back toward the meadow and the tasks that still awaited her.

He phoned her at her parents’ house, where she was spending her furlough. She didn’t want him to call for her there. It already hurt, lying as much as she must. They met downtown next morning, in the anachronistic opulence of the St. Francis Hotel lobby. For a moment they stood, hands joined, looking.

“I think you want to get away,” he finally said.

“Yes,” she admitted. “If we could be somewhere in the open?”

“Good idea.” He smiled. “I see you’re wearing warm clothes and brought a jacket. Me too.”

He had a car in the Union Square garage. They spoke little while they bucked through traffic and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge “You’re fully recovered?” she asked once.

“Yes, yes,” he assured her. “Long since. It took me several weeks of lifespan before things were reorganized enough that I could take this leave.”

“History is back as it ought to be? Everywhere and everywhen?”

“So I am told, and what I’ve seen for myself bears it out.” Everard glanced from the steering wheel to her. Sharply: “Have you noticed any difference?”

“No, none, and I came here … watchful, afraid.”

“Like maybe you’d find your father an alcoholic or your sister never born or something? You needn’t have worried. The continuum doesn’t take long to regain its form, right down to the finest details.’ That didn’t really make sense in English, but by tacit agreement they were avoiding Temporal. “And the crux of what happened—what we kept from happening—lies eight hundred years behind us.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t sound overjoyed.”