Keith Laumer - The Other Side of Time

Two startled scrubwomen watched us cross the kitchen and duck out a door between garbage cans into an unlit alley. The truck parked there started up with a lot of valve click and black kerosene exhaust. I went over the tailgate and the old man scrambled up behind me and pulled the canvas flap down as the truck pulled away. Three minutes later, it slowed, stopped. I heard voices up front, the clatter of a gun, leather boots on cobbles. After a minute, gears clashed and we went on. On the bench opposite, my new friend let out a held breath and grinned from ear to ear.

“Worked like a charm,” he said. He cackled and rubbed his hands together. “Like a bloody charm, beggin’ y’r Grace’s pardon.”

The old man’s name was Wilibald. “Our friends are waiting for y’r Grace,” he said. “True Britons, they are, every man Jock o’ ’em. Simple men, y’r Grace, but honest! Not like those treasonous palace blackguards in their silks and jewels!” He gnashed his gums and wagged his head.

“That was a neat play, Wilibald,” I said. “How did you manage it?”

“There’s true men among the Bluecoats, y’r Grace. The jailor was one. He tried to lodge y’r Grace in a safe cell—one we’d a tunnel to—but his high and mightiness the Baron would ha’ none o’t. So it took a little longer. But here y’r Grace be now, all the same!” He cackled and rasped his hands together like a cricket’s wings.

“You’re with the rebel party?”

“Some call us rebels, y’r Grace—but to honest men, we’re patriots, pledged to rid these islands o’ the French pox!”

“Why did you spring me?”

“Why? Why?” the old man looked astonished. “When word went abroad the Plantagenet was housed in the viceregal tombs, what other course could a loyal Briton follow, y’r Grace? Did y’r Grace deem we’d leave ye there to rot?”

“But I’m not—” I started and left it hanging.

“Not what, y’r Grace?” Wilibald asked. “Not surprised? Of course not. There’s ten million Britons in this island, sworm to free the land o’ tyranny!”

“Not going to waste any time,” I finished. “We’ll strike immediately.”

The traffic on the road was a mixed bag of horse carts, big solid-tired trucks with open cabs, little droop-snoot cars that looked as if they came in cereal boxes and more than a sprinkling of blue-painted military vehicles. According to Wili, the viceroy was concentrating his forces around the fortified ports, ready to cover the landing of reinforcements if the talk of rebellion crystalized into action. The place we were headed for was the country seat of Sir John Lackland.

“A dark-avised gentleman,” Wili said. “But moneyed, and of the ancient stock.” He rambled on for the next hour, filling me in on the local situation. The rebels, he swore, were ready to move. And according to Roosevelt, if they moved, they’d win.

“You’ll see,” Wili told me. “Loyal Britons will rise to a man and flock to y’r Grace’s standard!”

After an hour’s run, we turned down a side road and swung in between brick pillars, went along a drive that led through tended woods into a cobbled yard fronting a three-story house with flower boxes and leaded windows and half-timbered gables that looked like the real thing. Steps went up to a broad veranda. An old man in a fancy vest and black pants and house slippers let us in. His eyes bugged when he saw me.

“ ’Is Grace must see Sir John at once,” Wili said.

“Sir John’s been abed this twoday wi’ a touch o’ the ague. He’s had no callers—”

“He has now,” Wili cut him off.

The old fellow dithered, then led the way into a dark room full of books, and shuffled away.

I looked at the books on the shelves, mostly leather-bound volumes with titles like Historic Courts and Campaigns Among the Quanecticott. After five minutes or so the door opened and the old fellow was back, piping that Sir John would see us now.

The master of the house was in a bedroom on the top floor, a lean-faced sharp-nosed old aristocrat with a silky black eyebrow-moustache and a matching fringe of hair around a high bald dome. He was propped up in a bed no larger than a skating rink, half buried in a violet satin pillow with an embroidered monogram and more lace than a Hollywood bishop. He had a tan woolen bathrobe with satin lapels wrapped around him, and a knitted shawl over that, and even so, the end of his nose looked cold. When he saw me, he nearly jumped out of bed.

“What—now…?” he stared from me to Wili and back. “Why did you come here—of all places?”

“Where else would I be more likely to find friends?” I came back.

“Friends? I’d heard that the viceregent had declared a pretender heir to the dukedom, but I scarce expected to see him present himself here in that guise.”

“How do you know I’m the man—or that I’m an imposter?”

“Why—why—who else would you be?”

“You mean you’re accepting me as genuine? I’m glad, Sir John. Because the time has come for action.”

“Action? What action?”

“The liberation of Briton.”

“Are you mad? You’d bring destruction down on my house—on all of us! We Plantagenets have always lived on sufferance! The murder of Duke Richard shows us all how precarious our position is—”

“Who killed him?”

“Why—Garrone’s men, of course.”

“I wonder about that. From the viceroy’s point of view, it was a foolish move. It aligned the Britons against him more solidly than Richard ever did alive.”

“Conjecture. Idle conjecture,” Sir John barked. “You come here, unbidden, preaching treason! What do I know about you? You imagine I’ll place our trust in an upstart, a stranger?

“Hardly that, Sir John,” Wili said indignantly. “One glance at him—”

“What do you know of him, fellow? Is any oversized carrot-locked bumpkin who cares to lay claim to the dukedom to be accepted without question?”

“That’s hardly fair, Sir John—”

“Enough! The matter will have to wait for resolution until I can summon certain influential men! In the meantime, I’ll give you sanctuary. I can do no more.” Lackland gave me a look like a dagger in the ribs and yanked at his bellcord. The old footman popped in with a speed that suggested he’d been standing by not far away.

“Show milord to his suite,” Lackland got out between lips as stiff as a Hoover collar. “And quarter Master Wilibald below stairs.”

I followed my guide along the corridor to a high-ceilinged, airy room with big windows and a sitting room and bath opening from it. The old fellow showed me the soap and towel and then paused at the door and gave me a sly look.

“It did me heart proud to hear y’r honor gi’ a bit o’ the rough to his Lordship,” he cackled. “It’s been a weary time since a real fighting duke put foot o’ these old boards, beggin’ y’r Honor’s pardon.”

“You listen at keyholes, eh?” But I grinned at him. “Wake me as soon as the clan’s gathered. I wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

“Rely on me, y’r Grace,” he said and went out and I pulled off my boots and lay in the dark and slid off into a dream about knights on horseback riding with leveled lances into the fire of massed machine guns.

I came back from somewhere a long way off with a hand shaking my shoulder and a thin old voice saying, “They’re here, y’r Grace! Milord Lackland’s wi’ ’em i’ the study this minute—and unless I mistake me, there’s mischief afoot!”

“Does Lackland know you’re here?”

“Not ’em, y’r Grace.”

We went down the stairs and across the hall to a door that was standing ajar. When Wili got close he turned and gave me a quick jerk of the head, cupping his ear.