Keith Laumer: The Other Side of Time

“This way, y’r Grace. No time to waste!” There was a sharp note in his voice; an impatient note. I hadn’t moved since the shots were fired.

“What’s your hurry, Wili?” I said. “No one’s going to burst in on the viceroy, in conference—except maybe a trusted servant with his ten o’clock tea.”

“How’s that? Beggin’ y’r Grace’ pardon—but that’s a dead man lying there! The penalty for murder is hanging! If y’r caught here—”

I went to him and instead of going past him into the passage I caught his wrist.

“What if we’re both caught here, Wili? Would that spoil the scheme?”

“We’d hang!” He tried to jerk free, but I held him.

“They all know I was with him. When he’s found dead, it will be an open-and-shut case, eh, Wili?”

“What matter if it is? Ye’ll be far away by then—”

“Who are you working for, Wili? Roosevelt? He let me escape last time, didn’t he? Why? So I could stir up the populace? Why did he bomb Lackland’s house? But it was a fake raid, wasn’t it? Just a flock of near misses—with the machine guns to clean up the witnesses, including Lackland.”

“It was Lackland called the attack down on the house!” Wili croaked. “He was a creeping spy and telltale for the Louis, hoping to see y’r Grace killed—but he paid for his crimes! Aye, he paid—”

“Don’t kid me—he was working for Roosevelt. I guess he’d outlived his usefulness.”

“Shameful times we’ve fell on,” Wili babbled on. “But what was he but a Black Plantagenet, eh? But now it’s needful we make our escape. I’ve a car waiting—”

“Very convenient, you and your cars. It hardly fits in what I’ve seen of the Organization here. I suppose we’ll breeze right through the police lines, just like we did last time, thanks to Roosevelt.”

“The Organization—”

“Is a lot of hot air, Wili. Roosevelt sent you here to kill Garonne, and arranged for it to look as though I’d done the job—just as he killed Duke Richard and spread the word Garonne was guilty. Why? The situation was already balanced on a knife-edge. Why did he tell me the rebels had the winning hand? That was another lie. They’re evenly matched at best. But he wants them to make their try, wants to see the country cut to pieces in a civil war that won’t end until both factions are ruined. Why, again?”

“Y’r daft!” Wili yelped. “Let go, you fool! They’ll be here at any instant—”

“Who tipped them this time, you? Better start talking, Wili—and it had better be good—”

I was watching his free hand; it dipped to his pocket and I grabbed it as it came out with the automatic. He was strong, but I was lots stronger.

“I’m going to spoil the play, Wili,” I told him. “I’m a little slow, but after awhile even I catch on. Your boss has been dancing me on the strings from the beginning, hasn’t he? Every move has been planned: getting me here on my own initiative, the dramatic escape complete with voices coming out of the walls, then letting Garonne’s men have me. What’s planned for me next? Maybe I’m supposed to get on a horse and lead the peasants into battle, is that it? But I’m breaking the chain, Wili. The moves are too subtle for me, but that doesn’t matter. A fancy knot cuts as easy as a simple one—”

His knee came up, almost fast enough. As I took it on the thigh, he put everything he had into twisting the gun around. It wasn’t enough. The muzzle was pointing to his own chest when it coughed. He went slack, fell backward into the room. He tried, tried hard to speak, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then his eyes went dull and blank. I dragged the body into the passage, felt over the wall until I found the lever that closed the panel behind me.

“Good-bye, Wili,” I said. “You were loyal to something, even if it was the wrong thing.” I left him there and started off in what I hoped was the right direction.

It was different, picking my way in the dark through the network of hidden passages that I had traced out once before in the shuttle, on half-phase. I made a wrong turning, bumped my head and barked my shins, retraced my steps and tried again. It took me hours—I don’t know how many—to find the passage I was looking for: the one that led to Roosevelt’s quarters.

I found the lever and eased the panel back and was looking down from over the fireplace into the quiet luxury of the spacious study. It was empty. Roosevelt would be fully occupied elsewhere for a while, working out an explanation of the locked-door murder of the viceroy.

It was a difficult room to search. Every door and drawer was locked, and there were a lot of them. I levered them open one by one, looked at books and papers and boxed records, and drew a blank.

The next room was the Baron’s sleeping chamber. I started in the closet, worked my way through two large bureaus and a wardrobe, and in the last drawer, found a flat, paper-wrapped bundle. It was my broken sword. I wondered what it meant to Roosevelt that had made him squirrel it away here, but that was a problem I could solve later—maybe. I buckled it on, and the weight of it felt good at my hip. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing, if they walked in and found me here.

Ten minutes later, in a cubicle almost hidden in a shadowy corner, I found what I was looking for: the silver-mounted reliquary box that Roosevelt had destroyed a world to get.

There was a silver lock on the silver hasp that closed the lid. I hated to destroy such a handsome piece of workmanship, but I put the edge of the sword under it and levered and it shattered. The lid came up; inside, in a bed of yellowed satin, lay a rusted slab of steel, a foot long, three inches wide, beveled on both edges. It was another piece of the broken sword.

I picked it up, felt the same premonitory tingle in my hand that I’d felt that other time, in the underground room beneath the old chateau. Like that time, I brought the scrap of metal to the broken blade, saw the long, blue spark jump between them as they came together—

The world exploded in my face.

I sat astride a great war-horse, in the early morning. I felt the weight of the chain armor on my back, the drag of the new-forged sword at my side. Beside me, Trumping-ton turned in his saddle to look across at me. He spoke, but I gave him no answer. A strange vision was on me. Though I was here, a part of me was elsewhere, observing…

My vision widened, and I seemed to see myself riding away from the field of Chaluz, my mind unbloodied. More ghostly images flocked in my mind. I saw the lean face of John my brother, hungry-eyed, silky-bearded, as he knelt before me, pleading for his life. And the sudden look of fear, as I, who had always before been merciful of his treacheries, hardened my heart.

I heard the thunk of the headsman’s ax…

Then it seemed I sat in my pavilion on the island of Runnymede, summoned there by my rebellious barons. They stood before me in their arrogance, and presented to me, their sovereign lord, the perfidious writing of their demands. And again, I saw their looks a triumph change to the knowledge of death as my hidden bowmen stepped forth and loosed their clothyard shafts into the false hearts of my forsworn vassals…

Scenes of warfare passed before my eyes. I saw the walls of Paris go down before me, saw the fires that blazed up from the cathedrals of Madrid, saw the head of him who once had been a king, impaled on a pike and borne before me. Faces crowded around me, fair women and ambitious men, praising me. There was revelry, and riding behind the baying hounds, and roasted venison before the roaring blaze; and tuns of wine broached, and the passing of days, years of gluttony and lechery and sloth, until the time when my hand no longer sought the sword. Swollen with excess, rotten with disease, I cowered in my palace while my picked retainers parleyed with the invaders at my gates. Parleyed, and sold their kingdom and its king for their own vile lives. But no viler than mine, when I knelt, weeping, at the feet of the stripling whose father I had hanged to his own gates, and swore to him on my sword the eternal servility of all my house…