Only later was he able to slip in a question about the barrow. Wulfnoth frowned, and his plump, toothless wife hastily made a protective sign toward a rude wooden idol. «It is not good to speak of such things,» muttered the Jute. «I would the wizard had not been buried on my land. But he was close to my father, who died last year and would hear of naught else.»
«Wizard?» Whitcomb pricked up his ears. «What tale is this?»
«Well, you may as well know,» grumbled Wulfnoth. «He was a stranger hight Stane, who appeared in Canterbury some six years ago. He must have been from far away, for he spoke not the English or British tongues, but King Hengist guested him and eftsoons he learned. He gave the king strange but goodly gifts, and was a crafty redesman, on whom the king came more and more to lean. None dared cross him, for he had a wand which threw thunderbolts and had been seen to cleave rocks and once, in battle with the Britons, burn men down. There are those who thought he was Woden, but that cannot be since he died.»
«Ah, so.» Everard felt a tingle of eagerness. «And what did he whilst yet he lived?»
«Oh… he gave the king wise redes, as I have said. It was his thought that we of Kent should cease thrusting back the Britons and calling in ever more of our kinsmen from the old country; rather, we should make peace with the natives. He thought that with our strength and their Roman learning, we could together shape a mighty realm. He may have been right, though I for one see little use in all these books and baths, to say naught of that weird cross-god they have… Well, anyhow, he was slain by unknowns three years ago, and buried here with sacrifices and such of his possessions as his foes had not reaved. We give him an offering twice a year, and I must say his ghost has not made trouble for us. But still am I somewhat uneasy about it.»
«Three years, eh?» breathed Whitcomb. «I see…»
It took a good hour to break away, and Wulfnoth insisted on sending a boy along to guide them to the river. Everard, who didn’t feel like walking that far, grinned and called down the hopper. As he and Whitcomb mounted it, he said gravely to the bulging-eyed lad: «Know that thou hast guested Woden and Thunor, who will hereafter guard thy folk from harm.» Then he jumped three years back in time.
«Now comes the rough part,» he said, peering out of the thicket at the nighted thorp. The mound was not there now, the wizard Stane was still alive. «It’s easy enough to put on a magic show for a kid, but we’ve got to extract this character from the middle of a big, tough town where he’s the king’s right-hand man. And he has a blast-ray.»
«Apparently we succeeded—or will succeed,» said Whitcomb.
«Nope. It’s not irrevocable, you know. If we fail, Wulfnoth will be telling us a different story three years from now, probably that Stane is there—he may kill us twice! And England, pulled out of the Dark Ages into a neoclassical culture, won’t evolve into anything you’d recognize by 1894… I wonder what Stane’s game is.»
He lifted the hopper and sent it through the sky toward Canterbury. A night wind whistled darkly past his face. Presently the town loomed near, and he grounded in a copse. The moon was white on the half-ruined Roman walls of ancient Durovernum, dappled black on the newer earth and wood of the Jutish repairs. Nobody would get in after sunset.
Again the hopper brought them to daytime—near noon—and was sent skywards. His breakfast, two hours ago and three years in the future, felt soggy as Everard led the way onto a crumbling Roman road and toward the city. There was a goodly traffic, mostly farmers driving creaky oxcarts of produce in to market. A pair of vicious-looking guards halted them at the gate and demanded their business. This time they were the agents of a trader on Thanet who had sent them to interview various artisans here. The hoodlums looked surly till Whitcomb slipped them a couple of Roman coins; then the spears went down and they were waved past.
The city brawled and bustled around them, though again it was the ripe smell which impressed Everard most. Among the jostling Jutes, he spotted an occasional Romano-Briton, disdainfully picking a way through the muck and pulling his shabby tunic clear of contact with these savages. It would have been funny if it weren’t pathetic.
There was an extraordinarily dirty inn filling the moss-grown ruins of what had been a rich man’s town house. Everard and Whitcomb found that their money was of high value here where trade was principally in kind. By standing a few rounds of drinks, they got all the information they wanted. King Hengist’s hall was near the middle of town… not really a hall, an old building which had been deplorably prettied up under the direction of that outlander Stane… not that our good and doughty king is any pantywaist, don’t get me wrong, stranger… why, only last month… oh, yes, Stane! He lived in the house right next to it. Strange fellow, some said he was a god… he certainly had an eye for the girls… Yes, they said he was behind all this peace-talk with the Britons. More and more of those slickers coming in every day, it’s getting so an honest man can’t let a little blood without… Of course, Stane is very wise, I wouldn’t say anything against him, understand, after all, he can throw lightning…
«So what do we do?» asked Whitcomb, back in their own room. «Go on in and arrest him?»
«No, I doubt if that’s possible,» said Everard cautiously. «I’ve got a sort of a plan, but it depends on guessing what he really intends. Let’s see if we can’t get an audience.» As he got off the straw tick which served for a bed, he was scratching. «Damn! What this period needs isn’t literacy but flea powder!»
The house had been carefully renovated, its white, porticoed facade almost painfully clean against the grubbiness around it. Two guards lounged on the stairs, and snapped to alertness as the agents approached. Everard fed them money and a story about being a visitor who had news that would surely interest the great wizard. «Tell him, ‘Man from tomorrow.’ ’Tis a password. Got it?»
«It makes not sense,» complained the guard.
«Passwords need not make sense,» said Everard with hauteur.
The Jute clanked off, shaking his head dolefully. All these newfangled notions!
«Are you sure this is wise?» asked Whitcomb. «He’ll be on the alert now, you know.»
«I also know a VIP isn’t going to waste time on just any stranger. This business is urgent, man! So far, he hasn’t accomplished anything permanent, not even enough to become a lasting legend. But if Hengist should make a genuine union with the Britons…»
The guard returned, grunted something, and led them up the stairs and across the peristyle. Beyond was the atrium, a good-sized room where modern bearskin rugs jarred with chipped marble and faded mosaics. A man stood waiting before a rude wooden couch. As they entered, he raised his hand, and Everard saw the slim barrel of a thirtieth-century blast-ray.
«Keep your hands in sight and well away from your sides,» said the man gently. «Otherwise I shall belike have to smite you with a thunderbolt.»
Whitcomb sucked in a sharp, dismayed breath, but Everard had been rather expecting this. Even so, there was a cold knot in his stomach.