“Your Majesty!” Jeremy bowed low. Amanda curtsied, as she had for Sesto Capurnio.
“Good day, both of you,” Kuzmickas said. He had a light, true tenor voice. His neoLatin was very good, almost perfect, with only a vanishing trace of the Lietuvan accent that made him sound as if he were singing ordinary speech. He looked the two crosstime traders over. “I did not think you would be so young.”
“We are old enough to bring you presents from Polisso, your Majesty,” Jeremy said.
“Oh, no doubt.” Kuzmickas pointed at him. The King's nails were perfectly shaped but dirty. “You have some of those fancy things that are all the talk of the border the past few years?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Jeremy said.
“Good. I have seen some of these. I would like to see more. I would like to have more for myself.” King Kuzmickas was nothing if not direct.
Amanda spoke up: “Polisso would like to have peace.”
“Oh, yes. I know.” Kuzmickas sounded amused. “Some of us are likelier to get what we want than others.”
“You've already seen our city isn't easy to take,” Jeremy said.
“And so? Not many things that are worthwhile are easy. Just because something is hard does not mean it cannot be done.” The Lietuvan King sounded like one of those boring lessons on how to get ahead in life. Those lessons might be boring. That didn't make them any less true, which worried Jeremy.
But he wasn't there to argue with Kuzmickas. He was there to try to make him happy. “Here is one of our gifts for you, your Majesty,” he said, and gave the King a straight razor in a mother-of-pearl sheath that doubled as a handle.
He had to show Kuzmickas how to free the blade with his thumbnail. Kuzmickas tested the edge on the ball of his thumb. He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Yes, this is very fine,” he said. “A good tool for smoothing a throat-or for cutting one.” He did not sound as if he was joking.
Amanda said, “Here is a mirror for you, your Majesty.”
She gave him one of the biggest ones they had, in a frame set with sea shells.
Kuzmickas stared into it. He muttered a few words in Lietuvan. By the smile on his face, they meant something like, I sure am a handsome fellow. “I like this,” he said in neoLatin. “It is better than the mirrors we make. I will not try to tell you any different.”
“And here, your Majesty…” Jeremy gave the King a Swiss army knife.
Kuzmickas had learned his lesson with the razor. He started using his thumbnail to free blade after blade, tool after tool. Each new one made the smile on his face get wider. “Yes,” he said. “This is a wonderful toy, and useful, too. I would like to meet the knifesmith who made it, to tell him how clever he is.”
There was no smith, of course. Somewhere, someone sitting at a computer had designed the knife. After that, machines had done the rest. Just for a moment, Jeremy felt a twinge of regret about that. People here really got their hands on what they made in a way they seldom did in the home timeline. But machines could do things with so much less labor, it made the trade worthwhile.
“And finally, your Majesty…” Amanda pulled out a blue-plate special. She showed King Kuzmickas what the big, shiny pocket watch was for, how to wind it, and how to read the hands.
“Better than a sundial. I can take it anywhere. And I can tell the hour at night. And it is beautiful.” Kuzmickas was good at figuring out the advantages of what was new technology to him. His taste might have been a different question. He went on, “But what if I forget to wind it? What happens if it stops?”
He was clever, sure enough. Few people here ever wondered about that. Amanda answered, “Wait till noon, your Majesty, noon on a sundial, and set it to six o'clock.” Like the Romans, the Lietuvans started the day at sunrise, not at midnight.
“And if I don't have a sundial handy, I can figure out when noon is on any sunny day-close enough, anyhow,” Kuzmickas said, nodding. “That is fine. Thank you.” People here didn't worry about time to the minute. Time to the half hour-or at most to the quarter hour-was close enough for them. Maybe watches would change that. It hadn't happened yet.
“We hope your presents please you, your Majesty,” Jeremy said.
“If you had brought me Polisso's surrender, that would have pleased me more,” Kuzmickas answered. “But wait. Fair is fair, and never let it be said I take without giving in return. I have presents for you as well.”
He called out in Lietuvan. The man who hurried up and bowed to him was small and dark. He looked more like a Roman than a Lietuvan. A slave? Jeremy wondered. He realized he would never know. The King pointed to him and Amanda in turn and spoke as if giving orders. The little dark man bowed again, nodding over and over. He raced away as fast as he had come.
When he came back, he carried a jacket of some thick, brown, lustrous fur and a necklace. “This marten jacket is for you, Ieremeo Soltero,” King Kuzmickas said. “It will keep you warm no matter what the weather. Try it. You are large. I hope it will fit you.”
“Thank you very much, your Majesty.” That was the biggest lie Jeremy had ever told. Putting on the jacket felt like the hardest thing he'd ever done. In his world, in his time, only a few perverts wore fur. He knew that hadn't been true for his ancestors, but they'd had all sorts of other nasty habits that he didn't want to imitate, too. He could smell the animal hides that made up the jacket. It was warm, but not all the sweat that sprang out on his forehead rose because it was. He managed to hold his voice steady as he said, “It fits well, your Majesty. Thank you again.”
“You are welcome.” Kuzmickas waved indulgently. “You will not offend me by taking it off. I know it is too much for today's weather.”
“Yes.” Jeremy got out of it in a hurry. He could still feel the weight of it on his shoulders, though. He fought not to be sick.
Kuzmickas turned to Amanda. “This necklace is of fine Lietuvan amber. When you wear it, think of me.” He beckoned her forward and put it on her.
“Thank you very much, your Majesty. It's beautiful,” she said. Jeremy was jealous of her. She could sound grateful and mean it. The home timeline had nothing against amber.
“And I give you one other gift,” Kuzmickas said. “You will have paint or whitewash in your home?” He waited till Jeremy and Amanda gave him puzzled nods, then went on, “If Polisso falls to us, paint a white X on your door. You will not be harmed or enslaved. You will come under my protection. This gift is for you alone. If we see many white X's when we break in, we will ignore them all. Do you understand?”
“Yes, your Majesty.” Jeremy wasn't sure he ought to thank King Kuzmickas for that. He wasn't sure he and Amanda ought to use the gift if Polisso fell, either. It didn't seem fair. But he wasn't sure they wouldn't use it, either. He'd heard too many horror stories about things that could happen in the sack of a town. Instead of saying thank you, he bowed.
That seemed to satisfy the King. “Go back to Polisso,” he said. “Before the summer ends, we will see whose gods are stronger. Yours may be more clever, but mine-mine can fight.”
Jeremy had to pick up the marten-fur jacket. Touching it was as bad as wearing it. I can't be sick till I get someplace where nobody can see me, he told himself again and again as he walked back to Polisso. And he wasn't, quite, though afterwards he never knew why not.
Whatever the city prefect thought, Amanda and Jeremy's visit to King Kuzmickas didn't change anything much. Amanda hadn't expected that it would. The King of Lietuva politely went on with the truce till the two crosstime travelers got back inside the walls of Polisso. Then the Lietuvans started shooting again. They fired one cannon to let the Romans know the truce was over. The Romans shot back with one gun to show they understood. After that, both sides returned to banging away with everything they had.