Nevitta Gummund's son was justifiably startled when a man rose from the shadows of the bushes that lined the driveway to his house and called him by name. He had just ridden up to the farm. Hermann, in tow as usual, had his sword halfway out before Martin Padway identified himself.
He explained: "I got here a couple of hours ago, and wanted to borrow a horse. Your people said you were away at the convention, but that you'd be back sometime tonight. So I've been waiting." He went on to tell briefly of his imprisonment and escape.
The Goth bellowed. "Ha! Ha! You mean to say, ha! ha! that you lay in the pond all day, right under the noses of the guards, with your face painted up like a damned flower? Ha! ha! Christ, that's the best thing I ever heard!" He dismounted. "Come on in the house and tell me more about it. Whew, you certainly stink like a frog pond, old friend!"
Later, he said more seriously: "I'd like to trust you, Martinus. By all accounts, you're a pretty reliable young man, in spite of your funny foreign ways. But how do I know that Liuderis wasn't right? There is something queer about you, you know, People say you can foresee the future, but try to hide the fact. And some of those machines of yours do smell a little bit of magic."
"I'll tell you," said Padway thoughtfully. "I can see a little hit of the future. Don't blame me; I just happen to have that power. Satanas has nothing to do with it. That is, I can sometimes see what will happen if people are allowed to do what they intend to. If I use my knowledge to intervene, that changes the future, so my vision isn't true any more.
"In this case, I know that Wittigis will lose the war. And he'll lose in the worst possible way—at the end of years of fighting which will completely devastate Italy. Not his fault. He's simply built that way. The last thing I want is to see the country ruined; it would spoil a lot of plans I have. So I propose to intervene and change the natural course of events. The results may be better; they could hardly be worse."
Nevitta frowned. "You mean you're going to try to defeat us Goths quickly. I don't think I could agree to such—"
"No. I propose to win your war for you. If I can."
CHAPTER IX
If Padway wasn't mistaken, and if Procopius' history had not lied, Thiudahad ought to pass along the Flaminian Way within the next twenty-four hours in his panicky flight to Ravenna. All the way, Padway had asked people whether the ex-king had passed that way. All said no.
Now, on the outskirts of Narnia, he was as far north as he dared go. The Flaminian Way forked at this point, and he had no way of knowing whether Thiudahad would take the new road or the old. So he and Hermann made themselves easy by the side of the road and listened to their horses cropping grass. Padway looked at his companion with a bilious eye. Hermann had taken much too much beer aboard at Ocriculum.
To Padway's questions and his instructions about taking turns at watching the road, he merely grinned idiotically and said, "Ja, ja!" He had finally gone to sleep in the middle of a sentence, and no amount of shaking would arouse him.
Padway walked up and down in the shade, listening to Hermann's snores and trying to think. He had not slept since the previous day, and here that whiskery slob was taking the ease that he, Padway, needed badly. Maybe he should have grabbed a couple of hours at Nevitta's—but if he'd once gotten to sleep nothing short of an earthquake would have gotten him up. His stomach was jumpy; he had no appetite; and this accursed sixth-century world didn't even have coffee to lighten the weights that dragged down the eyelids.
Suppose Thiudahad didn't show up? Or suppose he went roundabout, by the Salarian Way? Or suppose he'd already passed? Time after time he'd tensed himself as dust appeared down the road, only to have it materialize as a farmer driving an oxcart, or a trader slouching along on a mule, or a small half-naked boy driving goats.
Could his, Padway's, influence have changed Thiudahad's plans so that his course of action would be different from what it should have been? Padway saw his influence as a set of ripples spreading over a pool. By the mere fact of having known him, the lives of people like Thomasus and Fritharik had already been changed radically from what they would have been if he'd never appeared in Rome.
But Thiudahad had only seen him twice, and nothing very drastic had happened either time. Thiudahad's course in time and space might have been altered, but only very slightly. The other higher-up Goths, such as King Wittigis, ought not to have been affected at all. Some of them might have read his paper. But few of them were literary and many were plain illiterate.
Tancredi had been right about the fact that this was an entirely new branch of the tree of time, as he called it. The things that Padway had done so far, while only a fraction of what he hoped to do, couldn't help change history somewhat. Yet he had not vanished into thin air, as he should have if this was the same history that had produced him in the year 1908 a.d.
He glanced at his wrist, and remembered that his watch was cached in the Wall of Aurelian. He hoped he'd get a chance to recover it some day, and that it would be in running order when he did.
That new bit of dust down the road was probably another damned cow or flock of sheep. No, it was a man on a horse. Probably some fat Narnian burgher. He was in a hurry, whoever he was. Padway's ears caught the blowing of a hard-ridden mount; then he recognized Thiudahad.
"Hermann!" he yelled.
"Akhkhkhkhkhkhg," snored Hermann. Padway ran over and poked the Goth with his boot. Hermann said: "Akhkhkhkhg. Akhkhkhg. Meina luibs—guhhg. Akhkhkhg."
Padway gave up; the ex-king would be up to them in an instant. He swung aboard his horse and trotted out into the road with his arm up. "Hai, Thiudahad! My lord!"
Thiudahad kicked his horse and hauled on the reins at the same time, apparently undecided whether to stop, try to run past Padway, or turn around the way he had come. The exasperated animal thereupon put his head down and bucked, The waters of the Nar showed blue between Thiudahad and his saddle for a second; he came down on the saddle with a thump and clutched it frantically. His face was white with terror and brown with dust.
Padway leaned over and gathered up the reins. "Calm yourself, my lord," he said.
"Who . . . who . . . what—Oh, it's the publisher. What's your name? Don't tell me; I know it. Why are you stopping me? I've got to get to Ravenna . . . Ravenna—"
"Calm yourself. You'd never reach Ravenna alive."
"What do you mean? Are you out to murder me, too?"
"Not at all. But, as you may have heard, I have some small skill at reading the future."
"Oh, dear, yes, I've heard. What's . . . what's my future? Don't tell me I'm going to be killed! Please don't tell me that, excellent Martinus. I don't want to die. If they'll just let me live I won't bother anybody again, ever." The little gray-bearded man fairly gibbered with fright.
"If you'll keep still for a few minutes, I'll tell you what I see. Do you remember when, for a consideration, you swindled a noble Goth out of a beautiful heiress who had been promised to him in marriage?"
"Oh, dear me. That would be Optaris Winithar's son, wouldn't it? Only don't say 'swindled,' excellent Martinus. I merely . . . ah . . . exerted my influence on the side of the better man. But why?"
"Wittigis gave Optaris a commission to hunt you down and kill you. He's following you now, riding day and night. If you continue toward Ravenna, this Optaris will catch up with you before you get there, pull you off your horse, and cut your throat-like this, khh!" Padway clutched his own beard with one hand, tilted up his chin, and drew a finger across his Adam's apple.