Ides of March (Time Patrol) (26 page)

Doc smiled sadly at Anastasia and with his free hand gave a little wave.

She waved back.

This was penance.

Palos de la Frontera, Spain, 1493 A.D.

MAC HAD ALWAYS FINISHED
well ahead of Roland on the two-mile run when they were taking their semi-annual physical fitness test. Not to say Roland was a slouch; the big man did pretty well moving his weight that far, but Mac was a runner.

Mac estimated he’d put about a half-mile’s distance between him and the butchery on the beach. He’d heard no sound of pursuit and a few glances over his shoulder hadn’t indicated any, but he doubted he was safe. Men like Roland, and this Swiss Guard, were single-minded once given an order and the guy was probably jogging along, figuring he’d eventually catch up.

Some people were just that way. They were finishers.

So Mac kept running along the beach, the Atlantic to his right. He’d dropped the rapier right from the start. And the dagger. Now, he paused for a few moments to tear off the monk’s robe. He was naked except for sandals and the purse over his shoulder, bouncing against his hip.

His stomach revolted and he dropped to his knees. He vomited the ale from the tavern and the scant contents of his last meal, which he couldn’t even remember.

Got to his feet. He felt a little better. He took off once more.

Mac kept running, feeling his pulse become steady, his breathing rhythmic. Then one of the sandals gave way. He kicked the other off and angled until he was running in the surf, sand underneath his feet.

He felt free. As if he could run forever and ever—

Thermopylae, Greece, 480 B.C.

“ASSYRIANS ARE IN THE LEAD,”
one of Leonidas’ rangers informed him as he and Scout ran up to the Spartan camp. “Swordsmen.”

“Archers?” Leonidas asked. More trumpets were blaring from the far side of the rampart. The Spartans, as was their way, had no trumpeters, drummers or any ‘noise-makers’.

“Just infantry,” the ranger reported.

Scout walked past the King as he received other reports. To the wall.

Scout’s focus was to the left, at the side of mountain. She began to climb down the far side. A Spartan sentry grabbed her arm, but she shook him off. She reached the ground and made her way to a spot about twenty feet in front of the Spartan’s wall. The mountain rose straight up, the stone face surprisingly smooth.

Scout placed her hand on the rock.

“What are you doing?” Leonidas joined her.

“This is the spot,” Scout said.

“For?”

“Where the map will appear.”

“And once you have it?” Leonidas asked. “Do you know where you take it?”

“I have seen a vision.”

A ranger came running up, warning that the Assyrians were within assault range.

The king turned to Scout. “You must wait behind the wall. When your map appears. I will get you to it.” He grimly smiled. “I trusted your promise. Trust mine.”

Scout allowed him to lead her back to the other side of the wall as the first ranks of Assyrians appeared.

There were less than 150 Spartans left.

The Assyrians charged and the final battle began.

Scout waited. She had to wait. It wasn’t time. Not yet.

The issue was how long could the Spartans hold? Despite the ongoing slaughter of the Persian army, every now and then a Spartan went down. A warrior who could not be replaced, while Xerxes had an almost infinite supply.

The carpet of dead grew deeper, the wall of rock and corpses higher.

Scout looked to the sea. The storm that had been lingering offshore almost all night and this morning was finally moving. Landward.

“Is it time?” Leonidas’ left eye was covered in blood.

Scout reached up and wiped it clean with her cloak.

The air was riven with the screams of wounded, the clash and grunts of warriors locked in mortal combat. Thunder came closer.

Along the top of the wall, here and there, Assyrians reached the crest. Only to die. But it was happening more often. Time was running out.

“Soon,” Scout said. “Very soon.”

“May I use your weapon?” Leonidas asked, holding up his
xiphos
, the blade broken a foot from the tip.

Scout handed him the Naga.

With his other hand, Leonidas gestured. Ten Spartans whom he’d held back, his only reserve, charged up, eager to join the fray.

“There!’’ Scout pointed at the spot she’d indicated earlier. A black sphere was forming. Frightened Assyrians scuttled back from it, opening a hole in their front. Leonidas held up five fingers and pointed. Half of the ten Spartan reserves dashed into the gap, widening it.

“Come,” Leonidas yelled at Scout, straining to be heard over the combined roar of battle and storm. He jumped over the wall, swinging the Naga in a large arc. Clearing space. The last five Spartans followed. They locked their shields, protecting Scout. Leonidas pressed forward.

Leonidas stepped off to the left, just short of the Gate. Scout’s escorts turned to face the battle, but for now, the Assyrians were too frightened to press the assault in this direction.

“Go!” Leonidas yelled.

“Not yet,” Scout shouted back, focused on the utter darkness. This Gate was not for her.

Out of the Gate came two hands holding a golden orb. The hands were blistered and raw, burned so deep, bone was exposed in places. But they were steady. The sphere was large, almost three feet.

The hands came further out, the arms as damaged as the hands.

Scout reached out and took hold of the sphere.

It was surprisingly light; yet heavy in a different way. Scout found it difficult to hold, as if were pushing back against her flesh in all directions.

The hands suddenly snapped back into the Gate and it abruptly closed.

Scout yelled. “To the wall!”

Leonidas took point, the five Spartans flanking him in a wedge. There was little resistance from the Assyrians, their ranks disjointed, but there was no sign of the five who’d charged the breach in their lines.

The rest of the Spartans had regained the wall and stood on top of it, the entire Assyrian front having pulled back for the moment. Scout followed Leonidas over the wall, holding the golden sphere in front of her. She could see that the surface wasn’t smooth, woven with two-inch wide strands in a seemingly random pattern.

The entire thing was pulsing, as if alive.

“The next assault will be the last,” Leonidas said to her once they were over the rampart. “We cannot hold any longer. They are bringing up archers to finish us. You must go.”

Scout heard him as if he were far away. She could see something in the strands, realized they were moving, ever so slowly, as if she held a nest of golden snakes, but she felt no revulsion. They weren’t snakes. They were something else. A map.

Leonidas’ hand on her shoulder jolted her. “You must go. Now.” He was looking past her, to the south. “They are coming over the mountains. We’re surrounded.”

Fifty Immortals were coming round the bend from that direction, weapons at the ready. And behind them was Pandora, Naga staff in hand.

“We have lost,” Leonidas said. “I will kill Pandora. That, at least, will be something.”

“I have the map,” Scout said. “I can open a Gate. Here. Now.” She had one hand underneath the sphere, holding it up. The other was sliding over the surface. “I see.”

A golden glow suffused Scout from the sphere.

“What are you doing?” Leonidas had the Naga ready and was considering whether charging the Immortals or waiting would give him the best chance at Pandora. The Persians were less than fifty feet away. The handful of Spartans in defense behind them were slowly giving ground to the Assyrians.

Scout removed her top hand from the orb and pointed to the left. A line of gold flowed from her fingertips to a spot five feet away. Spread. Turning from gold to deep black. A Gate was forming.

“Stop!” Pandora’s command cut through the screams and cacophony of battle. She was leading the Immortals in an all-out charge. Everything seemed to be slowing down.

The Gate stabilized.

“Come with me,” Scout said to Leonidas, taking a step toward the Gate, sphere in one hand, the other toward the King. “Come.”

Leonidas smiled. He flipped the Naga around, seven-headed snake hilt toward Scout. “You’ll need this. My destiny is here.”

Scout’s fingers curled around the haft as Leonidas spun about, bringing up a sword he’d scavenged. Pandora’s Naga blade hit it, sliced through, but that was enough of a delay.

Scout was gone, the Gate snapping shut behind her.

Newburgh, New York, 1783 A.D.

“WHAT DID I FAIL TO SEE?”
Eagle was utterly confounded by Caldwell’s statement. So much so that the sword pointed at him was almost a secondary consideration.

Almost.

“Doesn’t matter now. You’re done.” Caldwell pulled his arm back to stab Eagle in the heart when there was a solid thud.

Hercules’ frying pan slammed into the side of Caldwell’s head, the food in it flying.

The officer dropped to the ground.

“Oh, my dear God,” Hercules whispered. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. Lord forgive me. I’m a dead man.”

Eagle gritted his teeth, pushing the pain from his shoulder back as he got to his feet. He grabbed onto Caldwell’s coat with his good arm. “Help me.”

Hercules dropped the pan and took hold.

Together they dragged the body across the grass toward the dark tree line.

“What have you done?” A woman’s voice asked as they pulled Caldwell into the cover of the trees.

Eagle let go of the body, half faint from the effort. He saw Nancy come forward, look at the body, then at Hercules who was in a state of shock. “What did you do old man? What did you do? You’re gonna have to run with me now.” She glanced at Eagle. “You’re pure trouble. Pure trouble.” Then another practicality hit her. “Where’s my food?” she asked Hercules.

Which explained the frying pan,
Eagle thought.
What had he missed?

“I’m a dead man,” Hercules sat down, burying his head in his hands.

“What are you doing out here?” Eagle asked Nancy as he knelt next to Caldwell’s body.

“Finishing what I started,” she said. “Getting out of here. Uncle Harkless bringing me some victuals from the dinner. Now we’re
all
dead. You a storm of trouble.”

She had the bag, which had been awaiting the contents of the frying pan. A small satchel, several scrolls of paper poking out.

“You still have those papers?” Eagle said. “Why—”

“These be new ones to buy my way out of this place,” Nancy said. “All the way to England.”

Eagle took a slow, deep breath. “Who gave them to you?”

“That man this fool just done killed,” Nancy said.

“He gave you papers before, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Eagle’s finger was on Caldwell’s neck. “He isn’t dead.”

“Oh, no,” Hercules said. “Oh, no. He’ll be seeing us all hung.”

Eagle reached toward Nancy. “Let me see what you have.”

“Why?”

“Cause you don’t know what you’re doing,” Eagle said. “You bring the wrong papers to the British,
they’ll
hang you.”

“Why would they?” Nancy was confused, but passed the bag to him.

Eagle began to scan the documents.

“Since when do you read?” Nancy asked. Hercules was moaning something now, over and over.

Letters to Washington about various topics, military and political. Even a few pieces of personal correspondence. But from what Eagle could tell, nothing of history-changing proportions. The speech had been made. The coup averted. If Caldwell’s real mission here was to get Nancy to bring this to the British, and the first attempt had been foiled even before Eagle arrived and those papers confiscated, why would he—

“Nancy,” Eagle said, focusing on the one constant. He closed his eyes and accessed the download.

“What?”

Edith was thorough, very thorough. The records of every slave Washington had ever owned, laid out on a spreadsheet, much like prized cattle. Nancy was listed there. And then one year she wasn’t there. But not this year. The records indicated that she was sold in 1785. Where? To whom?

“I need get going,” Nancy said, grabbing her bag back. She kicked Hercules. “Come on, you fool. You got no choice now. Got to run. You too,” she added, looking at Eagle. “Even the old General will hang you for hitting a white man. No black can ever do a thing against a white without paying in blood or life.”

Eagle stood up. Nancy turned to leave and he grabbed her arm.

“Nancy. Wait.”

“What?” She jerked her arm out of his grip and he gasped in pain.

“You can’t run away.”

“I can’t
not
run away now. This fool saw to that.”

“Hercules,” Eagle said. “Get up. Take Nancy back.”

“You’re crazy,” Nancy said. “You see this?” She shoved her foot at Caldwell. “People gonna miss him. He wakes up, goes back then—”

“He won’t be waking up,” Eagle said.

That gave Nancy paused. “What you plan on doing?”

“Don’t worry.” Eagle said. “Both of you go back.”

“I’m not going back,” Nancy said. “I got my ticket and I’m going. My back is on fire. Not going to be a slave no more. Can’t do it. Can’t do it for another minute. No way for a person to live.”

“It isn’t,” Eagle agreed. “That’s why you have to stay.”

Nancy looked at him, dark eyes glinting in the growing glow from the Cantonment as night began to close around them.

“You’re talking foolish again.”

Eagle put a hand on her shoulder. “You said I was crazy earlier, correct?”

“You’re scrambled in the head,” she said.

“I am. I have visions. You have to stay because of your son.”

“My son? I got no son. Got no husband. I won’t
ever
bring a child into this world to be a slave. That’s the worst sin in the world. Worse than killing this piece of trash here.” She kicked Caldwell’s unconscious body, taking some satisfaction in finally getting to strike out against a white person.