Timeline. Part 9

"Ms. Kramer." He leaned across the table. "Fix it." "Fix it."

As the Professor left, Marek said, "I pray G.o.d look with favor upon your journey and deliver you safe back." That was what he always said to departing friends. It had been a favorite phrase of the Count Geoffrey de la Tour, six hundred years before.

Some thought Marek carried his fascination with the past to the point of obsession. But in fact it was natural to him: even as a child, Marek had been strongly drawn to the medieval period, and in many ways he now seemed to inhabit it. In a restaurant, he once told a friend he would not grow a beard because it was not fas.h.i.+onable at the time. Astonished, the friend protested, "Of course it's fas.h.i.+onable, just look at all the beards around you." To which Marek replied, "No, no, I mean it is not fas.h.i.+onable in my my time." By which he meant the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. time." By which he meant the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Many medieval scholars could read old languages, but Marek could speak speak them: Middle English, Old French, Occitan, and Latin. He was expert in the fine points of period dress and manners. And with his size and athletic prowess, he set out to master the martial skills of the period. After all, he said, it was a time of perpetual war. Already he could ride the huge Percherons that had been used as destriers, or warhorses. And he was reasonably skilled at jousting, having spent hours practicing with the spinning tournament dummy called the quintain. Marek was so good with a longbow that he had begun to teach the skill to the others. And now he was learning to fight with a broadsword. them: Middle English, Old French, Occitan, and Latin. He was expert in the fine points of period dress and manners. And with his size and athletic prowess, he set out to master the martial skills of the period. After all, he said, it was a time of perpetual war. Already he could ride the huge Percherons that had been used as destriers, or warhorses. And he was reasonably skilled at jousting, having spent hours practicing with the spinning tournament dummy called the quintain. Marek was so good with a longbow that he had begun to teach the skill to the others. And now he was learning to fight with a broadsword.

But his detailed knowledge of the past put him oddly out of touch with the present. The Professor's sudden departure left everyone on the project feeling bereft and uneasy; wild rumors flew, especially among the undergraduates: ITC was pulling its funding. ITC was turning the project into Medieval Land. ITC had killed somebody in the desert and was in trouble. Work stopped; people just stood around talking.

Marek finally decided he'd better hold a meeting to squelch the rumors, so in the early afternoon, he called everyone together under the big green tent outside the storehouse. Marek explained that a dispute had arisen between the Professor and ITC, and the Professor had gone back to ITC headquarters to clear it up. Marek said it was just a misunderstanding, which would be resolved in a few days. He said they would be in constant touch with the Professor, who had arranged to call them every twelve hours; and that he expected the Professor to return soon, and things to be normal once again.

It didn't help. The deep sense of unease remained. Several of the undergraduates suggested the afternoon was really too hot to work, and better suited for kayaking on the river; Marek, finally sensing the mood, said they might as well go.

One by one, the graduate students decided to take the rest of the day off, too. Kate appeared, with several pounds of metal clanking around her waist, and announced she was going to climb the cliff behind Gageac. She asked Chris if he wanted to come with her (to hold her ropes-she knew he would never climb), but he said he was going to the riding stables with Marek. Stern declared he was driving to Toulouse for dinner. Rick Chang headed off to Les Eyzies to visit a colleague at a Paleolithic site. Only Elsie Kastner, the graphologist, remained behind in the storehouse, patiently going over doc.u.ments. Marek asked if she wanted to come with him. But she told him, "Don't be silly, Andre," and kept working.

The Equestrian Center outside Souillac was four miles away, and it was here that Marek trained twice a week. In the far corner of a little-used field, he had set up an odd T-shaped bar on a revolving stand. At one end of the T-bar was a padded square; at the other end, a leather teardrop that looked like a punching bag.

This was a quintain, a device so ancient that it had been drawn by monks at the edges of illuminated ma.n.u.scripts a thousand years earlier. Indeed, it was from just such drawings that Marek had fas.h.i.+oned his own version.

Making the quintain had been simple enough; it was much more difficult to get a decent lance. This was the kind of problem Marek faced again and again in experimental history. Even the simplest and most common items from the past were impossible to reproduce in the modern world. Even when money was no object, thanks to the ITC research fund.

In medieval times, tournament lances were turned on wood lathes more than eleven feet long, which was the standard length of a jousting lance. But wood lathes of that size hardly existed anymore. After much searching, Marek located a specialty woodworking plant in northern Italy, near the Austrian border. They were able to turn out lances of pine to the dimensions he specified, but were astonished to hear he wanted an initial order of twenty. "Lances break," he told them. "I'll need a lot of them." To deal with splinters, he fitted a piece of screening to the faceplate of a football helmet. When he wore this helmet riding, he drew considerable attention. He looked like a demented beekeeper.

Eventually, Marek succ.u.mbed to modern technology, and he had his lances turned in aluminum, by a company that made baseball bats. The aluminum lances had better balance and felt more authentic to him, even though they were wrong for the period. And since splintering was no longer a problem, he could just wear a standard riding helmet.

Which was what he was wearing now.

Standing at the end of the field, he waved to Chris, who was over by the quintain. "Chris? Ready?"

Chris nodded and set the T-bar at right angles to Marek. He waved. Marek lowered his lance, and spurred his horse forward.

Training with the quintain was deceptively simple. The rider galloped toward the T-bar, attempting to strike the padded square with the tip of his lance. If he succeeded, he set the T-bar spinning, obliging him to spur his mount past before the leather bag swung around and hit him in the head. In the old days, Marek knew, the bag had been heavy enough to knock a young rider from his mount. But Marek made it just heavy enough to deliver a stinging rebuke.

On his first run, he hit the pad squarely, but he was not quick enough to avoid the bag, which boxed him on the left ear. He reined up, and trotted back. "Why don't you try one, Chris?"

"Maybe later," Chris said, repositioning the T-bar for the next run.

Once or twice in recent days, Marek had gotten Chris to try a run at the quintain. But he suspected that was only because of Chris's sudden recent interest in all aspects of horsemans.h.i.+p.

Marek turned his charger, reared, and charged again. When he first began, galloping full tilt toward a foot-square target had seemed absurdly difficult. Now he was getting the hang of it. He generally hit the target four out of five times.

The horse thundered ahead. He lowered his lance.

"Chris! Hallo!"

Chris turned, and waved to the girl riding up on horseback. At that moment, Marek's lance hit the pad, and the leather bag swung around, knocking Chris flat on his face.

Chris lay there, stunned, hearing peals of girlish laughter. But she quickly dismounted and helped him to his feet again. "Oh Chris, I'm sorry to laugh," she said in her elegant British accent. "It was all my fault, in any case. I oughtn't to have distracted you."

"I'm all right," he said, a little sulky. He brushed dirt from his chin and faced her, managing to smile.

As always, he was struck by her beauty, especially at this moment, her blond hair backlit in the afternoon sun so her perfect complexion seemed to glow, setting off her deep violet eyes. Sophie Rhys-Hampton was the most beautiful woman he had ever met in his life. And the most intelligent. And the most accomplished. And the most seductive.

"Oh, Chris, Chris," she said, brus.h.i.+ng his face with cool fingertips. "I really do apologize. There, now. Any better?"

Sophie was a student at Cheltenham College; twenty years old, four years younger than he. Her father, Hugh Hampton, was a London barrister; he owned the farmhouse that the project rented for the summer. Sophie had come down to stay with friends in a farmhouse nearby. One day she had come round to collect something from her father's study. Chris had seen her, and promptly walked into a tree trunk.

Which seemed to have set the tone for their relations.h.i.+p, he thought ruefully. She looked at him now and said, "I'm flattered I have this effect on you, Chris. But I worry for your safety." She giggled, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I called you today."

"I know, I got tied up. We had a crisis."

"A crisis? What const.i.tutes an archaeological crisis?"

"Oh, you know. Funding ha.s.sles."

"Oh yes. That ITC bunch. From New Mexico." She made it sound like the ends of the earth. "Do you know, they asked to buy my father's farm?"

"Did they?"

"They said they needed to rent it for so many years ahead, they might as well buy it. Of course he said no."

"Of course." He smiled at her. "Dinner?"

"Oh, Chris. I can't tonight. But we can ride tomorrow. Shall we?"

"Of course."

"In the morning? Ten o'clock?"

"All right," he said. "I'll see you at ten."

"I'm not interrupting your work?"

"You know you are."

"It's quite all right to do it another day."

"No, no," he said. "Ten o'clock tomorrow."

"Done," she said, with a dazzling smile.

In fact, Sophie Hampton was almost too pretty, her figure too perfect, her manner too charming to be quite real. Marek, for one, was put off by her.

But Chris was entranced.

After she rode away, Marek charged by again. This time Chris got out of the way of the swinging quintain. When Marek trotted back, he said, "You're being jerked around, my friend."

"Maybe," Chris said. But the truth was, he didn't care.

The next day found Marek at the monastery, helping Rick Chang with the excavations into the catacombs. They had been digging here for weeks now. And it was slow going, because they kept finding human remains. Whenever they came upon bones, they stopped digging with shovels, and switched to trowels and toothbrushes.

Rick Chang was the physical anthropologist on the team. He was trained to deal with human finds; he could look at a pea-sized piece of bone and tell you whether it came from the right wrist or the left, male or female, child or adult, ancient or contemporary.

But the human remains they were finding here were puzzling. For one thing, they were all male; and some of the long bones had evidence of battle injuries. Several of the skulls showed arrow wounds. That was how most soldiers had died in the fourteenth century, from arrows. But there was no record of any battle ever fought at the monastery. At least none that they knew of.

They had just found what looked like a bit of rusted helmet when Marek's cell phone rang. It was the Professor.

"How is it going?" Marek said.

"Fine, so far."

"Did you meet with Doniger?"

"Yes. This afternoon."

"And?"

"I don't know yet."

"They still want to go forward with the reconstruction?"

"Well, I'm not sure. Things are not quite what I expected here." The Professor seemed vague, preoccupied.

"How's that?"

"I can't discuss it over the line," the Professor said. "But I wanted to tell you: I won't be calling in the next twelve hours. Probably not for the next twenty-four hours."

"Uh-huh. Okay. Everything all right?"

"Everything is fine, Andre."

Marek wasn't so sure. "Do you need aspirin?" That was one of their established code phrases, a way to ask if something was wrong, in case the other person couldn't speak freely.

"No, no. Not at all."

"You sound a little detached."

"Surprised, I would say. But everything's fine. At least, I think it's fine." He paused, then, "And what about the site? What's going on with you?"

"I'm with Rick at the monastery now. We're digging in the catacombs of quadrant four. I think we'll be down later today, or tomorrow at the latest."

"Excellent. Keep up the good work, Andre. I'll talk to you in a day or two."

And he rang off.

Marek clipped the phone back on his belt and frowned. What the h.e.l.l did all that mean?

The helicopter thumped by overhead, its sensor boxes hanging beneath. Stern had kept it for another day, to do morning and afternoon runs; he wanted to survey the features that Kramer had mentioned, to see exactly how much showed up in an instrument run.

Marek wondered how it was going, but to talk to him, he needed a radio. The nearest one was in the storehouse.

"Elsie," Marek said as he walked into the storehouse. "Where's the radio to talk to David?"

Of course, Elsie Kastner didn't answer him. She just continued to stare at the doc.u.ment in front of her. Elsie was a pretty, heavyset woman who was capable of intense concentration. She sat in this storehouse for hours, deciphering the handwriting on parchments. Her job required her to know not only the six princ.i.p.al languages of medieval Europe, but also long-forgotten local dialects, slang and abbreviations. Marek felt lucky to have her, even though she stayed aloof from the rest of the team. And she could be a little strange at times. He said, "Elsie?"

She looked up suddenly. "What? Oh, sorry, Andre. I'm just, uh, I mean a little ..." She gestured to the parchment in front of her. "This is a bill from the monastery to a German count. For putting up his personal retinue for the night: twenty-nine people and thirty-five horses. That's what this count was taking with him through the countryside. But it's written in a combination of Latin and Occitan, and the handwriting is impossible."

Elsie picked up the parchment and carried it to the photography stand in the corner. A camera was mounted on a fourlegged stand above the table, with strobe lights aiming from all sides. She set the parchment down, straightened it, arranged the bar code ID at the bottom, put a two-inch checkerboard ruler down for standardization, and snapped the picture.

"Elsie? Where's the radio to talk to David?"

"Oh, sorry. It's on the far table. It's the one with the adhesive strip that says DS."

Marek went over, pressed the b.u.t.ton. "David? It's Andre."

"Hi, Andre." Marek could hardly hear him with the thumping of the helicopter.

"What've you found?"

"Zip. Nada. Absolutely nothing," Stern said. "We checked the monastery and we checked the forest. None of Kramer's landmarks show up: not on SLS, or on radar, infrared, or UV. I have no idea how they made these discoveries."

They were galloping full tilt along a gra.s.sy ridge overlooking the river. At least, Sophie was galloping; Chris bounced and jolted, hanging on for dear life. Ordinarily, she never galloped on their outings together, in deference to his lesser ability, but today she was shrieking with delight as she raced headlong across the fields.

Chris tried to stay with her, praying she would stop soon, and finally she did, reining up her snorting and sweaty black stallion, patting it on the neck, waiting for him to catch up.

"Wasn't that exciting?" she said.

"It was," he said, gasping for breath. "It certainly was that."

"You did very well, Chris, I must say. Your seat is improving."