Part 8 (2/2)
I could hardly leave the kid out in the snow. I yelled out my name and said that I was taking the kid west. Still no answer. I remounted with the kid in one arm and rode back to the trail.
”Not a bad haul, Sir Conrad,” Boris called as I approached. He had packed up our latest loot.
”Horse, equipment, three sets of armor and clothing! Five thousand worth, I'll wager. What was that you were shouting about a child?” ”I found their camp. There was a baby in it.”
”Ah! Such a poor child to be alone in this heartless world. Best baptize it and leave it with its mother, Sir Conrad.”
”I tried. She must be hiding in the forest.”
”You don't know? I didn't see it happen, being engaged at the time, but in your path as you came to my rescue there was a woman in a blue cloak. Trampled, she was, with a cut on her hand.
Here, I'll show you.”
The bodies were naked now, stripped even of their underwear. The knight's head was cut completely in two at eye level, yet his helmet was undamaged. My sword must have spun around in there like an apple slicer. The woman might once have been pretty, but you couldn't tell. Her limbs were all broken, and there were puffy dents in her chest and stomach. Her face was a ghastly, flattened caricature. The fresh stretch marks on her belly told of recent birth.
”I didn't know,” I sobbed. ”I saw that you were in trouble, and I was coming to help. She grabbed my reins. I didn't know I killed a woman.” ”Sir Conrad, again I am in your debt. Again you have saved my life. But you could not have done so if you had stopped for this woman.
Another moment and I would have been dead.”
”So she is dead instead.”
”And what of it? She had a quick death, which was better than she deserved! Man, she was living with highwaymen, aiding and abetting their murders. Anyway, you didn't kill her. You only made that cut on her hand, and that's no mortal wound. It was an accident, her falling under your horse, or maybe a suicide.” ”I'm going to look at that camp. You pull yourself together, man. And do what's right by that child. If you don't have water, melt a few drops of snow with your hand and see that it's baptized.” He rode off on the horse that we had ”found” the day before, dragging the naked axemen behind him. In an emergency, any Catholic can perform the sacrament of baptism. I still had some water in my canteen, and I dribbled a few drops on the kid's forehead. ”I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I name thee ...”
Whom should I name him after? Of course! ”I name thee Ignacy!”
I had the bodies off the road when Boris returned.
”Their loot, Sir Conrad! We're both rich! They had more than a hundred-thousand in silver and gold, robbed from travelers like us! d.a.m.ned if you didn't step right over their chest!”
Somehow, I really didn't care. ”I'm taking the kid with us.” ”Sir Conrad, you are the d.a.m.nedest combination of wisdom and ignorance that I have ever encountered. You are an absolutely deadly knight yet maudlin as a p.u.b.escent girt in a convent. But to torture a child is senseless! How do you plan to feed it? Are your male nipples going to spring forth with milk? How do you plan to keep it alive this very afternoon? It's getting colder, and the snow is deeper. It grows dark, and it's a long way to shelter.” He was right. I knew he was right. The kid would die. Why cause needless pain?
And why bother with it? ”I'm taking the kid.”
”Sir Conrad, as your employer I order you to put that child with its mother! Oh, d.a.m.n you! Give it here. I'll do it.” He leaned forward. ”Boris, do you really want to fight me?”
He stopped. ”Oh, all right! Keep the child if you wish. But now we must ride if any of us is to live.”
That afternoon was horrible, but the evening was worse. The snow slashed into our faces, blown by a westerly gale. The trail was all but invisible, and without Anna's strength we would never have broken through the drifting snow. I was leading the knight's war-horse, our second strongest mount. Boris followed on his captured horse, leading the mule.
I wrapped the kid up with my cloak, at the expense of my legs. Hours later, I reached inside his bundling, and his body was as cold as my hand. This wouldn't do.
Working under my armor, I unzipped my close-fitting windbreaker, stretching out the mail, my sweater, and my underwear. I put the kid inside, next to my skin. He was cold. I packed his bundling around me as best I could and wrapped my cloak tight. Shortly, he returned the favor by urinating on me, I guessed that meant that he was still alive. We floundered on in the starless darkness. I couldn't even read my compa.s.s. To stop was death, and it was impossible to continue on. But we did go on. And on.
Interlude Two The screen had gone from full color to black and white with poor definition, which indicated that the probes were using infrared and that the scene was in nearly total darkness. Yet the red mare was proceeding without difficulty. I hit the pause b.u.t.ton.
”Tom, that horse is impossible.”
”What do you mean impossible? Do you think that we'd doctor a doc.u.mentary?” ”I mean that that horse can see in the dark! It acts like it's got a compa.s.s in its head! And the way it killed those highwaymen! Something's wrong here.” ”You mean something's right here. Yes, that's one of our horses. She's the result of many years of careful selective breeding, along with a bit of genetic engineering. She has an IQ of about sixty and understands Polish perfectly. And yes, she can see somewhat into the infrared, and she does have the same magnetic sense that a pigeon has.”
”Then what was she doing for sale in Cracow?”
”She was there because I put her there, hoping that Conrad would have brains enough to buy her, which he did.”
”Look, there are some other things about this that you should understand. You know that rich American relative who put Conrad through school? Well, I'm he. Conrad Schwartz is my third cousin, and while I've never tried to run anybody's life, I have tried to see that my relatives had a decent start in life.” ”Of course, I've had to work within certain rules. Besides the physical limitations of causality, I have two partners in the time-travel business, and we have agreed on some very sensible regulations. Tampering with history is out-we don't play G.o.d. But we do permit the helping of blood relatives out to the fourth generation back and their descendants.”
”I had nothing to do with getting Conrad dumped into the thirteenth century.
That was a screw-up by the Historical Corps, which is under Ian's jurisdiction.
But once Conrad was there, I had a perfect right to help a needy blood relative.
Being without arms and money in the Middle Ages is serious!”
”You mean that you set him up to get into those fights and capture that booty?” ”Not quite. I learned about the fighting the same way you did, watching this doc.u.mentary I had made. I wasn't worried about him, since I had met him ten years later, alive and healthy. But after the second fight, when he was bandaging his arm, I hit the pause b.u.t.ton and ordered a pair of 'merchants' with a chest of gold to pa.s.s through there four days before. On being attacked by highwaymen, they abandoned their cargo and fled.” ”This left Conrad with enough money to live comfortably for the ten years he'd have to spend in the Dark Ages.”
”And the sword, was that your doing, too?”
”Sure, diamond edge and all. What's more, had he gone to the Polish armor shop instead of to that German, he would have found a good set of Turkish plate mail, exactly his size, that he could have picked up cheap.” ”Huh. Well, I guess you can't win them all.”
”No. you can't. But you can sure as h.e.l.l try. Now, back to the blizzard.”
Chapter Nine
The dead knight's stallion was the first to fall. I felt it, but I couldn't see it. It got up and went on for another half hour. It fell again and didn't get up. It was crying in pain.
”Leave the beast, Sir Conrad! That sounds like a broken leg. But if we dismount to dispatch it, we'll never find our horses again.”
I was learning to love our horses, and the beast's screams hurt me. But Boris was right; I left the stallion to die in pain.
We went on until we saw a tiny light ahead. Soon a great log barricade was in front of us.
”h.e.l.lo in the fort”' Boris yelled. ”We are two good Christians, dying in the cold!”
It seemed forever before a voice answered. ”Stand close to the light! Who goes there?”
”Boris Novacek and, Sir Conrad Stargard. Is that you, Sir Miesko?” ”Yes, Master Novacek!” A small gate opened in front Of us. ”Best go straight to the castle. I'll take care of the mule. h.e.l.lo, the castle' Visitors!” Our horses were taken away by a sleepy groom, and we were led into a large, warm kitchen. Four young women sat there. From their expressions, we must have looked like zombies. I certainly felt like one.
”We are sorry to meet you in the kitchen, sir knight, but--”
”First things first,” I said. I pulled the kid out from under my clothes. ”Do any of you know what to do with one of these?”
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