“But?”

  “But we didn’t only kill a man—cause his death—get ourselves involved in his death. We destroyed how many hundreds of billions?”

  “And restored how many? Wanda, those worlds we saw never existed. We and some others in the Patrol carry memories; a few of us carry scars; a few lost their own lives. Regardless, what we remember has not happened. We didn’t actually abort the different futures. That’s the wrong word. We kept them from ever being conceived.”

  She clung to his hand. “That’s the horror that won’t leave me,” she said thinly. “At first it was theory, something they taught at the Academy along with a lot else that was much more understandable. Now I’ve felt it. If everything is random and causeless—if there is nothing out there, no firm reality, only a mathematical shadow show that for all we can tell keeps changing and changing and changing, with us not even dreams within it—”

  Her voice had been rising into the wind. She snapped it off, gulped air, strode hard.

  Everard bit his lip. “Not easy,” he agreed. “You’ll have to learn to accept how little we know and how much less we can ever be sure of.”

  They jarred to a halt. Where had the stranger been? They should have seen him from the first, he too walking by the shore, slowly, hands folded, gazing out to sea and then down to the small relics of life strewn on the beach.

  “Good day,” he said.

  The greeting was soft, melodious, its English bearing an accent they couldn’t identify. Nor were they certain, at second glance, that this was a man. A robe, cowled like a Christian monk’s, dull yellow like a Buddhist’s, enveloped a medium-sized frame. The face was not epicene—strong-boned, full-lipped, slightly aged—but it might be either male or female, as might the voice. Nor was the race clear; he, if he it was, seemed to blend white, black, Oriental, and more in harmony.

  Everard drew a long breath. He let go of Tamberly’s hand. For an instant his fists doubled. He opened them and stood not quite at attention. “How do you do,” he said tonelessly.

  Did the stranger address the woman more than him? “Your pardon.” How mild was the smile. “I overheard your conversation. May I suggest a few thoughts?”

  “You’re of the Patrol,” she whispered. “You’ve got to be, or you wouldn’t have heard, nor known what it meant.”

  A barely perceptible shrug. Quiet, calm: “In these times, as in many elsewhen, moral relativism is the sin that besets folk of goodwill. They should realize, taking an example familiar today, that the death, maiming, and destruction of the Second World War were evil; so were the new tyrannies it seeded; and yet the breaking of Hitler and his allies was necessary. Humans being what they are, there is always more evil than good, more sorrow than joy; but that makes it the more needful to protect and nourish whatever gives worth to our lives.

  “Some evolutions are, on balance, better than others. This is simply a fact, like the fact that some stars shine brighter than others. You have seen a Western civilization in which the Church engulfed the state, and one in which the state engulfed the Church. What you have rescued is that fruitful tension between Church and state out of which, despite every pettiness, blunder, corruption, farce, and tragedy—out of which grew the first real knowledge of the universe and the first strong ideal of liberty. For what you did, be neither arrogant nor guilt-laden; be glad.”

  The wind cried, the sea growled nearer.

  Tamberly had never seen Everard so shaken. Somehow the word he used was right: “Rabbi, was this, this thing we went through, was it truly an accident, a quirk in the flux, that we, we had to straighten out?”

  “It was. Komozino explained matters to you correctly, as far as you and she are capable of comprehension.” More toward Tamberly: “Think, if you wish, of diffraction, waves reinforcing here and canceling there to make rainbow rings. It is incessant, but normally on the human level it is imperceptible. When it chanced to converge powerfully on Lorenzo de Conti, yes, then that became like a kind of fate. Do not let it overawe you that you, exercising your free will, have overcome doom itself.”

  She, with her background, though she knew not what she confronted, begged, “Sensei, tell me. Is that the meaning?”

  A smile, a gentleness beneath which lay steel and lightning: “Yes. In a reality forever liable to chaos, the Patrol is the stabilizing element, holding time to a single course. Perhaps it is not the best course, but we are no gods to impose anything different when we know that it does at last take us beyond what our animal selves could have imagined. In truth, left untended, events would inevitably move toward the worse. A cosmos of random changes must be senseless, ultimately self-destructive. In it could be no freedom.

  “Has the universe therefore brought forth sentience, in order to protect and give purpose to its own existence? That is not an answerable question.

  “But take heart. Reality is. You are among those who guard it.”

  A hand lifted. “Blessing.”

  Everard and Tamberly stood alone.

  They knew not whether she crept into his arms or he into hers. For a long time while they were in the salt wind and the warmth of each other. Finally she dared ask, “Was that?” and he answered, “Yes, surely. A Danellian. I’ve only met one a single time before, and that was only for a minute. You’ve been honored, Wanda. Never forget.”

  “I shan’t. I have back—what I need to live by and live for.”

  They separated and were another while silent, moveless, beside the ocean. Then she tossed her head, laughed aloud, and cried, “Hey, boy, let’s get down off this high horse. We are mere humans, aren’t we? How about we enjoy it?”

  His mirth, a little defensive still but not wholly, joined hers. “Yes, right, I’m hungry as a bear.” All at once shy: “What’d you like to do after lunch?”

  Quite steadily, she told him: “Phone home to say I’ll be gone a few days. Buy toothbrushes and stuff. Winter or no, this is a lovely coast, Manse. Let me show you.”

  Death and the Knight

  It becomes clear, as we explore the maybes and what-ifs of speculation about the Templars, that their legend speaks to some deep-seated part of many people, who will not let the legend die. Even those who have little admiration for the Templars—and in many ways, they were as violent and brutish as any other fighting men of their time—will concede that the Order got a raw deal. But perhaps that, too, was part of some vast cosmic plan. It is just possible that if the history of the Order of the Temple had not unfolded as we know it did, in our received history, we might be living in an altogether different world. Our knowledge of the nature of time is still in its infancy; but if time should prove fluid and mutable, then we must all hope that Time Lords do or will exist, performing policing tasks of a very special sort: to make certain that crucial aspects of our past are not changed, so that all our yesterdays will unfold into our desired tomorrows Poul Anderson writes of the Time Lords thus:

  “What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” What is real, what is might-be or might-have-been? The quantum universe flickers to and fro on the edge of the knowable. There is no way to foretell the destiny of a single particle; and in a chaotic world, larger destinies may turn on it. St. Thomas Aquinas declared that God Himself cannot change the past, because to hold otherwise would be a contradiction in terms; but St. Thomas was limited to the logic of Aristotle. Go into that past, and you are as free as ever you have been in your own day, free to create or destroy, guide or misguide, stride or stumble. If thereby you change the course of events that was in the history you learned, you will abide untouched, but the future that brought you into being will have gone, will never have been; it will be a reality different from what you remember. Perhaps the difference will be slight, even insignificant. Perhaps it will be monstrous. Those humans who first mastered the means of traveling through time created this danger. Therefore the superhumans who dwell in the ages beyond them returned to their era to ordain and establish the Time Patrol.

  PARIS, TUESDAY, 10 OCTOBER 1307

  Clouds raced low, the hue of iron, on a wind that boomed through the streets and whined in the galleries overhanging them. Dust whirled aloft. Though the chill lessened stenches—offal, horse droppings, privies, graves, smoke ripped ragged out of flues—the city din seemed louder than erstwhile: footfalls, hoof-beats, wheels creaking, hammers thudding, voices raised in chatter, anger, plea, pitch, song, sometimes prayer. Folk surged on their manifold ways, a housewife bound for market, an artisan bound for a task, a priest bound for a deathbed, a mountebank in his shabby finery, a blind beggar, a merchant escorted by two apprentices, a drunken man-at-arms, a begowned student from the university, a wondering visitor from foreign parts, a carter driving his load through the crowd with whip and oaths, others and others and others in their hundreds. Church bells had lately rung tierce and the work of the day was fully acourse. All made way for Hugue’s Marot. That was less because of his height, towering over most men, than his garb. Tunic, hose, and shoes were of good stuff, severe cut, subdued color, and the mantle over them was plain brown; but upon it stood the red cross that signed him a Templar. Likewise did the short black hair and rough beard. Whether or no the rumors were true that the Order was in disfavor with the king, one did not wish to offend such a power. The grimness on his lean features gave urgency to deference. At his heels trotted the boy who had brought his summons to him.

  They kept close to the housefronts, avoiding as much as possible the muck in the middle of the street. Presently they came to a building somewhat bigger than its similar and substantial neighbors. Beyond its stableyard, now vacant and with the gate shut, was an oaken door set in half-timbered walls that rose three stories. This had been the home and business place of a well-to-do draper. He fell in debt to the Templars, who seized the property. It was some distance from the Paris Temple, but upon occasion could accommodate a high-born visitor or a confidential meeting.

  Hugues stopped at the front door and struck it with his knuckles. A panel slid back from an opening. Someone peered through, then slowly the door swung aside. Two men gave him salutation as befitted his rank. Their faces and stances were taut, and halberds lifted in their fists—not ceremonial, but working weapons. Hugues stared.

  “Do you await attack already, brothers, that you go armed indoors?” he asked.

  “It is by command of the Knight Companion Fulk,” replied the larger. His tone rasped.

  Hugues glanced from side to side. As if to forestall any retreat, the second man added, “We are to bring you to him straightway, brother. Pray come.” To the messenger: “Back to your quarters, you.” The lad sped off.

  Flanked by the warrior monks, Hugues entered a vestibule from which a stairway ascended. A door on his right, to the stableyard, was barred. A door on his left stood open on a flagged space filling most of the ground floor. Formerly used for work, sales, and storage, this echoed empty around wooden pillars supporting the ceiling beams. The stair went up over an equally deserted strongroom. The men climbed to the second story, where were the rooms meant for family and guests; underlings slept in the attic. Hugues was ushered to the parlor. It was still darkly wainscoted and richly furnished. A charcoal brazier made the air warm and close.

  Fulk de Buchy stood waiting. He was tall, only two inches less than Hugues, hooknosed, grizzled, but as yet lithe and possessing most of his teeth. His mantle was white, as befitted a celibate knight bound by lifelong vows. At his hip hung a sword.

  Hugues stopped. “In God’s name . . . greeting,” he faltered.

  Fulk signed to his men, who took positions outside in the corridor, and beckoned. Hugues trod closer.

  “In what may I serve you, Master?” he asked. Formality could be a fragile armor. The word conveyed by the boy had been just that he come at once and discreetly.

  Fulk sighed. After their years together, Hugues knew that seldom-heard sound. An inward sadness had whispered past the stern mask.

  “We may speak freely,” Fulk said. “These are trusty men, who will keep silence. I have dismissed everyone else.”

  “Could we not always speak our minds, you and I?” Hugues blurted.

  “Of late, I wonder,” Fulk answered. “But we shall see.” After a moment: “At last, we shall see.”

  Hugues clenched his fists, forced them open again, and said as levelly as he was able, “Never did I lie to you. I looked on you as not only my superior, not only my brother in the Order, but my—” His voice broke. “My friend,” he finished.

  The knight bit his lip. Blood trickled forth into the beard.

  “Why else would I warn you of danger afoot?” Hugues pleaded. “I could have departed and saved myself. But I warn you anew, Fulk, and beg you to escape while time remains. In less than three days now, the ax falls.”

  “You were not so exact before,” the other man said without tone.

  “The hour was not so nigh. And I hoped—”

  Fulk’s hand chopped the protest short. “Have done!” he cried.

  Hugues stiffened. Fulk began pacing, back and forth, like one in a cage. He bit off his words, each by each.

  “Yes, you claimed a certain foresight, and what you said came to pass. Minor though those things were, they impressed me enough that when you hinted at a terrible morrow, I passed it on in a letter to my kinsman—after all, we know charges are being raised against us. But you were never clear about how you got your power. Only in these past few days, thinking, have I seen how obscure was your talk of Moorish astrologic lore and prophetic dreams.” He halted, confronting his suspect, and flung, “The Devil can say truth when it fits his purposes. Whence comes your knowledge, you who call yourself Hugues Marot?”

  The younger man made the sign of the cross. “Lawful, Christian—”

  “Then why did you not tell me more, tell me fully what to await, that I might go to the Grand Master and all our brothers have time to make ready?”

  Hugues lifted his hands to his face. “I could not. Oh, Fulk, dear friend, I cannot, even now. My tongue is locked. What I—I could utter—that little was forbidden—But you know me!”

  Starkness responded. “I know you would have me flee, saying naught to anyone. At what peril to my soul, that I break every pledge I ever swore and abandon my brethren in Christ?” Fulk drew breath. “No, brother, if brother you be, no. I have arranged that you are under my command for the next several days. You shall remain here, sequestered, secret from all but myself and these your warders. Then, if indeed the king strikes at us, I can perhaps give you over to the Inquisition—a sorcerer, a fountainhead of evil, whom the Knights of the Temple have discovered among themselves and cast from them—”

  The breath sobbed. Pain stretched the face out of shape. “But meanwhile, Hugues, I will hourly pray, with great vows, pray that you prove innocent—merely mistaken, and innocent of all save love. And can you then forgive me?”

  He stood for a moment. When he spoke again, the words tolled. “It is for the Order, which we have plighted our loyalty under God. Raoul, Jehan, take him away.”

  Tears glistened on Hugues’s cheekbones. The guards entered. He had no weapon but a knife. With a convulsive movement, he drew it and offered it hilt foremost to Fulk. The knight kept his hands back and it dropped on the floor. Mute, Hugues went off between the men. As he walked, he gripped a small crucifix that hung about his neck, symbol and source of help from beyond this world.

  SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY,

  8 MARCH 1990

  Manse Everard returned to Wanda Tamberly near sunset. Light streamed through the Golden Gate. From their suite they saw cable cars go clanging down toward the waterfront, islands and the farther shore rising steep from a silver-blue bay, sails like wings of some wandering flock. They had hoped to be out there themselves.

  When he came in, she read his battered face and said quietly, “You’re on a new mission, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “It was pretty clear that was what HQ had in mind when Nick phoned.”

  She could not keep all resentment out of her voice. Their time together had been less than two months. “They never leave you alone, do they? How many other Unattached agents has the Patrol got, anyway?”

  “Nowhere near enough. I didn’t have to accept, you know. But after studying the report, I did have to agree I’m probably the best man available for this job.” That was what had kept him since morning. The report was the equivalent of a library, most of it not text or audiovisual but direct brain input—history, language, law, customs, dangers.

  “Ol’ noblesse oblige.” Wanda sighed. She met him, laid her cheek on his breast, pressed close against the big body. “Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Get it done and pop back to the same hour you tell me good-bye, you hear?”

  He grinned. “My idea exactly.” He stroked the blond hair. “But look, I don’t have to leave right away. I would like to get it behind me”—on his intricately looping world line—“but let’s first make whoopee from now through tomorrow night.”

  “Best offer I’ve had all day.” She raised her lips toward his and for a while the only sound in the room was murmurs.

  Stepping back at last, she said, “Hey, that was fine, but before we get down to serious business, suppose you explain what the hell your assignment is.” Her voice did not sound altogether steady.

  “Sure,” he answered. “Over beer?” When she nodded, he fetched two Sierra Nevada Pale. She settled down on the couch with hers. Restless, he kept his feet and loaded his pipe.

  “Paris, early fourteenth century,” he began. “A field scientist, Hugh Marlow by name, has gotten himself in deep yogurt and we need to haul him out.” Speaking English rather than Temporal, he perforce used tenses and moods ill-suited to chronokinetics. “I’ve had medieval European experience.” She shivered slightly. They had shared a part of it. “Also, he’s my contemporary by birth—not American: British, but a twentieth-century Western man who must think pretty much like me. That might help a bit.” A few generations can make aliens of ancestor and descendant.