The Empire of Time

1

Picture this. Forest. One hundred miles of dense, forbidding forest on every side, cut through by streams and rivers that flow between the dark, straight stands of pine, mirror bright beneath the moon. And here, on an island in a river, behind a stoutly built stockade, is a wooden fort and a tower and a crude stone chapel. This is Christburg, built three years past on ground cleared from the virgin forest and defended against the heathen.

Two guards man the tower, casting their weary eyes to the foreboding blackness of the surrounding forest. Deep snow carpets that bleak, unforgiving space between the fort and the river, while overhead a full moon shines down from a clear, blue-black sky.

It is cold. Bitterly cold. Breath plumes in the air as the guards rub their gloved hands together and stamp their feet to keep warm.

This is the edge of the Christian world. Beyond is only darkness: a hostile wilderness in which the heathen Prussians eke out their godless lives, praying to rocks and trees and the demons of the air.

In the chapel the knights and priests are gathered, beneath the bright silken banners of the Order. Hermann Balk, the Hochmeister himself, the Magister Generalis, is there, along with six of his knights.

Beside them are two dozen knights of the Teutonic Order of St Mary’s Hospital in Jerusalem, along with nineteen priests aged between eight and seventy. Kneeling on the cold stone floor, they pray to the Virgin, goddess of this holy war, asking her blessing.

And, at the back, one other. Myself. Otto Behr, supplicant of the Order these past six months.

There is a moment’s silence and then the Hochmeister stands, turning to look out across the bowed heads of the gathering. The candles on the altar waver, sending up their incense into the darkness of the rafters. As one, the congregation raise their eyes and look back at him. Meister Balk is a tall, gaunt figure, grey of hair and clear of eye. Like all the other knights, he wears full armour and long leather boots. About his shoulders is a white mantle, the emblems of cross and sword emblazoned in red upon the left shoulder.

This is a special moment. Tonight, I will become a member of the Order, a monk-warrior, obeying the strict rules and codes of the Brotherhood. Smiling grimly, Meister Balk looks to me, then gestures for me to rise.

I move carefully between the kneeling figures until I am directly in front of him. My scabbard is empty, my sword lain across the altar behind him. His grey eyes search mine, a stern pleasure in them; then, without preamble, he begins:

‘Otto… do you belong to any other Order?’

‘No, Meister.’

‘Are you married?’

‘No, Meister.’

‘Have you any hidden physical infirmity?’

‘No, Meister.’

‘Are you in debt?’

‘No, Meister.’

‘Are you a serf?’

‘No, Meister.’

The Meister pauses, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes, looking about him at the watching knights, then, with a nod, begins again.

‘Are you prepared to fight in the Palestine?’

‘Yes, Meister.’

‘Or elsewhere?’

‘Yes, Meister?’

‘Will you care for the sick?’

‘Yes, Meister.’

‘Will you practise any craft you know as ordered?’

‘Yes, Meister.’

‘Will you obey the Rule?’

My voice rings out, clear in that tiny stone chapel. ‘Yes, Meister!’

Again, the Meister nods.

I have answered the five Noes and the five Yeses. All that remains is for me to swear my loyalty to the Order. I turn, facing the others, the practised words coming easily to my lips.

‘I, Otto Behr, do profess and promise chastity, renunciation of property, and obedience, to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to you, Brother Hermann, Master of the Teutonic Order, and to your successors, according to the Rules and Institutions of the Order, and I will be obedient to you and to your successors, even unto death.’

There are smiles now on the faces of many of those watching me, smiles of pride and satisfaction. I have lived and worked with these men and they know my qualities. Now I am one of them. A Brother.

I turn back. Meister Balk takes my sword and, holding it flat across his palms, offers it to me. I take it and, lifting it in the air, kiss the embossed cross upon the pommel, then turn to face the others, repeating the gesture.

Slowly I draw it through the air, making the sign of the cross. Then – and only then – do I sheath it again.

I step back through them to my place, then kneel, facing the Hochmeister as we begin the final prayers. Yet we are not halfway through the first of them when there is a baleful shout from without, followed moments later by a hammering on the outer door.

Meister Balk strides across and throws it open. Framed in its whiteness is one of the guards. He falls to his knees, head bowed.

‘Meister, you must come at once!’

‘What is it, Brother William?’

The young man looks up. The horror in his eyes turns my stomach. All about me the knights are getting to their feet.

‘It is Brother Werner, Meister. He…’ The young man swallows. ‘The Prussians have returned him.’

If the Hochmeister feels anything, he conceals it well. Turning back, he looks to us.

‘Johannes… Otto… come. Let us bring our brother back inside.’

2

His body lies there, not fifty paces from the fort. They have stripped him and lain him like a star upon the snow, his pale limbs smeared with blood. Kneeling beside him and seeing the rictus on his ash-white face, I feel my heart break. He is snarling, as if still in pain, even though his brief life here is ended. He was the youngest of us, perhaps the finest. Looking closer, I see the ice crystals in his blood. He has been dead some time.

They have disfigured him badly: cut off his fingers and his feet, and opened up his chest with an axe. His eyes have been gouged out and his ears cut off, his tongue cut from his mouth. Worse still, they have carved the sign of the cross into his crudely shaven skull. And all of it while he was yet alive. For that is their way, these Prussians.

Coming alongside me, Johannes groans, then kneels, crossing himself. I do the same, then look up, searching among the trees on the far bank for any movement. The enemy are watching us, looking to see how we react. I meet Johannes’ eyes, and we both stand, drawing our swords. Stepping forward, I plant myself there, prepared to defend the body until help comes from the fort. There are shouts now from that direction. I hear the gate swing open once again, the sound of quick, crisp footfalls.

Meister Balk himself has come, along with two others – young knights, not Brothers yet, barely a season into the service of the Order. Seeing the body they stop, then turn away, to be sick in the snow.

I look back, my eyes on the frosted plank bridge, knowing that if they are to attack, they must attack from there, and soon. Touching my arm, the Hochmeister urges me forward.

‘Otto, Johannes – to the bridge! You must delay them until we get him back inside.’

I see them now, moving among the trees, and feel a natural hatred towards them for what they’ve done. Werner was my brother-in-arms, my comrade. When I think of him, I think of his smile, of his laughing eyes, which even the strict, almost masochistic rigours of the Order could not repress.

It is not that we are better men than they. No, for I have witnessed atrocities enough. We have burned their villages and killed their wives and children. And for what? For the Virgin and her son? To bring God to the heathens of these accursed woods? I know this, and yet the urge for vengeance – to cleave these Prussian bastards limb from limb – overwhelms me as I stand there facing them across the river.

Meister Balk barks orders behind me. He and the young knights have begun to drag the body back to the fort. At that very moment there is sudden movement among the trees across the river as a dozen or more men charge towards us. There is the hiss of crossbow bolts flying through the air, launched by our men in the stockade. Choked cries come from our attackers.

Johannes looks to me and smiles grimly, then takes a fighting grip of his sword. I do likewise, bracing myself to meet their attack. But something’s wrong. Out of the corner of my eye I see a movement, below me and to my right, and realise with a shock that the river has frozen over in the night and that our enemies have crossed upon the ice and are now not merely in front of us but to our sides also, on the near bank of the river. Even as I call a warning, they climb the banks and throw themselves across the space, outflanking us as they try to cut off the little party that is halfway across the snow.

And now our men see the danger from the walls. There are shouts. A moment later, a group of knights ventures out, hurrying towards the Hochmeister and his party.

But that’s all I see, for in that instant the enemy are upon us. Johannes grunts and swings his heavy sword. I hear the wet sound of metal cleaving flesh, the heathen’s chilling scream, and then I too am in the thick of it, parrying a spear-thrust, then hacking at an arm. A severed hand flies up and falls, steaming obscenely on the frosted planks. For a moment it is as if I am unconscious. I thrust and parry and swing and cleave, numbed to the horror. My instinct to survive outweighs all else. Slowly we fall back, giving ground, yet keeping the small force of Prussians at bay. Then, suddenly, Johannes stumbles on to one knee. I stand in front of him, to shield him while he gets back to his feet. Yet even as I do, an axe swishes past me and thuds into his back.

I turn, bringing my sword up viciously, taking the man’s head clean from his shoulders. It’s a feat that shocks me as much as it shocks the Prussians. But I am outnumbered now, eight to one, and the space between me and the fort is alive with barbarians. Slowly I move back, fending them off, my sword scything the air about me, but it is only a question of time.

I kill another of them, noting, as I look past his fallen body, that there’s no sign of the Hochmeister, or of the group of knights who’d sallied out to help. All of our men are fallen. I am alone out here and the main struggle now is at the gate where, using ladders and logs, the Prussians are seeking to force an entry into the stockade. The fighting is fierce there, but I have no time to watch, for the ragged group about me now begin to press their attack with renewed vigour, thrusting at me with knife and spear and axe, forcing me back step by step. One mistake and they will be on me, like wolves on a fallen traveller.

For a moment I press back at them, wounding one, cutting the tendons of another. He falls with a timid cry. But more of them are coming – a dozen or more, freed from the struggle at the gate – and their cries urge my attackers to greater efforts. I lift my sword to fend off a swinging axe, then grunt as a spear thrust catches me on the upper chest. My armour deflects the blow, but it’s enough to send me tottering back, my sword falling out of reach.

There are shouts from my attackers. Shouts of delight. They’re grinning now as they watch me trip and tumble down. As I sit up, they form a circle about me, their bearded faces pushed towards me, mocking me, calling to me in their barbaric tongue – Curonian, I note, not Prussian.

‘Let’s skin the whoreson!’

‘No, let’s drain him like a pig!’

‘Burn him!’

‘Let the women have him!’

There’s laughter at that, but then the faces turn, watching as flames begin to rise up from the fort. And when they look back, the laughter’s gone, and there is nothing but murderous intent in their cold, dark eyes. Even so, they wait, and eventually another of them comes, a chieftain by his look.

He stands over me, a bear of a man, the comparison emphasised by the thick black fur he wears. There’s a wildness in his face that suggests a hint of madness, but maybe that’s just bloodlust. He looks down at me, enjoying my helplessness; his yellowed teeth form a grin. Then he looks beyond me to one of his fellows, who throws him my sword.

Catching it cleanly, he raises it high, then looks about him. The others bare their teeth and howl their approval, like wolves. Lifting the sword up and back, he brings it down, grunting with the effort…

The blade cuts the air. But I am no longer there.

3

With a pop of displaced matter, the great circle of Four-Oh shimmers into being, beneath me and about me. Surprised faces look up from screens at the surrounding desks, their surprise turning quickly to concern as they see the blood that laces my arms and chest.

Young Urte is there, and Karen, Helge – eight months pregnant by the look of her – and Brigitte, herself in the first stages of pregnancy. And Bella, and Lili and…

I stagger and then, as the ‘shield’ evaporates, let Ilse and Helge reach up and help me down, realising only then just how much the fight has taken out of me. I am bruised and cut, but otherwise the only serious hurt is to my pride. I have failed, and the price of my failure has been the wholesale slaughter of my friends. My brothers—

As they lead me across and sit me in a chair, I find myself overwhelmed with sudden grief at the loss.

‘What is it, Otto? What happened?’

I look up. ‘Where’s Hecht?’

‘I’m here,’ Hecht answers, as the hatch hisses back and he strides into the room. He comes across and, leaning over me, stares into my face.

‘You’re like him,’ I say.

Hecht’s eyes ask the question.

‘Hochmeister Balk. He was tall, like you, and his eyes… are you sure?’

‘No connection,’ he says, and straightens up. ‘So what happened?’

‘Curonians. A raiding party from the north. I think they must have known Balk was there. If so…’

It goes unsaid. Yet Hecht nods. Russian agents. It had to be.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Physically, a few cuts and bruises, but…’

Hecht stops me with a look. ‘De-briefing in an hour. Before then, go clean up. And see Ernst. I’m told he has some news for you.’

I nod, then look about me. The women are smiling now, pleased to see me safely home.

‘It’s good you’re back,’ Helge says, touching my cheek fondly. ‘And now that we know…’

We can put things right back there. But will we? Or does Hecht have other plans?

4

Ernst is mid-sentence as I enter the classroom. His six young students – the youngest eleven, the eldest fifteen, their close-shaven heads showing a stubble of ash-blond hair – stare up at him, their backs to me as I step in through the hatch.

The lecture theatre – one of eight – is a comfy, cosy space, the shelves on its walls filled with colorful artefacts from the ages we have visited – fragments of many different pasts. Teaching aids, for when words aren’t enough. Oh, none of it is authentic, yet authenticity is something of a philosophical concept in this case, for these are perfect copies.

I smile, warmed by the familiarity of it all. On the wall behind Ernst, in large gothic lettering, is the slogan:

Ernst looks up, glancing at me, and then his eyes fly wide open. A big beam of a smile lights up his face.

‘Otto!’

The young students turn in their seats to stare as Ernst walks over and embraces me.

‘Careful…’ I groan. ‘My ribs.’

Ernst stands back, not sure whether to be concerned or to grin like an idiot. It’s six months subjective since I last saw him. As for him…

I frown. ‘When is this?’

‘August,’ he answers. ‘August eighteenth.’

I nod. August the eighteenth, 2999.

‘Did you…?’ He nods at my attire. ‘Did you become a Brother?’

I nod, and as I do, I see, behind him, how the eyes of the young men widen with awe at the thought. If there’s a single model for us, it is the Order. The Brotherhood of Teuton Knights. And I have been there. I can see how much they envy me for that, see how their eyes drink in the sight of my battered armour, the bloodied mantle that covers my shoulders. I am a hero from the Past, and they admire me.

My blood, incidentally. For nothing that’s not mine could pass through the screens on to the platform.

I sigh wearily, and Ernst’s expression changes. He looks at me, concerned. ‘Are you okay? You look—’

‘As if I’ve been in a fight?’ I smile, but the tiredness is beginning to gnaw at me. I need to bathe, to sleep. I need…

‘Look,’ Ernst says, putting a hand out to touch my shoulder. ‘I know this isn’t the moment, but will you speak to the boys? Tell them about your experience? They’ve been learning about the situation back there, but… well, it would be nice to have a firsthand account.’

I smile. ‘Sure. Later. Hecht said you had something to tell me.’

Ernst glances back at the watching students. ‘It can wait.’

‘All right. Then I’ll see you—’

‘Tonight,’ Ernst finishes for me. ‘We’ve a session at eight.’ He laughs, seeing how blank I look. ‘It’s just after eleven, Otto, in the morning.’

‘Ah.’ And I laugh. But it’s hard sometimes, making these jumps through time. Harder than you could ever imagine.

5

Nothing stays the same for ever. Not even the Past.

Hecht’s room is long and wide, the ceiling low, except in the central space where he seems to live, connected to his terminal. There, where the floor sinks down two feet, the ceiling also climbs to form a dome above his work space, the twelve black glass panels reflecting the faint fluorescence of the tree that hovers in the air above his desk.

Hecht’s room is always dark. As you enter, you can see Hecht’s face in the glow of his screen, austere, carved, the only bright thing in that shadowed environment. All else is glimpsed vaguely in the surrounding darkness: his pallet bed, his shelves of books, his clothes – in boxes, as if he’s never quite moved in – and other things.

As I enter he looks up and across at me, his fingers still moving over the pad.

‘Otto.’

He smiles faintly as he says it. Like the women, he is pleased to see me home, safe and in one piece.

I walk across, then sit cross-legged on the floor, facing him, the terminal to my right, the Tree above us both, its faint, yet ever-pulsing lights like the flow of life itself.

‘So?’ Hecht asks, not looking up from what he’s doing. ‘What went wrong?’

I have been thinking about this from the moment I recognised their dialect as Curonian, not Prussian: asking myself why they should be there at just that moment in time, and having argued the pros and cons in my head, I’m certain now.

‘There must have been a Russian agent at Marienburg.’

Marienburg on the Baltic coast is one of the Order’s fortresses, twenty miles west of Christburg. It was from there that Meister Balk set out to ordain me into the Order. As for the Curonians, we know they’ve been working with the Russians for some while.

Hecht glances up. ‘It could just be coincidence.’

‘It could, only with Meister Balk dead, and especially after the slaughter of the Sword Brothers at Saule earlier in the year, well, I can’t think of two things more likely to destabilise the Order.’

Hecht smiles. ‘Do you want to know what happened?’

I shrug, as if not bothered, and yet I do, for Balk’s death, three years before his due time, was certain to have caused ripples, if not the collapse of the Order’s Northern Crusade altogether, and without that…

Without that, there would be no Prussia, no Frederick, and, ultimately, no Greater Germany. The implications were enormous. And yet it can’t have happened that way, for if it had, things here would have changed.

Hecht glances at the screen one last time, then removes his hand from the pad, concentrating his attention on me.

Hecht has grey eyes. Some say they’re cold – cold with the strange, dispassionate fervour of the intellectual – yet I’ve never seen that. I understand the icy fire that burns in him, for it burns in me too. And when he smiles, those same grey eyes are warm. Warm with a father’s love for his children. Or perhaps that’s just for me, his favourite, his Einzelkind as he calls me, as if any of us here could be an ‘only child’. Yet I know what he means, for I am the wolf that hunts alone. Yet they are wrong. It is just that I do not properly fit into this regimented world of ours, although I try. Urd knows I try.

Hecht watches me a moment longer, and then he smiles. ‘What happens is this. The Crusade does indeed falter. Support for it from the Papacy dries up. Moreover, the Swedes, dismayed by the failures of the campaign, do not invade the northern lands in 1240. They stay at home, and so Nevsky never becomes Nevsky, for there are no battles on the Neva or Lake Chud. Von Gruningen becomes Grand Master both of the Prussian and Livonian Orders, and under his leadership things go from strength to strength. In 1246 the Crusade is renewed with massive support from the Western princes. As a result, the heathen Prussians are suppressed, the Curonians defeated at Krucken.’

‘Then…’

‘Time heals itself, Otto. As is its way. From 1250 onward you would scarcely know the difference.’

‘And Nevsky?’

‘He has his moment. But not as Nevsky. As ever, a few names change, the odd detail here and there, but Time… Time flows on.’

I smile. ‘Who did you send back to find out?’

‘Kramer, and Seydlitz.’

‘Seydlitz?’

My surprise amuses him. ‘I thought he needed to get out in Time. He’s been too wrapped up in his project.’

‘Barbarossa?’

Hecht nods. ‘Yes, but I wanted him away from here, while the Elders met.’

‘They’ve met?’

Hecht sits back slightly. He is a tall, gaunt-looking man, yet the black one-piece that he’s wearing makes him seem part of the shadows. Only his face is distinct; that and his hands, which rest on the edge of the desk as he studies my face.

‘Let’s say I consulted them.’

‘And?’

Hecht smiles, then changes the subject. ‘You understand now how weak they are back there?’

For a moment I don’t understand. Does he mean the Teuton Knights? Or is he talking about the Russians? The thing is, we’re both spread thin. I mean, three thousand years, and only a couple of hundred agents to police them. No wonder we miss things. But then, so do they. It’s a game of chess – the most complex game imaginable – only the moves can be anything, and the board…

The board is everywhere and any time.

I look up at the Tree.

It is not a tree like other trees. This is a Tree of Worlds, a tree of shining light, its trunk representing our reality, a thick thread of pearled whiteness, its various, multi-coloured branches the time-lines in which our agents operate.

Eight hundred and seventy souls inhabit the Nichtraum – the ‘no-space’ – of Four-Oh, at the last count. Of those, one hundred and seventeen are out there right now, in the Past, fighting the Russians, each one linked through Time and Space to Four-Oh. Their presence out there shapes the Tree, their living pulse forming its pulse. If any one of them should cease, then one shimmering, delicate branch ceases also, leaving only an after-image.

One whole alternate history snuffed out.

I look to Hecht. ‘And you want me to find out just how weak?’

‘In time. First you need to get some rest. I hear you’re talking to Ernst’s students later on.’

Is there anything Hecht doesn’t know?

‘He wants me to give them a first-hand account.’

Hecht laughs. ‘Well, you can certainly give them that. Do you realise how strongly you smell, Otto?’

I grin. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed.’

‘No, but the women did. Oh, and Otto…’

‘Yes, Meister?’

‘Try to be kinder to the women, now you’re back. They’re only doing what they’re supposed to do.’

6

You might wonder what Hecht means by that, and I ought, perhaps, to explain. Only, I am kind. Kinder than Hecht imagines. He’s right, of course. I do have problems with that side of things, not with sex itself, but with the way we as a Volk handle sex. Oh, and I know the arguments. With so few of us, we need to take every opportunity we can to diversify the gene pool. Intellectually I can see the need.

Some argue that we could arrange this differently, mix up our genes in the laboratories and attain diversity by that means, but the counter-argument is strong. We are a Volk, not a group of families – Engel, Fischer and Muller, Schulz, Vogel and Ziegler, with all of the clannishness that involves – but a people. Change how we go about breeding and we would lose that. Our sense of oneness comes from knowing that we are one single family, that all mothers are the mother, all of our children the children of that one, singular mother, whomever’s womb nature uses for the task. As for the physical, sexual side of things, that’s there to bond us, man to woman, flesh to flesh. To do it otherwise is unthinkable. Or so I’d argue, if pushed. Because intellectually I can see the need. Emotionally, however…

But you don’t need to know that. Not yet. Only that I find it hard, the way we do things here in Four-Oh.

Back in my quarters, I strip off and shower, then lie on my bed naked, my fingers laced together behind my head as I run things over in my mind.

It’s hard at first to focus. Coming back, re-immersing myself in the hustle and bustle of Four-Oh after the cultural rawness of the Middle Ages, is never easy. My mind tends to be in two places at once for a while. But there are disciplines, and I use one now to clear away the mental clutter and attend.

It’s very simple. If the Elders – the senior Reisende – have met, then a decision has almost certainly been made on Seydlitz’s project – either to go ahead or, and the thought troubles me, to abandon it entirely.

I try to put myself in Seydlitz’s position, try to imagine what it would be like to be turned down after putting in so much. After all, he’s worked on his scheme for eighteen years now. And not just any eighteen years scattered through Time – but eighteen years subjective, as measured by his body’s slow decay. He’s still a young man, young enough, perhaps, to embrace another cause, another project, but I’ve seen men changed by the experience of rejection, seen them turn in upon themselves. If that were to happen to Seydlitz…

They may, of course, have endorsed it. In which case…

I smile, suddenly, strangely certain that that’s what’s happened, and the thought of it – of that great switch of manpower and man-hours to a new alternate time-line – gives me the kind of thrill that only an agent, operating out there in Time, can feel.

A new world order is about to be born. Something that didn’t exist is about to be conjured into existence, with new choices, new branches, new diversifications.

A new move on the great board.

The thought reminds me of where I’ve just come from, and a wave of sadness envelops me, but I’m tired now, and, closing my eyes, I sleep…

And am woken at seven by Ernst’s soft suden Deutsch accent, reminding me of where I need to be at eight.

I dress, choosing a simple black one-piece not unlike Hecht’s own, then, remembering the boys’ faces, decide to summon Jodl, the armourer.

He’s there instantly, as if he’s been waiting for my summons – which is quite possibly true. He would have been informed the moment I got back. Now he steps into the room and stands there, head lowered, as the hatch hisses shut behind him.

He’s a small compact man in his sixties, and he would dearly like to turn back the clock and be a Reisende again, only Hecht won’t let him. These days his expertise is harnessed in other fields, which is what will happen to all of us when – and if – the time comes.

‘I’m seeing Ernst’s students,’ I say, turning from the mirror to look directly at him. ‘I thought it might be nice to look the part.’

He nods, then goes to speak, but I anticipate.

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘A few cuts and bruises, that’s all.’

Jodl almost smiles. ‘You want me to clean the armour you were in, or bring your second suit?’

‘The second suit will do.’

He hesitates a moment longer, and then he’s gone, the hatch hissing shut behind him, returning an instant later, a hover-cart in tow, upon which is a brand-new suit of armour, my sword, a shield, and a second set of crusading Brothers’ clothes.

‘You didn’t have to,’ I say. ‘There was time.’

He looks at me sternly but says nothing. Jodl prides himself on his efficiency. To be thought the least bit tardy…

‘Ernst isn’t well,’ he says, as he hands me the first item from the cart.

‘Oh? In what way?’

‘Look at his eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping. And his hands…’

I nod. It doesn’t surprise me after all Ernst has been through. The only surprise is that he’s sane at all.

I strip off the one-piece and begin to dress again. ‘He’ll be okay now that I’m back.’

Jodl looks me in the eye. ‘Maybe.’

‘No, he will. He’s missed me, that’s all.’

He looks away, then hands me another item, making no comment, but I know that behind that perfect mask of a face his thoughts are buzzing like a disturbed hive. Like all of them, he wants to know what I saw, what I did, who I met. And maybe I’ll let him see a copy of my report when it’s finished, only right now I don’t want to discuss it. Not with him, anyway. Jodl has a way of asking all the awkward questions. And I’m not sure I’m up to answering those kind. Not yet, anyway.

As I pull on the rough woollen shirt, I look at him, reminding myself. If you look close – really close – you can see the odd grey hair among the black.

Time. How slow time must pass for the occupants of Four-Oh.

7

‘What is Time like, Master Behr?’

‘Time is like the surface of a pond. And also like…’ I pause, then laugh gently. ‘Time has a thousand qualities, but mostly, mostly it’s the thread that holds the universe together. In Gehlen’s equations…’

I stop, seeing how the boys are looking at me, glazed over suddenly. That’s the trouble with Gehlen’s Time equations, you can’t visualise them – they function on a totally abstract level – and the mind needs to be able to picture things before it can understand them properly. It needs to create workable metaphors. But Time… how can you explain Time? It’s pretzel logic.

‘Time,’ I begin again, ‘is like a river. There are many tributaries, but only one river.’

Or a Tree, or…

They grin back at me, and I realise I’m being teased.

I know these boys well. I’ve taught most of them now for two, maybe three years, since they first came out of the Garden. When we’re not in the field or researching, we teach, passing on what we know to the next generation. Ensuring that the fight is carried on in the best way possible.

Matteus, the youngest of them, raises his hand.

‘Yes, Matteus?’

‘Did you kill anyone, Master Behr? Where you’ve just been, I mean—’

It’s a good question. Because if that past doesn’t become the Past, then surely no one ‘real’ is killed at all? Only it isn’t so. The Past is always real, even when we make changes to it. As real as this.

‘Yes,’ I say, remembering. Even one as young as you. But I don’t say that aloud, because it disturbs me, this capacity in me to become a killer, back there in the Past. You see, at times we must be assassins. That is our job. There’s little room for moral qualms. Or supposedly so. Some find it easy, you understand. Myself? I find it the hardest thing to hate. Not for ideological reasons, anyway.

‘And were you ever in real danger, Master?’

The questioner is a thirteen-year-old named Tomas, a big lad for his age, all muscle and brawn like a peasant’s son, only I know he is the brightest of them all.

‘You are always in danger, in the Past.’

‘Always?’

‘Yes, Tomas. For where we are, they are.’

‘The Russians?’

‘Yes.’

And their allies. For they, like we, are not averse to using whatever or whoever is at hand to further their cause.

Which is?

To annihilate us. To rid history of any taint of us, the German people. While we, in our turn, strive night and day to do the same to them.

A game. But one with the most deadly of intents: a game called Rassenkampf – ‘race war’. And don’t flinch at my words. Think. For this is the truth of humanity.

Tomas’s eyes gleam as he watches me. ‘Did you kill any… Russians?’

Ernst, sensing that we’re about to be led off into a cul-de-sac, interrupts. ‘Let’s stick to the subject, shall we?’

‘But…’

‘Tomas.’

Tomas falls silent. Beside him, Matteus raises his hand.

‘Yes, Matteus?’

‘Does it smell back there?’

There is laughter. As it fades, I answer him.

‘Very much. And you know what? Every Age has its own distinct smell. Where I’ve been, well, things were very basic back then. Their idea of sanitation and personal hygiene left much to be desired.’ I smile. ‘It’s no place for a sensitive nose.’

They like that. There’s more laughter. But Ernst, I can see, wants something deeper than this from me. I can see in his eyes just how much he’s missing it, how much he wants to talk about how it feels to be out there, in Time.

I look down. When I look up again my features are sterner. ‘Smell is an important indicator of the state of social development of an Age, yet it’s one of the more superficial aspects. Just as each age has its own smell, so it has its own mind-set, its own store of beliefs, of givens…’

‘Religion,’ Dieter, the eldest of them, says, and I nod. ‘When you go back, you must immerse yourself in the mind-set of that era. To do otherwise… well, it’s not an option. Not if you want to stay alive. One must learn to become a man of that time in every detail: in look, in speech and in basic mannerisms.’

‘What do you mean, Reisende?’

Reisende, he calls me. Traveller.

I pause, remembering just how hard it actually is: lying to yourself day in day out, pretending to be what you’re not, paying lip service to things you cannot, should not ever believe. Especially all of that Nazi stuff. Looking back at those reverent boyish faces, I find I cannot tell them. Not the whole truth, anyway. Being a time agent is like being the biggest liar that ever was.

I compromise. I tell them part of it.

‘What I mean is that you must be a kind of actor. You must embrace the pretence. You cannot – must not – be who you really are. To let anyone suspect…’

‘So you live a lie?’ Dieter asks.

I backtrack a little, noting how Ernst is watching me now, the faintest smile on his lips.

‘When you’re there, and it really is only when you’re there, you find yourself searching within your own character for those elements that coincide with the Age, which… reflect it, I suppose. You give rein to those elements.’

I see that some of them are not following me.

‘It changes you,’ I say, and I note how Tomas, at least, nods, some small glimmer of understanding in his eyes. I know there and then that he’ll make a good agent when his time comes.

But the others? What do I want to say to them? That you are not who you think you are? That to become a traveller – a Reisende – you must learn to shed one skin and wear another?

Yes. Only that’s not all. The truth is, it is an exhilirating, liberating, revelatory experience. And troubling, too, for sometimes you learn too much about yourself when the restraints are cast off; when one must live by a new set of rules simply to survive.

‘Otto?’

I look to Ernst. ‘I’m sorry. I was remembering.’

‘Remembering?’

‘How it was, the first day I was there. On the boat, coming down the river to Marienburg.’

But I say no more, because I don’t want to frighten them, and if I tell them how I really felt that day, it will. You see, the Past is an alien country. It is brutal and unforgiving, and you cannot make mistakes – not with the Russians out there.

‘Otto?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m tired. I haven’t quite adjusted back yet.’

But it isn’t tiredness, it’s sudden understanding. I know now that it was me. Something I did back there. A mistake, perhaps, or some carelessness on my part. Because there’s no other way the Russians could have known.

‘I’m sorry, boys, but…’

The boys show a paper-thin understanding, but I can see they’re disappointed. They wanted tales of glory, of adventure and raw excitement, and I have not delivered. Only I can’t free myself of the notion that my mistake – whatever it was – cost the lives of almost fifty men. Real lives.

I need to lie down and close my eyes. I need something to keep me from remembering.

8

Ernst comes to me later, in my room.

‘What is it, Otto? What happened back there?’

‘I don’t know. But I must have done something. Something that left a trace.’

He nods, then sits, facing me on the end of my bed. I watch him for a while, noting how silent he is, then ask: ‘And you?’

His smile is guarded. ‘They say I’m doing well…’

‘It’ll take time,’ I say, resting my hand gently on his arm. But I am unable to imagine how he feels, for Ernst is a Reisende – a ‘traveller’ like me – and this confinement here in Four-Oh, however necessary, is chafing at him, like a frayed rope against raw flesh.

‘Otto?’

‘Yes?’

‘Will you speak to Hecht for me?’

I hesitate, then nod. It will do no good, of course, but how can I refuse? Ernst is my best friend. To say no to him is almost unthinkable. Yet if I were in Hecht’s place, I would make the same decision, for to even think of sending him back would be disastrous – for all concerned.

Ernst stares at me a moment, then looks away.

‘What?’

He looks back at me, then shrugs. ‘I was just thinking. About the Past. About us.’

‘We were a good team.’

‘We were. Only…’

He doesn’t have to say it. He only has to look at me and I can see the damage, there behind his eyes, there in every line of his face. And I sense – as maybe he senses – that it will never change; that he will never get better. And I don’t know how I would deal with that. Because I know that the Past is like a drug for me: I have a craving to go there, to see it and be a part of it. Without that…

I cannot imagine it. I just can’t.

‘I’ll speak to Hecht,’ I say. ‘I’ll try to convince him.’

But when he’s gone, I slump down on my bed, my mood dark, because I know I can’t help him. And if you can’t help those closest to you, then what kind of man does that make you?

I sigh. Maybe it’s the business at Christburg, but suddenly I wonder what the point is to it all, and whether I’m not simply lying to myself thinking I can make a single shred of difference to what’s happening. But what’s the alternative? To give up? To let the Russians win?

No. Because this is to the death. And whatever doubts I have, I need to keep them to myself.

As if on cue, I hear Hecht’s voice from the speaker overhead. ‘Otto, I need you. At the platform. Now.’

And I go. Because this is what I do, who I am. And to do otherwise is…

Unthinkable.

9

Kramer is the first to come through. Looking across at us, he grins. He’s wearing a simple brown garment of the roughest kind of cloth and his reddish hair is cut pudding-bowl fashion. He’d look the part, the archetypal medieval peasant, were it not for the way he bears himself now that he’s back in Four-Oh, his ‘disguise’ thrown off.

As he steps down, the air behind him shimmers once more and Seydlitz forms like a ghost from the vacuum, his tall, well-proportioned figure taking on colour and substance in an instant. He’s dressed in full armour, the mantle of a Livonian Sword Brother about his shoulders, and his ash-blond hair is cut short, crusader-style. He looks exactly what he is, an aristocrat, his princely bearing only emphasised by his aquiline, almost Roman nose.

I look to Hecht for explanations, but Hecht ignores me. Stepping across, he greets the two.

‘Hans, Max…’

They bow their heads respectfully, then look to each other, excitement written all over their faces.

‘Well? What did you find out?’

‘Russians,’ Kramer says, his eyes gleaming.

‘Two of them,’ Seydlitz adds. ‘We killed them.’

Or think you did.

Hecht smiles. ‘Do we know who they were?’

Kramer looks to Seydlitz. ‘We’re not sure.’

‘Not sure?’ Hecht’s eyes narrow. ‘Then how do you know?’

‘We overheard them,’ Kramer says.

‘We’d tracked them down, to an inn.’

‘They were discussing what to do next.’

‘So we pre-empted things.’

Hecht doesn’t even blink. ‘In what way?’

‘With a grenade.’ And Seydlitz grins as he says it.

‘Ah…’ But before Hecht can ask, Kramer intercedes.

‘We buried what remained of them. Made sure the site was hidden.’

Hecht smiles. ‘Good. Then maybe this once they’ll stay dead and buried.’

Unlikely, I think, knowing how carefully the Russians track their agents, how they’ll venture back and extract their agents moments before we’ve acted against them.

But both Kramer and Seydlitz are novices at this; they’ve barely half a dozen trips between them and it’s clear they’ve let their enthusiasm cloud their judgement. But Hecht says nothing. He smiles at them, as if they’ve done well.

‘Is that all?’

Kramer shakes his head and looks to Seydlitz, who produces a slip of paper.

‘What’s this?’ Hecht asks, handing the paper to me. I look at it and frown. On it is drawn a figure of eight lying on its side. It is like the symbol for infinity, except that drawn inside each loop is an arrow, the two arrows facing each other.

‘It was a pendant,’ Seydlitz explains. ‘A big silver thing. The fat one had it round his neck.’

‘And the other? Did he wear one?’

Kramer shrugs. ‘He may have done. There wasn’t that much of him left.’

Hecht nods then looks to me. ‘What do you make of it, Otto?’

‘I don’t know. Some kind of religious sect?’

‘Maybe.’ But I know that if Hecht doesn’t know, then it’s unlikely anyone else does. The question is: is it significant or just some piece of decorative jewellery?

Hecht watches them a moment longer, then nods to himself. ‘Come,’ he says. ‘I want to hear it all.’

10

They shower, then join us in the smallest of the lecture rooms. There, with the doors locked and the cameras running, we go through it step by step.

I stand at the back, looking on, as Hecht faces the two across the table. Neither looks nervous, but why should they? I am the one who made the mistake. Or so I’m about to find out.

The story’s pretty straightforward. While Kramer infiltrated the Curonians, Seydlitz went directly to the Brotherhood’s headquarters at Marienburg where, posing as an emissary of the Sword Brothers, the Brothers of the Knighthood of Christ in Livonia, he’d spent the best part of a month sniffing around, under the pretext of soliciting aid for his own Knight Brothers who, at the battle of Saule earlier in the year, had suffered an almost terminal mauling at the hands of the Lithuanians.

‘So,’ Hecht says, looking to Seydlitz first. ‘What did you find out?’

Seydlitz sits up straighter. Even dressed simply, as he is, he looks every inch the knight. ‘I didn’t recognise them at first.’

‘Was it these two?’

Two faces appear on a large screen to the side, larger than life. Seydlitz is surprised, but I just grin. Hecht sent in another agent and didn’t tell them.

‘Yes,’ Kramer answers. His voice is a whisper.

‘Ah. Go on.’

Seydlitz tears his gaze from the image on the screen and looks back at Hecht. ‘They were posing as envoys from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory the Ninth. And they were good. Very convincing.’

Hecht nodded. ‘They speak excellent Italian, so I’m told.’

‘Did,’ Kramer says.

Seydlitz glances at him, then continues. ‘Anyway, I didn’t suspect them at first. Not for a moment. Then, one night, I went down to the harbour. I had this notion that maybe the Russians were posing as traders, and there they were, the two of them, talking to a rather wild-looking fellow – a boatman – in fluent Curonian.’

‘They saw you?’

Seydlitz smiles. ‘No. It was very dark. The thinnest sliver of moon and heavy cloud. But I could see them by the light of one of the braziers that were burning along the harbour front. I hid behind a herring boat and listened. That’s when I found out. After that I began to watch them. Noted who they spoke to, who they went to visit.’

‘And then?’

Seydlitz pauses. ‘It was about six days later. I turned up at the palace and they were gone. I asked about and no one had seen them since the previous evening. I thought I’d lost them, and then I remembered the fellow they’d met up with – the Curonian – and I went down to the harbour again.’

‘He was there, then?’

‘Yes, but another hour and I’d have missed him. He was waiting on the tide.’ Seydlitz smiles. ‘I put my knife to his throat and questioned him. It seems they’d paid him a visit the night before. Told him they were heading up the coast to rendezvous with his fellow Curonians. He’d offered to take them, but they’d not been interested. Said they had their own transport.’

Hecht nods thoughtfully. ‘They jumped, then?’

Kramer answers him. ‘Must have done. One moment they were in Marienburg, the next a hundred miles up the coast.’

‘You saw them?’

‘Yes. It was late. We were eating supper when they strode into the camp. The Chief of the Curonians, Axel he called himself, was surprised to see them. It was clear he wasn’t expecting them back so soon. But it was also clear – and pretty quickly – that the news they’d brought was just what he’d wanted to hear. They had a bit of a party that night. Those Russians sure can drink!’

‘Could,’ Seydlitz says pointedly.

Hecht looks to him. ‘So what was happening back at Marienburg?’

‘I found that out later, when I tried to see the Hochmeister. I was told he had already left, with a small company of knights.’

‘You didn’t see him go, then?’

‘No. He just slipped away. Pretty secretively, if you ask me. But then I asked around, and one of my contacts – one of the higher-placed clerics – told me he’d heard a rumour about Mindaugas wanting to meet up with the Hochmeister.’

‘Mindaugas, the Grand Prince of Lithuania?’

Seydlitz nods. ‘He wouldn’t say why, but it was pretty obvious. After his victory at Saule, Mindaugas was in the ascendant, and the Knight Brothers knew it. Hochmeister Balk knew he needed to buy time. A temporary peace with the Lithuanians would give him that.’

‘So you think that’s the reason he went to Christburg? To meet with Mindaugas and arrange a peace?’

Seydlitz looks past Hecht at me. ‘I can’t be certain, but it seems likely, don’t you think? More likely than that he’d make that perilous journey just to enrol a single knight – however worthy – into the Order.’

I feel some of the tension leave me at Seydlitz’s words, and thank him inwardly for saying them. Maybe it wasn’t my fault, after all. Maybe this was – as Seydlitz and Kramer are suggesting – a well-worked Russian plan to get to Meister Balk and kill him and so destabilise the situation. Yet it is some coincidence, if so. And why not just take him, there in Marienburg? It’s unlike the Russians not to be direct.

Hecht looks to Kramer. ‘What happened next?’

Kramer looks to Seydlitz. ‘We met up. At the pre-arranged jump location. Traded information. Then decided to jump back to the Curonian encampment and follow the Russians. See where they went, what they did.’

‘You didn’t think they’d just jump home?’

The two of them look surprised at that. It’s clearly not occurred to them before now.

Hecht pursues the point. ‘You don’t think they might have waited for you? Deliberately travelled by horseback down the coast so that you’d find them and make an attempt against their lives?’

‘Waited?’ Seydlitz looks aghast. ‘But why should they do that? They didn’t even know we were there!’

‘Didn’t they?’ Hecht pauses, then says, ‘As you might have guessed, I sent in another agent. Just to be safe. To protect you. And what he discovered was interesting.’

He turns in his seat, indicating the screen. ‘Our friend on the left there is named Kabanov, and his fellow – the largish man – is named Postovsky. They’re both new to this era, which is probably why you – and Otto, there – didn’t recognise them. That said, they’ve clearly done their homework well. Well enough to fool you, Max, and many a better agent, too. But even so, they made mistakes. Once alerted to them, our man jumped back to when they first arrived in Marienburg and kept a close eye.’

Seydlitz looks up. ‘Who was it?’

Hecht smiles. ‘Our agent? You want to know?’

Freisler, I say to myself, a moment before Hecht confirms it.

Both men look thoughtful now. Neither meets Hecht’s eyes.

‘So what did he find out?’ I ask, walking over to the table.

Hecht looks up at me. ‘I believe they knew who you were, Otto. And that we were sending other agents in.’

‘Not possible,’ I say. ‘I took such care.’

And it was true. I had spent time in Thuringia, establishing my credentials as a knight, then rode all the way to Marienburg, along with other knight-supplicants, so that when the time came they could speak for me and guarantee my authenticity. It simply wasn’t possible that they had penetrated my disguise.

‘Freisler thinks they got lucky. That one of their agents spotted you before you spotted him. If so, it would be easy to jump him out of there and replace him.’

‘And is there any evidence that they did that?’

‘Freisler thinks so. He traced them back, and discovered that there was just such a change of agent shortly after you arrived in Marienburg.’

‘And who was there before?’

‘Dankevich.’

‘Dankevich? Is he certain?’

Hecht nods.

‘Shit…’

There’s a moment’s silence, and then Kramer asks. ‘So are they dead?’

‘The Russians?’ Hecht smiles. ‘What do you think?’

Both men look down, deflated now, but Hecht seems unaffected.

‘It was rash, perhaps, to ambush the Russians, only you already had all the information you needed. You knew who they’d spoken to, and who the traitors were. That could be helpful in some future campaign. All in all, you did well. But for now, we do nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Kramer looks horrified. But I understand. For any of our schemes to succeed we rely upon an element of surprise – we need to be able to spring the trap before they can get any of their agents into that time-line to combat us.

Hecht spells it out. ‘I’m not going to waste good resources getting drawn into a tit-for-tat over a very minor time-line. As you know, the Russians have more agents than us – a hell of a lot more – and there’s nothing they like better than to involve us in a fire-fight over nothing.’

Kramer makes to object again, but Hecht raises a hand, brooking no argument.

‘We leave it. Understand me, Hans? We let it go.’

11

‘Why Seydlitz?’ I ask, when he and I are alone again.

‘Because the Elders have agreed.’

‘Barbarossa?’

Hecht nods.

‘Then…’

‘Seydlitz didn’t know. Only I wanted him to get a taste of it again. It’s been a while.’

Almost three years, if I’ve heard right.

‘You think he’s ready?’

‘Don’t you?’

I nod, remembering how I felt when my first project was green-lit by the Elders. ‘What backup are you giving him?’

‘He’ll lead a team of eight.’

‘Eight!’ It’s a lot. Twice what we usually send in. But then, this is a major operation – a direct assault upon the very heartland of Russia – and if this works… ‘Am I…?’

‘No, Otto. I want you at a distance from this one.’

I don’t quite understand what he means, but I bow my head anyway, obedient to his wishes.

‘So when does he start?’

Hecht stands, then walks over to the bookshelves. He takes down a book and, turning back, hands it to me. ‘He’s begun already. I sent him in an hour back.’

‘But…’ And then I laugh. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how elastic Time is here in Four-Oh. For though Seydlitz was with us only moments before, it’s an easy matter to wait a while, send him back a few hours, then send him back again, to a thousand years in the Past.

‘The platform was busy the next few hours,’ Hecht says, by way of illumination, which explains how he knew when to be at the platform to greet Kramer and Seydlitz.

And the book?

I look to Hecht, puzzled. It’s a collection of Russian folk tales.

‘Open it. To the title page.’

I open it and stare, because there, on the title page, is a hand-written dedication, and beneath it, the same symbol the Russian wore around his neck… the lazy-eight with the facing twin arrows.

I try to make out the signature, but it’s almost unreadable. ‘Who is it?’ I ask, but Hecht only shrugs.

‘Maybe we should find out.’ And he smiles. ‘Just in case.’

12

That night I dream.

I am back there, in the summer of 1236. Sunlight bathes the broad, flat rock on which we rest, laying a veil of gold upon the river below us and the trees beyond. There are five of us – Johannes, Conrad, Luder, Werner and I – brothers-in-arms, waiting there in the warmth of that July afternoon for Meister Dietrich to return from leading a scouting party into the forest on the far bank.

He has been gone since early morning, looking for pagan settlements amid that wilderness of trees. It has been some time – almost a year – since we last raided them, and they have grown incautious once more. Or so the Meister claims.

Johannes is the first to suggest it. He makes a comment on the smell of young Werner, and, laughing, roughly playful, Conrad helps Johannes strip the young man and throw him from the rock, naked, into the water. He surfaces, spluttering yet laughing, taking it in the spirit in which it was meant, then turns on to his back and floats there, treading water.

‘Come in!’ he yells, and splashes water up at us. ‘It’s wonderful!’

No sooner is the invitation made, than Conrad jumps from the rock, a high, flailing jump that ends only feet from where Werner is treading water. Johannes and Luder follow moments later, and, reluctant but grinning nonetheless, I slip out of my clothes and, throwing my arms out, dive straight as an arrow into that golden sheet of dazzling, shimmering light.

As I surface, there are cheers. Werner looks at me in awe. ‘Where did you learn to do that, Otto?’

I gasp, gripped by the coldness of the water, but stay there, making no move to get out, determined to show no sign of weakness before my Brothers.

‘My father taught me when I was a boy.’

‘You were a boy, Otto?’ Johannes says, mocking my earnestness, and the others laugh. But not at my expense. There’s a kindness in their laughter. The mockery is gentle.

I duck down and swim towards the river’s bed, thrusting myself down through the chill, clear water until I’m below them, their pale, strong legs kicking slowly in the pale greenness above me.

I surface right between Conrad and Luder, surprising them both, and, placing a hand on each of their heads, thrust them down, ducking them.

For a moment the three of us struggle in the water, laughing and gasping, and then Luder kicks back, away, shaking the water from his head as he does.

My strength surprises them. I know they think me soft. Comparatively, anyway. For these are the toughest, hardest, most resilient bunch of men I’ve ever known. Their austere self-reliance – their ability to survive in any conditions – astonishes me. They seem to need so little.

We climb back up on to the rock and sit there for a while, at ease in our nakedness, letting our bodies dry in the heat of the sun, enjoying the simplicity of the day. For a while all are silent, as if keeping to their vows, then Johannes stands and, after stretching, pulls on his clothes again. All but the armour.

We do the same, then sit there, staring out over the canopy of the forest. It seems to stretch to the very edge of the world. In the daylight there’s a real beauty to the scene, but at night…

I shudder and look to Werner, noting how he is watching me.

‘I miss them,’ he says. ‘My family. My brothers especially.’

‘Ah…’

But Johannes has less time for sentiment. ‘We do our Lady’s business,’ he says, and all bow their heads, as if in a moment’s prayer, at the reminder.

But Werner is young. Only a minute passes before he looks to me again and asks. ‘Do you miss your family, Otto?’

‘I have no family.’

Werner’s mouth opens the tiniest fraction, as if that explains a lot.

‘They were killed,’ I add, then look away.

‘Is that why you came here?’

I nod. But I know they are all looking at me now. We have these moments. Quiet, reflective moments, when it is possible to say such things. When the vows we have taken are less important suddenly than understanding why we’re here, and whether it’s for the same sad reasons.

For as hard and self-reliant as these men are, they are also very much alone, even in such company as this. Lost souls, they are, seeking atonement. But theirs is also a steely, unshakable faith, and if they knew who I really was they would kill me without a moment’s thought.

Silence falls again. I close my eyes, then hear a sharp intake of breath. My eyes flick open and I reach out for my sword. And then I see what it is, and relax.

In the shallows on the far side of the river, in the shade of the overhanging trees, a huge black bear has come to drink. She stands up straight for a moment, looking across at us, sensing us there, and then she turns and, with a strange, protective little gesture, beckons her cubs forward.

They scuttle past her, keeping close, and then rest there, their tiny, dark-haired bodies half-submerged in the water as they drink. And all the while the mother bear stares across at us defiantly.

None of us moves. At most we sit forward a little, as if to watch the scene more closely.

Finished, the cubs scuttle back into the trees, play-fighting as they go. The mother half turns to watch them, then looks back at us, her massive body swaying a little from side to side as she does, weighing up what to do. Then, as if satisfied, she bends down and, using her paws, scoops water to her mouth and drinks, glancing up at us from time to time.

Satisfied, she straightens and raises her head. Lifting it back, she growls, but whether it’s in warning or in thanks it’s hard to tell, and in a moment she’s gone. The river flows on, like a broad band of molten sunlight running between the banks.

I turn and look to Johannes, who’s looking down now, thoughtful.

‘We should have killed it,’ Conrad says, feeling the edge of his sword with his thumb. ‘We could still go after it. It can’t have gone far.’

‘No,’ Johannes says, with a finality that surprises us all. ‘Leave it. It has a right to be here.’

‘I agree,’ Werner says. ‘At least until we clear this godforsaken land.’

There’s laughter. As it fades, Werner speaks again, gesturing towards the unending forest. ‘Imagine it. All of this turned to pasture. A chapel there, where the river turns.

‘And there’ – he turns and points – ‘a thriving Christian village.’

I can imagine it only too well, for though it may take several more centuries, it will be very much as Werner says. I know because I’ve seen it.

From our right a call breaks the stillness, and as we stand and turn towards it, so Meister Dietrich and the others emerge from the trees on the far bank a hundred yards downstream.

‘They’ve found one,’ Werner says quietly, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. ‘Look at them, they’ve found one of their villages.’

I can see it’s true. Though the Meister himself is sober, stern of face, the Knight Brothers just behind him are grinning excitedly.

‘Thanks be to our Lady,’ Johannes murmurs and crosses himself, the others – myself included – responding in an instant. Then he turns, looking to us in disgust, as if we were still naked. ‘Now dress yourselves, quick, my brothers, unless you fancy a good flogging from the Meister!’

And then suddenly I am back there in the forest, at night, walking silently through the moonlit dark towards the village. All about me are the shadowy figures of my brother knights. They walk slowly, with a dream-like slowness, their long swords drawn, their cloaks fluttering ghostly pale between the dark, arrow-straight trunks of the trees.

We are close now. Ahead of us there’s light and laughter. Sparks fly up into the darkness from a great bonfire in a clearing not a hundred yards away. About the fire are a dozen or so huts, crude things of daub and wattle. Families crouch before them, their faces lit, their eyes drawn to the leaping flames. Dark figures dance and whirl about the pyre, dancing to a crude yet haunting melody played on a single four-stringed instrument, its strangely exotic sound drifting out to us. The villagers sway from side to side, caught up in the song, clapping along to its rhythm, and then, suddenly, a voice picks up the melody and is quickly joined by others.

I feel the hairs on my neck bristle. The sound is beautiful, so pure and innocent. But I’ve no time now for such sentiments. My wrist is aching from carrying the sword, the muscles of my right arm stiff with tension. We are almost upon them, and as we come to within yards of the clearing’s edge, so the Meister’s voice cries out and we begin to run, our fierce yells of rage drowning out their song, which falters and stops.

They’re screaming now, running this way and that, trying to flee into the forest as our men go among them, swinging their swords viciously. And those who do manage to slip away find themselves confronted by a second line of our men, standing out there among the trees, waiting to cut them down.

A young woman tears herself from the small group and runs towards me, yelling, her arms out to me. Her dark eyes implore me not to harm her, but even as I step back, a crossbow bolt knocks her down. I watch in horror as her hands scrabble at the welling patch of red in her side, a look of shocked surprise in her eyes. She struggles a moment longer, then convulses, dying with a whimper.

I look up. The huts are burning now, forming a great circle of brightness in the midst of that primordial dark. I turn, in time to see Brother Martin swing his blade and cleave a fleeing infant crown to navel, the child tumbling like a split fruit on to the carpet of bloodied leaves.

I howl and try to throw my sword away, but the muscles of my wrist are locked. And even as I do, the Meister himself strides across and, bellowing in my face, shoves me towards a group of cowering peasants, who crouch before a blazing hut.

There’s fear in their eyes, and an overwhelming hopelessness, and I want to tell them that I’m sorry. I want to say, ‘I have to do this, or my own people will die’, but I can’t. I am trapped in the moment, unable to deviate from it, and as I raise my sword again, I groan aloud and call to Urd herself to make this end.

But Urd is not watching, not protecting me from this, and as the dream goes on, I am forced once more to watch as, one by one, they die at my hand, screaming like frightened children, their souls flying up into the darkness like windswept embers. And when it’s done, I turn to find the Meister watching me, a broad smile on his face.

‘There,’ he says, clapping me on the back. ‘Not so hard, is it?’

The fires are raging now on every side, filling the dark night with their dazzling light, the blazing thatch roaring, the sound like a great torrent of falling water, glowing embers drifting on the gusting draughts like fireflies, carrying the blaze into the forest, setting parts of it alight, while at the centre of it all, the Knight Brothers, helms raised, lean on their bloodied swords and look about themselves, grinning and laughing, as if they’ve won some great victory.

Only I can’t fool myself like them. I want to tell them just how wrong this is, only I’m not here to do that. I’m here to help them establish a bridgehead in this pagan land. I’m here because Hecht sent me here. Because…

13

Light flickers, flashes, and I wake, pooled in my own sweat, gasping for breath.

‘Otto?’

Zarah is there, sitting across the room from me, watching. I sit up, planting my bare feet firmly on the floor, then look at her.

‘Bad dreams?’

I nod, but find I cannot talk. I don’t trust myself to talk.

‘Hecht told me,’ she says. ‘Some of it, anyway.’

I look about me for a drink. Zarah stands and comes across, holding a cup out to me.

‘Drink this. It’ll help.’

I meet her eyes, asking an unspoken query, and she smiles and nods. ‘Enough to keep you out for several days. But it’s your choice. You can keep suffering if you want to.’

I take the cup and down its contents in three large gulps, then slump back down, letting Zarah place the blanket over me. My eyes are already closed.

‘If you need to talk…’

But it’s not talk that I need. What I need is to forget. And not to dream. Not those kind of dreams, anyway.

‘So?’ She says, after a while. ‘Didn’t Ernst tell you?’

This time I answer her. ‘Tell me what?’

‘No matter.’

But when I open my eyes she’s gone, as if she too were a dream.

14

It happens that way sometimes. Things change, and we with them – our clothes, our memories, the things we’ve done in our lives. And we might not even know about it, only Hecht keeps track and lets us know.

It doesn’t happen often. Not the big changes. But when they do we all feel strange for a time, not quite knowing why.

When I next see Hecht, he seems different, though in what manner I’m not sure. He looks and acts the same. Only…

‘What is it, Otto?’ he asks, amused by the way I’m studying him.

‘Nothing.’

‘Good.’ He pauses, finishes something on the keyboard, then. ‘Feeling better?’

‘Yes. Much refreshed.’

‘Good. Then we’ll find you something to do.’

‘I thought…’

He looks up patiently. ‘Go on.’

‘I thought maybe I could take Ernst back. To the Haven. I realise it’s your space, but he’s going mad, being cooped up here.’

Hecht studies me coolly. ‘Cabin fever.’

‘What?’

‘It’s what they used to call it. What happened when people were cooped up together for too long. Cabin fever.’

I nod, then wait, and after a moment Hecht shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, Otto, but I can’t take that risk. We tried it once, remember?’

I look down, disappointed. Though I knew it would be his answer, I’d hoped he might perhaps relent. After all, what trouble could Ernst get up to so far back in time?

‘You want me to speak to him, Otto?’

‘No… no. I’ll go and see him now.’

Ernst is teaching when I find him, the boys hanging on to his every word as he tells them an anecdote from one of his journeys back. It’s one I know well, and I stand there listening in the shadowed doorway until he’s finished, and then – and only then – do I make my presence known.

‘It’s true,’ I say, stepping past the boys and grinning at Ernst, who is surprised to see me there. ‘I was there, and that’s exactly what happened.’

‘You blew them up?’ Tomas asks, eyes wide.

‘That’s right. They just walked right in and… boom! They never knew what hit them!’

The boys are delighted, but it’s not them I’ve come to see, and once Ernst has dismissed them, I sit him down. Only I can’t bring myself to tell him. He so wants to go back again.

‘Well?’ he asks. ‘What did Hecht say?’

‘I didn’t get to see him. He’s very busy right now.’

‘Busy?’

I nod. ‘He’s got a lot on his plate. Seydlitz’s project for a start.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘You’ll just have to be patient,’ I say, and hate myself for lying to him. ‘I’ll see him later. I promise. I’ll ask him then.’

Ernst looks down. ‘They’re still watching me.’

‘Watching you?’

‘Assessing me. To see if I’m stable. I look up sometimes and it’s like I can see them there, in the control room, watching me on the screen, looking for some nervous tick perhaps, or some self-betraying phrase.’

‘I guess they have to be careful.’

‘Careful, yes. But sometimes…’ He hesitates, glancing past me at the camera high up on the wall behind me. ‘Sometimes I think it’s more than that.’

15

Another night passes without rest, and when finally I sleep, I dream once more, awful bloody dreams where I am back there with the Knight Brothers, and of all the bad things we did in the name of Our Lady, and I wake, gilded with sweat, gasping for breath, as if I’ve been drowning in blood.

Unable to settle, I go to the sanctuary, where, before the image of Ygdrasil, the Tree of Existence, I give offerings to Urd, Goddess of Fate, Queen of Life and Death.

This is our religion, and in this I believe, strangely enough. Rational as I am, this fulfils some need in me. Why? Perhaps because it is the only faith that reflects both the strengths and weaknesses of mankind, a religion that does not ask its followers to be any better than its gods. And yet…

Yet there is still a small, argumentative part of me that does not believe. My ‘mathematical soul’ as I call it. And that part finds such emotional comfort little more than a superior theatre show. Yet, cold as I might appear, aloof as I am, my emotional self believes. I know the gods exist, and that when I die my soul – yes, and my bodily self – will go to Valhalla, there to feast with the gods.

I close my eyes and lower my head, saying the words of the ritual.

‘Great Mother Urd protect me and guide me. All-Father Odin, grant me the strength of will to do my duty.’ And it is true. Urd does protect me and watch over me. She, above all, safeguards my deeper self. She is my strength. If ever I lost my faith in her…

I open my eyes and look up at the World Tree, nodding to myself. The great ash is the image of our cosmos: its roots stretch back into the Past, its great trunk forms the Present, its branches unfold into the Future. So life is, and we… we are but leaves upon that Tree.

I have travelled the length and breadth of Time, and I have seen more than mortal man ought, yet only here do I find myself truly at peace, body and soul at one. Here, yes, and in one other place.

But I shall speak of that another time.

I stand, and as I do, I realise that Hecht is there, just behind me, his back to the door.

‘Forgive me, Otto. I didn’t mean to intrude.’

‘It’s okay. I was just—’

Hecht smiles. ‘I know. I come here every day.’

I nod, understanding the feelings that we share about this place. Even so, I feel embarrassed, as if I have been caught doing something illicit, something very… personal. Sensing this, Hecht steps back a little.

‘If you’d rather I came back…’

‘No… come and worship with me.’

And, turning back, I kneel once more, bowing my head before the holy ash, even as Hecht kneels beside me and, bowing his head, takes up the litany.