Conrad Starguard - The Crosstime Enginee Part 5

When I was first learning English, I was shocked to discover that an intelligent, educated, English-speaking person of the twentieth century was unable to read Chaucer in the original without taking special college courses. Think about it! A language changed to unintellegibility in six hundred years. No, less than that, because two hundred years later Shakespeare wrote his plays, and they are intelligible to the educated American.

On the other hand, any decently educated twentieth century Spaniard can enjoy The Poem of the Cid without difficulty, and it was written in 1140. The Slavic languages are among the world's most stable. The east and west Slavs-the Russians and the Poles-split off from each other around the middle of the first millennium. Yet, despite the fifteen hundred years of separate development, it is possible-by speaking slowly and listening carefully-for a Pole and a Russian to communicate.

So, despite my trouble, things could have had been much worse. Had I been dumped into thirteenth-century England, I would not have been able to make myself understood. As it was, people thought that I had a funny accent, but I could get by.

That night I was talking to Roman Makowski, the poet.

"What do you plan to do once we get to Cracow?" I asked.

"Plan? I have no plans other than to do what I have always done, follow the muse."

"But how is that going to keep you alive? Winter is coming on." "Something will turn up. Who knows? Perhaps the keeper of a prosperous brothel will want seductive scenes painted on his walls for the encouragement of his patrons, and I shall be paid some of my fees in trade. The muse takes care of her own."

"The muse has not done well by you thus far."

"This must be admitted. Are you offering some suggestions?"

"One. Father Ignacy is in need of copyists, and you are qualified for this work. If you were to impress him with your character and ask him politely, you might be offered a job."

"Father Ignacy is already impressed with my character, though not favorably. I might better ask a job of the Devil; at least there would be a chance of acceptance. Furthermore, the prospect of working all winter in a monastery is frightening. Consider-a whole season of sobriety! Months without touching a woman! An eternity of waking, up every three hours to pray! No, the Devil would make a better offer."

"Get serious, kid. A month from now you could be dead of cold or starvation!

You'd best not ignore the only iron you have in the fire!"

"The only iron in the fire! What an excellent phrase! May I borrow it?"

"Yes, and stop changing the subject. Are you going to follow my suggestion?"

"Sir Conrad, what exactly do you think I should do?" "To start with you should ask him to confess you, and after that you might try praying a little."

"Oh, very well. It certainly can't hurt, and it might help. That artistic wh.o.r.emaster could still turn up!"

I shook my head. "Go to sleep, kid."

We got to Cracow so late the next day that we walked the last kilometer by torchlight.

As we tied up to the dock, Tadaos said, "Well, lads, we made it. You can sleep on the boat tonight-at no charge-or there's a pa.s.sable inn up that street on your left."

"Thank you for the invitation, but I'll never sleep on a grain sack again," I said.

"I share Sir Conrad's feelings," Father Ignacy said. "But first there's the question of our remuneration."

"But of course. I'd almost forgotten." The boatman counted out fifteen pence each to the priest and me and six pence to the poet. I guess he hadn't bargained as well.

Father Ignacy and I started off. I called back, "Tadaos, aren't you coming?" "And leave my grain for the thieves? I shall sleep well enough here. You go, and come back in the spring if you need work!"

"I just might do that." The poet was staring at us wistftilly. "Come on, kid.

I'll buy you a beer." He followed us like a puppy dog. The inn was sleazy, and the beer was sour. The food wasn't good, and the service was surly. Nonetheless, it was the first roof over our heads in five days, and it felt good to sit on something that wasn't a grain sack. Food and lodging were a penny each, which didn't seem bad until I discovered that we all had to share the same bed.

I don't know why it felt strange getting into bed with two other menfor the past five nights, we'd been snuggling together for warmth under my unzipped sleeping bag-but somehow it did.

Three in the bed wouldn't have been so bad, but we soon discovered that we had a few thousand uninvited guests. I spent half my time scratching fleas and the other half being shaken awake as my bunkmates scratched theirs. By midnight I'd had it with the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Tadaos's boat might be cold and lumpy, but at least it was free of vermin. My invitation was doubtless still good, so I crept out of bed, put on my pack, and felt my way down the dark hallway and out into the street.

The street was as dark as the hallway of the inn. The night was cloudy, and there were no outdoor lights at all. I fumbled through my pack until I found the candle stub . I lit it with my cigarette lighter, redonned my pack, and headed for the river.

Most of my attention was focused on keeping the candle lit while watching where I put my feet.

The boats on the river were the darkest of shadows, and I couldn't tell one from the other.

"Tadaos!" I shouted, "where are you? Tadaos! Wake up !" "Eh? What? d.a.m.n!" his familiar voice yelled. I suddenly realized that there were four figures on his boat: Tadaos at the stem and three other men who were crawling toward him with naked daggers!

"Look out!" I shouted, but the boatman was already fiercely swinging his steering oar down at the head of one of his a.s.sailants. A loud crack told of both oar and skull breaking.

I was dumbfounded. If I put down the candle and aided Tadaos, we'd be fighting in the dark.

The only thing I had approaching a decent weapon was my camp hatchet, but it was deep within my pack. I fumbled out my Buck knife and was worrying it open with one hand.

Tadaos showed no such hesitation. As the first thief collapsed at his feet, he threw the broken stub of the oar into the face of the second. Even as the thief raised his hands to ward off the sharp broken wood, Tadaos had his belt knife out. He was on his man in an instant, and with a single, brutal upthrust he put his long knife under the thief's ribs and into his heart. The third thief, seeing Tadaos's deadly efficiency in front of him-and probably my size behind him-these were all very small people broke and ran. He shoved past me before I had my jackknife open and ran for the cover of some trees. Faster than I would have believed possible, the boatman had his bow out and bent. As the thief ran past the first of the trees, Tadaos let fly. The arrow caught the man in the throat, knocking him off his feet and nailing him to the tree.

All this had happened in a few seconds, in horrifying silence and to the dim flickering of a single candle.

I shined the light into the boat. Tadaos was unbending his bow, obviously unhurt. The forehead of the first thief was caved in, a b.l.o.o.d.y notch centimeters wide and centimeters deep running from his nose to the top of his head, obviously a death wound.

The second was on his back with a knife buried to the hilt in his solar plexus, the hilt pointing downward. His eyes were open, his features bore an expression of astonishment, and he wasn't breathing.

The last thief was struggling feebly at the tree. I finally got my jackknife open and went to him with some vague idea about cutting him down and administering first aid.

Tadaos brushed by me.

"Thanks, Sir Conrad, but it was me they were trying to kill, so the honors are mine." With no more concern than if he had been swatting a mosquito, the boatman put his b.l.o.o.d.y knife efficiently into the thief's jugular vein and then carefully slit the throat open to remove his arrow for reuse without damaging the fletching.

I was too shocked and horrified to do anything. "But shouldn't we call the police?"

"Police? You mean the Guard? Sir Conrad, are you absolutely out of your mind?" He searched the body and wiped his knife clean on the man's trousers "d.a.m.n, not a penny on him."

He sheathed his knife, slipped the arrow under his belt, and started dragging the corpse back toward his boat . "Would you mind getting his feet? Well, I guess you would mind, judging from your expression. Can't you understand that these cutthroats were about to rob and murder me?" He dragged the body until he saw the knife the man had dropped. "Now that's a well-made thing," he said, handling it. "Tools of his trade, as it were. Worth thirty pence easily at either of the knife shops in Cracow. I'm tempted to keep it. Still, it might be recognized. Best to play it safe." He pitched it twenty meters into the river.

"Stop!" I said, too late. "You'll need that for evidence to prove that they came at you armed."

"Evidence? Are you still thinking about the Guard? Sir Conrad, the night must have fuddled your head. Consider our position! We are strangers here. These men are doubtless locals with dozens of friends and relatives who would swear to their honesty and good character. We'd both be in jail for six months even if they did find us innocent, which is unlikely. Personally, I have no intention of being hanged."

By this time he had the body into the river and was giving it a good shove into the current. The weapons and bodies of the other two men got the same watery grave.

My G.o.d! I had spent five days in the company of a cold-blooded murderer!

Tadaos washed his knife and arrow and said, "Well, time I got back to sleep. Thank you for calling out when you did. You probably saved my life. But what were you doing out at this time of the night?"

"Well, uh ... there were fleas in the inn, and I couldn't sleep."

"You're welcome to sleep on the boat, Sir Conrad."

"Uh, no ... no. I'll head back."

"As you like. Come to me in the spring if you need work."

Eventually I crawled back into bed with the priest and the poet and the fleas.

It was a long while before I fell asleep.

At first gray light, the priest announced his intention of finding a public bath; Roman and I followed him, scratching at our new boarders. The bath was another penny, although we got our clothes laundered in the bargain. Two huge wooden tubs were sunk into the floor: a warm one for scrubbing with a foul-smelling brown soap and a hot one for rinsing and soaking. I'd been more than a week without a bath, and it was glorious. The public bath was just that-there were a dozen other men in with us. I heard some feminine giggles, and I looked around in the smoky gloom.

Everybody had moustaches.

I eventually realized that the room and the tubs had been built twice their apparent size and that a wooden room divider had been added later. The other side was for women. There were a few knotholes in the wood. "A good thing, that wall," Father Ignacy said. "The Church had to threaten the bathhouse keepers with excommunication before they put them up." "You mean that bathing used to be both s.e.xes together?"

"Yes. A disgusting barbarism."

I kept my opinions to myself and turned my attention to shaving. In my mirror, I saw Roman wander with extreme casualness over to the part.i.tion and quickly peek through a knothole. Later, I sat down next to him in the hot tub. "I saw you at the knothole," I whispered. "Father Ignacy might have seen you as well. Have you forgotten that you are trying to impress him with your good character so he'll give you a job?"

"No, sir, but temptation is a hard thing to resist."

"Agreed. Did you see anything worthwhile?"

"All I saw was another eye staring back at me."

When we left the bathhouse, the sun was bright and the church bells were ringing.

"Ah, tierce already," Father Ignacy said. "I must go and report to my new abbot. Sir Conrad, I suggest that you spend the day amusing yourself in the city and then visit me at the Franciscan monastery a little after none." "Tierce?" I asked. "None?"

"When the sun is there," he said pointing to a mid-afternoon position, "and you hear the bells, it will be none." He left without mentioning Roman. I said, "Well, we have some time to kill. Shall we start with some food?" "Some food would be welcome, Sir Conrad, but then I must leave you and search for a way to make a living. I compute that my week's wages will be gone by tomorrow morning."

"I thought that we'd decided that you were going to work at the monastery."

"We have decided, but Father Ignacy has not."

The dock area was incredibly sleazy, with shabby wooden huts crowding an unpaved road. The road was ankle-deep in s.h.i.t. Human s.h.i.t, horse s.h.i.t, dog s.h.i.t, pig s.h.i.t, cow s.h.i.t, and doubtless other variet ies that did not immediately impinge on my consciousness. I tried to maintain a stoic att.i.tude as the foul, oily stuff squished and sucked at my boots, "If we eat here, we'll likely pick up a new set of fleas," I said. "Let's go within the city walls to find our dinner; it must be cleaner there." "It won't be cleaner, Sir Conrad, but it might be drier."

The city walls were brick. They were only four meters high and in poor repair. They could not be of any military use, but their purpose was evident when a sleepy guard demanded a toll of us.

After a few minutes of haggling, he let us both through for a penny. It was no cleaner inside the city. People threw- their garbage directly into the streets, and pigs ran loose, scavenging through it.

Dogs fought each other for sc.r.a.ps, and chickens picked at the leavings. How people determined the ownership of the animals was beyond me.

Yet in juxtaposition to this unbelievable filth, men and women in gorgeous finery rode tall horses through the fetid mire, ignoring the s.h.i.t as they ignored those of us on foot. I soon found myself ignoring those haughty, velvet-covered visions right back.

We found an inn that looked fairly clean, or at least cleaner than the first four we had looked into. After more d.i.c.kering with the innkeeper, during which time he insisted on seeing our money, we settled on a halfpenny each for all we wanted of pork stew, bread, and ale.

As we sat down at the table, a female voice asked, "Would you like some company?"

She looked to be about twelve years old and underfed. Her dress was dirty and patched, and she was not clean. She was barefoot, and she was trying to smile and keep her eyes off the steaming bowl of stew in front of me. "Why not?" I asked. "You look hungry. Would you like some dinner?"

"Well..."

"Innkeeper, bring a third meal to our table!"

"Yes, Sir Conrad!" he shouted from a back room. But when he arrived with a tray of food and drink, he saw the girl and said, "You again! How many times must I chase you out of here? Sir Conrad, surely you can't expect me to serve beggars and prost.i.tutes."

"Surely I can expect you to show a bit of Christian charity! This is a little girl who is hungry.

Now, put the food on the table." "But you don't know what she is!"

"I know that she's hungry."

"But the cost-"

"I ordered it, and I'll pay for it. Now do as I say."

He left the tray on the table and walked off, grumbling. I stood and served the girl myself. "All of this haggling and argument is beginning to spoil my disposition."

"A thing to be guarded against," Roman said. "It spoils the digestion, and that can be ill afforded when good food is available in plenty." "Yes, Sir Conrad. Please, sit down," the girl said.

So I sat. Introductions were made. Her name was Malenka. She was an orphan and had lived in Cracow for two years. Conversation drifted in the course of the meal, and it was soon obvious that she survived by renting her body to all comers.

"And what do you charge for this?" Roman asked.

She looked at me, trying to smile. "I was hoping you'd ask. A day and a night for only a penny."

I saw Roman fumbling among his dwindling supply of coins, and I thought it best to nip this in the bud. I took three pennies from my pocket and put them in front of her. "Do you go to church?"

"Yes, my lord. Every morning." Her eyes were downcast. "It's a good place to find customers."

"Well, next time I want you to do some praying."

"Yes, my lord. But I am yours for the next three days. Where shall we go?" I had been a long time without a woman, and I confess that I was tempted. But this brutal century had not yet deprived me of my morals, and Conrad Schwartz was not a molester of children.

"I shall go to the Franciscan monastery, and you shall stay right here. It seems that you have offended the innkeeper somehow. You will make it up to him by working for him for three days."

"The innkeeper!" she cried.

"You will wash his dishes, sweep his floors, and sleep alone." "What?" Roman exploded. "Sir Conrad, this is a foul jest! If you won't make use of her, then by the muse, I will!"

"By G.o.d, you will not! What will you tell Father Ignacy when you next confess to him? That you took an adolescent girl by force?"

"What force? She offered, and you paid!" Roman stood. "She was forced by hunger and poverty, which are more persuasive than any sword or club. And a good deal more brutal! Now, sit down and finish your beer." The innkeeper came over. "Forgive me, Sir Conrad, but I couldn't help overhearing much of what was said. What is it that you are planning?" "I'm going to give you a servant for three days. Put her to honest work. If she's useful, you might consider some more permanent arrangement with her. Is this acceptable to you?"

"Well, yes. But why are you doing this?"