WSIM24B Ch. 07

WSIM24B Chapter 7

I ran.

Nika was dead. I would have been dead, too, except for a sudden and unnatural feeling that had warned me not to go into the barn.

There was nothing to do now but run. I had only a dagger; my sword was back in the house. The mere idea of standing and fighting was sheer lunacy. There were five of them, and I suspected that there were only two that I had a chance against, one on one. They had swords, and they had horses. That certainly affected my choices.

I ran in the exact opposite direction of the path we had come in on. I ran roughly parallel to the road we had followed, where Teck and his crew had ambushed and murdered the horsemen while Nika and I played rearguard.

I ran between the trees. There was some undergrowth, but it was hardly impenetrable. This was a new forest (in the sense that it wasn't old growth). People had obviously been living in this region for a long time, and harvesting the forest's resources, cutting trees for building, or for firewood, and harvesting the undergrowth for kindling. That made it easier for me to move quickly. But it would also make it easier for Teck's gang to follow my trail. I could only hope that none of them were experienced trackers. Somehow, though, I doubted that Teck would have neglected that skill when he recruited his team.

Trackers. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little device that Nika had cut from the back of my shoulder. I had covered perhaps two kilometres when I saw a steep slope off to my left. Even better, there was a little rocky overhang, overlooking a straight drop of twenty or thirty meters. I barely broke stride as I tossed the little tracker over the side.

And I ran.

Then I slowed my pace, just a bit, so that I could think. I needed a plan.

Captain Teck wanted me dead. If I made it at all difficult for them to find me, would they possibly give up and move on? After all, what did I know that could hurt them? I knew that they had murdered the young men - but I had no idea who the victims were. Nika and I had killed one, too.

Who was I going to tell? I was a stranger in a strange land - very much friendless and alone. I needed information. But I was going to need water and food, first. That might mean that I had to interact with the locals.

Going to a small village was fraught with danger. I would stand out like a sore thumb, and the people were sure to remember the tall stranger with the outrageous accent. The tall ignorant stranger. On top of my other difficulties, Teck had kept us almost completely in the dark about where we were. I was a babe in the woods, here.

As I ran, I changed my mind. Teck and his cronies were less likely to murder me in front of witnesses. I was also going to be better off out of the woods, once it got dark. I wasn't afraid of bandits; the bandits should be afraid of me. But wild animals were a completely different story, especially if they travelled in packs.

I turned more towards my right. I didn't know whether this planet even had cardinal points, so I couldn't use the single sun as a guide. my primary goal was to put as much distance between myself and Teck's crew as possible. I wanted to cross the road, and find a large village or small town where travellers would be common. I did have one resource, other than my dagger; as I ran, the pouch of coins I'd taken from the dead man slapped against my hip. I didn't know what they were worth; enough to buy a drink and some food?

I ran. Thank you, AFOTA, and thank you, ISEC, for making me run until I wanted to puke. Now I could sustain a pretty good pace for hours, even over rough terrain.

I stopped to drink from a stream. I could hear my heart beating, but otherwise, the forest was still. No horses' hooves, no running humans. The birds had gone silent as I ran by.

I ran. And then I found the road. I looked both ways, and then sprinted across it. Now I turned more to the left, again parallel to the road. It had to lead somewhere - my guess was some kind of large town or city.

I found a well-worn track, and followed it. There were people on it - peasants, by their rough dress. They were taken aback to see me jogging down the path. Note to self: don't jog. I slowed to a walk.

I saw an older fellow with a younger man - his son? The old man smiled and nodded as I approached them. On impulse, I decided to try out my linguistic skills.

- "Hello." I said. "Where am I headed?"

They both just looked at me, eyes wide. Was it my height? They were both fairly short - maybe five foot five, or six.

"What lies ahead?" I tried. I pointed down the path, behind them.

- "Ah!" said the old man. "Civita Castellana."

- "Thank you." I said.

- "You're welcome."

Civita Castellana? Even in modern Italian, that made sense. How could this planet have developed a Latin-based language on its own, independent of Earth? Or was this some sort of forgotten colony? The old man seemed friendly enough; I decided to try a second question.

- "Is there a large town, or a city nearby?"

The old man looked confused for a moment. Perhaps it was my diction, or my accent. Then he shrugged. "Ma... si. Roma." He turned, and pointed back the way he had come.

"Well... yes. Rome." That's what he said. I'm sure that my mouth fell open.

Rome?

- "Your pardon, Signore." I said. "The bells. The other day - the bells were ringing. Why?"

- "Abbiamo un padre."

Literally translated, he said: "We have a father."

If this old man's father was still alive, then I was the King of Spain. And why would all of the bells be ringing for his old dad? He meant Father with a capital 'F'. My head was swimming.

- "Your pardon." I said again. "What is the date, today?"

- "It's the day before the Feast of the Assumption." he said. "August 14th."

- "What year, Sir?"

The old man looked at me as if I was some sort of alien - which I suppose I was.

- "Why... the Year of Our Lord 1492, of course."

I nearly fell over.

'Abbiamo un padre' - 'We have a father'. Rome. 1492. What he was really saying was "We have a Pope."

I was on Earth. We had gone back in time. The Halygon ship I'd been on was a time machine.

***

I managed to extricate myself from the old man and his son - though they must have thought that I was out of my mind.

1492?

Were Captain Teck and his team here to change history? You can't go back and mess with history - I knew that from science fiction tropes. Hell, for all I knew, Teck and his crew had murdered an ancestor of mine, which meant that I wouldn't exist in the future. That was a silly line of thought. I was here, now, and I had to do something about that.

I walked into Civita Castellana, and then found a place to sleep, behind a house. A place to rest, I should say; I certainly didn't sleep. Travelling through time will make a mess of your thoughts.

By the light of the dawn, I was no further ahead. Some strange impulse made me examine the coins in the pouch I carried. One silver coin said Pont.Max and Pavlus II. There was a portrait of a bearded man holding a sword and a book. On the other side, there was a coat of arms - a shield, with stripes. Over the top, there were crossed keys.

I'm no scholar, but it wasn't all that hard to figure out what I was looking at.

Pont.Max was Pontifex Maximus. Chief Priest, in Latin. Pope. The crossed keys confirmed it. I looked at another silver coin. It too had a bearded man with a sword and a book, and the letters Pont.Max, Syxtus IV. I couldn't doubt it any longer: these were Papal coins.

My head was swimming. I found the morning market in Civita Castellana. I managed to buy some food, and to pay for it by holding out my hand with three copper coins in it. The farmer took one of them. So far, so good. I hadn't made too much of a spectacle of myself.

If the old man I'd questioned started telling everyone he knew about the tall stranger who didn't know what year it was... well, there wasn't much I could do about that. In future, though, I would need some kind of cover story, something to explain my accent, and my unfamiliarity with the language. And recent history.

Yes, I could speak and understand Italian, and I had learned the archaic version in sleepread. The difference, at times, was enormous. It was like modern standard English compared to Shakespeare - or maybe even Chaucer. On top of that, I didn't have a hope of understanding some of the regional dialects.

I would have to pretend that Italian was my second or third language. Then I needed to identify a first language that virtually no one in Italy would recognize. A place of origin, too. But I had to be careful with that one; I didn't want to run into someone from that very place - it could lead to an uncomfortable conversation. 'Oh, you're from X? So am I! You must know So and So!'

There was plenty of time to work on my identity. I stayed off the road, so it took me three full days to walk to Rome.

***

I slept outside the city that night, and entered Rome the next morning.

The Eternal City was awful. It stank. Yes, much of it was because of unwashed bodies. But there was also human and animal waste everywhere. People dumped the contents of their chamber pots in the street. Those who lived on the second or third floor of a building didn't bother carrying it down the stairs, either. I narrowly dodged being splattered several times.

Despite the early hour, I was propositioned by prostitutes at least three times. That had to mean that I was in the wrong part of town. But the prostitutes were everywhere.

I found myself in a large square, or piazza, dominated by a strange building. It had a tower, like a large church or cathedral would have had, but the front featured Roman-style columns. Ancient Roman, I mean. I learned later that this was the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for, yet, so I wandered away from there, and found all the proof I needed that I was actually in Rome - the historical Rome, on Earth. There it was: the Colosseum.

I had gone back in time.

Though I could have walked right in, and explored the ruins, I had a more urgent task: I needed to find a place to hide from Teck and his crew, and a way to support myself until I could find my feet.

I walked around a hill - the Palatine - and found the ruins of the Circus Maximus. I changed direction. That road led me to the river.

The Tiber stank, too. It reeked like an open sewer. There was an island in the river, but I didn't want to linger; I'd seen something that looked like a body, floating face down.

It was a hot day, and I needed a break out of the sun. I found a small square with a large fountain where I could get water to splash my face. I didn't dare drink from it - not after what I'd just seen (and smelled).

There was another magnificent church, of course. It was another Basilica - the Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevere - Trastevere being the name of the district. I decided that a little sit-down in the shade, and some peace and quiet might be just what I needed. Rome was a large, intimidating city, and I was certain that there were plenty of dangerous places to avoid.

There was some sort of ceremony going on up front, so I sat well to the rear. That was when I finally caught a break - just a little bit of luck finally went my way.

- "What are you talking about?" hissed a man, standing just off to the left of the Basilica entrance.

- "We have to do something." said a second man.

They had my full attention, because they were speaking Spanish. That was more than a little interesting to me, because I had already decided that while Italian would be my third language, Spanish would be my second. I left the last pew, and approached them.

The first speaker was short - maybe 5'6". I was on the way to discovering that that was closer to average height for men, here and now. But the second fellow was as tall as me. He towered over his companion. Both carried swords as well as daggers. They weren't dressed well enough to be nobles - fighting men, then.

- "Excuse me, gentlemen." I said, in Spanish. "I couldn't help hearing that you were speaking Spanish."

The big man frowned as he looked me over. "What happened to you?"

I could understand his reaction. My face was scratched, and my clothes were torn, from the branches I'd run into while fleeing through the forest. I hadn't bathed since the ambush on the road, and I'd slept out of doors the past three nights.

- "I was ambushed on the road." I said. "I was unhorsed. My servants were killed, or fled. I killed one of the assailants, but there were too many of them. I lost my sword, running through the woods. My clothes were ruined. I bought these -" I indicated what I was wearing "from a man in Civita Castellana."

- "Civita Castellana?"' said the big man. "Where were you ambushed?"

- "North of there, I think." The sun had been rising on my right as I ran away from Nika's murderers, and then every morning as I walked to Rome.

- "Orte? Just past Orte?"

- "I'm not sure." I admitted.

The shorter man was looking at me oddly. "Why do you speak so strangely?" he asked.

Alright. I had chosen my cover story; it was time to see if it would fly.

- "My name is Torun de Peregrino." Thorn de Pilgrim. I could remember that. "My father was Spanish; my mother is from Courland."

- "Courland?" said the shorter man. He had no idea where that was. Good.

- "In the Baltic?" said the taller fellow, who I now decided was fairly intelligent, if also quite ugly.

- "Yes."

The Grand Duchy of Courland would later - much later - become the country of Estonia. And so far, I was telling nothing but truth. My father was Spanish, and my mother Estonian. She had insisted that I learn both languages, if only so that I could speak to my maternal grandparents.

I told the two Spaniards that my father was a traveller, and that he had finally summoned me to join him here, in Italy. I had to make up a few things as I went along, such as the 'fact' that my travelling companion had been carrying our money and our letters of introduction. Then I had to play stupid, and admit that I didn't know who they were addressed to.

- "So you are alone? And penniless?" asked the shorter man.

- "Alone, for now, yes. But not quite penniless." I hefted the little purse attached to my belt.

- "You should learn to wear that inside your shirt." said the taller man. "There are plenty of thieves in Rome. And worse."

- "That's good advice. Thank you." I said.

The big man extended his hand. "Miguel de Corella." he said.

I shook his hand, and then the shorter man followed suit. "Diego de Ramires." I shook hands with him as well. I had been right to add a 'de' to my name; these two seemed prepared to accept me as their equal (or near-equal). That was an achievement, I thought, given the state of my clothes.

- "If it would not be too presumptuous of me..." I began, "perhaps I could ask you two gentlemen to direct me to a Spanish chapel in the city - and to some, hmm... affordable lodgings? For the time being."

- "We can do that." said Ramires. "In fact, we can do even better - we can show you a decent tavern on the way."

- "Then I insist on paying for the round." I said. "It's the least I can do, to repay your generosity."

To be clear, they hadn't been that generous, yet. The big fellow - Corella - wasn't particularly warm. In fact, he was in a shitty mood, unless I was much mistaken. Ramires was much more pleasant, especially since I'd offered to pay for drinks.

We left the basilica and the square. They led me through the Trastevere district (the name meant 'across the Tiber', so it was probably the wrong side of the river in ancient Roman times). It was a warren of narrow lanes and fetid alleys, but we emerged into a pleasant little square with much finer houses on two sides.

Across the square, they led me down a lane so narrow that it was dark, even at midday. Yes, it had occurred to me that I was taking a risk in trusting them - but how many thieves hang about inside basilicas? More important, I had approached them.

They turned into an unmarked doorway. There was no sign, no indication that it was a tavern - yet that's precisely what it was.

It was quite dark inside, so that it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. If they had wanted to mug me, that would have been the perfect opportunity.

- "Diego! Miguel!" Someone here knew them, obviously. It turned out to be Ramires' younger brother, Pedro. They weren't twins, but they certainly looked that way. Diego was the elder by 11 months. He had a full head of curly hair, whereas Pedro's hair was thinner, and straighter.

Introductions were performed. Pedro was understandably a little more guarded with a complete stranger, but Diego explained how I'd been shipwrecked and attacked by bandits. Obviously, he wasn't the type to be obsessed with facts.

Corella ordered a bottle of wine, so I produced my purse, and pulled out one of my silver coins. I put it on the table. I glanced at the big man, and reached for another.

- "That's plenty, for now." he said.

The wine was God-awful. I was by no means a wine drinker, but even I could tell that this was vinegary piss. Cheap piss, but piss nonetheless. I wasn't going to be able to drink enough of it to get drunk - not that I the slightest intention of doing that.

The Ramires brothers toasted me, and then Pedro insisted on hearing my story. Miguel de Corella, though, was much more interested in the details of the attack on my party.

When you're lying, keep it simple. I stuck to the basic details of my mixed Spanish/Courlander heritage. Now I had to try to remember some Old Earth geography. Would I have sailed from Estonia to Spain, and then to Italy? Too far, I decided.

- "We sailed to Germany." I said. "My companion had business in Hamburg. Then we came south, to Munich."

- "And then on to Trent?" asked big Miguel.

He was ugly, but he didn't look stupid. Was this a trap? Unfortunately for him, I'd had an AFOTA simulation based on Napoleon's Italian campaigns of 1798 and 1800. I had no idea where these places actually were, but I'd seen them on a map, and I knew the route that some of the Austrian reinforcements had taken.

- "Trent, Verona, Mantua and Modena, to Bologna."

- "And then Florence?" said Pedro. The Ramires brothers clearly weren't helping Corella figure out if I was on the level. "Was Florence still in mourning?"

- "For?"

He looked at me oddly. "Lorenzo."

- "Lorenzo the Magnificent?" I guessed. That was the only Lorenzo I'd ever heard of.

- "Who else?"

Miguel relaxed a little. I knew enough Italian geography to convince him - for the moment - that I might be what I claimed to be. But he wanted a blow by blow description of the ambush that had claimed most, if not all, of my fellow travellers.

Again, when lying, go with what you know. I gave a rough description of Captain Teck, Faraz and Will, and then hinted that some of the robbers might have been women.

- "It's true." I said. "They stood on the road as we approached. We slowed to a halt, naturally. A man and two women, standing on the road? We didn't expect any trouble. But they had crossbows. And at close range, they didn't miss."

- "Women? I can't believe that." said Diego.

- "Believe it, my friend."

I've given you plenty of reasons to believe that I'm very good with women - at least when it comes to getting them to have sex with me. A ladies' man, if you like. Well, trust me when I say that I can also do the 'Guys' guy'. Good cheer, camaraderie, the fake earnestness... I perfected all of those at AFOTA, and learned some new wrinkles with ISEC. The Ramires brothers were eating out of my hand. I had struck the right note so far with my polite, slightly formal language. Big Miguel still had his doubts, but it was going well until I put my foot in it.