Again, no answer.
He frowned. The door to the bedroom-office was open, and the "castle"
certainly wasn't so large that his voice couldn't carry from one end
of it to the other.
His shoulder throbbed faintly, but otherwise he was unaware of his
wound. Rowena had bound it neatly--it was said that Age-of-Chivalry
gentlewomen were quite proficient in such matters--and apparently she
had once again got hold of the right counteragent.
He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. So far, so good.
Tentatively, he stood up. A wave of vertigo broke over him. After it
passed, he was as good as new. The blood-restorer pills had done their
work well.
Nevertheless, everything was not as it should be. Something was very
definitely wrong. "Rowena!" he called again.
Still no answer.
She had removed his armor and piled it neatly at the foot of the bed.
He stared at the various pieces, trying desperately to think.
Something had awakened him--that was it. The slamming of a door ... or
a lock.
He look a deep breath. He smelled green things. Dampness. A forest at
eventide....
He knew then what was wrong. The lock of the _Yore_ had been opened
and had been left open long enough for the evening air to permeate the
interior of the TSB; long enough, in other words, to have permitted
someone to ride across the imaginary drawbridge that spanned the
mirage-moat. Afterward, the lock had slammed back into place of its
own accord.
He hurried into the rec-hall. Easy Money stood all alone behind the
tourist-bar. The black rohorse was gone.
His eyes leaped to the rec-hall table. The Sangraal was gone, too.
He groaned. The little idiot was taking it back! And after he had
forbidden her to leave the "castle" too! Well no, he hadn't forbidden
her exactly: he had forbidden her to leave it _during his absence_.
He walked over to the telewindow nearest the lock and scrutinized the
screen. She was nowhere in sight, but night was on hand and the range
of his vision, while considerably abetted by the light of the rising
moon, was limited to the nearer trees.
Presently he frowned. Was it still the same night, or had he been
unconscious for almost twenty-four hours?
It _couldn't_ be the same night--the position of the moon disproved
that. And yet he could swear that he had been unconscious for no more
than a few hours.
* * * * *
Belatedly, he remembered his gauntlet timepiece, and returned to the
bedroom-office. The timepiece registered 10:32. But that didn't make
any sense either: the moon was still low in the sky.
He knew then that there could be but one answer, and he headed for the
control room posthaste. Sure enough, the jump-board time-dial had been
set for 8:00 p.m. of the same day. He looked at the space-dial. That
had been set to re-materialize the _Yore_ one half mile farther west.
He wiped his forehead. Good Lord, she might have sent the TSB all the
way back to the Age of Reptiles! Even worse, she might have plunked it
right down in the middle of WWIII!
She hadn't, though. In point of fact, she had done exactly what she
had set out to do--taken the _Yore_ back to a point in time from which
the Sangraal could be returned to the castle of Carbonek less than an
hour after it had been stolen.
Suddenly he remembered how she had watched him from the doorway of the
control room each time he had reset the time and space-dials.
Technologically speaking, she was little more than a child, but
jump-boards were as uncomplicated as modern technology could make
them, and a person needed to be but little more than a child to
operate them.
Grimly, Mallory returned to his bedroom-office and got into his armor;
then, ignoring the throbbing of his reawakened wound, he mounted Easy
Money and set out. He had no weapons, but it could not be helped. With
a little luck, he would have need of none. He was about due for a
little luck, if you asked him.
He gambled that Rowena would use the same route back to the chamber of
the Sangraal that they had used in leaving it--actually, she had no
other choice--and he encephalo-guided Easy Money at a fast trot in the
direction of the river in the hope of overtaking her before she
reached the entrance to the subterranean passage. However, the hope
did not materialize, and he saw no sign of her till he reached the
entrance himself. Strictly speaking, he saw no sign of her then
either, but he did discern several dislodged stones that could have
been thrown up by the black rohorse's hoofs.
[Illustration]
Entering the passage, he frowned. Until that moment, the incongruity
of a sixth-century damosel encephalo-guiding a twenty-second century
rohorse had not struck him. After a moment, though, he had to admit
that the incongruity was not as glaring as it had at first seemed.
"Encephalopathing" was merely a glorified term for "thinking," and
Rowena, shortly after mounting Perfidion's steed, must have made the
discovery that she had only to think where she wanted to go in order
for the rohorse to take her there.
He had not remembered to bring a light, nor did he need one. The
infra-red rays of Easy Money's eye units were more than sufficient for
the task on hand, and overtaking the girl would have been as easy as
rolling off a log--if she hadn't been riding a rohorse, too.
Overtaking her wasn't of paramount importance anyway: he could
confiscate the Sangraal after she returned it just as easily as he
could before.
The odd part about the whole thing was that Mallory never once thought
of the inevitable overlap till he saw the flicker of torchlight up
ahead. An instant later he heard the sound of a woman's voice, and
instinctively he encephalo-guided Easy Money into a nearby shallow
cave.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
The flickering light grew gradually brighter, and presently hoofbeats
became audible. The woman's voice was loud and clear now, and Mallory
made out her words above the purling of the underground stream: "...
And then he set down the maiden, and was armed at all pieces save he
lacked his spear. Then he dressed his shield, and drew out his sword,
and Bors smote him so hard that it went through his shield and
habergeon on the left shoulder. And through great strength he beat
him down to the earth, and at the pulling of Bors' spear there he
swooned. Then came Bors to the maid and said: How seemeth it to you of
this knight ye be delivered at this time? Now sir, said she, I pray
you lead me there as this knight had me. So shall I do gladly: and
took the horse of the wounded knight, and set the gentlewoman upon
him, and so brought her as she desired. Sir knight, said she, ye have
better sped than ye weened, for an I had lost my maidenhead, five
hundred men should have died for it. What knight was he that had you
in the forest? By my faith, said she, he is my cousin. So wot I never
with what engyn the fiend enchafed him, for yesterday he took me from
my father privily: for I nor none of my father's men mistrusted him
not, and if he had had my maidenhead he should have died for the sin,
and his body shamed and dishonored for ever. Thus as...."
At this point, the truth behind the sense of _deja vu_ that Mallory
had experienced the first time he had heard the tale hit him so hard
between the eyes that he jerked back his head. When he did so, his
helmet came into contact with the cave wall and scraped against the
stone. The rohorse and its two riders were directly across the stream
now. "_Shhh!_" Mallory I whispered.
Rowena I gasped. "It were best that I thanked ye now for thy great
kindness, fair knight," she said, "for anon we be no longer on live."
"Nonsense!" Mallory I said. "If this fiend of yours is anywhere in the
vicinity, he's probably more afraid of us than we are of him."
"Per ... peradventure he hath already had meat," Rowena I said
hopefully. "The tale saith that an the fiend be filled he becomes
aweary and besets not them the which do pass him by in peace."
"I'll keep my sword handy just in case he changes his mind," Mallory I
said. "Meanwhile, get on with your autobiography--only for Pete's
sake, cut it short, will you?"
"An it please, fair sir. Thus as the fair gentlewoman stood talking
with Sir Bors there came twelve knights seeking after her, and
anon...."
For a long while after the voices faded away, Mallory IV could not
move. Hearing the story the second time and, more important, hearing
it from the standpoint of an observer, he had been able to identify it
for what it really was--an excerpt from _Le Morte d'Arthur_. The
Joseph of Arimathea bit had been an excerpt, too, he realized now,
probably lifted word for word from the text. It was odd indeed that a
sixth-century damosel who presumably couldn't read could be on such
familiar terms with a book that would not be published for another
nine hundred and forty-three years.
But not so odd if she was a twenty-second century blonde in a
sixth-century damosel's clothing.
Remembering Perfidion's secretary, Mallory felt sick. No, there was no
noticeable resemblance between her and the damosel that hight Rowena;
but the removal of a girdle and a quarter of a pound of makeup, not to
mention the application of a "lustre-rich" brown hair-dye and the
insertion of a pair of plum-blue contact lenses, could very well have
brought such a resemblance into being--and quite obviously had. The
Past Police were noted for their impersonations, and most of them had
eidetic memories.
_Come on, Easy Money_, Mallory encephalopathed. _You and I have got a
little score to settle._
* * * * *
When he entered the chamber of the Sangraal, Rowena IV was arranging
the red samite cover around the Grail. She jumped when she saw him.
"Marry! fair sir, ye did startle me. Methinketh ye be asleep in thy
castle."
"Knock it off," Mallory said. "The masquerade's over."
She regarded him with round uncomprehending eyes. He got the
impression that she had been crying. "The ... the masquerade, fair
knight?"
"That's right ... the masquerade. You're no more the damosel Rowena
than I'm the knight Sir Galahad."
She lowered her eyes to his breastplate. "I ... I wot well ye be not
Sir Galahad, fair sir. It ... it happed that aforetime I did see Sir
Galahad with my own eyes, and when ye did unlace thy unberere and I
did see thy face, I knew ye could not be him of which ye spake."
Abruptly she raised her head and looked at him defiantly. "But I knew
from thy eyes that ye be most noble, fair sir, and therefore an ye did
pretend to be him the which ye were not, ye did so for noble cause,
and it were not for me to question."
"I said knock it off," Mallory said, but with considerable less
conviction. "I'm onto you--don't you see? You're a time-fink."
"A ... a time fink? I wot not what--"
"An agent of the Past Police. One of those do-gooders who run around
history replacing stolen goods and turning in hard-working people like
myself. You gave yourself away when you lifted that Sir Bors bit
straight out of _Le Morte d'Arthur_ and--"
"But I did say ye sooth, fair sir. Sir Bors did verily succor my
maidenhead. I wot not how there can be two of ye and two of me and
four hackneys when afore there were but two, and I wot not how by
touching the magic board in thy castle in a certain fashion that I
could make the hour earlier and I wot not how the magic steed I did
bestride brought me hither--I wot not none of these matters, fair sir.
I wot only that the magic of thy castle is marvelous indeed."
For a while, Mallory didn't say anything. He couldn't. In the
plum-blue eyes fixed full upon his face, truth shone, and that same
truth had invested her every word. The damosel Rowena, despite all
evidence to the contrary and despite the glaring paradox the admission
gave rise to, was not a phony, never had been a phony, and never would
be a phony. She was, as a matter of fact--with the exception of Sir
Galahad--the only completely honest person he had known in all his
life.
"Tell me," he said, at length, "weren't you afraid to come back
through that passage alone? Weren't you afraid the fiend would get
you?"
"La! fair sir--I had great fear. But it were not fitting that I
bethought me of myself at such a time." She paused. Then, "What might
be thy true name, sir knight?"
"Mallory," Mallory said. "Thomas Mallory."
"I have great joy of thy acquaintance, Sir Thomas."
Mallory only half heard her. He was looking at the samite-covered
Sangraal. No more obstacles stood between him and his quest, and time
was a-wasting. He started to take a step in the direction of the
silver table.
His foot did not leave the floor.
* * * * *
He was acutely aware of Rowena's eyes. As a matter of fact, he could
almost feel them upon his face. It wasn't that they were any different
than they had been before: it was just that he was suddenly and
painfully cognizant of the trust and the admiration that shone in
them. Despite himself, he had the feeling that he was standing in
bright and blinding sunlight.
Again, he started to take a step in the direction of the silver table.
Again, his foot did not leave the floor.
It wasn't so much the fact that she didn't believe he would take the
Sangraal that bothered him: it was the fact that she couldn't conceive
of him taking it. She could be convinced that black was white,
perhaps, and that white was black, and that fiends hung out in empty
caves and castles; but she could never be convinced that a "knight" of
the qualities she imputed to Mallory could perform a dishonorable act.
And there it was, laid right on the line. For all the good the Grail
was going to do Mallory, it might just as well have been at the bottom
of the Mindanao Deep.
He sighed. His gamble hadn't paid off any more than Perfidion's had.
The real Sir Galahad was the one who had inherited the Grail after
all--not the false one. The false one grinned ruefully. "Well," he
told the damosel Rowena, "it's been nice knowing you." He swallowed;
for some reason his throat felt tight. "I ... I imagine you'll be all
right now."
To his amazement she broke into tears. "Oh, Sir Thomas!" she cried.
"In my great haste to return the Sangraal to the chamber and to right
the grievous wrong committed by the untrue knight Sir Jason, I did
bewray my trust again. For when I espied ye and me and Easy Money in
the passage I did suffer a great discomfit, and it so happed that when
my steed did enter into a cave that the Sangraal came free from my
hands and ... and--"