Legacy (34 page)

It had all been so fragile! They had had to return them to their home era, but not until Robert had done what posterity required, what was necessary for the completion of a myth basic to the emerging Western culture which carried the future in its ignorant, unsteady hands. Their researches had left no room for doubt, however incredible the conclusion had seemed: he, born in 2234, had played that key role in 470. It was just one of the facts that kept turning up, self-evidently impossible, and therefore requiring intervention to assure that they happened as reality demanded.

What if we hadn't learned of his role? What would have happened then?
It was the thousandth time Tylar had asked himself that question, and he gave himself the same answer he always did.
But of course we learned of it. Or, if we hadn't, our descendants would, and travel back—a little further than we had to—and take care of it. Otherwise, it could never have happened! Robert asked me what would happen if we simply stopped policing the past. The really terrifying questions concern what would happen if we stopped
researching
the past.

Yet that line of thought led around in the same circle.
But clearly we don't, at least not until we've arranged everything that has to be arranged in history. And how can we know when that point is reached?

Ah, Robert and Tiraena, be happy in your time, when problems were so very simple!

The thought of those two awoke an odd impulse in him, and he activated one of the many capabilities he had never revealed to them. And he gazed at a man and woman, young in this day when humankind was young, standing arm in arm in the sunlight flooding through a viewport and looking out at the mind-numbing blue loveliness of Earth, as their ship entered low orbit.

Yes, it had all somehow worked. The humans of Earth and Raehan would reunite, as his own existence required. The future was secure.

"Now it begins," he whispered.

HISTORICAL NOTE

With the obvious exception of Tertullian, all the people introduced or mentioned in the Prologue are historical, and my fleshing-out of their personalities and motivations is consistent with what we know of the words and deeds of these dwellers in the shadows. It is unlikely that all the men I've included in the welcoming committee were actually on hand—Jordanes merely states that Riothamus "was received as he disembarked from his ships"—but I've found it useful to have them there. There is no conclusive proof that Sidonius Apollinaris ever met Riothamus, but his one surviving letter to the High King, as quoted in Chapter Fourteen ("I am a direct witness . . .") couldn't hint at it much more strongly; and they unquestionably corresponded, so I haven't invented a relationship that didn't exist.

There are, naturally, some areas where I've engaged in informed speculation. One is the parentage of Bishop Faustus of Riez—a reasonable inference from the known facts. Another is the details of the battles of Angers and Bourg-de-Déols, and the rest of Riothamus' Gallic campaign. Yet another, of course, is the question of just who Riothamus really was.

The quest for the factual basis of the Arthurian legend makes for an intriguing historical detective story. To the interested reader, I recommend
The Discovery of King Arthur
by Geoffrey Ashe, and "The Sarmatian Connection" by C. Scott Littleton and Ann C. Thomas in
Journal of American Folklore
, no. 91. Coming at the problem from different directions, these offer theories which in no way contradict each other and, in fact, dovetail neatly—a point in favor of both, to my mind. I've attempted a synthesis of the two, and I take this opportunity to acknowledge the debt.

Judging clarity to be more important than antiquarian atmospherics, I've used modern place names. (The major exception is "France," which seems so inappropriate a name for a country in which the Franks were not yet dominant, that I've opted for "Gaul.") In the same spirit, dates are given according to the modern calendar.