The Centurion's Empire (23 page)

"The higher regions of the Berner Alpen are permanently frozen," Vitellan concluded, "so I shall not need villagers to
supply my new Frigidarium with ice."

Vitellan had spent many such evenings with the scholars, clergy, and nobles of the time. First they would marvel at how
he had preserved himself, then they would move on to subjects closer to their hearts. The clergy would ask about Christ,
the apostles, and whatever other saints he might have met; nobles would want to discuss Roman fortifications and
fighting arts; scholars would be eager to know if he had read manuscripts that were by now incomplete or lost. The
countess sat serene and smiling, saying little but very proud of her unique and brilliant protege. Guy and Lew sat beside
the fire, sipping at the local beer and listening to the harpist. Three men of the escort stood by the door, alert but
expecting no trouble.

"I can see weaknesses in your Frigidarium," declared Guillaume.

His voice was sharp, cutting through the pleasantly drowsy mood. Vitellan blinked and sat up. Nobody had ever
questioned his Frigidarium's viability before.

"You question that Master Vitellan is who he is?" asked the countess, indignation in her voice. The other conversations
died as she spoke.

"Oh no, great lady, not at all," Guillaume replied, now with the breathless eagerness of an experienced debater. "I
merely wonder how he solved certain difficult problems."

"Please, name them," urged Vitellan.

"Your new Frigidarium needs no people to maintain the ice, but you still need people to revive you. Who is to do that?"

"Master Vitellan saved me from the Jacques," the countess interjected. "That counts for a lot. My descendants will see
to it that he is revived. The map showing the location of the Frigidarium and instructions for reviving him will be kept in
my castle. If English peasants could keep the first Frigidarium working for over thirteen centuries, French nobles could
do at least as well."

The countess was used to her word being taken as the ultimate verdict in any dispute. It never crossed her mind that
Guillaume might not accept it. She failed to notice his strange, eager, even predatory expression.

"I disagree!" he exclaimed, leaning over the table and raising a finger for emphasis. The countess gasped with surprise,
but Guillaume went on, even as she opened her mouth. "With the great ritual of ice-gathering to keep Vitellan's
memory alive, the English villagers were forced to preserve the revival knowledge as well. People forget more easily if
there is no actual work to do. Tradition alone is not enough to sustain a memory."

Vitellan restrained the countess with a discreet gesture, but did not take his eyes from Guillaume.

"I have faith in my good patroness and her descendants. There is a risk, but then merely being alive risks death."

"But this is not just a matter of life and death. You might remain in the ice forever, neither alive nor dead. The Day of
Judgment would come."

"So?"

"So study the Bible! The Day of Judgment will not mean the end of the physical world'—that has been revealed to us by
God. The world will continue to exist, as will the ice of these mountains, as will you in your Frigidarium. For you there
will be neither the glories of Heaven nor the torments of Hell: you will be neither alive nor dead for eternity."
Guillaume sat back and folded his arms. His eyes were wide and his lips apart in a shallow smile.

"The year 1000 was thought to herald the Day of Judg-

ment, yet it did not happen. I slept through it inside my Frigidarium." "You took a chance."

"Passing through Beauvais and Brie when the Jacquerie were on the rampage was taking a chance. Traveling in France
at all with,the Free Companies pillaging and looting was taking a chance."

"Your Frigidarium could be a gift of the devil. It's a machine to defy the will of God, a blasphemy to be stopped by the
might of the Church."

"So what is blasphemy? Christ revealed that even the smallest bird is watched over by God, so I believe that He watches
over me as well. If on the Day of Judgment He sends fire to melt the ice around me, my body will truly die and my soul
will be judged."

"Would God go to so much trouble? You seem to flatter yourself unduly."

"Now who is talking blasphemy?"

The innkeeper raised an eyebrow to a watchful maidservant, and the argument was interrupted by the sodden trenchers
being cleared away. The remains of the piglet were left to be picked at.

"Indeed, indeed, blasphemy is as much politics as theology," conceded Guillaume amid the clatter. "Perhaps my fears
are unfounded. Surely a noble French family can do at least as well as your loyal peasants. But tell me, Vitellan, why do
you travel thus?"

"You study the past, I study the future. I hope to reach the year 2000 with my next sleep. Perhaps I shall stop there and
die in some wonderful castle in the company of the nobles and scholars of that year. Perhaps I shall return to the ice to
journey on."

"And what of these times?" asked the countess. "Who will be remembered? What is our most memorable
achievement?"

"The English philosopher William of Ockham made such advances in clear thought as have not been seen since the
great Greek thinkers like Aristotle. I missed William of Ockham by a mere eight years, such a pity. If the world of the
year 2000 is very different it will be be-

cause of him. Black powder is the greatest and most terrible invention to come from your times, and it too will mold the
future."

The answer disappointed the countess, who turned to her brother for assistance.

"But surely the English longbow is more devastating," Raymond protested. "We French were annihilated by it at Crecy
and Poitiers."

"Only because you allowed the English to choose the battlefield," replied Vitellan. "Black powder hand-gonnes demand
neither the training nor the strength of a bowman, while the large bombards are more portable and versatile than
catapults."

"Such weapons have no place in chivalry," admonished the countess, and Raymond nodded his approval.

"Chivalry is a good and civilizing code, I am not denying that. Black powder is a fact of life, however, and the task of
chivalry should be to moderate its use."

A spiced apple tart was brought in, steaming fresh from the oven. While it was being apportioned the serving trestles
were spread with honey pastries, roasted nuts in cinnamon, and little bowls of spices to aid digestion. Guillaume's
aggression seemed to drain away, much to the company's relief, and they were inclined to humor the abrasive yet
perceptive guest.

"Sweet Saracen delights," observed Guillaume. "At least something good came out of the Crusades."

"My cook was a Genoese seaman, he made many voyages to the Mameluke Sultanate," the innkeeper explained.

"So now the sailor lives in the mountains?"

"There was trouble over a lost ship; the mountains seemed better for his health."

"Ah, indeed, we are all fugitives from one thing or another," Guillaume replied, turning back to Vitellan. "May I see
the Frigidarium Elixir that keeps you alive while frozen in your time ship?"

Vitellan drew back the dagger-pin closure of his large pouch and took out a bottle wrapped in cloth. He unwrapped
enough of the neck to display the viscous, honey-brown fluid inside.

"I drink a little each day now, to accustom my body to it. A full dose all at once would be deadly."
Guillaume peered at it. "Were you to drink it all at once and then be frozen, you'd not die until thawed out centuries
later."

"Yes, but why do such a thing?"

"Why indeed . . . but now to your Frigidarium. Suppose that peasants found it, peasants who could not read the revival
instructions. They might think you a corpse, and carry your body away for burial in consecrated soil in some warm
valley. Your flesh would thaw, the worms would eat you."

Vitellan held up a small lead tube that hung from his neck on a leather thong. "Nobody will find me. Tom hid the
Frigidarium well, and the only map of its location is in here. His men were blindfolded when they were taken to dig it,
and now Tom himself is dead. In a day or two I shall break the seal, study the map, then give it to the countess before
setting off alone to sleep in the ice again."

Guillaume nodded as if satisfied, then reached into his tunic and withdrew something that he showed only to Vitellan
and asked, "What might this be?"

"It looks to be a favor, such as a lady might give a knight who is about to fight in a tourney or battle."
Guillaume stood up, then slowly walked around to the front of the table, the side where the food was served from. He
stood with his back to the fire.

"I am Jacque Bonhomme, King of the Jacquerie!" he announced. He took a pace back in anticipation of their reaction,
but was disappointed. Vitellan's expression did not change, the militia captain and innkeeper looked up to the rafters,
and the local priest suddenly took a strong interest in a stain on the tablecloth. Raymond turned to the countess, who
gave a slight sneer and folded her arms, as if Guillaume had done something as ill mannered as farting.

"After the burning of Meaux my husband made at least thirty villeins confess to being Jacque Bonhomme under
torture," she said coldly. "Many others have admitted to the name to gain notoriety, and all were more convincing than
you."

Guillaume gloated for a moment, then smiling broadly he held up a gold bracelet tied with a braid of brunette hair and
I*t7

tossed it among the bones of the piglet on the pewter dish. The countess shrieked as she recognized both hair and
bauble, then jammed her fist into her mouth.

"My sister, what is it?" asked Raymond.

She lowered her hand. Blood streamed from the knuckles. "He has Lucretia."

Raymond snatched up his eating dagger even as the countess seized him, and they fell struggling across the table. The
trestles collapsed, bringing it crashing down. The knight was restrained with some difficulty by his own men.

"Very wise of the countess," said Guillaume. "My death would mean her daughter's death."

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice contorted by a conflict between fear and contempt.

"Nothing that you can give me, great lady," he replied, while staring straight at Vitellan.
Slowly and deliberately, as if he were picking up the gauntlet of challenge, Vitellan bent over and lifted the braid and
bangle from the scattered bones on the floor.

"You have the child and you are dangerous," he said bluntly, "but that does not make you Jacque Bonhomme. How did
you abduct her?"

"The good countess sent for a great scholar to instruct her daughter in religion, arts, and the philosophies. A benign and
pious man. I met him on the road, spoke with him at length, then sent him to paradise and continued to her castle in his
place. When I arrived the countess had departed for the Alps with you, and the count was away helping the Dauphin
defend Paris, or so I was told. The servants readily accepted and trusted me, as I was obviously a great scholar—"

"Who are you?" screamed the countess.

"Why, His Royal Majesty Jacque Bonhomme, none other."

"The real King of the Jacques was Guillaume Cale," said Raymond. "Charles of Navarre captured him at Clermont—"

"By unchivalrous treachery!" snarled the priest. "He was put in chains, crowned King of the Jacques with a circlet of
red-hot iron, then beheaded." Guillaume paused, gasping

for breath as he fought down emotion. "But / was the original Jacque Bonhomme. I was a priest, and a teacher of great
repute. A wealthy knight employed me to instruct his children, but after a few months the eldest girl was got with child.
The little vixen named me as the father, and it was her word against mine. Noble against cleric! Of course the judgment
went against me, but as a sop to my obvious innocence it was arranged that I should escape and flee.

"Ruined, bitter, and a fugitive, I took refuge in the nearby village of St. Leu. I noticed that there was discontent among
the villeins, their lot had never been easy. Their work supported everyone, yet they got nothing but crumbs and abuse for
their toil. Brigands and the Free Companies stole their livestock, their seed grain, even their cooking pots—and finally
the Dauphin sent his nobles to seize supplies for the blockade of Paris.

"That was too much. The nobles had let King John be captured through their cowardice at Poitiers, and now they were
fighting among themselves instead of defending then-people against the English and brigands. What of their
noblesse

oblige?
The nobles felt no obligation to their villeins.

"One day after vespers there was a gathering of angry men in the cemetery. They'd been recently set upon and robbed. A
few speakers got up and ranted incoherently against the nobles, then it was my turn. I am a trained orator and well
educated, I put ideas behind their resentment, I rallied them. I stood on the earth of a freshly dug grave and shouted that
the nobles of France had betrayed the realm, that they were a disgrace and that they should all be killed. I got the men
shouting and cheering, they waved pitchforks, pikes, knives, and scythes and called for blood. More and more came over
to see what was the fuss. I had, oh, six hundred men hanging on my every word.