"Why only four of us, sir? Wouldn't we stand a better chance with more men?"
The ref smiled. "A good question. Yes, perhaps. Frankly, I wish I could have had an army at my disposal. However, I am somewhat handicapped—as are you—by organizational paranoia. It has been decided that the optimal number of men for this mission, in order to minimize the chances of temporal contamination, is four. Plus a support team, the other people whom you've seen here. Why not five, you ask, or six or seven or three, for that matter? Well, I argued that point, but. . . The situation calls for a small, highly effective unit that could be infiltrated into key positions in this time period. There is such a thing, the reasoning goes, as having too many spies. It was felt that a larger team would introduce a greater element of risk into this operation."
"Chickenshit bastards," mumbled Delaney.
The ref smiled. "You're insubordinate, Mr. Delaney. However, I can't help but to concede the point. Nevertheless, that's how it stands." He indicated the cryotanks. "We have here four people who are of some significance in this scenario. These people are the ones whom you will be impersonating in this operation, so play your parts well, gentlemen. Your lives depend on it."
He got up and motioned to the technicians, acknowledging their presence for the first time. One by one, they swiveled the tanks into vertical positions.
"Mr. Delaney, you are now this man's twin," the ref said, pointing to the first tank. "His name is John Little, but he is better known as Little John. Mr. Johnson, if you have a touch of the romantic in you, you may be intrigued to learn that you will be assuming the role of the Baron of Locksley, otherwise known to history as Robin Hood."
"Holy shit," said Bobby.
The ref chuckled, in spite of himself. "Do try to maintain a sense of perspective, Mr. Johnson. Folklore notwithstanding, this man is only human, as are you. Mr. Hooker, you will notice that your counterpart has a fresh scar upon his face. I'm afraid we shall have to give you a matching one before we send you out. He gave us some difficulty. He proved highly resistant to drugs and we had to subdue him forcibly. You will take his place as squire to Sergeant Major Priest. Your name, the only one you're known by so far as we have been able to ascertain, is Poignard. Your not inconsiderable skill with knives will no doubt serve you well. And now, Mr. Priest..."
The final cryogen.
"I understand that your assignment to this operation came about as a result of your exercising a code choice option. You may be regretting that now. As it happened, rather ironically, you were ideally suited for this mission, better qualified than the man you have displaced. The moment you punched in, some soldier got off easy. He'll never know what he missed. Do you believe in fate, Mr. Priest?"
"Yes, sir, I think I do."
"Well, in that case, meet yours." He rested his hand on the edge of the cryogen. "Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe."
Chapter 2
Priest's suspicions about part of the implant programming having been subliminally inhibited were confirmed when they were dropped off on the mainland with their gear. He also saw that the ref was not without an ironic sense of humor when he faced them all and spoke the words, "Sir Walter Scott," and they instantly "remembered" things they never knew.
They stood upon the beach, watching the much-modified LCA making headway back toward the tiny, windswept island off the coast. Its engines were muffled to the point where they were barely audible and Lucas wondered what some passing Saxon would have made of the spectacle of their landing. But there were no passing Saxons, or Normans for that matter. The coastline was quiet and deserted. Nothing marred the stillness of the night save for the sound of wind, the crashing surf, and the cries of a few seagulls. They were on their own. Beached upon the shores of time.
None of them spoke as they started slowly moving inland, each experiencing unfamiliar memories. The four men in the cryogens had been drugged and questioned extensively so that the team might possess the information that would enable them to carry off their impersonations. Yet, there was no guarantee that the information that had been implanted in their minds would allow them to carry off their charade successfully. There were still a thousand things that could go wrong, such was the nature of covert operations. Risk was part of the game.
The men whose places they had taken had been snatched shortly before their arrival in Minus Time and they had been interrogated around the clock during the time in which the team completed their mission training. With the information extracted from Ivanhoe, Lucas was familiar with his background and with the status quo.
John Lackland was still controlling the reins of power in England. Richard had not yet returned from captivity. The main thing Lucas had in his favor was that Wilfred of Ivanhoe and Richard had been comrades in arms during the Holy Wars and Irving did not know that he was a bogus Ivanhoe. Perhaps the real Plantagenet would have been able to discern a change in his old friend, but Irving would be too busy playing his part to notice, unless Lucas made some dreadful error. Lucas guessed that Irving, despite the advantages that he possessed, would be as much concerned that his "friend and vassal" of Ivanhoe would not perceive a difference in his king as Lucas would be that he was taken at face value. It was to be a game of double bluff, with both parties striving to maintain a poker face to conceal the cards that they were holding.
Finn and Bobby, on the other hand, would be in a far more risky situation, since the people they would have to deceive would not be play actors, but the real thing. Robin Hood and Little John were both well known to all the "merry men," which meant that they would have to tread very lightly. As for Hooker, any concern he felt was being hidden beneath a stoic exterior.
The real Ivanhoe had been away, fighting in the Crusades. There were bound to be certain changes in him, but it was inevitable that sooner or later, Lucas would come across his "father." If anyone could penetrate his disguise, it would be Cedric. Since they were in medieval times, the likelihood of their being discovered for what they really were was virtually nil. Who, in this time period, would even entertain the notion of something like cosmetic surgery? Who would suspect that soldiers from a future time were masquerading as a knight, a squire, and two Saxon outlaws? Yet, these were very superstitious times. While no one would guess that Robin Hood was an imposter, they might well come to the conclusion that he had been somehow ensorcelled or that the person who identified himself as Ivanhoe or his squire, Poignard, was really some sort of wizard or warlock bent on evil. In his career as a fighting man, Lucas had many times contemplated the likelihood of death in all the ways that it could come to him, from a sword thrust or a bullet, from an arrow or the decapitating stroke of a headsman's axe. But he had never considered the possibility of being burned at the stake. He considered it now.
They made camp in the woods, electing to shiver in the night air rather than risking a fire. Lucas felt that they would have enough on their hands once they neared Ashby; there was no point to inviting trouble until they had some time to scout around. They had brought some provisions with them, so they did not go hungry, but they all ate in silence and then retired to sleep among the trees, taking turns at standing watch. It was like the quiet before a battle. The night passed uneventfully, giving Lucas a chance to contemplate his "memories."
Things had not gone well for Richard during this last Crusade. There had been yet another truce with Saladin, but it had been negotiated mainly in the interests of saving face. Saladin was a skilled and crafty warrior and his cause had only been advanced by dissension in Richard's ranks. A good sized faction of Richard's Norman knights had given their allegiance to Philip of France. Most of these knights belonged to the orders of the Knights of St. John and the Knights Templars. These same knights, the Templars and the Hospitalers, had taken the side of John of Anjou against his brother. While Richard was away, playing knight errant, John consolidated his power, egged on by that portion of the Norman nobility who stood to gain the most by his sitting on the throne. Most of the barons who had remained faithful to Richard and who had departed with him on his war had their lands and estates reassigned behind their backs by John, who neatly turned those properties over to his toadies in order to secure their backing. Among those unfortunate, now landless knights, Ivanhoe, a favorite of Richard's, had been among the first to lose his fief. He had returned to his native England, war-weary and penniless, without even a suit of armor to his name. That, at least, had been taken care of, courtesy of the U.S. Army. Lucas had a suit of nysteel that, while heavy in order not to arouse too much suspicion, was still lighter by far than the conventional armor of the day. It was far more flexible and impervious to swords and lances.
Ivanhoe had other problems on his hands, as well. It seemed that Cedric, his father, had been anxious to start a Saxon revolution to overthrow the Norman conquerors. To this end, he had hoped to arrange a marriage between his ward, Rowena, who was descended from the line of Alfred, and his friend Athelstane, a porker of a Saxcn knight who was also of noble blood. This union, Cedric had hoped, would prevent the formation of factions among the Saxons, uniting them behind one house. The only hitch in his plan had been Rowena, who preferred Cedric's son to Athelstane. Wilfred had taken quite a fa
ncy to her. When ordered to cease and desist, the son had rebelled against the father. Cedric was already displeased with his son. The old man did not approve of Wilfred spending time at court, learning the Norman art of fighting and picking up various Norman ways. When Wilfred began to court the woman Cedric intended to marry off to Athelstane and under his own roof, yet, it had been the straw that broke the Saxon's back. In a fit of temper, Cedric had disinherited his son, banishing him from his house and vowing never to speak his name again. Thanks to Ivanhoe's incontinence, Lucas now had an angry father and a pining sweetheart to contend with. As far as he was concerned, he didn't care if he never met up with Cedric and Rowena could pine away to her heart's content. He had enough to worry about. Still, if he ran into them, it could present a weighty problem.
Lucas attempted to consult his programmed memory on the subject of Poignard, but it was of little help. They must have questioned Ivanhoe concerning his squire and how he came by his services, but Wilfred evidently thought so little of the man who served him that all Lucas knew was that Hooker was supposed to be a fallen Norman of some sort whose services he had won in a passage at arms. Wilfred evidently thought as much about Poignard as he did about his saddle, which meant that he hardly thought of him at all. It wasn't really surprising. Property was only property, after all. Still, Lucas might have expected at least some sensitivity from the man toward his squire, but it seemed that Ivanhoe was not the most sensitive of men.
When he had been snatched by the Temporal Corps, Ivanhoe had been on his way to Yorkshire to purchase a horse and a suit of armor for the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouche. To this end, the gallant knight had waylaid a Norman monk, bashing his head in with a quarterstaff and relieving him of his purse. Having been issued his horse and armor, Lucas felt that the best thing for him to do would be to proceed on to the tournament as Ivanhoe had planned and to see what would develop. All the local nobility would be there, since the festivities were being hosted by Prince John himself in an effort to entertain the populace. Lucas recalled that the Romans had done much the same sort of thing. If you kept taxing the pants off the people, they were bound to get a bit annoyed, so it helped to take their minds off their troubles every now and then by putting on a show. The Romans had their circuses, the Normans had their jousts. Plus ca change, plus c'est la mime chose.
They held a council in the morning to outline their plans. So far as either of them knew, Ivanhoe and the outlawed Baron of Locksley had never met, although they would know each other's names. Therefore, they had no need to get their stories straight. They decided to arrange a meeting later and the tournament seemed ideal for that purpose. They agreed to meet at Ashby and went their separate ways with no little reluctance. The journey could have been longer for his liking, but Lucas eventually found himself approaching Ashby, where the crowd was already gathering in anticipation of the tournament. Lucas put on his gear and donned his helmet, instructing Hooker to put on his hooded robe. He was not quite ready yet to meet anyone who knew Wilfred of Ivanhoe.
The galleries were all set up, as were the lists, which were nothing more than several fences running parallel to each other, forming tracks down which knights would hurtle toward each other from opposite ends, colliding as they passed. The battleground was in a small valley with the stands erected on a rise, a little hill that would afford the spectators an unobstructed view of the proceedings. On either side of the small valley, pavilions had been erected: tents with pennants flying from their peaks, the colors identifying the knights who occupied them. Some of these pavilions matched the colors of their pennants, revealing which of the knights were among the more well-to-do. As was the custom, one side of the field had been assigned to the hosts—or the home team as Lucas thought of them—the other to the challengers or visitors. Lucas had the purse which Wilfred had obtained by mugging some poor priest, so he gave it to Hooker and sent him off with instructions to secure a pavilion for themselves. "Make sure it's one of the cheaper ones," he said. "It's still early in the game and it wouldn't hurt to economize." When Hooker returned, he told him that they had a pavilion at the far end of the valley, out of the way of the center of activity, but close enough to enable them to observe the goings-on from within its shelter.
"Good enough, squire Poignard," said Lucas. "Let's go. Oh, and pick up a couple of those chickens that vendor's cooking over there. No point to jousting on an empty stomach."
* * * *