The Time Roads

He has outlived three children and his wife.

Hurriedly, I put that thought aside. “Doctor Ó Cuilinn,” I said, in answer to his question. “The man who invented the time machine.”

“Hardly invented,” my father murmured. “There were and remain several significant obstacles to such a device.”

“The corrosion of materials?” I guessed.

“Among others. According to the Constabulary, our doctor made slow but regular progress for the first six months. Lately, however, his laboratory assistants admit they do little more than sweep the floors while Doctor Ó Cuilinn scribbles notes and formulas in his journal.”

“You set spies upon him.”

My father laid his papers aside and regarded me with mild eyes. “I set spies upon everyone, my love. It is necessary, and you know it.”

I did. I remembered the assassination attempts from my childhood, and the investigations after my mother’s and brother’s deaths, when my father stalked the corridors of the palace, suspecting every councilor and courtier of plotting against the throne. My mother and brother had died of fever, and nothing more. But the assassination attempts—those were real.

“Back to Doctor Ó Cuilinn,” my father said. “Yes, I knew he had resigned his post. He gave no concrete reason to the university, but if I were to guess, I would say he believes himself close to discovery. He wants no distractions.”

“But the reports—”

“Are accurate, but they can only record his outward activities. Not his secret thoughts.”

Or his soul, I thought. I had only observed the man for a scant half hour. Still, he had impressed me as someone who did not give up very easily. The word obsessed came back to me. “Will you extend his grant, then?”

“Possibly. Certain members of our Congress believe the device will have practical applications, and my scholars agree Doctor Ó Cuilinn’s theory about time fractures is … plausible.”

His gaze turned inward a moment, as though he surveyed a scene far different from this elegant breakfast room, the warm yellow gaslight glinting off the silver tea urns. Was he pondering the implications of time fractures? (The idea alone made me queasy.) Or was he perhaps remembering my mother?

Then he gave himself a shake. “Enough speculation. We both have a busy schedule this morning. Let us finish our breakfast and set to work.”

It was Tuesday, a day set aside for private interviews with delegations from other nations. Today, my father would meet with the Prussian ambassador, a stiff-necked, belligerent man, who matched his king’s personality well. It would not be a pleasant hour. The Prussian Alliance was seeking to expand their territory, and while their activities did not affect Éire directly, they did affect our closest ally, Frankonia.

Mine was the less taxing morning. An informal meeting with the newly appointed representative from the Papal States. Another with a group of Egyptian scholars, who wished to organize an exchange between their universities and ours. A much longer session with an ambassador from the Turkish States, listening demurely as the man droned on, and his interpreter murmured in my ear.

The noon bells chimed. The Turkish ambassador and I rose and went through all the formalities of leave-taking. It had been an especially tedious hour, and later events should have erased this insignificant moment from my memory, but a scattering of images and impressions remained. The man’s watery green eyes, almost ghostly in his brown face. The soothing lilt of his voice, which was echoed by the woman who translated his words. How faint lines and the mottling of his skin belied his otherwise youthful appearance. The scent of coriander and rose that hung about his person.

One of the senior runners escorted the ambassador and his interpreter from the room. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I had a moment of respite before my next engagement, an intimate luncheon with my father and a coterie of influential representatives from Éire’s Congress.

Then, a door swung open.

I heard it first, a deep, grating noise that penetrated to my bones.

Even when I opened my eyes, I could not quite take in what I saw.

It was not the unobtrusive side door, used by servants and runners. Nor the ordinary ones used by visitors, such as the Turkish ambassador. No, these were the doors used only for the most formal state affairs. Each panel measured six feet by sixteen, and was carved from a single tree imported from the western continent. I had only seen the portals opened once during my lifetime, and that was when my mother had died.

An old man in livery marched into the room and stepped to one side.

Next came a silver-haired lord with the ribbon and chain of office draped over his raven-black coat. It was Lord Mac Gioll, the oldest of my father’s councilors. He had served as an officer, then as my grandfather’s personal adviser, when my father was but a young man. Old, so very old, his thin white hair like a veil over his skull. He walked with a stiff limp, but he held his chin high, and I saw there were tears in his pale gray eyes.

He stopped six paces away. “Your Majesty.”

“What are you saying?” I whispered.

Lord Mac Gioll knelt before me and bent his head. “My Queen. I have the great misfortune to report that your father…”

I heard nothing past that, only a roaring in my ears, but I knew what he was saying. My father was dead. Impossible, cried a voice within. He was well not three hours ago. He—

“… the first to pledge my honor, my loyalty, my blood, and my self to your throne…”