The Time Roads

And so I sat alone, weeping like a child.

Furious, I thumped a fist against my desk. I am not a child. I am the queen.

So be one.

The words came to me in my father’s voice.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and pulled the closest stack of papers toward me. These were applications and petitions my secretary had reviewed and sorted according to their urgency. The first few I scanned automatically: a petition from a county in the north, requesting a temporary reduction in their taxes; a long rambling paper setting forth grievances between two major guilds; yet another polemic concerning Anglian liberty; demand upon demand for monies to support this or that worthy cause …

… a request from Doctor Breandan Reid Ó Cuilinn, asking for an extension to his grant.

I stopped. Flicked away the other papers and concentrated on his alone.

He was no politician, I thought, reading closely. He stated without apology or preamble that he had quit his position at Awveline University, though they had offered him a higher salary and the rank of senior professor.

… I have discovered, through painful experience, that I cannot do proper research when I am distracted by other obligations

. My blessed father died the year before and left me a small inheritance—enough to live off, but not enough to afford a laboratory and materials for any substantial endeavor. Your father’s generosity enabled me to accomplish a great deal, but—and here I apologize to you, just as I did to your father, for such blatant beggary—I must have another year’s funding if I am to transform my theories into reality …

He believes in his cause, I thought. So do they all.

And yet, I remembered that handful of iron dust, the electric tension in the air when Ó Cuilinn’s golden octopus worked its magic.

It was not golden, but brass, I reminded myself. And he used science, not magic.

Nevertheless, I found myself transported back to that cold sunlit room, watching a shabbily dressed scientist perform a miracle before my father and his Court.

At least I can do some good here, I thought as I called for my secretary.

* * *

“Doctor Ó Cuilinn.”

“Your Majesty. Thank you for inviting me to Cill Cannig.”

He had changed little in the past year and a half, but those few differences revealed much—his fine golden hair lay thin over his skull, a tracery of lines marked his pale complexion. And though his eyes were just as dark and brilliant, the gaze as direct, I thought I detected a new uncertainty in his manner. Not a good sign, for my purposes.

I gestured toward the waiting chairs. “Please. Let us be comfortable. I invited you because I wanted to discuss your research.”

There was the briefest hesitation, an even briefer glint of wariness, before he smiled and bowed and followed me to the comfortable grouping of stuffed chairs set around a low table. Beside us, tall windows overlooked one of the palace courtyards, now rife with lilies and roses and the last sweet-smelling blossoms dripping from the apple trees. Spring rains had given way to the tenuous summer sun.

Servants silently poured tea into porcelain cups etched with falling leaves. At my glance, they withdrew. Ó Cuilinn watched them throughout their work. Only when we were alone did he glance back in my direction. Expectant.

“I was not entirely truthful,” I told him. “I want you to move your laboratory here, into the palace, and—”

“You cannot purchase me,” he said abruptly. Then added, “Your Majesty.”

So he had not entirely lost his arrogance. Good.

I nodded. “I do not intend to. But you see, I believe in your work. I have ever since I observed your demonstration to my father two years ago.”

His eyes widened as I opened a drawer and withdrew a handkerchief wrapped many times around. I set the handkerchief on the table. Its contents shifted slightly. Was it only in my imagination, or could one hear the hiss of iron dust, smell the faint metallic scent, old and stale?

Breandan Ó Cuilinn stared at the handkerchief. “What is that?”

“Your metal bar,” I told him. “The one you sent forward in time, when you last were here.”

“How did you—”