The Time Roads

Then, he heard the echo of gravel falling. The woman was making her escape. He stumbled through the dark toward the sound. A few false starts and he discovered the opening to a narrow tunnel that slanted upward. From above came the thudding of footsteps over hard-packed dirt, the scent of crushed pine needles, the kiss of air upon his cheek. That way, yes. He scrambled up the tunnel. Very soon he came into the open, a hillside dotted with pine trees and fields of grass and wildflowers. Lights from a city speckled the plateau below. Cetinje.

His breath puffed out in noiseless laughter. No shirt and no shoes, no papers or money, and any shelter miles away. At least the night was warm and dry. He set off down the rocky slope, away from the cave and toward the city below.

* * *

The hard stones cut his bare feet, and he stumbled more than once, but he did not pause until he reached a stand of pine trees. There he wedged the hilt of his knife into a split trunk, then sawed through the ropes binding his wrists. The blade pierced his skin several times during that long painful exercise. Afterward, he washed his wounds in a mountain freshet, and the shock of cold water jolted him awake as nothing else could. His belly shivering, he set off down the mountainside, gathering up droplets of strength from a source he had not realized existed within himself, exhilarated, laughing aloud at finding himself alive and free. It was not until he reached Cetinje, and the alleyway where he would spend the night, that despair overtook him. If he did not solv

e this mystery, he would truly have nothing at all. No honor. No kingdom. No future. He wept until his throat burned, then wept again, shaken by his sudden loss of control.

* * *

The rising sun pulled him back from the despair, but it could not restore his former sense of purpose entirely. He spent two days wandering Cetinje’s poorest districts, begging from those marginally better off than he. Seeing his tearstained face, they called him a madman, but they were gentle with him nevertheless. A local wisewoman dressed his wounds and blisters. A butcher’s apprentice fed him with bones and scraps of fat. He clothed himself from trash heaps—a soiled jersey, a pair of boots beyond repair, which he fastened with twine. At night, he wrapped himself in a stolen blanket and slept underneath the glittering stars, uncertain whether he played a role, or lived it.

“You are a curious man,” said Natka, as she offered Ó Deághaidh a mugful of hot ale. She was an old woman, her hands like rough slabs from washing pots for a riverfront tavern. It was she who had supplied Ó Deághaidh with socks to pad his ill-fitting boots, and a ragged coat for nighttime, which sometimes turned cool in spite of the approaching summer. “But then, you are probably filling in the empty places.”

Ó Deághaidh drank down the ale, wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He had spent the day listening for any talk about foreigners, murdered men, or Kiro Delchev’s whereabouts, with no success. “Nothing into nothing,” he replied, slurring his words to cover his accent. “Hard to fill that up.”

Natka regarded him with a look much keener than before. “Or maybe, too much all at once, and it makes for confusion.” Then she laughed, and her eyes disappeared into the folds of her fleshy face. “Oh, no. We neither of us have too much, do we, my friend?”

She gave him a couple stale bread rolls for later, and an old woolen cap she claimed no longer fit her youngest grandson. “We have some wet days coming,” she said, brushing away his thanks.

Ó Deághaidh shuffled away toward the upper streets, to a market square that lay between the riverfront and the university district. No luck, none at all. It was as though these men had not existed. As though he had dreamed that episode in the cave.

You know you did not.

I’m not certain what I know.

He had the knife. That much was certain, and he kept it as a talisman. And when his confidence failed him, he chanted the names: Ó Cadhla, Mac Gioll, Ó Breislin, De Paor, and Ó Luain. One of them the traitor. One had betrayed him, first in Vienna and now here, in Cetinje. Mac Gioll or Ó Luain? He discarded those names and picked them up again, unable to decide their character. Ó Cadhla. The minister best situated for such deeds. But surely he was too clever to place himself under suspicion. Ó Breislin? He no longer knew. De Paor? There was ambition in that man’s voice, but so there was with all the queen’s ministers.

At the water pump, he rinsed his mouth and absentmindedly chewed one of the rolls. He ought to save them for later, but perhaps old Sima in the rag sellers’ district might have a pot of stew cooking today. Sima always had the best gossip, though it paid to double-check anything he said.

He had put the roll away, reluctantly, when he saw the woman.

She was crossing the square, chin tucked down, a plain black scarf covering her head. She had a woven basket filled with books slung over her shoulder, and more books in her arms. A breeze caught at her skirts and she paused to untangle them. When she straightened up, her glance winged past Ó Deághaidh to some unseen distant point.

His heart beat faster. It was her. He was sure of it. He had not forgotten how she moved, nor that all-encompassing, dark-eyed gaze. Ó Deághaidh drank another handful of water before he pulled his new cap low over his forehead and slouched off in the same direction.

Two streets away from the square, the woman turned a corner. Ó Deághaidh hurried forward, only to confront the empty lane. He kept walking in case anyone watched from above. By now he had memorized all the back lanes and courtyards. He took a deliberately roundabout path to an alley across the river, where he spent the night. The next day, he wandered a district on the opposite side, following a drifting, rambling path, and ending up by seeming happenstance at Old Sima’s, where he consumed leftover stew and listened to Sima’s account of his grandson’s latest folly.

It was late on the third day, after hours of fruitless scouting, that he sighted the woman in a run-down neighborhood by the water. He followed her at a distance, through the back lanes and winding streets, back to the university district, not far from where he had first taken rooms. A few streets later, she ascended a pair of low steps and entered a three-story brick building. He sank down to wait. She might be visiting a colleague, a sister, anyone. He dared not make any assumptions.

Within a few moments—as long as it would take a weary and distracted woman to climb the stairs—a lamp blazed on the second floor. No sooner than he registered that when a shadow appeared against the window. A woman’s figure, slim and sharp. Almost at once the shadow vanished, as though she winced away from observation. Ó Deághaidh stared at the window with satisfaction.

I know you now, he thought.

Several days of watching and planning followed. The rain Natka predicted had arrived, and the days were gloomy, alternating between downpours and a heavy drizzle, and a thick warm fog rose up from the wet streets, reminding Ó Deághaidh of Éire’s summer rains. He observed the woman from afar, as she walked to and from the university district. During the midday hours, he studied the face of every tenant, every visitor to the apartment building. The doors were locked at all times, he discovered. Tenants had keys. Visitors rang an electric bell to gain admittance. There was a door at the rear of the building, but the yard had no other exit than a path leading back to the main street. In between these sessions, he acquired rope, bandages, a lockpick, and a wrist sheath for his knife.

He chose an evening when the sun sank behind a veil of clouds and mist, so that twilight came unnaturally early. It was one of the days when the woman remained at the university until late. He would have ample time to break into her apartment, make a search, and prepare for her arrival. The weather worked to his advantage another way. There were few passersby, which meant few witnesses to his activities.

Ó Deághaidh loitered in an alleyway opposite the building until he sighted another tenant approaching. He waited until the man had unlocked the door before he crossed the street, as if bound for the next house down, and whistled softly to himself. Just as the other man entered, Ó Deághaidh doubled back and ran up the stairs to catch the door before it shut completely. He waited, breathless, until he heard the rattle of keys, then a second door within open and close, before he slipped inside.

He found himself in a small entry hall, dimly lit by the streetlamps outside. It was an older building, with cream-colored plaster walls and polished wood floors. A row of postboxes by the door carried apartment numbers but no names, and the boxes themselves held nothing of interest. Ó Deághaidh continued up the stairs to the second floor. Four apartments occupied the corners. There were nameplates beside all the doors. Ó Deághaidh checked those facing the street. One read Petrovic, one Delchev.

He stopped and his skin prickled. Of course. Surely it was the mysterious Kiro Delchev who had betrayed him to the kidnappers. He stood there, juggling the lockpick in his hand, unhappy with this new complication.

Footsteps on the stairway startled him out of indecision. He ducked behind the stairwell, hefted the knife in his left hand, and waited.

A woman left the stairs and headed straight to the apartment door labeled Delchev. No sooner had she turned the key and pushed the door open, than Ó Deághaidh rushed up behind her. He propelled her into the apartment, and before she could do more than gasp, he kicked the door shut and pointed the knifepoint at her exposed throat.