1632

The soldier next to the corpse grimaced as he obeyed. When the body was rolled over, exposing the back, a little gasp went up from the soldiers standing around the shallow grave.

One of them even lapsed into blasphemy. "God in His Heaven," the man whispered, "fro' this side 't luiks like a three-pounder blew 'm apart."

Mackay straightened, shaking his head. "Never seen anything like it. Have you, Andrew?"

But Lennox gave no reply. He was too busy cursing himself silently. He had become so preoccupied with the excavation that he had forgotten to keep an eye on the woods.

When he did speak, his voice was not loud. But the manner in which he projected that half-whisper had all the experience of a battlefield veteran behind it. Every man in the unit heard him very clearly.

"Do nae move. Do nae touch ae weapon. There are men in those woods."

Slowly, Mackay turned his head. He couldn't see anything until Motion. A man-no, two, three men-stepping out of the trees. They were wearing utterly bizarre costumes. For all his puzzlement, a part of Mackay's mind realized how perfectly those garments were dyed to keep the men almost invisible in the trees. Grotesque rippling patterns of grays and greens and browns, blending with the foliage.

All three men were carrying strange-looking weapons in their hands. Arquebuses of some kind, but like none Mackay had ever seen.

Lennox answered the unspoken question. "I've nae seen guns like tha' ayther, lad. Nor such costumes." Half-admiringly: "Clever devils."

He even managed a bit of humor. "An' how is y'r Polish, Alexander Mackay? I do believe we are about to meet th'Umwa, an' I hope there'll be nae misunderstandings." He saw the men, almost simultaneously, do something peculiar to the rear stocks of their weapons. Their quick hand motions produced faint, metallic clicks. Lennox had no idea, precisely, what they had done. But he had not a doubt in the world that those bizarre weapons were now loaded, primed, and ready to fire. Arquebuses which made finger holes going in, and cannon holes going out. "I really hope there'll be nae miscommunication."

Mackay's face was sour. "I don't speak a word of Polish, Lennox."

The veteran sighed. "Tha's what I was afraid of."

***

As it happened, Polish was unneeded. The strange men in their strange costumes, carrying their strange weapons, proved to speak the most familiar language of all. English!

Well. Sort of.

"Worst accent I e'er heard," complained Lennox. But the complaint was not heartfelt. Rather the opposite, actually, especially after a dozen more of the strangers came out of the woods and joined in the conversation. All of them were armed, and all of them were clearly ready to kill. And most of them-God bless my soul!-claimed Scots ancestry. Within a few minutes, Andrew Lennox knew he would live to see another day. The encounter between Scots cavalryman and-Americans, they called themselves-was turning into something much like a family reunion.

Within a few hours, he was beginning to wonder. Not whether he would live, but what that day would bring. Anything, he thought.

A young woman from Sepharad had found her legends here. So, now, did a man from Scotland. And if his Highland legends lacked the sheer poetry of Sepharad, they had their own attractions. Faeries, indeed, had come to life in the world. Some grim, obscure, pagan part of Andrew Lennox's Calvinist soul took pleasure in the fact. Took pleasure, not so much that faeries existed, but that they were every bit as dangerous as the ancient tales had sworn.

Chapter 11

"-engines are the big problem," Piazza was saying. "Can't really convert diesel to natural gas, and we've got damned little diesel to begin with. You can run diesel engines on vegetable oil, of course." He chuckled ruefully. "But there isn't that much vegetable oil left in the supermarkets, and it'll take us till next year to start making any in quantity. So in the meantime-"

Mike tuned out the rest. He'd already had a preliminary discussion with Ed and knew what the gist of the proposal was going to be concerning the proper use of the town's diesel equipment.

Same as everything else. Gear down, gear down. Use our modern technology, while it lasts, to build a nineteenth-century industrial base. Still put us way ahead of the game, here in the seventeenth century. Steam engines, steam engines. The railroads are about to make a big comeback in the world.

Mike smiled slightly. Or is "comeback" the right word? Maybe I should say "come back around."

He saw Rebecca was looking at him, and his smile widened. She responded with a shy smile of her own, but looked away almost at once. Her attention was back on Piazza. Riveted to his words, by all appearances. Rebecca's hands were clasped in front of her and resting on the big "conference table" in the center of the room. As usual, she was perched on the edge of her chair.