Of Beginnings and Endings Read online

  Although not really aged in appearance, the Emmett O'Malley who at length had been ushered into Harold Kenmore's audience chamber had still shown unmistakable evidences of much suffering, sorrow, and worry. His once-sparkling green eyes now were more dull and filled with a soul-deep sadness, woe had carved deep lines in his face, and seldom anymore did the once ever-ready smile or merry laugh bring up the downcast corners of his mouth.

  Immediately they two were completely alone in a smaller room off the larger, Emmett had tensely demanded, "Harold, hoo mony o' the capsules hae ye left?"

  Harold had sighed and shrugged, replying, "About a score or so, Emmett."

  A light, but a light of wildness, had come into the green eyes then, and the hard, bejeweled fingers had clamped down on Harold's arm with crushing force. "Nae, Harold, mon, not whatall ye hae wi' ye. Hoo mony in a', I mean?"

  "That's it, Emmett," the archbishop had said, while peeling back the calloused fingers to free his punished arm. "I have exactly twenty-four longevity-booster capsules left. You look awful, Emmett. Are you well? Should I send for a restorative for you? A bit of wine, perhaps?"

  Upon Harold's words, the blood drained from his flushed face and all the strength, seemingly, from his solid-looking, still-powerful body. Stumbling, tottering backward, he sank into a chair, all animation gone from his features, his appearance now become that of a hopeless man who has seen his certain doom.

  At last, he had spoken in a soft, hushed voice filled with utter despair. "Och, the God an' His Holy Saints help us both, then, auld frind, for we be sairtain sure noo tae age an' die lang afore oor time. Where went a' the hunnerds ye owned, mon?"

  Harold shrugged again. "They were used, Emmett, a dozen here and a dozen or two there, over the years, to keep Hal and Arthur and Henry alive. I could have done no less for my old friend and his little sons. But what about your own capsules, Emmett? You had just exactly as many as did I when we parted in Scotland."

  Then the red-haired, onetime twenty-first-century scientist had related the terrible tale of his recent misfortunes. His wives, immediate family, and household almost all wiped out in mere days by the ferocious effects of the Priests' Plague were sorrows that still oppressed and haunted him.

  "When first it come ain us," he had said, "it's I thocht me o' hoo' ye had cured the auld king wi' y'r capsules, so it's I took a party and rode hard f'r Fora, the gude fithers there havin' had the keepin' o' the casket wherein was hid me ain f'r mony's the lang year. But, och, hoo' tumble a sight we found there! The curst Plague had struck a' there doon the week afore, and wi' a' o' the gude men dead, the monastery had been looted an' burnt oot, ainly the black, sooty stanes left o' it. Still, I knew o' some dozen I had hid away back in Tara, sae we turnt aboot and rode back as fast nor we'd come . . . but ainly death were there tae greet us a'. They a' lay cauld and dead of the plague—my new, bonny wife, my other wives, my slave girls, a' me children young an' older, near all me servants, e'en. And, worse, a' Tara were like that, too."

  "The Ard-Righ an' a' his ain family and the most o' his great court had a' died. It were a' that we few survivors could do tae luck ontae a bastard half-brother of Brian tae replace him. Mony as disliked the idea o' a bastard, a rough mon as had been lang a' mercenary fightin' a' o'er Europe an' Afriqa, bein' set 'pon the Stane, f'r fear it would move 'neath him and shriek oot his unworthiness, but it a' went well an' it's a fine Ard-Righ he's made us a'."

  Gently, Harold had touched his old friend's red-furred hand, saying, "It must have been bitter-hard, Emmett. You lost all your family, then?"

  "F'r lang an' lang I so thocht," replied the big man. "But then ain o' me grandsons, Tim, sailed back tae Ireland frae Great Ireland, which happy land had not been touched by the plague. Och, foin indeed it were that blessed day tae find that at the least ane o' the get o' me loins had not died. Sincet then, it's I've come tae learn o' a few ithers—grandchildren, great-grandchildren, some o' them legitimate, some bastards—scattered aboot in this kingdom or that."

  "Och, but whin Tim appeared, it's nane o' t'other I was a-knowin', ye ken, an' t'were me mind tae do f'r the bouchal the best I could be doin'. So wi' the generous help o' the new Ard-Righ, 'twere settin' him on the throne o' Lagan—it just thin bein' empty an' the bouchal w' as much or more rightful claim tae it as ont thin extant, too, both his mither an' his grandmither havin' been out'n the royal hoose o' Lagan an' hisself havin' happened tae be foaled in Lagan, more's t' luck. So noo he be t' legal king an' wed an' a' an' a-gettin' his dynasty a-started."

  The brief flush of happiness which had colored his face and put life into his green eyes abruptly was replaced with the same old woeful spiritlessness as he sighed and said dolefully, "An' it's I can but hope that it's I'll be livin' lang enough f'r tae see Tim's son succeed him, is a', Harold. I noo own but twa o' t' capsules tae me name an' you hae twenty-two; sae mony betwixt us might maintain us anely threescore or less years. Aye, an' thin we'll surely start in tae age. Tae age, mon, tae become old an' feeble, infirm, stiff-jinted, unable e'en tae tumble a lassie an' tek joy frae her as a mon should. What can we do, Harold, f'r the love o' God an' a' His holy saints, mon, what can we do? Can ye fashion more o' the capsules? D' ye recollect how, after a' these lang years?"

  The Archbishop, too, had sighed and said, "Yes, I could make more longevity-booster capsules, Emmett . . . but not here, not anywhere in this primitive world. I could make them only if I had the run of the chemistry research building at the Gamebird Project Facility, back in our own time, on our own world. There exists here simply no way to manufacture the ingredients or the things and equipment necessary to compound or even refine them. Further, I have no trace of an idea how to go about making the machines that would be required to make the machines that would make the machines with which the lab equipment would be made. The levels of technology are just too low here to even dream of any of it, Emmett, I'm sorry."

  "There's no choice, so just surrender gracefully. Both of us have now lived far longer in this world, alone, than is the norm for people of it, people born into it. Fifty or sixty years is not a short remaining lifetime by any manner of measurement. Accept it, accept your fate, and live your remaining years as fully and as enjoyably as you can, as will I. Remember, the longevity process, even under optimum conditions, was never designed or intended to provide immortality, only to prolong life, to slow the aging of bodies to acceptable—"

  "No!" the red-haired man had roared so loudly that one of the poleaxemen outside the door of the larger room had felt impelled to come to see if His Grace was in need of help. When Harold had reassured and sent away the well-intentioned guardsman, Emmett had spoken on, in quieter tones, but no more temperately. In his clearly disturbed condition, he unconsciously reverted to speech that was much more like the basic English dialect of the twenty-first century with only a few words and nuances of the thick brogue peeking through here and there, now and again.

  "Harold, ye were of middle age at least before e'er you took your first longevity treatment, so it's easy for you to think on growing old, really growing old, and from all I hear you took your vows of chastity and celibacy seriously, too, as damn-all clerics do in this time, so you have far less tae lose from aging than a lusty, vital mon like me does. Harold, I'd far liefer be cauld clay, worm-food, than end me days an old, doddering, toothless mon as could eat nothing save gruel and syllabubs, all me strength gone and unable to properly swive even the youngest, bonniest, liveliest girl. So, no, I'll not surrender. If ye must have the chemistry research building from Gamebird Project Facility . . . well, there just may be a way to get it intae this world, for a while, if not tae stay. Ye ken me? We twa must ride up tae Whyffler Hall. We must leave tomorrow."

  But they did not. There was absolutely no way, with the press of his duties and affairs, that Archbishop Harold of York could have departed his seat on such short notice. Therefore, fretting and complaining and protesting mightily and constantly, Emmett O'Malley had had no option but to bi
de in York until Harold was able to make a time and a way to prepare for the trip.

  Even before they could think of heading northwest to Whyffler Hall, up in the wild border country, Harold knew that he must get to wherever the king happened to be and obtain his permission in writing to break his father's seals set in the walls that had been built so long ago to block off access to the ground floor of that ancient tower, for James Whyffler—if still he lived and his heirs if he did not—took his oaths and the royal trust seriously, and, despite the old friendship with the now-Archbishop, would be as likely as not to take Harold and all his party, confine them straitly, and send word to the king.

  Twice, over the months that the matter dragged out, Harold had been on the very point of leaving York for long enough to intercept the king and court in their endless rounds of travel, but both times sudden affairs requiring his continued presence in York had frustrated him and Emmett. Then, one happy day, the king and court and entourage arrived in the environs of York and made the thing relatively short and simple. Arthur II, of course, like his late father before him, had long been privy to Harold's strange provenance. The appearance and function of the singular device that still squatted on the earthern floor of the old defensive-residential tower at Whyffler Hall had been described to him in some detail by Harold, but the always-busy monarch had never been able to himself go up and view it. However, upon hearing his old friend and savior out, the harried king readily had properly prepared and recorded a document which granted to "our faithful and most trusted mentor, His Grace Harold Ceanmoor, Archbishop of York" lifetime permission to, at his discretion, break or have broken all royally sealed repositories, and leave to examine or bear away any or all contents of said repositories.

  The court stayed in proximity to York for about a month, then moved on in its accustomed progression, but Harold, still bogged down with a workload that had not been helped at all by the fact that replacements for staff members and functionaries dead in the Priests' Plague still were learning their jobs and functions while blundering their ways through them, still found himself unable to get away from Yorkminster. When Emmett at last began to grate upon his host, Harold had documents drawn up designating the Irishman a lay deputy of the Archdiocese of York, empowered to act in the name of the Archbishop. Then he turned over the royal document to Emmett, provided him with a sizable escort of his episcopal horse guards, a pack train, servants, and all other necessities for the lengthy, overland trip, and sent him off ahead to Whyffler Hall to break the royal seals, open the walls, descend to the ground level of the old tower, and begin the alterations of which he had spoken over the months. Harold promised to join him as soon as he could get away from York.

  Emmett's first letter from Whyffler Hall had told of ferocious fighting against attacking brigands twice on the ride up to the border country. He said that Sir James was long since dead of camp fever during the War of the Three Marriages in service with the army fielded by Duke Henry Tudor in Aquitaine and France. The fee now was held by James's eldest living son, Sir John Whyffler, who had gained his own accolade during the same war wherein his sire had died, his service, however, having been with King Arthur's amphibious force on the Mediterranean coast of France.

  O'Malley had gone on to remark that the documents had, after careful scrutiny by Sir John's chaplain and clerk, been accepted as genuine and binding and that he and all his household and retainers had then bent their every effort to assist in any needful way the Archbishop's deputy and his party. The ground floor of the old tower now was opened. He had cleaned off the console and was going about alterations of those parts needing such. He had obtained large sheets of parchment, ink, and quills and was now at work pacing off distances and transferring his notes and all that he recalled of the other place and time to the parchment. He now awaited Harold's arrival and his assistance in the attempt to project the chemistry research facility entire into this time and place, that more longevity-booster capsules might quickly be compounded.

  The second letter, delivered at last by the one wounded survivor of the party of three horse guards who had set out through the bandit-infested intervening country with it, made reference to an earlier letter that had never arrived at all and urged Harold to come up quickly, before worsening seasonal weather made a hard and dangerous trip more difficult if not impossible.

  After the elapse of far more time than either he or, especially, the frothingly impatient Emmett would have preferred, Harold had accomplished the next thing to impossible—he had gotten out of York and had made the arduous journey up to Whyffler Hall in company with his sizable retinue, half a hundred horse guards of his own establishment, and two dozen more mounted men-at-arms hired on for the length of his sojourn from the households of various noblemen residing in the vicinity of York.

  But in the end, it all had been in vain. Using Harold's twenty-first-century wrist chronometer—his own having been smashed into so much junk during the course of some long-ago battle or personal combat—Emmett had meticulously set the altered console (which through some arcane phenomenon still was connected to—across who knew what vastnesses of time and space—and could draw power from the massive banks of machines at the Gamebird Project Facility, a phenomenon which Emmett with great patience for him had tried earnestly and repeatedly to explain but which Harold still could not say he understood), then had raced up the flights of steep stairs to the battlemented roof of the old tower that he might himself observe the appearance of the building.

  That building never materialized. True, in the light of the rising sun, he and Harold had seen a part of the intervening ground seem for a brief instant to look like muddy, swirling, rushing river water, with an even briefer flickering beyond it of tall, slab-like walls that might have been a part of the Gamebird Project Facility, but that had been all which had occurred.

  After screaming frightful, incredibly blasphemous oaths, stamping, beating his big hands bloody against the gray merlon stones, while tears of frustration had bathed his red-stubbled cheeks, Emmett had at last calmed enough to go back down to the console, reset it, and try it all again . . . and again . . . and yet again, with even less result.

  The frantic, desperate O'Malley had kept at it for almost a full month, day and night, eating and drinking whenever he thought to so do at his labors, unwashed, unshaven, his hair and chinbeard and moustache wild and unkempt, clothing dirty, stained, and sweat-soaked. At last, he had collapsed of exhaustion and malnourishment, and Harold had seen him borne up from the ground floor of the old tower, unclothed, washed, shaved, and put to bed in the gracious manor that the late Sir James Whyffler had had built incorporating the ancient tower and the royal trust it contained to the honor of his house. By the time Emmett O'Malley was sufficiently recovered of his self-imposed ordeal to quit his bed, Archbishop Harold had long since had the ground floor once more walled up and the seals of his dead friend King Henry VII Tudor replaced, nor would he hear aught of again letting Emmett near to the console.

  "Let be, Emmett, for the love of God, just let be," he had said firmly. "Your idea was good, but it just didn't work. Surely you can admit that much, can't you? You came near to killing yourself, as it was, and I'll not see you try it again, I cannot. I'll freely give you half—all, if you must have them—of my own capsules, for I have not the morbid fear of aging and death that you do; I'll accept the years God sees fit to give me, be they many or few. I also have two injectable doses, back in York, hidden away at Yorkminster, and I'll give you one or both of those, too. But I'll not allow the seals on those walls just rebuilt to be again broken for you."

  And so they had ridden back down to York, Emmett O'Malley's mood as dark and foul as the weather. He spoke few words to anyone and only seemed to come alive when there were brigands to fight or the prospect of such, and then he fought like a berserker, taking terrifying chances, killing without mercy.

  He had remained in York only long enough to prepare for the trip back to Ireland. When he had
left, he had taken with him only half of the two-dozen capsules that remained and one of the injectable doses. He had spoken few words in parting from his old friend.

  "I'll not take them all, Harold. These dozen and the injectable will give me at least fifty years, maybe half again that long. It was said that the monastery at Fora was looted between the time the most of the gude fithers died of the Plague and the time it was set afire, so mayhap, somewhere in Eireann unbeknownst tae any, rests my casket, its shrewdly concealed false bottom and sides still a-holdin' me ain capsules. And I mean tae search ivery kingdom, county, and even barony until I find it. And the sooner I start me search, the better. So, bide you well, Harold. Goodbye."

  Dr. Harold Kenmore had never seen Dr. Emmett O'Malley since that day, and had, as he sat in his alchemical laboratory in a tower of his episcopal seat at Yorkminster so many years later, good reason to believe his old friend years dead, killed in battle.

  3

  Out of his several wives, King Arthur II Tudor of England and Wales had sired six sons and four daughters. However, two of the sons and three of the daughters had died before reaching puberty, one son had died in his teens while tilting in a tourney, his sole remaining daughter had died in childbirth at fifteen, another son had drowned while fording a river on Crusade in Bavaria, and the second-eldest had gone in the way of his grandsire—dead of mischance while hunting boar in Aquitaine.

  The eldest of the ten children, Prince Henry of Wales, had been early betrothed to Princess Astrita of Hungary; when he had been fourteen and she sixteen, they had been wed, and by the time he had died at the age of twenty-nine, he had had by her two sons and five daughters. Although all five of his daughters had died before him, the sons—Richard and Arthur—outlived both their sire and their grandsire, who—mostly thanks to Harold's longevity-booster capsules dispensed so lavishly over the years—had enjoyed a reign much longer than normal for the times.