Up The Line

36.

Dinner that night was a gaudy feast. We gorged on soups, stews, grilled duck, fish, pork, lamb, asparagus, mushrooms, apples, figs, artichokes, hard-boiled eggs served in blue enamel egg cups, cheese, salads, and wine. Out of courtesy to Eudocia, who was at table with us, we conversed in Greek and therefore spoke not at all of time-travel or the iniquities of the Time Patrol.

After dinner, while dwarf jesters performed, I called Metaxas aside. “I have something to show you,” I said, and handed him the roll of vellum on which I had inscribed my genealogy. He glanced at it and frowned.

“What is it?”

“My ancestry. Back to the seventh century.”

“When did you do all this?” he asked, laughing.

“On my last layoff.” I told him of my visits to Grandfather Passilidis, to Gregory Markezinis, to the time of Nicephorus Ducas.

Metaxas studied the list more carefully.

“Ducas?What is this, Ducas?”

“That’s me. I’m a Ducas. The scribe gave me the details right back to the seventh century.”

“Impossible. Nobody knows who the Ducases were, that early! It’s false!”

“Maybe that part is. But from 950 on, it’s legitimate. Those are my people. I followed them right out of Byzantium into Albania and on to twentieth-century Greece.”

“This is the truth?”

“I swear it!”

“You clever little cockeater,” Metaxas said fondly. “All in one layoff, you learned this. And a Ducas, no less! A Ducas!” He consulted the list again. “Nicephorus Ducas, son of Nicetas Ducas, son of — hmm — Leo Ducas! Pulcheria Botaniates!”

“What’s wrong?”

“I know them,” Metaxas cried. “They’ve been my guests here, and I’ve stayed with them. He’s one of the richest men in Byzantium, do you know that? And his wife Pulcheria — such a beautiful girl—” He gripped my arm fiercely. “You’d swear? These are your ancestors?”

“I’m positive.”

“Wonderful,” Metaxas said. “Let me tell you about Pulcheria, now. She’s — oh, seventeen years old. Leo married her when she was just a child; they do a lot of that here. She’s got a waist like this, but breasts out to here, and a flat belly and eyes that turn you afire, and—”

I shook free of his grasp and jammed my face close to his.

“Metaxas, have you—”

I couldn’t say it.

“—slept with Pulcheria? No, no, I haven’t. God’s truth, Jud! I’ve got enough women here. But look, boy, here’s your opportunity! I can help you to meet her. She’s ripe for seduction. Young, childless, beautiful, bored, her husband so busy with business matters that he hardly notices her — and she’s your own great-great-multi-grandmother besides!”

“That part is your clutchup, not mine,” I reminded him. “For me it might be a reason to stay away from her, in fact.”

“Don’t be an idiot. I’ll fix it all up for you in two, three days. An introduction to the Ducases, a night as a guest in their palace in town, a word to Pulcheria’s lady in waiting”

“No,” I said.

“No?”

“No. I don’t want to get mixed up in any of this.”

“You’re a hard man to make happy, Jud. You don’t want to fuck Empress Theodora, you don’t want to lay Pulcheria Ducas, you — say, next thing you’ll tell me you don’t want Eudocia either.”

“I don’t mind screwing one of your ancestors,” I said. I grinned. “I wouldn’t even mind putting a baby in Eudocia’s belly. How would you feel if I turned out to be your multi-great-grandfather?”

“You can’t,” said Metaxas.

“Why not?”

“Because Eudocia remains unmarried and childless until 1109. Then she weds Basil Stratiocus and has seven sons and three daughters in the following fifteen years, including one who is ancestral to me. Christ, does she get fat!”

“All of that can be changed,” I reminded him.

“Like holy crap it can,” said Metaxas. “Don’t you think I guard my own line of descent? Don’t you think I’d obliterate you from history if I caught you making a timechange on Eudocia’s marriage? She’ll stay childless until Basil Stratiocus fills her up, and that’s that. But she’s yours for tonight.”

And she was. Giving me the highest degree of hospitality in his lexicon, Metaxas sent his ancestress Eudocia into my bedroom. Her lean, supple body was a trifle meager for me; her hard little breasts barely filled my hands. But she was a tigress. She was all energy and all passion, and she clambered on top of me and rocked herself to ecstasy in twenty quick rotations, and that was only the beginning. It was dawn before she let me sleep.

And in my dreams I saw Metaxas escort me to the palace of the Ducases, and introduce me to my multi-great-grandfather Leo, who said serenely, “This is my wife Pulcheria,” and in my dream it seemed to me that she was the loveliest woman I had ever seen.