§ § § - November 1, 2001

Distant thunder brought Leslie awake the next morning and she half sat up; the curtain at the window was flapping energetically in the breeze, and the room was pleasantly cool. Not to Christian, she noticed in the next second. He lay on his back, shivering in his sleep, and she winced and covered him, testing his forehead again. He was still too warm. Sliding out of bed, she went to the window and closed it, gazing over the treetops behind the house at the ocean. Even from here she could see whitecaps on the water.

"Varfor står du där, bortifrån mej?" she heard a weak voice from behind her, and turned to see Christian squinting at her, barely awake but shivering visibly. Leslie immediately went back and squatted next to his side of the bed, smoothing back his hair.

"You're cold, my love, aren't you?" she murmured. He nodded, and she kissed his cheek and arose. "Wait here a minute." She got the medicine bottle from the bathroom cabinet, but when she came back he had fallen asleep again, still shivering. She put the bottle on his nightstand and sat on the side of the bed next to him. The story Arnulf had told them the day before he'd died, about Christian having had pneumonia as a baby, came back to taunt her, and she bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood. "No way," she muttered aloud with determination and arose again, dressing swiftly in shorts and a tank top and then going downstairs to call Fernando.

Tabitha, who was still her husband's receptionist, picked up. "Dr. Ordoñez' office."

"Hi, Tabitha, it's Leslie. Do you think Fernando can come out to our house sometime today? Christian has a fever, and I don't know what it's a symptom of."

"How bad is it?" Tabitha asked in concern. "Did you take his temperature?"

"No," Leslie said, rolling her eyes at her own omission. "I guess I was too worried about him to remember to do that. I gave him some medicine last night, and was going to this morning, but he fell asleep again. Frankly, I'm a little scared. Just before his brother died, he told us that Christian spent two weeks in the hospital with pneumonia when he was only three months old, and that story keeps replaying in my head."

"I wouldn't let that bother me if I were you," Tabitha said comfortingly. "Infantile pneumonia won't have any bearing on a fever in adulthood. Don't tell me, Leslie, this is the first time you've seen Christian sick, isn't it?"

"How'd you know?" Leslie asked.

Tabitha laughed. "Because you're so jittery. Don't worry, Leslie, I promise, Christian isn't going to die, and he isn't going to wind up a vegetable or stuck in a wheelchair. Do you have any idea where he might have caught whatever's causing the fever?"

Leslie caught herself up short. "Uh…well, I do, but…"

"Oops, it must have some connection with a fantasy somehow, if you're reluctant to talk about it. Well, tell you what. If you can get Christian down here to the office, I'll have Fernando take a look at him. Give him some more of that medicine before you come here, and bring a blanket for him in case he's got the shivers."

"There's a storm coming," Leslie said inanely as more thunder rumbled outside.

"Well, the weather report says it's well offshore and supposed to stay there," Tabitha assured her. "You said he's asleep? You can wait till he wakes up again on his own—don't bring him around yourself, because sleep's one of the best things for him. Just give us a ring when you're about to bring him over, that's all."

"Got it," said Leslie. "Thanks, Tabitha, and thank Fernando for me too." She hung up and glanced out the French glass doors; the trees behind the house were swaying in the wind, but there was no rain. Well, might as well let Christian sleep as long as he can, she thought and went to the kitchen, where she loaded the dishwasher and started it running. The noise it made was strangely reassuring, drowning out the occasional moaning of the wind around the corners of the house and making her feel oddly less alone.

Back in the living room, she was doing some dusting when she thought she heard something from upstairs, and immediately dropped everything and rushed up. Sure enough, Christian was awake again, looking disoriented; his expression cleared when she topped the steps and ran around to his side of the bed. "There you are. I'm freezing." His voice was hoarse, and she bit her lip anxiously.

"I called Fernando's office," she said. "Tabitha told me to bring you down there when you woke up. You had to have caught something from one of those damned Vikings."

Christian grinned. "Oh, I probably did. You can't think a common cold was so much different in the late eleventh century from its twenty-first-century counterpart." He shivered again and she tried to tuck the covers more securely around his shoulders. "I'm cold, but not that bad, my darling. I don't mind your taking me to see Fernando, as long as he can figure out just what it is I have that's causing the fever." He tried to clear his throat and made a face. "I dreamed last night that I was singlehandedly building Ormsskägg's damned castle for him. When I woke up from it, I was actually tired."

Leslie had to laugh. "Good thing you didn't call him that to his face," she teased. "If you can get up and get some clothes on, I'll get a blanket for you and we'll go to Fernando's office. Oh, and take some of that too." She indicated the medicine bottle on the nightstand; he nodded and sat up with an effort. Downstairs the phone rang and she groaned. "We need an extension up here," she complained, running for the stairs.

"No, not in the bedroom," Christian contradicted. She threw him a look but kept going, and grabbed the living-room extension.

"Leslie, I am terribly sorry to bother you this early in the morning," Roarke said. "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Well enough, under the circumstances," Leslie said. "Christian's developed a fever, and we're getting ready to go down to Fernando's office."

"Has he!" Roarke exclaimed. "I apologize, Leslie…it must have come from your trip. That was why I called—it occurred to me that you and Christian might wish to record your observations from yesterday."

Leslie laughed. "I'm not sure what it would be worth. Considering the way we obtained the information, I doubt we'd meet with much more than skepticism from the so-called experts. Even the Karadimases would say that, I'm sure."

Roarke chuckled. "I had it in mind that you might have preferred to keep a record for your own sakes, lest Christian especially fall back into believing the reconstructed history he was taught in school. But if he is ill, that takes precedence. Tell me, child, did he do anything you particularly remember as having been a possible cause?"

"I don't know," Leslie murmured, thinking back across their day. "As far as I know, he wasn't around anyone who was obviously sick. I just figured it was the gap in time, and possible mutations of viruses across the centuries, and…" She stopped as a memory came back to her. "Wait a minute…he took a swim in the North Sea early on. It was during the flight from the Viking ship—everybody crammed into this leaky little boat and rowed most of the way, then jumped out and swam the last distance, maybe fifty yards or so. Christian was the last man out of the boat and insisted that Mrs. Karadimas and I stay in it while he pushed us to shore. He seemed okay then, but now…"

"I understand, Leslie," Roarke said. "By all means, then, go and consult with Dr. Ordoñez, and when you return home please let me know the verdict. And do apologize to Christian for me. I never anticipated that contingency."

"As I've told you before, Father, nobody's perfect," Leslie said and laughed again. "It's not your fault, I think it was just Christian trying to be a macho Viking. I'll call you later." She hung up after Roarke's amused goodbye and returned upstairs, where Christian, now up and dressed, was just knocking back a dose of medicine.

"Who was that you were saying something to about my being a macho Viking?" he asked, making a face. "Herregud, that tastes awful. I must have been in bad shape last night that I didn't notice it then."

She grinned. "It was Father. I explained to him about your fever, and it came to mind that it could have been that polar-bear swim you took in the effort to fit in with your ancestor and his pals. Come on, let's get down to Fernando's office before Tabitha's prediction about that storm turns out to be wrong."

§ § § - November 4, 2001

"Well, here it is—the last destination," Steve Karadimas said with a little sigh, "the sixteenth-century discovery of the rainbow-gem mines on Arcolos, just five years after they declared their independence. The watershed point in their history: they went from a poor, struggling country constantly being invaded by its neighbors to a prosperous and fairly powerful one. All it took was threats to take those gems off the world markets, and other governments backed right down."

Marissa nodded slowly. "And it happened within another five years—an incredibly short span. I'd like to know exactly how they turned themselves around so fast. Which point did you have in mind when you came up with this one?"

"The weeks and months immediately following the discovery, when the original mine was opened near the east-coast city of Li Ciento, in the foothills of the Maragna Mountains nearby. Some one of the days in that time period—where you can see the impact the gems had on the local economy and the country's importance on the global stage."

"Then this should be interesting," Marissa said. "Let's do it."

They performed the ritual for the last time, and when they opened their eyes again, they were on a busy, bustling dirt lane, with people and horses everywhere. Now and then a tailless cat darted across, nimbly dodging feet and hooves. The noise of human voices was a pervasive babble not too far away. Steve and Marissa, looking around them, could see that the area was already in a state of economic transition: some people were dressed expensively, others were clad in patched, worn rags and often had no shoes. Seagulls wheeled through the air, screeching as only seagulls can; they looked up in surprise at the birds, then followed the flight of one as it sailed southward—and saw what was unmistakably the royal palace under construction on a high mesa, overlooking the town. "I thought we were going to wind up in Li Ciento," Steve said in surprise. "This has to be Santi Arcuros, since we see the palace up there."

"I always wanted to see this city," Marissa said. "I'm sure it doesn't look like this in our day, of course…"

Steve thought. "If I remember correctly, this country declared its independence only five years ago, from where we stand right now. The man who was then mayor of the town was anointed the first king of Arcolos. Paolono the First, I think. The mine near Li Ciento must have been opened long enough ago that the wealth's already trickling down…from the top, naturally. There's no question in my mind that rainbow gems are paying for that grand palace up there. See the way the sun reflects off those walls? That's marble."

Marissa gazed at it and sighed. "How lovely. It won't be so long before this whole city starts transforming itself, will it? Already you can see people nicely dressed…"

"Right," Steve said, in lecture mode now, while his wife watched in amusement. "They'd be the nobility, mainly. The workers will get their share, but it'll be at least another year before they start to reap the rewards. And of course, there were—" He broke off as the realization came to him, and he stared into space, sagging as if in defeat.

"Steve, what's wrong?" Marissa asked.

Before he could reply, screams went up in the near distance, and they looked around to see a large fight some little way up the lane from where they stood. Horses shied and people shouted; most of the better-dressed ones turned and ran. Some were caught by the more poorly-clad and mobbed for their possessions. Steve grabbed Marissa and dragged her with him into the doorway of the nearest building, which happened to be a bakery.

"Ah, my good master and mistress," said a weary voice from behind them. "Come to escape the latest upheaval of the day, have you?"

"It will end," Steve said, shaking his head. "It will end. All will be prosperous in time."

"Not soon enough for the less fortunate," the voice said, and Steve and Marissa watched the portly man step out from behind a polished wooden counter and slowly cross the room towards the windows, gazing sadly at the fracas in the street. "Those at the bottom of the local food chain have grown tired of waiting their turn, and wish their share of the wealth immediately." He met their gazes and smiled. "You and I, who found ourselves in a better station in life, have already begun to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and I confess to a bout with snobbery at times. Many's the hungry urchin I've chased from my establishment, when they wanted only something sweet to break the monotony of their daily diet of bread and cabbages. There's little else the poor can afford. Everyone wishes to work in the gem mine, but there aren't enough jobs."

"But it's such grueling, dirty work," Marissa protested.

"Workers fortunate enough to be employed in the mine receive a share of the wealth sooner than those who are not," the baker said gently. "Perhaps not so soon as the nobility and the merchant class, but they are the first of the laborers to come into their own wealth. And sadly, most of these are in Li Ciento, since it's the closest town to the mine. Efforts are already under way to find more sources of those gems closer to Santi Arcuros and other towns west of the Maragnas, to provide employment for the masses and quiet the unrest. Yet there has been no success, and it has been discussed to enlarge the current mine."

"So quickly, the gems are a success," Steve mumbled.

"So very quickly," the baker agreed. "Can't decide yet if they're a curse or a blessing. The king is helpless. He wasn't mayor for very long, and now that he has a crown upon his head and responsibility for a country rather than a mere town, he is out of his depth. As fast as the gems reach the market and bring back much-needed revenue, the discontent grows still faster. Demand is beginning to outpace supply, and unless we are lucky and do manage to either expand the mine or open another, we will find ourselves beset upon by other countries that hope to undermine our new independence and take over our assets."

Marissa said with a frown, "What shape is the military in?"

The baker peered at her. "You are not from our humble little country, madame, are you? It's my hope you are not a spy for some foreign government…"

"Continental tour," Marissa said with a faint smile; in a way, it wasn't so far from the truth. "We wanted to see these gems for ourselves, perhaps purchase some if possible."

"It's entirely too possible," the baker remarked with a wry smile. "Those who do not dig up the gems either prepare them for sale, sell them, or buy them. My own wife would not rest until I gave her a ring with one of those gems in it. Never mind that it cost me half a month's pay, she must have it. I've thought perhaps I myself should get into the game, and assure myself of a steady income, but then again, people do have to eat." He swept his arm through the air around him. "Though, of course, there are those who believe one can subsist on money and precious stones instead of food."

"Then they're fools," Marissa said, glaring at the riot. "That's the price of instant prosperity. Everyone wants his share, and he wants it now. Those who have it are the victims of those who don't. Can't the military come in and put an end to all this?"

"We barely have a navy," said the baker, "and no standing army at all. Our eyes were on the surrounding countries, for throughout our history we have constantly been invaded, most especially by France and Italy—the two sources of our ancestors. They're not the only ones, mind you, but they are the most frequent. Our attention had to be concentrated on protecting our shores from outside invaders. It was never thought that we would have to protect our own citizens from one another."

"So why doesn't the king set up a standing army?" Marissa demanded. "It would provide employment for those who couldn't get work in the mine, for one thing."

"Who will train them, my lady?" the baker asked. "The king himself was a nobleman before he was the mayor. So useless, to anoint nobility to such lofty positions. They expect others to do all their work for them. We have a government, but they're nearly as inept as the king. It seems necessary to call upon our old nemeses for assistance…and wouldn't they simply leap at the opportunity to come in and suborn us, under the guise of helping us."

Steve said slowly, "Switzerland…I remember something about an offer they made…"

The baker eyed him in astonishment. "Switzerland?"

"Steve…that was 1538," Marissa whispered into his ear.

He looked at her; they both knew full well that Arcolos had survived its first few years of independence, and all the riots following the opening of the first rainbow-gem mine, to settle into prosperity. But it was tempting to try to speed things up a little. He took a breath and nodded, phrasing his words carefully. "Switzerland is famous for its army, as I'm sure you know, my good sir. They're a small country as well, and they've had to be diligent in guarding their own borders, just as you've had to defend your shores. Perhaps, if word could be sent to the king, someone could dispatch an official request for help to the Swiss people. Negotiations could be made to pay with rainbow gems, perhaps…"

The baker stood staring at them, his eyes thoughtful. He glanced into the street, at the riot that was finally beginning to peter out, then cleared his throat. "Perhaps you have a solution." He straightened and gave them a slight bow. "My brother runs a reputable inn whose building backs onto mine. Before you are trampled in the streets by these beggars, let me take you there through the private family access. You will have a comfortable and safe place to stay, and you will be able to meet in peace with someone influential."

"You know someone?" Marissa asked.

"Baker I may be, but I have been friends with the current mayor for many years," their host said proudly. "He can make a suggestion to the government, perhaps even get the king's ear. In any case, while we all know how slowly government moves in the best of times, it's better to make this known now, so that perhaps we will be able to make our request to the Swiss government before we perish of our own wealth, or something worse. In this, the trying year of 1537, we all have a wish for the restoration of peace, and perhaps if we act now, we will have some help before the close of 1538." He smiled wryly. "Come now, let's move quickly. I believe there is no time to waste."