yourself—”“—back in your office?”“Exactly.” Artem smiled, no longer looking so bashful. He appeared a lot more relaxed in the first half of the thirteenth century than in the present.They sat on the blanket. Artem produced a corkscrew and opened the first bottle. The wine was good, the kind that should be sipped, but the girl knocked the first glass back in a single gulp. She needed it to get her bearings.“So!” she said, shaking her head resolutely. “Let’s cut to the chase. How are you going to intercept him?”With a thoughtful air, Artem was wrapping cheese and greens into a piece of flatbread.“May I recommend…” he said, “…breakfast of the Georgian peasant… Intercept him? God bless you, what for? Where would he go? All he can do is walk around for a while… and come back all by himself.”“What do you mean, walk around? He’d have enough time to—” Oxana halted and surveyed the deserted surroundings again. “What?” she said in a grave whisper. “But where are—” Goggle-eyed, she suddenly burst into laughter. “Oh well! Here I am, waiting for the battle to start! So it is there after all and not here? May of 1223, isn’t it?”Artem looked at her closely. For some reason he found it necessary to refill the glasses.“In May of 1223 we have exactly the same situation,” he informed her somberly.The laughter stopped.“I don’t understand—”“That’s easy. Both chroniclers were wrong.”“So it’s just as deserted there as it is here?”“Not exactly,” Artem said. “Rather crowded. You saw that guy with the spade. Well… he’s sorting it out there with his own chronomuddler. Has been at it for a couple of years with no end in sight.”“But there was a Battle of the Kalka River after all, wasn’t there?!” Oxana exhaled timidly.“Probably there was one.”“Where? And when?”“We’re still looking for it,” Artem reassured, handing her the glass.* * *…After a while they felt completely at ease with each other.“So now you understand why they fund us the way they do,” Artem was saying bitterly. “We serve no purpose! What is that we’re supposed to safeguard? Who on Earth needs the real past? The government couldn’t care less. Why, they don’t give a hoot about what really happened! What they need is ideology, a legend! Here to your health!”They clinked glasses and sipped.“But… if some people still try to mess with the past,” Oxana said, puzzled, “then there is something to guard, isn’t there?”“The chronomuddlers?” Artem gave a contemptuous scowl. “Just drop it! Not a single one of them ever lands where he aims to. Don’t you understand: They want to change the textbook on history, not the real history. Got the difference? The dimwits just can’t grasp that textbooks are written in the present, not the past!”“But the historic documents—”“Oxana! Documents are written by people! So, in truth, the principal chronomuddlers have always been the chroniclers and historians… And by the way, it’s about time our dude should show up.” Artem carefully set his glass on the blanket and, rising halfway, scrutinized the environs. “Aha! I see him,” he reported gruffly after a while. “All right! He’s spotted us, coming over. Wow, look! Decked out like a regular folk dancer!”Oxana jumped up and stared in the direction Artem was looking.The man walking up the hillside was indeed bedecked in the style of an amateur folk ensemble; a shirt of scarlet silk belted with a tasseled cord and baggies of blue silk tucked into short jackboots. In his hands he was holding a gusli; was he perhaps aping Boyan the bard?Wildly gaping around, the chronomuddler was trudging toward the hilltop. Now Oxana observed his long, emaciated face (perhaps the result of wandering about for three hours), the locks of fair hair barely covering his ears, the narrow chin covered with sparse blond stubble. An unsightly fellow, and yet there was something pathetically-helpless about him.The miscreant halted a few paces from their blanket and gawked at his contemporaries, stumped as to where they could come from. They could see the poor devil was just about to lose his marbles.“Have you seen the Mongols?” he asked anxiously.Artem shook his head.“What about our guys?”“Come sit with us,” Oxana said, looking at him with compassion. “Have a drink and relax. I’ll explain you everything…”2001
