'The story starts in this year, 1976, but a great many things are different.'
'Are they so? We all know what CW is. Get on. What things?'
'I'll tell you if you stop interrupting. Invention has been set free a long time before. Sickness is almost conquered: nobody dies of consumption or the plague. The deserts have been made fertile. The inventors are actually called scientists, and they use electricity.'
'Such profaneness,' said Mark, listening with close attention.
'They send messages all over the Earth with it. They use it to light whole cities and even to keep folk warm. There are electric flying-machines that move at two hundred miles an hour.'
'Flying-machines always appear—this is no more than ordinary TR,' growled Decuman. 'You said it was CW.'
TR, or Time Romance, was a type of fiction that appealed to a type of mind. It had readers among schoolboys, collegiates, mechanics, inventors, scribes, merchantmen, members of Convocation and even, it was whispered, those in holy orders. Though it was formally illegal, the authorities were wise enough to know that to suppress it altogether a disproportionate effort would be necessary, and contented themselves with occasional raids and confiscations. Its name was the subject of unending debate among its followers, many of whom would point to the number of stories and novels offered and accepted as TR in which time as such played no significant part. The most commonly suggested alternative, Invention Fiction, made a beguiling acronym, but was in turn vulnerable to the charge that invention was no necessary ingredient of TR. (Science was a word and idea considered only in private: who would publish a bawdy pamphlet under the heading of Disgusting Stories?) CW, or Counterfeit World, a class of tale set more or less at the present date, but portraying the results of some momentous change in historical fact, was classified as a form of TR by plenty of others besides Decuman, if on no firmer grounds than that writers of the one sometimes ventured into the other.
Thomas answered Decuman's objection. 'Wait: what has happened is first of all that the Holy Victory never took place.'
'What impiety,' said Mark, his little eyes wide.
'Prince Arthur didn't father Stephen II or anybody else on the Blessed Catherine of Aragon. When Arthur died, Henry the Abominable married her and continued the dynasty. No Holy Expedition, because there was no true heir to set at its head. No War of the English Succession and so, of course, no Holy Victory. England became altogether Schismatic under the next king, Henry IX, and so, instead of being a place of exile and punishment for Schismatics and common criminals,'—Thomas's brown eyes were fixed on Decuman-'New England was at first a colony under the English Crown, then, in 1848, declared itself an independent republic, and now, in 1976, it's the greatest Power in the world, under the name of the Union of—'
'Wish-wash!' said Decuman loudly, pulled himself up and repeated quietly, 'Wish-wash. That mean little den of thieves and savages the greatest Power in the world?'
Hubert spoke up. 'It's not so little, Decuman, even as things are. Seven hundred miles long, my friend was telling me, bigger than-'
'And as things aren't it's bigger still,' said Thomas with some firmness. 'It conquered Louisiana and Quebec and took away the top part of Mexico and it covers the whole of North America except New Muscovy and Florida. Now: the Old World is different too. As well as England, all sorts of other places become Schismatic: Brunswick-Brandenburg, Helvetia, Denmark and the Netherlands. You remember the other day we learned about the Three Northern Popes, starting with Germanian I in 1535, and how when he was elected he said he wasn't worthy, but would serve for the sake of the unity of Christendom? Well, in this type's world, he was never reconciled to Rome—he never even went there: he stayed in Almaigne for the rest of his life as plain Martin Luther. And so, of course, Hadrian VII was never anything but Sir Thomas More.'
'The Martin Luther in the story—why did he never go to Rome?' asked Hubert after a pause.
'It says here he was afraid to. He thought they might burn him as a heretic'
Decuman stroked his nose. 'The real Martin Luther had more courage and more wit. He went to Rome and said, 'If you burn me you'll have to burn thousands of other folk too, not only in my country. But if you make me Pope and promise the English it's their turn next and so on, all my followers will come round—and if I have to I'll declare a Holy War on Henry and restore Prince Stephen.' It must have been like that. Something like that.'
'The Holy Father is appointed by God,' said Mark, crossing himself. 'Not by arrangements between-'
'The Holy Father is a man,' said Decuman, 'and so are the members of the College of Cardinals. They plot and scheme like other men.'
'Schismatic!'
'Fuck a fox. Go on, Tom.'
'I haven't read much further. How somebody called Zwingli preached Schismaticism to the Helvetians. Rather heavisome, I thought. But there are some good grins here and there. One for you, Hubert—Mozart died in 1799, just after finishing Die Monderforschung, but your friend Beethoven lived until 1835 and wrote twenty symphonies.'
'I don't call that a grin.'
'Well, the author enjoys it.' Thomas turned a page. 'Oh yes. There's a famous book which proves that mankind is descended from a thing like an ape, not from Adam and Eve. Can you give me ths title?'
The others shook their heads.
'The Origin of Species!'
Even Mark joined in the laughter, which was quickly shushed by Decuman.
'Who is the man in the high castle?' asked Hubert.
'He hasn't come in yet,' said Thomas, 'but he must be wicked and very powerful. A sorcerer, perhaps.'
In the Abbot's refectory, dinner was over. The servants had taken away the sixteenth-century pewter plate, piled the fires and filled the baskets with apple logs, left fresh candles and departed: only Lawrence remained
