Peter remembered and held up a hand to stop him. “I recal . Thank you.”
The other likely intersection point had been eight years earlier, when Peter and Ursula had been happy. While earlier, when Peter and Ursula had been happy. While Peter hadn’t told Mertons or the Guild the reason why, he had flatly refused even to consider returning to such a time.
To live through that again burdened with the knowledge of what was to come would destroy him. He’d rather feel the lash of guilt and sorrow in this, the aftermath of his vanity, than to see it coming like a runaway carriage, about to crush him. He gazed at the emerald on his finger as one would a malignant tumor.
Mertons was observing him closely. “Peter, is there something I should know?”
But Peter hadn’t told anyone in the Afterlife about his despair, and he wasn’t about to start. “Only that it’s been a week, and I told you I would give you two, no more.”
Mertons sighed and examined another sheet of paper.
“I’ve reconfirmed the coordinates. There may have been a little trouble with our original calculation, but I can assure you the writer is within striking distance.”
Peter had no interest in Mertons’s coordinates or any of the dozens of other numbers the man routinely reviewed.
“Wel , it must end soon. I can’t even take a piss without your approval.”
“My dear Peter, it is not that I wish to constrain your freedom. As I have explained, it is that the Guild has given us a range of deviation of only plus or minus three point oh six two four seven. That is an average for the entire trip, which means the overages we anticipate with the writer’s arrival must be balanced with something approaching zero deviation as we wait now.”
“Hang on. Did you say three point oh six two four
“Hang on. Did you say three point oh six two four seven?” Peter scratched at a loose sheet with his quil in a fair imitation of a time-jump accountant. “No wonder this isn’t working. You know I can’t work at less than three point oh six two four nine two two.”
“Jest if you wil ,” Mertons said icily, “but the limits exist for a reason. Jumps are a risk. We must strive to ensure your days are lived exactly as they were the first time through.
Unscrupulous or unthinking trippers could reorder time.
We’re lucky a novice like you was al owed to attempt it.”
“I count my blessings hourly.”
“Your intercourse with the rogue wil cost us at least five points of deviation, and that’s right off the top. Which means the rest of our time here must be kept below two point six.” He scribbled on his paper. “Two point seven at the most. How revealing do you intend the intercourse to be?”
Peter considered both the question and Mertons’s susceptibility to a double entendre, but abandoned his ambitions and said only, “I shal endeavor to bring it in under five.”
“Excel ent.”
Peter turned his attention to a stack of mezzotints and reached for the pot of ink and his chop.
Mertons caught his sleeve. “What are you doing?”
“Placing my chop—my mark—upon them,” Peter said.
“They’re for the king. Gifts for the envoy from Sicily.”
Mertons held tight. “Were these done in your original life?”
“Aye,” Peter growled. “I have not forgotten the proscription against new marks.”
Mertons pul ed a sheet of paper from the sheath and looked at it. “‘Eleventh of November,’” he read. “‘Mezzotints of Charles I : Eight.’” He scanned the stack of mounted prints, counting, then relaxed. “Leaving your mark in this place—a child, a bride, your name on a painting, anything that was not marked before—wil bind you here forever.”
“Aye. I remember.” Peter shook his arm free. There was no place he’d less like to be bound.
“Your best bet is to stay as close to me as possible.
That’s why I’m here, Peter. To be your guide.”
“As Virgil through the circles of hel .”
“And you are certain you recal what you are
