Margo blinked, surprised. "Skeeter? He spent time with Temujin?" Then, as no answer was forthcoming, she swallowed a little too hard. "I know nothing important can be changed. It's just so ... hard." She thought about a certain, terrible fight with this man who wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, thought about a dingy London street that bordered the true, deadly slums where her ignorance had nearly gotten them both killed, and fought a lump in her throat.

"Malcolm?- Her voice was whispery and unsteady as she reached for his hand in the darkness. The security of his strong hand wrapping around hers gave her courage again.

"Yes?" he asked, quite seriously.

"Why is it that whenever I go downtime with you, thinking it'll be a special treat, I end up seeing so much misery?"

Malcolm didn't speak for quite a while. Then he said, "It's just like that bloody wretched day in London, isn't it?"

Margo nodded. "Yes. But only worse, because some of these people have no hope. That's what's going to give me nightmares."

Malcolm squeezed her hand gently. "It's a rare scout who doesn't suffer damned terrifying nightmares." Margo, recalling those her grandfather had suffered, simply murmured agreement. "And," he said more gently than before, "it's a very rare man or woman who sees past the glitter and romance to the scalded hands of Chinese coolies washing clothing for others.

"It takes ... I don't know ... heart, something truly alive inside, to possess the wit and courage to grieve for victims of the world's great migrations, to see the scars of rejection in their eyes and hearts. A Chinese, an Indian, a Brit, all of them see the world through vastly different eyes. Do they see the same things? Mere facets of the whole? Or something else entirely? Classic case of the blind men and the elephant." He sighed. "I don't have the answers to that, Margo. But finding them out ... together ... is as good a lifetime's work as any I can think of."

Margo squeezed his hand, glad of the deep shadows. She didn't want him to discover the tears on her face. She swallowed hard to avoid snuffling the mess in her nose and sinuses.

"How do they manage to make this" she gestured around them "-so confounding dull in school when it's so absorbingly human, so marvelously, tragically interwoven, it makes me ache and want to cheer at the same time?"

Malcolm's only answer was a long, desperate kiss that somehow conveyed the fear that he would lose her to someone else, someone who outshone him, had more money than he did, or an estate and noble lineage longer than many a champion horse's, to a man who was younger and more attractive than he was, or had ever hoped to be. In answer, she crushed herself against him, returning the kiss with such fervor, holding him so tightly that for a moment she thought he meant to join with her right then and there. But being British in his soul, a tumble in the weeds along a dirty Denver roadside was not seemly-and it was her reputation he so carefully guarded.

"Oh, Malcolm," she sighed against his lips, "my beloved, my silly, insecure Malcolm. Do you honestly think any other man could take the place of a certain person I know who sold eel pies and green glop along the streets of Whitechapel, saving my idiotic life in the process? I almost got us both killed because I hadn't studied enough, hadn't learned my shooting lessons properly, not to mention my sense of when to strike and when to just give 'em what they want. I nearly got us both killed!" She crushed him close. "Don't ever let me go, Malcolm! Whatever my role downtime as a scout turns out to be, even if it's a skinny boy-"

"Hey, you're not skinny!"

Appreciative hands ran across curves until Margo flushed in the darkness. "It's all these wretched underthings and bustles and gewgaws that make me look fat. Playing the role of a young boy is much more comfortable. No bustles, no corset stays, no drawers, no layers of camisoles and underskirts and no final dress which I have to be literally wedged and cinched into just to avoid being called a loose woman-and pursued as such."

"Mmm... sounds like romantic illusion number twenty-seven hitting the ground and shattering into zillions of pieces."

"That's not funny!"

"I didn't mean it to be. It's just that being a guide is tough enough. Tackling the job of scout ... that's scary, Margo. I almost panic when I think about watching you leave me, maybe never to return and I'll never know why or how you vanished from my life-"

"Then come with me."

Malcolm stiffened at her side, then covered her entire face in kisses, paying sweet attention to wet eyelashes and tender, trembling lips. "I've prayed you would ask me that. Yes, I'll go, when and wherever it is. I'll go."

During the clench and flurry of kisses and hasty promises on both sides, Margo's eyes widened.

"Malcolm! It's Farley! Looks like you were right. New inventory."

Malcolm said something truly creative and extremely filthy, giving the lie to those brave words earlier about their mission being to follow Farley everywhere. He swore once more beneath his breath, then turned slightly in her arms as Farley left the brothel with a heavy leather satchel which bulged in odd places.

"You don't suppose he'll try to add it to the hole he's already dug and discover our tampering?"

Malcolm chuckled. "Nope. If we'd attempted to change history, something would have stopped us from carting off that prize of erotic loot. He'll make a second treasure hole, all right, near the first. We'll mark its position, then leave it for the uptime authorities as incriminating evidence in his arrest."

Margo grinned. "Malcolm Moore, have I ever said, `I love you'? Your evil genius is beyond compare."

"Huh," Malcolm muttered, "just a few tricks and pointers I picked up from your grandfather."

She nuzzled his arm. "I like that. Hey, if we're going to follow that lout, we'd better get moving!"

They mounted up, Malcolm giving her a leg up, not because she needed it, but because it was what just about any man in this time period would have done. Cautiously they followed the lone rider into the darkness while shadows raced across a three-quarter moon, bringing with it the taste of ice and waist-deep snow in the high mountains above Denver on a chilly night sometime late in 1885.

It was a good night to be alive. If they hadn't been stalking a criminal to his hoard, Margo would have burst into exuberant song. Instead, she held rigidly quiet, as did the remarkable man at her side, both of them intent on the figure ahead, bathed in the faltering light of a cloud-cocooned moon.

Neither the Praetorian Guard nor the city's watch patrol found them. Skeeter's and Marcus' disguises were good-and no Roman would think to look for an escaped gladiator in the fine tunic and toga of a citizen, with his freedman accompanying him. But, just as a precaution, they changed inns often, paying for each night's lodging and meals with the dwindling amount of money Skeeter had picked up from the arena sands.

Late one night, the only time they risked speaking English, Marcus asked in a troubled voice, "Skeeter?"

"Mmm?"

"When you gave over your winnings to pay the debt I owed," his voice faltered a little, "all you had left was the coins you plucked from the sands. I have nothing. Do we have enough money to survive until the gate opens again?"

"Fair question," Skeeter answered. "I've been worrying about that a little, myself"

"May I make a suggestion?"

"Hey, it's me. Skeeter. You're not a slave, Marcus. If you wanna talk, I'll listen. If I'm bored, I'll probably fall asleep. Hell, I might, anyway. I'm bushed and my back and arm muscles are screaming bloody murder."

Marcus was silent for a moment. "That leap you made. I've never seen a thing like that, ever."