“I am going to Oxford, my good man,” I said.

“Ey?” he answered, cupping one grimy hand behind his ear.

“Oxford!” I shouted.

“Aye, Oxford,” he nodded in happy agreement. “It be that way.” He pointed back over his shoulder.

“I’m going there. Will you take me?”

“I be going that way.” He pointed down the lane.

I took a golden sovereign out of my wallet, purchased from an old coin dealer, more money in one lump than he had probably seen in his entire lifetime, and held it up. His eyes opened wide and his gums snapped nicely.

“I be going to Oxford.”

The less said about this ride, the better. While the unsprung dungmobile tortured the sitting part of my anatomy, my nose was assaulted by its cargo. But we were at least going in the correct direction. My chauffeur cackled and mumbled incomprehensibly to himself, wild with glee at his golden windfall, urging the ancient nag to its tottering top speed. The sun broke through as we came out of the trees, and ahead were the gray towers of the university, pale against the darker slate gray of the clouds, a very attractive sight indeed. While I was admiring it, the cart stopped.

“Oxford,” the driver said, pointing a grubby finger. “Magdalen Bridge.”

I climbed down and rubbed my sore hams, looking at the gentle arch of the bridge across the small river. There was a thud next to me as my chest hit the ground. I started to protest, but my transportation had already wheeled about and was starting back down the road. Since I was no more desirous of entering the city in the cart than he was of taking me, I didn’t protest. But he might at least have said something. Like good-bye. It didn’t really matter. I shouldered the chest and strode forward, pretending I did not see the blue-uniformed soldier standing by the shack at the end of the bridge. Holding a great long gunpowder weapon of some sort that terminated in what appeared to be a sharp blade. But he saw me well enough and lowered the device so it blocked my way and pushed his dark-bearded face close to mine.

“Casket vooleyfoo?” he said, or something like that. Impossible to understand, a city dialect perhaps since I had no trouble understanding the rustic who had brought me here.

“Would you mind repeating that?” I asked in the friendliest of manners.

“Koshown onglay,” he growled and whipped the wooden lower end of his weapon up to catch me in the midriff.

This was not very nice of him, and I showed my distaste by stepping to one side so the blow missed and returned the favor by planting my knee in his midriff instead. He bent in the middle, so I chopped him in the back of the neck when that target presented itself. Since he was unconscious, I seized his weapon so it would not be actuated when it dropped.

All this had happened in the shortest of times, and I was aware of the wide-eyed stares of the passing citizenry. As well as the ferocious glare of another soldier in the door of the ramshackle building, who was raising his own weapon toward me. This was certainly not the way to make a quiet entrance into the city, but now that I had started I had to finish.

With the thought the deed. I dived forward, which enabled me to put down my chest while I avoided the weapon at the same time. There was an explosion, and a tongue of flame shot by my head. Then the butt of my own weapon came up and caught my latest opponent under the chin, and he went back and down with me right behind him. If there were others inside, it would be best to tackle them in the enclosed space.

There certainly were other soldiers, a goodly number of them, and after taking care of the nearest ones with a little dirty infighting, I triggered a sleepgas grenade to silence the rest. I had to do this—but I didn’t like it. Keeping a wary eye on the door, I quickly mussed the clothing and kicked the ribs of the men who had succumbed to the gas in order to suggest that they had been felled by violence of some kind.

Now how did I get out of this? Quickly was the best idea since the citizenry would have spread the alarm by now. Yet when I reached the doorway, I saw that the passersby had drawn close and were trying to see what had happened. When I stepped out, they smiled and shouted happily, and one of them called out loudly.

“A cheer for his lordship! Look what he done to the Frenchies!”

Glad cries rang out as I stood there, dazed. Something was very wrong. Then I realized that one fact had been nagging at me ever since I had my first look at the colleges. The flag, flying proudly from atop the nearest tower. Where were the crossed crosses of England?

This was the tricolor of France.

Chapter 11

WHILE I WAS trying to figure this one out, a man in plain brown leather clothes pushed through the cheering crowd and shouted them into silence.

“Get home, the lot of you, before the frogs come and kill you all. And don’t say a word about this or you’ll be hanging from the town gate.”

Looks of quick fear replaced the clarion, and they began to move at once, all except two men who pushed past to pick up the weapons strewn about inside. The sleepgas had dispersed, so I let them pass. The first man touched two fingers to his cap as he came up to me.

“That was well done, sir, but you’ll have to move out quick because someone will have heard that shot.”

“Where shall I go? I’ve never been to Oxford before in my life.”

He looked me up and down quickly, in the same way I was sizing him up, and came to a decision.

“You’ll come with us.”

It was a close-run thing because I heard the tread of heavy marching boots on the bridge even as we nipped down a side lane burdened with the guns. But these men were locals and knew all the turnings and bypaths, and we were never in any danger that I could see. We ran and walked in silence for the better part of an hour before we reached a large barn that was apparently our destination. I followed the others in and put my chest on the floor. When I straightened up, the two men who had been carrying the guns took me by the arms while the man in leather held what appeared to be an exceedingly sharp knife to my throat.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is Brown, John Brown. From America. And what is your name?”

“Brewster.” Then, without changing the level tone of his voice: “Can you give me reason why we should not kill you for the spy you are?”

I smiled calmly to show him how foolish the thought was. Inside, I was not calm at all. Spy, why not? What could I say? Think fast, Jim, because a knife kills just as thoroughly as an A-bomb. What did I know? French soldiers were occupying Oxford. Which meant that they must have invaded England successfully and occupied all or part of it. There was resistance to this invasion, the people holding me proved that, so I took my clue from this fact and tried to improvise.

“I am here on a secret mission.” Always good. The knife still pressed against my throat. “America, as you know, sides with your cause….”

“America helps the Frenchies; your Benjamin Franklin has said so.”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Franklin has a great responsibility. France is too strong to fight now, so we side with her. On the surface. But there are men like me who come to bring you aid.”

“Prove it?”

“How can I? Papers can be forged, they would be death to carry in any case, and you wouldn’t believe them. But I have something that speaks the truth, and I was on my way to London to deliver it, to certain people there.”

“Who?” Had the knife moved away the slightest amount?

“I will not tell you. But there are men like you all over England, who wish to throw off the tyrant’s yoke. We have contacted some of the groups, and I am delivering the evidence I spoke of.”

“What is it?”