Summary:
And all his yesterdays. For those of you who've wondered what our favorite immortal Scotsman has been up to all these centuries.

Disclaimer:
This is a work of fan fiction. Except as indicated below, any resemblance to any actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, is purely coincidental. (And we know ALL about coincidence, don't we? Chuckle, smirk.)
The Gargoyles and Gargoyles characters are the property of Buena Vista/Disney. Particular acknowledgments to Steve Perry and Lydia C. Marano, the writers of the episodes "Enter Macbeth" and "City Of Stone", respectively.
The rest of the disclaimer will be given below, so as not to seed too many spoilers here. Don't forget to read it at the end. Really, read it. There's some interesting stuff there.

Dedications, Acknowledgments, And Other Thuktunthp:
I guess this one is for every history teacher I've ever had. I bet you all thought I wasn't paying attention.... :)
Frantic waving (Hi hi hi!) to Merlin Missy, Nancy, Lindy, Jill, Aimee, Kristina, Christine, Leva, Kanthara, and everyone else at the Sign of the Third Rainbow.... I hope you're reading this, guys. Hi to other net.friends Elizabeth "Archangel Beth" McCoy, Tim "Gabriel" Reynard (*hugs*), Mae aka Beth Maza, and the whole chatroom crowd.
Clear skies and high winds to fellow unicorn Kellie, hugs and stuff to rookery sisters Merav, Amy, Laura and Liz, and sundry other weirdos and M&M munchers (hi Gabe, Tirtzah, Wilen twins) -- and, as always, Constance. Long live the Dreamer Clan!

Chronology:
This fanfic takes place between 1057, the date of the last flashback in "City Of Stone", and October of 1994, for reasons I hope are clear.

1057
Scotland

The night was nearly over. It would be dawn soon.

Her voice was choked with tears, husky with age, but firm. "The only hope of victory for your son...and your country...is for you to remain dead."

He looked down at her in astonishment. "But I am not dead!" he protested weakly, dropping her hands and turning his back. I am not dead, he repeated silently. He was by no means certain of that, though. He'd felt the sword pierce him, felt the blade touch his heart-- He shoved the thought away; it was not a pleasant memory. And he was standing now, standing and breathing, and speaking. He was not dead.

"Then you must disappear," his wife said softly behind him, and he turned back to face her. "Leave Scotland -- and me -- forever." Her control wavered and broke, and she reached out to him blindly, burying her face in his shoulder as they embraced. "Ach, it's the only way!"

He drew back to look her in the face. "Come with me," he whispered.

"We cannot both abandon our son," she said in gentle rebuke.

"No." He turned his face away, gazing at the shadowed ground in the dim predawn light. "No, we cannot," he repeated softly.

Turning back to the woman in his arms, he took her by the shoulders and stared long at her face as though to fix it in his memory, to sustain him in the bleak lonely years that now stretched before him. A fierce intensity shook his voice as he spoke, the last words he would ever say to her: "I will always love you."

He could feel her tears on his own face as she pressed her lips to his, her arms tightening about him almost desperately, as though she would hold him back despite what she had said. Tightening, and then releasing.

Silently he turned then, taking the first steps upon a road that would extend before him for over nine centuries, a road as bleak and barren as the stone that surrounded them. Silently she stood there, watching him go.

And as the sun rose behind him, casting his shadow long and black on the rocky ground before him, it seemed almost that his link with the gargoyle queen extended beyond life and death, beyond pain.

It seemed almost that now his heart, like her own, turned to stone with the rising of the sun.

1312
Scotland

They called him Flint, for the color of his eyes, the clear grey of a Chiltern stone; some said also, for the hardness of his heart, for none had ever seen a show of emotion from him. It was said of him that he would look upon the worst that life had to offer, and simply nod, as though he had always known the world to be thus.

No one knew where the old man came from; he spoke their tongue with no accent, but an oddly archaic pronunciation. And he had not always lived in Scotland, though he seemed to know every inch of the land, every brook and stone. There were few questions asked, there at the beginning of things. A stranger willing to fight at Wallace's side was welcome, and like the mad Irishman Steven, all Flint had asked for was the chance to kill the English.

He hated the English, though it was rumored that he had lived among them for many years. In battle he was fearsome: cold and silent, fighting without frenzy, without rage -- a strange and disconcerting trait in a country of berserkers. He fought with no regard for his own injuries; many and many a time he had taken wounds that appeared mortal, and kept fighting. Yet somehow, no matter how few the survivors, he was always among them. One man swore he'd seen Flint take an arrow through the throat at Stirling and bleed his life out there on the ground, but at the end of the battle he'd been standing. There were those who crossed themselves, or made the sign against the Evil Eye, when he came near. It didn't bother him, of course. Very little bothered the man called Flint.

There was really no reason for him to avoid speaking to Wallace for any length of time, Flint knew that. William had been a young boy when they had last seen each other, and his own appearance had changed considerably since then; the cast eye was gone, and the face had lost its extra roundness. And besides, William thought his "uncle Argyle" to be long dead -- and would certainly not expect him to be here, fighting in the ranks, hardly older than when they had last been together. But there was no sense in taking chances.

The others had noticed he was missing one late afternoon, shortly after one of the minor skirmish battles, while the camp had been licking its collective wounds and the leaders had been planning the next moves. A few of them, including the black-haired young Ewain and his father, had finally ventured warily into the surrounding forest to look for him.

And they found him: alone in the woods, his body racked by spasms, shuddering as if under repeated blows, crying out with the pain; it seemed to the boy Ewain that he saw a man being attacked by the sidhe, or some other invisible tormentor.

The convulsions ceased finally, leaving Flint lying there moaning, broken. "Smashed her. Oh, god, the treacherous dogs, they've smashed her," he was gasping as they helped him rise, teeth clenched against anguish, hands clenched against fury. He didn't seem to see them as they half-carried him to a pallet, was speaking not to them but to his own pain. "Didn't know...didn't know she was this close. Smashed. Like a clay pot...oh, the bloody murdering cowards, they didn't dare to face her by night! Never think, lad --" and here he twisted around to face Ewain, his eyes bright with pain-madness but seeing now -- "never think that stone doesn't feel anything when it breaks. Just because you can't hear it cry out doesn't mean it isn't screaming, screaming too high for you to hear...."

His eyes rolled up in his head, and he went limp.

They put him with the wounded, not knowing what else to do with him. He lay like one dead for a night and a day; then, at sunset on the second night, his eyes opened and he stood, swaying slightly, and went to the main camp without a word. The cracks in his stone facade were gone, leaving no trace; and Flint never spoke of his illness, if such it had been, not even to the men who had found him. And something in his cool, grey-eyed gaze made others unwilling to ask many questions.

That didn't prevent the rumors, of course. The words he'd said while raving were told over and over, explained, augmented, disbelieved, argued about, and changed beyond recognition after a time...all except one phrase, which the young Ewain repeated to whoever would listen.

"He said to never think that stone doesn't feel anything when it breaks," he would say, nodding wisely. "Aye, the hardest rock cries out when it's broken. Even -- " he would lift one finger significantly and lean forward -- "even a flint. Something must have happened to him long ago, something that hurt him bad, and he's still bleeding from it." But he had to reluctantly admit that he had no idea of the identity of the "her" that Flint had referred to.

This matter deserved further speculation. Flint had been driven mad when the English had killed his wife (as they'd killed Wallace's, some added). No, it was a sister they'd killed. No, a daughter. No, he'd been speaking of the country itself when he'd said "her." No, all of this was wrong and Flint had simply been babbling nonsense; he was, after all, mad.

Perhaps so. But there were few who believed he was wholly mad. And besides, as the Irishman Steven was the first to say, a madman here was in good company.

He stayed with them through Falkirk, suffered with them through the betrayal and capture of Wallace, bled with them when they followed Robert the Bruce onto that final battlefield...and disappeared soon after. His body was never found, but none of them ever saw him alive again.

And no one saw the single traveler who left Scotland for the second time that day, left the land that had given him birth; she had regained her freedom, but would never again truly be his home.

But just as Scotland was no longer the home where he had been born, so England eventually ceased to be the enemy, at least in his mind. When he left the home he had made there, it was not wholly by his own choice....

1406
England

There was a rapid pounding at the door of the one-room cabin. The grey-bearded man glanced sharply up from the fire, and stood. "Who's there?"

"In God's name, John, let me in!" It was a man's whispered voice, out of breath, with a terrible urgency in it...and a trickle of undisguised terror.

The old man hesitated. "Nicholas?"

"Aye."

The man called John unbolted the door, and the other was revealed, clutching a dark lantern and looking about him nervously. "John, they're after ye," he said hoarsely, stepping inside. "I did hear them i' th' square, not a minute since. They say ye've made a pact with the Devil himself, and 'tis witchcraft that keeps ye alive -- " He swallowed. "John, ye must flee them, they mean t' burn ye!"

John smiled crookedly. "Aye, but only if I deny the charge. If I confess, they'll but hang me or behead me."

"'Sblood, John, 'tisn't a jest!" Nicholas snapped. "They mean to force ye to confess, 'tis certain. Would ye perjure y'rself to gain an easier death? for well I know that ye've made no pact with a demon."

"Have I not?" John's face darkened for a moment, and he gazed into the fire, not speaking. "There's much thou knowest not about me, Nicholas."

"I know what they'd as soon forget, the blackguards -- that thou'rt a good man, and a good friend ye've always been to us all, whatever else ye may have done. I've not forgotten who pulled my little Jacob out of the river last Midsummer, nor yet who helped my sons bring the crop in, asking no repayment, when I was abed with a fever and everyone did think 'twas certain I'd die." Nicholas was moving rapidly around the small house, picking up things and bundling them together. "I've no chance of stopping them, John, and no way to make repayment for all ye've done for me and mine. Save that if ye'll heed me now, then ye'll be gone when they come for ye."

"Nicholas, I cannot -- "

"For the love of God, man, don't ye want to live?" pleaded Nicholas.

John looked up and smiled a bitter smile. "Oh, I'll do that, Nicholas, whether I wish it or no," he said cryptically. "They'll not kill me. 'Tis almost tempted I am to let them try. But I'd not have my friends accused of knowingly consorting with witches." There was a sour twist to his mouth as he said the word. He stood, took the bundle, and held out a hand. "I thank thee, Nicholas," he said quietly. "Whatever becomes of us both this night, I thank thee."

Nicholas took his hand and held it, hard, then let go. "Good luck," he whispered.

The man without a name left England and moved southward, seeking refuge from others' fear, and finding none. He fled Spain on the eve of the Inquisition, and Portugal not long after, toward Italy.
Rome, with the eyes of the Vatican everywhere, could not be safe for long, not for a man whose longevity drew suspicion of witchcraft almost anywhere. But a smaller city in Italy drew him, and a certain man who lived there....

January, 1610
Padua, Italy

The man called Sagredo was unable to look up from the telescope. "The edge of the crescent is jagged," he said softly, wonderingly. "All along the dark part, near the shiny crescent, bright particles of light keep coming up, one after the other...and growing larger and merging with the bright crescent."

"How do you explain those spots of light?" asked the other man with him, a stout man with eyes that, at the moment, seemed brighter than the object of their discussion, the moon.

"It can't be true," whispered Sagredo.

"It is true," the other said. "They are high mountains."

"On a star?" Sagredo felt his hands tremble at the implications.

"Yes. The shining particles are mountain peaks catching the first rays of the rising sun while the slopes of the mountains are still dark, and what you see is the sunlight moving down from the peaks into the valleys."

"But this gives the lie to all the astronomy that's been taught for the last two thousand years!"

"Yes!" The other man's eyes glimmered in the moonlight. "What you are seeing now has been seen by no other man besides myself."

"But the moon can't be an earth with mountains and valleys like our own," argued Sagredo weakly, "any more than the earth can be a star."

"The moon is an earth with mountains and valleys, and the earth is a star," the other said. "As the moon appears to us, so we appear to the moon. From the moon, the earth looks sometimes like a crescent, sometimes like a half globe, sometimes a full globe...and sometimes it is not visible at all."

The man called Sagredo shook his head, not in negation but in turmoil. "Galileo, this is frightening," he said, low-voiced. Far more frightening than you could ever understand, my friend, he added silently. Countries change, languages change, religions change, everything on the earth changes over time, I've accepted that! But now you tell me that even the stars in the heavens are not what we thought them to be? By all that's holy, is there nothing that I can depend on?

Twenty-three years later, a mere flicker of time in his meaninglessly long life, he was to receive an answer.

An answer that came in the tolling of a church bell, ringing the knell of one man's defeat.

June, 1633
Rome, Italy

He sat on the street near the walled garden of the Florentine ambassador, wrapped in a hooded cloak, invisible in his guise as a nameless beggar. The afternoon was quiet and still, and he could clearly hear parts of the conversation of those who waited within the garden. Waited for news of their friend and teacher, Galileo Galilei, who was at this moment being interrogated by the Holy Inquisition.

"...He will not recant." That was Andrea; he remembered the small red-headed boy who had been one of Galileo's earliest students. With an effort, he reminded himself that Andrea was a grown man by now.

"How can they beat the truth out of a man who gave his sight in order to see?" That plaintive voice would be the monk Fulganzio, a man whose faith in Galileo Galilei was very probably equal to his faith in God -- and, at the moment, had to be stronger than his faith in the Church, which had proclaimed Galileo's teachings to be heresy.

Hold fast, my friend. He closed his eyes tightly, trying with all his might to somehow send strength and will across the intervening space to the man who had shown him the mountains on the moon. Hold fast. They cannot change the truth. The earth does move, and nothing they can say or do will make it stand still. Hold fast.

A new voice was speaking now, an unpleasant, self-satisfied voice. "Mr. Galilei will be here soon. He may need a bed."

"Have they let him out?" That would be Federzoni, the mechanic and scholar.

"Mr. Galilei is expected to recant at five o'clock. The big bell of Saint Marcus will be rung, and the complete text of his recantation publicly announced."

The man's eyes flew open. No!

"I don't believe it," came Andrea's voice, loud and angry.

The response was quieter, and the man who sat outside the wall did not hear the words. The door opened and a man came out, hurrying down the street.

Andrea's voice spoke again, with the intensity and conviction of a prayer. "The moon is an earth because the light of the moon is not her own. Jupiter is a fixed star, and four moons turn around Jupiter, therefore we are not shut in by crystal shells." His voice grew louder, more passionate. "The sun is the pivot of our world, therefore the earth is not the center. The earth moves, spinning about the sun. And he showed us! You can't make a man unsee what he has seen!"

"Five o'clock is one minute," said Federzoni.

Andrea again, almost shouting. "Listen, all of you, they are murdering the truth!"

There was a silence.

The man who sat in his beggar's cloak felt the tension within the garden, felt his own hands tremble and clenched them tightly. My teacher, my friend, life is short for you; nothing they can do to you will last beyond your death, unless you let them take away the truth you have found. They are far more blind than you will ever be. Think of the shadows on the moon, think of the countless worlds in the Milky Way, and hold fast!

"No," came Federzoni's voice, tremulous, alight with sudden hope. "No bell. It is three minutes after."

A babble of voices. "He hasn't -- " "He held true. It is all right..." "He did not recant!" "It is all right."

"June twenty-two, sixteen thirty-three: dawn of the age of reason," Federzoni was saying, laughing with joy.

Andrea's voice rose above the others, triumphant. "Beaten humanity can lift its head. A man has stood up and said No."

And at that moment, the bell of Saint Marcus began to toll.

Within the garden, silence fell, leaden and cold.

A woman's voice -- that of Virginia, Galileo's daughter -- cried out from the garden, with a joy that seemed to the stricken man almost obscene. "The bell of Saint Marcus. He is not damned!"

From the street there came the voice of the town crier, reading, the words falling as inexorably as the strokes of the bell. "I, Galileo Galilei, Teacher of Mathematics and Physics, do hereby publicly renounce my teaching that the earth moves. I forswear this teaching with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, and detest and curse this and all other errors and heresies repugnant to the Holy Scriptures...."

The beggarman stood up and moved slowly away. This, then, is the one thing I can depend upon, he thought bitterly. People will always hate what they do not understand, and they will always try to kill it. Galileo, my friend, is that not the one constant in this world? They murdered the truth because they could not comprehend it. As they always murder whatever is strange and frightening.

He cast a final look over his shoulder at the street, where the last strokes of the bell were fading. You should have let them kill you, my friend, he said silently to the beaten man. This world is no place for those who are not afraid of the truth. You'd be better off out of it.

He did not look about him as he walked. Home first, to gather what he could carry, and then away; Italy was no longer a place he could live. Not anymore. Perhaps... A recollection came to him, of an old friend from Spain, another man who had been called a dreamer and a madman, and had been proved right by events over a century ago. Well, Cristobal, perhaps I'll go and see your New World after all.

It was somewhat easier, being a foreigner and a migrant, here in a land where nearly everyone was a foreigner and a migrant. He knew within months of arriving that the colonies would be a place he could grow to like.
But he never expected that he would grow to love this land, with the fierce love that had fought to drive the English out of Scotland. And he never expected that the old memories of what a true king ought to be would cause such bitterness in him, bitterness at what the monarchy had become, and the old hatred of the English would rise in him again....

October, 1775
Philadelphia

The common room of the Red Lyon was crowded, even more than was usual at this time of year. The ale was good and well chilled, the fire was high, and a grey-bearded man known as Michael Bethancourt was sitting at the bar, committing casual and unconcerned sedition.

"There's something almost ridiculous about monarchy in these times," he was saying now. "It cuts a man off from the means of information, but gives him the power to make decisions calling for the highest judgment. So here we have a man whose business ought to require him to know the country and the world better than anyone, and instead he's shut off from it completely." The man shook his head in cheerful scorn. "There's not a king in the world today whose kingship isn't a mockery of the name."

The innkeeper was never entirely comfortable when Bethancourt was around. True, his talk did bring in patrons, to listen to him and to argue over what he'd said when he was gone -- and drink while they talked or listened. But the old man would say anything, no matter how treasonable or blasphemous, no matter who was listening; and the innkeeper lived in fear of the day that would bring Michael Bethancourt and a redcoat troop into his inn on the same night.

Of the patrons of the tavern, there were those who drank and ate and pretended not to hear the greybeard's talk; those who laughed at his audacity and called out questions to start him off again; and, most disquieting to the innkeeper, those who listened intently and said nothing, but were thinking almost visibly about the points he had raised. There was one such in the room tonight: a silent, thoughtful-looking man in his thirties, sitting at the bar a few feet away from Bethancourt, watching him steadily.

It wasn't as if anything the old man said was a lie, as such, but... King George's men would doubtless take offense, as would the King himself, should rumor of it reach him. And if word got around that the Lyon was a place that countenanced such discussion, well.... It was thoughts such as these that disturbed the innkeeper's sleep at night. Yet somehow, he never could bring himself to even try to silence the old man.

"A country needs a king," someone called out.

The man called Michael Bethancourt raised his ale mug to the person who'd spoken. "A king to rule over us, as the other nations have, eh? We need a king, oh aye, that's certain. To do what? A king's duty is to judge disputes between his people fairly, and to lead them in battle, isn't it? But the English king doesna do either, and ye might tell me what he does do other than to make war and give away land -- that's to bankrupt his people, and set them to fighting one another. Not a bad business for a man to be paid eight thousand sterling a year, and worshipped in the bargain, eh? Being a king's a pretty piece of soft work, these days."

"It's not a hard job of work to get. All you've got to do is be born royalty," someone else said, raising a wave of laughter.

Bethancourt snorted, and the laughter dissipated quickly in anticipation of whatever scandalous thing he would say next. "Birthright. If the succession ensured that we'd have a race of good and wise men, then God's blessings and mine on it, to be sure. But the sons of good kings have so often been foolish, wicked, completely unsuited to rule -- " He shook his head and drained the mug, passing it back over the countertop to be refilled. "It doesna work, lads. I've seen too many countries ruled by men who shouldna be trusted with a sack of grain, let alone a kingdom."

A stout man with a red face, sitting at a nearby table, did not join in the laughter. "There's nothing funny about it," he said irritably when it had died down. "It's talk like that, Master Bethancourt, that will prevent the colonies from ever reconciling with Britain."

"Aye!" said another who had not laughed. "You have your jest at the crown's expense, but have you no fear for the future? Have you no wish at all for the rift between the colonies and their mother country to be healed, and all be forgiven?"

"Be forgiven?" The greybeard tasted his ale thoughtfully. "I wouldna say that, now. And I'm nae jesting, as ye seem to believe. Why should we bother trying to patch this rift?"

The other blinked. "Well, because...the colonies have always been part of Great Britain..."

"What kind of prosperity would we have if we broke ties with England?" the red-faced man demanded. "Our connection with Great Britain has always been a favorable one. Why should we risk all that?"

"I see," Bethancourt said solemnly. "So because a child thrives upon milk, that must mean that he shall never have meat, is that it?"

The man grew redder, and started to reply.

"And even that is giving England more credit than she merits," the old man cut him off, "for America would have flourished as much, if not much more, if no power in Europe had anything t'do with her. Our exports are the necessities of life, and I dare say they'll have a market as long as eating is the custom of Europe."

"But England has protected us," another man protested. "It would be the rankest ingratitude to defy her."

"Oh aye, she's protected us," Bethancourt snapped. "Defended the continent at our expense, as well as her own. And from her own enemies, not ours; enemies that had no quarrel with us on any other account, but will always be our enemies as long as we are part of Great Britain. D'ye really think that France and Spain would be at war with us when they war with Britain, if we threw off this foolish dependence?"

"Her enemies are our enemies," insisted a thin dark-haired man. "She is our mother country."

"Then the more shame upon her conduct!" the old man shot back. "Even beasts dinna devour their young, sirrah, and even the most savage peoples dinna make war upon their own families. If England were truly our mother, then I'd as soon be orphaned." A shocked murmur went up from the listeners in the tavern. "And it isn't even true," he continued.

"You will explain that, Bethancourt," said the dark-haired man angrily.

"Europe is the parent country of America, not England," Bethancourt answered, not angry now but earnest. "This new world has been a refuge for those who love freedom from all over Europe. And they came here fleeing a monster, not a mother. And now," his voice was rising steadily, "now that same tyranny which drove the first of us from our homes, pursues our children here across the ocean...."

The man sniffed. "I hardly think, Master Bethancourt, that such choplogic justifies any treacherous attack upon the crown. Reconciliation is still our best alternative."

"Ye hardly think." Bethancourt clenched one fist on the tabletop. "Aye, and ye're fortunate enough to live far enough away from places like Boston that you dinna have to think. But imagine for a moment you lived there. D'ye stay and starve, or do you leave and beg? Watch your friends' houses be set afire, or be robbed by the redcoat pirates if you set foot outside the city? You're a prisoner there, and if there's any battle to set you free, you'll have the worst of it.

"So tell me, can you still faithfully serve the power that has carried fire and sword into our land? If not, then you're only deceiving yourselves if you think we should reconcile. Any connection that we may maintain with Britain after this will be forced and unnatural, and when it collapses, this time of trials will be a happy memory compared to that dread future!"

There was silence. "And if you can say that you will still forgive them," Bethancourt continued, not looking at anyone in particular, "if you can hold out your hand to Britain and say, Come, we shall be friends, for all this... then I ask you, has your house been burnt? Are your wife and children begging in the streets for lack of a roof to cover them and bread to eat? Have you lost a parent or child by their murdering hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor?" He turned in his seat, now staring each man in the face, his voice grim. "If not, then you are no judge of those who have. And if you have, and can still shake hands with these murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover. And whatever your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward."

The dark-haired man started up from his chair, his fist clenched. Bethancourt watched with barely concealed contempt as the man's companions caught at him, restraining him from attacking. There was a brief, furious whispered conversation, and the man tossed down some coins on the table and strode out of the common room.

No one else seemed eager to take up the gage that Bethancourt had thrown down, and the normal talk of the common room resumed, albeit somewhat more hushed and furtive than usual. No one was about to say anything else to set him going again; the patrons of the bar had had enough talk of treason for one night. Only the silent man, who had said no word through all the discussion, was still watching him.

Bethancourt saw him, sighed, and raised his voice slightly. "And what would ye be wanting, then, sir?"

"What you were saying, just now," the man said carefully. "It could make people angry."

Bethancourt shook his head. "Not angry enough. If the lot of us all got angry, enough to do something about it...." He sighed. "But too many of these folk think that things will return to normal, if only they don't rock the boat. They don't realize this is normal, or will be soon enough."

"I..." The younger man paused. "I believe you." He offered his hand. "My name's Thomas, sir. Thomas -- "

"Michael," the older man said, cutting him off. "And given names will do, for now."

Thomas paused, then nodded and continued. "All those things you were saying...you believe that? That there's no hope of reconciliation with Britain?"

"None," said Bethancourt grimly. "None whatsoever. They've changed the game now, you know. It isn't argument anymore, it's arms; April nineteenth saw to that.

"The trouble is, when nations are at war, sometimes another power steps in as a mediator to help bring about peace. But nobody's going to step in as long as we call ourselves subjects of Great Britain. France and Spain won't help us if they think we're still planning to strengthen our ties with Britain; they'd only suffer for it, and they know it.

"And as long as we still call ourselves Britain's subjects, the foreign nations are bound to consider us rebels. And they can't help rebels, it'd be dangerous to their own peace to set that kind of precedent. We havena a chance if we don't declare ourselves independent."

"You do realize what you're saying?" Thomas drained his mug and set it down at arm's length; the barman silently refilled it. "It could come to outright war. Between us and Great Britain."

"And what d'ye call what we have now? The only reason this isn't a war is because not enough of us are fighting back! And Thomas, if we do decide to fight, we canna lose. We've as much as we need of anything. Cordage? We have hemp flourishing to the point where it rots in the ground unneeded. Arms? Our iron is superior to any other country's; we can cast cannon at need, we produce saltpeter and gunpowder daily, and our smaller guns are equal to any in the world. What is it we still need? Courage, resolution? They're the inherent character of every man on this continent, Thomas! Why do we hesitate?"

The other man made no answer. Bethancourt shoved aside his mug and turned on the stool to face him directly. "This isn't one city, one country, one day, one year; this is an entire continent, Thomas, and its entire future. Anything we do here, in the next few years, will be -- " He seemed to grope for words. "Have ye ever seen a name carved on a young tree in small letters, and when you return years later the letters have grown with the tree, until they stretch larger than a hand could write? The tiniest act now will carry such weight in the coming years as can hardly be imagined."

Thomas leaned forward, a smile lighting his sharp face. "Michael, you don't know how good it is to hear someone else saying these things. I'd been wondering if this whole continent were asleep on its feet, to not see what's been happening.... What would you say we should do, then?"

"Break off ties with Britain. Now. Publish it in writing, tell the foreign courts what we've suffered at her hands, how we've tried to solve the problems peaceably and failed. Tell them that we can't live happily or safely under Britain anymore and we are driven to break all connections with her. And at the same time, tell them that our intents toward them are for peaceful trade, nothing more. It would do more good for this continent than a shipload of petitions to Britain could ever do."

The other man put down his ale mug, his dark eyes alight. "Michael, that's...perfect. Perfect. By God, it could work!"

Michael Bethancourt shrugged. "It's just common sense, Thomas."

Thomas Paine nodded slowly. "You're right. That's exactly what it is. Common sense." He picked up his mug and took a long drink.

He was a soldier. He was a minstrel. He was a cook, a painter, a blacksmith, a merchant, a sailor, a farmer. He lived in a castle, he lived on the road, he lived in a cabin that he built with his own hands. He died of the plague, he died pierced with sword and arrow, he died with seawater filling his lungs, he died on the gallows and on the pyre, he died under a rockfall. And every time, he rose to live again by nightfall on the following day.
He took more names than he could count. He traveled as far as he could, as long as he could, desperate for something new, something he hadn't already seen thousands of times over. He sought out books of all kinds, and read avidly, learning new languages (and new versions of old languages) where he had to. He spent the better part of fifty years seeking oblivion at the bottom of an ale barrel.
The world changed around him, and while sometimes he struggled to change with it, there were often times when he desperately sought the past....

November, 1973
Passaic, New Jersey

Rain lashed at the library windows, rattling the glass panes.

"Sir?" The young librarian peered around the edge of a high wooden bookshelf, her voice carefully low and gentle. "Sir, we're closing for the night in ten minutes."

The only man left in the library raised his head from the book he was reading -- something of Shakespeare's, she noted with the practiced eye of one familiar with every volume in her domain. He blinked at her, then looked up at the clock. "Ten minutes," he repeated. There was a faint trace of an accent to his voice, one she couldn't quite place. "Ten minutes. As you say, then." And he turned back to the book, effectively dismissing her with an air of authority that sorted oddly with his appearance.

He was middle-aged, and shabbily dressed; denim work trousers and a plaid flannel shirt, and dusty work boots. With his scruffy beard and his reluctance to leave the library.... Out of work, she guessed with a pang of sympathy. Likely got laid off not too long ago. Probably the library was warmer and drier than wherever he had to sleep tonight.

The young woman glanced up at the clock, then back at the man. He hadn't noticed the time. Surely she could keep the library open a little while longer this evening. Nobody would mind.

Quietly, she made her way back to the check-out desk, leaving the old man poring over the worn Shakespeare.

-----
He bent over the book, reading carefully, murmuring phrases from the text aloud every so often. From time to time his mouth would twist into a bitter smile; at other lines he would sneer, or shake his head in disgust; still others would make him catch his breath and nod slowly.

"I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition...." Ambition? Fool of a playwright, who told you this tale? I did not ask to be King!

"I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me; / I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck'd my nipple from its boneless gums, / And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn...." This, this shrew, this cold-blooded Lady is meant to be my sweet Gruoch? Faugh!

Nine o'clock. The wind and rain had slackened, but were rising again. The janitors had come and gone, having swept the floors and been assured by the librarian that she would turn off the lights when she left, there were just a few more things she had to take care of before going home. The old man continued to read.

"Better be with the dead, / Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, / Than on the torture of the mind to lie...." Better be with the dead, indeed. Gruoch, my lady wife, my love...and Luoch, my son.... If only. Death is a comfort denied me now, thanks to those witches. His jaw tightened, the muscle rippling beneath the grey beard.

"Saw you the weird sisters?...Infected be the air whereon they ride, / And damn'd all those that trust them!..." As I trusted them. And damned I am, truly. Damned to continue this wretched existence for all time, though my aching heart begs to stop beating, after all the long years.

Ten-thirty. The young librarian stood behind the bookcase and watched the old man silently for a long moment, then turned away and quietly returned to the front desk. Something made her unwilling to interrupt him.

"The castle of Macduff I will surprise, / Seize upon Fife, give to th' edge o' th' sword / His wife, his babes, and all...in his line...." A fist clenched in anguish, and slammed down on the polished wood table. No! No, damn you, black-hearted Bard! I never wanted that badly to be King -- I do not know whose tale this is that you tell, but it is none of mine!

"Not in the legions / Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd...." There you speak true, Will; God help me, but there you speak true. "I have lived long enough; my way of life / Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf...." Oh God, yes, I have lived long enough twenty times over. Am I never to find rest?

Eleven-fifteen. The lights had gone out in the rest of the library, and only one reading lamp glowed within. At the front desk, a young woman slept with her head resting on her folded arms, an unfinished history text lying open before her. Outside, the wind howled and the rain came down in torrents, as though all the world wept.

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, / Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, / Raze out the written troubles of the brain, / And with some sweet oblivious antidote / Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff / That weighs upon the heart?..." The question, intended to be brusque and irritable, came from the old man's lips as a fervent, impassioned plea. To forget what weighs upon my heart. Oh, dear God, if only for one night, for one hour, I could forget.

"'The Queen, my lord, is dead.' / 'She should have died hereafter; / There would have been a time for such a word.'" His hand clenched again on the binding, seeming almost as if he would tear the book apart. And that is all you will have me say, Bard of Avon? My sweet Gruoch, the gentlest lady that ever lived -- gone mad, and then dead, and her lord is impatient that she has died at an inconvenient time? Villain, if you still lived, I would tear out your throat for this!

The rustle of a page turning.

A pause, then an audible gasp of indrawn breath, almost a sob.

      Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
      Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
      To the last syllable of recorded time;
      And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
      The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
      Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
      That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
      And then is heard no more. It is a tale
      Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
      Signifying nothing....

The book fell to the carpeted floor with a loud thump. The old man slumped forward in his chair, his great head hanging low in despair, his face buried in one hand.

The bowed shoulders shook, once.

That night was the darkest in his long weary life. It seemed that all the griefs and frustrations of his centuries-long past had risen up to torment him, and he was a young boy again watching his father die, and he was a young man seeing his love wed to another, and he was a king betrayed by his most powerful ally, and he was an aging exile in a land not his own, and he was old, was old, old....
There was nothing to believe in anymore, no reason for anything, certainly no reason to keep living. The future was empty as the past he had lived through...and he was so tired.
He made his decision that night, fixed on the one last goal: Find the gargoyle queen. Find her, and end it.

October, 1994
Riker's Island, New York

His heart beat fast as he strode down the hallway. The prison-guard uniform he'd appropriated made him all but invisible, but his heartbeat must be audible all the way on the mainland. How long had it been since anything had affected him this way -- since he had allowed himself to feel hope again?

Faintly and indistinctly through the door, he could hear the voice of the man he had come to meet, in conversation with a thinner, dryer voice. He opened the door and stepped in, and the men stopped talking and looked up at him.

"I believe I have...ten minutes left," said the thin blond one, glancing at his watch. That was the dry voice, the subordinate.

"Take all the time you want," said the old man easily. "I'm here with a proposition for Mr. Xanatos."

The brown-bearded one on the other side of the glass window arched an eyebrow. "I'm listening."

He seated himself, turning a chair around and straddling it, as he spoke. "I understand you have a small...infestation."

Xanatos exchanged glances with his aide through the glass. "I don't recall phoning Pest Control."

"I'm familiar with the nature of these...ah, pests," said the man in the uniform that was not his. "And for a price, I'll take them off your hands." With a distinct effort, he kept the rising glee out of his voice. Soon now, soon....

"I see." Xanatos paused. "And how would you go about this, Mr....?" He let it trail off into a question.

"Call me..." The old man paused, then smiled. Yes. The time comes to end it all, and firstly to end the lies, the dishonor. No more hiding behind false names. "Call me Macbeth."

Disclaimer, continued:
The characters of Steven, Argyle, and Ewain are taken in part from the movie Braveheart; William Wallace and Robert the Bruce actually existed historically, but I don't know about those three. (Ewain is not named inthe movie; he's the black-haired youth whose father is the first to turn and leave the battlefield at Stirling, if that helps.)
The character of Sagredo, as well as most of the dialogue from the two scenes in Italy, is from Bertholt Brecht's play Galileo.
The lines quoted in the library scene are (duh) from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
And most of the points raised by "Michael Bethancourt" in the common room of the Red Lyon (which, incidentally, is itself wholly fictitious) are paraphrased from Thomas Paine's essay "Common Sense." Or vice versa, if you like.... *grin*

I wanted to work this quote in somehow, but was unable to. So instead I merely present it for your enjoyment. I thought it...appropriate.

       From too much love of living,
       From hope and fear set free,
       We thank with brief thanksgiving,
       Whatever gods may be,
       That no life lives forever,
       That dead men rise up never,
       That even the weariest river
       winds somewhere safe to sea.

       -- Swinburne