Introducing The Alpha Timeline

Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART SIX, AMAZEMENT OF THE WORLD, 1137alpha A. D.

(Anderson's text uses the symbol for the Greek letter, alpha, which is not on my keyboard.)

That extra symbol after the year date alerts us that we are in the wrong timeline. The text begins:

"The door opened." (p. 269)

An opening but onto something good or bad?

"Sunlight struck bright..." (ibid.)

That sounds promising but:

"...and bleak into the silk merchant's shop." (ibid.)

It is all downhill from there:

"Autumn air streamed after it, full of chill and street noises. Then the apprentice stumbled through. Seen from the dimness inside, against the day outside, he was almost a shadow." (ibid.)

After that entrance, he is going to bring bad news, isn't he?

"But they heard how he wept. 'Master Geoffrey, oh, Master Geoffrey!'" (ibid.)

The apprentice brings the news that the king is dead. (And that is why we are in an alternative timeline.) Every detail:

bleak light;

autumn;

chill;

noise;

stumbling;

dimness contrasted with daylight;

shadow;

weeping;

anguished cry;

more that I have not quoted -

 

- prepares the reader for a death and of someone important.