The Goth bellowed. "Ha! Ha! You mean to say, ha! ha! that you lay in the pond all day, right under the noses of the guards, with your face painted up like a damned flower? Ha! ha! Christ, that's the best thing I ever heard!" He dismounted. "Come on in the house and tell me more about it. Whew, you certainly stink like a frog pond, old friend!"
Later, he said more seriously: "I'd like to trust you, Martinus. By all accounts, you're a pretty reliable young man, in spite of your funny foreign ways. But how do I know that Liuderis wasn't right? There is something queer about you, you know, People say you can foresee the future, but try to hide the fact. And some of those machines of yours do smell a little bit of magic."
"I'll tell you," said Padway thoughtfully. "I can see a little hit of the future. Don't blame me; I just happen to have that power. Satanas has nothing to do with it. That is, I can sometimes see what will happen if people are allowed to do what they intend to. If I use my knowledge to intervene, that changes the future, so my vision isn't true any more.
"In this case, I know that Wittigis will lose the war. And he'll lose in the worst possible way—at the end of years of fighting which will completely devastate Italy. Not his fault. He's simply built that way. The last thing I want is to see the country ruined; it would spoil a lot of plans I have. So I propose to intervene and change the natural course of events. The results may be better; they could hardly be worse."
Nevitta frowned. "You mean you're going to try to defeat us Goths quickly. I don't think I could agree to such—"
"No. I propose to win your war for you. If I can."
CHAPTER IX
If Padway wasn't mistaken, and if Procopius' history had not lied, Thiudahad ought to pass along the Flaminian Way within the next twenty-four hours in his panicky flight to Ravenna. All the way, Padway had asked people whether the ex-king had passed that way. All said no.
Now, on the outskirts of Narnia, he was as far north as he dared go. The Flaminian Way forked at this point, and he had no way of knowing whether Thiudahad would take the new road or the old. So he and Hermann made themselves easy by the side of the road and listened to their horses cropping grass. Padway looked at his companion with a bilious eye. Hermann had taken much too much beer aboard at Ocriculum.
To Padway's questions and his instructions about taking turns at watching the road, he merely grinned idiotically and said, "Ja, ja!" He had finally gone to sleep in the middle of a sentence, and no amount of shaking would arouse him.