I landed in a room poorly lit by a flickering fire at the far end. The walls were stone, and mostly covered with wooden wainscotting, and the ceiling was low enough that I had to lower my sword which pointed up into a narrow stairway.

The sounds of breathing, and snores caused me to wait until my eyes adjusted to the dimness.

The wooden ceiling was black-stained with soot, and all over the floor, men slept under blankets. It looked impossible to leave the room by the front door without waking at least one person who blocked the door, so I sat down, and despite my thrill of adrenalin at being in a new universe, I forced myself into a watchful trance.

Hours passed quickly, and as roosters crowed outside, the room started to awaken. Lamps were lit, and window curtains parted, and grouchy fellows started to ask for their coffee. With my cloak on, I was able to blend in even though I did not wear the commonplace knee-high shorts or the large buckled shoes.

Servants came in, and pulled out boards and sawhorses and chairs, and soon the room resembled a pub. This took place while the sleepers went around back to the privy, and pulled out their pipes and enjoyed an early morning smoke.

They talked of politics, and they seemed cheerful as if they felt themselves to be on the winning side.

I was accepted since I had slept here for this inn on the Coast road was known as a hotbed of the Principled. And I was glad to hear their principles.

“All men are created equal!” They shouted as the dawn finished breaking, and their leader, a fine figure of a man with a nice pigtail, and a blue velvet overcoat with many silver buttons then spoke in a good orator’s voice about the need for all men to join together, and thrown down the unprincipled compromisers.

And then they invoked the evil name of their arch-enemy, Ben Franklin, and I felt a sudden chill rush down my back. Old Ben had his faults, but there was no doubt he was a canny man, and anything he was against I was well-advised to be wary of. Of course, there was no guarantee that this universe’s Ben Franklin was anything like mine.

We walked back in to a hearty breakfast, and my gold coin engraved with the picture of Conan got a look, but no more, and I took my change in silver bearing the names of Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and Rhode Island with each coin a bit different in size from that of other states.

The Rhode Island penny was evidently worth twice a New Hampshire coin, since the Islanders had purer silver.

After breakfast, they scattered to bring back friends to join in the great rally to be held at noon. I was given an assignment as well, after I assured them I was good on a horse, and adept with a sword.

I rode with the leader and a few of his others. My turn to be studied it was. The leader, Samuel Charity Higgins, land surveyor, privateer for a season until a British ship hulled their vessel, then prisoner in the Hudson River prison ships, and after escaping cannonneer in the Revolutionary Army under Washington, then judge, and now delegate to the Constitutional Convention was easily manipulated to talk about himself, and so he gave me abundant information to make up a partial tale of my life.

I did not lie, but I’m sure he picked up the wrong impression. When I said, I’d been advising a leader for the last five years, I think he thought I was an executive secretary to a mayor instead of court sorcerer to Conan the Barbarian.

He was easily assuaged since he needed supporters. The Compromisers had the edge in the Convention. So he reached for a dramatic gesture.

We rode into the woods about five miles south of Philadelphia, and found a cabin. In it, a mature black male waited for us.

His name was Ezekiel Tanner, and he was a very impressive man even before I heard his life story. Tall, big-boned, dignified, and well-muscled with a voice to match Higgin’s own.

Born a slave, he had escaped, and taken ship to London as a stowaway. There he got himself admitted to Oxford due to native brilliance and the good fortune and courage of saving a Duke’s son from some highwaymen.

He graduated a Doctor of Theology, and began to write under an assumed identity as “The Voice Crying in the Wilderness.”, and became quite popular in the papers, and sold many broadsheet pamphlets.

Then touring he went to America, and had the misfortune to fall sick due to what would later be called Montezuma’s Revenge. In so doing, a particular birthmark was exposed, and word reached a powerful slaveowner who had owned him as a child.

Now the man wanted his slave back. The Principled had smuggled Mr. Tanner out of the hospital, and to this cabin where a nurse tended to him until he got well.

They could have finished the job by taking him out of the country, but both they and Mr. Tanner wanted to make a point.

They wanted to smuggle Mr. Tanner into the Convention, and seat him as a delegate in place of one of their own who would falsely plead illness, and offer Mr. Tanner as a substitute.

This would render the “foul compromise of regarding each Negro as three-fifths of a man as the cheap sham it is!” Higgins emoted as we all sat around the table in the cabin’s main room.

Tanner nodded with hope, and then he asked if he might pray before they set out.

Halfway through his obviously sincere and wise prayer, he stopped, stuttered, and jerked.

We all looked up, and I saw him staring at me.

“You!”

I patted my chest blankly.

“You are the sign the Lord told me was coming. The Man from the Future who would tell me what I ought to do.”

I gulped as all sets of eyes focused on me. What to say?

Rough hands landed on my shoulders, and without thinking I twisted wrists and bounced off the stool to my feet while my would-be assailants scattered on the floor about me.

“Hold, I say, hold!” Mr. Tanner said in a commanding voice. “This is my house, and no violence will you do to this man.”

“Its our house.” One of the Principled said drawing a knife.

“Then I will leave.” Tanner replied reaching for his coat.

“No, no.” Higgins said. “Please everyone sit down. Mr. Tanner is quite right. He is the master in this house, and he has the right of it. We were just startled thinking our new friend was a traitor to the Cause.”

They looked calmed down except for the man with a knife, but he put it up with a hard look from Higgins.

I felt sickened. The three-fifths compromise had definitely been based on pure political calculation, but perhaps that had been necessary at the time. If they had not, the Nation might never have been born. The Founding Fathers chose to confront the issue later, and maybe they, the wisest collection of men in American or almost any history had been right.

“I may be a traitor to your cause, Mr. Higgins. Maybe I’m here to tell, Mr. Tanner that the time is not now.”

Mr. Tanner looked at me with a kind and understanding eye which only made it worse.

“This is garbage.” A young hothead shouted, and I drew a quarter from my pocket.

I flipped it to him, and he caught it.

With disbelief on his face, I told him to read off the date.

“1995.” He said.

“In the future I recall, the Three-fifths Compromise went through, the Constitution was born, and in the 1860’s a great Civil War where tens of thousands of Americans died decided once and for all that Blacks were free. But I do not know if I am to avert that, or to cause that future. I think it was a good future on the whole, even with its many flaws.”

There was much subdued discussion which ended with two announcements. One by Mr. Tanner to me that I should pray about what course would be best, and the other by Mr. Higgins which pointed out that unless they moved quickly they would make a decision by ommission. They could change their mind later, and back out if desired.

So we gathered our stuff together, including the wig, and the white face cream, and our proposed delegate, and with Mr. Tanner riding in seclusion with Mr. Higgins in a curtained stagecoach, we escorted on horseback the two into Philadelphia, and to a townhouse which was a secret base for the Principled.

Tadeusz