The Divining

by Wood, Barbara

  They heard a shout and the start of thundering hooves. Sebastianus and Timonides turned in time to see the horses racing toward Nestor. Even as the hooves came down on him, and the first great club, Nestor laughed.

  As Timonides watched in frozen horror, as he saw the blood and bone and bits of brain fly up from the clubs, he remembered that silk was produced by the mulberry worm. And thus the fulfillment of an ox scapula prophecy.

  SEBASTIANUS FOUND HIS FRIEND lying on a pallet, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. Timonides's eyes were red and puffy, but he no longer wept. The sun had set, the stars were out, and he had no more tears to shed.

  "I requested an audience with the emperor," Sebastianus said, "and he has granted it. I am going to ask him to allow us to leave. We cannot stay here any longer. I am responsible for what happened to Nestor. I should have insisted long ago that we be permitted to leave. I only hope you can forgive me, my old friend, for allowing us to remain prisoner here so long."

  Timonides did not speak, and a short time later, after following the usual, wearisome protocol, Sebastianus bowed respectfully and said to Ming: "Your Majesty, I have seen with my own eyes the wise and compassionate way the Lord of Ten Thousand Years governs his vassals, and I see that they are happy under his rule. I believe my own emperor would be interested to hear about the wise and mighty Lord of Heaven, and perhaps he can even learn from the sovereign of the Flowery Land. I humbly ask that I be allowed to return to my country and paint for my Emperor and all the high officials a portrait of the wise and compassionate rule of the Lord of Ten Thousand Years. It will be a great honor to praise Your Majesty's name from here to Rome and instill in the peoples along the way a fearsome respect for the name of the lofty one who occupies Your Majesty's throne.

  "Your Majesty's generosity exceeds the number of stars in the night sky. Truly Your Majesty is the most generous man on earth. I wish to have the honor of telling the world of the greatness of the Lord of Heaven. I wish to boast of my having been your humble guest and the recipient of the Lord of Heaven's bounty and compassion. I wish to return to my country and impress my own emperor with this knowledge."

  Ming said nothing. His face was without expression beneath the curious crown of beaded fringe. Ma sat silently at his side.

  "In return for this generous favor, Your Majesty," Sebastianus continued, "I will tell you about the might and power of Rome. Her armies are like the seas, her soldiers are like dragons that breathe fire, her machines of war are like thunder and lightning. I tell Your Majesty these things not to betray my country, nor to boast in falsehoods—for what I say of Rome's legions is true—but to offer the Lord of Heaven the opportunity to join with a great ally that is almost as powerful as himself. Persia is Rome's enemy. And I know that the Han people would like to subjugate Persia. Together, Rome and China can surround Persia and show that lowly nation what great races we are."

  Sebastianus maintained composure as the silence lengthened. He could not read Ming's face, and wondered if he had gone too far. But then the young emperor turned to Empress Ma and they exchanged a murmured dialogue.

  Finally the Lord of Ten Thousand Years turned to Sebastianus and, through the interpreters, said, "Our honorable guest has anticipated a decision we had already made, many weeks ago. It is our desire to learn more about the teachings of the one called Buddha. We wish to build a shrine to him, and to share those teachings with the citizens of China. It was our plan to send some of the Buddhist missionaries, whom you brought to Luoyang a year ago, back to their home in India so that they may gather books and statues of the Enlightened One and bring them to us. We had intended to ask you, honored guest, if you would do us the great favor of escorting these missionaries back to India, and from there carry our respectful greetings to your Emperor in Li-chien.

  "It is a most propitious sign that we arrived at the same thought together. It means that your journey is predestined and therefore will be a safe and lucky one. We will supply your caravan with whatever the missionaries need, as well as gifts for your Caesar and diplomatic passes that will guarantee your safe passage through territories between here and Persia. It is our wish that you depart Luoyang as soon as possible."

  Sebastianus bowed and exited the pavilion. He wondered if Ming had truly meant to let them go, or if the excuse of the Buddhist missionaries were a way of saving face.

  It did not matter. They were going home.

  BOOK EIGHT

  BABYLON

  34

  U

  LRIKA STOOD ANXIOUSLY AT the prow of The Fortunate Wind, searching the crowded dock as she drew near.

  Pray let Sebastianus still be here.

  Her boat was propelled by sixty oarsmen and carried a cargo of copper ingots. The sides of the boat were colorfully decorated with figures from myth, and the sails were bright blue and red in the sunlight. Ulrika tried to mentally urge the oarsmen to row faster, faster.

  The Euphrates River ran through the center of Babylon, and so the massive protective walls that encircled the city spanned the river at two ends. Watercraft sailed under stone arches and through a series of movable iron gates cleverly engineered to keep invaders out. The quayside on this sunny spring morning was crowded and bustling with industry as sailors handled oars and rigging, passengers and families cried farewells and welcomes, vendors hawked their wares, and city officials stood at their posts recording departures and arrivals, assessing incoming and outgoing cargo, levying taxes.

  Ulrika was returning from a visit upriver to the town of Salama, where a shrine had been built to house clay tablets that were said to be the oldest sacred books in the world, and which held secrets that not even the priests of Marduk knew. In her quest to find the Venerable Ones, Ulrika had sailed to Salama to meet with the caretakers of the shrine. And while she was there, she had heard of a Roman party that had successfully traveled to China and was now back in Babylon, bringing a caravan filled with exotic curiosities and treasure. The governor of Babylon had thrown a feast for the Romans, who in turn allowed citizens to walk among the oddities and look for themselves at strange creatures and fabulous riches from a mythical land. The caravan was heavily guarded, the gossips said, as its goods were the property of Nero Caesar and soon bound for Rome.

  Ulrika had left Salama at once, buying passage aboard The Fortunate Wind, and now she searched the crowd on the bustling docks for a familiar head of bronze-colored hair set upon wide shoulders. Her heart raced. Sebastianus, are you here?

  BABYLON HAD CHANGED, SEBASTIANUS observed as he made his way through the crowd on the docks. In the seven years that had passed since he was last here, the personality of the cosmopolitan center had shifted from one of tolerance to one of prejudice. The priests of Marduk, he had learned, were growing increasingly intolerant of outside religions, demanding that the citizens of Babylon worship only at the altars of the gods who had ruled here for centuries. Intolerance against other beliefs was encouraged. Mistrust of the followers of foreign gods was fostered.

  Babylon had fallen upon hard times. Men had lost their jobs, and many begged on street corners. Houses stood empty because people could not afford to pay their landlords. The sick had no money to pay physicians. Crime infested the streets. People were afraid. They blamed the gods and the government for their misfortunes. Even in Rome, Sebastianus had heard, senators had become corrupt and officials could be bribed. The Imperial Treasury was bankrupt. And Nero, in whom everyone had placed such high hopes, had disappointed his citizens. It was said that he had launched a massive work program, erecting impossibly big buildings around Rome, in the hopes of fooling the people into thinking they were enjoying a spell of prosperity.

  Here, in this city between two rivers, the priests of Marduk knew that when people were discontented and believed the gods powerless, they took their lives and their destinies into their own hands. Which meant that money normally going to the priests was crossing the palms of fortune-tellers and wonder-workers. And so anyone suspected of lurin
g citizens and their money away from the temples was arrested and interrogated. Many were executed under the laws of sacrilege and blasphemy. Even here by the water, Sebastianus detected on the shifting wind the stink of rotting flesh. Although he could not see the corpses strung up on Babylon's walls, he knew they were there.

  "Pay heed! Pay heed!"

  Sebastianus turned to see a city crier climb up on a stone block so that he rose above the heads of the crowd. In an impressively loud and ringing voice, he bellowed. "Make it known to all newcomers, visitors, traders, travelers, and tourists to Babylon that the following people are forbidden to move freely in the city without first registering with the Royal Guard at the Temple of Marduk: magicians, necromancers, seers, sorcerers, conjurers, wonder-workers, medicine-men, diviners, and prophets. All who ignore this edict will be subject to arrest, trial, and punishment."

  Putting the world's ills from his thoughts, Sebastianus searched for a boat that looked as if it might be getting ready to depart upriver. He needed to reach the town of Salama as quickly as possible. Ulrika was there.

  The moment he had brought his weary caravan to the terminus outside Babylon's walls, Sebastianus had dispatched letters to men of his acquaintance in Jerusalem and Antioch, for information on Ulrika. But because she had said she would join him in Babylon if she could, he had sent men into the city to see if she was here. In the meantime, he had had to suffer the hospitality of local government officials, to ride in a parade through the Ishtar Gate, and patiently tolerate the accolades heaped upon the first man from the west to look upon the face of China. Each night, Sebastianus would inquire of his men if there were any leads as to Ulrika's whereabouts. They had had nothing to report until this morning. "I found her living in the Jewish Quarter, master, in the home of a widowed seamstress. But she went upriver three months ago and did not say when she would return."

  As he pushed through the bustling dockside mob, searching for a departing vessel, Sebastianus wondered if Ulrika had received his letter.

  "Master. Master!"

  He turned and was startled to see Primo pushing through the crowd. "Master," the veteran called. "You must postpone your trip upriver. Your presence is requested at the residence of Quintus Publius."

  "Again?" The ambassador from Rome to the Persian province of Babylon had already entertained Sebastianus and his companions with a victory feast at his villa west of the city. "I can't take the time. Tell him I will see him when I return from Salama."

  "Master," Primo said in a grave tone. "Perhaps you should not ignore this request."

  "I do not answer to an ambassador from Rome, or any other official for that fact. I answer only to Nero and he, fortunately, is many miles away. Go back and explain that I am on an urgent errand."

  "But—"

  Sebastianus turned and continued through the crowd, leaving his old friend and steward to scowl with worry and displeasure. Before Primo could follow his master, to persuade him to meet with the very important and powerful Publius, he saw Sebastianus head for a boat that was casting off its lines, its prow pointing upriver. And Primo realized the futility of trying to make his master see reason. To make him understand the dangerous, possibly treasonous, action he was about to take.

  Primo hurried away, dreading his meeting with the powerful Quintus Publius.

  CLUTCHING HER PACKS AND MEDICINE KIT, and filled with excitement and hope, Ulrika hurried down the gangplank. She had lived these past five years in Babylon searching for the whereabouts of Venerable Ones, inquiring at temples, meeting with wisemen and prophetesses, and perfecting her skills at focused meditation—always with Sebastianus in the forefront of her mind and in her heart. And now he was here in Babylon.

  Was it a sign that, being reunited with the man she loved, she was going to find the Venerable Ones at last?

  As she made her way through the press of humanity on the wharf, with the sounds of human cries and shouts, and animals braying and bleating, with the smells of the green river and flowering plants, the massive stone structures rising on either side of the river, monuments called ziggurats climbing to the sky in diminishing tiers, their terraces congested with plants and trees and vines—the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon—she began to notice the conspicuous presence of temple guards on the docks, their breastplates and helmets gleaming of gold, their spears tipped with silver, as if to proclaim their wealth and therefore the power of Marduk.

  Ulrika felt a frenetic atmosphere in the air that she had not felt five years ago, when she had returned from Persia. She saw now the fear on people's faces, the suspicion in their eyes. Nonetheless, she was excited to be here. The energy of the city infused her blood and bones. Babylon! With its graceful towers and spires, massive crenellated walls, enormous gates imbedded with shining tiles of blue and red and yellow, depicting mythical beasts that took one's breath away. The day was warming up. Her nostrils were assailed by the familiar stink of the city: delicious cooking aromas mingling with the acrid smell of dung fires and the stench of animal feces and human urine. Ulrika walked past obsessive gamblers playing a game of chance involving pebbles and sticks. She made her way around dancing girls twirling in colorful skirts. The streets were clogged with housewives buying olives, men haggling over wagers, snake charmers, fire-eaters, dung-sweepers, beggars, perfumed aristocrats in litters carried on the shoulders of slaves. Ulrika's ears were assaulted by an unceasing din of shouts, laughter, music, weeping. The spectrum of human emotion was compressed within a few square miles of narrow streets, dusty lanes, sunlit plazas, sagging tenements, and mansions housing unimaginable luxury and dreams.

  She filled her ears with the polyglot sounds of many languages, and it felt good to hear Aramaic spoken again, and a dialect of Greek that was closer to her mother tongue than that which was heard in lands farther east. She heard the familiar Persian, and Phoenician, Hebrew, Egyptian, Latin, and even a few tongues she did not recognize, reminding her of the legend that Babylon was the birthplace of mankind's many languages.

  As Ulrika reached the base of the giant gate that led out of the city, she saw corpses hanging from the crenellated wall of the Hall of Justice. Criminals who had been slung up by their heels and left to die. This was Babylon's notorious form of execution. Here, crucifixions were never seen and Ulrika wondered if it was because of the scarcity of trees in this part of the world, making wood too precious to waste on the condemned. The dead and dying victims had all been branded, she saw, with a symbol that identified them as blasphemers and those who had committed sacrilege against the city's gods.

  Whispering a prayer for their souls, she joined the busy foot traffic heading out of the city. Just ahead lay the great terminus of caravans arriving from the east.

  AS SEBASTIANUS HURRIED TOWARD Ishtar's Delight, a small boat with wine amphorae lashed to its deck, and twelve oarsmen preparing to lower their oars into the water, he saw a woman disappear through the crowd near the city gate. He stopped and squinted. Her height, her shape, her gait ...

  Was it she? Or was he so eager to find Ulrika that he was now seeing her in every woman on the street?

  The crowd parted briefly. He saw her pause to look at the condemned men hanging on the crenellated wall, and as she turned, he glimpsed her face.

  It was she!

  "Ulrika!" he called, but she was swallowed up by the crowd.

  He pushed through, shouting her name, dodging crates and dogs, trying to keep her in view. She had gone in the direction of the caravan terminus. Travel packs on her shoulders, and a medicine box slung on a strap ... Was she planning on leaving?

  He ran through the main gate, calling out. And then he saw her, just up ahead.

  "Ulrika!"

  She stopped and turned. He saw a look of astonishment on her face. He cried out with joy.

  Ulrika ran to him, staring at Sebastianus with wide eyes as he drew near, wondering if he was real or a vision. He wore a handsome dark brown tunic, edged at the hem and short sleeves in gold embroidery
and belted at the waist with a knotted cord. On his feet, sandals that were laced up to his knees, and a cream-colored cloak swung from his broad shoulders. He seemed taller than she remembered, his body more powerfully built, as if the thousands of miles had imbued him with new life and virility. She remembered that he was nearly forty years of age, yet seemed much younger.

  Before she could speak, he reached out, pulled her to him, and embraced her, saying, "I found you, I found you."

  Ulrika tried to catch her breath as she pressed her face against his chest and heard the reassuring thump of his heart. "It is you," she murmured. "It is truly you."

  Sebastianus drew back to look down at her with damp eyes, his hands on her arms and his face so close that she saw a small scar on his chin—a new scar, so that she wondered what foreign weapon, or thorn, or cat had caused it. There were new wrinkles, too, at the corners of his eyes, as if he had laughed a lot in China, or seen too much sun. But his voice was as she remembered, deep and mellow as he said, "I knew you would be here. Somehow, I knew."

  She struggled for breath. The feel of his hands on her arms, the strong grip, the heat that permeated her palla and ignited her skin. "I came to Babylon seven years ago. The Caravan Master said I had missed you by a month."

  "Did you get my letter?"

  She reached into one of her packs and produced a small scroll. It was yellowed and worn from so much handling, from being read a thousand times. "Even though I had committed it to memory," she said, "I still needed to see the words on the papyrus, written in your own hand."

  "Ulrika I have so much to tell you—"

  "And I, you. Sebastianus, you reached China!"

  "What of you? The visions, the Divining. Did you go to Persia? Did you find the Crystal Pools?"

  "Yes, yes, yes," she whispered. While citizens of Babylon streamed around them, and carts rattled by, and horses picked their way over the paving bricks of the roadway, Ulrika filled her eyes with the sight of this man. After all the sunsets and dawns, midnights and noons she had spent thinking about Sebastianus, dreaming about him, talking to him, feeling her love for him grow—here he was. Tall, solid, bronze hair shining in the sun, Galician-green eyes looking down at her with a piercing gaze.