“We looked for you. We didn’t abandon you.” Her voice caught. “Please don’t think we abandoned you.”
“I think I may have heard you.” He sat on a pallet of blankets, which seemed to have happened without transition. “I hid in the trees, thinking it might have been Musa’s men.” Every time he blinked, he struggled to open his eyes again. Roshan pulled off his boots, and the smell of liniment wafted through the cool air. “I got . . . caught . . .” Her hands kneaded away the pain in his foot and ankle and carried his consciousness with them.
He found himself on horseback almost before he realized he’d awakened. A hand caught him when he wavered, righting him. He blinked, struggling to wakefulness against his body’s need for more rest. They rode with the first hint of sunrise on their left, the smell of the sea growing stronger. His eyes swept across the center of the caravan, where Walagash and the magi rode, and he pulled a breath to ask after Dov before he remembered the small, gentle man had died, swept away by the flood. They set off at a trot, afforded by the extra horses from the defeat of Musa’s soldiers. By noon they passed through a strip of thick woods and underbrush and reached the sea road, an ancient track of packed earth and stone that hugged the coast of the Hyrcanian Sea.
Walagash gazed across the expanse of dark blue-green water with the expression of a man tasting gall when he’d expected honey. “I spent years building a reputation as a shrewd trader. Here and there throughout the empire are men who have matched me in a trade, but I’ve seldom been bested,” he said in a soft voice. He shook his head. “Until now. This trip will take twice as long as it should have.”
“Don’t come,” Myrad said. “When I asked for your protection, I never imagined any of this would happen. At worst I thought I would make my way east and spend the rest of my life hiding there.” He sighed. “I release you from your vow, Walagash.”
If he’d expected gratitude, he was mistaken. Walagash, towering over him on his larger horse, looked affronted, his eyes stern. “There is no other chance for success. I must find a way to sell Esai’s goods for a profit or forfeit my place in the silk trade. And I do not grant you the power to release me from my word. I brought you into my tent and gave you my daughter. Where you go, we go. If you turn left or right, we will follow you, and if you have set your face toward Jerusalem, we will go there as well.”
The merchant’s regard was too much for him. He turned toward the ancient road stretching out ahead of them. “How long will it take to get to Armenia?”
“Weeks, at least a full turn of the moon, perhaps a bit more. Then, if Tigranes grants us passage into the Roman Empire, at least twice that to make it to Jerusalem.” At the look of surprise on Myrad’s face, he laughed. “I remember a time when I thought the world was a much smaller place. The more I travel, the more I learn it is both larger and smaller than I imagined.”
“You said if . . .”
Walagash nodded. “The prince of Hyrcania is wise. The kings of Armenia have ever played the Parthians and Romans against each other. They have switched allegiance so many times, the word no longer has any meaning for them. I think they might be insane.”
Myrad started to laugh, thinking Walagash joked with him, but the merchant’s face might have been cast in iron for all the humor it showed. “Truly?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “They’ve adopted the practice of intermarrying. Tigranes is married to his sister, like his fathers before him. The custom leads to certain mental deformities as well as physical ones.”
Myrad kept his head still but worked to flex his right foot. It didn’t move, of course. Soon after birth the ligaments locked, freezing his foot into the shape it had been ever since. Was that what happened? Did his mother marry a brother or cousin and give birth to a deformed son?
It took no more than a heartbeat for his speculations to change from considering his physical defect to weighing the possibility of a mental one. Had God really spoken to him or had his mind simply conjured the dream, a product of unfortunate parentage? He pulled his gaze up from his foot to see Walagash staring at him. The merchant clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s a custom reserved for royalty. Common-born people have no need to guard their power in such a way.”
They set off again with guards scouting before and behind them. Walagash pointed to the strip of forest that bordered the sea, a verdant partition between it and the mountains. “At least we can hide if we encounter soldiers. But if they spot our tracks, we’ll be impossible to miss.”
Myrad fell back to his accustomed spot at the rear of the caravan, where Roshan took his hand in hers as if she intended to never let go.
Day after day passed as they followed the curves of the sea westward and then north into the satrapy of Media, provisioning the caravan at a handful of villages along the way. While they encountered other caravans, only once did they need to hide from soldiers when the rolling thunder of thousands of horses passed them heading east.
The cohort was so large they had more than enough warning to leave the road and slip into the forest before they arrived. Curious, Myrad dismounted and followed Aban on foot to watch them from the cover of thick scrub. Horse soldiers and cataphracts comprised the army in roughly a five-to-one ratio, and the sheer number of men left Myrad shocked. It made the force they’d defeated in the ravine seem like nothing more than a scouting expedition.
“That’s welcome news of a sort,” Aban said. “Musa has emptied Media to fight the threat against her in Bactria.”
Myrad couldn’t take his eyes from the seemingly endless line of horsemen. “If these are just the men from Media, how can Orodes and Artabanus hope to stand?”
“They’re not as outnumbered as you might think,” Aban said. “And the satrapies to the east have ties in Indus and Khushan.” He shook his head. “Yet there’s bad news here as well. If Musa has pulled her forces from Media, it means she has no fear of the Armenians attacking in their absence. We’ll have to be careful.”
They watched until the soldiers’ horses finally passed by and the sound of countless hooves faded. Myrad made to rise from his place of concealment when Aban grabbed his arm. “Wait a few moments longer.”
They remained flat on their bellies overlooking the road until a trio of riders appeared. “Rear scouts,” Aban whispered. “Their commander is a crafty one. There’s no force here that can rival his, but he’s taking no chances.”
Myrad posed a question that had nagged at him for months. “Who are you?”
“What do you mean?” Aban turned to smile at him, the same smile Myrad had seen a thousand times before. But behind Aban’s eyes danced uncounted memories and a clarity of thinking Myrad saw only in the most intelligent magi.
“You know more about horses and weapons and strategy than any other man in the caravan, and Walagash listens to you as if your word were law. Not once have I seen him go counter to your advice.”
Aban’s smile faded, replaced by guarded speculation. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” Myrad said. “One other thing. Storana. Around everyone else in the caravan, she’s casual, practically insolent, but not around you. And it’s more than just that she’s your wife. Every time she looks at you, it’s as if she’s saluting.”
Aban chuckled. “Gershom chose well when he adopted you.” He took a last look at the road, then stood. “We have to go. We have days to Armenia yet and countless days more to Israel.”
In the next instant, Myrad was on his feet and working to catch up. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Humph. Very well. Here’s a lesson any man with enough years could teach you. The merchant? The cataphracts with their armor and lances? The horse soldier with his bows and arrows?” He gave Myrad a direct look. “The apprentice magus with the clubfoot? All of these have a past and a story beyond expectation and imagining.”
They strode down the backside of a hill to where the caravan awaited. Aban lapsed into silence and remained there.
&
nbsp; Yet Myrad felt emboldened. “You still haven’t answered my question, Aban.”
Aban sighed. “Your story is compelling for one so young, and every man, woman, and child would sit rapt for the telling. What would happen if your story were to fall upon the wrong ears?”
Myrad slowed. “I understand.” A few feet farther on, he settled on a different question. “Will you still train me to shoot and ride?”
The man next to him smiled deeply, and a vast array of lines appeared on his face, each wrinkle hinting at a story. “Of a certainty.”
CHAPTER 27
The caravan followed the road along the shore of the Hyrcanian Sea for weeks, a time Myrad filled with riding and archery. Roshan took to riding near him whenever he strayed from the rear of the caravan. She never offered a reason why, but her presence both pleased and discomfited him for reasons so subtle he couldn’t put a name to them. When she spoke, it was to instruct him on the details of running a caravan.
“Every man or woman in your caravan, from the lowliest guard to the most exalted guest traveling with you to share your protection, is under your authority.”
He nodded, half listening. Walagash had already demonstrated as much. “And?”
She gave an exasperated little sigh and glared at him, an expression mixing fire and intensity. Words spilled from him before he realized he’d spoken aloud. “You’re beautiful like that.”
Taken off guard, she softened. “Like what?”
“Angry. Intense.” He shrugged. “Most of the time you look like anyone else, seeing things you’ve seen before that hardly hold your interest, but when you get angry, it’s as if you’re completely present and I see the real you.”
Her gaze went flat in a different kind of anger, attractive but not as pretty as before. “You think I’m beautiful when I’m angry?”
He smirked. “Yes. I think the trick will be to keep enough people around to irritate you so that I don’t have to.” He let his smile grow. “That’s probably not going to be too difficult.” He pointed toward the caravan. “Now, you were telling me something I needed to know.”
The squint around her eyes went through phases until she settled on a look of vague suspicion. “Those men with you are a danger.”
“How so?”
She shook her head, annoyed. “Have they told you what they intend to do once we leave Parthia?”
“Our sole purpose is to follow the star, to look for the King.”
Roshan sighed, then looked sideways at Aban. “You tell him. Maybe he will believe you.”
Aban’s eyes narrowed. “Understand, the magi are kingmakers. They’re accustomed to wielding power, and men with power don’t care to surrender it. Artabanus had us in the palm of his hand, willing to force us into his army to fight his way through to the east. He wouldn’t have surrendered the guards or the magi unless he thought there was power to be gained by doing so. Tigranes will think similarly.”
Myrad mulled this over before urging his horse forward to the middle of the caravan. When he pulled alongside Yehudah and Hakam, he found them comparing calendars.
“There’s no mistake,” Yehudah said. “The King doesn’t appear for another thirty years.”
Hakam refused the assertion. “There must be. How many times in the history of the magi has the same dream come to so many? Eight, Yehudah. There were at least eight of us who dreamt of the King’s star. If there’s no mistake in the count, then we must have chosen the wrong starting point. It must have been earlier.”
“The prophecy was too specific. It said when the city was ordered rebuilt—city, not temple. The count started the day Artaxerxes granted Nehemiah permission to rebuild Jerusalem.”
Hakam persisted. “Something’s wrong.”
Masista, riding behind them with his four cataphracts, laughed at their argument. “In my experience, prophecies are vague, nebulous things.”
“Your experience does not include the Most High God,” Hakam said.
Hakam’s anger only served to deepen Masista’s smile. “Perhaps. But imagine how it would be for the Hebrews to spend over four hundred years waiting for their King, only to discover their prophecy was no more substantial than smoke. You would be better served offering your gifts to Tigranes in exchange for an alliance with Artabanus.”
Yehudah favored Masista with one slow nod. “So that’s what you intend? To betray us to the Armenians?”
Masista’s smile slid from his face. “By no means, Hebrew. I gave my word to see you to Judea with your treasure, and I will do so. But I said nothing about not trying to persuade you to a more sensible course of action.”
“We will follow the star to its end,” Yehudah said. “Then we will see what we should do next.”
To Myrad, that last statement held more doubt than he’d heard from Yehudah in their entire time together. He cleared his throat to get Yehudah’s attention.
“Yes? What do you wish, Myrad?”
He nodded to the pages of the calendar still in Yehudah’s lap. “I lost Gershom’s calendar in the flood. I feel I should rebuild it so I can help keep the count.”
Hakam’s expression filled with refusal, but Yehudah silenced him with a gesture. “What of your desire to become a horseman like Aban or Storana?”
Myrad glanced at his bow. “I can do both.”
“Perhaps,” Yehudah said, “but I think, sooner or later, a man must choose his master.”
Stung, Myrad lashed out at both men. “I have chosen. At every turn I’ve followed the dream of the star despite every misfortune.” His laughter rasped against his throat. “Look at the two of you, clean and safe, lecturing me from the comfort of your circumstances.” He gave them a mocking bow. “With your permission, O exalted magi, I would like to keep the calendar as my father, Gershom, instructed. At least until some other disaster strikes.”
Hakam spat and urged his horse ahead.
Yehudah dug into his pack. “Here,” he said and handed Myrad several sheets of blank parchment. “When we stop for the night, you can begin. I should not have presumed to judge your intentions.”
They debated the routes through Armenia, but in the end, circumstances made the decision for them. At a fold in the hills that looked like any other, they encountered a cohort of soldiers guarding the road. Their captain, an older man with scars on his face and recognition in his gaze, insisted on escorting them to the capital. While he made no threat, the posture of the guards with him couldn’t be misinterpreted.
On a clear morning, thirty-four days after they set out from Hyrcania, they arrived at the court of Tigranes in the Armenian city of Artaxata. They rode through the narrow streets toward the acropolis, walled and set on the highest hill of the city. Houses, shops, and government buildings had been built against the exterior of the wall, following the contours of the land. It took them another half hour to navigate the crowded city and terrain before they came to the arched entrance of the acropolis on the southern side. Passing through, they discovered the city’s defenses were comprised of an inner and outer wall. At the second entrance, they encountered soldiers posted at the gate, bearing bows and iron-tipped lances.
Masista dismounted and stepped forward to speak to the captain of the guard. When he returned to the caravan, he wore the look of a man who was pleased with himself but trying not to show it.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, magus,” Walagash said.
Masista’s dark eyes danced. “That’s the only kind worth playing, merchant.”
Walagash shook his head in disgust, and they settled in to wait for the king’s answer.
“What game is Walagash talking about?” Myrad asked Aban.
Aban sighed. “Tigranes and Armenia hold less power than Rome or Parthia. What power they do have stems from uneasy truces between the two. If something should upset that balance, then Armenia will find itself under the heel of one empire or the other. Masista seeks to use this insecurity to wrest aid from the Armenian king.” Aban’s voic
e dipped. “But if Tigranes believes he can curry favor with Musa by handing us over to her as a prize, he will do so.” He spoke of the king of Armenia in a familiar tone as if he knew him. “He has little choice.”
“Can’t he see his only hope is Musa’s defeat?” Myrad asked. “If the Romans control both empires, Armenia will be crushed.”
Aban nodded. “Any sane man would see that in an instant. The only problem is Tigranes may not be sane.”
Speaking in Greek, the captain of the guard ordered their company to follow him to the king’s palace.
They passed dozens of massive decorative columns until they entered a broad L-shaped building, the court of Tigranes and his sister-queen, Erato. Guards formed up around them with military precision to escort them along the colonnade to a pair of gilded thrones, twins in every respect. At a distance of five or six paces, the king held up one hand, his expression stern and forbidding.
To Myrad, it seemed a poor start.
“What do you want, magus?” the king asked Masista.
Masista smiled and bowed until his hair almost touched the floor. “I merely seek your favor on behalf of our caravan, my king.”
“Your king?” Tigranes mocked. “Have you become Armenian then? Changing your allegiance according to your own need?”
Masista bowed deeper still. “I only meant to offer you the respect you deserve.”
Tigranes’s gaze darted from man to man. “By bringing an army of men into my kingdom?”
Aban, standing next to Myrad, muttered something in Parthian.
“An army?” Myrad whispered.
Aban gave him the briefest of nods. “Do you remember what I said about the kings of Armenia?”
“Is he insane?” Myrad asked, keeping his voice low.
“In this matter, not so much,” Aban whispered back. “Kings live under the threat of death every day. Consequently, Tigranes sees threats everywhere. He’s probably correct.”
The End of the Magi Page 21
