“It has been a month since I felt the baby move,” Xian-Li replied, her voice quivering slightly as she spoke. “I fear the child may be. .. in difficulty.”
“Ah,” sighed Turms, as Arthur finished relating what his wife had said. “I understand. You want me to tell you if this is true. You wish to know if the infant will be born alive”-his voice softened-“or dead.”
“I would not have presumed on our friendship for anything less,” Arthur told him. “But I could think of none better to advise us on the correct course.”
Turms turned and began walking down the row of neatly tended vines. He stopped at one vine and lifted a heavy bunch of blue-black fruit in his hand and, with his finger, rubbed away some of the waxy white coating on the nearest grapes.
“I am sorry if we have-” began Xian-Li.
Arthur touched her shoulder and shook his head to silence her.
In a moment, Turms turned and walked back to where the worried couple stood. “Of course, I will advise you. I only wished to see if this request lay within the realm of foreseeable knowledge. I have been asked many things in my time as king, but never this.”
“And it is something you can foresee?”
“So I believe,” Turms replied. “In any case, the answer is within my power to seek.”
They resumed their stroll among the vines, taking in the warmth and beauty of the day. Xian-Li soon became tired, and they returned to the lodge where rooms had been made up for the use of the king’s guests. Then, when they had been settled to his satisfaction, Turms put on his robe of state and went down to the temple at the base of the sacred hill to speak to some of the priests about organising the necessary items for the divination.
The chief priest, a venerable old man with a slight hump in his back, shuffled into the audience room just as the king was taking his leave. “May peace abound in your company, my lord and king,” said Sethre. “I only just learned you were here, or I would have come sooner.”
“Greetings, Sethre. I did not wish to intrude on your meditations,” replied Turms. “I came only to prepare for a divination this evening. All is in order, there was no need to disturb you.”
“Your presence is never a disturbance, O King,” replied the aged priest with polished deference. “I have good news for you. Your tomb is almost finished.”
“That is good news,” said Turms, nodding with approval. The building of a tomb was the priest king’s first, highest, and most sacred duty. His own plans, modest in comparison to some few of his predecessors, had nevertheless been fraught with complications of many kinds. The delays resulting from these difficulties had pushed the completion further and further into his reign.
“The artists assure me the tomb will be ready before the equinox,” said the old priest. “The inauguration can take place in the spring.”
“Well done, Sethre. Your experience and service have been invaluable.” It was true, the old man had guided the construction with an unflagging determination. What Turms did not say was that it was an error on Sethre’s part that had resulted in the first setback; the site chosen along the Sacred Way had proven wholly unsuitable owing to an unseen fault in the tufa stone-a fault that should have been detected in the divination ceremony long before construction ever began.
“I knew you would be pleased.” He gave a bow, then turned to go, hesitated, and asked, “The rite you are planning tonight, my king. Would you like me to assist?”
“There is no need,” replied Turms. “It involves the birth of a child.”
“A simple matter, then. I have a dove that will serve.”
“Not as simple as we could wish,” said the king, who went on to describe the fear that the child might be dead inside the mother. “Have you ever encountered such a request?”
“Only once, my king. It was many years ago.” He put a finger to his pursed lips. “I used a ram, then, as I recall. I don’t think I would use a ram now.”
“No?”
“A lamb would be better,” he said. “Or even a kid. With an older animal you risk too many complicating factors. It could cloud the issue unnecessarily. You want a young beast, and a healthy one.”
“Wise counsel, Sethre. I yield to your judgement,” said Turms. “Yes, as I think about it now, I would like you to assist me this evening. See that an unblemished lamb or kid is prepared.”
“As you will, my king.”
Satisfied that all was in order for the ceremony, Turms returned to the lodge and, after informing Pacha that no one was to disturb him, he helped himself to a plum from a bowl on the table outside his chamber. He removed his robe, hung it on the stand beside the door, then lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. But he did not sleep.
Instead, he turned the events of the day over in his mind and was instantly overcome with a sense of the rightness of all things. Everything that happened in life happened for a reason. His long acquaintance with Arturos, for example: the happy years they had spent together in one another’s company and, later, his own troubled ascendancy to the kingship and the years of intense study and preparation that followed-perhaps it had all been leading to this day, a day when that friendship could be called upon in a time of need. Turms was impressed once again, as he often was, how even the most seemingly insignificant and trivial actions and associations could, in the fullness of time, command great import.
Despise not the day of small things… Was that how it went? It was a saying he had learned in Alexandria from a bearded eastern sage-a wise man of the cult of Yahweh-the god, it was claimed, who reigned above all others, who ordained and sustained all things for his creation, and who was worshipped by Hebrews to the exclusion of all others.
Turms the Immortal thought about this, and his heart soared anew on the knowledge that in the eyes of the wise there were no small things.
In a little while, when the sun had begun descending into a sea like molten bronze, he rose, stripped, and made his ablutions from the bronze bowl, performing each action three times. Then, dressed in his crimson robe and seer’s hat, he departed, leaving orders for Pacha to bring Arturos and his wife at the appropriate time for the ceremony.
The king walked slowly down to the temple with deliberate, measured steps, his mind already searching the myriad pathways of the future for the sake of his friend.
CHAPTER 7
Two lonely figures, muffled and wrapped against the cold, shuffled through the snow-covered streets of the unfamiliar city of Harrogate. A mother and her young son, they were newly arrived, having travelled by night coach from London. “Stand up straight and tall,” the mother advised. “Mind your manners as I showed you.” She glanced down at him doubtfully. “Will you do that? Promise me.”
The boy nodded, his small face pinched tight against the cold.
“You will be a gentleman soon,” she added, softening her tone. “Think of that.”
“What if I don’t like him?” the little boy wanted to know.
“Of course you will like him,” she chided. “Anyway, he is your father. It doesn’t matter if you like him or not.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s your father, that’s why,” she told him in a tone that let him know there were to be no more questions about it.
They walked on. The early-morning streets were still dark. In the frozen depths of December, light came late to northern towns. Beneath a flickering streetlamp, they paused to rest a little and warm themselves by stamping their feet and blowing on their bare hands. A few paces up from where they stood, a baker unlocked his door, stepped out in his flour-dusted apron, and proceeded to take down the shutters covering the windows of his shop. The aroma of fresh bread wafted out into the street on a gush of warm air.
