Xantium, into the west. Even pilgrims with no intention of going as far as the Holy Land often follow part of that route.”
“That’s the way my bishop went,” put in Joachim.
“But traders stick to the sea,” Ascelin continued. “It’s certainly faster and a lot easier for anyone with heavy goods. The most dangerous part of the sea voyage is west of here, through the shoals and islands, and we’ve already skipped that part.”
“Even if we are on pilgrimage ourselves,” said Hugo, “our principal goal is still to find my father and his party. I think we should try to get to the Holy Land as quickly as possible and start searching for them from there.”
“We’ll be able to book sea passage to Xantium from here,” said Ascelin. “All routes in and around the Central Sea pass through Xantium. That’s where your brother’s agents will have their offices,” with a glance at Joachim, “and that’s where the last overland route to the Holy Land begins.”
The king nodded. “You’ve taken us safely so far, Ascelin. I’ll trust you to continue to guide us. Tomorrow we’ll book our passage.”
There were three couples at the next table, talking and eating and apparently enjoying themselves nearly as much as we were. The women wore yellow or blue cotton dresses, printed all over with flowers. “We never get fabric like that at home,” commented the king. “Maybe I should buy some to take home for the queen.”
“I’ve already told you, sire,” said Hugo with a grin, “don’t load up the luggage now. Wait until we’re on our way home.”
I had been too busy eating to join in the conversation, although to my surprise I found myself slowing down on my third helping of lamb. I dipped a piece of bread in the juices on my plate and wondered where the palm trees I had expected might be.
The terrace where we were sitting was high above the harbor, and off in the distance I could see marshy land bordering the sea, but no palm trees swayed anywhere in sight. I swallowed my bread and asked about them.
“Don’t worry,” said Ascelin. “You’ll see plenty of palms when we get to the East.” I wondered if we would also see the dancing girls that Hugo had imagined with his father. “There are even some in the marshy areas near here. It will probably be a few days before we sail, so we can look for them if you like.”
The waiter, carrying a tray filled with strawberry tarts, interrupted us at this point. But palm trees became our goal for the next two days. Ascelin was able to find a ship going to Xantium that was willing to take us, and while it was loading its cargo we followed steep, rocky paths down to the harbor, and from the harbor along sandy beaches that led for miles in either direction. Here at last were the palms I had imagined during the winter in Yurt, their old fronds lying dry and close to the trunk, their new fronds branching out from the top, reminding me oddly of the way that young Prince Paul drew pictures of trees.
“So is this it, Wizard?” Hugo asked me with a chuckle. “Everyone is searching for something on this trip. The chaplain wants pilgrimage churches; the king wants a blue rose; I want to find my father; Dominic, having found
I laughed, but his comment started me thinking. I myself had thought that I was on this quest to find Evrard, as well as to assist my king however I could, but I might well be searching for some thing else as well. There was an old saying I had first heard as a boy in the City, “What ye seek, and what ye find, will oft-times be of different kind.”
As we and our highly dubious horses boarded the ship at last, and the sails creaked up the mast to catch the dawn wind and take us out of the sage-scented harbor, I wondered again what I was seeking. Once out of harbor, the sails filled and the lines tightened, and the bright waves began slapping against our ship’s hull as we started east along the coast. Whatever it was, or whatever I would find, we seemed to be heading toward it.
PART FIVE — XANTIUM
I
The great City by the western sea, the city where I had grown up, did not have a name. For official purposes it was called the Urbs, but that was only City in the old language of the empire that had once been centered in it. Those who lived there merely called it the City, as though there were no other, or at least no other that mattered.
As our ship, with its cargo of furs, leather, and six pilgrims, rounded the headland and entered the great basin of Xantium harbor, I realized what a hopelessly provincial attitude that was.
“The duchess and I should travel more,” said Ascelin, leaning on the railing next to me. “She would love to see this city. Maybe when the girls are bigger we can all come.”
But I wasn’t listening. Above us, on top of a sheer cliff, an enormous tower glowered down on us, and I could sense that we were being watched with magic as well as eyes. Massive iron rings protruded from the cliff at water level. Another tower stood on another promontory a quarter mile away. The only way into the harbor was through the narrow, black-watered channel between them.
“In times of war,” commented Ascelin, “I understand they chain the harbor shut.”
The harbor itself was as large as a lake and jammed with hundreds of ships and boats, from tiny dinghies to massive vessels that dwarfed our own ship. Many were trading vessels, of the sort I had been accustomed to seeing in the City docks, but many others seemed to be pleasure barges, and even among the ones I assumed were traders were a great number with riggings I had never before seen.
A long ship came up behind us and shot by into the harbor, its banks of oars dipping and pulling smoothly. “Probably rowed by slaves,” said Ascelin.
The others had come up to stand by us at the railing. “I thought Xantium was a Christian city,” I said to the chaplain.
“It is, or at least its governors are Christian,” he said gravely. “But God is worshipped in many ways. And they interpret Christianity somewhat differently here than do the bishops of the west. After all, the Bible does not specifically forbid slavery, although all right thinkers must realize that as men and women are brothers and sisters together under God, slavery cannot be tolerated.”
The sailors hurried back and forth, and some swarmed up the mast to release the booms as the captain negotiated through the shipping. We tried to stay out of the way, looking at the city that covered the hillside beyond the harbor.
It reached most of the way around the basin. Directly above the docks rose gray walls, pierced by open gates, and behind the walls the city strode up the hill, a jumble of towers, minarets, and spires. The high walls followed the edge of the water for several miles on either side before turning inland, but the city continued beyond the walls, an incoherent mass of buildings large and small, some painted brilliant colors and some dark. A complex of smells, flowers, spice, and garbage, mingled with the salt tang of the harbor.
“We’re entering the East at last,” said the king.
“In fact, sire,” said Joachim, “it depends on how you define the East. Xantium is indeed called the East’s gateway, but we’re still west of the Holy Land, and everyone knows that the Holy City is in the exact center of the inhabited earth, so that there are still thousands of miles of the true East beyond.”
And I had thought when we were entered the eastern kingdoms that we were already somewhere in the East.
“I wonder how difficult it would be to travel deep into the East,” said Ascelin thoughtfully. “It would be worth it, to see which of the tales are really true, to see the bushes that produce tea and spices, the stones from which silk is spun.”
“I’ve heard,” put in Hugo, “that silk isn’t really spun from a stone at all but rather made by some kind of worm. How about it, Wizard? What do they teach in your school?”
If they taught about silk manufacture in the wizards’ school, they had certainly not taught it to me. “It’s a secret known only to the wise,” I replied airily, then groped for something I could say with certainty. “But I can assure you that silk is
