She leaned against him. Her hair carried a remnant fragrance of sunlight. “Christians should give thanks for what they get.” She giggled. “How easy to be a Christian, tonight.”
“How have the children done today?” he asked—his son Julius, no longer stumping about but leaping adventurously everywhere, starting to talk; little, little Dora asleep in her crib, starfish hands curled tight.
“Why, very well,” said Cordelia, a bit surprised.
“I see them too seldom.”
“And you care. Not many fathers do. Not that much.” She squeezed his hand. “I want to give you lots of children.” Impishly: “We can begin at once.”
“I have ... tried to be kind.”
She heard how the words dragged, let go of him, widened her eyes in alarm. “What’s wrong, beloved?”
He made himself take hold of her shoulders, look into her face—the moonlight made her searingly beautiful —and answer: “Between us, nothing at all.” Only the fact that you will grow old and die. And that has happened so often, so often. I cannot count the deaths. There is no measure for tile pain, but I think it has not grown any less; I think I have merely learned to live with it, as a mortal can learn to live an unbeatable wound. I thought we could have, oh, thirty, perhaps forty years together before I must leave. That would have been wonderful.
“But I have an unexpected journey to make,” he said.
“Something that man—Marcus—something he’s told you?”
Lugo nodded.
Cordelia grimaced. “I don’t like him. Forgive me, but I don’t. He’s coarse and stupid.”
“He is that,” Lugo agreed. It had seemed wise to him they let Rufus share their supper. Confinement in the room with nothing but his dreads and animal hopes company had been breaking what self-control was left him, and he needed it for the time ahead. “Nevertheless, I got important information from him.”
“Can you tell me what it is?” He heard how hard she tried not to make it a plea.
“I’m sorry, no. Nor can I say where I’m bound or how long I’ll be gone.”
She caught both his hands. Her fingers had turned cold. “The barbarians. Pirates. Bacaudae.”
“Travel has its dangers,” he admitted. “I’ve spent a lot of this day making arrangements for you. Just in case, darling, just in case.” He kissed her. The lips that shivered beneath his bore a thin taste of salt. “You should know this is a matter that may or may not concern Aurelian, but if it does, it must be investigated at once, and he’s in Italy. I’ve told his amanuensis Corbilo as much, and you can collect my pay for your needs from him. I’ve also left a substantial sum in trust for you at the church. The priest Antoninus took it and gave me a receipt that I’ll give you. And you are heir to this property. You’ll be all right, you and the children.” If Rome hangs together.
She threw herself against him and dung. He stroked her hair, her back, ruffling the gown, making the caress an embrace. “There, there,” he crooned, “this is just in case. Don’t be afraid. I’m not running any great risk.” He believed that was true. “I’ll be back.” That was not true, and hurt like fire to utter. Well, no doubt she’d marry again, after he was given up for dead. Last heard of on the Ordovician coast, about when a Scotic raid occurred ...
She stood back, hugged herself, swallowed, smiled unsteadily. “Of course you w-w-will,” she avowed. “I’ll p-pray for you the whole while. And we have this night.”
Until shortly after dawn, when Nereid cast off. He’d obtained passage for himself and Rufus. Most of Britannia continued secure, but the barbarians ravaged enough of it that nobody would question a couple of men who appeared -in, say, Aquae Sulis or Augusta Londinium with a story of having fled. Given money in hand, they could start afresh; and Lugo had buried a fair supply of honest corns in the island, several generations back.
“If only you could remain,” escaped from Cordelia.
“If only I could.” But Rufus was marked in Burdigala.
Rufus, the male, the oaf, the immortal, who would surely perish miserably without an intelligent man in charge of him. And he must not. However awkward, his was the only help Lugo had toward the ultimate coming together of their kind.
Cordelia heard how the words wrenched themselves from her husband’s mouth. “I will not whine,” she declared. “We do have this night. And many, many more on the far side of your journey. I’ll wait for you, I’ll always wait.”
No, Lugo thought, you won’t. That wouldn’t make sense, once you’ve decided you’re a widow, still young but with time at your heels.
Nor could you ever have waited for me always.
I seek for her who shall never have to leave me.
IV. Death in Palmyra
1
The caravan to Tripolis would leave at daybreak. Nebozabad, its master, wanted everything ready the evening before. He wanted every man rehearsed in making and breaking camp. Delays not only cost money, they multiplied risk.
So he thought. Some people told him not to fret. Peace was now secure, they said, Syria firmly in Arabian hands. Had not the Khalifa himself passed through Tadmor, on his way to holy Jerusalem, three years ago? Nebozabad was less trustful. Throughout his life he had seen too much war, with the disruption of trade, breakdown of order, and upsurge of banditry that soon followed. He meant to use every hour of opportunity that God granted him.
Therefore his charges bedded down not in a caravanserai but on a ground beyond the Philippian Gate. He went about, speaking to camel drivers, guards, traders, lesser folk, issuing commands where needed, piecemeal giving turmoil a shape and a meaning. Night was well upon him before he was done.
He paused, then, to enjoy a moment alone. Air had gone cool, with a tinge of smoke from the small fires that glimmered in the camp. Otherwise it was a huddle of darkness. He made out the peaks of a few tents, pitched by the more prosperous among his travelers, and sometimes light flickered off the spearhead of a sentry on his rounds. Nebozabad wanted all routines working from the outset. A murmur reached his ears, talk of men who sat up late, occasionally the soft whicker of a horse or the nimble and gurgle in a camel’s throat.
Stars glittered brilliant, beyond counting. From the west a gibbous moon cast light down the shallow valley. It frosted hills, palm fronds, the tower tombs that rose out of shadow, the turrets and battlements of the city wall. That wall loomed sheer, gray-white, as if a piece of the steppe surrounding this basin had been turned on end. It seemed as eternal, too, its massiveness never to be breached, the life that now slept behind its shelter to pulse every day forever.
The thought made Nebozabad bite his lip. Much too well did he know otherwise. In his own lifetime the Persians had driven out the Romans, and later the Romans had driven out the Persians, and today both nations were in retreat before the sword of Islam; and while trade routes still bore wealth into Tadmor and forth again, the city was long past her glory. Ah, to have lived then, when she—Palmyra on Latin and Greek tongues—was the queen of Syria, before Emperor Aurelian crushed Zenobia’s bid for freedom—
Nebozabad sighed, shrugged, turned about and started back. A city, like a man, must bear whatever fate God decrees. In that much, at least, the Muslims were right.
On his way, he heard and answered several greetings. “Christ be with you, master.”
“And his spirit be with you.” Everyone recognized his stocky form in the plain djellabah, his rather heavy features bared to the sky. Moonlight touched white streaks in hair and short-cropped beard.
Presently he neared his own tent. It was of good material though modest size; he never took along weight that could, instead, be in articles of value. Lamplight glowed faint yellow around a flap hanging loose.
A hand clutched his ankle. His stopped short, sucked in a breath, closed fingers on knife hilt. “Quiet,” a voice whispered frantically, “By God’s mercy, I pray you. I mean no harm.”
