She failed to quite hide her tautness. “I have heard many stories, Kyrie. Do continue.”
He leaned back and let the words flow easily while he looked before him, observing her from the corner of an eye. “Call it the kind of yarn that sailors spin during calm watches or in taverns ashore. It concerns a mariner, though afterward he did numerous different things. He thought himself an ordinary man of his people. So did everybody else. But bit by bit, year by year, they noticed something very odd about him. He never fell sick and he never grew old. His wife aged and finally died, his children turned gray and then white-haired, their children begot and raised children and likewise fell prey to time, but everything in this man since the third decade of his life stayed changeless. Was that not remarkable?”
He had her, he saw, and exulted. Her gaze was utterly intent.
“At first it seemed he might be blessed of the gods. Yet he showed no other special powers, nor did he do any special deeds. Though he made costly sacrifices and later, approaching despair, consulted costly magicians, to him came no revelation, nor any solace when those he loved went down into death. Meanwhile the slow growth of awe among the people had, with equal slowness, become envy, then fear, then hatred. What had he done to be thus condemned, or what had he sold to be thus spared? What was he, sorcerer, demon, walking corpse, what? He barely evaded attempts on his life. Finally the authorities moved to investigate him and he fled, for he suspected they would question him under torture and put him to death. He knew he could be wounded, although he recovered fast, and felt sure that the worst injuries would prove as fatal to him as to anybody else. Despite his loneliness, he kept a young man’s desire for life and the savoring of it.
“For hundreds and hundreds of years he was a rover on the face of the earth. Often he let his yearnings overcome him and settled down somewhere, married, raised a family, lived as mortals do. But always he must lose them, and after a single common lifetime disappear. Between whiles, which was mostly, he plied trades where a man can come and go little remarked. His old seamanship was among these, and it took him widely across the world. Ever he sought for more tike himself. Was he unique in the whole creation? Or was his kind simply very rare? Those whom misfortune or malice did not destroy early on, they doubtless learned to stay hidden as he had learned. But if this be the case, how was he to find them, or they him?
“And if his was a hard and precarious lot, how much worse must it be for a woman? What could she do? Surely none but the strongest and cleverest survived. How might they?
“Does that conundrum interest my lady?”
He drank of his wine, for whatever tranquility might lie within it. She stared beyond him. Silence lengthened.
At last she drew breath, brought her look back to engage his, and said slowly, “That is a curious tale indeed, Kyrie Cadoc.”
“A tale only, of course, a fantasy for your amusement. I do not care to be locked up as a madman.”
“I understand.” A smile ghosted across her countenance. “Pray continue. Did this undying man ever come upon any others?”
“That remains to be told, my lady.”
She nodded. “I see. But say more about him. He’s still a shadow to me. Where was he born, and when?”
“Let us imagine it was in ancient Tyre. He was a boy when King Hiram aided King Solomon to build the Temple in Jerusalem.”
She gasped. “Oh, long ago!”
“About two thousand years, I believe. He lost count, and later when he tried to consult the records they were fragmentary and in disagreement. No matter.”
“Did he meet the Savior?” she whispered.
He sighed and shook his head. “No, he was elsewhere at that time. He did see many gods come and go. And kings, nations, histories. Perforce he lived among them, under names of their kind, while they endured and until they perished. Names he lost track of, like years. He was Hanno and Ithobaal and Snefru and Phaon and Shlomo and Rashid and Gobor and Flavius Lugo and, oh, more than he can remember.”
She sat straight, as if ready to spring, whether from him or at him. Low in her throat, she asked, “Might Cadoc be among those names?”
He kept seated, leaned back, but eyes now full upon hers. “It might,” he answered, “even as a lady might have called herself Zoe, and before that Eudoxia, and before that— names which are perhaps still discoverable.”
A shudder passed through her. “What do you want of me?”
He set his glass down, most carefully, smiled, spread his hands, palms up, and told her in his softest voice, “Whatever you choose to give. It may be nothing. How can I compel you, supposing that were my desire, which it is not? If you dislike harmless lunatics, you need never see or hear from me again.”
“What ... are you ... prepared to offer?”
“Shared and lasting faith. Help, counsel, protection, an end of loneliness. I’ve learned a good deal about surviving, and manage to prosper most of the time, and have my refuges and my hoards against the evil days. At the moment I command modest wealth. More important, I stay true to my friends and would rather be a woman’s lover than her overlord. Who knows but what the children of two immortals will themselves prove deathless?”
She studied him a while. “But you always hold something back, don’t you?”
“A Phoenician habit, which a rootless life has strengthened. I could unlearn it.”
“It was never my way,” she breathed, and came to him.
2
They lounged against pillows at the headboard of the huge bed. Talk grew between them like a blossoming plant in spring. Now and then a hand stroked across flesh gone cool again, but those were gentle caresses. A languor possessed them, as if part of the lingering odors of incense and love. Their minds roused first. The words were calm, the tone tender.
“Four hundred years ago I was Aliyat in Palmyra,” she said. “And you, in your ancient Phoenicia?”
“My birthname was Hanno,” he answered. “I used it the oftenest, afterward, till it died out of every language.”
“What adventures you must have had.”
“And you.”
She winced. “I would rather not speak of that.”
“Are you ashamed?” He laid a finger under her chin and brought her face around toward his. “I would not be,” he said gravely. “I am not. We have survived, you and I, by whatever means were necessary. That’s now behind us. Let it drift into darkness with the wreckage of Babylon. We belong to our future.”
“You ... do not ... find me sinful?”
He laughed a bit. “I suspect that if we both grew quite candid about our pasts, you’d be the one shocked.”
“Nor do you fear God’s curse?”
“I have learned much in two thousand years, but nothing about any gods, except that they too arise, change, age, and die. Whatever there is beyond the universe, if anything, I doubt it concerns itself with us.”
Tears trembled on her lashes. “You are strong. You are kind.” She nestled close. “Tell me of yourself.”
“That would take a while. I’d grow thirsty.”
She reached for a bell on an end table and rang it. “That we can do something about,” she said with a flash of smile. “You’re right, however. We have the whole future wherein to explore our past. Tell me first of Cadoc. I do need to understand him, that we may lay our plans.”
“Well, it began when Old Rome departed from Britannia— No, wait, I forgot, in all this joy. First I should tell you about Rufus.”
A maidservant entered. She dipped her glance, otherwise seemed unperturbed by the two naked bodies. Athenais ordered the wine and refreshments brought hi from the anteroom. While this was done, Cadoc marshalled his thoughts. When they were alone, he described his companion.
