The Boat of a Million Years

by Poul Anderson

  “But sir!” Red and white went in waves over the boyish face. “The lady and I and nobody else? Surely a maidservant, a eunuch, or—or—”

  Zabdas shook his head. “The protestation does you honor,” he replied. “However, a watcher would defeat my whole purpose, which is to give you a true feel of conditions in Tadmor while avoiding derision and insinuations.” He looked from one to the other of them. “I never doubt I can trust my kinsman and my first wife.” With a flick of a smile: “She is, after all, aged beyond the usual span of me.”

  “What?” Bonnur exclaimed. “Master, you jest! The veil, the gown, they cannot hide—”

  “It is true,” said Zabdas, a low sibilation. “You shall hear of it from her, along with things less curious.”

  12

  A day approached sunset. “Well,” said Aliyat, “best we stop. I have duties still before me.”

  “And I. And I should think upon what you have revealed to me this time.” Bonnur’s voice dragged.

  Neither of them rose from the stools on which they sat facing. Abruptly he colored, dropped his gaze, and blurted, “My lady has a wonderful intelligence.”

  It felt like a caress. “No, no,” she protested. “In a long life, even a stupid person learns a few things.”

  She saw him break down a barrier so that he could meet her eyes. “Hard to believe you are, are old.”

  “I carry my years well.” How often had she said it precisely thus? How mechanical it had become.

  “All you have seen—“ Reckless impulse: “The change of faith. That you were forced away from Christ!”

  “I have no regrets.”

  “Do you not? If only for, for the freedom you have lost— the freedom your friends have lost, the simple freedom to look upon you—”

  For an instant she was about to hush him. Nothing closed off the doorway but a bead curtain. However, such a thing muffled sound somewhat, and deserted corridors and rooms stretched between it and the inhabited part, and he had spoken softly, deep in his throat, while tears glimmered on his lashes.

  “Who cares to see a hag?” she fended, and knew she was teasing.

  “You are not! You shouldn’t have to cower behind that veil. I’ve noticed when you forgot to stoop and shamble.”

  “You have watched me closely, it seems.” She fought a dizziness.

  “I cannot help myself,” he confessed miserably.

  “You are too curious.” As if a different creature used her tongue, her hands: “Best we quench that. Behold.”

  She drew the yashmak aside. He gasped.

  She dropped it back and stood up. “Are you satisfied? Keep silence, or we shall have to end these meetings. My lord would mislike that.” She left him.

  Her daughter met her in the harem. “Mama, where have you been? Gutne won’t let me play with the lion doll.”

  Aliyat groped after patience. She ought to love this child. But Thirya was whimpery, and sick half the time, and resembled her father.

  13

  Sometimes the sameness of the days broke, when Zabdas gave Aliyat materials to study and report on. In the room that was apart, she tried to grasp what she read, but it slipped and wriggled about like a handful of worms. Twice she met there with Bonnur. The second time she took off her veil at the outset, and she had dressed in a gown of light material. “The weather is blazing hot,” she told him, “and I am only an old granny, no, great-grandmother.” They accomplished little. Silences kept falling between them.

  More days flowed sluggishly together. She lost count of them. What difference did their number make? Each was just like the last, save for bickerings and nuisances and, at night, dreams. Did Satan brew certain of those for her? If so, she owed him thanks.

  Then Zabdas summoned her to his office. “Your counsel has gone worthless,” he said peevishly. “Does your dotage come upon you at last?”

  She bit back rage. “I am sorry, my lord, if no thoughts have occurred to me of late. I will try to do better.”

  “What’s the use? No use in you any more. Furja, now, Furja warms my bed, and surely soon she’ll be fruitful.” Zabdas waved a hand in dismissal. “Well, be off. Go wait for Bonnur. I’ll send him. Perhaps at least you can persuade him to mend those woolgathering ways he’s taken on. By all the saints—by the beard of the Prophet, I regret my promises to both of you!”

  Aliyat stalked through the empty part of the house with fists clenched. In the room of meetings she prowled back and forth, back and forth. It was a cage. She halted at the window and stared out through the grille. From there she could look over the walls around the ancient temple of Bel. Its limestone seemed bleached under a furious sun. The bronze capitals of the portico columns blazed. Heat-shimmer made the reliefs on the cella waver. Long had it stood unused, empty, like herself. Now it was being refurbished. She had heard at fourth or fifth hand that the Arabs planned to make a fortress of it.

  But were those Powers entirely dead? Bel of the storm, Jarhibol of the sun, Aglibol of the moon—Ashtoreth of begettings and births, terrible in beauty, she who descended into hell to win back her lover—unseen, they strode across the earth; unheard, they shouted throughout heaven; the sea that Aliyat had never known thundered behind her breasts.

  A footstep, a click of beads, she whirled about. Bonnur halted. Sweat sheened on him. She caught the smell of it, filling the heat and silence, man-smell. She was wet with her own; the dress clung to her.

  She unfastened her veil and cast it to the floor.

  “My lady,” he choked, “oh, my lady.”

  She advanced. Her hips swung as if of themselves. Breath loudened. “What would you with me, Bonnur?”

  His gazelle eyes fled right and left, trapped. He backed off a step. He raised his hands against her. “No,” he begged.

  “No, what?” she laughed. She stopped before him and he must needs meet her look. “We’ve things to do, you and I.”

  If he is wise, he will agree. He will sit down and begin asking about the best way to bargain with a caravaneer.

  14

  “I have business in Tripolis,” Zabdas said. “It may keep me several weeks. I shall go with Nebozabad, who leaves a few days hence.”

  Aliyat was glad she had left her veil on after reaching his office. “Does my lord wish to say what business it is?”

  “No sense in that. You’ve grown barren of advice, as of everything else. I am informing you privately so that I can state what should be obvious, that in my absence you are to abide in the harem and occupy yourself with a wife’s ordinary duties.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  She and Bonnur had thus far had two afternoons together.

  15

  Thirya stirred. “Mama—”

  Aliya pushed fury down. “Hush, darling,” she breathed. “Go to sleep.” And she must wait while the child tossed and whined, until finally the bed was quiet.

  Finally!

  Her feet remembered the way through the dark. She clutched her nightgown to her lest it brush against something. The thought flitted: Like this do the unrestful dead steal from their graves. But it was to life that she was going. Already the juices of it ran hot. Her nostrils drank the cedary odor of her desire.

  Nobody else woke, and there was no guard on as small, as drab a harem as this. Her fingers touched walls, guiding her, until she reached the last dear corridor. No, do not run, make no needless sound. The beads in the doorway snaked around her. The window framed stars. A breeze from the cooling desert drifted through it. Her pulse racketed. She pulled off the gown and tossed it aside.

  He came. Her toes gripped the carpet.

  “Aliyat, Aliyat.” The rough whisper echoed in her head. Bonnur stumbled, knocked a stool over, panted. She gurgled laughter and slipped to him.

  “I knew you would come, beloved,” she sang. His arms enclosed her. She clawed herself tight to him. Her tongue thrust between his lips.

  He bore her down, they were on the carpet, the thought flashed tha
t she must take care it show no stains, he groaned and she reached after him.

  Lantern light glared. “Behold!” Zabdas cackled.

  Bonnur rolled off Aliyat. Both sat up, crouched back, crawled to their feet. The lantern swung in Zabdas’ hand. It sent huge misshapen shadows adance over the walls. She saw him in fragments, eyeballs, nose, wet snags of teeth, wrinkles, hatred. Right and left of him were his two sons. They bore swords. The steel gleamed.

  “Boys, seize them!” Zabdas shouted.

  Bonnur reeled. He lifted his hands like a beggar. “No, master, my lord, no.”

  It tumbled through Aliyat: Zabdas had planned this from the first. He had no passage arranged with the caravan. ; These three waited in another room, their light muffled, for that which he knew would happen. Now he would be rid of her, and keep her property, and believe that even an ifrit— or whatever inhuman thing she might be—would not return from the punishment for adultery.

  Once she would have welcomed an ending. But the weariness of the years was burned out of her.

  “Bonnur, fight!” she screamed. “They’ll tie us in a sack and the people will stone us to death!” She laid her hands on his back and shoved him forward. “Are you a man? Save us!”

  He howled and leaped. A man swung sword. Unpracticed, he missed. Bonnur caught that arm with one hand. His fist crunched into the nose behind. The second brother edged around, awkwardly, afraid of hitting the wrong body. The struggle lurched past Aliyat. It left a smear of blood on her. She bounced clear.

  Zabdas blocked the doorway. She snatched the lantern from the old man’s feeble grasp and dashed it to the floor. Oil flared in yellow flame. He staggered aside. She heard him shriek as the fire licked his ankle.

  She fled past the beads, down hall and stairway, out the rear door, from the lane into ghost-gray streets between blank walls. The Philippian Gate stayed open after dark when a caravan was making ready. If she took care, if she moved slowly and kept to the shadows, its sentries might not see her.

  Oh, Bonnur! But she had no breath or tears to spare for him, not yet, not if she wanted to live.

  16

  Those in the caravan who glanced behind them saw the towers of Tadmor catch the first sun-gleam. Then they were up the valley and out on the steppe. Ahead of them the sky also brightened-until the last stars faded away.

  Signs of man were sparse on that day’s travel. After Nebozabad left the Roman road on a short cut across the desert, there was nothing but a trail worn by the generations before him who had fared likewise. He called halt for the night at a muddy, pool where the horses could drink. Men contented themselves with what they carried along in skins, camels with what scrawny shrubs were to be found.

  The master strode through the bustle and hubbub to a certain driver. “I will take that bale, now, Hatim,” he said. The other grinned. Like most in this trade, he considered smuggling to be a part of it, and never asked unnecessary questions.

  The bale was actually a long bundle tied together with rope, which had been nestled into the load on the camel. Nebozabad’s slave carried it back, into the master’s tent, laid it down, salaamed, and went to squat outside, forbidding intruders. Nebozabad knelt, undid the knots, unrolled the cloth.

  Aliyat crept forth. Sweat plastered her hair and the djellabah he had lent to the curves of her. The countenance was hollow-eyed, the lips cracked. Yet once he had given her water and a bite of food, she recovered with eerie quickness, well-nigh minute by minute as he watched.

  “Speak low,” he warned. “How have you fared?”

  “It was hot and dry and gut-wrenching bumpy,” she answered in a voice husky more than hoarse, “but I shall forever thank you. Did a search party come?”

  He nodded. “Soon after we left. A few Arabian soldiers, rousted out—after Zabdas gained himself ill will by waking the qadi, I gather. They were sleepy and uninterested. We need not have hidden you so well.”

  She sighed where she sat, knees drawn up, ran fingers through her matted tresses, gave him a smile that shone and lingered in the lamplit dusk. “You cared, dear friend.”

  Cross-legged before her, he scowled. “Reckless was I. It might cost me my head, and I’ve my family to think of.”

  She reached to stroke fingers across his wrist. “Rather would I die than bring harm on you. Give me a waterskin and a little bread, and I will strike off across the desert.”

  “No, no!” he exclaimed. “That would be a slower death. Unless the nomads found you, which would be worse. No, I can take you along. We’ll swaddle you well in garments too large, keep you offside and unspeaking. I’ll say you’re a boy, kin to me, who’s requested a ride to Tripolis.” He grinned sourly. “Those who doubt the ‘kin’ part of that will snicker behind my back. Well, let them. My tent is yours to share while the journey lasts.”

  “God will reward you, where I cannot. Barikai in Paradise will intercede for your soul.”

  Nebozabad shrugged. “I wonder how much good that will do, when it’s the escape of a confessed adulteress I’m aiding.”

  Her mouth trembled. A tear ran down the sweat and grime dried on her cheeks. “It’s right, though,” he said in haste. “You told me what cruelties drove you from your wits.”

  She caught his nearer hand in both hers and clung.

  He cleared his throat. “Yet you must understand, Aliyat, I can do no more than this. In Tripolis I must leave you, with what few coins I can spare, and thereafter you are alone. Should I be charged with having helped you, I will deny all.”

  “And I will deny I saw you. But fear not. I’ll vanish from sight.”

  “Whither? How shall you live, forsaken?”

  “I will. I have already seen ninety years. Look. Have they left any mark on me?”

  He stared. “They have not,” he mumbled. “You are strange, strange.”

  “Nonetheless—simply a woman. Nebozabad, I, I can do somewhat to repay a morsel of your kindness. The only things I have to offer are memories, but those you can bring home with you.”

  He sat motionless.

  She drew closer. “It is my wish,” she whispered. “They will be my memories too.”

  17

  And gladsome they are, she thought when afterward he lay sleeping. I could almost envy his wife.

  Until he grew old, and she did. Unless first a sickness took one or the other off. Aliyat had never in her life been ill. Her flesh had forgotten the abuse of the day and the night that were past. A pleasant languor pervaded it, but if perchance he should awaken, she would instantly arouse to eagerness.

  She smiled in the dark. Allow the man his rest. She would like to go out and walk about a while, under the moon and the high desert stars. No, too risky. Wait. Wait. She had learned how.

  Paul twinged. Poor Bonnur. Poor Thirya. But if ever she let herself weep for any of the short-lived, there would be no end of weeping. Poor Tadmor. But a new city lay ahead, and beyond it all the world and time.

  A woman who was ageless had one way, if none eke, to live onward hi freedom.

  V. No Man Shuns His Doom

  1

  It is told in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason how Nornagest came to him when he was at Nidharos and abode some while in the king’s hall; for many and wonderful were the tales that Gest bore. Evening after lengthening evening as the year drew toward winter, men sat by the fires and hearkened. Tales they heard from lifetimes agone and the far ends of the world. Often he gave them staves as well, for he was a skald, and was apt to strum a harp underneath the words, in English wise. There were those who muttered he must be a liar, asking how any man could have fared so widely or been so old. But King Olaf bade these be still, and himself listened keenly.

  “I was living on a farm in the Uplands,” Gest had said to him. “Now my last child yonder has died, and again I am weary of my dwelling—wearier than ever, lord. Word of you reached me, and I have come to see whether it is true.”

  “What you have heard that is good, is true,” answered th
e priest Conor. “By God’s grace, he is bringing a new day to Norway.”

  “But your day first broke very long ago, Gest, did it not?” murmured Olaf. “We have heard of you again and again. Everyone has—though none but your neighbors in the mountains have seen you for many years, and I supposed you must be dead.” When he looked at the newcomer he saw a man tall and lean, straight in the back, gray of hair and beard but with few lines across the strong bones of his face. “You are not really aged after all.”

  Gest sighed. “I am older than I seem, lord.”

  “Guest of the Noras. A strange and heathenish nick-name, that,” said the king slowly. “How did you come by it?”

  “You may not want to hear.” And Gest turned the talk elsewhere.

  Right well did he understand the craft of doing so. Over and over, Olaf urged him to take baptism and be saved. Yet the king did not make threats or order death, as he did with most who were stubborn about this. Gest’s tales were so gripping that he wanted to keep the wanderer here.

  Conor pressed harder, seeking Gest out almost daily. The priest was eager in the holy work. He had come with Olaf when the latter sailed from Dublin to Norway, overthrew Hdkon Jarl, and won the land for himself. Now the king was calling in missionaries from England and Germany as well as Ireland, and maybe Conor felt a bit left out.