Susan Fletcher - Alphabet of Dreams

by Susan Fletcher

  “Ah, Giv! Come, come!” His voice croaked; he clutched at his throat; someone offered him the hot liquid again, but he waved it away.

  Giv bowed, then rose and whispered something into the Magus’s ear. The Magus sat up straight and made a grand, shooing motion. “Begone!” he bellowed—with surprising strength and resonance, considering his infirmity. “All of you. Begone!”

  Quickly I drew back, but it soon became clear that they were not leaving through the doorway near which I stood. I heard footsteps moving away and recalled a glimpse of a wider arch leading out of the room on the other side. Then Giv was at the curtain. “Come,” he said.

  I might have been tempted to regard this Magus as a foolish man, if not for his eyes. They regarded me with a calculating shrewdness as we approached. Giv bowed again, and I did likewise. “Here is the boy we sought,” Giv said. “Ramin, Babak’s brother.”

  “So soon?” The Magus spoke to Giv, but his gaze remained fastened upon my face. “I know you are swift, but this time you must have ridden the wind.”

  “I’d no need to ride clear back to Rhagae. I found the boy not far from here. Following us, I believe.”

  “Huh.” The Magus combed through his beard, plucked out a seed of some sort, and flicked it away. “So you have come to join us?”

  “I have come to fetch my brother,” I said.

  “Ah.” He glanced at Giv, then back at me. Suddenly, it seemed, he had no need to sneeze, no interest in food or drink. “You must appreciate,” he said, “that Babak is now my ward.”

  “The one who gave him—sold him—had no right. She is not kin to him. We are of noble blood.” I longed to tell him exactly who we were, what legacy belonged to Babak. But the Magus might be loyal to Phraates. He might … A jolt of fear struck me. Might he have spoken with the Eyes and Ears? Might he be an agent of the king?

  But the Magus did not seem the least bit interested in our ancestry. “Babak needs you,” he said. “If you care for him, you’ll see that he eats. Comfort him so that he may sleep.”

  “If I care for him!” Giv shot me a glance and made a low warning noise in his throat. I breathed in deep, tried to push down the rage, keep it out of my voice. “I care for him more than you do. More than anyone.”

  Melchior nodded, regarded me speculatively. “For that reason,” he said, “I am prepared to offer you my hospitality. So long as you are helpful to Babak.”

  “Hospitality! You mean make me your servant, your chattel? I’m nobody’s menial, I—”

  “No, no, no.” Melchior waved a hand and smiled the smile of an indulgent grandfather. “Think of me as your guardian. I do have … conditions … but you’ll find I am a reasonable man.”

  “So, I may leave?”

  He shrugged. “Yes. Babak would not be happy, but … I make no claim on you.”

  “Anytime I like.”

  “Of course.”

  “Your conditions?”

  “There are six.” He leaned forward and the shrewdness came back into his eyes. He ticked off his conditions on plump, beringed fingers. “First: You must not attempt escape with Babak, nor in any way undermine his work with me. Second: You must not tell anyone—anyone at all—about the nature of that work. Dreamwork—as I’m certain you have surmised. Further, no word of Babak’s gift for dreams is to be mentioned. Believe me, I will know it if you do. Third: You will not have Babak dream for you or any other person of your choice. I’ll not have the dreams of others intermingling with mine. Fourth: You will be purified and will keep yourself pure and not violate the precepts of the prophet Zoroaster. Fifth: You and Babak will stay with Giv in his quarters. I have put it out that Babak is under my protection, the orphaned son of a pious tradesman. I will say the same of you, and you need fear no harm.”

  “But we are of noble birth, not—”

  “Your noble birth—such as it is,” he said, taking in my raggedness from head to toe, “will not serve you here. Don’t draw notice to yourselves. Sixth: It’s best that you find ways to be of use. You’re of an age where idleness would breed the contempt of others—or make tongues wag. My wife can see to Babak while you work. She is a kindly woman; Babak knows her; you need not fear.

  “You are welcome here so long as you keep my conditions, so long as your presence comforts Babak and makes it possible for him to dream. If you try to escape or set him against dreaming for me”—he snapped his fingers—“you will be put out at the nearest inn or settlement. And …” He leaned forward. “If you breathe a word about the dreaming, we will put you out exactly where we are when I learn of it—settlement or no settlement. Do you understand?”

  I nodded grudgingly.

  “Do you accept?”

  “Yes, only …”

  His eyes narrowed. “Only what?”

  “This dreaming, it wearies him. He has never been robust. And he has been crying for so long. It would be better to wait until he is rested.”

  Melchior eyed me steadily, combing at his beard. “I will consider your request,” he said at last. He took a cloth out of the folds of his clothing, put it to his nose, and let out with a great, damp, trumpeting noise. “How old are you?” he asked when he had done.

  I took two years off, for most boys my age would be bigger, their voices on the edge of change. “Twelve,” I said.

  “Hmm,” he muttered. “If you were fifteen, I would perform the purification rites. But since you’re underage, Giv will perform ablutions. Heaven only knows when last you washed.”

  Giv turned to me. “My master is very generous, offering his hospitality. It is well that you should thank him.”

  That stuck in my craw. But I swallowed it, bowed again. “I thank you, Lord Melchior,” I said.

  Giv looked thoughtful as servants carried a large vat up the stairs to his lamplit room, as they filled the vat, pitcher by pitcher, with steaming water. Smaller vats were brought in as well, and stacks of drying cloths, and a copper thurible, which soon set to billowing fragrant white smoke.

  I was thinking too. What would he do when he discovered I was a girl? Clearly Babak had kept my secret safe. Would they turn me out? The Magus had mentioned his wife, so he might put me in custody of her. Still, he would be angry. And my freedom would be sorely constrained. So much more difficult to escape!

  When the servants had left, Giv asked me, “So, you have done this before, then—this purification in the way of the Wise God?”

  “My grandmother cleansed us so.” She had regularly washed us head to foot, and made much of polluting neither water nor earth nor fire.

  “Then you know how it is done.”

  I nodded, though I did not. Not how to purify deep pollution such as I had known.

  “Good.” Giv started to leave, which surprised me, because I had clearly heard the Magus order him to perform the ablutions.

  “But …”

  He turned back. There have been bones, I almost said. And blood. And once, a corpse. But if I admitted this, he would do it himself and discover I was a girl.

  “I … I will have need of … of clean clothing,” I said.

  He pointed to a stack of fabric set beside a pair of short leather boots. “There,” he said and, eyeing the garments I was wearing, added, “We will dispense with those.”

  In a while, when I was clean and dressed in soft linen and wool—brown trousers, sash, and tunic with a wide band of yellow-embroidered felt at the neck, a loose coat of rusty red with embroidered sleeves—I heard two sets of footsteps coming down the corridor, one heavy, one light.

  Babak.

  The door swung open, and his small, bony body hit me hard, nearly knocking me to the floor. “Ramin!” he cried. “Ramin Ramin Ramin Ramin Ramin.”

  I scooped him into my arms, held him tight. He began to weep—great, heaving sobs that wracked his entire body. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Giv slip out the door. “Hush,” I said, patting Babak’s back the way I always used to do. “Hush, hush, hush, little brother, no need
to cry. All’s well.”

  Though I was far from sure of that.

  Later—when Babak and I had long since curled up together on a single sleeping mat, when his breathing had long since settled into the rhythms of sleep—I heard the door open. Footfalls in the shadows. Before I could make out a face in the gloom, a massive cupped hand reached down, spread wide, and out stepped something small and dark.

  Shirak. He staggered a little, found his balance, then bounced across the floor and, leaning into the curve of Babak’s body, commenced to lick himself clean.

  CHAPTER 18

  A PLACE of MANY SECRETS

  It seemed we had just gone to sleep when Giv was shaking my shoulder, urging me to rise. “We leave today for Sava. There’s work for you.” Then he was gone. I quickly relieved myself in the chamber pot, then Giv returned with a ewer of water, some cucumbers, and a round of flatbread. I woke Babak; the three of us broke our fast quickly, by lamplight.

  I was disturbed, this morning, to see how poorly Babak looked. He was as thin as he had been when we had to beg or steal all our food. He seemed tired, and the circles beneath his eyes had darkened.

  Shirak lapped some water out of my hand but turned up his nose at the bread Babak offered. The kitten tiptoed to a corner of the room, tail held high, and commenced to feast upon a mouse he had killed the night before.

  Babak, too, had been divested of his rags. It did my heart good to see him garbed in good wool and shod in sturdy leather. But he did not want to stay with Melchior’s wife. He wanted to stay with me. Giv considered this, the lines at the sides of his mouth deepening, framing his habitual scowl. “Nay,” he said curtly. “Later, perhaps.”

  Babak instantly broke into tears and clung to me. “I want to go with Ramin,” he pleaded. “Ramin, don’t go without me, please!”

  “Hush, little one. It’s only for a short while this time. I’ll soon return—I promise.”

  But he would not be consoled. He was still clinging and sobbing when the Magus’s wife came, a rotund woman of middle years and a calm, smiling countenance. I pried Babak off as gently as I could.

  “Would you like to come with us?” she mouthed so Babak couldn’t see.

  I shook my head and departed, feeling as though I’d torn off an arm. The Magus wanted me to “be of use.” And a boy of twelve would not bide all day with the women.

  Besides, if I didn’t get out and about—learn the lay of things—how would I plot our escape?

  No sooner had I set foot in the courtyard than a youth, a little older than I, accosted me. “Ramin?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Giv said I’m to show you what to do,” he said, looking me over and stroking the faint beginnings of a beard. “This way.” He set off at a brisk clip, throwing back over his shoulder, “My name is Pacorus.”

  The large, square courtyard, though still dark, had come to life. I followed Pacorus as he wove with a fluid, long-striding gait through the pools of lantern light—among camels standing and camels kneeling; among heaps of rolled carpets and hangings; among bowls, goblets, platters, chests, feed sacks, calabashes, jugs, casks, nets filled with melons, nets filled with cooking pots, and wicker cages full of clucking chickens. Bundle-laden men were shouting, striding back and forth from the courtyard to the rooms and stables built along two sides of it. Horses whinnied and donkeys brayed. I tripped over a man who, miraculously, yet slept, and nearly fell headlong into the middle of a squabble—two men, each claiming a single sack of barley as his own. A host of scents assailed me: smoke, cooking spices, incense, feathers, dust, animal sweat, and dung. We passed the tall, arched stable doors, where camels let out great protesting groans as they rocked to their feet and followed their masters into the open. I peered inside, looking for Gorizpa, for that was where the man had led her when we’d arrived. But there was a darker darkness in the stables, dappled with flares of lantern light, yet untouched by the faint hint of the coming dawn. I could not see her.

  Pacorus halted when we came to the well. He handed me a waterskin and instructed me to help fill the trough, for many animals had gathered to drink now and the water was running low.

  I was strong for a girl but no match for Pacorus, who would draw up a large, brimming waterskin as if it were filled with feathers, then stride past me with sinewy grace and fling it into the trough before my waterskin had cleared the lip of the well. At first I thought he was annoyed with me, watching me struggle with the skin. After a time he showed me to another of the Magus’s servants, one who was packing and tying bundles. “He can help,” Pacorus said to the servant. I thrust out my chin, my face warm with shame, but there was no contempt in Pacorus’s voice, and he squeezed my shoulder in a reassuring way as he left.

  Packing I could do: rolling up robes and blankets, laying out pots and bowls and cups and swaddling them in layers of cloth so that they would not break. Though I could not pull the tying strings as taut as some of the other packers, I did know a few special knots, which I had learned from Suren, for cinching saddles and repairing tack. Someone handed me a frayed girth strap, and with a little cutting and braiding and tying I soon returned it to serviceable use. As I worked, a thin man with the swaggering gait of a bantam rooster drew near. He squatted beside us and watched with interest the twists and turnings of the knots. When, for a moment, the men beside me were distracted by a nearby commotion, the short man drew yet nearer and said, “The likes of you shouldn’t be doing this. It shames your bloodline and all your kin.”

  My head snapped up; I stared at him. I knew him from somewhere—the pointed beard, the pockmarked cheeks, the reedy voice.

  He laid a hand on my shoulder. “I can help you escape. You and your brother.”

  A throat cleared behind me; I whirled round to see Giv.

  “Ramin,” he growled. “Come with me.”

  When I glanced back at the man, he had vanished into the swarming hubbub of the courtyard.

  My heart was pounding in my chest. It shames your bloodline, he had said. Might this man know who we were? And if he did know, how? Was it possible he’d met up with Suren somewhere? And … escape! You and your brother.

  “What did the juggler want?” Giv demanded, leading me toward the stables.

  Juggler! Was he the same juggler I’d seen in Rhagae, the one Babak had collided with? “He, ah … thinks he knows me, but he is mistaken.” No use in telling Giv, rousing his suspicions. Besides, with the Eyes and Ears of the king looking for Babak, the fewer who knew who we were, the better.

  Giv favored me with an appraising glance. “If he approaches you again, tell him only what the Magus instructed: that Babak is the son of a poor but pious tradesman, and you are his brother, and the Magus has taken you both under his protection.”

  I nodded, then, gathering courage, asked, “Which way is Sava from here?”

  “It is south,” he said, “and west.”

  “Will we stay in Sava, or go on from there?”

  He eyed me oddly. “So many questions, then. Why do you ask?”

  “I only wondered.”

  “You will see,” he said shortly.

  And so I will, I thought. So long as we traveled west, I was content to stay with the caravan. No need to risk escape. But the moment we halted for good, or bore east, or came within easy reach of Palmyra … nothing in this world would prevent it.

  CHAPTER 19

  PROCESSION of the DOOMED

  The stables were warm and dark, the gloom only partly relieved by the myriad lanterns hanging from the rafters and the lamps flickering in niches in the walls. The smells of dung and hay lay thick in the air. I followed Giv among the horses, camels, donkeys, and men until I espied Gorizpa, tethered to an iron ring. Giv took a lamp from a niche, moved it along her flanks, legs, and hooves, then pried open her mouth and examined her teeth. He shook his head. “Best put it out of its misery. It won’t fetch much, though, I warn you.”

  “You mean … slaughter her?”

  G
orizpa’s ears swiveled at the sound of my voice; she turned toward me.

  “Aye.”

  And give me the proceeds. So the Magus hadn’t claimed all I had as his.

  I had no need for coin while in the caravan; it seemed that all of my needs would be attended to. Still, it would be good to add to my sackful of coins for when Babak and I escaped. And yet …

  Gorizpa made a sound deep in her throat. She came and leaned her great, long forehead against my chest and belly. I let my arms slip about her; the tufts at the tips of her ears twitched against my cheeks. Truly, I had grown soft.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll take her.”

  Giv regarded her with narrowed eyes. “So then,” he said. “This is a slow caravan. Were it a fast one, I would not permit it. But if this beast”—he jerked his head at Gorizpa—“holds us back, I will slaughter it on the road, and purification be damned. That is a promise. Now, go tell Pacorus I want him to find you something to ride.” With that, Giv departed.

  “I hope you appreciate what I just did,” I told Gorizpa, scratching at the base of her mane. She flicked an ear in my direction. “Did you hear Giv? Better not hold us back.” I reached a hand into her great, hairy ear and began to scratch. Her eyes glazed over, her lower lip softened, and a bead of drool dropped upon the stable floor.