I found Pacorus in the middle of the courtyard, facing the woven and betassled saddlebags on a haughty-looking camel. He seemed to be looking at something he was holding. When I cleared my throat to make my presence known, he spun round, startled. The thing flew from his hands and landed with a crack upon the cobblestones.
It splayed open on the ground: a small, intricately carved wooden casket, inlaid with copper and gold. Pacorus scrambled for it and picked up something that lay within. A strange-looking object—a bronze disc with a flat bronze bar riveted to the center of it and a ring attached at the top. All round the edges of the disc were rows of tiny etched marks and figures.
“Ahh!” Pacorus threw back his head, eyes closed. “It didn’t break,” he said. “Thanks be to God.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a thing he uses at night. A star-taker, I have heard it called. I can’t say that I understand it. But he sets great store by it.”
Stars. Like the dream Babak had had when Zoya gave him the white cloth from the Magus. Two stars. Near, apart. Near, apart.
“Does he use it to study the stars?” I asked now.
Pacorus shrugged. “They say that is what it’s for. I never saw him use it, though, until the night before we left Rhagae. For so long we’d been told we were heading for Margiana, and then one night he turns his gaze to the stars and”—Pacorus snapped his fingers—“suddenly it’s Sava! Oh, no. Look!”
One of the casket’s hinges had come apart. “I’ll take this to the coppersmith. He can repair it before we leave.” Pacorus leaped to his feet.
“Wait,” I said. “Giv says you’re to find me a mount.”
“A mount! Did he say where I was to find one?” Pacorus demanded. “Every horse we have is spoken for, and nearly all the riding camels besides! There are a few pack camels left, but their gait’s so rough they’d jog you right off—and most of them will bite you as soon as look at you. Am I a conjurer, that I can summon a suitable mount out of smoke?” But he was already looking about for one, I could see. He accosted one man and then another: “Do we have a riding camel to spare? How about that one Hormoz was riding yesterday? No? Well, how about the one the messenger rode in from the west? Is that ours?” Finally he turned to me. “I do know of one, if Giv will allow it.” He looked me up and down in a way that nearly made me blush. “It’s good you’re a scraw—that you don’t weigh overmuch,” he amended. “Nor does your brother. Come. Let’s leave this with the coppersmith, and then we’ll see.”
The camel stood hobbled at one corner of the courtyard, chewing her cud and staring into the distance with a sort of melancholy dignity. I saw at once why no one wished to ride her. Patches of bare, reddened skin splotched her muzzle and made inroads into the long hair on her flanks. Mange.
“Are you sure you can’t find a horse?” I asked. Horses I knew how to ride. But not camels. Besides, this one seemed piteous.
“She’s the best I can do,” Pacorus said. “But she’ll weaken fast on the road. You’ll have to anoint her, morning and evening, with butter. She was culled for slaughter, but …” He shrugged. “She’s good for a while yet, with a light load. Wait here; I’ll find you a saddle.”
Another animal marked for slaughter. I gently touched the festering skin; the camel flinched and looked down at me with reproachful eyes. Procession of the doomed, we were. Two refugees from the City of the Dead traveling with three ill-fated animals: the aged, the sick, and the half blind.
It was good that I did not place much faith in omens.
CHAPTER 20
A GREAT JOURNEY
There is a lightening of heart that attends the setting off upon a great journey, whatever your fears and misgivings may be. The camels’ bells had a gaiety to them, as did the bright, swaying tassels of the horse and camel regalia, as did the flute-and-tambour chorus that arose from a corner of the courtyard, as did the sweet smells of wafting incense, the moving constellations of torchlight, and the thin rim of dawn that set the low clouds aflame. There was a roaring of many camels as they rocked to their feet in the dim courtyard, and a shouting of men, and a clopping of horses and donkeys. The whole of it—the whole pageant—stirred something inside me, some strange joy, frightening and wonderful.
Now, awaiting our place in line, I found my thoughts straying more and more to Palmyra. To our kin, who would care for us, would restore us to the noble life we were meant to live—despite what sour Old Zoya had predicted. To Mother …
Soldiers …
Soldiers through the gates.
I shook off the memory. She had to have made her way to Palmyra. And perhaps Suren, too, when …
I pushed past something in my mind.
When he escaped and found us gone from Rhagae. And Father … Well, anything seemed possible. Who knew why Melchior had decided to journey west instead of east, but it was all to the good for us. At this moment the way ahead felt bright—or at least much brighter than the dismal lives we had been leading, with grimness stretching out before us without respite.
We would ride, Pacorus had told me, near the end of the first string of pack camels. First, on swift horses, came our guide and his men—with fierce eyes, sun-blackened skin, and daggers flashing at their belts. They had knowledge, Pacorus had said, of every water hole and stream between Rhagae and Ecbatana. Next, also on horseback, came the escort of the Magus, five or six men clanking with weapons—bows and arrows, knives and spears. Then some lesser priests and the bearer of the sacred coals. Behind them rode the Magus himself, regally mounted on a great white horse bedecked with so much finery that it seemed to shimmer and sway like a mirage: mirror-studded headdress, betasseled saddlebags, beaded necklaces and drapes. After him, more of his escort. Then, on camelback, the musicians and entertainers, and the howdahs of the Magus’s wife and her women—bright-colored tents that shivered and shook with the movement of the camels’ gait.
We came next. I squeezed Babak’s hand as Giv tied our camel’s nose line to the camel in front of us. This nose line, I saw, was attached to a wooden peg that poked out of one nostril. I clambered onto the saddle, nestled between the camel’s two humps, and Giv lifted Babak to sit in front of me. Shirak, tucked inside my sash, peeked out and surveyed all with his one good eye.
“Huh!” Giv said, tapping our camel’s flank with a stick. “Huh, huh!” With a beleaguered roar, she rose to a kneel, then abruptly straightened her back legs, pitching us sharply forward. “Lean back!” Giv shouted. Our camel’s front legs straightened; Gorizpa, tethered behind, let out a frightened bray. A couple of members of the Magus’s escort, laughing, joined the caravan behind Gorizpa—whether to protect us or to prevent our escape, I did not know.
It was high up here, and I could see more of the terrain—small hills and stony plateau to the sunrise side of us, and mountains to the other. In time I accustomed myself to our camel’s gait, a swinging, loose-legged shuffle. It was comfortable enough, but utterly unlike the riding I had done in Susa, clinging tightly to my pony’s body so that his rhythms became my rhythms; we were one and the same.
Morning spread like a spill of golden oil across the sky. The day grew warm. My high spirits soon evaporated beneath the white-hot glare of the sun and the drudgery of the long, hard trek. The silence of the high plateau soon deadened the hubbub of our setting out, until all I heard were the creaking of saddles, the jingle of camel bells, the crunch of animal feet and hooves on stone and grit. And the wind. Ever, ever the wind.
I tried to fix my mind upon the question of how to escape when the time came, but my thoughts kept drifting, and from time to time my head jerked suddenly upright, snapping me awake. In a while a different question began to occupy me: When would I be able to make water, and how would I do so without revealing my sex?
Babak looked about with interest at first, then started to squirm, then pestered me with questions. Where were we going? When would we stop? When would we eat? Could I make the camel run? Was Gorizpa growing weary? Final
ly his questions gave way to silence and he slumped back against me in sleep.
Pacorus came to ride beside us for a while, then joined a group of horseback youths—bareheaded and wearing loose, pleated overtrousers for riding. A couple of them greeted me before they took off, ranging up and down the lines of tethered pack camels when the road was wide. Every so often Giv would ride past, scowling as ever—checking nose line, girth, and crupper, casting a keen eye upon the animals’ mouths, eyes, legs, and feet. He was neither guide nor caravan master, yet he seemed to have authority over all matters pertaining directly to the Magus, and the guide and caravan master often consulted with him. He frowned for a long while at Gorizpa, but the old nag seemed perfectly content to slog along apace with the caravan. It seemed she balked only for me.
I was not the only one with a need to relieve herself, for we stopped from time to time for that purpose, the women pouring out of the howdahs and screening the entire group with large, flowing lengths of cloth. I found it was not difficult to be inconspicuous; there were many rocky outcrops to squat behind. Shirak, more modest even than we, would disappear entirely and reappear again. Giv, however, never seemed to be far from us—though not once did I see him glance in our direction.
When the sun stood high in the sky, we stopped beside a small stream. Those wearing the sacred kusti—women as well as men—made their devotions. I watered our animals, hobbled them, then put them out to graze in the sparse grass. Babak helped by standing on a rock and scratching in Gorizpa’s ear. I looked about for the juggler—his name was Pirouz, I had discovered—and spotted him in a pavilion erected for some of the merchants. I wondered if he would approach me again or if Giv had frightened him off.
Well, if the right occasion arose, I would approach him.
Pacorus and the other youths set out what was needful for the Magus and his priests and escort. Babak and I helped them spread cloths upon the ground and laid great trays of food upon them. We supped with the young men, saying little but listening to the tales they told, laughing at their jibes and filling our bellies until they bulged. At first I was shy about getting into the scramble for food. But Pacorus, seeing Babak or me gazing at a heap of flatbread or a hunk of cheese or a mound of cut-up melon, would flash us a quick smile, then reach into the swarm of arms to fetch it for us. Soon Babak and I were boldly reaching in—even scavenging small scraps of lamb and goat for the kitten.
Watching Pacorus among the other youths, I noticed how well favored he was—the grace of his movements, the roguish smile, those clear, penetrating eyes. Pacorus’s speech was refined, as if he had spent time among the nobility, and there were black stains on his fingers, like the ink stains on the fingers of Suren’s old tutor. Though Pacorus was tall, like Suren, the resemblance ended there. Suren had a weight about him, a meatiness-on-the-bones, a gravity of countenance—down to the squarish, solemn jawline he had inherited from our father. Suren always seemed content to be exactly who he was. Even if he was a beggar, I thought bitterly.
But Pacorus … There was a restless discontent about him that I recognized in myself.
A chorus of laughter arose from the circle of women, gathered about their meal. It transported me back for a moment to Susa, with my mother and aunts and cousins. Sitting idly in the shade of the garden, with women’s talk and laughter flowing around me. Splashing my feet in the cool waters of the fountain. Stitching designs in soft linen with lengths of brightly colored thread. A deep-down knowing that I belonged.
And would again. If not in Susa, then in Palmyra. I would.
When we had finished with the meal, Pacorus gave me a small bowlful of melting butter, and I went for the first time to anoint our camel’s ravaged hide. Babak reached for the bowl, wanting to help. “It’s too perilous for you,” I said. The camel looked down at us, disdainfully, it seemed. Warily, perhaps. As I nudged Babak back, my hand brushed hard against an open sore on the camel’s side. She let out a sort of coughing, sneezing sound, bucked in her hobbles, and chomped out at me with great, yellow fangs.
I leaped back just in time. “You devil!”
The camel let out a groan, more pathetic seeming than malicious. She eyed me from behind her long lashes as if she knew she’d misbehaved.
Babak stood beside me and patted my back as I waited for my heartbeat to slow and my courage to come out from where it was cowering. “I’m going to do this whether you like it or not,” I told her. “Do you hear me?”
She shuffled her feet, looked abashedly at the ground. Her skin shivered where the sores were. That mange must hurt. She reached down to sniff at the bowl of butter, which I had dropped. Then she fixed me with a mournful gaze and groaned at me again—a pitiful, quavering plaint that slid all the long way from treble to bass.
I sighed. If only they’d given us a horse! I approached the camel slowly, speaking softly, as I used to do with my pony in Susa. “There now. You’re a beauty,” I said. This was an outright lie. But my pony—who truly was a beauty—always liked it when I told her so. “Ziba,” I said. Beauty. Gently, I teased off some of the shedding hair that hung from her body in shaggy patches. Then I picked up the butter, dipped some out, and touched it to one of her sores. She moaned, low in her throat. Cautiously I rubbed it in. She moved her head until it was just above mine, until I could feel her breath stirring my hair.
I held my breath. Don’t bite, I willed.
At last, she nuzzled at my hair with her soft lips. Just as, in Susa, my pony used to do.
CHAPTER 21
SWEET DREAMS
Late that day, when the sun had slid down to the tips of the western mountains, we arrived at the caravansary outside the village of Sava. I was leading our animals to water across the bustling courtyard when Giv summoned Babak and me to follow him.
“But who will tend to Gorizpa and Ziba?” I protested.
Giv raised an eyebrow. “Gorizpa, is it? Fleet-of-Foot? And Ziba? Beauty?”
I held his gaze, daring him to challenge or laugh.
He did not. “Pacorus will tend to your animals,” he said. “Just leave them and come.”
“But the butter …”
Something shifted in Giv’s eyes; I thought I saw his scowl lift at a corner of his mouth. When he spoke again, his voice seemed not quite so harsh. “I’ll instruct Pacorus to anoint your … Ziba, never fear.”
I reached up to Babak, high above Ziba. He leaned down and slipped, yawning, into my arms. We followed Giv up the stairs to the gallery; he pointed to the large rooms at the end. “Go, Ramin. Alone. The Magus wishes to see you before the sunset prayers.”
I swallowed. “Alone?”
Babak said, “I want to go with you!”
Giv took Babak from me, set him down beside him. Babak started for me, but Giv firmly took his hand.
“We will wait,” Giv said.
I followed the strains of music down the long, open gallery. The Magus knows I’m a girl. The thought flitted through my mind, but I swept it aside. How would he know?
Two guards stood in front of a curtain hung from a wide arch. They motioned me through.
Four musicians—plying a harp, a horn, cymbals, and a small drum—blared out a lively air in a corner of the room. The Magus, attended by servants, reclined upon a divan, eyes closed, seeming to relish some delicacy that a hovering servant had just popped into his mouth. Behind him, on a pedestal, the sacred fire burned, and the air smelled of sandalwood and incense. The servant whispered something into his ear. The Magus opened his eyes, saw me, and waved a commanding hand. Everyone left.
His nose was still red, I saw, but his eyes did not seem so watery as before, nor his voice, when he greeted me, so hoarse. The swaddlings of wool were gone; a fine white robe, embroidered in gold, now compassed his considerable girth. His gray beard had been cleaned and oiled and was not so bristly as before, though stray tufts still escaped and went curling off in odd directions. In a deep, rich voice the Magus asked after my health and comfort; he asked if I had
passed the journey tolerably well; he asked if there was anything I desired.
“Melon, if you please, my lord,” I said. Zoya would call me brazen, but he had asked. “And butter. Much butter, for my … well, butter. And a flat wooden box filled with sand for Babak’s kitten.”
Melchior clapped his hands; a servant entered. He repeated my requests with neither comment nor curiosity, and the servant left. Then, leaning forward with the first real interest he had shown, the Magus inquired about Babak.
“I have heard he slept all night without crying. Is this so?”
I inclined my head. “Yes, my lord.”
“I have heard that our food now pleases him, and he eats until his belly is full.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I have heard even that he smiles.”
“On occasion, my lord.”
“On occasion?” Melchior snorted. “What I have heard is this: All told, he fares passing well now you’re here. He sleeps. He eats. He smiles.”
I could see where this was leading, and I didn’t like it. “Well enough, my lord,” I said.
The Magus craved something more from me. He frowned, drawing together his brows until they loomed like snowy mountain crags above his eyes. He combed through his beard with his fingers, beringed with costly gold and gems. Soft, plump fingers on soft, plump hands—and yet they gave the impression of strength. Power seemed to crackle around him, to radiate from his body in waves.
I did not give him what he wanted. I would delay as long as I might. To touch the dreams of such a man … It could burn you.
“So,” the Magus said at last. “Well enough, you say. Rested enough to dream for me?”
“I don’t know for certain. It would be best to wait—”
“I don’t … have … time.” His eyes hardened, held me. At last he leaned back, smiled, and picked up a folded white square of cloth. Larger than a sash this time. An undertunic. He held it out. “Let us try it, shall we?”
Susan Fletcher - Alphabet of Dreams Page 9