So preoccupied was I when I left that I didn’t see Pirouz in the shaded edge of the gallery until I had nearly walked straight into him. The tunic flew from my grasp and dropped on the tiled floor. I grabbed for it, but Pirouz was quicker. He ran the cloth through his hands, smudging it with gray.
“So,” he said, “what’s this?” Smiling, he handed it back.
I clasped it to myself.
“Don’t be afeared, I won’t tell. You’ve as much a right as he to the feel of finespun cloth against your skin. It’s a shame you have to steal for it.”
“I didn’t—”
“Nay, of course you didn’t.” He smiled again. His teeth were white and small, like the teeth of a child or a fox—too small for his face. “Tell me,” he said, “how is little Babak?” He shook his head sadly. “Babak—chattel to the Magus. No better than some foreign slave. What’d your father think? And you, a slave in all but name. Is this how the great bloodline’s to end? And Suren …”
I drew in breath.
He laughed softly, expelling a gust of reeking air. “He is your brother, then.”
“What of Suren? Do you know him? Do you know where he is?”
“Know him? I can take you to him!”
The creak of a door behind us, and footsteps. I whirled round.
Giv.
“Go,” he said, glaring at Pirouz.
“We were only talking,” Pirouz protested, turning his smile on Giv.
“Go.”
Pirouz shrugged. There was no way out for him, except by passing Giv. He sauntered past, plucking a leather ball from his sash and tossing it, catching it, tossing it—until Giv made a sudden move, and the next I knew, he had shoved Pirouz against the wall, dagger to his throat. The ball bounced once, twice, and dribbled away down the gallery.
“Leave them be,” Giv said, “or I promise you’ll live to regret it.” He flicked the dagger in the air, then stepped back. Pirouz sidled a short distance along the wall before turning and scuttling away with a great deal less dignity than before.
“What did he want?” Giv asked.
I could not look at him. Was this a trick of Pirouz’s, to trap me in some way? Or did he truly know of Suren? “The same as before,” I said. “He thinks he knows me, but he does not.”
Giv sheathed his dagger and scowled after Pirouz. “I’ll watch him,” he said.
I felt myself slowly unclench. It was good to have Giv on our side, but he was not a man you would ever want to cross.
Still …
Suren!
*
“Babak,” I said.
He leaned against me, sleepy eyed. I stroked his hair; the downy strands on the back of his neck were moist. Shirak crawled into his lap and began to purr. Giv had left us alone in his quarters—a small room down the gallery from the Magus—but two men sat outside our door. I could hear their low murmurings and, from time to time, a rattle of dice on the tile floor. For a long while after speaking with Pirouz my heart had raced, but now it had settled again. Pirouz had said he could take us to Suren, but it might be a trick. I must be sensible. I mustn’t do anything rash. But I had to speak with him again.
In the meantime, there was another matter to attend to.
“Babak,” I said, “I want to talk to you.”
He yawned. “I don’t want to talk.”
“The Magus wants you to dream for him again.”
“Um.”
“Last time … with the stars … it didn’t trouble you?”
He moved his thin shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t mind.” He reached out for the cloth, and something about that gesture—the small, sun-browned hand, stretched wide—made tears prick the corners of my eyes. So accustomed he was to having his own dreams shunted aside, to being used for the purposes of others, that now he offered without question to have it done to him again.
I didn’t give him the cloth. Not yet. “You’re not afraid?” I asked.
Babak tipped his head back, gazed up at me. “Not if you are here.”
Something twisted inside me; I looked away, struggled to keep my face from caving in. In a moment I had mastered myself again. I gave him the tunic, which smelled strongly of incense. I tucked it in next to his skin. He closed his eyes; soon his breath came even and slow. I drew my fingers along his eyebrows, felt the rough ridge of his scar.
“Sweet dreams, Babak,” I whispered.
CHAPTER 22
THE FORTRESS
This one began, like the other, with stars. Babak told it to me, then I to Giv, and then the Magus wanted to hear it for himself in his chambers. The same two stars as before, Babak said: near and apart, near and apart, near and apart. And then something different.
A king.
Babak did not want to tell of this king. I had not pressed when he and I were alone. But Melchior craved to know everything about him. Babak ducked under my arm and buried his face against my side. I looked down, fearful for him. He had never been like this before. Not just balky, but truly loath to tell.
Now he let it out in bits and pieces, whispered to me with a hand cupped to my ear.
“He says it was a strange king,” I told Melchior. “His cloak was deep purple, and he wore it draped over one shoulder, leaving the other shoulder and arm completely bare. Long purple tassels hung down from the corners of this cloak. But he wore a narrow diadem, made of cloth, as our kings do. He lived in a great palace, and many attended upon him.”
“Could be Roman,” Melchior muttered. “But those tassels. Hebrew, perhaps. What else?”
Babak didn’t want to tell. “You must,” I said.
He whispered.
“He says the king was angry. His feet had open, oozing sores, and they stank. He says there were sores on his body as well, and a spell of palsy on him. He says …” Babak whispered again. “He says he was afraid.”
“Who was afraid?” Melchior demanded. “The king?”
“Babak was afraid.”
Melchior rose from his divan, shuffled toward us across the carpet, and stood glowering down. “Where was I in this dream?” he demanded. “How am I to know this dream was for me? He speaks of stars. He speaks of a king. How is this mine?”
To my surprise, Babak poked his head out from under my arm. “You saw it,” he said. “I am telling what you saw.”
Melchior retreated a bit, and when he spoke, his tone was softer. “How did he receive me, this king? How was his comportment toward me?”
Babak cupped his hand to my ear and whispered again. “He says he sought you out,” I said. “He welcomed you. He treated you with honor.”
“Hmm.” Melchior settled back down upon his cushions. He combed through his beard again, thoughtful.
Even so, I wondered, why had Babak been afraid?
We stayed at Sava overnight and left after dawn prayers the following day, heading southwest, off the main trade route, past the lush greenery that rimmed a wide blue lake and then across a vast, desolate, windswept plain. Babak seemed spent, either from this last night’s dreaming or from the mounting strain of travel. He had eaten little since the dream, not even the melon the Magus had sent. Now he leaned back, limp, against me.
I kept an eye out for Pirouz. He glanced at us from time to time. Once, he caught my eye and nodded. He was often in the company of one of the stable hands, a large, meaty man with sleepy eyes, who kept his head hunched between his shoulders. Again, I asked myself: What did Pirouz know of Suren? Could he take us to him? And if he could, was Suren just waiting for us someplace? That would be so like him, the way he was now! Not to come seeking, but to wait.
But then, maybe it was dangerous for him on the road. Maybe he had escaped capture. Maybe he was hiding and had sent Pirouz to find us. Maybe …
The possibilities buzzed round my head until I was dizzy with them. Take care, I told myself. You don’t know Pirouz; you don’t know who he is.
He couldn’t be one of the Eyes and Ears of the king. They were all soldiers i
n disguise, and Pirouz hadn’t the look of any soldier I’d ever seen—not at all.
But maybe the king’s spies … had spies?
Still, it felt right that Suren should be alive and free. Hadn’t I thought so before, when Zoya had been so sure of disaster? I must speak with Pirouz! But Giv was everywhere, it seemed. For now, I didn’t dare.
The next time Pacorus rode up beside us, I asked if he knew where we were going. “There are rumors,” he replied, “that we’re making for the great fortress.”
“What great fortress?”
“I’ve only heard tell of it. High in the mountains, they say. A fastness for the priests, a great fire temple of the Wise God.”
“Is it … near Palmyra?”
“Palmyra? No, Palmyra is very far. Deep into Roman territory.”
I recalled what Melchior had said under his breath when Babak described the king he’d dreamed of. Could be Roman.
“Is this fortress in Rome?” I asked.
“No! Rome is yet farther. Their territory begins at the western banks of the Euphrates River, but the city of Rome itself lies beyond the Syrian Desert, beyond Antioch, beyond Thrace, beyond even Macedonia.”
“How many days’ journey to Roman territory?”
“I don’t know!” he said, waving my question aside. His camel snorted impatiently and drew ahead; he pulled her back. “Why do you ask of Rome?”
I couldn’t tell him why.
He sighed, relenting. “I could draw you a map. A small one. I’m hoarding my parchment, but there’s some to spare.”
“Then, you are a scribe. So why do you also …” Haul water, I almost said. Tend to animals like a common caravan hand. But I didn’t know him well enough to say these things without risking grave offense.
Sill, Pacorus seemed to sense my meaning. “It’s a long story,” he said. “You don’t want to hear it.”
“But I do.” It would abate the loneliness I felt to find another in my position. Of noble blood, brought low by circumstance.
“Well.” He looked at me quickly, then away. I settled Babak more comfortably against me. “My mother was of the Magian tribe. But she displeased her father, and he married her to mine, a merchant. Prosperous enough to set up six of his sons in the enterprise, but not eight. I am the eighth.”
A Magian married to a merchant. Half noble. “But surely there was something better—”
“Than this?” He shrugged. “I was schooled in letters. I craved to be a priest. But no priest would take a merchant’s son to apprentice. Save for Melchior, and he only if I would do his bidding—as a servant—for three years. He has little need of a scribe,” Pacorus said, and I could hear a sour note in his voice. “He has two other apprentices, and they are of full Magian blood. But …” Pacorus straightened. “Only a year remains, and then I’m certain Melchior will do as he has promised.”
The way he came down hard on certain let me know that he had doubts.
But now he was back to speaking of the fortress again, the fire temple for the priests. I only half listened. That way led his dreams, not mine. My eyes sought Pirouz and found him a little way ahead. “In Phraates’ court,” Pacorus was saying. I pricked up my ears. “He used to attend upon the king, but he caused offense and was expelled.”
“Who?” I asked. “Who used to attend upon Phraates?”
“Why, Melchior!” Pacorus exclaimed. “Have you heard a word I’ve said? Melchior is banned now from Phraates’ court—and bitter he is about it.”
*
By the afternoon of the second day after Sava, I still had not managed to speak with Pirouz. Giv never seemed far from him, and at every stop he stationed one of his men to watch over us. Now we came to a small settlement, stopping for devotions, to procure food, and to water our animals. Then the track bent due west, straight toward the mountains, which stretched out before us in tiers, each tier taller and paler and more jagged than the ones in front of it.
Giv, when I asked him, had told me not to fret myself about the fortress. There would be priests, but he did not think that Melchior would tell them about Babak. Priests were not all of a single mind, he said. Often one priest would vie for supremacy with another. Melchior, Giv opined, would keep knowledge of Babak’s gift to himself.
Still, the looming fortress plucked a new note in the discord of my mind. How long would we stay there? Would escape be possible in such a place?
Soon the wind picked up again, flung bits of grit and dirt into my face. Black clouds scudded in from the north and soon patched over the sky entire, turning day into near-night.
We halted briefly so that we could fetch cloaks and hats and blankets from our saddlebags. The Magus had provided Babak and me with thick woolen garments, but nothing was proof against this wind. It set our cloaks to flapping against our legs; it knifed clean through the wool to pierce our bones with ice. Clutching Babak tight against me, I could feel him shiver.
The road had begun to ascend; it grew steep and rough, and Ziba often stumbled. We seemed to be heading right into the mountains, through a deep cleft in the rock. All at once, as we approached the far opening of the cleft, I sensed a stirring in the caravan before us.
“Look!”
“See there!”
The cleft fell away on either side of us, and then I saw.
Dark in the distance loomed the high, jagged spine of the Zagros Mountains. Nearer, at the crest of a steep but smaller peak, it appeared as if a many-tiered fortress—tower, wall, and arch—had sprouted out of the solid rock.
We stopped beside a spring at the base of the peak. Men began to unpack and set up camp. As I hunched against the wind, toting an empty calabash to the spring, Giv approached me, with Pacorus in tow.
“You and Babak are to come to the fortress with the Magus,” Giv said. “We’ve found a horse for you to ride, and I’ve charged Pacorus with your protection while we’re there.”
The smoldering uneasiness I had been feeling now flared to the surface. “Why can’t we stay here with the others?”
Giv flicked a glance at Pacorus, then looked hard at me—warning me, I surmised, not to let drop word of Babak’s dreams. But I remembered what had happened in Rhagae, that part of the caravan had not waited for the Magus, but had split off and made for Margiana.
“How long will we be at the fortress? What about the others? Will we join with them again, or will they travel to another place without us?” Suren! I wanted to shout. How will I find out about Suren?
Giv scowled. “Ours is not to ask,” he said, “but to obey.”
CHAPTER 23
HE SLEEPS
It was another hour before we reached the fortress. An hour of winding up the steep, narrow track; an hour of horses groaning, their hooves slipping on a moving stream of scree; an hour of heart-stopping stumbles with nothing between us and the abyss. Soon the plain stretched out far below. The wind abated—blocked, no doubt, by the mountain’s bulk—but the bone-piercing chill did not ease. From time to time I could peer down and see the lights of the campsite, which had shrunk to mere pinpricks. My hopes of hearing news of Suren seemed to shrink along with them.
We did not stop for evening prayers, but toiled onward. As we neared the summit, the clouds drew back from the face of the sky. The sun had set behind the mountains, but a luminous dusk limned the contours of the fortress. Thick, spiraling walls studded with watchtowers and arched gates. Stonework so cunning, I could scarcely see where mountain left off and edifice began.
At last we came to two gated watchtowers. The fortress guards hailed us; Melchior responded; the vast gates creaked open. We entered a flat courtyard enclosed on three sides by stables.
We dismounted—grooms led our horses away—and followed a servant up a torchlit spiral flight of stairs. Giv had gone on before, deep in consultation with Melchior. Babak was spent. Though I held his hand, he kept slipping, scraping his knees. I took him on my back. Pacorus appeared at my side as we entered through a pillared archway
and veered into a smooth stone hall lined with closed doors to either side. The servant opened one of the doors and beckoned to us.
Inside more servants were at work—unrolling pallets, arranging skins and blankets upon them, setting out trays of food, filling lamps with oil. Carpets, soft and richly colored, lay spread across the floor, with gold-tasseled cushions upon them. A brazier filled the room with blessed warmth, and an incense-burning thurible, hanging from a chain affixed to a rafter, released clouds of fragrant smoke. Steam wafted up from water in a large copper bowl.
The servants left. We washed the dust off our hands and faces, then sat down to the feast. Two kinds of melon: green and orange. Three kinds of olives. Roasted lamb and partridge. A tall stack of freshly baked bread. A platter stacked with squares of goat cheese. Pastries dripping with honey. Shirak kept trying to nibble food from the serving platters, so I settled him in my lap, and Babak and I took turns feeding him bits of meat.
At last, licking our fingers, bellies filled to bursting, we lolled back upon the soft cushions. Pacorus set a low table over the brazier and covered it with a large blanket; Babak, Shirak, and I nestled together inside the tentful of heat. Warmth filled up the spaces beneath the blanket, seeped deep into my body, eased the aches and pains of travel.
The door swung open; the lamp flames leaped and stretched. It was Giv. He surveyed the room for a moment, then turned to Pacorus. “Go find one of the fortress servants,” he said, “and tell him we have need of more blankets.”
“Blankets?” Pacorus echoed. He looked pointedly at the large blanket that covered us, but Giv growled, “Go!”
The moment Pacorus had left, Giv handed me a length of white cloth.
“Tonight?” I asked, dismayed. “But he’s worn out from the journey. He needs peaceful sleep.”
Babak sat up beside me, took the cloth. A sash. He rubbed it between his hands, held it to his face. He sniffed it. Seeming puzzled, he looked at Giv and then at me.
Susan Fletcher - Alphabet of Dreams Page 10