Susan Fletcher - Alphabet of Dreams

by Susan Fletcher

  CHAPTER 47

  MERCY

  We waited.

  No one spoke.

  Only the creak of saddles and the shifting and groaning of camels broke the silence. The breeze had stilled, and even the insects hushed. The night smelled of dust, and burning lamp oil, and the sweat of men and animals. And something else, too, something faint: the sweet tang of wood shavings.

  Soon it became clear that the Magi would not simply bestow their gifts and depart. A few at a time, we urged our camels to kneel and dismounted under the curious stares of the townspeople.

  A small boy, not yet past the age of suckling, broke free from the villagers, toddled up to Babak and me, and snatched at the fringe of one of Ziba’s saddlebags. With a sharp cry his mother fetched him quickly back. But when another boy moved to finger the bow of one of Gaspar’s mounted archers, the man knelt down, holding it out to him, and several young boys clustered round. One of the boys mimed a question, and the archer motioned up to where the bright star hung in the sky, the boys following with their gazes where he pointed.

  I leaned against Ziba and settled Babak beside me. What would the Magi do next? I wondered wearily. Was the journey ended? Once he found what he sought, would Melchior let us go?

  Babak began to whimper. I gathered him into my lap, but he flailed and cried out.

  The boys scurried back to their mothers and fathers. The townspeople backed away from us; their lamp flames leaped, as if alarmed.

  “No, Babak,” I pleaded softly. “Not now. Please stop.”

  He screamed again, then kicked, wrenching loose from my grasp. He lurched, wobbling, to his feet and launched himself headfirst to the ground.

  I lunged for him, turned him onto his back. He was limp now, eyes empty and staring. Blood gushed from a cut on his chin. Giv came running with a rag to staunch it, but the blood kept coming, soon soaked clear through the rag. Pacorus gave me a second rag, but before long that one was full of blood too.

  A disturbance among the townspeople. I looked up to see a young woman, with a baby on one hip, pushing through the crowd. Another woman shouted angrily at her, plucked at her mantle, but the first woman shook her off. She knelt beside Babak, set a small clay bowl on the ground, motioned me to move the rag aside.

  Whatever was in the bowl smelled foul. “No!” I said. “Giv, make her go—”

  “Hush!” he said to me. He looked the woman full in the face; she clutched her baby tight against her chest but did not flinch. Giv picked up the bowl and sniffed at what lay within. “It’s healing herbs,” he said.

  “What’s Babak to her that she would help him? I don’t trust her; she—”

  “Don’t you know mercy when you see it?” Giv snapped. “Do you think everyone sees those around them as mere steps to tread upon for their own gain?”

  Chastened, I let him pluck the rag from my hand. He nodded to the woman.

  She scooped up the thick, acrid-smelling paste in her free hand and slathered it on Babak’s chin. Gradually the flow of blood ceased.

  Babak blinked and looked dazedly about. His eyes found mine; he sighed and seemed to drift off to sleep.

  I sagged with relief.

  A movement in the crowd. While some of the townspeople held well back, others, I saw now, had drawn near. Another woman with a babe in arms. A spindly old man and his bent-over wife. One of the boys who had touched the bow. They gazed at Babak worriedly. The old man gave me a solemn smile.

  Giv cleared his throat and nodded again to the woman with the herbs. Thank you, his nod said. She nodded in turn; he rose to his feet, motioned Pacorus to follow, and began to circulate among the men of the caravan.

  The woman held out her hand toward Babak, but hesitated. Looking at me. Questioning.

  I shrugged. Nodded.

  Tenderly she stroked her fingers through Babak’s hair, across his brow, and down one cheek. Then she shifted her infant back onto her hip, straightened her headcloth, and seemed about to rise, when her gaze caught mine. She studied my face so closely, it should have caused offense. But I felt no ill intention, only her surprise.

  She knew.

  It was the same look I had seen in Balthazaar’s eyes when he realized I was a girl.

  The surprise dissolved into something else, a kind of warmth, a smile behind the eyes. It came to me that she was not much older than I—maybe a year or two. It came to me what a comfort it would be to share friendship with such a woman.

  A commotion from somewhere in the crowd. A man called sharply; the woman turned to look. She nodded to me, picked up her bowl, then rose and followed him through the clusters of flickering lights and into a nearby house.

  Something was trembling inside me, something was welling up. Memories of past mercies swam into my mind: Of the man in the marsh, pressing Zoya to give us Gorizpa. Of Koosha and his family, bringing us out of the qanat, protecting us from Pirouz. Of Giv watching over us, never sleeping in his tent. Of Pacorus. Of Balthazaar. Of Suren, patiently teaching me so many things, leading us safely away from Susa.

  I tried to hold the trembling in, to press it all back into the tight space where it had been pent before, but it was leaking out, it was surging up, it was flooding into my throat, my nose, my eyes.

  The scrape of a gate opening. And here they came again, shimmering beyond the glaze of my tears: Balthazaar, looking grave and pensive; Gaspar, dropping his head back to gaze up at the sky; and Melchior … he walked stooped and unsteady, like an old, old man. He blinked, his visage vague and bewildered, as if a bright torch had passed too near his eyes.

  CHAPTER 48

  THEY BRING DEATH

  Retracing our steps through Bethlehem, we were oddly subdued. The townsfolk had vanished back into the dark streets from whence they had come, and the sounds of our passing—the creaks of straps and harnesses, the jingling of bells, the muffled thuds of camels’ feet on packed earth—rang loud against the hush of the night. No one of our company spoke of what had come to pass in the dwelling where the Magi had gone. No one even asked.

  I studied the backs of the Magi up ahead, hoping to read in their bearing some sign of what they had found. But each looked straight forward and spoke to no one.

  Melchior especially I watched. Would he have need of Babak after this? And if not, what would he do?

  I peered down at Babak. He slept fitfully, his chin swollen and encrusted by herbs.

  Was that all? I wondered. All this long journey, from Rhagae, from the great castle in the foothills, from Ecbatana … The whole of the heavens turning and turning over numberless years … All for an hour spent inside a hovel in some poor Judean village?

  And what would become of us now?

  Think, I urged myself. How to persuade Melchior to pass through Palmyra on our return? Or failing that, how to escape and make our own way there?

  But a great weariness had come over me; I had no heart for scheming. I leaned forward, wrapped myself around Babak, nuzzled his damp hair, breathed in the smell of him—dirt and sweat and healing herbs and that sweet smell that was Babak’s own.

  Pacorus rode up beside us, asked, with a glance, about Babak.

  I shrugged. “The same.”

  Some trick of starlight brought Pacorus’s face into sharp relief: his fine, straight nose; his dark-fringed eyes.

  He was only half noble; we were his betters by far; and yet …

  Again I wondered. Was it possible that Pacorus might have known I was a girl all along, that he might see me as more than just a friend? If so, and if he spoke of me to Melchior—of Babak and me—and if Melchior agreed … and if Pacorus then spoke with his father, and he agreed … Could I be content as the wife of a merchant’s son, knowing that I had sprung from the seed of kings?

  Remember who you are, my grandmother would say.

  But my grandmother was dead.

  We stopped for the night at a small caravansary on the main road from Jerusalem, not far beyond Bethlehem’s walls. I lay awake long after
we had settled down for the night, setting a hand on Babak’s chest and feeling its steady rise and fall. It seemed that he breathed in a more natural rhythm than before—fewer jumps and starts. Once, he looked up at me, clear eyed, and asked where we were. Balthazaar had said he might get well on his own; I clung to that.

  Just as the heaviness of sleep had begun to flood my body, the door creaked open, and beyond the sudden flare of lamplight I made out Pacorus’s face. I sat up quickly, half in hope, half in dread.

  “They wish to speak with you,” he said. “The Magi. I’ll bide here with Babak.”

  I heard voices as I moved down the gallery—Gaspar’s dry and accusing, Melchior’s an answering roar. Giv, standing by the guard at the door, motioned me in. The talk ceased as the three Magi—seated on low benches and still arrayed in their finery—turned to face me.

  Balthazaar gestured for me to seat myself on the carpet across from him. The air was thick with incense. Behind the Magi, on its silver tripod, the holy fire burned.

  “We have been speaking of this latest dream of Babak’s.” Balthazaar flicked a glance at Melchior—an angry glance, I thought. “Melchior tells us it has to do with a king.”

  I nodded.

  “Was this King Herod, the one we visited in Jerusalem?”

  “Babak said, ‘Melchior’s king. With the palsy and the sores.’”

  “I told you, it’s Herod,” Melchior said. “Did you see the sores on his neck, his arm?”

  “And there was something about soldiers?” Balthazaar asked. “Herod’s soldiers?”

  “Babak said to me that they are bad. He said, ‘They bring death with them.’”

  Melchior arched his bushy brows at Gaspar as if to say, You see?

  Gaspar frowned and turned to me. “Is that all your brother said? Was there more to this dream? Did it say who would be visited with death? The infant and his family? Or perhaps one of us?”

  “There may have been more, but he didn’t tell me. And I didn’t want to ask because Babak … He’s so ill, he—”

  Balthazaar held up a hand to stop me. “Hush, child. No need to explain.”

  “What of Melchior’s Bethlehem token?” Gaspar asked.

  I said, “What token?” and at the same time Melchior protested, “There is no token!”

  “You were bent over that baby far too long,” Gaspar said. “What were you doing, I wonder?”

  “I was gazing upon his countenance!” Melchior bellowed. “It’s not every day you behold an infant whose birth was presaged in the stars and announced by angels. I wanted to fix him in my memory, to—”

  “And I suppose there was no token before, with Herod, was there?” Gaspar said. “No purple tassel, purloined from the floor and pinned to the poor child’s tunic?”

  “You should thank me for that! I sought to know what Herod dreams of—what manner of man he is. If the boy hadn’t dreamed for him—”

  Gaspar cut him off. “And of course you had no thought of divining where lay your best chance for power—with the old king or the new!”

  “But Melchior is right in this….” Balthazaar waited until he had all ears. The fire popped and flared. “We must not return to Herod.” Pensive, he put a finger to his lips. “‘They bring death.’”

  “It bodes not well for the infant and his parents,” Gaspar said. “There cannot be two kings of the Jews at once, and the one is not a son to the other, nor even distant kin. A carpenter’s son! This must be the death of which Babak speaks.”

  “If it had been left to you”—Melchior jabbed a beringed finger at Gaspar—“we would have hied ourselves straight back to Herod and risked our own necks! I tell you, I saved the infant’s life by taking that tassel.”

  A gasp of protest escaped my lips.

  “Perhaps,” Balthazaar told him drily. “Though I think Babak merits some credit.”

  “To say nothing,” Gaspar added, “of the Wise God, Ahura Mazda, from whom all good things flow.”

  Melchior flushed.

  Gaspar turned to Balthazaar. “I think it best that we break up the caravan. That each of us three goes home a different way—but none through Jerusalem.”

  Balthazaar nodded. “I agree. And we must warn the infant’s parents, without delay. Giv …”

  Giv nodded, slipped out the door.

  Melchior seemed about to protest—that Giv was his to command, I thought—but he yawned instead, running his fingers through his unruly beard. “Well,” he said, “I’ve done my part, though little enough credit I get for it. You can palaver the night away if you like, but I’m off to bed.”

  He began to heave himself to his feet, but Balthazaar said, “Wait. There’s another child we’ve put at risk. Babak.”

  Melchior darted a guilty glance in my direction. “Herod cares nothing for him. Herod knows nothing about him.”

  “I do not speak of Herod.”

  Melchior sighed, lowered himself to his bench. Suddenly he looked tired, as if something that had been propping him up had been kicked away. “How was I to know what would befall him? Now there’s nothing to be done.”

  “The least we can do for Babak,” Balthazaar said, “is return him to his kin.”

  My heart leaped in my chest.

  “Return him,” Melchior began. “But—”

  “I will do it if you are unwilling,” Balthazaar said. “Giv says Babak’s kin have gone to Palmyra.” He turned to me. “Is this true?”

  I swallowed, unable, for a moment, to speak. “I have heard so, my lord,” I said at last. “And I believe it.”

  Balthazaar turned back to Melchior. “Entrust him—entrust them both—to me, and I’ll see that it is done.”

  I walked slowly along the gallery to our quarters. The air was cool and spiced with the lingering aroma of incense. The nighttime sounds of the caravansary rose about me—the grumblings of camels, the murmurings of men, the melancholy strains of a lute. So familiar now.

  “Palmyra!” I lofted the word softly into the air. “Balthazaar will take us to Palmyra!”

  For so long I had yearned for this—passage to Palmyra. For so long I had stolen for this, scrimped for this, starved and lied and schemed for this.

  Palmyra!

  I breathed in deep, waiting for the joy to fill me, the joy I knew must come. But instead there were only questions, as if some dam had suddenly crumbled and now they were free to roar.

  How could I be certain our kin had gone to Palmyra? Suren had told me this, but how had he known? Had he truly known, or had he just needed to believe?

  Or was it I who had needed to believe beyond a doubt in Palmyra?

  But how if our kin had fled somewhere else, to another city? Or, if they had gone to Palmyra, how if they hadn’t stayed? How if they had scattered to many cities, many villages, many lands?

  How if we arrived in Palmyra and searched the whole of the city—the rich districts and the poor districts, the seats of government and the marketplaces, the dim, dank crevices where beggars holed up at night—and found neither our father nor our mother nor Suren nor aunts nor uncles nor cousins?

  How if Phraates’ soldiers—

  No.

  How if Phraates’ soldiers had—

  No.

  I stopped, gripping the gallery rail, and gazed out across the courtyard—beyond the far wall of the caravansary to where the stars wheeled above us, to where the Magi’s star was setting in the west.

  North and east lay Palmyra. Balthazaar would take us there. And we would find what we would find.

  For the first time in many years I had nothing to plan for, nothing to bargain for, nothing to fight for.

  And Pacorus …

  What of Pacorus? What did I want from him?

  CHAPTER 49

  THREE VISITORS

  When I awoke, I was surprised to see sun streaming through the small window, illuminating the motes of dust that swam through the air, laying sheets of golden light on the wall, pricking out coppery flecks of st
raw embedded in the bricks. Dawn had come and gone. Sounds wafted up from the courtyard: soft murmurings and shufflings and scrapings, rustlings and cooings of doves. Clearly a goodly part of our company was taking this morning to rest. I yawned and turned toward Babak.

  Melchior, crouching over him, snapped up his head to meet my gaze.

  “What are you doing?” I said, hearing my voice rise in alarm. I stumbled to Babak, who was still asleep. I groped through his clothing, searching for whatever it was Melchior had put there. But I found nothing—neither in Babak’s tunic nor in his cloak nor in his trousers nor in the bedding in which he had been wrapped. “What are you doing?” I demanded again.

  I expected him to roar at me, to rant and bluster as he had the night before. A spark of ire kindled in his eyes, but he said not a word.

  We stared at each other—I refused to look away—then he glanced down at Babak.

  “I will take you to Palmyra,” he said.

  “You! But Balthazaar said—”

  “He said if I didn’t, he would. I will. I have pledged it. The boy …”

  Melchior plucked a bit of straw from Babak’s hair. The anger had gone from his eyes. For some reason I brought to mind the first time I had ever seen him, a vain peacock of a man, swaddled in silk and surrounded by servants who anticipated his every sneeze. Now, though the finery remained, there was something different about his face, something slack, uncertain.

  “I will take you,” he repeated. He rose wearily to his feet and shuffled to the door. He turned round then, hesitating. “Before,” he said, “it was for me. Now it is”—he nodded toward Babak—“for him.” And, before my tongue could stir itself to argue, or bargain, or ask precisely what he meant, he was out the door and gone.

  Soon after Melchior left, the inn began to hum with footsteps and voices. Camels roared and donkeys brayed. Our caravan was breaking up, with each of the Magi setting off his own way. Pacorus came by with a pot of broth; Babak drank a little, half awake, then lapsed back into a deep sleep.