by Tessa Afshar
His only choice was to swim against the wind.
Turning Sophocles on his back, Theo looped an arm around him and began to swim with his free arm. He took his first mouthful of water as a wave swept over them, and his second and third as he tried not to lose his hold on the unconscious sailor.
With every stroke, he uttered a prayer, asking for the strength of the Lord to be added to his. Abruptly, he felt a tug at his waist, then another, stronger this time. He looked up, water obscuring his sight, and saw Taharqa’s form bent over the side. He was pulling on the rope.
Theo broke into an exhausted grin. It proved a mistake, earning him another mouthful of the briny sea.
“Have you no sense?” Taharqa cried when he fished them out of the depths.
Theo coughed up water, his throat burning, eyes stinging. “Sophocles was drowning.”
“So you decided you should join him?”
Theo watched as a couple of the men helped Sophocles below. “How is the ship?”
“It’s taken in about as much water as you.”
Theo stared into the gray skies with worried eyes. “The storm doesn’t seem to be abating.”
“It’s been carrying us off course. I don’t know where we are.”
“Could we be close to a coastline?” That would be bad. Coastlines meant rocks. Rocks and ships were not good companions in a gale.
“I took a sounding. We aren’t near any shallows yet.”
The wind howled violently. Behind him, the mast seemed to waver, emitting an ominous cracking sound. “Watch out!” Taharqa shouted. The top of the mast split and tumbled toward Theo, its jagged end an enormous wooden dagger pointed at his belly.
Theo rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being gored. “My beautiful mast!” He struggled to his feet. “This storm is really starting to annoy me.”
“Grab the tiller from Cleitus,” Taharqa shouted. “I am going to see to this mess.”
Theo forced his shivering legs to obey him and relieved Cleitus. He remembered the story Paul had once told him of the Lord calming a mighty storm and saving his disciples’ lives.
The words resounded in his mind: And there was a great calm. At the end of that day, the Lord had not merely banished the waves. He had not only told the sea to be still. After he had tamed the storm, there wasn’t merely a return to the ordinary. There was something more. There was a great calm.
Theo held on to that promise. He spoke it over the storm. Spoke it over his ship. Spoke it over his heart. Lord, give us the something more that only your presence can give. Impart to us your great calm. He prayed even as the tempest spit and snarled at him.
How long he stood at the tiller, his knees like egg pudding, his prayers the only strong thing about him, he did not know. Finally, he sensed the force of the rain abate, droplets falling in a drizzling mist rather than a river. The ship, too, seemed sturdier under his feet and less in the power of the rushing waves.
Ahead, he saw a break in the thick clouds, enough to allow a feeble ray of light. Theo took a deep breath. The arc of the tempest had broken.
They might be left with a waterlogged ship, a cracked mast, and a half-drowned crew. They might be lost, leagues away from their destination. But they had survived.
He felt, with a sudden and boundless assurance, that these violent winds would be used by God toward a purpose. He looked at his broken mast, his bruised ship, calculating the cost, and he conceded all of it, all of it, to God. For whatever purpose he deigned to use it.
The great calm he had prayed for descended on him then, bearing more power than the squall that had almost destroyed them. Theo settled into that calm, his tense muscles loosening.
Taharqa arrived to relieve him of the tiller. “And how did you expect me to tell Galenos that you had got yourself drowned?” he asked, his face a thundercloud.
He gave Taharqa a weak smile. “The same thing you would have to tell him if you sank his ship.”
Theo and Galenos, his adoptive father, had bought the Parmys together, with Theo’s older brother adding his wealth as a silent partner. For the most part, they used the ship to peddle German balls of soap, which they scented with perfume and sold as hair pomade around the empire. It had become quite a hit. Theo had a talent for finding new buyers in various cities, leading to larger orders every year, while his adoptive father managed the production of the soap in Corinth.
Once, long before Galenos and Theo had entered into partnership, Galenos had lost a ship—and almost his whole fortune with it. He would have a hard struggle with the news of another ship drowning.
“Galenos would have recovered from the ship,” Taharqa said. “Losing you, I’m not so certain. Why did you jump into the sea? You have no more sense than you had the first time I met you ten years ago.”
Theo grinned. At the age of sixteen he had survived another storm, and another dunking into the sea, thanks to Taharqa. “I owe you my life, Taharqa. Again.”
The captain waved a hand in the air. “This hardly counts. I didn’t even have to get my tunic wet.” He laid a warm hand on Theo’s shoulder. “I have never met a man so big hearted as you, Theo. Or so fearless. I am honored to work for you. Which is why I want you to know, the next time you scare me like that, I will drown you myself.”
Theo scratched his head, embarrassed by Taharqa’s praise. “How is Sophocles?”
“He’ll bounce back. The old codger is giddy as a puppy to be alive. You should avoid him for a while. He might soak your chest with unending tears of gratitude and spin long verses that sing your praises.”
Theo stepped back, alarmed. “I think I prefer eating fish eyes.”
The skyline was changing rapidly, thick clouds dispersing, as the sun made a weak appearance. “What’s the damage?”
“We’ll need to put to port, and quick. The ship needs a lot of repair. Her keel has taken a beating.” Taharqa pointed to their east.
For the first time, Theo noted the outline of land. He squinted. “Where are we?”
“Caesarea, I reckon.”
Theo whistled. They had been aiming to anchor at Alexandria, where he had planned to offload five hundred of his terra-cotta jars of hair pomade in exchange for an equal load of wheat. Rome was ever eager for Egyptian grain. With a million hungry mouths to feed daily, the senate gave merchants endless incentives for carrying grain to their city.
But thanks to the storm, Alexandria lay a long way off to the southwest of their present location. The tempest had carried them leagues off course. “Will we make it to port?”
“If we baby her. And if the weather doesn’t send us so much as a whisper of wind, we’ll be able to limp into Caesarea’s harbor. But we’ll need at least two weeks to repair her right.”
Theo lowered his brows in thought. “Two weeks?” He would have to forego his visit to Alexandria. Write off the additional profit he had counted on for selling wheat in Rome. Add the hefty expenses of a considerable repair.
Losing fourteen days to the storm meant he would have to head directly for Rome, where he had promised a big shipment of soap to his best customer, an official at Nero’s palace.
He sensed again, with a curious certainty, that God had allowed this encroachment on Theo’s plans for a purpose. They were meant to be in Caesarea.
“We will stay with Philip and his daughters,” he decided. “The men can find lodging at the harbor.”
“I like that plan.” Taharqa patted his flat belly. “Philip may pray too long over supper, but his daughter’s cooking is fit for a king.”
CHAPTER 4
Her children rise up and call her blessed.
PROVERBS 31:28
“Let us start at the beginning,” Natemahar said, weaving his fingers together. “What makes you think your father lives?”
Chariline described the conversation she had overheard in the night. “Natemahar, my grandfather has been lying to me all these years. My father is alive! And he works in the palace.”
“How extraordinary!”
“Please! You must help me find him.”
“What do you want me to do, Chariline?”
“Surely you have heard whispers about my mother.”
He gave a slow nod. “As I have told you before, there have always been rumors about what happened. I have heard that your mother broke her engagement to a Roman official to marry a Cushite. But his identity is tightly guarded.”
“Why is it guarded? Did my grandfather demand that it be kept secret?”
“I doubt Blandinus has that kind of influence in the Cushite court. He might have demanded it. But no one would take notice.”
“Who, then?”
“The only one who could seal an event so tightly is the Kandake herself.” He gave the ghost of a smile. “Shall I arrange a meeting for you?”
Chariline shook her head vigorously. She had run into the Kandake once, by accident, at the harbor, when she had been boarding the riverboat for home. The woman had looked at her the way a dragon might look at a tasty morsel. “I don’t see how I could induce her to divulge any secrets to me.”
“Wise girl.”
“I need to come to the palace. Perhaps he might see me and recognize who I am. Perhaps he might approach me himself.”
“Absolutely not, Chariline. It is too dangerous.”
It was the one thing that her grandfather and Natemahar had always agreed upon. She was not to approach the palace. She now understood Grandfather’s vehemence against her going there. He did not want her to stumble upon her father accidentally. And Natemahar felt that her presence in the palace would goad her grandfather too far.
“He won’t find out.”
“Of course he will. There is nothing secret in the palace unless the queen herself seals it. If you set foot inside the court, someone will see you. And the report of it will get back to Blandinus.”
The consequences did not bear thinking of. Grandfather already resented Natemahar because, over the years, he had gone over the old man’s head to higher officials in Rome several times, seeking to obtain better trade agreements for Cush. If he discovered that Natemahar and Chariline had been friends all these years without his knowledge, he would see to it that they never spoke again.
Chariline refused to even consider losing her dear friend to the old man’s vindictive maneuvering. She could not endanger this long-treasured connection. And yet, what choice did she have? “It’s my last hope, Natemahar. With Grandfather retiring, once I leave Cush, I will not be allowed to return. I will never discover who my father is.”
His gaze softened. “Is it so important that you know his identity?”
She brought the flat of her hand onto the makeshift table. “How can you ask that? You know it means everything to me.”
“But he has never tried to reach you, Chariline. Perhaps he has good reason.”
“Or perhaps he does not know I even exist.”
Natemahar nodded slowly. “True. Let me think on it. In the meantime, do nothing rash.”
Chariline’s mouth tipped up on one side. “Me? Rash?”
“Does a bee sting?”
“No. It makes honey.”
Natemahar grinned, pulling softly on a tangle of curls. “You make plenty of honey, too.” He rose. “I must return to the court. I will send you a message if I find anything of interest.”
Although the flooding of the Nile kept the banks of the river fertile for most of the year, the desert did its best to encroach on the verdant fields. A brisk twenty-minute walk away from the Nile, and your feet would touch the hot sands of an arid wilderness. Cush’s settled lands only occupied a narrow band of land parallel to the banks of the river.
Early in the morning, before her grandmother could assign her a lengthy list of tedious tasks, Chariline took a long walk alongside the Nile, where the busy piers and crowds of travelers ensured safety for a lone woman. The smell of fish mingled with the sweet scent of yellow acacia flowers that hung in bunches on the antler-like branches of the trees. Closer to the opalescent gray water of the Nile, a subtler aroma rose from the muddy river. A hint of sweet hyacinth, which emanated from the roots of lotus plants growing in the tiny ponds that sometimes formed along the edges of the river.
This was Cush at its best, the mystery and fertility of the river that fed its people and carried them in its twisty arms to centers of commerce and economic vitality. She never felt so at home as when she was near the Nile.
Before her grandmother could raise an alarm, hysterically demanding to know the whereabouts of her missing grandchild, Chariline headed back to the confines of the capital. Meroë was a city of twenty thousand people. But during the day, the numbers swelled to half again as many, with folks from the outlying areas pouring into the capital for work, trade, worship, or pleasure.
Chariline wended her way through the alleys and slipped into the house before anyone noticed her absence. She spent the morning packing linens made of the soft cotton of Cush, her thoughts occupied with the mystery that was her father. She jumped when her grandmother dropped a grimy box on a mound of towels in front of her.
“This is for you.”
Chariline frowned, drawing a finger in the dust that spread thick on the wooden box. “You want me to pack up what’s inside?”
“You can do what you wish with it. This used to belong to your mother.”
Chariline gasped. She had been given few things from her mother over the years. Several pieces of modest jewelry, combs, buttons, wool and linen tunics. A pair of colorful leather shoes. She had never seen this box before.
“This was my mother’s?”
Grandmother nodded. “She would have wanted you to have it.” She twirled a hand in the direction of the dusty box and hesitated, as though searching for words that would not come. “She was like you,” she said, finally. Without waiting for a response, her grandmother turned on her heel and walked away.
Chariline gawped at the dusty casket. Hidden in its dainty confines lay something that belonged to the mother she had never known. She cradled the box to her chest. It weighed less than a toddler. The air in the chamber had grown stale and close, and she felt a sudden urge to leave behind the oppressive walls that seemed to close in on her.
Walking carefully to the deserted courtyard, she clutched the casket with both hands. She would not have carried that box with more care if it contained the empress’s favorite crown. On the way, she grabbed a dusting rag and oil and settled herself by the diminutive pool in the atrium. Dampening the rag with oil, she gently began to wipe the wood.
A few moments later, the casket emerged from its veil of grime. Acacia and ebony wood had been entwined by a master artisan to create a delicate wave pattern on the lid. Ivory and polished jet details added luster and depth to the unusual design. Though simple, it was an exquisite work of art, a weaving of dark and light colors. Chariline laid her cheek against the cool surface and inhaled deeply, feeling as though she were touching a part of her mother. She lifted the lid slowly and peered inside.
She was not sure what she expected to unearth. It certainly was not the collection of scrolls, carefully tied with a length of faded blue ribbon. She unfurled the first and found herself staring at a pristine drawing of one of Cush’s pyramids. It was not a pretty rendition, meant to beautify a room. Instead, her mother had drawn a precise depiction that paid careful attention to angles and proportions.
The steep sides of the pyramid gave it a tall, slender appearance, made more dignified by the addition of a rectangular chapel, attached to its monument by a short, narrow passageway. Next to each side, her mother had written, with neat handwriting, a number. Chariline’s mouth fell open as she realized that they were calculations of the dimensions of the pyramid.
Her mother had created an architectural drawing!
Chariline opened the next roll of papyrus, this time finding a library, complete with a set of construction plans. One after another, she found exquisite drawings with careful
mathematical calculations, some including intricate details such as suggestions for the type of wood, render, and color used in each building.
Over the past century, the Romans had elevated the study of architecture to unprecedented heights. An architect needed to acquire knowledge from many branches of the arts and sciences, needed to understand engineering, design, geometry, dimension, and practical construction. Her mother’s drawings demonstrated an unusually keen grasp of many of these skills.
She was like you, her grandmother had said. What she had meant was that like Chariline, her mother had loved architecture. Had studied and designed buildings. Had tried to understand the art and science and engineering behind each form.
Chariline clasped the faded ribbon in her fist and held it against her chest. Her eyes burned with the grief of losing a mother who had shared her own passion, who would have nurtured and fostered it. She grieved the hours of conversation they could have enjoyed and never had, the endless thrill of new discoveries, forever lost. Running a trembling hand over her eyes, she pressed them closed. Her mother would have understood her. Soul-deep, to the core. Her mother would have known her and loved her just as she was.
The grief shifted and, to Chariline’s surprise, became mingled with an odd joy. Joy for finding this piece of her past, which somehow made Chariline feel more complete, as if she had been an uprooted rosebush until that moment, and someone had finally planted her parched roots into good soil. Joy at finally finding a place where she fit.
Why had no one ever told her of her mother’s talent?
Aunt Blandina had once shared that Chariline’s mother had liked to sketch. But she had never explained that her mother’s drawings, like Chariline’s own, had been directed by her desire to design. These were no mere doodlings of a juvenile hand. They showed a stark maturity. They soared out of a soul created for this work.
The woman who had penned these sketches would have been proud of Chariline’s hunger for creating beauty with building.