The Divining

by Wood, Barbara

  "That is Rabbi Judah," the woman said. "He has come recently from Palmyra. They say he is a worker of wonders."

  Ulrika returned her attention to the two standing in the center of the silent crowd, and saw that the praying woman had begun to sob. Covering her face with her hands, she bent her head and wept. The Jewish wonder-worker laid a hand on her shoulder and said, "Do you understand now, sister?"

  The woman nodded, too overcome to speak.

  The small crowd began to shift and murmur. It was someone else's turn. Yet there was no pushing and shoving, no calling out or holding up coins. Ulrika wondered if they had been told ahead of time to be respectful of Judah, or if it was something they instinctively sensed.

  The woman left—trying to give Judah coins, which he refused—and now the small gathering grew tense as each hoped the Jewish wonder-worker would choose her or him next. To their disappointment, however, the middle-aged Jew cleared his throat and said in a sonorous voice, "Brothers and sisters, mercy unto you and peace, and charity fulfilled. Remember this: nothing is lost, nothing is hidden. Ask, and it will be given. Seek, and it will be found. There is redemption in forgiveness, as a man should be remembered for his good deeds and not for his sins. But know this above all: there is no death, there is only eternal life as long you keep yourselves in the love of God. And draw comfort, too, in the knowledge that God has a divine plan, the final goal of which is the highest good for humankind. We have only to obey his sacred Law and we will be redeemed."

  The gathering broke up peacefully. Ulrika did not understand what had just taken place. There had been no dramatic demonstration of magic, no explosive powders, no transformation of water into wine, no spontaneous healing of blindness and paralysis, and certainly none of the attendant noise and cheering from the mob that one saw in other market squares with other wonder-workers.

  She wondered why her wolf vision had led her here.

  But in the next instant, the rabbi turned and looked right at her and Ulrika felt something fly across the small, sunlit square, brush against her eyes like invisible wings, and soar down through her body to the center of her soul. She gasped. She could not move.

  Judah came toward her. He walked with a limp. He smelled of bread and onions, and Ulrika saw close-up, in the prodigious gray beard that fanned across his broad chest, a pistachio shell.

  "Blessings, daughter," he said in Aramaic. "What is it you seek?"

  Ulrika looked at the others drifting away from the small square, and wondered why he had singled her out. "Are you a mystic, honorable father?" she asked.

  He smiled. "I am an unworthy servant of God, glory and majesty to Him."

  She looked in the direction the weeping woman had gone, under a stone archway flanked by two Ishtar-egg vendors who were, at that moment, snoozing in the sun.

  "That dear sister had lost something, and now she knows where to find it," Judah said, anticipating Ulrika's question. "But you seek something yourself, daughter. Can I help?"

  Ulrika scanned the leathery face for signs of deceit. But Judah's eyes were open and honest, his middle-aged features clear of the slightest shadow of guile. And he had not asked for money, something all charlatans did before offering a service. It occurred to Ulrika that he might be a genuinely honest man—he made her think of Sebastianus—and so she said, "I am learning to meditate. But I cannot seem to concentrate. It is a form of prayer, I was told, and so I thought..."

  He nodded. "Come, break bread with us."

  Ulrika had expected to be in the company of a small family, a private affair, but the house of Rabbi Judah was open to all. The courtyard was crowded with people of all ages and social status. And the gathering was lively and full of joy, with singing and testimonials and spiritual revelations. Judah asked for silence and he preached to the excited company, a message centering upon the End of Days and a new age approaching, which he called "the kingdom."

  The crowd burst into praise and singing while Judah moved among them, blessing them and thanking them for coming. When he reached Ulrika, he gave her a long, searching look and said, "Why do you wish to learn meditation?"

  "Honorable Rabbi," she said, "I have been visited by visions all my life. They are inexplicable, they come randomly and seem to have no purpose. I seek a way to command them, and to learn how to put them to good use."

  Judah said, "Many of our faithful are blessed with visions and spiritual phenomena. Some are even touched by the Spirit and then speak in tongues. Come, you will want to confer with Miriam."

  Judah led her inside the house, which was quieter and with fewer people. A middle-aged woman dressed all in brown with a brown veil covering her hair sat upon a chair with several people seated on the floor at her feet. She was plump and reminded Ulrika of a rosy-faced partridge.

  Judah said, "My wife Miriam is like Deborah of old, a judge who was also a prophetess. Like Deborah, Miriam is not one who foretells the future but who hears a message from God and passes it on to others."

  When Judah introduced the young woman to his wife, Miriam reached for Ulrika's hands and said, "Do not be troubled, daughter, for you are blessed. God has given you a gift."

  "But I do not know how to use it." Ulrika replied. "I have been practicing focused meditation, but I cannot concentrate long enough. I fall asleep, or my mind wanders. What else must I do?"

  Taking Ulrika's hands, she looked deep into her eyes and said, "Do you fast before you meditate?"

  "Fast? No."

  Miriam said, "Fasting cleanses the body of the impurities that impede clarity of prayer. Fasting also keeps one awake. Hunger sharpens the senses, your mind will not wander. Do this, and you will be successful."

  "Thank you, Honored Mother."

  "I hear doubt in your voice. Let me tell you this, daughter: imagine your gift as a house filled with wonderful treasure. You do not know the way inside, but as you circle the house, you catch glimpses through windows, and you see fabulous things. Is this how it is with your spiritual gift?"

  "Yes," Ulrika whispered.

  "You need to find the door, daughter, and the key to its lock. Once you are inside, the treasure is yours."

  "Key!" Ulrika said, recalling what the Egyptian seer had told her in the Street of Fortune Tellers. "Is meditation this key?

  "I do not know," Miriam said. "But you are searching for a place, are you not, for the beginnings of your soul? You must find this place for it is essential to the spiritual path. I sense that you have strayed and must start again."

  "That is what I have been told. Do you know where Shalamandar is?"

  "I know nothing of Shalamandar, but there is one who does. He will take you there."

  "Who is it?" Ulrika asked in rising excitement.

  Miriam closed her eyes and, swaying in her chair, murmured words that Ulrika did not understand—it did not even sound like a human language but a kind of gibberish. When she stopped, the rabbi's wife opened her eyes and said, "You must go to Persia and save a prince and his people."

  "A prince!" Ulrika frowned. "But how can I save a prince?"

  "If you do not, his bloodline will end. His people will be no more."

  "Is it this prince who will take me to Shalamandar? Will he give me a key? Can you tell me his name?"

  "All answers lie in Persia. Go in peace, daughter."

  BOOK SIX

  PERSIA

  21

  H

  E STOOD BEHIND THE cover of trees as he watched the tavern, the patrons coming and going with lanterns glowing against the forest night.

  He had followed her to this place, from the last village, tracking her along the mountain trail as cautiously as he would a deer. She had not known she was being followed—a young woman with fair hair and a confident stride. Her cloak covered her from head to foot, creating a tall, slim figure, with travel packs hung securely over her shoulders and on her back. She appeared to be strong, but as far as he could see, she carried no weapon. And she traveled alone, which was unusual,
but which was going to make it easy for him to snatch her.

  As soon as she emerged from the tavern, one swift move and she was his.

  "I BELIEVE I CAN help you, sir," Ulrika said.

  "No one can help me!" the man cried. "A thousand devils plague my head! They spin the world about me in a fiendish game. I cannot sleep. I am at my sanity's end. I wish only for death!"

  "Good sir," Ulrika said calmly, in a soothing tone as the other patrons in the wooden shack, where travelers and local people gathered against the cold night, looked on in interest. "I have seen this disorder before, and I have skill in treating it. If you would but allow me to touch you."

  The poor man had been complaining loudly when she had entered the small establishment and had taken a stool by the fire. A paunchy Persian with a stringy beard and shadows under his eyes, he had lamented to his companions about the affliction that kept him from working his small farm, that made it almost impossible for him to walk even, until Ulrika had risen from her stool and approached him, offering to help.

  This was how she had journeyed for the past fourteen months—going from settlement to settlement, earning her keep with her healing skills, staying always on the move, never in one place for more than a day or a night, keeping to herself, not even telling people her name, her mind focused on but one goal—to find the prince who needed her help.

  When Miriam the rabbi's wife had told her there was a stranger in Persia whom she was to rescue, Ulrika had believed her. After all, Miriam enjoyed a reputation for being a prophetess. But also, Ulrika had been born in Persia. This journey to aid a prince was meant to be.

  But there was another reason Ulrika had decided to undertake the mission to find the prince. Long ago, when she and her mother had journeyed through this ancient land, when Ulrika was not more than three or four years old, they had encountered a very striking-looking man seated on a magnificent throne and dressed in splendid robes. A tall round hat crowned his head, beneath which thick curls cascaded to his shoulders. His beard was prodigious, covering his chest to his waist, and coiled in tight ringlets. He held a staff in one hand and, curiously, a flower in the other. In front of him, a golden censer burned incense.

  Ulrika could not recall how long she and her mother had visited the nobleman, if they had dined with him, or slept in his house. She did not remember his name. But his appearance had struck her as so magnificent that she remembered him in detail. Was he the prince Miriam had spoken of? It seemed likely that this could be so. And perhaps he lived near the Crystal Pools of Shalamandar. Finding the man, Ulrika had decided, would surely be a simple task: all she needed to do was re-trace the route she and her mother had followed out of Persia eighteen years ago and she would cross his path.

  But the task had turned out to be not so simple after all. She had been following that route for over a year now, she was nearing the end, in fact, and was no closer to knowing the identity of that magnificent man, or where he could be found.

  Ulrika asked the farmer to lie down on a long table, while everyone gathered around and watched, men and women in woolen mountain garb, bearing the distinctive features of a race that had sprung from ancient Parthian blood mingled with that of invading Greeks. A handsome race, Ulrika thought.

  She paused to look at a niche in the far wall, where a solitary lamp flickered. She had seen many such niches since entering this mountain territory called the Place of Silent Pines. They were shrines to local deities called daevi, which meant "celestial" or "bright"—holy and beneficent divinities who had been worshipped in this region for thousands of years. Ulrika thought of the statues of gods and goddesses around Rome, and the massive Marduk effigies dominating the streets of Babylon. She thought of the oak trees in Germania, carved in the likeness of Odin, and Rachel's god near the sea of salt, who had no likeness at all. And now here in this remote mountain region, gods who were represented by solitary flames kept burning eternally.

  Deities, Ulrika realized, were as diverse and various as the people who worshipped them.

  Positioning herself at the head of the table, she said to the farmer, "Please look up at the ceiling." She spoke Greek, a language of these people—another legacy of Alexander's conquering ways.

  "It spins," the man moaned.

  "Just a moment more, please. Say a prayer, it will help."

  He did so, muttering his god's name three times in clusters of three, while he traced signs in the air three times each with one hand and clutched what appeared to be a rabbit's foot in the other. Ulrika had learned that although people's religions might vary around the world, and even be at odds, one human trait remained universal: superstition. Whether they were warriors in Germania, citizens in Rome, sailors in Antioch, tent dwellers in Judea, onion sellers in Babylon, or mountain folk in Persia, all believed in good luck and bad luck, and the many ways to invite the first and fend off the latter.

  Everyone in the tavern watched in silence as Ulrika placed her hands on either side of the man's head and then, gently, rolled his head from side to side, bringing his face to look upward again. "Quickly now," she said. "Sit up!"

  He sat bolt upright on the table with eyes wide, jaw slack. The onlookers held their breath in anticipation. And when he cried, "Breasts of Ishtar! The dizziness is gone!" they threw up their arms and cheered.

  Ulrika was secretly relieved, as some forms of dizziness could not be cured by this treatment. But this was a simple therapy for an affliction that sometimes drove men to suicide, and she was glad she could help.

  "Dear lady!" the Persian farmer cried, falling to his knees on the earthen floor. "I am forever in your debt! I had become so desperate I was going to search for the Magus and beg him to put me out of my misery."

  Ulrika helped the man to his feet. "The Magus?"

  The Persian blinked owlishly. "You do not know of the Magus? But everyone in this territory knows of him! He lives in the City of Ghosts, in a high tower, a man of royal blood who is the last of his kind. He is said to work healing miracles, if he can be found. Dear lady, how can I pay you for saving me from certain suicide?"

  Before Ulrika could reply—a man of royal blood, the last of his kind—the Persian shouted, "Wait wait!" Reaching around his neck, he pulled a cord over his head and held the offering to Ulrika. "This is a claw from a sacred gryphon, an ancient beast whose spirit will protect you from harm."

  Ulrika accepted the talisman—a leather thong at the end of which was suspended what looked like a raven's talon. She would place it in her medicine kit with other amulets and charms she had received from grateful patients. "You are very kind," she said. "But I need a place to stay tonight so if you could direct me—"

  "Say no more! My house is the humblest in the village, as anyone will tell you, but it is yours, dear woman! I will run ahead now and tell my wife, may the gods bless her womb, that a most esteemed guest will be honoring us tonight! Anyone here will tell you where to find the house of Koozog. Just follow the path and when you come to the pen of spotted pigs, there you will find a welcome fit for a queen!"

  Three more patrons approached Ulrika, requesting cures for: a boil, an abscessed tooth, hemorrhoids. The first two she lanced, and for the third she prescribed a concoction made from the hamamelis plant, found in abundance in this region. They paid her with: a copper coin, a hair from the head of the Prophet Zoroaster, and an earnest handshake.

  Before others could run home and bring family members with various ailments, Ulrika declared that she was weary and must rest, but that she would return in the morning.

  She was thinking about what the pig farmer had just said: a man whom they called Magus, and who lived in the City of Ghosts, which lay along the very route she and her mother had taken years ago! Ulrika planned to be there in a few days. Was it possible the prince of her memory—the man seated on a magnificent throne—was this Magus?

  Encouraged by the new information, and feeling more hopeful than she had in weeks, Ulrika pulled her hood over her head and left
.

  Outside, she felt cold, biting night air. Flickering torches illuminated the small enclosure of tavern, stables, animal yard, and collection of tents where travelers snored through the night.

  The Magus, Ulrika thought in rising excitement. Of royal blood and the last of his kind ...

  Was this what they called fate? Was this was why she had been diverted along her path earlier that day, when she had set out for a small town named Tirgiz and instead had had to take a steep mountain track due to a fallen tree across the road?

  Over a year ago, Ulrika had left Babylon on a cargo ship laden with wool and grain. At the vast gulf where the Euphrates emptied, Ulrika had said good-bye to the kindly captain and had found passage with a caravan heading southeast, carrying dates and figs to be traded for mined metals and gems. The caravan had followed an ancient royal road built hundreds of years before by Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, with the flatland rising gradually from the coast into gently rolling hills, which in turn had lifted the travelers up into the steep slopes of the Zagros Mountains. At a crossroads near a place called Al Haza, Ulrika had left the caravan to wait for another group of travelers to pass by—in this case, monks headed for a monastery high in the snowy mountain peaks. They had taken her with them on the condition that she not speak to them or sit with them at meals. Ulrika had been glad to isolate herself from them, riding a donkey and sleeping under the stars. Village after village, farm after farm went by until she said goodbye to the monks and next joined a large boisterous family on its way to a wedding.

  Ulrika had said farewell to them at their destination and had set off on the next leg of her journey, which would take her within miles of where she and her mother had lived eighteen years ago and where Ulrika had been born, only to find the road blocked by a fallen tree. There had been but one way around it, a steep mountain track, with the detour bringing her to this forest settlement, which she had not planned to visit, but where she had learned of a prince who was the last of his line!