The Divining

by Wood, Barbara

  She would never cease to marvel at the man she had married, his kindness to strangers at risk to himself. Sebastianus had been successful in secretly obtaining Rabbi Judah's body. He had taken it to Daniel's Castle where, out in the wilderness, far from traffic and passersby, Miriam and the family had buried him.

  When she saw Timonides stumble through the camp and slip inside his tent, Ulrika's thoughts shifted to the astrologer. She had tried to talk to him, comfort him. Timonides's usual zest was absent from his speech, there was no life in his body and his eyes. She knew it was due to the manner of Nestor's death. Because his head had been trampled beneath horses' hooves, no eyes had been left upon which to lay the coins for Charon the ferryman. There was no way to pay for passage across the River Styx. Where had Nestor's soul gone? Timonides had asked. Was the poor boy destined to roam the underworld for eternity?

  Ulrika wished she could use her gift to comfort him, wished Nestor's spirit would appear to her, as Rabbi Judah's had. She had meditated upon it with no success. Why did some spirits visit her and others did not?

  A strangled cry suddenly tore the air.

  Ulrika turned to see Timonides's small tent sway as if it had been struck. She went to the entrance and called his name. From within she heard gagging sounds. Ulrika went inside. Her eyes flew open.

  Timonides was hanging from the main support, a rope around his neck, his legs kicking.

  Ulrika rushed to him. Seeing the wooden boxes he had kicked away, she quickly stacked them, climbed up, and threw her arms around his legs. Lifting him up so that the strain on the noose eased, she said, "Timonides, remove the rope! I cannot hold you for long!" The boxes beneath her wobbled precariously.

  "Let me die ..."

  "Help!" Ulrika shouted. "Someone help us!"

  Two slaves came running in, big men with broad backs who reached up and drew the frail old man down and out of the noose. "Find your master," Ulrika said as they laid him on the floor. "Find Sebastianus!"

  She knelt next to Timonides and slipped an arm under his shoulders, shocked at the feel of skin and bone beneath his clothes. His face was white, his eyes closed, lavender lids fluttering. "Why, Timonides?" she said.

  He parted his gray lips and words came croaking out: "Nestor is in Hell ... I cannot leave him there alone ... I go to join him ..."

  "What nonsense," Ulrika said, tears rising in her eyes. "Your son was innocent and the gods know this."

  But Timonides rolled his head from side to side. "Let me go to him. Nestor needs me ..."

  Ulrika rocked him gently, her tears spilling on the face that was the color of cobwebs. What had happened that would make him think Nestor was in Hell? Mother of All, please help this man.

  As she listened to the camp outside, waiting for the sound of Sebastianus's arrival, she stared at Timonides's thin neck and saw his pulse flutter like a moth, weak and irregular. She feared that he might die from sheer will of not wanting to live.

  "Let me go ..." Timonides whispered.

  She looked down to see him staring at her with forlorn eyes. "I spoke with philosophers in China," he said. "I met with priests and learned men. I visited temples and prayed to the most powerful gods on earth, but no one can tell me where Nestor is."

  "He is with the gods," Ulrika said gently, "enjoying the next world."

  "No ... he is in Hell and he needs me."

  The tent flaps flew open and Sebastianus came running in, bringing daylight and slaves with him. Dropping to his knees, he said, "What happened?"

  "He tried to kill himself."

  "He needs a physician."

  "It is not a sickness of the flesh that afflicts him, but one of the soul."

  Sebastianus thought of men he knew in the city, physicians of sterling reputation. But today marked the beginning of the spring celebrations and, for Babylon, the New Year as well. Where would he find these men?

  "I have to go back into the city. Will you stay with him? I'll bring a doctor back with me."

  Ulrika sat with Timonides, making him comfortable, placing poultices on his bruised neck, coaxing cool water down his throat. But when she offered food, he turned his head.

  Sebastianus returned at dusk, having been unable, in the city celebrations and parades, to find a medical man who would come. "I will stay with him," Ulrika said. "His neck and throat will mend, but I fear he will make another attempt on his life."

  Sebastianus stayed as well. They dined in Timonides's tent, persuading him to drink a little wine and to talk about the fears that troubled his soul. But he would not talk much. He was able to sit up after a while, and stare morosely at the carpeted floor. They heard him mutter and saw him shake his head. Devils plagued the old Greek's soul.

  The next morning, Timonides told Sebastianus that he was not going to do his usual daily reading. "I will never cast another horoscope again. For the rest of my days, I will look at the stars no more."

  Sebastianus became alarmed. There had been times in the past when he had had to resort to a hired astrologer—when Timonides was ill—but he had never thought Timonides would cease reading the stars altogether. Out of the old man's hearing, he said to Ulrika, "I will find a star-reader in Babylon, who will do for now, but I cannot be certain that I can find one who is willing to travel to Rome! Especially an astrologer of excellent reputation. I cannot rely on someone who is second-rate. What can we do to bring Timonides around? I dare not move this caravan without consulting the stars."

  "I will talk to him."

  After Sebastianus left, Ulrika said to Timonides, "Come and sit in the sunshine with me, dear friend. The daylight will make you feel better."

  "Nothing will make me feel better," he said, but he joined her on a stool in front of his tent. Eyes that used to focus on the stars stared moodily at the ground. Ulrika poured him a cup of wine and placed it before him, but he did not touch it.

  Timonides dwelled in thought while life and industry went on about him. The sun climbed and breezes blew from the Euphrates. Presently, he said, "Do you know ... I am not even sure I am Greek. I was abandoned as a baby and a Greek widow took me in. She gave me my name and taught me her language and culture. She apprenticed me out to an astrologer when I was six, and when she died, I was sold into slavery. Sebastianus's father bought me and I have been serving his family ever since. Nestor was the only human being in this whole world that I was connected to by blood. He was more than my son. He was my universe. And now I am lost ..."

  He reached for the wine and when Ulrika saw how his hand trembled, she thought: He is a tangle of dark emotions. He cannot think straight.

  And an idea came to her.

  "Timonides, when I taught myself the skills of meditation in order to tap into my spiritual gift, I found that a side benefit was a feeling of peace and serenity afterward. Perhaps if I showed you how ..."

  He squinted at her. "Meditation?"

  "It is really very simple and requires little effort, only concentration. And it is not unlike the way I have seen you prepare yourself before you read your star-charts. A clearing of the mind. A way to focus. Would you like to try it?"

  "To what end?"

  "To bring peace to your soul, Timonides."

  "My soul does not deserve peace."

  "Then do it as a favor to me. I have never taught the technique to someone else. I want to know if it is possible."

  He shrugged.

  "Have you an object that is precious to you? Something you can grasp in your hand and hold onto, like an anchor."

  Timonides did not have to think about it. He was inside his tent and out a moment later, holding a long wooden spoon that Ulrika recognized as Nestor's favorite.

  When he resumed his place on the stool, Ulrika saw, for the first time, a spark of hope in his eyes, as if just holding Nestor's spoon brought consolation. "Now hold an image in your mind," she said, "a familiar and comforting one."

  A faint smile curled his lips. "A bubbling pot of stew. It is how I remember my so
n best."

  "Create that image in your mind as you hold onto this spoon. Focus on it. Make it real in your mind. Now whisper words that hold meaning for you. Repeat them, over and over."

  Timonides studied the spoon in his hands, his shoulders curved and bent. Then he nodded, as if he had come to an agreement with himself. "Stars are destiny," he murmured.

  Ulrika showed him how to breathe, to sway, to focus. She spoke softly, instructing him, her simple words and subdued voice guiding him into a sensitive realm. "As you hold onto the anchor, send your spirit out ..."

  But even as she spoke, she saw his eyes moving behind his eyelids, the creases growing deep in his forehead, and she knew he was struggling.

  "I cannot!" he finally cried in exasperation. "Dear child, this is not going to work!"

  But she saw how lovingly he caressed the spoon, and she sensed the hope within him. Timonides did not want to kill himself, he did not want to join his son in an imagined hell. But how to save him?

  Ulrika thought for a moment as she watched, in the distance, a new caravan arriving from the west, a line of weary beasts and men entering the terminus. And it came to her that her personal meditation was designed to find external places. Timonides's sickness was of the spirit. It was internal. With renewed hope, she said, "Do not try to send your spirit out, Timonides. Instead, go deep inside yourself. Find the landscape of your soul. Explore it. Do not be afraid. Tell me what you see."

  He closed his eyes again, clasped the spoon, bringing it up to his chest. Breathing slowly. Swaying. Whispering, "Stars are destiny ... stars are destiny ..." Until he began to tremble and the chanting ceased. The breath stopped in his chest as Ulrika watched.

  "Blackness," he said in a tight voice. "I see a large gaping hole. Cold winds. Isolation. My soul is lost and lonely!"

  "Timonides," Ulrika said gently. "Hold a silent dialogue with your soul. Do not reveal it to me. Talk to your spiritual self. Ask questions. Ask what it wants, how it can be saved."

  As she watched the old astrologer withdraw deeper into himself, his posture relaxing, the wrinkles easing on his face, Ulrika saw Sebastianus walking back through the camp, a scowl on his face. He was alone. He had not found an astrologer who would come with him.

  Ulrika placed a fingertip at her lips, so that Sebastianus joined her and Timonides without making a sound.

  After a few more moments of silence, Timonides finally opened his eyes and said, "I cannot do it. Ulrika, it is easy for you. You are young and agile. But my soul is old and creaks like my joints."

  She leaned forward. "Many times I watched how you prepared yourself for a star-reading. I saw you close your eyes and whisper a prayer. Why did you do that?"

  "To open my soul to the stars, to let their wisdom pour in."

  "Then do so now."

  With a doubtful look, he settled back on the stool, firmed his grip on the spoon, closed his eyes and took the first deep, cadenced breaths. "Stars are destiny," he whispered, and told himself he was preparing to do a reading. But rather than journey inward to his soul, as Ulrika suggested, Timonides knew he must send his thoughts outward and up to the sky, for that was where he belonged. As he slowed his breathing and imagined the aroma of bubbling stew and felt the precious wooden spoon in his hands, the old astrologer felt himself relax, gradually, giving up the stress and strains of his fleshly life so that his spirit could be set free and soar up to the heavens he had so loved all his life.

  Soon, Timonides was flying among the forty-eight constellations, familiar friends now seen close up: boastful Orion, bested by a small scorpion and frozen forever in the heavens with his club raised, doomed never to fall. Andromeda, the chained virgin to whom Timonides now uttered the famous words of Perseus, her rescuer: "Such chains must only bind you to the hearts of lovers." And Cassiopeia, placed upon her celestial throne by spiteful Neptune, who had seated her there with her head towards the north star so that she spent half of every night upside down.

  Timonides mounted winged Pegasus and rode the four winds. They neared the sun and Timonides felt the blessed radiance on his unworthy face. He saw an icy comet streak past. He tasted the moon's sweet dew.

  He began to cry. So much beauty. So much divinity. And he had sullied it. For the sake of filling his miserable stomach he had soiled everything he loved and held dear. Cherished beliefs and heavenly bodies were cast aside for fear of a salivary stone.

  "I am sorry!" he cried out as meteors and planets raced past him. "Forgive me!" he shouted as asteroids hurtled all around him. "Perseus, Hercules, I did not mean to disrespect you! I am but a humble man, a web of weaknesses and fears and dreads. I am nothing compared to your greatness. Give me a second chance, I beg of you!"

  And then he saw the sparkling nebula, a cloud of compassion and color—the collective consciousness of the void—materialize before his eyes. It rolled toward him like a fog, obliterating stars, planets, sun, and moon until Timonides was engulfed in pure sweetness. He felt every fear and dread melt from his body as if his very flesh were dropping from his bones. He wept with joy.

  He lingered there, riding the cosmic winds, while his two earthbound companions kept their eyes on him. He no longer swayed. He had ceased his chant. He appeared almost not to breathe. Time passed. Camels and men also passed. The business of the caravan terminus carried on as it had for centuries, while Ulrika and Sebastianus sat vigil with their vulnerable friend during his spirit-walk.

  The sun was beginning its westward descent when Timonides finally opened his eyes and blinked at his companions in brief confusion.

  "Are you all right?" Ulrika said, scanning his face, looking for signs of mental disorder. But his color was good, his skin dry, his eyes wide and unclouded. She wanted to feel his pulse but held back, fearing that touching him would break his spell.

  "I am thirsty ..." His voice as thin as smoke.

  Sebastianus brought the astrologer a cup of cool water, which Timonides gulped down like a man who had just wandered in from the desert. He drew his hand across his mouth, frowning. Ulrika knew that he was readjusting to the physical world. She would not press him for word of his journey. He needed to come around in his own time.

  "It was most wondrous," Timonides finally whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. "I would not have believed it possible. Ulrika, through this focused meditation, I learned things. The gods revealed secrets to me. Is this how it is, this meditation? Does it make one a conduit to the Divine? They spoke to me ..."

  He held out the cup and Sebastianus refilled it. After another long drink, Timonides said to Ulrika, "The secrets which the gods revealed to me must remain secrets, for that is part of my holy office as an astrologer. But they gave me another gift. They illuminated my inner self. And what I saw, I knew I must reveal to you, my friends."

  He turned to Sebastianus. "Nestor's death was a punishment on me, master, not on him but on me. My son died in terrible agony because of my transgressions. He was innocent. Even when he beheaded Bessas in Antioch, he was innocent."

  Sebastianus exchanged a startled look with Ulrika.

  Timonides explained briefly what had happened in Antioch. "And then Nestor himself was killed by his having head trampled upon. I had thought it was divine retribution, a head for a head. But Nestor did not know what he was doing. I see that now. Ulrika, I explored the stars and this is what I learned: that the gods were not punishing Nestor, they were punishing me."

  Sebastianus frowned. "I do not understand, old friend. What are you talking about? Why were the gods punishing you?"

  "Forgive me, master, for the terrible things I am about to tell you! But I can no longer carry this burden. I must clear my conscience so that I may clear my soul. When Nestor brought me the head of Bessas the holy man, I did not tell you. I then falsified your horoscope so that you would leave Antioch at once, before the authorities came for my boy. Worse, by bringing Nestor along on the caravan I made you an accomplice to a capital crime. You were giving aid to a fugitiv
e, which meant a death sentence for you as well, should we be caught."

  Sebastianus stared at the old man for a moment, his brow knotting in surprise. "It is all right, old friend. I understand."

  "There is more! I lied about your horoscopes. All of them! On that first day when Ulrika came into our caravan camp outside Rome, I lied about the message in the stars because I wanted to keep her with us, out of my own selfish interests. I thought the salivary stone might come back. And I kept lying! I kept falsifying my readings for this reason and that, always for myself. I saw a terrible calamity in your future, yet I did not warn you. But no catastrophe befell you, and so I knew it must be the gods punishing me with misreadings. I kept promising the gods that I would stop and then Nestor killed Bessas and I had to keep falsifying the readings. Oh master, in Antioch the stars said that you were to go south with Ulrika but I told you that we were to go east at once to Babylon."

  Sebastianus's expression turned to stone, his silence deepened, and Ulrika saw that he barely breathed.

  "I perverted astrology to suit my own selfish needs," Timonides continued, "and in this way the fates drove my son to commit a crime. It is my fault! I alone am responsible for the death of Bessas the holy man, just as I am guilty of sacrilege and offense to the gods by using the stars to my own gain! Forgive me, master." Timonides slid from his stool, fell to his knees, and grabbed Sebastianus's ankles. "Please tell me you forgive me!"

  Sebastianus stared down at Timonides, while the wind picked up, bringing sounds of the city and river traffic, the smells of cook fires and beasts sweating from travel. Men's shouts, the noise of blacksmiths' hammers, the braying of mules—all flew on the air while Sebastianus Gallus stared at his old astrologer and the import of what Timonides had confessed sank in.