To visitors, though, the Persians showed a level of sophisticated hospitality that Yosef found almost overwhelming in luxury. Even the humblest home welcomed him. In the poorest hovel, he would still find at least one written work, and the inhabitants were able to quote many more. He spent barely a night on the cold ground, for no Persian would dare raise his eyes to Ahura Mazda if he allowed a stranger to go hungry or unwelcome. Yosef’s pace was slowed by the endless welcome he found beneath every roof.
He found himself fascinated by the deep wisdom of the fire faith, though to follow it now was, unlike his own faith and that of the Christians, strictly outlawed by the Arabs. Those who pursued the teachings of Zoroaster were punishable by death. The headless bodies of those who persisted in publicly professing their faith were found at every crossroads, displayed as a deliberate warning to others who would continue their adherence to a philosophy the Arabs deemed corrupt pagan savagery.
But Yosef could not cease his interest. He found himself actively avoiding his own people, though he could not have said strictly why, only that he no longer felt himself one of them. His nights were restless, tormented by Sarah’s voice, her strange entreaties to return to a world he also felt he was no longer part of. At times he thought only the endless walking kept him from madness. And though it was not on his path, he followed the directions of his genial hosts to one of the most revered fire temples – the shrine of Pir-e-Sabz, in the province of Yazd.
He saw the bodies long before the temple came into view.
They were left on high mountain plateaus, in towers Persians called dakhmag. Yosef knew that Zoroastrians did not bury their dead, believing any contact with dead flesh a corrupting and evil influence. Instead, they brought the bodies to these high places, where birds of prey would descend and tear the flesh from the skeleton, returning the material to the cycle of life.
Yosef no longer found dakhmag distasteful. He had passed too many of them to be disturbed by the carrion birds that circled above, the vague smell of corruption carried on the wind. He had begun to find a strange peace in their presence, as if the dead themselves hovered on the air, preparing to soar with the birds that carried their mortal remains high into the sharp blue sky over the mountains.
Pir-e-Sabz was a grotto, built into the cliffside. A great tree grew by a cleft marked with a jutting piece of stone of a deep red colour, brighter than the dull rock that surrounded it. Yosef approached cautiously, seeing nobody as he made the steep climb to the entrance.
There was something poignant in the silent dignity of the caves on the mountain. Perhaps, Yosef thought with a strange disquiet, they simply reminded him of his home. He touched the tree, and the rock beside it, and entered the low, man-made grotto.
Water dripped from the rock in a steady, almost meditative rhythm. Green fronds of maidenhair grew by the water leaching from the stone, and in the centre of the cave, a fire burned in a large brazier. It was surrounded by simple platters of food and candles, offerings from pilgrims. Yosef felt that he should pay tribute in some way but had no idea how to do it.
“Fire purifies.”
Yosef swung around, his hand on the knife at his side. A lithe, dark-faced man smiled at him. He was dressed in the white shirt, sudre, and girdle, kusti, given, Yosef knew, to initiates of the Zoroastrian faith, and wore a covering over his head not unlike that worn by the Jews Yosef had grown up with.
“I am Jahan, keeper of this shrine.” He stepped forward and bowed lightly to Yosef. “Khosh amadid.” Welcome. Yosef returned the greeting.
“You speak some Persian,” said Jahan.
“Bale, man fârsi harf mizanam.” Yes, I speak a little.
“I, also, speak other languages. Greek, or Hebrew, if you wish it. Latin, too.”
“You are a learned man,” said Yosef. “Are you a priest?”
“In our faith, we are known as magi,” said Jahan. “And, yes, I am. Or I was, once, when magi still mattered in our country.”
“And now?”
“Now,” said Jahan, leaning forward to tend the fire in the brazier, “I practise the rituals of my faith and remind myself of their true purpose. In a shrine such as this” – he indicated the humble walls of the cave – “I am reminded of what is important, of the gifts that made ours the faith of kings. Kings who ultimately became its downfall.”
Unlike Shukra, no eccentricities marred his speech. Like Farzin back in Ctesiphon, he spoke Greek in cultured, even tones, with barely a trace of an accent. His face was smooth and unlined, his eyes clear.
“What is this place?” Yosef sat on the carpet indicated by Jahan, cross legged.
“Some claim it to be the hiding place of one of the last Sassanid princesses, a beauty named Nikbanu. The stories say she ran to escape the Arabic conquerors, and a cleft opened in the cliff to admit her within. The coloured rock at the entrance is the cloth of her dress, petrified forever that we may remember her.”
Yosef raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment.
“Long before a shepherd was given this story in a vision,” went on Jahan, “it was known, to those of us who know such things, that Pir-e-Sabz was a place sacred to Armaiti, guardian of the earth, and Anahita, guardian of waters. Here, both are present, and people may come to be cleansed by fire and balanced by their energies. In balancing and purifying ourselves, we also return to Ahura Mazda, the One, and strengthen the One’s presence on earth.”
“I am not an initiate to your faith.” Yosef looked at him steadily. “I am Yosef, a Jew, from Spania.”
“Of course you are.” Jahan seemed not at all disturbed by the disclosure. “But you are far from your land, and Zoroaster spoke to Jews as well. It is from him that you take much of your understanding of God – though it is an imperfect understanding – just as the Christians and now the Muslims do in their writings of the One.”
Yosef nodded. “I knew a Persian once,” he said. “In Spania. He told me that good and evil exist in all men, that the devil is not a force beyond us but within us.”
“Just so.” Jahan smiled. “And is it a desire to exorcise that evil that brings you here, Yosef? For if it is the company of your people you wish for, Yazd is a rich place of commerce, and Jews trade freely there.”
“I don’t know exactly.” Yosef spoke slowly, looking at the fire. “My journey is for trade, yes. And I will continue to do as I must, for it was the wish of my father that I make this journey. The outcome of it matters to others more, perhaps, than it does to me. But I no longer know what it is that I journey for, nor what I hope to achieve by the doing of it.” He looked up at Jahan. “I no longer know if I hope to return home at all. I stop in cities and meet my own people, but they are consumed by trade, by the daily counting of coin and the politics it takes to make such coin grow. They are so certain that they must continue, regardless of the obstacles. That they work for some higher and, it seems to me, as yet unknown purpose. That by building a web of trade and profitable relationships, they somehow build a defence against the common foe of prejudice and persecution.” He was quiet for a moment, trying to find the words. “I love my faith,” he said. “I have grown from the cradle without ever questioning where I come from, or how I worship God. For my people, it is inherent in everything we do: the way we eat and pray, even the way we bathe. But now I find myself in foreign lands where my faith is no more important, or understood, than any other. And here in Persia, I find that my own faith is considered new. Is considered with benign tolerance, as a poor facsimile of an older, richer understanding.
“I find myself lacking patience, with my own people and with the God and the practices that have underpinned my whole life. In so many ways, this should not matter, for surely I have greater things to concern myself with. But it seems to me, as I travel onward through empty places, that this is the only thing that matters at all.” He was surprised to find his voice cracking. “I do not know what I believe anymore,” he said quietly. The fire before him blurred, and he was lost in mour
ning for the simplicity of a life he had once accepted without question.
They sat in silence for a while, then Jahan spoke. “Zoroastrianism is not a religion,” he said quietly. “Don’t mistake me; it became one under the corruption of wealthy kings who made magi rich men and used their skills for their own power. But all things have balance in the One, and when the fire temples no longer truly served the One, the corruption they had become was destroyed. Nonetheless, those who adhere to the Gathas – the sermons of Zoroaster – are born to it, just as you, Yosef, are born to the word of Moses.
“My point,” he said, “is that my faith can no more guide you to find God in yourself than can any other. Your answers do not lie in your understanding of an external God, Yosef. They lie in discovering how you understand the One within yourself.”
“To do that, must I accept a new faith?” Yosef asked. “Must I leave behind the Torah, and my people, in order to become something new – someone new?”
“Not leave behind,” said Jahan. “But perhaps for a time, at least, you may need to allow yourself to be free of what you know. It is not possible for any person to find the One within themselves when they insist that it has already been found.”
“I have so long yet to go,” said Yosef. He spoke more to himself than to Jahan, looking into the flames of the fire, the steady dripping sound calming his soul.
“And yet you have already come so far.” Jahan leaned forward and tended the fire, his movements spare and deft. Sparks leaped into the air, and the flames brightened, as if given new life.
“You will find your way,” said Jahan. “It is inevitable.” He smiled at Yosef. “And it is simpler, really, than you think. All you must do is what you are already doing.”
“All I do,” said Yosef, “is put one foot in front of the other. That is it. No more, no less.”
“Just so.” Jahan smiled. “And this, aziz-am – this is all any of us must do. Just that. Put one foot in front of another – and allow the One to walk within us.”
Yosef passed through Yazd and across the great desert on the other side. He entered the chaos of Kabul, on the far side of the great wastes, and traded for carpets and silks such as he had never seen. He prayed with men of his own faith, but he also entered the fire temples of the magi, praying at the shrines he found there. Amongst the Hind of Kush, he prayed also to gods of whom he had never before heard, fantastic figures of exotic face and body, belonging to stories and beliefs he did not understand.
And if he had thought himself scoured clean by the sands of the Ténéré, or exhausted by the wastelands of Persia and Kush, it was only when he reached the Danfeng Gate at the great Daming Palace of Empress Wu in the remote lands of Serica that Yosef knew himself truly lost.
28
Theo
October, AD 691
Sebastopolis, Anatolia
Elauissa Sebaste, Cilicia, Turkey
It was only in action that Theo found solace from the thoughts tormenting him. He and his companions climbed silently through the rocks. Dawn would come soon, and men would die. But for now the night was still, dew dripping quietly onto stone, the night a damp curtain about Theo’s face. Above them loomed a Maronite monastery, cut into the rocky cliffs, dark and imposing like an immovable sentinel. In the tight focus of battle, Theo could, if not ignore, at least tolerate Oppa’s unsettling presence in their midst. Over the past months, Theo’s world had become increasingly complex. He walked a tightrope of diplomacy, and the strain was beginning to tell.
“I don’t like this,” Leofric muttered beneath his breath, the words barely moving the air by Theo’s ear. Theo shrugged lightly in dismissal. None of them liked it. But Leontios had become increasingly paranoid about the collection of Arabic taxes, and Oppa had found fertile ground in his fear. Now every expedition that involved the collection of coin also involved men in Oppa’s employ.
To attack a monastery – no matter if Arab heretics now occupied it – went firmly against every instinct. But their instructions were to prevent any Arabic toehold in the area recently occupied by Maronite Christians, many of whom now stood on the rocks beside them, eyes glinting as they fingered their weapons. The Arabic forces, it seemed, did not content themselves on their side of the Nur Mountains, despite what their diplomats said in the Constantinople court. The monastery above owed tribute to Emperor Justinian II, but the call to prayer rang now from the parapets, and its coin flowed to Caliph Abd al Malik.
A faint movement fluttered the air. Theo held up a clenched fist, and the men behind him halted. Far above, there was the hint of movement – a shadow, no more – but it was enough.
“They know we are here,” murmured Theo. “Retreat.”
“Retreat?” The man beside him scowled in confusion. He was a slender man with dark eyes and high cheekbones, a local Maronite fighter, and his name was Kyros. “Before an arrow has flown?”
“Retreat.” Theo turned hard eyes on him. “If they know we are here, flying arrows are the least of your problems. Our position relied on secrecy. The secret is out. Retreat.”
They had no sooner begun their stealthy descent when above them, from every crevice it seemed, men emerged, shaking their bows and hooting derisively at the retreating figures.
“Xristus,” muttered Leofric, looking at them. “There are hundreds. It would have been murder.” He cast Theo a look of grudging respect. “It seems even your strange choice of friends does not affect your thinking, schnecke.”
“I told you.” Theo’s face was grim. “Kyros is not your enemy. Here, we must play by different rules.”
Leofric cast Kyros a dark glance. “He is Oppa’s creature, sent here to watch us. We cannot move but that he is at our side.”
“Kyros is a good fighter, and he knows these mountains.”
Leofric snorted. “Kyros knows the touch of Oppa’s coin in his hand.” He looked around them suspiciously. “As do half the men here. The bastard has his hand in too many pockets, schnecke. I do not understand how you so easily forget the touch of his whip on your skin.”
Theo didn’t answer. He stalked down the rocky path, his body taut with tension, the scars combined with his grim expression forbidding enough to prevent men from asking questions. Only Silas wasn’t intimidated.
“You must have your reasons for tolerating the bastard,” he said in a voice low enough that it escaped the others. “I hope you are certain of them, wenkai. Oppa plays many games. Be certain he does not play them with you.”
Theo grunted, the closest he could bring himself to acknowledging Silas’s fears. He walked back to camp thinking of the many messages he had given Athanais. Surely one of them, by now, must have received a response from Apsimar? He kicked a stone in frustration. Always certain of his next move, for once Theo did not know what to do.
He was still pondering when they reached camp. Theo shook his head once in response to the enquiring glance from Neboulos, the Slavic commander. “Not today,” he said briefly. “They saw us coming.” Neboulos was a burly, stolid man, gruff in manner. If he lacked Apsimar’s golden brilliance and compelling urbanity, he was a strong warrior, brutal in battle and utterly fearless. Neboulos’s command, Theo knew, was not an easy one, and it was one of the reasons Theo’s own choices were not simple.
It had been a long winter of training and infighting in the hard country about Sebastopolis, during which Theo had come to respect the surly Slav. Only the rigid hand of Neboulos had kept the different factions that were co-existing in the bulging port from exploding into open chaos. Keeping thirty thousand disgruntled Slavs in a semblance of order was task enough. Added to that, Leontios had conscripted Neboulos’s aid in helping to carve the ramshackle contingents of Slavic and Maronite refugees into some kind of fighting force. After dozens of men had died venturing into the interior, Leontios tasked Neboulos with the command of scouting parties made of men undaunted by the rugged mountains and equally rugged rebel forces found there. Neboulos in turn had searched for good m
en to lead them, and he found in Theo one such man. The frequent incursions by Arabs into Greek territory had served as a not unwelcome distraction for Theo and a good training ground for new troops.
Under Neboulos’s leadership, dozens of squadrons roamed the coast, disgorging small parties and their horses into the mountains to the interior, where they gave succour to those refugees hiding in remote outposts, fought off local rebels, and engaged the Arab invaders who constantly tested the uneasy peace. Today Neboulos camped with Theo’s crew. Their dromons were only three days’ fast travel from Sebastopolis. The Arabs were closer than they should ever have been to the main force of Emperor Justinian II’s army.
“They number more than several hundred,” said Theo now, sipping at a cup of coarse posca by the fire. Their camp was quieter than the hectic hub of Sebastopolis, and despite the tense nature of their work, Theo was content enough to be away from the port and its endless sordid distractions. A brief flash of Oppa’s face passed behind his eyes, and Theo willed it away, not without effort.
“There is other way in?” Neboulos asked, squinting up the mountainside.
Theo nodded. “I believe so. Kyros said there is a tunnel in from the other face. But we will not know if it is safe until we enter it. We will take our time, scout the area, kill any who might raise the alarm.”
“You trust this man?”
Theo shrugged. “He is a Maronite, like the rebels. But his daughter and wife are settled in Sebastopolis, and he himself trades in wine, a profitable enough business. He has little reason to see us defeated, and many to help us.”
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 22