The Shadow of Ararat

by Thomas Harlan

  Entertain the Prince, she thought. Attract the Prince. Right.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Mouth of the Father of Rivers

  Three risings of Ra passed and the dhow passed into the thickly congested waterways of the delta. Hundreds of ships, barges, and rafts passed up and down the great arteries of the Nile. The dhow picked its way between them, nimbly sliding past the huge stone-carrying barges and the three-tiered galleys of the Imperial government. At last, the stultifying heat of midday was broken by a fresh wind from the north carrying the smell of the sea. The dhow captain was well pleased to have made the capital with such speed.

  His voice grew harsh with shouted commands to the lazy mob he called a crew. Near dusk the channel of the river widened at the village of Fuwa and the granite lock gates of the Alexandrine canal rose up on the western bank. So late in the day, the locks were clear of traffic and the captain muttered a fervent prayer of thanks to the patron of travelers. His little ship heeled over and ran across the current into the momentary darkness under the vaulting lock gates. The canal diverged from the Nile and ran on a straight course through the center of Alexandria and into the greater, or military, harbor. That passage, however, was restricted to military galleys alone. The captain pursed his lips in thought as he leaned on the tiller, guiding the dhow through the second of the massive lock basins.

  His first intent upon reaching the end of such a journey should be to dock at the guild warehouses on the lesser, or merchants', harbor and offload the cargoes he had brought from the South. The boy from the witches' house and his mumbling daze precluded that. The captain scratched his shaven pate and peered thoughtfully at the thick clusters of shacks and crumbling red-brick buildings along the side of the canal. The dhow tacked against the wind, and their progress slowed as the countercurrent from the sea mouth of the canal began to run against them.

  The captain handed the tiller off to the mate and clambered down a narrow ladder into the low-roofed cabin under the rear deck. The boy lay there, wrapped in blankets, against the rear wall. His eyes remained open, flickering, unfocused. His skin, as the captain touched his forehead, was damp and hot. The captain shook his head and wiped his fingers on his tunic. His orders from the old witch-man were to deliver the boy to the great military citadel overlooking the second, or greater, harbor of Alexandria. Since he could not sail straight into that harbor, he would have to take the cutoff canal to the lesser harbor and then swing around, outside of the two harbors, past the pharos and into the military harbor.

  He tapped his fingers on the decking. That would take a great deal of time, and he would have to either pay the dock porters more to work late or wait until the morning to unload his cargoes. The captain shook his head to clear his thoughts and looked down with disgust at the trembling boy in the blankets. There must be some other way, he thought, and then climbed back onto the deck.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The School of Pthames

  Even as Ra slid down through the thick smoke haze over Alexandria, turning the holy disk a ruddy brass, the last rays of the beneficent god crawled slowly down the whitewashed white wall in Ahmet's quarters, far to the south. The young master lay on his narrow cot, feet up on the wooden rail at the bottom. In the dimming light of Ra, his chiseled face was troubled. Liquid dark-brown eyes followed creeping bars of gold down the irregular surface of the wall, but the subtle beauty did nothing to lighten his heavy mood. At last, unable to shake the sensation of tremendous weight that lay on him, he rose.

  This used to mean something, he thought to himself, looking around the room. I used to enjoy this.

  He stood at the window, his hand on the dark old wood of the sill. Ra was now behind the western hills, leaving a splendor of deep purples and reds in the thin clouds and the darkening sky. A few dim stars began to glitter in the darkness. Wind, rising from the desert, brought sweet smell of marjoram and olives to him. Below, in the compound, there was the familiar clatter of the kitchens, and the boys, now released from their studies, ran past in the courtyard to the dining hall.

  Ahmet looked down, seeing them flitter past in the deep-blue dimness, the white shapes of their tunics gleaming. The pale-gold light of the tapers in the dining hall met them as they went in. He stood thus for a long time, until the god had entirely passed into the underworld of night and the murmur of the students and masters at dinner indicated that all were within the hall. His thoughts, which had been so troubled, smoothed away and an inevitable conclusion forced itself upon him. After a long time he accepted it, and his mind fell quiet.

  The young master turned away, into the darkness of his room. Needing no light, his fingers found the chest of cedarwood his village had sent him when he made the third circle. The knurled bronze clasp came up in his fingers and he began removing the items within. His breathing was even now, and the weight on his shoulders had began to lift.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Alexandria

  Now in darkness, the dhow glided through the thick waters of the canal, the crewmen standing at bow and stern with long padded poles to keep the ship away from the crumbling brickwork that lined the waterway. The city rose around them, the buildings now two or three stories, their lights glittering back from the water. A wash of noise, the sounds of tens of thousands of people, filled the air. The captain stood again at the tiller and his dark face gleamed in the lights of the taverns and public houses that lined the canal. He felt vastly better now that the long stretches of the open desert were behind him.

  He had quietly discussed the problem of the witch-boy with his mate, who had proposed a simple solution. At the junction of the military and civil canals was a fortified gate housing the legion detachment tasked with checking the traffic into the military harbor. The boy could most conveniently be left there with his orders, and they would see him to wherever the guard captain saw fit to send him.

  Now the dhow captain peered forward through the smoky haze that overlaid the canal and thought he espied the bright torches of the water gate. Indeed, as the dhow eased around a barge moored at the side of the canal, the twin towers and high wall of the gate rose up before him, brightly lit with torches and a brazier set on the dock beside it. The gate itself was now shut, its oiled iron portcullis closed.

  "'Ware the dock," the mate shouted to the pole men. The other crewmen bent to the backing oars, straining against the weight of the dhow. There was a grinding crunch as it struck the fore end of the dock with a glancing blow, and then the pole men steadied the craft. The captain stepped to the gunwale and then off onto the mossy corroded stones of the dock.

  Beyond the brazier and a little open space some ten feet long stood a guardhouse jutting from the massive plinth of the eastern tower. Two legionnaires, their maroon cloaks cast aside, sat upon three-legged stools under one of the brighter torches. They looked up, eyes hooded in the guttering light, their beards full and twisted into long braids. The leftmost one rose as the dhow captain approached and loomed massive in the flickering light. His arms were like the pillars of a temple, massive and sharply defined. The legionarius stood forward a step and grunted a challenge.

  "Greetings, noble legionnaire," the dhow captain answered in his best Greek.

  The legionnaire grunted again and cocked his head to one side. The dhow captain swore under his breath. Couldn't the Empire post soldiers to Alexandria who at least spoke some kind of civilized tongue? A long passage of hand waving, pantomime and, finally, shouting passed before the guards got the idea that the dhow captain had something in his boat for them.

  The mate, meanwhile, had gone through Dwyrin's cloak and traveling bag, stealing the food therein and anything else of value. This crucial task accomplished, he bundled the boy up in the blanket and carried him up on to the dock. By this time the dhow captain was at his wits end. The two blond giants were laughing and shouting back at him. The mate came up with the boy and the captain handed him off to the larger of the two, waving the packet of travel orders
in their faces.

  Saemund, ouragos of the II Triana Legion, stared in surprise at the backs of the two little dark men who had come from the boat. At first he had thought that they were native merchants trying to sell him something, but they had not understood his plain speaking when he told them that he had lost all of his money at dice the night before. He shook his shaggy head in amazement and unwrapped the large, clumsy bundle they had given him. At his side, Throfgar, his battle brother, turned the papyrus sheets this way and that, trying to make head or tail of the spindly runes marked on them.

  "Ach, brother," Saemund exclaimed as he turned back the moth-eaten blanket to expose Dwyrin's flushed and sweating face, "they've left us a foundling!"

  Throfgar stared over in surprise, for the long red-gold braid of the youth marked him as a northerner like himself. He scratched the fleas in his beard in thought.

  "Could he be the son of one of the other fighters?" he ventured.

  "None that I have seen," Saemund answered as he carried the sick boy into the guardroom. There he gently placed the boy onto the duty cot at the back of the small, smoke-blackened room. He turned the blanket out and laid it over the boy, tucking it in under his feet. Then he turned to Throfgar with a puzzled expression, cracking his large knuckles.

  "We should report this to the tetrarchos," he said. "I'll stand the watch here, you go and tell Tapezos what has happened."

  Throfgar nodded in agreement and tossed the packet of papyrus sheets into the kindling box next to the small, narrow fireplace. He went to the back of the guardroom, where a narrow passageway led up a flight of steps to a stout wooden door. He pounded on the thick striated panels for a moment. Then a narrow metal cover turned back from a slit in the door at eye level.

  "Ho, Tapezos," Throfgar rumbled, "tell the tetrarchos that we've got a visitor for him."

  Tapezos muttered something on the other side of the door and slammed the viewport closed. Throfgar shrugged and ambled back down the stairs. Saemund had returned to his post on the dockside. Throfgar checked the boy, who moaned slightly as the German turned back his eyelids, and then joined his battle brother on the watch.

  A few moments later there was a clattering sound as the inner door opened and Michel Pelos stumbled out, yawning, and walked out onto the quayside. Throfgar and Saemund grinned broadly at the Greek, who had drunk overmuch for his stomach the night before. Michel rubbed one side of his lean, scarred face and hitched his sword-belt up.

  "What the hell's the matter with you two grinning idiots?" he snarled in poor Latin.

  Saemund pointed back into the little watchroom. "There's a package for you," he said.

  Michel grimaced at the two Scandians. He went back inside, then they heard him cursing. He came back out. He was not amused. "A funny joke. I may be Greek, but that does not mean that I like little boys."

  Throfgar laughed again, braying like a camel. Saemund smiled too, though he had noticed that the tetrarchos was becoming an odd reddish color in the face. He hit his battle brother in the arm to shut him up and told the tetrarchos what had happened.

  "Huh." Michel pondered the situation. "A foundling, but probably not a citizen. And sick to boot. Well, there isn't much we can do for him here. I'll send a runner to the centurion and see what he wants to do."

  Several hours later two camp physicians came and carried the boy away. He was still flushed and sweating, his eyes unseeing. Saemund and Throfgar had finished their watch by then and did not see him go. The next pair of guardsmen on duty lit a fire in the little oven with the papyrus sheets.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Villa of Swans

  Anastasia groaned theatrically and waved for her handmaiden to lay another chilled cloth on her forehead. "The heat is terrible." She moaned. "Like the forges of Vulcan."

  Thyatis, sitting on a low stool next to her, eyed the slave Krista out of the corner of one eye. Krista knelt at Anastasia's side. The slave rolled her eyes while deftly picking a second cloth out of the chilled ewer. Another slave, this a handsome Nubian lad in a short tunic, slowly waved a fan over the recumbent form of the mistress of the house.

  At last, Anastasia sat up and Krista plumped the pillows behind her so that she might rest more easily. A small plate of freshly pitted cherries was placed near the Lady's hand, in case she desired refreshment. Having come from the Offices only moments before, Anastasia was dressed in a regal yet subdued outfit. Somber colors, showing very little skin, and restrained makeup. In the dim light of the sitting room, under the frescoes of forest creatures, nymphs, and centaurs, she seemed to Thyatis to show her true age. There was a drained look about her eyes that the carefully applied powders could not disguise. Thyatis sat straighter and composed herself as Anastasia's languid gaze fell upon her.

  The Duchess shook her head slowly, picking up a cherry from the little porcelain bowl. "I fear that I made a mistake with you, my dear. One of the first things that my late husband told me when he decided to accept me as a partner and equal in his business here in the city was: to each tool a proper purpose."

  Inwardly Thyatis quailed in fear. The moderate-seeming disaster of the dinner party for the Prince now assumed much larger character. It was a struggle to keep from breaking into tears, yet she managed. It was not fair! I tried my best... it's not my fault I don't know how to be coy!

  Anastasia leaned a little closer, her eyes intent upon Thyatis. "I apologize for misusing you."

  The words took a long tick of the water-clock to make themselves known in Thyatis' conscious thought. When they did, she smiled in relief and quickly composed herself again. Anastasia nodded, picking one of the cherries off of the plate and rolling it between her long fingertips.

  "You have tremendous skills for one so young—skills that I value very highly—but not the ones that I attempted to foster in you for this one purpose. At the time, the throw seemed worth the risk. However, the tactics of seduction and pleasant intrigue are not what I have had you trained in for five years. Your talents so obviously lie in direct action. It was a mistake on my part, one that I will not make again. I confess that I was tremendously angry at the outcome of that night."

  She glared at Krista, who prostrated herself to the floor. As the slave girl put her forehead to the pale rose tiles, Thyatis caught the edge of a self-satisfied smirk, like the little cat Bastet lapping up fresh cream. Anastasia continued, "When one manages—after weeks of effort—to get a Prince of the Empire to spend the night in one's house, it should be in the bed of the intended, not with some minx of a slave girl." The Duchess sighed.

  "No matter, he left hung over and satisfied. At that point, it was as good an outcome as I could hope for."

  Thyatis bowed her head as well, in contrition and to hide her relief that she would not be forced to undergo the awful prospect of trying to seduce a young man of high station in front of twenty or thirty of his peers and acquaintances. Only the evident discomfiture of the Prince and the timely intervention of Krista with an artfully spilled tray of fresh-cut fruit had saved her from fleeing the dining hall in shame and utter embarrassment.

  Anastasia sighed, leaning back in the divan, her eyes narrowed in thought. Krista, still prostrate, slowly crept back out of sight of her mistress. The Duchess twirled one of her long dark curls around an elegant finger for a moment, then tucked it back into place. By her face, Thyatis saw that she had come to some decision.

  "Today," Anastasia began in a businesslike voice, "the Emperor summoned me to the Offices and laid out before me his... requests... for me and those who serve me. He is undertaking a daring campaign to assist the Emperor of the East. He has requested that I provide him with persons of certain abilities to serve on his staff during this expedition. Among them, I believe that I shall send you, Thyatis, along with your faithful Nikos, as... hmm... couriers would suit you best. I expect that you will be rather out of place in precincts that are usually the domain of men, but I believe that you will prosper."

  Thyatis was
slowly overcome by a sense of giddy relief and anticipation. She was going to resume her previous work, and with Nikos at her side, no less. The prospect of having a well-wrapped sword-hilt in her hand and boots on her feet washed over her like an exquisite wine. No more wretched perfumes or troublesome garments! No more house servants fluttering around her like distraught moths when she did not sit properly...

  Anastasia shook her head, smiling, at the joy apparent in her young ward. She wagged an admonishing finger at the seventeen-year-old. "Calm yourself, my dear. You will be in Constantinople soon enough."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Wine-Dark Sea, North of Alexandria

  The creaking of a sail and the slap of bare feet on planking woke Dwyrin from part of his fever dream. Darkness and a terrible fetid smell surrounded him. He was very thirsty. The storm of colors that had clouded his vision for so long had begun to recede from his sight. Distantly he knew that the privations his body had been subjected to were beginning to focus his mind as the body failed. Weakly he tried to sit up. There was the clink of chains and he caught his throat on a stiff metal band. He fell back, hitting his head on rough wooden planks. Around him, there was a murmur of sleeping men. He raised a hand gingerly to his neck and found that there was a collar around it. A heavy chain ran through a ring welded to the outside of the collar. Above, in the darkness, there was the shouting of men, and beyond that, the rush of the sea. An incredibly foul miasma assaulted his nose.

  Macha save me! His mind wailed. This is a slave ship!

  The lights began to creep back into the edges of his vision, and the darkness in the hold around him assumed strange and fantastic shapes. The sleeping men slowly became outlined first in gold, then deep blue, and finally a shimmering red. So too did the chain and the links of it.