His horse was lathered, but it ran until, out of pity and fear for the fine creature, he coaxed it to slow. Armed men fanned out around him, Nordbriht, the priestling Theodoulos, and the black-robed priest, girded with a sword, who insisted on riding out to the valley at this of all times.
His back itched as if, at any moment, Turkish arrows might whine through the air. He had learned to fear Alp Arslan's archers on their ponies, tireless, quick to change directions, skilled in ambushes. Why, at this moment, Cappadocia could be filled with small, deadly raiding parties.
All the more reason to see that Ihlara was secure. Like the cave churches clustered in the shadow of Hagios Prokopios, the vale of hermits was the pride and the responsibility of the entire region. It might be, Leo thought, he would suggest that the monks evacuate to ground that was safer because it was more closely patrolled by such troops as the town had available to it. But again, the question of safety was a knotty one: with noble and worker, Jew, Christian, Armenian Christian, Imperial and Cappadocian supporters, men and women glaring at one another, like as not Hagios Prokopios would rise against itself before the first Turkish archer dared enter.
So it was as well that he rode to see Meletios now, lest his existence prove tinder to the fire that could be made of a town he had come to cherish.
They paused to rest and eat somewhat. Nordbriht eased Theodoulos down from his saddle and gripped and rubbed his lame leg with those big hands of his until the boy bit his lip. But he did not flinch away, and when the time came to mount again, he walked to his horse more easily than Leo would have believed possible.
The air hummed and whispered. Stray breaths of air teased murmurs from the rock hillocks and chimneys that they passed. The trees, thirsty, sighed. At this time of the year, even the swift river that fed the valley would be much shrunken.
The earth shivered underfoot; and Leo's horse, too tired to dance with unease, fretted. He laid a hand against its neck, still held high, which was a miracle. You ought to have a blanket on your back, not a man in armor, he apologized in his thoughts. A groom should walk you till you cool, then feed you mash. Forgive me for driving you.
That he drove himself even harder mattered not at all.
The horse snorted, dropped out of its trot, walked for a space, then picked up speed. Famous as Cappadocian horses were, ponies bred and trained by the Turks could run for far longer. But they never had to bear a tall man in cataphract's armor over the miles.
By full night, when they finally reached Penstrema, Theodoulos’ horse limped as badly as its master. Faint moonlight glimmered in the much-shrunken river, as it gurgled, cutting through the soft rock as it had for thousands upon thousands of years. The poplars whispered, like workers tired past sleeping. A stray torch gleamed far below, in one of the hermitages; and guards met them at the path leading to the valley floor. Even at this distance, they could hear deep-voiced chanted hymns.
“Careful,” the guard told them. “We've had rockslides. Perhaps you should wait till dawn.” He meant Theodoulos, who ignored him. More used to the valley's ways than all the others, the boy led the descent. He had to be exhausted, but he paused only when Nordbriht restrained him forcibly.
A rock rattled down the cliff face. One of the guards gasped.
“Nothing up there,” Nordbriht rumbled out. He muttered to Theodoulos, who guided them to the left where the rock, overhanging their narrow path, might provide some protection.
Leo tried not to think what would happen if the cliff wall itself collapsed: in its own way, this was as bad as descending into the cave cities. If only he could tell Meletios what Asherah had found—well, not all of it, he corrected himself with an inward grin! But Meletios was her father's friend, not hers: knowing Asherah and loving her, Leo wanted her consent before he told the old holy man of their discovery.
“Steady ... steady...” Nordbriht chanted it as if he manned an oar on one of the high-prowed ships of his homeland. His quick eyes spotted every hand and foothold, and he seemed always there, to steady someone whose footstep went awry. Leo ached in shoulders, back, and thighs from hacking at a cave wall, the long, long ride, and now the climb down treacherous rocks.
How long had it been since he rested? Only that day, he had lain with his cheek against the softness of Asherah's breast, her arms encircling him in such rest as he had not known for years. His face heated at the memory, and his blood sang in his temples. Careful, Leo: if you fall here, you will never rise.
The wind picked up, chillier now than it had been for weeks.
How long since he had slept? He must have slept the night before. He remembered waking in the dawn. The nights had been too hot for slumber, but now ... now, he thought he could sleep, if Meletios and his monks had no urgent demands to tend to first.
The rock seemed to come up to meet his feet, and he stumbled.
“Steady now. We're down.” Nordbriht's hand clasped his arm.
Only then, Leo realized that he had tried to step down while the ground remained level. His knees sagged.
Theodoulos lurched toward the pile of rocks that concealed Meletios’ home. His limp was worse than Leo had ever seen it, but he moved fast, nevertheless, his hands thrust out to touch the familiar rocks of home, push off from them, and move even more quickly along the upward path. Staggering almost as much, Leo followed him.
Flint and steel were struck up ahead: Meletios, blind for so long, never failed to provide light for others.
Flinching somewhat from the light, Leo entered. He peered up at the holy man's words of greeting, lurched to his knees for a blessing, then sagged to the clean-swept rock of the cave floor. He heard a rumble of explanation, Meletios’ serene assent, and other people settling nearby.
“I have a message ... we've come to fetch you to Hagios Prokopios ... it's safer there...”
“Are we under immediate threat of attack?” Meletios asked, his voice delicately ironic.
An immense yawn choked off Leo's denial. This was ludicrous. Heroic rescuers did not yawn in mid-speech: young Ioannes would be appalled. But fortunately, young Ioannes was not here. As it was, bad enough that Theodoulos had to stifle a laugh.
“Then we can wait to hear your news until you are rested enough to give it.”
Leo's head sagged forward. Someone dropped a blanket over him. Its weight felt like a cope of lead on his aching body until his eyes closed.
Shouts and a crash dashed away the remnants of a dream of a woman who held him close, comforting him.
Those thrice-damned Turks had struck by night! Well, he, Leo Ducas, would show them ...
With a shout, Leo thrust himself up from the rock where he had lain, grabbing for his sword.
But if the Turks were close enough to attack while you were sleeping, they were already much, much too close. Blessed Mother of God, let him not be a prisoner again!
“Be easy, my son, easy.” The speech of an educated man, the city Greek overlaid with an accent that made Leo think of sun and sand: Father Meletios.
“You—they took you too?”
“They are taking us nowhere, my son. We are in the valley. You are safe. Now, put away your sword.”
Outside, the shouting formed into words: Theodoulos’ orders that the paintings were not to be defaced, the carvings left untouched, the stone and pottery shards brought to the Holy Father.
“I regret that we have iconoclasts of our own.” Now, Leo could hear the gentle irony in Father Meletios's voice.
Leo sighed and set down his sword, then dashed his hand across his brow. Be easy. From his first visit here, he had felt this to be a place of peace. But that peace was shattered now, along with the ancient shards and statues that Theodoulos and his master had been unable to protect.
“Give me your arm,” Meletios said. “This valley is a sacred trust and must not be violated.”
He could not see the statues, could not see the wall-paintings. Daylight lanced in from the entrance of the cave. Even here, the figures
painted so long ago upon the walls, though faded by exposure, looked like the ones in the underground passage he and Asherah had uncovered.
Uncovered. He wished Asherah were with him right now, even here in this place from which women were barred: perhaps not as she had been, abandoned to whatever impulse had possessed them both: his Asherah, with her kindness and her wisdom and the sense he had always had about her that she was a well of warmth and repose, set in a garden. What a joy it had been to discover her, even more than the underground passageway, and to know from her touch how totally she would give herself.
“So, you have learned something, have you?” Meletios chuckled. “Truly, you're not a monk, are you?” His hand patted Leo's arm as he might a favored grandson upon the announcement of his wedding. Meletios might live withdrawn from the rest of the world, even from the rest of Cappadocia, but he was not deaf, as well as blind. It was ever so: monks were the worst busybodies.
Or perhaps what they said of Meletios in Hagios Prokopios was true, and he had powers beyond the human. Leo was inclined to agree.
Leo flushed. “You will think we are very different,” he began stiffly. “We are of different faiths...”
Meletios put up a thin hand.
“First, my son, you must tell me who this lady is. She must be a powerful logician indeed, to persuade you where I failed.” Meletios smiled.
“She has no need to persuade where she can smile,” Leo said. Mother of God, he sounded like a proper idiot, didn't he? “But she is accounted very wise.” Get to it, coward! “She is Asherah, daughter of Joachim, the merchant.”
If Meletios sighed, he recovered himself quickly. “Joachim has spoken—not much, but as much as is fitting—of his daughter's charm and wisdom. She has never accompanied her father. Who knows? Perhaps you will bring her to the true light.”
Leo chuckled wryly.
“No? In any event, I would see this woman.”
See? Meletios would never see Asherah, but perhaps he could meet her, talk to her, put his hand in blessing on her soft, dark hair. If she would permit it.
Voices erupted outside the cell. Meletios rose and signaled to Leo to accompany him—he needed no guidance—to the entrance of his cave. The old man put up his face toward the sun. He no more needed that guidance than Leo did. Perhaps even he, practically a living saint, craved the reassurance of human contact.
“There is no need for this panic!” Meletios shouted. “Where is your faith? God will protect us!”
His voice echoed from the valley walls. The wind twisted it and carried it into the gnarled rocks, and the shrunken ripples of the river bore it downstream to the rustling poplars. Leo thought of them as flames in the night, giant torches kindled by the Turks in the battle to come, and flinched. Once again, Meletios pressed his arm.
“This is not the end of the world!”
“But it's the Turks, the Turks!” cried one of the younger monks. So much panic in a name. Leo saw Alp Arslan's dark, profoundly civilized face, heard the sultan's cultivated voice, a purr in it, greeting his Emperor and calling Leo himself lion's cub. The Turks were fierce. They were not world's end.
“I have fought Turks,” Leo shouted when Meletios did not reply. “They are mortal. They can die. They can be conquered...”
“If there is no treachery!” came a howl from a nearby hermitage. For the first time, Leo did not flinch. He was no traitor, even if his uncle had been.
“I have also been the prisoner and the guest of Turks,” Leo added. “They are fierce, but they are not monsters. And they respect shrines.”
They respected their own shrines, in any case. And these Turks were not Alp Arslan but, from all he had heard, a force far less under control: raiders, not a royal army. Still, Leo must, at all costs, prevent panic here. God forbid he had to comfort panicked monks. He stood as if to inspection. Unworthy he might be, but let the monks see him, fully armed, a symbol of the Empire's power ...
... on which, he knew, they dared not rely. Still, he was here, and he was theirs.
Meletios’ voice washed over him: reproofs, exhortations, commands that all retreat to their caves to fast and pray for better heart.
“And there will be no destruction!” he commanded as he turned, as a Parthian archer might fire his last arrow before he withdrew.
When the old monk signaled that he wished to return to the cave, Leo guided him, helped him seat himself upon a chair carved from the rock, then crouched upon a boulder.
“I have been asked to bring you all hence,” Leo told him. “You first, so you can form part of the council taking shape now in Hagios Prokopios. The town fears for you. They sent me to escort you into safety.”
Meletios laughed. “Just you and these few others? And, of course, my servant? You count yourselves sufficient to fight Turks?”
“We will be reinforced along the way,” Leo said.
But Meletios was smiling. “Truly, what safety is there? My son, we face such a storm that we are all shards tossing in the waves as they sweep over this land, which once they covered. Wave upon wave upon wave. This is an ancient land, you know. It has been possessed by many powers. Sooner or later,” he dropped his voice and, had he not been blind, Leo swore that he looked about furtively as if seeking eavesdroppers, “it will react. Rise up against invaders and retaliate.”
He drew a deep breath and put his hand out to touch one of the statues he had saved from this last wave of iconoclasm. Leo reached for a pitcher and a cup, poured for the old man, and held the cup to his lips.
Meletios drank, and sighed. “I have discussed this with only one man. Joachim. Your lady's father. But several nights ago, after my prayers, there was a storm. And though I cannot see face to face, in that darkness, a greater light opened within the storm, and I saw...”
“Come with me,” Leo pleaded. Not prophecy on top of everything else: not now!
“The others will come if you do,” he urged. “Please let us save you. Then I can bring Asherah to see you. She says this is no longer a place for women, especially such as she,” Leo told the monk.
“Ah, you wish me to meet Joachim's daughter. Is that as much your reason as carrying us all to safety?” Meletios laughed softly. “Well, even storms bring with them rains that water the fields.”
Leo flushed, like a boy caught in mischief. He even felt his shoulders slump into the way such a child stands in the instant before “stand up like a man!” and punishment fall upon him.
Meletios smiled although, surely, he could not see how quickly Leo diminished from protective warrior to embarrassed lad.
“I will not abandon this place, to the storms or to the Turks,” he said. “I told you. It is a sacred trust. But I will ride back with you to talk with the others and to see how we can guard against this storm to come.”
Leo had hoped to leave as soon as the horses were rested enough to travel. But, naturally, before they could ride away, taking Meletios with them, an argument had to race through the valley. Meletios’ intent, Leo realized, shocked the monks as deeply as if they heard Saint Simon Stylites had slid down from his ice-girded pillar and demanded a bath, wine, and silk garments.
How long had it been since the old man left his valley? Since he had been guided here after the journey from Egypt where his sight had been burnt out? Perhaps if the monks saw that their leader was content to leave, they would be more willing. Perhaps, upon his return, Meletios would order them out of the valley, or at least give the youngest ones a chance at life.
No, at this point, Leo did not at all believe his hopeful words about the Turks. Or about anything else. The storm was coming, and, unfit shepherd though he was, he must guide his people into shelter.
When had they become his people? He would ask himself that again when ... if he had leisure. And if he survived the storm to come.
Theodoulos knelt nearby, packing his master's few clothes and trying to keep the tears from running down his face.
What sleep they had snatched th
e night before was not enough, but it would have to serve. At least, this time, Leo was clear enough of mind to strap his armor to his back before starting the long climb upward to where the horses had, he hoped, been walked, and cooled, and fed against their return. The morning was cool. Nevertheless, he was sweating heavily by the time his head cleared the edge of the cliff. The weight of his harness and the sweat stung the galls the chain mail had scored upon his shoulders.
He turned to offer a hand to Father Meletios.
“Take His Excellency's hand, Father,” Theodoulos urged the old, blind priest. The boy had bounded back more rapidly than Leo would have expected from exhaustion: perhaps feeling himself responsible for his master helped restore him. Nordbriht towered like a wall at Meletios’ back, one hand on the rock, the other steadying him. The old man had made the climb bravely and in silence, flinching only when his aged joints troubled him, or when, heedlessly, his guards pushed the pace.
Obedient, Meletios stared upward with his sightless eyes and extended his hand.
“Here, holy sir.” Leo reached down and caught his hand with its dry, dusty skin and its long bones, like so many twigs ready to be broken into kindling. As Nordbriht pushed more or less subtly from behind, they raised the old man out of the deep-carved valley that had been his hermitage so long.
For a moment, Meletios crouched on the hard earth, heedless of the unseen edge, regaining his breath. Then he rose as if scanning the horizon he would never see.
Leo laid a hand upon his shoulder, pointed out the direction of Mount Argaeus, then the direction they would ride. Why was he bothering? Had Meletios ever seen this land, or had he been blind when he came here from the Egyptian deserts? Somehow, though, it seemed discourteous, indecently so, simply to haul the old man onto horseback and lug him like a bale of fleece or fodder. And, from the way he turned his sightless eyes up to the heavens, who knew what he “saw” that normal eyes could not?
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