by Noah Gordon
They embraced.
“Live forever, Rob J. Cole.”
“Live forever, Louis Charbonneau.”
He got down from the wagon and went to arrange his passage as the old man rode away, leading the bony brown horse. The ferryman was a sullen hulk with a bad cold who kept removing the snot from his upper lip with his tongue. The matter of the fare was difficult because Rob didn’t have the Bohemian language, and in the end he felt he had been overcharged. When he returned to the wagon after hard sign-language bargaining, Charbonneau had already ridden out of sight.
On his third day of moving into Bohemia he met up with five fat and ruddy Germans and tried to convey the idea that he wanted to travel with them. His manner was polite; he offered gold and indicated he’d be willing to cook and do other camp chores, but there wasn’t a smile from any of them, only hands on the hilts of five swords.
“Fucks,” he said finally, and turned away. But he couldn’t blame them, for their party already had some strength and he was unknown, a danger.
Horse drew him from the mountains into a great saucer-shaped plateau ringed by green hills. There were cultivated fields of gray earth in which men and women toiled over wheat, barley, rye, and beets, but most of it was mixed forest. In the night, not far away, he heard the howling of wolves. He kept a fire burning although it wasn’t cold, and Mistress Buffington mewed at the wild animal sounds, sleeping with the spiny ridge of her back hard against him.
He had depended on Charbonneau for many things, but he found that not the least of these had been companionship. Now he drove down the Roman road and knew the meaning of the word alone, for he couldn’t speak to any of the people he met.
A week after he and Charbonneau had parted, one morning he came upon the stripped and mutilated body of a man hanging from a tree by the side of the road. The hanged man was slight and ferret-faced and was missing his left ear.
Rob regretted that he wasn’t able to inform Charbonneau that others had caught up with their third highwayman.
25
THE JOINING
Rob crossed the wide plateau and reentered mountains. They weren’t as high as those he had already crossed but they were rugged enough to slow his progress. Twice more he approached groups of travelers on the road and attempted to join with them, but each time he was refused permission to do so. One morning a group of horsemen dressed in rags rode past him and shouted something at him in their strange language, but he nodded a greeting and looked away, for he could see they were wild and desperate. He felt if he were to travel with them he would soon be dead.
Arriving at a large town, he went into the tavern and was overjoyed to find that the publican knew a few words of English. From this man he learned that the town was called Brünn. The people through whose territory he traveled were mostly members of a tribe called the Czechs. He could learn little else, not even where the man had gotten his tiny store of English words, for the simple exchange had overtaxed the publican’s linguistic ability. When Rob left the tavern he found a man in the back of his wagon, going through his belongings.
“Get out,” he said softly. He pulled his sword but the fellow had leaped from the cart and was off before he could stop him. Rob’s money purse was still nailed safely beneath the floor of the wagon, and the only thing missing was a cloth bag full of the paraphernalia used in tricks of magic. It gave him no small comfort to think of the thief’s face when he opened the bag.
After that he polished his weapons daily, keeping a thin coat of grease on his blades so they slipped from the scabbards at the slightest pull. At night he slept lightly or not at all, listening for any sound that would indicate someone creeping up on him. He knew he would have little hope if he were attacked by a pack such as the horsemen in rags. He remained alone and vulnerable for nine more long days, until one morning the road emerged from the woods and, to his wonder and delight and burgeoning hope, he saw before him a tiny town that had been engulfed by a large caravan.
The sixteen houses of the village were surrounded by several hundred animals. Rob saw horses and mules of every size and description, saddled or harnessed to wagons, carts, and vans of wide variety. He tethered Horse to a tree. People were everywhere, and as he pushed among them his ears were assaulted by a babble of incomprehensible tongues.
“Please,” he said to a man engaged in the arduous task of changing a wheel. “Where is the caravan master?” He helped lift the wheel to the hub but won only a grateful smile and a blank headshake.
“The caravan master?” he asked the next traveler, who was in the process of feeding two span of great oxen with wooden balls fixed to the points of their long horns.
“Ah, der Meister? Kerl Fritta,” the man said, and gestured down the line.
After that it was easy, for the name Kerl Fritta seemed to be known by all. Whenever Rob uttered it he received a nod and a pointing finger, until finally he came to a place where a table had been set in a field next to a large wagon hitched to six of the largest matched chestnut draft horses he had ever seen. On the table was a naked sword and behind it sat a personage who wore his long brown hair in two thick plaits and was engrossed in conversation with the first of a long line of travelers waiting to speak with him.
Rob stood at the end of the line. “That is Kerl Fritta?” he asked.
“Yes, that is he,” answered one of the men.
They stared at one another in delight.
“You’re English!”
“Scotch,” said the man, with only slight disappointment. “Well met! Well met!” he murmured, grasping both of Rob’s hands. He was tall and spare, with long gray hair, and clean-shaven in the Britons’ style. He wore a traveling suit of rough black stuff but it was good cloth, and well cut.
“James Geikie Cullen,” he said. “Sheep breeder and wool factor, journeying to Anatolia with my daughter in search of better varieties of rams and ewes.”
“Rob J. Cole, barber-surgeon. Bound for Persia to buy precious medicinals.”
Cullen gazed at him almost fondly. The line moved, but they had enough time to exchange information, and English words never had sounded more euphonious.
Cullen was accompanied by a man dressed in stained brown trousers and a ragged gray kirtle; he said this was Seredy, whom he had hired as servant and interpreter.
To Rob’s surprise, he learned that he was no longer in Bohemia but unknowingly had crossed into the country of Hungary two days before. The village they had so transformed was called Vac. Though bread and cheese were available from the inhabitants, provision and other supplies were dear.
The caravan had originated in the town of Ulm, in the duchy of Schwaben.
“Fritta is a German,” Cullen confided. “He doesn’t appear to go out of his way to be pleasant but it’s advisable to get along with him, for there are reliable reports that Magyar bandits are preying on lone travelers and small parties, and there’s not another large caravan in this vicinity.”
News of the bandits appeared to be general knowledge, and as they moved toward the table other applicants joined the line. Directly behind Rob, to his interest, there were three Jews.
“In such a caravan one must travel with both gentlefolk and vermin,” Cullen said loudly. Rob was watching the three men in their dark caftans and leather hats. They were conversing with one another in still another strange language, but it seemed that the eyes of the man closest to him flickered when Cullen spoke, as if he understood what had been said. Rob looked away.
When they reached Fritta’s table Cullen took care of his own business and then was kind enough to offer Seredy as Rob’s translator.
The caravan master, experienced and quick in conducting such interviews, efficiently learned his name, business, and destination.
“He wants you to understand that the caravan doesn’t go to Persia,” Seredy said. “Beyond Constantinople you must make another arrangement.”
Rob nodded, then the German spoke at length.
“
The fee you must pay to Master Fritta is the equal of twenty-two English silver pennies, but he wishes no more of these, for it is in English pennies that my Master Cullen will pay and Master Fritta says he can’t easily dispose of too many. Are you able to pay in deniers, he asks.”
“I am.”
“He’ll take twenty-seven deniers,” Seredy said too smoothly.
Rob hesitated. He had deniers because he had sold the Specific in France and Germany, but he was ignorant of the fair rate of exchange.
“Twenty-three,” a voice said directly behind him, so low he thought he had imagined it.
“Twenty-three deniers,” he said firmly.
The caravan master accepted the offer icily, looking straight into his eyes.
“You must provide your own provision and supply. Should you lag or be forced to drop out you’ll be left behind,” the translator said. “He says the caravan will leave here composed of some ninety separate parties totaling more than one hundred and twenty men. He demands one sentry for each ten parties, so every twelve days you will have to stand guard all night.”
“Agreed.”
“Newcomers must take a place at the end of the line of march, where the dust is worst and the traveler is most vulnerable. You’ll follow Master Cullen and his daughter. Each time somebody ahead of you drops out, you may move up a single place. Each party to join the caravan hereafter will travel behind you.”
“Agreed.”
“And should you practice your profession of barber-surgeon to the members of the caravan, you must share all earnings equally with Master Fritta.”
“No,” he said at once, for it was unjust that he should have to give one-half of his earnings to this German.
Cullen cleared his throat. Glancing at the Scot, Rob saw apprehension in his face and remembered what he had said about the Magyar bandits.
“Offer ten, take thirty,” the low voice behind him said.
“I’ll agree to give up ten percent of my earnings,” Rob said.
Fritta uttered a single laconic word which Rob took to be the Teutonic equivalent of “goose shit”; then he made another short sound.
“Forty, he says.”
“Tell him twenty.”
They agreed on thirty percent. As he thanked Cullen for the use of the interpreter and walked away, Rob glanced quickly at the three Jews. They were men of medium height, with faces tanned to swarthiness. The man who had stood directly behind him had a fleshy nose and large lips over a full brown beard shot with gray. He didn’t look at Rob but stepped toward the table with the total concentration of someone who has already tested an adversary.
The newcomers were ordered to take their positions in the line of march during the afternoon and make camp in place that night, for the caravan would set off right after dawn. Rob found his location between Cullen and the Jews, unhitched Horse, and led him to grass a few rods away. The inhabitants of Vac were taking their last opportunity to profit from the windfall by selling provision, and a farmer came by and held up eggs and yellow cheese for which he wanted four deniers, a shocking price. Instead of paying, Rob bartered away three bottles of the Universal Specific and gained his supper.
While he ate he watched his neighbors watching him. In the camp in front of his, Seredy fetched the water but Cullen’s daughter did the cooking. She was very tall and had red hair. There were five men in the campsite behind his. When he had finished cleaning up after the meal, he walked to where the Jews were brushing their animals. They had good horses as well as two pack mules, one of which presumably carried the tent they had raised. They watched silently as Rob walked to the man who had stood behind him during his dealing with Fritta.
“I am Rob J. Cole. I wish to thank you.”
“For nothing, for nothing.” He lifted the brush from the horse’s back. “I am Meir ben Asher.” He introduced his companions. Two had been with him when Rob had first seen them in the line: Gershom ben Shemuel, who had a wen on his nose and was short and looked as tough as a chunk of wood, and Judah haCohen, sharp-nosed and small-mouthed, with a bear’s glossy black hair and the same sort of beard. The other two were younger. Simon ben ha-Levi was thin and serious, almost a man, a beanpole with a wispy beard. And Tuveh ben Meir was a boy of twelve, large for his age as Rob had been.
“My son,” Meir said.
No one else talked. They watched him very carefully.
“You are merchants?”
Meir nodded. “Once our family lived in the town of Hameln in Germany. Ten years ago we all moved to Angora, in the Byzantine, from which we travel both east and west, buying and selling.”
“What do you buy and sell?”
Meir shrugged. “A little of this, a bit of that.”
Rob was delighted with the answer. He had spent hours thinking of spurious details to tell about himself, and now he saw it was unnecessary; businessmen didn’t reveal too much.
“Where do you travel?” the young man named Simon said, startling Rob, who had decided only Meir knew English.
“Persia.”
“Persia. Excellent! You have family there?”
“No, I go there to buy. One or two herbs, perhaps a few medicinals.”
“Ah,” Meir said. The Jews looked at one another, accepting it instantly.
It was the moment to leave, and he bade them good night.
Cullen had been staring over at them while he talked to the Jews, and when Rob approached his camp the Scot seemed to have lost most of his initial warmth.
He introduced his daughter Margaret without enthusiasm, although the girl greeted Rob politely enough.
Up close, her red hair was something that would be pleasant to touch. Her eyes were cool and sad. Her high round cheekbones seemed large as a man’s fist and her nose and jaw were comely but not delicate. Her face and arms were unfashionably freckled and he wasn’t accustomed to a woman being so tall.
While he was trying to decide whether she was beautiful, Fritta came along and spoke briefly to Seredy.
“He wishes Master Cole to be a sentry this night,” the interpreter said.
So as dusk fell Rob began to walk his post, which started with the Cullens’ site and extended through eight camps beyond his own.
As he walked, he saw what a strange mixture the caravan had brought together. Next to a covered cart an olive-skinned woman with yellow hair nursed a baby while her husband squatted near the fire and greased his harnesses. Two men sat and cleaned weapons. A boy fed grain to three fat hens in a crude wooden cage. A cadaverous man and his fat woman glared at one another and quarreled in what Rob believed to be French.
On his third circuit of the area, as he passed the Jews’ camp he saw that they stood together and swayed, chanting what he realized was their evening prayer.
A large white moon began to ride up from the forest beyond the village and he felt tireless and confident, for suddenly he was part of an army of more than one hundred and twenty men, and that wasn’t the same as traveling through a strange and hostile land by yourself.
Four times during the night he challenged somebody and found it was one of the men going beyond the camp to answer a call of nature.
Toward morning, when he was becoming unbearably sleepy, the Cullen girl came out of her father’s tent. She passed close by him without acknowledging his presence. He saw her clearly in the washed light of the moon. Her dress looked very black and her long feet, which must have been wet with dew, looked very white.
He made as much noise as possible while walking in the opposite direction from the one she had taken, but he watched from afar until he saw her safely back, and then he began to walk again.
At first light he quit his post and made a hurried breakfast of bread and cheese. While he ate, the Jews assembled outside their tent for sunrise devotions. Perhaps they would be an annoyance, for they seemed an exceedingly worshipful people. They strapped little black boxes on their foreheads and wound thin leather strips around their forearms until their limbs r
esembled the barber poles on Rob’s wagon, then they lost themselves alarmingly in reverie, covering their heads with prayer shawls. He was relieved when they were done.
He had Horse harnessed too early, and had to wait. Although those at the head of the caravan set out shortly after daybreak, the sun was well up before it was his turn. Cullen led on a rawboned white horse, followed by his servant Seredy riding a scruffy gray mare and leading three packhorses. Why did two people need three pack animals? The daughter sat a proud black. Rob thought the haunches of both the horse and the woman were admirable, and he followed them gladly.
26
PARSI
They settled at once into the routine of the journey. For the first three days both the Scots and the Jews regarded him politely and left him alone, perhaps made uneasy by his battered face and the bizarre markings on the wagon. Privacy had never displeased him, and he was content to be left to his thoughts.
The girl rode in front of him constantly, and inevitably he watched her even after they made camp. She appeared to have two black dresses, one of which she washed whenever there was opportunity. She was obviously a sufficiently seasoned traveler not to fret over discomforts but there was about her, and about Cullen, an air of barely concealed melancholy; he assumed from their clothing that they were in mourning.
Sometimes she sang softly.
On the fourth morning, when the caravan was slow to move, she dismounted and led her horse, stretching her legs. He looked down at her walking close by his wagon and smiled at her. Her eyes were enormous, as deep a blue as irises can be. Her high-boned face had long, sensitive planes. Her mouth was large and ripe like everything about her, yet curiously quick and expressive.
“What’s the language of your songs?”
“Gaelic. What we call the Erse.”
“I thought so.”
“Och. How is a Sassenach to recognize the Erse?”
“What is a Sassenach?”
“It’s our name for those who live south of Scotland.”
“I sense the word isn’t a compliment.”