Before Ever After (31 page)

H
is oars sliced through the lagoon like a knife through the soft bellies of the fish he caught. Every pull on his oars brought him closer to Altinum, one of the last-standing cities of an empire near its end. He looked over his shoulder and saw its shore.

A flock of birds flew overhead, a flurry of shadows in the dusk. There had been many such flocks flying above his home on the lagoon in recent days. Too many. He knew there could only be one reason for their exodus from the mainland. It was the same reason he was rowing toward it now. Barbarians were tearing through the plain.

He had expected the people of Altinum to seek safety in the lagoon as they had done in the past. But this time it seemed to him that the birds had more sense than the people who remained locked inside their doomed city.

The fisherman had once sought the sanctuary of the lagoon and he had not left it since then. But it was not the barbarians who had driven him to the sea. It was the very people he was now trying to save.

That was a long time ago, he told himself, and they would no longer remember what he could never forget. His memory was still stained with the knowledge of how ignorance turned friends and neighbors into an
angry mob. He could still remember how being different had forced him into exile.

But the fisherman also remembered one other thing. He still had family in the city that had once cast him out, and it was for them that he needed to return. That, of course, and the few feathered friends he had left behind.

The rotund bishop looked up from his favorite dish of hard-boiled eggs in pine-nut sauce. He frowned at his turkey-wattled secretary. “Who?”

“A fisherman, Your Grace, from the lagoon.” The secretary chewed on his lip, feeling the heat of the bishop’s glare. His master did not like being disturbed while he was dining, but what their visitor had to tell him could not wait.

“What does he want?” The bishop’s breath wheezed out of him, squeezed from under the weight of his thick chest. Breathing alone caused him to break into a sweat. He wiped his brow with the back of his fleshy hand.

“He says he has news of the … Lombards.” The secretary grimaced at the taste those words left in his mouth: honey and iron. Blood.

The bishop pushed his meal away. He did not relish hearing news of his appointed executioner. He had been strong once, just like his city. But now Altinum was decaying, rotting from the inside like the empire it was born from. He was tired and prayed only for a swift and painless end—preferably from a blow that he didn’t see coming. But his fisherman visitor would deny him even that mercy. He sighed. “Let him in.”

The bishop’s home was a peaceful place, the fisherman thought as he followed the secretary down the hall of the villa. Within its walls it was easy to pretend that the plains were not burning. The secretary led him to the inner courtyard, where the bishop was waiting for him.

“Your Grace.” The fisherman bowed to the bishop. “I am Marcus. I bring urgent news.”

“The barbarians,” the bishop said. “I know.”

“I have scouted the plains,” Marcus said. “They are drawing closer to the city.”

The bishop fiddled with the gold ring that bit into his fat finger. “I see.”

“But there is still time, Your Grace,” Marcus said. “I have already spoken with the other fishermen in the lagoon. They are willing to ferry your people across. You just need to …”

“Pray, my son.” The bishop looked to the heavens and clasped his hands.

“Er, pray?” Now was not the time to be petulant, Marcus reminded himself. If humoring the bishop was what it took to convince him to evacuate the city, then that’s what he would do. He clasped his hands and kneeled, believing that the bishop wished him to join in a short petition to his god.

“No, no, my son.” The bishop touched Marcus’s shoulder and ushered him to stand. “I must pray for a sign.”

“I don’t understand, Your Grace,” Marcus asked. “What sign?”

“A sign for what to do next.”

“With all due respect, Your Grace, I think what must be done is quite clear. You must get out of the city,” Marcus said, “fast.”

The bishop nodded. “Fast … yes, yes. That is a very good idea.”

Marcus sighed with relief. “I will ready the boats.”

“Boats? No, my son. We should fast while we pray for guidance,” the bishop said. “I shall instruct the city to do so today. Thank you for your service, Marcus. You may go now.”

“But, Your Grace …”

“You may go.”

Marcus went through a choice list of expletives, unable to decide which suited the bishop the best. He dismissed each as far too generous. He stomped down the streets of Altinum, eager to return to his home.

More birds flew noisily above him. He glanced up at the sky. It had darkened, but not by clouds. It was smoke from the villages being torched outside the city’s walls. Marcus imagined a certain man roasting on a spit, but to his disappointment, he took no pleasure in the image. He wondered
why he still cared about what happened to Altinum, pretending that he did not already know the answer. He was making his way to it now.

He wondered what he would find when he got there. So much of the city had changed since he had lived in it. But it wasn’t the villas, plazas, or paved streets that were different. These were relatively the same despite their state of neglect. It was its people that had changed. Their eyes now held the same fear that the barbarian tribes once had when they were forced to bow down to Rome.

But the tide had turned. It was now irreversibly—and perhaps even justly—rushing back to sweep what was left of the empire away.

The small home was tucked away at the end of a short alley. Blowing in its courtyard, like brightly colored sails, were freshly dyed fabrics, drying in the sun. To Marcus, it was an oasis in a city that had faded to gray. It was just as he had left it.

He smiled as he watched two young dark-haired boys weave through the rainbow of cloth, in the thick of an imaginary battle raging in the cobbled yard. Hearing them laugh, Marcus could forget that their world was about to end. Almost. But perhaps, he thought, as the little soldiers waved their wooden swords at a retreating barbarian horde of clucking hens, there was still something that could be done.

A woman leaning a clay jar of ocher dye on her hip approached him. Her two young sons dashed past her as they celebrated their victory with shouts and cheers. “Can I help you?”

Marcus smiled. “Yes, I think you can.”

Ionus, the cloth dyer, stared at his guest in disbelief when the man had finished telling him of his plan. The stranger’s amber eyes were filled with worry and doubt. Ionus was now beginning to regret inviting this man who claimed to be his uncle into their home, but he had come to him with a truth he could not ignore: the Lombards were indeed upon them.
The refuge across the lagoon the fisherman offered his family was something he could not refuse. The man’s other agenda, however, was more difficult to accept.

“I’m sorry, but that is simply the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.” Ionus set his cup down. Warm watered-down wine sloshed to the table.

“Perhaps you have other ideas?” Marcus asked. “I’d be happy to hear them.”

“Well, no, but …”

“These are the facts before us,” Marcus said. “The barbarians will overrun this city and you, your family, and everyone else here will die—unless you come with me. I cannot save Altinum, but I can save you. The fate of the rest of Altinum is in the hands of another man, a bishop who has chosen to starve himself while waiting for his sign.”

“But what you are proposing is blasphemous,” Ionus said.

“What I propose,” Marcus said, “is that we answer the good bishop’s prayers.” He pushed his stool from the table and stood up. “And now, if you could set aside your skepticism for a moment, we can get to work saving your family.”

His wife and sons were asleep when Ionus set the pots Marcus had just used for his project away. He was still not convinced of Marcus’s plan, but he had very little choice in the matter. Though what the fisherman asked him to do confounded him, it had made him feel less helpless. It was better than just waiting for the end to come.

“You’ve been a great help, Ionus.” Marcus set the basket containing their night’s work aside.

“I still don’t understand what we just did, but I suppose I simply have to trust you on this. I don’t have any other choice.”

“Of course you do,” Marcus said. “You can always opt to watch the city, and everyone in it, burn.”

“That’s not much of an alternative, is it?” Ionus sighed.

Marcus shrugged. “But a choice, nonetheless.”

“May I ask you a question, Uncle?”

Marcus nodded.

“Why do you care about what happens to me and my family? We have been strangers up until today.”

“Would you care less about your sons if years passed before you saw them next?”

“Well, no. Of course not.”

“You have your answer, then. Blood cannot be thinned by time or distance.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Ionus said. “But this plan of yours … I fear it puts us in greater danger. And even if it does work, what happens after we leave home?”

“You won’t be leaving it,” Marcus said.

“But you said …”

“I said that you would need to leave this city. As for your home …” Marcus glanced in the direction of the room where Ionus’s wife and sons slept. “I believe they shall fit in my boat.”

“Why have you returned? What news do you bring?” The bishop questioned his decision to see this bothersome man again. It was the second day of his fast and he blamed his gnawing hunger for his poor judgment. He had originally thought dealing with the fisherman would help keep his mind off his grumbling stomach, but now it was growling louder than ever.

“Thank you for seeing me again, Your Grace,” Marcus said. “I was just wondering if you have received the sign you have been praying for.”

The famished bishop shook his head. “No, but God’s ways are not our own. I have faith that He will reveal His plan to me in His own time.”

“Hopefully, before you faint from hunger,” Marcus muttered under his breath.

“Did you say something, my son?”

“I said I hope it doesn’t take much longer. You don’t have much time left.”

“Is there anything else you wanted, my son?” the bishop said sharply.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Marcus said. “I am returning to the lagoon and I wanted to give you this before I left.” He handed the bishop a cloth-covered basket. “Please accept this humble gift as a token of my gratitude for taking the time to listen to a simple fisherman.”

“Thank you, my son,” the bishop said. “What is it?”

“Salt,” Marcus said, “from the lagoon, Your Grace. And a little something that I have found to go particularly well with it.”

The bishop had not eaten or drunk anything the whole day and was feeling light-headed. He stared at the basket. A half dozen hard-boiled eggs stared back at him. He licked his lips.

Just one, he thought. He did, after all, need to keep up his strength to lead his flock. Never did they need him more than in these trying times. So in truth, he decided, eating an egg—or two—was, in fact, his duty.

The bishop said a short prayer of thanks before partaking of his spiritually fortifying meal. He tapped the top of the egg on the table and began to peel off its shell. And there it was—his burning bush—the sign he had been waiting for. What the bishop held up joyfully in his hands wasn’t a bush, of course, nor was it burning—just slightly warm at most. But it didn’t matter. He was certain that it was the message he had prayed for, even if he didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant. His fingers trembled as he hastened to peel the rest of the eggs. Written on the egg whites were the same miraculous words that would fill his dreams that evening:
Follow the chickens
.

The sun was barely up when the old secretary ran into the bishop’s room. “Your Grace! Your Grace!”

The bishop bolted up from his bed. “What is it?”

“Your Grace, the chickens!” The secretary’s wattle jiggled. “Look outside your window.”

The bishop rose and lumbered to the window. He opened the shutters and looked out into the street. He laughed. “Of course!”

It was an impossible sight. Chickens, unmoving like statues, dotted the road. They seemed to mark a trail—a path that the bishop was determined to follow. He ran into the street.

The trail of chickens ended at the foot of the city gates’ tall marble tower. The bishop wondered what to do next. A cock crowed from the top of the tower just as the chickens below began to stir. The bishop bounded up the tower two steps at a time, filled with the energy of his younger, forgotten self. The paralyzing weight of insecurity and abandonment fell away as he climbed. A lighter man emerged at the top.

The bishop looked out from the tower. The lagoon sparkled in the sun. The meaning of the message given to him became clear. In the horizon, he saw his city’s salvation—an island he would later call Torcello. As he lifted his hands to the heavens and praised his god, a fisherman on the lagoon rowed his family to their new beginning. Later that day many more boats would come to ferry the bishop’s flock.