Seeker of Stars: A Novel (5 page)

~ 9 ~

D
elegation

A week later the council reconvened, and Shaz was again presiding. “The king agrees that the Hebrew prophecies are convincing. The ephemerides, the star charts, certainly point to a regal birth in Israel. We believe that the birth of a new king in Israel is the meaning of this star.”

Balzar patted me on the back.

Shaz continued. “The business at hand now is to select a delegation to represent our king and to deliver the official gifts.”

I looked around, trying to imagine who would be sent. When I had first joined the astronomers’ school, I had been surprised to discover how much rivalry there was. Though I had seen much striving for position when I lived among the merchants, I had not realized how universal the activity was. It was not enough for many of these men to be magi; they wanted positions at the king’s court, and they would peck and strike at anyone who stood in the way.

My first day in the city I had learned several important lessons. One was that I had not been accepted into the astronomy school; I had been accepted to be tested. The other was that the test would be harder for me than for the others, simply because no one knew my family.

Breeding and family counted to Shaz more than to anyone else. Being the nephew of the chief astronomer had gotten him further than my mere calculations had, and he was all too aware of the benefits of a system that promoted its sons. The decision regarding the delegation to the new king would not be Shaz’s alone, however. The chief astronomer was responsible for such choices. The process was a delicate one, done publicly in council as it was. Raised eyebrows, averted glances, cleared throats were all part of the subtle game I had seen played before.

“Our king has asked for four magi as well as servants,” Shaz explained. “Horses will of course be made available, and king’s guards will secure the gifts.”

His face expressionless, the chief astronomer gestured in Shaz’s direction. “We would, of course, be honored to have you, Alshazak, lead our delegation.”

As Shaz bowed in ritual agreement, I could see his eyes glow with the pleasure of being recognized.

The chief astronomer’s second choice was equally predictable: his other son-in-law, Caspar. I wondered once again how my own career might have advanced had Stela chosen me instead of Shaz. Not that I had ever expected it. I had learned the politics of the magi early on.

Choosing the remaining candidates proved a more difficult matter. The chief astronomer listened to requests from several rising young men, but there was no obvious candidate from among them.

Finally Hasin, Balzar’s son, nudged his father. “Tell them your dream, Father,” he urged.

At this, all ears perked up. Dreams were held in high regard among the magi, and the telling of dreams was an art form of which Balzar was a master.

Balzar rose to his feet slowly, clasped his hands in front of his stomach in his customary posture, and began. “At this time last year, I awoke from sleep with my dream carefully and fully preserved as if in wax. Joy filled my heart as I thought in my bed upon this dream. I have long pondered its meaning and wondered if it foretold my death. Lately I have begun to wonder if it might foretell something else.

“In my dream, I was traveling across the desert by night, as I have not done for twenty years. I was not alone, but I did not recognize my companions. We rode on horses, not camels. I felt we were being pulled to a destination, one I eagerly anticipated but did not know. The stars guided us in their song.

“I sorrowed to awaken from this dream, so real it seemed.”

Balzar sank back into his chair. Describing the dream had brought him a smile as of a happy memory. His description had been more brief than most dream stories, but there was a ring of authenticity to it.

Discussion of Balzar’s dream and its interpretation was lengthy. At first, magi tried to be tactful, but Balzar cut through their fine words. “We must state the matter plainly: I am old. My health is uncertain. If I were chosen to be part of this delegation, it is altogether possible the journey could kill me. I am aware of this. I am also aware that I could die in my comfortable bed tomorrow. I am not afraid to try.”

“The trip will be strenuous,” Caspar pointed out.

“But this task is one of diplomacy. We require wisdom, not might,” argued another.

“And there are dangers on the highway.”

“If Balzar were to become ill …?”

“I could be left behind.”

“It would not slow our trip.”

“Nor is speed the essential thing.”

“Except that our king wants a prompt delivery of his gifts to the new king,” Shaz reminded. “I do not think Bal—”

The chief astronomer interrupted Shaz. “Balthazar’s dream is persuasive. I appoint him as our final representative.”

As the magi began rising from this long council, I had to speak. “You’ve only chosen three.”

The chief astronomer looked at me. “I thought it was understood, Melchior.”

I shook my head.

“As the one responsible for the discovery of the prophetic scroll,” said the chief astronomer, “you will join the delegation to Jerusalem.”

The moment stood still with clarity. I saw Shaz roll his eyes, heard the cacophony of laughter from those who evidently thought it was a good joke that I hadn’t realized my reward. Balzar squeezed my shoulder. My heart filled with delight as my skin prickled with astonishment. I had watched the negotiations of many councils. I knew myself to be a perpetual spectator to the politics, and now, with no effort or ambition on my part, I was chosen.

The stars shone in the heavens as I floated home, too dazed and delighted to discuss the matter further.

Reta was already in bed when I crept in, though she awoke at my entrance. Her sleep had become more and more fragmented as the pregnancy progressed. She knew the subject of our council, and, yawning as she rolled over, she said, “Let me guess: Shaz and Caspar.”

“They chose me.”

“You!” Reta sat up and looked full in my face. “Are you joking?”

I shook my head. Reta stood up, walked slowly across the room, then stopped and came back to sit on the bed. “You. Going,” she said. With her hair around her shoulders, she looked like a young girl. Her lips quivered, and then tears coursed silently down her cheeks. I reached an arm out, but she shook it off and stroked her hair with her hands.

“Are you not happy?” I asked carefully. “It’s a great honor.”

She looked up, tears still streaming from her eyes. “Oh, Melchior,” she said, “it is such an honor I had never dreamed of. I feel struck with it—like a blow. It is a shock.”

“A good shock.”

She held her face in her hands as if to steady herself. Her small voice floated up through her hair. “When—when will you leave?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t discuss details.”

“Days? Weeks?”

“Days likely,” I said. “As soon as the stars are favorable. Shaz will want to get going.”

“And the trip will take—”

“One month. Possibly two.”

She looked up at me, tears spent, eyes flat. “Your child is expected in one month or possibly two.”

She said nothing else to me before I left two days later, other than what was absolutely necessary. She said nothing when in guilt and haste I brought home a birthing chair and a basket and set them up. She said nothing when I told her Balzar had arranged for two Hebrew midwives to visit and to be prepared to deliver the child. She said nothing at my eyes, which were rimmed red with tears, or my kiss as I prepared to leave.

“I will hurry back,” I said. “You know I have no choice, but I will hurry home.”

Eyes dulled, Reta handed me my bags, so hurriedly packed, and food she had prepared, and recited a blessing.

“The Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you.”

~ 10 ~

B
reach

It was an inauspicious start, but once the city was behind us, I sighed with relief. The stars were indeed promising for journeying, and so it had been two days of intense emotion and feverish activity. Now nothing more could be done. I settled on my mount, trying to look as though riding a horse was something I did regularly, when in fact I had ridden a horse only once before.

It had been Stela’s birthday, and her father had thrown a lavish party for her. I had never quite been sure of my role when I lived with the chief astronomer. I was permitted to eat at the table with the family, and I could reply to their direct questions and smile at their jokes, but I soon realized I was not to initiate conversation. I became an adept watcher, my every nerve strung tight, while I appeared, I hoped, merely preoccupied with my meals. When a voice addressed my general direction, my head would whip up, so prepared was I to participate. I felt ashamed at my eagerness, and at times, I wished for the easy conversations of the servants’ tables, where merchants were welcome.

Since my first night in the city, such arrangements had split my family. As the chief astronomer’s daughter, Stela had been permitted to lead me to the dining table, while my uncle and brother were left outdoors to eat with the slaves and servants. It was that way each time our caravan arrived for a visit. The laughter and voices floating in through a distant window made me long for my brother’s position, while desire was plain on Salvi’s face as he took in Stela’s beauty. To this day, I am not sure whether it was more my brother’s envy or my own infatuation with Stela that caused the breach with Leyla.

Stela had blue eyes. I had never before seen anyone with blue eyes, and hers were white-blue, blazing in her golden face. Her hair was hennaed red, and she wore it in elaborate designs. She had the bearing of a young queen, and I was utterly captivated by her manner. Still, I was aware that if I held a limbo position at the astronomer’s table, much more uncertain were my chances with his daughter.

And I was in love with Leyla. I wrote her long letters, and she replied to each with packages of figs and wine. My sister included small drawings and little stones until she learned to write for herself, which was around the time Leyla ceased to correspond with me. Leyla had never liked to reveal much, but she wrapped each fig carefully and responded promptly so that I knew I was secure in her heart.

Once a year, I was permitted to go home for the harvest festivals. The first year I saw Leyla many times and spent only one night on my father’s roof with Omar and Reta, who were eager to learn of my discoveries and lessons among the astronomers. I was willing to teach too, but not as desirous as I was to see Leyla. I concocted excuses of taking food and wine to Aunt Babu’s, where I met Leyla and walked her home. Since she had begun to imagine herself as the future bride of a magus, gone were the provocative attempts of years past. Leyla was quiet, though when I kissed her cheek, I could feel a shudder of desire run through her body. Before she ran indoors, cheeks flushed, she smiled.

Before my second visit home, Omar died of fever, and I mourned his death as that of a brother. When I went home for the harvest, my heart was a heavy stone. Omar’s mother, still in high mourning, clutched me to her breast, keening and sobbing. She pulled a bundle from her robes, thrust it into my hands, patted my head as if I were a little boy, and returned to her solitary grief.

I waited until I was alone on the roof that night before I opened the bundle. It contained Omar’s stargazing cloak. He had made himself one after I showed him my own blue apprentice cloak and described the black cloaks worn by the astronomers. Omar’s coat was pieced together from scraps of different fabrics.

“The apprentice’s apprentices all wear such cloaks,” he had joked.

Now it was mine, along with a half-finished letter Omar had been writing me before the fever struck.

The shooting stars that night mirrored my tears. Succeeding waves of remembrance would pass over me, and my tears would course forth again and again. When at last I came downstairs, Reta was sitting alone at the table. I indicated the robe, and she nodded.

“He loved figs and jokes,” I said

“And stars,” she added.

“And stars.” I stood silent in the half light with Reta and became aware that she and I were now man and woman, and that with Omar gone, it would be unseemly for me to look at stars with her. “You understand, Reta, that we cannot—the stars—it wouldn’t be—”

“I know,” she said. “That’s what Omar said.”

I suddenly wondered about Omar and Reta. In my mind, I had been the force drawing us all together and upward to the stars. I had been away two years. Omar had never mentioned Reta in his letters, but I had never asked. A wave of a different emotion swept over me, but I dismissed the jealousy as foolish. I didn’t know how to speak of Omar to Reta. Was he—had he been her lover? At the very least, he had been a friend to her in this country so far from her home.

When I arrived back in the city, I could not decide what to do with Omar’s ragtag robe. Part of me wanted to wear it under my usual robe when we went observing, but I did not want to be subjected to the usual teasing such aberrations caused. I decided I would wear it to sleep and left it hanging over my bed each day.

One day Stela came to my room with a message. Her eyes were drawn to my colorful spectacle with some amusement. “A little gift from your beloved, Melchior?”

I flushed. “My best friend. It was his.”

“A touch of home. How sweet.” She turned to go, but then, with a glance over her shoulder, she paused. “But you do have a girl, don’t you, Melchior?”

I blushed deeper as her eyes burned into me. “Yes,” I managed to say.

“That’s a pity.” Stela’s silk skirts clung to her hips as she walked away.

From that day forward, I sensed I was an amusement to Stela, a plaything. Though I was flattered, not once did I take her seriously. Neither did I realize Stela’s intentions.

Stela began by making light gestures—picking a leaf from my robe or brushing a stray hair behind my ear. She laughed at my jokes and often turned her bright eyes on me at the table. As she helped pass wine around after dinner, she took care to let her arm brush mine.

She was a dazzling butterfly of a girl, and my eyes were delighted by her. At no time did I consider it anything more than Stela’s game and my own incidental pleasure. My useless hand, my social status, my lack of ancestry in the magi meant Stela would never consider me seriously.

My eyes were not so fully taken up with Stela that my ears failed to notice a new voice at our table. As the chief astronomer’s nephew, Shaz had joined our household. Shaz shared his opinions freely on every topic and had a willing audience in his family. Other than his teeth, which reminded me of a camel’s, Shaz was remarkable to look at—tall, bronze-skinned, and sleek-haired. I found his manner distasteful, but I could see how others were drawn to him and how he fed on their attention.

Only Stela stood aloof from this. She was as courteous to Shaz as she was required to be by blood and position. Her blossoming attention to me had made me see her coldness to Shaz by contrast; I admired her judgment of the man.

On Stela’s birthday, her father arranged with his brother to borrow two of the king’s horses for guests to ride. I was waiting for my uncle’s caravan to arrive and was surprised to be invited to join the celebration.

“Ride with me,” Shaz commanded his cousin. Stela wrinkled her nose but was persuaded. I had just ridden with her sister and was still removing my gear when a messenger informed me that my uncle and brother had arrived. Shaz and Stela completed their circuit.

“Melchior!” Stela called. “Come hold my horse while I dismount.” I did as she bid, but as she climbed down, her foot became tangled in the skirt and she slipped. I caught her awkwardly, hindered by my useless hand.

“Thank you, Melchior,” she said, kissing me full on the mouth. It was over in a second and no one commented on it, but when my brother joined me five minutes later, his face wore a dark look of disapproval. I decided not to ask or tell anything, unless he spoke of it, which he did not, but when he left that night the chasm between us had grown wider.

When I arrived home five moons later for the harvest, tension was there, too. Taz and Salvi were going to be late, so the first evening, my father and I went together to Manu’s house. I sat across from Leyla, who was lovelier than ever. I felt no guilt about Stela. Indeed I did not think of her once. Her amusement with me had passed, and I had realized Stela had been using me largely to make herself more desirable in Shaz’s eyes. Once she had succeeded, she relegated me to the status of outsider again, though I liked to think she was kinder than she had been before.

I could not catch Leyla’s eye throughout the meal, and I began to wonder if she, like Stela, was playing a game. After the meal, I began whispering into her ear. She stiffened.

“What is it?” I asked.

She shook her head and delivered wine to our fathers. “The evening is fine,” I heard her say. “Why not sit in the courtyard?” The men agreed, and I heard Leyla promise that I would join them soon. When she turned toward me again, I saw that her face was earnest. She shook her head once more. I reached an arm out to her.

“No, Melchior. I am betrothed now.”

“What?”

“And you—are you not betrothed also?”

“Of course not—what do you mean?”

“Salvi told me everything. The blue-eyed girl in the big house. The kissing. The caressing. And you say you aren’t even betrothed?”

I was aghast. I tried to explain, but I could not translate the culture, the game, Stela, or how it had been only flattery to me. I declared my love plainly for Leyla and begged her to break off the engagement. Tears rolled down her face.

“You belong to a different world now,” she said.

“Do you believe me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, Leyla—you have to believe me.”

She hesitated and shrugged.

“Then marry me!”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I promised him.”

“Who?”

“And I am pregnant.”

I sank to the floor. Leyla belonged to another. My faithful Leyla had been true until she believed me to be unfaithful. “And your betrothed?”

“Salvi.”