The Divining (20 page)

     Sebastianus added, "He will see that you are safely delivered into your mother's care in Jerusalem." He looked at her for another long moment,
and then on an impulse took her by the shoulders, drew her close, and said in a husky voice, "Ulrika, all going well and the gods willing, I will arrive in Babylon within six weeks. I plan not to depart for the Far East until the festival of the summer solstice, for the day after is the most propitious day in the year to begin a long journey. After you find your mother and learn the whereabouts of Shalamandar, join me in Babylon. I shall wait until the last possible moment before departing for China."

     "Yes," she whispered. "I will join you in Babylon." She reached up to touch Sebastianus's jaw, and when her fingertips met the fine, bronze-colored stubble of his beard, she saw—

     Sebastianus frowned. "What is it?"

     Ulrika opened her mouth but couldn't speak.

     He waited, wondering if she were receiving a vision. He had witnessed it before, had seen her delicate nostrils flare, her pupils dilate. The color left her face, and the skin at her temples grew taut.

     Outside, over the sleeping city of Antioch, a cloud sailed across the moon and bright stars, plunging the rooms of the inn into darkness. Momentarily blinded, Sebastianus and Ulrika felt their other senses heighten. Sebastianus felt Ulrika's warm skin beneath his hands as he continued to hold her shoulders, making him think of the softness of swans and mist. Ulrika smelled the rain still on him, reminding her of verdant forests and meadows. He heard her gentle respirations. She felt his warmth.

     And then the cloud sailed on, like a great trireme across the ocean of night, and starlight washed once more into the small room at the inn. Sebastianus saw a pale, feminine face. She saw eyes the color of a meadow.

     "There is treachery in your party," she finally said. "One of your men, who is close to you, will betray you."

     "Who? Which one?"

     "I do not know. I cannot see his face."

     The truth was, there was no face to see, for it was not a true vision that had just visited her, but a
feeling.
As her fingertips had touched Sebastianus's face, the most overwhelming sense of disappointment and disillusionment swept over her. Utter betrayal. Like a physical blow, and it was going to knock the spirit out of Sebastianus Gallus.

     "Is it perhaps one of Primo's recruits?"

     She shook her head. "He is a friend."

     "I trust all who are close to me," he said, "but I also trust
you
, Ulrika, and your instincts. And so I will be careful and watchful. We will say farewell in the morning, when we depart at the caravanserai."

     Ulrika watched him cross the hall and slip into his own room. Closing her door, she stayed with her back to it and whispered to the gods, "Please take care of this man. Watch over him. Bring him safely back to me."

     Sebastianus didn't even have to knock. Ulrika already knew he had come back, that he stood now on the other side of her door. She opened it and there he was, the cloak gone, bare chest and arms exposed, a look of hunger and uncertainty on his face. He held out his hand and Ulrika saw the scallop shell from an ancient altar in Galicia. "Take this," he said. "It holds great power."

     She took the shell, vowing to wear it always.

     "I need to touch you," he whispered.

     She looked up into his eyes and felt them embrace her, draw her inside, into his mind and heart. "And I, you," she said.

     They reached for each other at the same time, arms gliding perfectly against each other, slipping into and around the right places, with Ulrika delivering herself into a refuge she had yearned for and Sebastianus drawing a sweetness to himself that he had hungered for. Their mouths met in heat and passion. Each tasted the other. Hands hurriedly explored, grasped, kneaded. Words came whispered breathlessly through clenched lips: "I want—" "I need—" "You are—" "We are—"

     Ulrika pressed herself to Sebastianus and felt his hardness. She burst into flame, or so it felt, her skin so hot now and damp and wanting to be devoured by the Galician's mouth. And Sebastianus wanted to delve into her, to join his body and life force to hers, to become part of her, making her part of him.

     But then they heard a crash, and heavy footfall, and the grumpy voice of Timonides in the next room as he was apparently packing his bags and complaining, and speaking very loudly of the urgency with which they must be going.

     Reluctantly, Sebastianus drew back. "It seems we are not to know a
moment alone together," he said, glancing toward the wall which almost vibrated with the energy of the astrologer's industry. "Timonides meant it when he said the stars have commanded us to hurry."

     Why? she wanted to ask, hating the feel of his withdrawal, the cold air that rushed between them, the awful emptiness that now filled her arms. And the burning of her lips, the tingling on her tongue. She did not want to stop.

     "Ulrika," Sebastianus said as he drew her close one last time, "I want to stay with you, be with you. But Timonides is right. I must go. To love you and to enjoy your love in return—such a privilege and luxury cannot be mine, not now that I am under Caesar's command."

     He bent and kissed her forehead.

     "Ulrika, Ulrika," he said, filling his mouth with her name. "It is said that Eros, the god of love and desire, is continually taking humans apart and putting them back together. And it is true! My former self has been utterly shattered and re-shaped. The man I once was, so guarded in his feelings, so in control of his heart, no longer exists. Why Eros singled me out for this particular joy, I do not know, but I still firmly hold that I am not deserving of it.

     "I do not want to leave you! But I must do as the stars dictate, for it is the will of the gods. No man can defy his stars, for they map out his destiny. This I believe most passionately and with all my heart: there is an order to the universe. And if the gods deem we not join again in Babylon, then I pray that you find what you are looking for, and the answers to the mysteries within yourself. And when I come back from China, and surely I will for the stars have promised, I will search for you, and I
will
find you, my dearest Ulrika."

T
HE PUNGENT SMELL OF
lamb's wool and goat hides mingled with the scent from the oil lamp as Ulrika struck a flint and lit the wick.

     Flickering light illuminated the tent, which was still dark inside as the sun had yet to rise. Soon, sunlight would flood the tent and cooking aromas would invade the cloistered atmosphere of her private tent.

     As Ulrika combed her long hair, she paused to lay her hand upon the scallop shell on her breast, its presence a reassuring promise of her reunion with Sebastianus. She and her escort had left Antioch weeks ago, but in the time since, she had been unsuccessful in finding her mother in Jerusalem. And so Ulrika had given orders to Syphax to take her to Babylon, where she would join Sebastianus's caravan.

     Her heart raced at the thought of seeing him again. When they had said farewell in Antioch, to follow their separate roads, Ulrika had not been prepared for the terrible feeling of emptiness that had filled her in the days that followed. As she had ridden in the covered carriage, in the escort of Syphax
and his men, following an ancient road southward, an unaccustomed sadness had enveloped her. She had needed to tap into all her will power to keep from giving orders to turn back and join Sebastianus.

     She could not bear to be parted from him.

     She and her escort had left Jerusalem the day before and stopped for the night at the base of the hills that looked out upon a bleak, arid region of unending rock and sand. Their next stop was Jericho, from which they would take an ancient trade route across the desert to Babylon. Ulrika trembled with excitement. She had spent every waking moment thinking about Sebastianus, their last night together in Antioch, their passionate kiss. She would close her eyes and feel him again, his body, his power. His touch. His taste. In Babylon, Ulrika and Sebastianus would be free to love at last.

     And then Sebastianus will go to China while I search for Shalamandar and its crystal pools. My love and I will be reunited after that, of this I am sure.

     Stepping out of the tent, Ulrika was surprised to find, in the crisp pale dawn, a deserted campsite. She looked around. Syphax and his men were nowhere to be seen. Had they gone hunting, perhaps? Or in search of fuel for the fire? As sunlight broke over the ragged cliffs, illuminating the campsite, Ulrika saw that the horses and pack mules and tents were gone.

     Turning in a slow circle, she scanned the wilderness, the sharp wind in her face, and all she saw were barren cliffs and dun-colored hills. Golden rays of dawn were dissolving shadows in their path, leaving a tawny wilderness to stretch in all directions beneath a clear blue sky. There was little greenery, despite the spring equinox having just been celebrated. This barren land was populated with rocks and stones, boulders and sand, canyons and plateaus—but no people.

     Ulrika knew why the men had snuck off into the night: she had told Syphax she was out of money and that he and his men would only be compensated when they re-joined his employer's caravan. Ulrika knew the sort of men Syphax and his comrades were: men who followed the nearest coin. They had grumbled about going to China and falling off the edge of the earth. This would have been their chance to cut ties with Sebastianus Gallus and find safer and more profitable employment elsewhere. No
doubt they had heard of more lucrative employment while they were in Jerusalem.

     At least, Ulrika saw with relief, they had not left her without provisions. At the doorway of the tent were a sack of lentils, a bag of bread, and a generous waterskin. And they had left one donkey, its tether tied to a rock while the beast munched on weeds.

     As the sun crested the hilltops, Ulrika took her bearings. Jericho lay a few miles to the northeast. Directly ahead, although she could not see it, lay the Sea of Salt, the terminus of the Jordan River. I will go east, she decided, and turn northward when I reach the sea. At Jericho I can join a caravan to Babylon.

     She decided she would leave the tent, as it was too cumbersome to dismantle, fold, and pack onto the donkey. The little creature would carry the food, water, and her possessions, and she would walk. But as Ulrika bent to pick up the sacks, she saw with dismay that they had been slit open, the contents scattered and covered in bird droppings. Ruined! The waterskin, too, had been cut. In alarm she saw animal prints in the sand, left by the paws of a giant cat—a lion or leopard. And the water had long since seeped into the earth.

     Which meant she was alone in the Judean wilderness without food or water.

     T
HE MORNING AIR WAS
fresh and biting, the sky a deep blue with scattered white clouds. Ulrika led the donkey by its tether, her travel packs and medical box tied to its back. She picked her way around rocks and boulders, expecting the terrain to flatten soon and show more growth. Although it was spring, and rains had recently visited this region, the wilderness blossoms and grasses were already withering and drying up, leaving only dun-colored hills with deep ravines.

     With the sun in her eyes, Ulrika trekked steadily eastward, looking for signs of habitation, even if just a lone shepherd's tent. But as the sun climbed in the sky and the day grew warm, she encountered no other souls. A wild
donkey fled from their path, and birds circled overhead. Ulrika kept her eye out for leopards and lions, for surely at her slow pace, she must appear easy prey.

     It was a desolate land, the barren, striated hills pocked with caves, like dovecotes, one of which had been the abode, long ago, of two women who lived in a cave with their father. Ulrika had heard the local legend of two sisters who were childless and without husbands, and who had conspired to get their father drunk, have sex with him, and thereby perpetuate the family line. The story went that they were successful in seducing their father, a man named Lot, and became pregnant with sons who went on to be patriarchs of new nations.