The Divining (4 page)

     She thought of the snow-blanketed Rhineland, pictured her warrior father as her mother had described him so many times—tall, muscular, with a fierce, proud brow. If he had left Persia twenty years ago, as her mother said, then he would have arrived in Germania after the peace treaties had been signed and the region was stable and no longer at war with Rome. Wulf would have had to settle down, as so many of his compatriots did, to occupations and farming. It was only because of Claudius's recent decree that Colonia be elevated in status, and that the forests surrounding the colony be cleared for settlement, that old wounds were opened, old hatreds flared anew, and fightin g began again.

     Was it possible? Could her father be among those fighters?
Was he perhaps the new hero leading his people in rebellion?

     Now she understood the meaning of her wolf dream. It had indeed been a sign that she was to go to the Rhineland.

     When Ulrika was younger and learning everything she could about her father's people, her mother had gone to one of Rome's many bookshops and purchased the latest map of Germania. Together, mother and daughter had analyzed the topographical features and, based upon how Wulf had described his home to Selene, down to the very curve of the tributary that fed the Rhine, they had been able to locate the place where his clan lived. There, Wulf had said, his mother was the clan caretaker of an ancient sacred site.

     Selene had marked the spot in ink: the sacred grove of the Goddess of the Red-Gold Tears, explaining to her daughter, "It is said that Freya so loved her husband that whenever he went on long journeys, she wept tears of red-gold."

     Hurrying to the mahogany storage chest that stood at the foot of her bed, Ulrika dropped to her knees and lifted the heavy lid to search through the linens and childhood clothes and precious mementoes from a life of wandering. She found the map and unrolled it with trembling hands. There was the place, still marked, indicating where Wulf's clan lived.

     She pressed the map to her bosom, feeling courage suddenly flood her veins, and a new sense of purpose. And urgency as well. Gaius Vatinius was
mustering his legions at that very moment. They were to begin their northward march tomorrow.

     She reached for her robe. I must tell Mother. I must apologize for the selfish way I acted, ask forgiveness for my disrespect, and then ask her to help me plan my new journey.

     But Ulrika found her mother's apartment dark and silent, and she did not wish to waken her. Selene worked long days, tirelessly helping others.

     She would return in the morning.

U
LRIKA WAS WAKENED BY
her slaves as they brought breakfast and hot water for bathing. But she was anxious to make amends with her mother, and share the wonderful news.

     I will need money, Ulrika decided as she approached the closed door. I will take only a few slaves with me so that I can travel quickly. Mother will know which route is best to take, the quickest. Gaius Vatinius is leaving today with a legion of sixty centuries—six thousand men. I must reach Germania before they do. I must find my father's secret camp, warn them—

     "I am sorry, mistress," Erasmus, the old major domo, said as he opened Selene's bedroom door. "Your mother is not here. She was called away before dawn on an urgent errand. A difficult birth . . . she might be gone for two days."

     Two days! Ulrika wrung her hands. She dared not linger even one day.

     "Do you know where she went, to whose house?"

     But the old man did not know where in the city his mistress had gone.

     Ulrika tried to think. Rome was vast, its population huge. Her mother could be anywhere in the endless warren of streets and alleys.

     Hurrying back to her rooms, Ulrika altered her plans, thinking: I can do this on my own. Mother will understand. How many times did we leave a town or a village suddenly and under the cover of night? How often did we stay on the move because of Mother's personal quest?

     Retrieving a clean sheet of papyrus from her writing desk, moistening a cake of ink, softening it with the tip of a reed pen, Ulrika thought for a moment, and then wrote: "Mother, I am leaving Rome. I believe my father is still alive, and I must warn him of Gaius Vatinius's plan to ambush his warriors. I want to help in the fight. And then I want to learn about his people,
my
people."

     Ulrika paused to listen to the house come to life as slaves addressed their chores, voices called out, the creaky old voice of Erasmus barked orders. She saw the draperies over her windows stir with spring breezes, and she shivered with excitement and pride and newly found purpose. She thought of the people she was going to meet in those magical forests of which she had so often dreamed. And she realized, in surprise, that there was more to her quest, there were more reasons for her hurrying now to her father's homeland—it had to do with her secret sickness, the visions and dreams and knowing things that had frightened her in her childhood and which seemed to have returned. Perhaps that was the reason for the wolf vision the night before, perhaps the answer to her sickness—and the cure—would be found among her father's warrior people, in the misty forests of the far north.

     She resumed writing. "I have been without a father for nineteen years. I want to make up for that lost time. And I want to give something back to the man who gave me life. I love you, Mother. You protected me when I was featherless and my nest was fragile. You said that I was a gift from the Goddess, the miracle child that came to you in your lonely exile, and as such you somehow knew that I was never completely yours, that the Goddess would call me someday to a special task. I believe that call is at hand. I believe I am soon to find out where I belong, and in belonging there, will understand who I am.

     "Dearest Mother, I will love you and honor you always, and I pray that we are together again someday. And wherever my path takes me, Mother, whatever destiny awaits me, I will keep you in my heart."

     She sprinkled dust over the ink, to dry it and set it, and as she rolled the papyrus and sealed the scroll with red wax, a tear fell from her eye onto the paper. She looked at the small water stain as it spread and then stopped, forming a curious little shape that resembled a star.

     In the atrium, she found Erasmus overseeing the cleaning of marble birdbaths. Ulrika trusted no one but him to see that her mother got the letter. "Yes yes, mistress," Erasmus said, bobbing his bald head as he tucked the scroll into one of the many secret pockets of his colorful robe. "As soon as the Lady returns, I will give it to her."

     As Ulrika carefully put together a traveling pack, her thoughts went round and round. How was she going to get to the far north? Colonia was almost at the top of the world. Should she take slaves or go alone? She briefly considered seeking Aunt Paulina's advice, or that of her best friend. And then she dismissed the notion, knowing that they would try to persuade her from this mission.

     Her sturdiest clothes went into the pack, with toilet articles, money, a spare cloak. Then she took things from her mother's medical stores: jars of medicines, bags of herbs, bread mold, bandages, a scalpel, and sutures.

     She left the villa without saying good-bye, and walked resolutely to the Forum, where she bought food and a skin of water from the marketplace.

     Turning toward the main road that led through the city walls and northward into the countryside, Ulrika walked quickly, praying that the Goddess was with her, praying for the All-Mother to give her the strength to turn her back on the only family she had ever known, the only world—and to face an unknown destiny with courage and conviction.

S
EBASTIANUS GALLUS PACED ANXIOUSLY
as he awaited word from his personal star-reader. They
had
to leave Rome today.

     The prosperous caravan leader, a broad-shouldered young man with bronze-colored hair and closely cropped beard, paused in front of his tent to observe his old friend.

     The fat Greek was seated at a low table in the morning sunshine, bent over charts and star-maps, tools of his astrological trade in his chubby hands. Timonides had served the Gallus family all his life, for as long as Sebastianus could remember, and the wealthy trader never made a move without first consulting with the astrologer. This morning, however, something was wrong and Sebastianus was worried.

     Timonides was a man of girth and gusto, having always been robust with never a day of illness. But he had been stricken recently by an affliction that was adversely affecting his ability to cast accurate horoscopes. Sebastianus had taken old Timonides to the best doctors in Rome, but all had
shaken their heads and said there was nothing to be done, Timonides was doomed to live in pain for the rest of his life.

     As he waited for poor Timonides, gray-faced with agony, to cast the day's horoscope, Sebastianus twisted the large gold bracelet on his right arm and squinted through the haze of a hundred morning campfires. The north-south caravan staging area lay beyond the city walls on the Via Flaminia.

     This northern terminus, where Sebastianus Gallus was temporarily headquartered in a small compound of tents, merchandise, and workers, was alive with the hustle and bustle of caravans gathering from all corners of the earth, arriving with new goods or preparing to depart for far-off destinations. In the case of young Gallus, his own caravan, consisting of carriages, wagons, horses, mules, and slaves, was overdue for departure to Germania Inferior at the northern reaches of the Rhine River, where settlements were awaiting fresh shipments of Spanish wine, Egyptian cereal, Italian textiles, and assorted luxuries Sebastianus had picked up from traders who came from Egypt, Africa, and India.

     They were to have departed two days ago, but Sebastianus dared not move from his private camp until Timonides said the stars had given permission. Sebastianus devoutly believed that the gods revealed their messages through the heavens and that a man needed only observe the celestial writing in stars, planets, moon, and comets to know which path he must take. But he had not anticipated his star-reader to be crippled by a mysterious ailment, leaving Gallus to watch helplessly as other merchants and traders called to their men to pull up stakes and strike off for the north, east, or west.

     "Over here, miss! That man will cheat you whereas I am an honest man! I will take you anywhere you wish to go!"

     Sebastianus turned in the direction of the barked words, recognizing the trumpet voice of Hashim al Adnan, a dark-skinned Arab who made a small fortune carrying Egyptian papyrus to book manufacturers in the north. He stood beneath the striped awning of his own tent, and appeared to be trying to steal a customer from a fellow caravan leader, a barrel-chested Syrian named Kaptah the Ninth (as he was the ninth of fifteen children). Kaptah was surrounded by amphorae filled with olive oil, ready to go north
into alpine settlements, and he made a rude gesture at Hashim. Then he turned to the potential customer and said, "That man is a pig, dear lady. He will rob you blind and leave you in the mountains for the ravens to peck your eyes out. I am the most honest man around, ask anyone."

     Trade caravans accepted independent travelers as long as they paid well and could take care of themselves. The protection of large caravans was the safest way to travel, whether on business or to visit relatives or just casual tourism. Sebastianus himself had that morning accepted a group of brothers heading to Masilia to attend a wedding. They had their own carriage and were paying handsomely for the safe escort.

     Sebastianus studied the object of the competition between Arab and Syrian—a woman. Young, he deduced, from her slender body and bearing. And judging by the rich fabric of her dress, and the
palla
draped over her head, wealthy. Yet there seemed to be no personal slaves accompanying her, no bodyguards. More curious still, she carried bundles on her shoulders, as well as a waterskin and food bag. A young woman traveling alone? Surely she was not going far, to the next village perhaps.