The Divining (46 page)

     They were in a hurry to leave Babylon. It was imperative that Sebastianus get his caravan to the Great Green before winter storms closed all sea travel. Emperor Nero would be anxious for a report on the mission, and to see the treasures Sebastianus had brought from China.

     But something unexpected had happened at Daniel's Castle. Word had gotten out that Rabbi Judah was buried there, and that he was continuing to work miracles from the grave. How this happened, Ulrika did not know, but as word spread, and more desperate people visited the ruins, the risk grew that the priests of Marduk would discover Sebastianus's secret rescuing of Judah's body—against priestly orders.

     Ulrika looked at the shadows beneath his eyes and wished she could kiss them away—wished she could take his pain and disillusionment into herself and bring him peace. Sebastianus's faith in the stars had been destroyed. If Timonides had lied all this time, and if a great catastrophe was supposed to have happened, but instead his journey to China was a success, then what did that say of the stars? Although Sebastianus tried to assure Ulrika he was all right, there was a haunted look in his eyes, and at night, while Ulrika held him, Sebastianus wept in his sleep. Sometimes she would wake up and find him outside, looking up at the night sky. "If there are no messages in the stars, then what are the stars for? Are men just twigs being tossed willy-nilly on a raging river with no rudder, no way to steer their courses? And what of the star-stone that fell the night Lucius died? Was it not a message from him after all, but mere coincidence?
Is everything a lie?
"

     The stars had always been his comfort, his companions, his security. And now they were gone.

     The blue-glazed tiles on the towering walls of the Ishtar Gate gleamed in the noontime sun, and a hundred golden dragons stood in frozen splendor. But Ulrika was aware only of a pair of green eyes filled with grief. "Dearest Sebastianus," she said, "my sojourn in Persia taught me that everything happens for a reason. I know now, as you once told me, that nothing is random, that there is indeed order in the universe. When I look back to the day when I made the decision to leave Rome and go north to warn my father's people of a military trap, I was set upon a road by unseen forces, and everything that has happened to me since was for a reason, everything that has happened to us, my dearest Sebastianus, is for a reason. Even Timonides's falsehoods. Ask the Chaldean."

     "I love you, Ulrika," he said now, tenderly, laying his hand on her cheek. "I will see you before the sun sets."

     "And I love you." They kissed again and then Sebastianus drew back and signaled to Primo, who stood a short distance away. "Keep her close, Primo, and be watchful for temple guards."

     Ulrika was uncomfortable riding a horse, except for when Sebastianus was holding her, and as Daniel's Castle was only ten miles away, and the day was balmy and clear, they walked. Ulrika, Timonides, Primo, and six of his trained men followed the busy highway from the city until they came to a small offshoot road, and they took it out into the desert, away from villages and farms until soon they were trekking through desolation.

     At Ulrika's side, Primo strode in silence, his thick soldier's body and ugly face set in grim resolve.

     Quintus Publius, the ambassador from Rome, was due back soon from his visit to the queen of Magna and he had said he wanted to see no sign of the Gallus caravan. Mithras! Primo thought in frustration. If Quintus found Sebastianus still here, he would have the imperial authority, and soldiers to back it, to arrest Sebastianus and confiscate the caravan, taking them all back to Rome in chains.

     They were supposedly leaving tomorrow. Sebastianus had even given orders for the slaves to pack everything up and be prepared to depart at dawn. But even though his master had promised that no matter what the Chaldean in the Babel Tower said today, tomorrow they would leave for
Rome, Primo remained cautious. He had received departure orders before, and they were still in Babylon!

     "What is going on?" Ulrika said suddenly, stopping on the trail. "Look at all these people!"

     The desert track, normally deserted, was busy with traffic. "It is a mob!" cried Timonides.

     Ulrika stared at the donkeys and horses, wagons and carrying chairs. There was even a chariot, splendidly arrayed in shining electrum. "The rumors are true," she said. "Rabbi Judah's burial at this place is no longer a secret."

     Miriam and her family had established a camp at the oasis behind the ruins—a small outcropping of palm trees, bushes, and reeds fed by an artesian pool. As soon as Ulrika turned the corner of the castle, and she saw the disorganized mob, she turned to Primo and said, "Can you and your men get these people to leave?"

     He scowled. The crowd consisted of the elderly, people on crutches, impoverished women holding babies. Families had brought loved ones on litters. They carried beloved daughters and fathers, wasted by illness, and laid them beside the place where the well-known faith healer had been laid to rest. "These people are desperate," Primo said. "They have reached the end of their hope. If they believe they can find a miracle here, then all the war chariots in the empire will not budge them."

     Ulrika saw Miriam, at the forefront, trying to control people who were besieging her with questions: "Can you tell me where my son is?" "Will I ever see my husband again?" "Please cure my cancer."

     Primo went first, creating a path through the mob, and when Ulrika reached the distraught Miriam, she said, "How did this happen?"

     Miriam came forward with outstretched arms. "It is good to see you again. I handled it poorly! You said that, in your vision, my Judah said he wanted us to remember him. I told a few of our neighbors, and people in our congregation at the synagogue. They came here to pay respects and somehow, they started saying that miracles were happening."

     Ulrika's eyes widened. "Were they?"

     "Oh, Ulrika, who can say? Some prayed here and went away saying they
were cured. Some prayed here and went home to find something they had lost. Some prayed here and returned to the city to find a long-lost loved one waiting for them. Perhaps they were coincidences, perhaps they were the sort of miracles my Judah was empowered to perform in life. I do not know. But it has gotten out of hand and we do not know how to correct it."

     Ulrika looked around in dismay. This was far worse than she had imagined. The priests of Marduk would surely hear of this—people bringing coins and offerings that otherwise would go to the temples—and then they would learn of Sebastianus's involvement. "Primo," she began—

     "Help us, please. Help my little girl." A young woman carrying a small child pushed to the front of the mob, where Primo's men were using swords and shields to keep everyone back.

     "Please help us," the young mother cried out. "We sold our house. I sold my jewelry. When we ran out of money for physicians, my husband sold himself into slavery and I have not seen him since. My daughter and I are homeless and penniless. I do not want to sell myself into slavery because what then will my daughter do? We have no family. Nowhere to go."

     There was something in the woman's voice, in her eyes, the posture of her thin body, the tragic rags that hung on her emaciated frame, and most especially, in the way the child lay limp in her arms, that drew Ulrika to her. While others surged around, pressing against Primo's shields, the young woman held her child and pleaded with eyes that had gone deep into shadows from hunger and fear.

     "What happened to her?" Ulrika said, noticing that the child seemed to be alert, as she watched Ulrika with big eyes.

     Those closest by fell silent, to listen and to see if a miracle was about to happen.

     "A fever swept through our neighborhood," the young mother said. "My daughter burned for days, and when she came out of it, she could not walk. It was a year ago. Physicians have said she will never walk again. Please ask Rabbi Judah to help us. I am impoverished, dear lady. I have reached the end of my road, and the last of my hope. Without my daughter I am nothing. Please restore her to life. Show me how to talk to the rabbi. What do I say? How do I address him? They say he cured people when he was alive. And some say he is doing it now."

     Miriam stepped forward. "Please go back to the city. All of you! Please leave my husband in peace."

     "I will do anything," the young mother said. "Whatever Rabbi Judah asks of me, I will do it."

     While Miriam tried to persuade her to leave, the young mother knelt beside her crippled child, bowed her head, and began to softly pray.

     The Babel Tower was the tallest in Babylon, rivaling only the ziggurat of Marduk. Legend said that the tower had been built by an insolent king determined to reach heaven and meet the gods face to face. He decided to build the tallest stairway in the world, but in order to accomplish such a feat, he had needed thousands of workers, forcing him to recruit from foreign lands. As a result, with the workers all speaking different tongues and thus making errors in construction, the tower was never completed. A subsequent king converted the eyesore to a lookout tower, shaded and protected from the elements, with a complete all-around view from horizon to horizon, and the night sky with its zodiacal signs.

     As Sebastianus climbed the three hundred and thirty-three stone steps that curled upward in a spiral, he struggled with his emotions. Other astrologers had not been able to restore his faith. Worse, they had come up with different horoscopes, which had shocked him. Having relied for years on Timonides for his horoscope, Sebastianus had not realized how widely varied, from astrologer to astrologer, the readings could be. They all used the same constellations and signs, the same numbers and equations, the same charts and instruments, and yet their readings were as disparate as one astrologer telling Sebastianus that his children all praised his name and would give him many grandchildren, another assuring him that his current wife would live longer than his previous two had. Was the science of astrology a sham?

     But as his sandals struck each worn step, where hundreds before him had tread, Sebastianus still held hope that the famed Chaldean in this tower would restore his faith in the stars.

     When he reached the top, emerging through a small wooden door, Sebastianus
had to catch himself and reach for the wall. The vista! The panorama! Desert and river and hills and, most of all, the bustling metropolis that spread before him. It took his breath away.

     And then he realized he had come to the end of the stairway. He was at the top of the tower with nowhere else to go. The stone wall was chest-high and the tiled roof was supported on eight columns. There was nothing else.

     Where was the Chaldean?

     As the wind whipped around him, threatening to strip off his cloak and carry it away, Sebastianus felt outrage rise in him. He had been duped! Was this how it happened? Gullible men like himself paid outlandish sums, only to find themselves the target of a sham? How many, through the centuries, had come up here to find themselves the butt of a joke, to go back down and tell their friends how successful the meeting with the Chaldean had been? For no man would admit to having been swindled.

     I shall tell the truth! Sebastianus thought in fury. I shall shout it on the streets of Babylon that the Chaldean does not exist! That there is nothing at the top of this tower but wind and broken dreams!

     A bird flew into the tower just then, startling him. It flew around in a frantic flapping of wings—a small kestrel falcon, Sebastianus saw, the color of rust and ink. He glimpsed its eyes and saw a curious film covering them. When the falcon flew into a pillar and bounced off, Sebastianus realized the bird was blind. He watched it fly in circles within the tower and then suddenly it swooped low and vanished.

     Sebastianus stared at the spot. Where had the bird gone? It looked as if it had flown right into the floor.

     Bending low, Sebastianus examined the marble tiles and saw, when he turned his head one way, an opening in the floor that was not otherwise observable. An enticing smell came from the opening, like sweetly perfumed incense. He heard a humming sound, as if someone were singing to himself. The Chaldean! Sebastianus circled the opening and saw a wooden step. He cautiously lowered his foot onto it, and when he felt the support, continued down.

     Twelve more steps brought him to a tapestry. Pushing it aside, he saw a small cozy chamber, dimly lit by oil lamps, furnished with a table and two
stools, with hangings on the walls, and shelves cluttered with astrolabes, charts, bowls, and a stuffed owl. As he entered, careful not to bang his head on the low ceiling, he surveyed the room and realized it must lie behind the spiral staircase.

     The room was unoccupied, and there seemed to be no more doors or openings. "Hello?" he called out.

     When he heard a sigh, Sebastianus turned and saw someone sitting at the table. He blinked. Surely that person had not been there a moment ago. It was the incense, he thought, for now it was strong and heady. Perhaps it contained a substance that caused visions.