Текст книги "The Divining"

Автор книги: Barbara Wood

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4

ULRIKA COULD NOT SLEEP.

     She pulled her woolen cloak over her nightdress and left the bedroom. The house was dark and silent, but she knew her mother would not be asleep. This quiet time was when Selene wrote in her journal, studied medical texts, concocted medicines. And when Ulrika knocked on her mother's door, she saw that her mother was not surprised by the visit. "I thought you might come," Selene said, closing the door behind her daughter. Coals burned in a brazier, and two chairs with footstools were positioned close to it.

     Ulrika had left Aunt Paulina's dinner party anxious and troubled, but she was somewhat comforted in this small room where her mother mixed healing potions, elixirs, powders, and ointments. It was a room filled with scrolls and books, ancient texts, papyrus sheets—all containing spells and prayers and incantations and words of magic for healing the sick. For that was what Ulrika's mother did—she healed people.

     And now, for the first time, Ulrika wanted to tell her mother about the visions and dreams and premonitions of her childhood, tell her about the wolf vision at dinner this evening, and ask her what it meant, what cure was there for her sickness.

     Instead, as she took a seat, she said, "Mother, at dinner tonight, you barely ate. You were pale and didn't speak. The way you stared at Commander Vatinius—why does he upset you so?"

     Selene took the seat opposite and, picking up a long black poker, stirred the coals in the brazier. "It was Gaius Vatinius who burned your father's village to the ground many years ago, and took your father away in chains. In the years that Wulf and I were together, he spoke of returning to Germania and taking revenge upon Gaius Vatinius."

     Selene released a weary sigh. She had known this day was coming, had dreaded it. And now that the moment had arrived, she felt courage abandon her. She recalled the day when Ulrika was nine and had run into the house crying because a neighborhood bully had called her a bastard. "He said bastards don't have fathers, and I don't have a father." Selene had consoled her by saying, "Do not listen to others. They speak out of ignorance. You do have a father, but he died and now he is with the Goddess."

     Ulrika had started asking questions then, and Selene had taught her what she knew of Wulf's people, had told her about the World Tree, and the Land of the Frost Giants, and Middle Earth where Odin dwelt. She told Ulrika that she had been named for her German grandmother, the seeress of the tribe, whose name, Wulf had said, was Ulrika, which meant "wolf power." Selene had also told Ulrika that her father was a prince of his tribe, a son of the hero Arminius. (But Selene had not told her that Wulf had been a love-child, that he was a secret son of Arminius, for what good would come of that?)

     Ulrika had created an imaginary father after that, playing games with wooden spoons that stood in for pine trees and a trench in the garden that, filled with water, made a perfect Rhine River. Ulrika had told herself stories of Prince Wulf and how, after many adventures and battles and romances, he always saved the day. "Tell me again, Mama," Ulrika would say, "what my father looked like," and Selene would describe the warrior Wulf with the long blond hair and beautiful muscled body. When Ulrika turned twelve and had outgrown dolls and games of the imagination, she had turned to books, devouring every tome and text on Germania to learn the truth and facts of her father's people and their land.

     Ulrika now studied her mother's face in the amber glow of the coals. "There is something else, isn't there, Mother? There is something you are not telling me."

     Selene faced her daughter with a direct gaze, and looked for a long moment at this child who had been surrounded by magic and mystery from the moment of her conception in faraway Persia. Selene thought again of the gift she suspected Ulrika might have inherited from her German bloodline—a form of clairvoyance that Selene had observed in her daughter as a child. Little Ulrika had known where lost objects could be found, would brace herself for surprising events as if she had known they were coming, would speak of another person's sadness when not even Selene herself sensed that sadness. Selene knew that Ulrika believed she had kept it a secret, and Selene had respected that, expecting her daughter to come to her one day to ask for an explanation, to talk about the special perceptions that visited her. Selene had thought that dialogue had finally arrived seven years ago on a day when they were having a picnic in the countryside and Ulrika had said she saw a frightened woman running through the trees. But there was no woman. Selene had known it was another of Ulrika's psychic visions. And then, curiously, the gift seemed to have gone away after that, as if the onset of womanhood had overwhelmed the tender, sensitive perceptive ability and covered it completely.

     Releasing another sigh, Selene said, "It is something I should have told you long ago. I meant to. I didn't think I could explain it to you when you were little, so I kept telling myself: when Ulrika is older. But the right moment never came. Ulrika, I told you that your father was killed in a hunting accident before you were born, during the time he and I were living in Persia. That was a lie. He left Persia. Wulf went back to Germania."

     Ulrika stared at her mother while distant sounds floated on the night—wheels creaking by in the deserted lane beyond the villa's high wall, the clip-clop of horse's hooves on the cobblestones, the lonely call of a nocturnal bird.

     "He left at my insistence," Selene continued softly. "We had been in Persia only a short while when we heard that Gaius Vatinius had been there before us. We were told that he was on his way to the Rhineland. I urged your father to go, to hurry after him while I stayed behind in Persia."

     "And he went? Knowing you were pregnant?"

     "He did not know I was with child. I did not tell him. I knew he would have stayed with me then, because your father was a man of honor. And after the baby was born, I knew he would never leave us. I had no right to interfere with his life, Ulrika."

     "No right! You were his wife!"

     Selene shook her head. "I was not. We were never married."

     Ulrika stared at her mother.

     "Wulf already had a wife," Selene said quietly, not meeting her daughter's eyes. "He had a wife and son back in Germania. Oh Ulrika, your father and I were never meant to spend the rest of our lives together. He had his destiny in the Rhineland, and you know that I was on my own personal quest. We had to go our separate ways."

     "He left Persia," Ulrika said slowly, "not knowing you were pregnant. He didn't know about me."

     "No."

     Ulrika was suddenly filled with wonder. "And he doesn't know about me now! My father doesn't know I exist!"

     "He is not alive, Ulrika."

     "How can you say that?"

     "Because if he had reached Germania, your father would have found Gaius Vatinius and carried out his revenge."

     Horror filled Ulrika's eyes. She said softly, "And Gaius Vatinius is alive. Which can only mean that my father is dead."

     Selene reached for her daughter's hand, but Ulrika pulled away. "You had no right to keep it from me," she cried. "All these years have been a lie!"

     "It was for your own sake, Ulrika. As a child, you wouldn't have been able to understand. You wouldn't have understood why I let your father leave."

     "I haven't been a child for a long time, Mother," Ulrika said in a tight voice. "You could have told me before this, instead of letting me find out this way." Ulrika stood up. "You robbed me of my father. And tonight, Mother, you sat there while I shared bread with that monster."

     "Ulrika—"

     But she was out the door and gone.

5

ULRIKA STARED UP AT the ceiling as she listened to the distant rumble of night traffic in the city streets. Her head throbbed. She had cried for a short time, and then she had started to think. Now, as she lay on her back, her eyes peering into the darkness, she tried to sort out her emotions. She was filled with remorse over the terrible way she had treated her mother, walking out the way she had, disrespecting her.

     I will apologize first thing in the morning. And perhaps we can talk about Father, perhaps it will help mend this rift that should not have happened between us.

     Father ...

     How could her mother be so certain that he was in fact dead? How was Gaius Vatinius proof of it? Just because the general was still alive did not mean Wulf had not made it back to the Rhineland.

     Ulrika rose from the bed and walked to the window, where she inhaled the springtime perfume on the night air. The ground was white, stretching away up the hill like a blanket of snow—petals from flowering fruit trees, pink and orange blossoms, dropped like snowflakes, looking white in the moonlight.

     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.

6

ULRIKA 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.

7

SEBASTIANUS 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.

     As the two greedy traders fought over her like dogs over a bone, Sebastianus returned to his troubled thoughts and the reason for his urgency to depart. It had nothing to do with his regular commerce along the Rhine. Sebastianus Gallus was in a race to reach the farthest ends of the earth, where it was rumored that ships sailed over the edge and horses galloped into frothy mists, never to be seen again.

     Sebastianus was in a race to win the coveted imperial diploma to escort a caravan to distant China. And what made him anxious on this spring morning filled with noise and smoke and sunshine was that he was competing against four other traders, men personally known to him as good, solid citizens who traded fairly and deserved the China route as much as he did. But Emperor Claudius was going to award the diploma to only one man.

     Each trader was to complete his regular trade route while at the same time distinguishing himself in some endeavor. Sebastianus knew that his four competitors were going to succeed in making themselves stand out in Claudius's eyes. Badru the Egyptian had struck south for Africa, taking cheap clothes and trinkets to exchange for tortoise shell and ivory, and Sebastianus knew that Badru had the opportunity to bring back a rare beast for the arena. Sahir the Hindu was on his way to the southeast to pick up perfume and incense and was likely to find priceless books for the emperor. Adon the Phoenician was heading to Spain with pepper and cloves and would no doubt pick up vintage wine that Claudius had a specific taste for. And Gaspar the Persian, whose trade route carried him into the Zagros Mountains, would surely find a fabled rare flower with powerful aphrodisiac properties (everyone knew how desperate Claudius was to please his young wife, Agrippina). But Sebastianus Gallus the Spaniard was following his usual northward route to trade for amber and pewter, salt and fur. What could he find in the Rhineland that would catch Emperor Claudius's eye and persuade him to award Gallus the coveted diploma?

     What troubled him further was the rumor that Roman legions, under the command of Gaius Vatinius, were marching north to engage renegade Barbarians in a major battle. Although war could be good for business, in this case it could hurt Sebastianus's chances to win the diploma.

     He glanced impatiently at Timonides, who was trying to apply a copper protractor to a zodiacal chart, but with little success. Sebastianus wondered if he should seek the services of another astrologer. Time was slipping through his fingers!

     Gallus was eager to make a name for himself. His father and grandfather and uncles had all carved new trade routes, distinguishing themselves, adding prestige to the already noted and respected Gallus family. Now Sebastianus wanted to prove himself by securing the China route for Emperor Claudius. It was the last unknown frontier, the last chance to carve a new route while at the same time earning the singular distinction of being the first man from the west to reach the imperial palace in China.

     "I will take you all the way to Colonia! This man does not go beyond Lugdunum, he will abandon you there! I have a nice carriage, only three other passengers inside!"

     At the sound of Hashim's barking voice, Sebastianus turned in surprise. The young lady was going all the way to Colonia?

     He watched as Kaptah busily worked his abacus, a portable calculating device made of copper and beads, used by merchants, engineers, bankers, and tax collectors. The stocky Syrian was tallying the girl's fare by mile and food, throwing in extra fees here and there for water, the use of a donkey, even a place by the nightly campfire.

     "Robbery!" shouted Hashim, his swarthy face turning purple. "Dear lady, with me you will not ride on a donkey but in a cart, and for that I will charge you only a slightly higher fee."

     The young woman looked from one to the other in confusion, and when they saw her turn to the right, to glance down the row of tents and compounds that were all collected under a dusty sign that said GERMANIA INFERIOR, they both started talking at once, declaring that all other traders heading north would gouge her for every cent she had and then sell her to the Barbarians as a slave.

     Seeing that the girl was at the mercy of these two vultures, both of whom Gallus knew very well—unscrupulous to the marrow, each of them—he spoke up. "My brothers!" he said congenially, striding up. "I have always noticed that the louder you both get, the bigger your lies."

     He turned to the young lady and, before he could say another word, received a shock. As she turned to him, he glimpsed beneath the modest veil light-colored hair and blue eyes. She was holding a corner of her veil up to her chin, as Roman girls were taught, never to fully cover the face, but giving the effect of being ready to cover should the situation call for it. Sebastianus stared at the oval face drawing down to a delicately pointed chin, arched brows, small nose. But what arrested him most were her eyes.

     He was momentarily speechless as he was remembering the time he had visited the famed Blue Grotto of Capri. Her eyes were the color of that lagoon.

     "These men are not to be trusted," he said with a smile, casting the two men a warning glance when they started to protest. "They are rogues—lovable—but rogues all the same. If you wish, I can help you find an honest trader who will see to your safe passage to where you are going. What is your destination?" he asked, thinking that surely he had heard wrong.

     But she replied, "Colonia," and he heard a confident tone, a strong voice, and then he looked around again for her companions. Perhaps they had yet to arrive, most likely because they had so much baggage to bring along for the wealthy young lady.

     "How many are in your party?" he asked.

     Ulrika looked up into the face of the stranger who had come to her aid. He stood a head taller than herself, the morning sun catching bronze highlights in his hair. He had a strong jaw, a straight and narrow nose, with a beard that was so closely cropped it was barely more than a shadow on his chin. Ulrika suspected he was not Roman because his Latin was lightly accented, as if it were not his mother tongue. Then she saw, lying upon his broad chest, suspended on a leather thong and resting against the white linen of his knee-length tunic, a scallop shell the size of her hand. She recognized it as a mollusk known to proliferate along the northwestern shore of Spain, and she had heard that Galicians wore these shells to remind them of home, and to show pride in their race and heritage.

     She wondered briefly about this Spaniard. His brow seemed permanently furrowed, as if a problem had entered his head long ago and had yet to be solved. Not a man at peace with himself, she thought, or with the world. Impressions rushed at her: although his smile was easy, he was angry, but at whom or what she could not guess; his gaze was open, but he gave the impression of being guarded; and despite his relaxed stance, he seemed to be holding himself tightly, as if afraid of losing control. Had something—or someone—hurt him long ago?

     "It is just myself," she replied, taking a small step back to put space between herself and this man, turning to look down the rows of camps. When she had left home that morning with such determination to reach the Rhineland, she had not anticipated difficulty in finding a party with whom to travel. Who could she trust?

     "You travel to Colonia on your own?" the Galician asked in surprise. "But it is such a hostile place for a lone girl to visit."

     She brought her eyes back to his—wondering where she had seen irises so green. "I have family there."

     His frown deepened. "Still," he said. "A girl traveling on her own."

     "Travel is not new to me. I was born in Persia, and from the age of three, when I left that distant city, I have traveled the world. I have seen Jerusalem and Alexandria. I have even crossed the Great Green on a ship."

     "That may well be," he said, "but the world will only see a vulnerable female without protection. You will need to find a family that is going north and willing to have you join them, or a group of females. Unfortunately, my own caravan consists only of men, and I cannot be responsible for your safety at all times." He smiled. "My name is Sebastianus Gallus and I will help you find an honest guide to take you to Colonia. I am acquainted with nearly every man in the caravan trade, the honest ones as well as the cheats."