Rojeh stared out at the wet snow pelting down from a black sky. "Are you sure you want to leave now?" he asked Ragoczy Franciscus as he stood in the door of the stable and stared out at the chaotic night.
Ragoczy Franciscus gave the sign for yes. He pulled on the lead of the mules and put his foot in the foot-loop of his saddle, preparing to mount, making a last adjustment on the rough-woven blanket that was buckled onto his horse to provide warmth.
"It could be a very hard ride," Rojeh said as he went to get his stallion, who was standing tied to a stanchion, fretting at the bit; he, too, was blanketed against the bone-piercing cold. "Just two mules and two horses provides little margin for trouble," Rojeh pointed out, knowing his argument would not change Ragoczy Franciscus' mind.
Ready? Ragoczy Franciscus signaled, then swung up into the saddle.
"I'm worried about the widow and her children," said Rojeh.
With a long, steady look, Ragoczy Franciscus mouthed, Our staying cannot help her.
"Still, it could go hard for her, if the guards really do have orders to kill us," said Rojeh, and went on in vexation, "Do you think you will be able to get the guard to open the gate?" He unfastened the lead.
Ragoczy Franciscus held up three silver coins in his gloved hand.
"He will not keep silent for that amount, if that is what you would want," Rojeh warned as he mounted. "You'll need double that to buy silence."
The response was a restive shrug, followed by the sign Go.
"We'll have to leave the gate unbolted," Rojeh reminded him, taking the lead on his mule. He started his horse out of the stable, saying, "Chtavo and the rest of the servants may be blamed for our departure, if not the widow. The guards will think he helped us, since he lives over the stable."
Ragoczy Franciscus made their sign for How?
"You and I know that he could not stop us, but he could be expected to close doors and gates and ask where we would be going." He reached the gate and kneed the horse over so he could draw back the bolt so they could go out into the street; since night was more than half over, there was no one else abroad. "When I think of what we had when we left China and what we are reduced to now ..." He stopped while Ragoczy Francisus maneuvered his mare to allow him to close the gate.
Ragoczy Franciscus drew his mare up alongside Rojeh's stallion and handed him the coins. Take them, he signaled, and pulled his mule into line behind his blue roan, then put his finger to his lips as they started down the street.
"Of course I'll be quiet." Rojeh kept his horse on a tight rein; the stallion disliked having to follow any other animal. Once or twice, the horses and mules slithered on the steep, icy street, but they made their way to the main gate without any serious mishap or disturbance.
The guard was half-asleep and largely drunk; he took the coins and opened the gate with no questions, and closed it with a promptness that bespoke finality, leaving Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh to inch their way down the sharp slope of the approach road to the snowy islands and the paths that connected them.
Rojeh knew from Ragoczy Franciscus' notes to him earlier that evening that they were to go to the Jou'an-Jou'an camp to see what had become of Dukkai. He kept his dagger near to hand and patted the sheath containing his shimtare, reassured by the closeness of the curved cavalry sword. The heavily laden mules kept their progress to a walk, and the steady plodding was almost sleep-inducing. Rojeh had not realized how far they had come until he saw the snow-covered mounds of the Jou'an-Jou'an tents and heard a single bark from one of the dogs in the camp.
Ragoczy Franciscus rode through the encampment to the far side, out on a spit of land that poked a sandy finger into the marsh where the reeds did not grow, and the water was an obsidian smear against the falling snow; it was the place Dukkai had been sent in lieu of shelter, to crouch in the ruin of an old boat that had been drawn up onto the spit. He rode as near as was safe, then tied the mule's lead to his saddle, dismounted, and secured his blue roan's reins to a scrubby bush half-submerged in snow. That done, he stood still for a short while, then started toward the boat, tapping on it before lifting its bow to look at what lay beneath.
It was impossible to say how long she had been dead, for her freezing had prevented any decomposition. Frost crystals had formed on her eyelashes and her white hair was brittle with ice. Her gaunt face had a bluish tinge, and her lips were a chalky-purple shade. She lay on her side, her head pillowed on her leather sleeve, as if she had fallen asleep and failed to waken.
Dukkai, Ragoczy Franciscus mouthed as he bent over her body. Rojeh did not dismount; he kept watch from the saddle, in case their presence should be noticed and they were forced to fight their way out of the Jou'an-Jou'an camp. His thoughts were bleak as he surveyed the cluster of tents and the marsh beyond. "We cannot linger," he said as loudly as he dared.
Ragoczy Franciscus held up his hand in the sign for Wait. Then he reached for the rotted length of rope that held the boat in place, tugged at it, struggling to pull the boat free of the icy sand so it could float again; a slow trickle of water began to fill it, crystals forming along the inner curve of the hull as the water rose. Taking Dukkai in his arms, he laid her in the boat as gently as he could; since he was unable to bend her limbs, he did what he could to place her as if she had fallen asleep and, stepping back, shoved the old, leaky craft away from the shore and into the stream, watching as the boat and its frozen cargo drifted away.
"Why did you do that?" Rojeh asked as Ragoczy Franciscus came back to his horse.
After releasing the blue roan's lead, Ragoczy Franciscus got into the saddle and gestured, Later, before he started his horse moving, going back through the Jou'an-Jou'an encampment and turning westward in the direction of the Sea of Azov and the Byzantine Empire.
By the time the leaden clouds lightened with the coming of the feeble day, Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh were at the edge of a small defile in which stood a small fortress that had clearly been abandoned for some time; some of the battlements had fallen away without any indication of repairs, and an empty eagle's nest crowned the watchtower. The gate was little more than a few lengths of wood hanging on ancient iron hinges, and the building itself showed signs of extreme neglect; Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh dismounted as they went through the stone maw into the marshaling yard, leading their horses and mules into the shelter the squat stone walls offered. There were a few thorny, snow-shrouded bushes growing through the old flagging in the main court, and when they found the stable, the stalls smelled more of mice than horses.
Ragoczy Franciscus gestured, We stay.
"For how long?" Rojeh asked.
One day and one night, Ragoczy Franciscus signed.
"The horses and mules could use the rest, and the storm is beginning to die down," said Rojeh, and seeing Ragoczy Franciscus nod endorsement, he went on, "If you rest on your native earth for a day and a night, you will be strong enough to travel by day: is that your purpose?"
Yes, Ragoczy Franciscus confirmed, and began to look for a rake or some other implement to clean out the debris from the stalls along the inner wall.
"Do you want to sleep in a stall?" Rojeh found a shovel and went to work.
No was Ragoczy Franciscus' response; he mouthed Mice for explanation. Rats.
Somewhat later, Rojeh remarked, "This looks like a Byzantine fort, doesn't it? The watchtower is Byzantine design, not Roman, and the peoples in this region weren't making fortresses of stone." He was working on a second stall, and the advancing light revealed more about the place than had been apparent at first; the stable accommodated as many as twenty horses, but three of the stalls were so dilapidated as to be entirely useless. The water trough near the door was empty, and almost all the hinges on the stall gates had rusted.
Ragoczy Franciscus nodded and motioned to the much-faded icons painted on the stable beams, images that were clearly of Eastern Rite origin.
"It doesn't seem that there was a hard fight, and it hasn't the look of a siege. Why would the defenders leave?" Rojeh asked, and was about to apologize, when he saw Ragoczy Franiscus mouth Huns and stared at the lance shaft Ragoczy Franciscus pulled from the manger. He took this and turned it over in his hands. "It is Hunnic, isn't it?" Shaking his head, Rojeh said, "Then I pity the men who were here."
Taking back the lance shaft, Ragoczy Franciscus dropped it into one of the unused stalls, then sagged against the wall between it and the one he was cleaning.
"It must have been more than a century ago; the Huns were advancing on Byzantine territory then," said Rojeh, recalling the unremitting assault the Huns had made on the little castle in Greece, and the long ordeal he and Ragoczy Franciscus had faced, repelling them only with the help of Niklos Aulirios and an old Roman ballista loaded frequently with hives of angry bees.
There was a long silence broken only by the stamping of one of the mules; it was enough to remind the two that they had not quite finished cleaning the stalls.
As he resumed working, Rojeh said, "There isn't any bedding, and probably nothing we can give as food, not with so many mice about."
Ragoczy Franciscus pointed to the chest that contained grain and some chopped hay.
"Of course. But it isn't enough to last more than a week," Rojeh reminded him.
The nod that answered Rojeh's observation was slow and accompanied by a covert wince.
"The wound is paining you, isn't it? You are having trouble moving your head?" Rojeh asked, putting down his shovel and starting toward Ragoczy Franciscus, who held up his hand authoritatively to stop him.
This time Ragoczy Franciscus made the sign for negation, mouthing, It does not matter, as he did.
"But it does," said Rojeh, taking up his shovel once more. "Let's finish up in here and get you onto your native earth. I won't ask you not to work," he went on, working more determinedly than he had done.
Ragoczy Franciscus plied his rake energetically, cleaning out the rest of the stall quickly. When he was done, he put the rake on a hook near what must have been the tack-room, then he went to unsaddle his mare; he left the blanket in place when he turned her into the stall and did much the same with the mule after he unloaded the well-laden pack saddle. Taking a measure of grain from the case that contained it, he fed the horse, then the mule, and handed the scoop to Rojeh, who had just finished stalling his two animals.
"I'll have this taken care of quickly," said Rojeh, looking for something to secure the stall doors.
I will look, Ragoczy Franciscus gestured. A quick check of the other stalls revealed nothing useful, so Ragoczy Franciscus sought out the tack-room. The light was provided by a single window set high in the wall in a double-thickness of stones, hardly big enough to contain a saddle rack. Making the most of the poor illumination, he commenced his search where the light was strongest and progressed through the room toward the more shadowed parts, going carefully in case there should be some danger, for his dark-seeing eyes could not pick out what lay beneath the scattered bits of leather and tangled wisps of ancient straw. He found a length of old rope coiled in one of the corners, so obscured that it was all but invisible. As Ragoczy Franciscus approached, he saw that in it lay a skull, part of a spine and ribs, and one set of arm bones. He dropped to one knee and had a closer look, noticing the deep gouges axes had made in the lower ribs and the spine; he hoped the man had been dead before those ruthless hacks had fallen. Skull in hand, he rose, absentmindedly taking the rope in the other hand. It never ends, he said silently. Carefully he set the skull down in the stone window embrasure, then left the tack-room.
"This can be tied across the doors at two levels," Rojeh said as Ragoczy Franciscus used his dagger to saw the thick hemp length in half. "It should do well enough."
Agreeing with a nod, Ragoczy Franciscus leaned back against one of the four stone pillars in the stable while Rojeh strung the ropes across the gates of the stalls. Rojeh was right: his neck did ache, the kind of hurt that gnawed at him, sapping his strength and wearing down his endurance far more than the difficult ride or the harsh weather did. Glancing toward one of the three small windows lighting the stable, he saw that the clouds were not as thick as they had been and that the storm was breaking up.
"My master?" Rojeh asked, seeing the shadow of fatigue on Ragoczy Francisus' face.
He straightened up, waving aside Rojeh's question. He signaled, I will look and Sleep. Slowly he started toward the entrance to the stable.
"As soon as you decide where you want to rest, I'll hunt." Rojeh tied his last knot. "We should take this rope with us when we go."
Ragoczy Franciscus nodded as he went back into the marshaling yard. He stood, undecided, for a short while, then went toward the watchtower that stood next to the gate. The sagging door was wedged closed, and it took two powerful kicks to open it. Carefully, he stepped inside the marshaling room at the base of the tower, making note of everything he saw: two small stools, a bucket, a pail, some spears with their points rusted away, a cooking tripod-without a cauldron-to fit into the long-cold fireplace that stood on the east wall, and on the west a large rack of various weapons, most of them crumbled or rusted. He paced off the size of the room-eight strides east-west, almost eleven north-south-and decided it was as good a place as any. He went back across the marshaling yard, taking the time to study the sky before he ducked into the dark of the stable; the clouds were starting to tatter, and the snowfall had diminished to an occasional random flake. Already a glary brightness marked the place of the sun as it climbed the morning sky, and Ragoczy Franciscus could feel a little of its pull, not as he had done two years ago, but enough to tell him that it was gradually regaining its power.
Rojeh was stacking their chests and crates and boxes; he had set aside the chest of Ragoczy Franciscus' native earth and was inspecting the thick leather straps on the box containing their spare clothing; he recognized the purpose in Ragoczy Franciscus' stance and said, "You have found a place that will do."
Yes, Ragoczy Franciscus signaled. We carry.
"Of course," said Rojeh, going to the chest of native earth. "If I take the wood from those wrecked stalls, we could build a fire."
Ragoczy Franciscus considered his answer, finally gesturing, No. Attention.
"You mean you think this place could be under surveillance?" Rojeh said as he and Ragoczy Franciscus hefted the chest between them; the tablet and stylus rested on top of it.
Since he could not shrug or signal, Ragoczy Franciscus was unable to respond. He kept walking steadily toward the marshaling room, trying to find some way to express himself.
"You are concerned that this place could serve as a trap. Whose? Look at it. Cobwebs everywhere. No doubt the chimneys are full of rats' nests and mice, possibly birds' as well." They were almost to the marshaling room, and Rojeh faltered as the shadow of a large bird crossed over him. Peering upward into the shattering morning light, he could just make out a raptor soaring against the brilliance; then the darkness of the tower blocked bird and sun from sight, and a few steps later they put the chest down in front of the unused fireplace. "Oh. I found a cistern behind the stable. It has water."
Ragoczy Franciscus signaled, Good, as he sat down on the chest and picked up the tablet and stylus, but did nothing with them as he stared at the opposite wall with extreme blankness, his thoughts more distant than the Yang-Tse River.
Rojeh studied him, saying at last, "You're losing flesh again." He turned his attention to the fireplace. "I suppose it would smoke if I tried to lay a fire."
Putting both hands to his throat, Ragoczy Franciscus mimed coughing.
"Well, neither you nor I are much troubled by cold-that's useful," said Rojeh, searching for something to sit on; he found an old stool and tested it by putting his foot on it and transferring half his weight onto it; the stool held.
Good, Ragoczy Franciscus signed, and stretched his arms above his head, arching his back.
"You're tired. So am I," said Rojeh. "You rest first, and I will rest after you wake. While you sleep, I'll see if I can find something to eat." His expression clouded. "How much longer before your throat is healed enough to take sustenance? If hunger is enervating to me, it is debilitating to you, for more than your body is compromised." He sank down onto the stool. "I'll go hunting shortly, when the sky is finally clear."
Ragoczy Franciscus moved the tablet and stylus to the end of the chest near where he intended to rest his head. As he stretched out on the leather-strapped wood, he signaled Rojeh, We will talk.
"Later," said Rojeh. "When we're both more rested."
Lying on his back, Ragoczy Franciscus almost seemed laid out for burial, so completely still was he. His light olive skin was lunar-pale and his eyes were sunk in dark sockets. Had Rojeh not seen this state before, he would have been troubled by it, but being familiar with Ragoczy Franciscus, he saw this stillness with relief, for it meant that Ragoczy Franciscus would be imbued with the power of his native earth when he woke, which would sustain him until he was able to seek more living nourishment. "No wonder he wants to go back to the Carpathians," Rojeh whispered as he went out to hunt, returning shortly before sunset with a brace of pigeons hanging from a thong over his shoulder. He went to the marshaling room to see how Ragoczy Franciscus fared, and to improvise a table where he could eat. During his hunt, he had decided he needed to make a small fire to boil water so he could scald the pigeons to make plucking easier. He searched out an old tin pail in the far recesses of the stable, which he went to fill with rainwater from the cistern at the rear of the stable. Gathering up bits of old planking, and other scraps of wood, he found a sheltered place in the marshaling yard and began the tedious business of lighting the fire. As soon as the first tiny plume of smoke rose, he added more kindling to the pile and soon had a small but serviceable blaze going. This he framed with stones and set the pail on top of them, then shoved a few more lengths of wood in through the gaps in the stones. Satisfied that this would bring the water to a boil, he went to lead the horses and mules to the cistern to drink, then returned them to their stalls. He took grain from the case of it and measured out enough for the mash, and returned to the fire in time to add another broken plank to the fuel.
The scrape of the door being thrust open caught Rojeh's attention; he turned to see Ragoczy Franciscus standing just outside the marshaling room, his demeanor much restored. "You're awake."
Yes, he signed.
"You look rested."
Yes, again.
"Good. If you sleep once more before we go on, you should be able to-"
Ride long. Ragoczy Franciscus pointed to the scalding pigeons. Help you?
"No, I can manage," said Rojeh, surprised at the offer. "But if you will bring my heavy knife from my personal case in the stable?"
Ragoczy Franciscus nodded and went off with easy, crisp strides to the stable, only to return shortly with the long, slender skinning knife Rojeh used to prepare his food. He handed this to Rojeh, who was busy plucking feathers from the pigeons; he sat in a flurry of gray and white as if he had been caught in a miniature snowstorm.
"Thanks," said Rojeh as he took the knife in his befeathered hand. "When I've finished my meal, perhaps then we can talk-or you can write and I will talk," he added. "Are there any oil-lamps in this place?"
Not find, Ragoczy Franciscus gestured. We have.
"In the blue chest, yes, we do. Lamps and oil to power them." Rojeh sluiced slightly bloody water over one of the pigeons, showing it had been completely fletched; he went to work finishing the other while Ragoczy Franciscus went to the stable to bring the oil-lamps and the oil-jar from the blue chest, along with flint-and-steel.
While Rojeh cut up and ate his two pigeons, Ragoczy Franciscus set about filling and lighting the oil-lamps in the marshaling room, finally providing enough illumination to make reading what he wrote on the wax tablet possible.
"I'm finished," Rojeh announced from the door. "The guts and bones are buried, and the fire has been drowned."
Good, Ragoczy Franciscus gestured, and pointed to the stool that Rojeh had found earlier. We talk. Before Ragoczy Franciscus could begin to use his stylus, Rojeh suddenly got up and went out into the marshaling yard to where he had made his fire. Bending down, he selected three sticks of blackened wood, then carried these back to Ragoczy Franciscus, pausing as he went to stare at the vivid and glorious sunset that ornamented the western sky with a range of colors from crimson to persimmon, purple to lilac; the sun itself was a disk of brilliant red, splendid as anything Justinian, Emperor of Byzantium, ever adorned himself with or used to aggrandize his Empress or his court. Breaking away from the impressive celestial display as from a transfixing spell, Rojeh shook himself and went into the marshaling room and the soft glow of the oil-lamps. "Here. You can write on the floor with this," he said, handing the charcoal to Ragoczy Franciscus.
Very good, signaled Ragoczy Franciscus, setting aside his tablet and stylus and getting down on one knee to wipe a section of the floor free of dust and the small detritus of the vanished occupants. When he had a stretch of pale-gray stone exposed, he looked at Rojeh. Ready, he gestured.
"You said you would explain why you set Dukkai adrift." There was a faint hint of accusation in this reminder, as if Rojeh wanted the complete answer, and not some simple abstraction. When Ragoczy Franciscus hesitated, Rojeh prodded, "Well? Why did you do it?"
Ragoczy Franciscus held up his hand, a request for patience; after a long moment, he began to write with the longest of the three charcoal sticks. I hoped that by setting her adrift as I did that she would vanish by the time the rest of her clan awoke.
"The boat probably sank," said Rojeh.
I would assume it did. If the clan did not see it, they would not know what had become of her. As a shaman, vanishing would restore her reputation, and it would permit the rest of her family to remain with the Desert Cats. Dukkai is dead, and nothing can change that. But her death need not be a defeat. Ragoczy Franciscus wiped another swath of stone and prepared to go on. The Desert Cats are at less than half their strength and numbers than when we first encountered them, and they are still losing people. Fever, hunger, cold, age, all have depleted their ranks and will continue to do so for as long as the sun remains weak. To lose their shaman shamefully adds a burden that many of them cannot endure. If they have no one to speak to the Lords of the Earth, they will be in danger of fragmenting, and if that happens, most of them will die.
"Do you think having Dukkai vanish will keep them together?" Rojeh was puzzled, and he leaned over the answer as Ragoczy Franciscus wrote.
I trust they will believe her magic took her to the Underworld Judge, and that she will become one with the Gods of the Smoke. This could not happen if they found her body.
Rojeh read the last answer twice. "Why do you care what becomes of them? Dukkai cut your throat and was prepared to offer your life to her gods."
For the living, life is so very short, and the dead slip away so quickly. I have the luxury of time-centuries and centuries of it; how can I live among living humans and not do what I can to make their brief lives less precipitous? I will be here far longer than any of them, and I must not abuse my long life, for if I did, I would lose all claim to humanity; I have worked much too hard to maintain it to want to relinquish all I have sought.
"How long do you think you have to make up for the years you hunted men as fodder, as vengeance for the slaughter of your family?" Rojeh asked with more bluntness than he intended.
That is so far in the past that I doubt I could. What I do now I do because I know the souls of people through the intimacy I have with- His charcoal stick broke. Dusting his hands on his thick leather leggings, Ragoczy Franciscus rose to his feet and pointed toward the chest, gesturing, You. Sleep.
Knowing it was useless to pursue this any longer, Rojeh took a deep breath. "We should travel at first light. Will you wake me before dawn?"
Yes, Ragoczy Franciscus gestured, moving over to the stool to sit guard while Rojeh slept.
Text of a letter from the Roman merchant Antoninus Octavianus Stellens in Ostia to the merchant Lucius Valentius Gnaeo, expected in the port of Salonae, carried by merchant ship and delivered on the nineteenth of May.
To the renowned merchant Lucius Vatentius Gnaeo, at his warehouse in Salonae, the greetings and good wishes of Antoninus Octavianus Stellens, presently in Ostia, on this, the twenty-fourth of February in the year 537 of the Pope's calendar, with thanks for your communication of last autumn, and the hope that your ventures have prospered since then, that your family has suffered no further losses, and that no contract you have entered upon has been compromised.
I am pleased to tell you that I have come upon a supply of raisins and dried plums from a peasant living to the north of Roma. He has kept four barrels of each in reserve and has started to offer them for sale. He also grows the apples of Api, which can be stored much longer than most of that sort of fruit, and he has a few trees that are bearing still in his orchard. He has named a price that I, by myself, would find hard to meet, but if you were to go shares with me on the purchase, I believe that both of us would profit from the transaction. If this holds any interest for you, notify me as quickly as you may, and I will tell him that he has found a buyer. I hope the storms of winter will abate in time for you to receive this and make your decision.
As to your offer to go partners on the Armenian grains, given the sad state of farming here around Roma, I will dispatch a courier with the amount you quoted to me, so that you may secure as much of the coming harvest as you may. It is unfortunate that the reason they have grain to sell is because there have been so many deaths among the people of the region, but that is true everywhere. Even my old uncle has succumbed, although he did live almost fifty-two years-an ancient, indeed.
You must tell me more about this stone bone. I have read your description of it and still find it too incredible to believe. Is it from the dragon that fell from Heaven when the Rebel Angels were cast out? If it is truly of the size you say it is, no doubt it would attract fascination and wonder. In difficult times, the people of the world cling to those marvels that remove them from their misery, if only for a short while. I am interested in helping you bring this treasure to Roma, if it is truly as remarkable as you have said it is. Tell me what you will need to transport it safely, and I will see you have it, in exchange for an equal share in your profits.
I have made arrangements with a group of weavers near Neapolis for the fine wool they have been making. I would like to think that the terms we have established will serve us all well. Should you wish to participate, receiving shipped woolens and selling them in the ports of the Adriatic and the Black Seas, I will be more than happy to introduce this possibility to the weavers to see if it suits them, both in market and in their own shares of such sales. I know they are not as numerous as they once were, but I am sure some degree of accommodation may be reached, especially if you can guarantee markets that they have not been able to reach in the past.
I am pleased to learn that you are coming to Roma. While you are in Ostia, you must be my guest. I have an enclosed villa; it has only been attacked once in the last decade, and it came through the battle with only minor damage, which has since been repaired. It may be wrong to pray for profits in this precipitous time, but if not now, when should we pray for more goods to sell, and more markets in which to sell them, for if these two things are granted, then the world will once again bask in God's favor. While we languish, I will offer to God all the sorrow and misery that I endure, but I will rejoice when my daily litany does not reflect the weight of affliction and turns again to praise for bounty and success. To that end, I engage to continue our business together, and to expand it as the opportunities arise. I will continue to search out goods to sell and ask that you find markets in which to sell them, to which end you will remain in my prayers.
Antoninus Octavianus Stellens
Merchant of Ostia
