Justinian

TWENTY-TWO

As the booming of the horns signalled the end of that day’s march, the long line of captives shuffled gratefully to a halt. To their left — a ribbon of gold in the late sun — rolled the broad Euphrates, to their right, thanks to the network of irrigation channels, fields of standing crops, bordered in the distance by a line of low and arid hills. Accompanied by Pelagia, a strapping kitchen-maid, and a tough old nun called Sister Agnes, Macedonia joined one of the queues forming at the various distribution points where rations (usually barley or wheaten bread, and dried fish) for the next twenty four hours were being issued.

The three women, who had all lost friends, colleagues, or loved ones in the destruction of their city, had become close companions in the course of the long journey south-east from Syria. They were now in the Persian zone of Mesopotamia, having left Roman soil two days previously after passing the border city of Circesium. Unlike the majority of their fellow captives (who had reacted with relief and gratitude to the news that they were to be given a new home in Persia), the three friends, each for their own personal reasons, had formed a pact to escape from the column and make their way back to Roman territory. Pelagia was betrothed to a young baker in Apamea (one of the cities spared by Khusro after it had paid the ransom price); to Sister Agnes, the thought of breathing sacrilegious air for the remainder of her life was anathema; while Macedonia could not bear to contemplate never seeing again the love of her life, Theodora.

Their plan, based on Macedonia’s knowledge (gained from conversations with suppliers in her previous business) of the terrain they would eventually traverse, was, like all the best schemes, simple. Three hundred miles downstream from their present position, the Euphrates entered a marshy region — a vast area of reed-beds and waterways, which should offer an excellent chance for the trio to slip away undetected. As the captives were neither to be ransomed nor sold into slavery, their value to Khusro was not commercial, rather a measure of his great-heartedness; thus the glory of his soubriquet — Nushirvan, ‘the Just’ — would be augmented. In consequence, the Antiochans were only lightly guarded, more in fact for their own protection against lions* or the occasional band of brigands, than to prevent escape. After entering the marshes, the three would then head back to Roman territory, keeping to the marshland for a time in order to avoid detection, then following the Euphrates upstream back to the Syrian border. For food against the journey, they had regularly saved part of their daily rations; water, thanks to the initial topography and the excellent irrigation systems maintained by the Persians, which they would encounter thereafter, should not be a problem — barring the risk of infection. Pelagia, however, had managed to pilfer a strike-a-light and pannikin; provided they could find dry fuel, they would be able to boil their water.

Twenty days after leaving Circesium, the column reached the marshes, the road here replaced by a broad causeway laid over a foundation of piles and sunken earth. On the morning of the second day’s progress through this fenny area and before the day’s march had begun, the three friends slipped away from the causeway and concealed themselves in a patch of reeds. Soon, roused by the booming of the horns, the column was on its way. Some time after the rearguard had passed out of sight, the three judged it safe to rise and take stock.

Macedonia felt excited, her exhilaration tinged with awe and apprehension. To be free! That was wonderful, yet at the same time challenging. All around stretched a strange and (bar the whine of insects and the croak of frogs) silent world of pools, lagoons, and reeds. Keeping to solid ground where possible, at times forced to wade thigh- or even waist-deep, the trio began to make their way north-west by keeping parallel to the causeway, staying far enough from it, however, to avoid being spotted should any pursuit come looking for them. (Though no roll-call was maintained, a rough count of the captives was made daily at the various stations where rations were issued. If noticed, any escape would be held to lessen the prestige of the Great King; so efforts to recapture any fugitives could be expected to be rigorous.)

Progress through the waterlogged terrain was slow and exhausting — the humidity, August heat, and biting insects adding to the travellers’ discomfort. Around noon, to their inexpressible relief, they came to a deserted village on an artificial island, cunningly created from bundles of reeds rammed one atop the other into the yielding mud. The reed huts had mostly collapsed, but one habitation (a guest-house?) more stoutly built than the rest, provided grateful shade from the sweltering conditions. After sleeping for several hours, the companions embarked on a tour of the village, where they made two invaluable discoveries: a boat, and a trident for spearing fish. The craft was long, of shallow draught, with centre beam and ribs of poplar, covered with a skin of thin planks waterproofed with tar. Immersion in a pool discovered a few rifts which let in water. Once these were caulked with strips torn from clothing, the vessel was refloated, when it was pronounced to be (almost) leakproof.

Next morning they embarked in the boat, taking turns to propel it through the maze of watery channels (some clearly of artificial construction), using a long poplar pole salvaged from the central support of the ‘guest-house’. From the number of abandoned and semi-submerged villages they encountered, it was clear that the whole area had once been populated; a rising water-table, perhaps resulting from a succession of exceptionally wet summers, may have caused the inhabitants to leave, Macedonia speculated.

The finding of the boat and trident transformed their lives. Gone was the energy-sapping ordeal of struggling through sucking, clinging mud. Instead, a slight push of the pole was all it took to send the craft smoothly through the water. So began an idyllic period (its perfection only slightly marred by ubiquitous mosquitoes) of gliding through a world of green-gold reeds, and long pools powder-blue from a reflected sky, in which pink flamingoes waded while overhead sailed pelicans and giant herons. Thanks to the trident, their diet was now supplemented with carp and catfish grilled over a fire of dried reeds or palm leaf stalks, of which a plentiful supply was always to be had at the abandoned villages where they spent the nights.

In the evenings, they regaled each other at first with accounts of their past lives then, when these were exhausted, with traditional stories, such as staples like ‘The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus’.* In addition: Macedonia had a plentiful supply of travellers’ tales garnered from merchants and suppliers she had dealt with in her business ventures; Pelagia, who had absorbed the old Greek legends at her mother’s knee, recounted the exploits (embellished by a lively imagination) of Jason and the Argonauts, Perseus who slew the Gorgon, of Herakles and his twelve heroic Labours, Theseus who rid Cnossos of its terrible Minotaur, et cetera; Sister Agnes delighted in telling of the martyrdom of saints — the grislier the better — preferably featuring virgins of spotless innocence and virtue being torn with red-hot pincers, tortured on spiked wheels, pulled apart by horses, thrown to wild beasts in the arena. .

One night Macedonia suggested that, for a change, they make up a story, each continuing from the point at which the previous teller left off. The suggestion being received with enthusiasm, she offered to be the first.

‘Once upon a time,’ she began, ‘on an island to the east of Taprobane,* there lived a poor fisherman. One day he found in his catch an oyster, which yielded an enormous pearl. It was as big as a — ’

‘Pomegranate?’ suggested Pelagia.

‘Foolish girl,’ scoffed Sister Agnes. ‘Everyone knows that’s impossible; a grape would be more like it.’

‘Perhaps something in between,’ said Macedonia tactfully. ‘An apricot. Anyway, the fisherman, knowing that his pearl was worth a fortune, realized that he could greatly ease life for his family if only he could sell the pearl. But who would buy it? There was no one on the island anything like wealthy enough to offer a fair price. So this is what he did.’ Macedonia turned to Pelagia with a smile. ‘I pass the baton on to you.’

‘Hearing of the wondrous pearl, a prince of Araby determined to acquire it for himself,’ gushed Pelagia, her eyes shining with excitement.

‘There you go again,’ sighed Sister Agnes. ‘You haven’t told us how the prince heard about the pearl.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ retorted the girl impatiently. ‘Let’s say the fisherman told his fellow fishermen to spread the news among any ocean-going vessels they encountered. Will that do?’

‘Admirably,’ put in Macedonia. ‘Carry on, my dear.’

‘Well, the prince told his boldest sea-captain to try to find the island and, after rewarding its owner, to bring him back the pearl,’ continued Pelagia, and went on to relate how, after various adventures — surviving storms, near-shipwreck, attack by pirates and so on — the captain reached the island and bought the pearl. ‘However, just as he was setting sail for home — ’ Breaking off, the girl turned to Sister Agnes. ‘Your turn, Sister,’ she invited.

‘For their love of filthy lucre and the vain object it could buy, the Lord decided to punish both the prince and the fisherman,’ declared the nun, clearly relishing the opportunity to wreak divine retribution (if only in imagination) on weak and worldly sinners. ‘And so He commanded Porphyry* to leave the Bosphorus and swim to the island, where — ’

‘But how would it get from the Mediterranean into the Indian Ocean?’ interrupted Pelagia. ‘There’s no entry into the Red Sea.’

‘To the Lord, Who split asunder the Red Sea to allow the Children of Israel to pass, all things are possible,’ replied the nun loftily.

‘That won’t do,’ objected Pelagia. ‘I had to explain how the prince found out about the pearl. What’s good for the goose. . Porphyry would have to swim round Africa; but we don’t know if that’s possible.’

‘This is supposed to be story, not a Geography lesson,’ laughed Macedonia. ‘Actually, it probably is possible — if Herodotus was right in claiming that an Egyptian called Necho circumnavigated Africa about a hundred years before his time. Anyway, let’s assume Herodotus was right and that Porphyry reached the island. What then?’

‘The monster waited until next the fisherman put out to sea, then, with a swish of his mighty tail, he sank the vessel, and devoured the man. After that, he appeared, just above the surface, beside the ship in which the captain was returning with the pearl. Thinking the back of Porphyry to be a small island or strange rock and curious to know more, the captain and his crew rowed out and landed on it. Whereupon the monster dived, leaving the men to drown.’ Having despatched the erring mortals in the tale, Sister Agnes sat back with a leer of satisfaction at a job well done.

‘Now you’ve gone and spoiled the story!’ complained a disappointed Pelagia. ‘I wanted to find out what happened to the pearl, and the fisherman’s family, and everything. .’

‘Come, pet, it’s only a story,’ soothed Macedonia, with a rather forced laugh, and casting a reproachful look at Sister Agnes. ‘We’ll tell it again some other time and you can make up a different ending.’

For something so trivial, the abrupt and gloomy ending of the story seemed to cast a disproportionate pall on the mood of the evening. Conversation dried up, and shortly after, the three lay down to sleep on mats of sedge and rushes.

Almost as though the story of the pearl and the fisherman had been the cause, Fortune — which thus far had seemed to smile upon the trio’s bid for freedom — now turned her face against them. The following day, a strange unearthly light suffused the skies at first. These then darkened, the weather breaking in a series of thunderstorms and torrential downpours. Macedonia suddenly fell sick from fever, with chills, sweats, and fits of violent shivering, caused, they thought, by the poisonous miasma supposedly arising from the marsh.* Her condition worsening, they were forced to make semi-permanent camp in one of the marshland’s deserted villages whose ‘guest-house’ (as usual, of stouter construction than the ordinary huts) provided adequate protection. Here, rest, and shelter from the incessant rain would, it was hoped, aid Macedonia’s recovery.

One morning, the rain having eased somewhat, Pelagia was foraging along the island’s ‘shore’ for wind-blown palm-fronds to dry for fuel. A heavy drop of water struck her cheek, warning her that the lull in the weather was destined not to last — a message reinforced by a sudden darkening of the skies, accompanied by a rumble of thunder. As she was bundling up her spoils, Pelagia became aware of an unfamiliar noise close by, its source invisible behind dense screens of reeds. The noise grew louder — a large animal, to judge by the splashing and loud snorting. Terrified, Pelagia stood stock-still, scarcely daring to breathe, almost tempted to believe that the pounding of her heart must give away her presence.

The reeds before her trembled, then parted, to reveal a monster from the realm of nightmares: a huge bull-like creature, with shiny dripping muzzle, patches of bare brown polished hide showing through bristly black hair, and a pair of enormous, curving back-swept horns. The creature stared at her balefully from little red-rimmed eyes.

Suddenly, a crack of thunder sounded and the sky lit up, as a jagged bolt of lightning struck a palm not twenty feet away. Pelagia’s nerve broke; with a scream, she dropped her bundle, turned and began running. Maddened by the thunderclap and lightning flash, the girl’s flight was the trigger for the buffalo to go into attack mode. With an enraged bellow, it raised its head and charged. Docile enough when domesticated, water-buffalo quickly revert to a feral state if returned to the wild. This must have been such an animal — abandoned by its owner in whatever crisis had caused his community to migrate.

Pelagia stood no chance. In seconds the huge beast was on her. With a sound like a snapping branch, her back broke beneath a vicious swipe from those terrible horns. Her screams of agony and terror died swiftly as, butting and trampling, the creature proceeded to reduce her body to a tattered pulp. .

Some hours later, Sister Agnes found Pelagia’s remains. Recovering fast from her initial shock, the old nun, no stranger when it came to dealing with the dead, covered the corpse with vegetation and stuck in the ground near the head, a cross crudely fashioned of stalks from the girl’s discarded bundle. A poor apology for a committal, she thought sadly, but under the circumstances the best that could be done. After muttering a prayer, she returned to her patient in the ‘guest-house’.

Two days later, despite Sister Agnes’ unremitting solicitude, Macedonia passed away. Just before the end she woke from a delirious slumber, and in a clear voice said to the nun, ‘Would you, dear friend, go to Constantinople for me. Tell Empress Theodora that I truly loved her, and ask her sometimes to remember Macedonia? It is much to ask, I know; but you will be amply recompensed.’ She clasped the other’s hand; her grip tightened — then suddenly relaxed in death.

Love between women is an abomination, the Bible condemns it, thought the nun. Nevertheless, for the sake of her friend, she would fulfil her dying wish. Lacking tools to dig a grave, she removed the body to one of the huts. In this makeshift sepulchre, she prayed long for the souls of her companions, and in the morning pushed on westward in the boat, armed only with an iron will and an indomitable faith.

* This important waterway connected the Tigris with the Euphrates south of Ctesiphon (whose site is very close to where Baghdad now stands).

* See Notes.

* For an account of this tale, see Chapter 33 of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall.

* Ceylon/Sri Lanka.

* The name of a real ‘sea-monster’ (probably a killer whale) that for years terrorized fishermen in the Bosphorus at this time. When finally washed ashore, it was found to measure forty-five feet by fifteen.

* See Notes.