The Boat of a Million Years

1

The caravan to Tripolis would leave at daybreak. Nebozabad, its master, wanted everything ready the evening before. He wanted every man rehearsed in making and breaking camp. Delays not only cost money, they multiplied risk.

So he thought. Some people told him not to fret. Peace was now secure, they said, Syria firmly in Arabian hands. Had not the Khalifa himself passed through Tadmor, on his way to holy Jerusalem, three years ago? Nebozabad was less trustful. Throughout his life he had seen too much war, with the disruption of trade, breakdown of order, and upsurge of banditry that soon followed. He meant to use every hour of opportunity that God granted him.

Therefore his charges bedded down not in a caravanserai but on a ground beyond the Philippian Gate. He went about, speaking to camel drivers, guards, traders, lesser folk, issuing commands where needed, piecemeal giving turmoil a shape and a meaning. Night was well upon him before he was done.

He paused, then, to enjoy a moment alone. Air had gone cool, with a tinge of smoke from the small fires that glimmered in the camp. Otherwise it was a huddle of darkness. He made out the peaks of a few tents, pitched by the more prosperous among his travelers, and sometimes light flickered off the spearhead of a sentry on his rounds. Nebozabad wanted all routines working from the outset. A murmur reached his ears, talk of men who sat up late, occasionally the soft whicker of a horse or the nimble and gurgle in a camel’s throat.

Stars glittered brilliant, beyond counting. From the west a gibbous moon cast light down the shallow valley. It frosted hills, palm fronds, the tower tombs that rose out of shadow, the turrets and battlements of the city wall. That wall loomed sheer, gray-white, as if a piece of the steppe surrounding this basin had been turned on end. It seemed as eternal, too, its massiveness never to be breached, the life that now slept behind its shelter to pulse every day forever.

The thought made Nebozabad bite his lip. Much too well did he know otherwise. In his own lifetime the Persians had driven out the Romans, and later the Romans had driven out the Persians, and today both nations were in retreat before the sword of Islam; and while trade routes still bore wealth into Tadmor and forth again, the city was long past her glory. Ah, to have lived then, when she—Palmyra on Latin and Greek tongues—was the queen of Syria, before Emperor Aurelian crushed Zenobia’s bid for freedom—

Nebozabad sighed, shrugged, turned about and started back. A city, like a man, must bear whatever fate God decrees. In that much, at least, the Muslims were right.

On his way, he heard and answered several greetings. “Christ be with you, master.”

“And his spirit be with you.” Everyone recognized his stocky form in the plain djellabah, his rather heavy features bared to the sky. Moonlight touched white streaks in hair and short-cropped beard.

Presently he neared his own tent. It was of good material though modest size; he never took along weight that could, instead, be in articles of value. Lamplight glowed faint yellow around a flap hanging loose.

A hand clutched his ankle. His stopped short, sucked in a breath, closed fingers on knife hilt. “Quiet,” a voice whispered frantically, “By God’s mercy, I pray you. I mean no harm.”

Nonetheless chill tingled through him as he peered. Someone crouched, flattened close to the ground, a paleness amidst the shadows. Naked? “What is this?” he hissed.

“I need help,” came back at him. “Can we speak alone? Behold, I am unarmed.”

He believed he knew that voice. Often had he had to make quick decisions.

“Abide,” he said low. The imploring hand released him. He stepped around to the front of his tent and slipped past the flap, with care that little light flash forth. Within, the camel’s-hair fabric enclosed a measure of warmth. A clay lamp dimly showed his bedroll spread out for him, water pitcher and basin and two or three other minor comforts ready, his body servant hunkered down. That person brought knees, hands, and brow to earth in salutation and asked, “What is my master’s desire?”

“I expect a visitor,” Nebozabad told him. “Depart cautiously, as I arrived. When I have secured the entrance, let no one else seek to me, nor ever speak a word of this.”

“On my head be it, master.” The slave glided off. Nebozabad had chosen and trained him well; he was wholly loyal. When he was gone, Nebozabad looked out for a moment, murmured, “Come now,” and drew back again.

The other scuttled through, straightened, confronted him. Despite his half knowledge, he gasped. A woman indeed. Oh, woman’s very self!

He remembered the danger, muttered a curse, hastened to secure the entrance. Then he dared try to deal with her.

She had lowered herself to knees and toes, hands laid across her lap. Midnight tresses flowed over shoulders, down past her breasts. He guessed flittingly that that was not quite by chance. Nothing else had she for garment, except grime, a streak of clotting blood on the left forearm, sweat that shimmered in the lamplight, and the gloom. Her body might have belonged to an ancient goddess, lithe, firm-bosomed, slim-waisted, round-hipped. The face she turned to him was broad across the cheekbones, straight of nose, lips full above the cleanness of chin and jawline. Her skin was faintly golden and the great eyes, beneath arching brows, were hazel. In her, Roman of the West, Roman of the East, Hellene, and Persian had mingled with Syria.

He stared down at the sight. She seemed a maiden, no, a youthful matron, no, something for which he had no name. But he knew her.

Her voice trembled husky. “O Nebozabad, old friend, there is no hope left me save in you. Help me, as once my house helped you. You have known us all your life.”

Forty-odd years. The thought struck like a dagger. His mind flew back across more than thirty of them.

2

Aliyat both longed for Barikai’s return and dreaded it. She would have the solace of his embrace and of giving him her own upbearing love. So had they stood together when they lost other children; but those were infants. First, though, she must tell him what had happened.

He was elsewhere in Tadmor, talking with the merchant Taimarsu. News from the front was evil, the Persians inflicting defeat after defeat upon the Romans, thrusting into Mesopotamia, with Syria’s defenses thin on their left. More and more, commerce with the seaboard pulled into its shell and awaited the outcome. Caravan masters such as Barikai suffered. Most were, themselves, chary of venturing anywhere. He, bolder, went off to persuade the traffickers that they should not let goods molder in warehouses.

She imagined his heartiness, his laughter: “I’ll convey them. Prices in Tripolis or Berytus will be at a peak! Rewards are for the brave.” She had encouraged it. Daughter of a man in the same trade, she was closer to her husband than most wives, almost a partner as well as his mate and the mother of his children. It eased the wistfulness that tugged at her whenever she stood on the city wall and watched his train move off beyond the horizon.

But today— A female slave found her in the garden and said, “The master is here.” Aliyat’s spirit twisted within her.

She called up courage as women must, in childbed or by deathbed, and hastened. Her skirts rustled through a silence full of eyes. All the household knew.

It was a fair-sized household in a good-sized building. Until lately Barikai, like his father before him, had done well. Aliyat hoped it would not become necessary to sell off any slaves; she was fond of them. She was instituting frugality... What mattered such things?

The atrium lay dim with eventide. Her glance fell on the image of the Virgin that stood In a niche, its blue and gold aglow against whitewash. For a little while she had knelt before it, silently praying that the news not be true. The image had merely stared, changeless.

Barikai had just given his cloak to a servant. Beneath it he wore a robe decorated with gold thread, to show power, confidence. Time had grizzled the dark hair and furrowed the lean face, but he still walked springily. “Christ be with you, my lady,” he began, as was seemly in the presence of attendants. His gaze sharpened. He reached her in three long strides and took her by the shoulders. “What is wrong?”

She must swallow twice before she could beg, “Come with me.” His mouth drew tight. Wordlessly he followed her back into the garden.

Enclosed by the house, it was a place of cool calm, refuge from the world. Jasmine and roses grew around a pool where water lilies floated. Their fragrances drenched the air. Overhead, heaven had gone royal blue as the sun went below the roof. Here two people could be alone.

Aliyat turned to Barikai. She doubled her fists at her sides and forced out, “Manu is dead.”

He stood unmoving.

“Young Mogim brought the word this morning,” Aliyat told him. “He was among the few who escaped. The squadron was on patrol south of Khalep. A Persian cavalry troop surprised them. Mogim saw Manu take an arrow in his eye, fall from the saddle, go down under the hoofs.”

“South of Khalep,” Barikai croaked. “Already. Then they are coming into Syria.”

She knew that man-thought was only the first poor shield he could lift. She saw it break in his grasp. “Manu,” he said. “Our first-born. Gone.” The hand shook with which he crossed himself, over and over. “God have mercy on him. Christ take him home. Help him, holy Georgios.”

I too should pray, Aliyat thought, and knew with a wan surprise that any wish to do so had withered.

“Have you told Aqmat?” Barikai asked.

“Of course. Best, I think, best leave her and her children in peace for a while.” Manu’s young wife had lived in terror of this since he was called to war. The fact had fallen on her like a hammer.

“I sent a messenger to Hairan, but his master has dispatched him to Emesa on some business,” Aliyat went on. The younger of their sons worked for a dealer in wine. “The sisters mourn at home.” Their three living daughters were married, well enough that she was glad of the earlier struggle to amass good dowries for them.

“I think now—to carry on my trade—I think I will take Nebozabad to apprentice,” Barikai mumbled. “You know him, do you not? Son of the widow Hafsa. Only ten years old, but a likely lad. And it would be a kindness. It might make the saints smile a little on Manu’s soul.”

Abruptly he seized her, painfully hard. “But why do I chatter like this?” he yelled. “Manu is gone!”

She loosened his hands, guided his arms around her, held him very close. They stood thus for many heartbeats, while shadows rose in the garden and light drained from the sky.

“Aliyat, Aliyat,” he whispered at last, shakenly, into her hair, “my love, my strength. How can it be that you are what you are? Wife of mine, mother, grandmother, and yet you could well-nigh be the girl I made my bride.”

3

When the Persians occupied Tadmor, they first levied a heavy tribute. Thereafter they were not bad overlords— no worse than the Romans, thought Aliyat in secret. Zarathushtrans who held fire sacred, they let everybody worship according to belief, and in fact kept Orthodox Christians, Nestorian Christians, and Jews from molesting each other. Meanwhile their firm control of the territories they won allowed trade to resume, also with their own country. After a dozen years, people heard that they were advancing farther, had taken Jerusalem and presently Egypt. Aliyat wondered if they would go on to Old Rome, but decided, from what men told about Italy, that that raddled land, divided among Lombard chiefs, the Catholic Pope, and remnant Imperial garrisons, would be no prize.

Word trickled in: a new Emperor, Heraklios, reigned in Constantinople and was said to be energetic and able. However, he had woes close to home. Barely did he cast the wild Avars back from the capital city.

In Tadmor such events seemed remote, not quite real. Aliyat was nearly the sole woman there who even heard of them. One had one’s private life to cope with. For her, too, the days and the years blurred together. A grandchild born, a friend dying, rose into reality and stood afterward in memory like lone hills espied on a long caravan trek.

So matters were at the hour that ended them.

She set forth with a sturdy female attendant for the agora. They left early in the morning, to finish her bargaining and carry back her purchases before the heat of the day drove folk indoors to rest. Barikai bade her a farewell she could barely hear. He had been weak of late, with bouts of pain in the chest and shortness of breath, he who was hitherto so strong. Neither prayers nor physicians availed much.

Aliyat and Mara followed their winding street to the Colonnade and walked on along it. The great double row of pillars gleamed triumphant between the arches at either end, bursting into florescence where the capitals challenged heaven. From a ledge on each, a statue of some famous citizen looked down, centuries of history at attention. Below them the ways were crowded with shops, trading offices, chapels, joyhouses, humanity. Smells eddied thick, smoke, sweat, dung, perfume, aroma of spices and oils and fruits. Noise rioted, footfalls, hoofbeats, wheel-creak, hammer-clang, chant, shout, speech, mostly the Aramaic of this country but also Greek, Persian, Arabic, and tongues of lands more distant yet. Colors swirled, a cloak, a robe, a veil, a headdress, a pennon streaming from a lance, an ornament, a charm. A rug seller sat amidst the rich hues of his wares. A wine vendor held his leather bottle aloft. A coppersmith made clangor. An oxcart slogged through the crowds, laden with dates from the oasis. A camel grunted and shambled beneath bales of silk from beyond Aliyat’s ken. A squad of Persian horsemen trotted behind a trumpeter who warned the throng to dear the way; their armor flashed, their plumes rippled. A litter bore a wealthy merchant, another a bedizened courtesan, who both looked out with indolent insolence. A black-clad Christian priest drew aside from an austere magus and crossed himself once the latter was past. Drovers who had brought sheep in from the arid steppe wandered wide-eyed among enticements that would likely send them back to their tents penniless. A flute piped, a small drum thumped, somebody sang, high-pitched and quavery.

This was her city, Aliyat knew, these were her people, and nonetheless she was ever more estranged from them.

“Lady! Lady!”

She stopped at the call and glanced about. Nebozabad forced a path toward her. The persons whom he shoved aside shook their fists and cursed him. He went on unhearing until he reached her. She read his countenance and foreknowledge became a boulder in her breast.

“Lady, I hoped I could overtake you,” the young man panted. “I was with my master, your husband, when— He is stricken. He uttered your name. I sent for a physician and myself started after you.”

“Lead me,” said Aliyat’s voice.

He did, loudly, roughly, quickly. They returned beneath the brightening, uncaring sky to the house. “Wait,” Aliyat commanded at the door of the bedchamber, and went in alone.

She need not have hurt Nebozabad by leaving him out in the corridor. She had not been thinking. Of course several slaves were there, standing aside, awed and helpless. But likewise, already, was their remaining son Hairan. He leaned over the bed, holding fast to him who lay in it. “Father,” he pleaded, “father, can you hear me?”

Barikai’s eyes were rolled back, a hideous white against the blueness that crept below the skin. Froth bubbled on his lips. The breath shuddered in and out of him, ceased, came raggedly anew, ceased again. Beadwork curtains across the windows tried to obscure the sight. For Aliyat they only made a twilight through which she saw him the starker.

Hairan looked up. Tears ran into his beard. “I fear he is dying, mother,” he said.

“I know.” She knelt, brushed his hands aside, laid her arms about Barikai and her cheek on her man’s bosom. She heard, she felt the life go away.

Rising, she closed his eyes and tried to wipe his face. The physician arrived. “I can see to that, my lady,” he offered.

She shook her bead. “I will lay him out,” she answered. “It is my right.”

“Fear not, mother,” Hairan said unevenly. “I will provide well for you—you shall have a peaceful old age—“ The words trailed off. He stared, as did the physician and the slaves. Barikai, caravan master, had not reached his full threescore and ten, but he seemed as if he had, hair mostly white, visage gaunt, muscles shriveled over the bones. His widow who stood above him could have been a woman of twenty springtimes.

4

Unto Hairan the wine merchant was born a grandson, and great was the rejoicing in his house. The feast that he and the father gave for kinfolk and friends lasted far into the night. Aliyat withdrew early from the women’s part of it, into the rear of the building where she had a room. No one thought ill of this; after all, however much respect her years entitled her to, they were a burden.

She did not seek rest as everybody supposed. Once alone, she straightened her back and changed her shuffling gait. Fast, supple, she went out a back door. The voluminous black garments that disguised her figure billowed with her haste. Her head was covered as usual, which hid the blackness of her locks. Family and servitors often remarked on bow amazingly youthful her face and hands were; but now she lowered a veil.

She passed a slave going about his duties, who recognized her but simply made salutation. He would not babble about what he had seen. He too was old, and knew that one must bear with the old if sometimes they grow a trifle strange.

The night air was blessedly cool and fresh. The street was a gut of shadow, but her feet knew every stone and she found her way easily to the Colonnade. Thence she strode toward the agora. A full moon had cleared surrounding roofs. Its brilliance hid the stars close to it, though lower down they swarmed and sparkled. The pillars lifted white. Her footfalls slithered loud in the silence. Most folk were abed.

She took some risk, but it was slight. Mostly, the city guards had continued under the Persians to maintain law and order. Once she hid behind a column while a squad tramped past. Their pikeheads sheened like liquid in the moonlight. Had they seen her, they might well have insisted on bringing her home—unless they took her for a harlot, which would have led to questions for which she lacked answers.

“Why do you prowl about after dark?” She could not say, she did not know, yet she must get away for a while or else begin screaming.

This was not the first such time.

At the Street of the Marketers she turned south. The grace of the theater fountained upward on her right. On her left, the portico and wall around the agora lay ghostly under the moon. She had heard that they were but fragments of what formerly was, before desperate men quarried them for fortification material as the Romans closed in on Zenobia. That suited her mood. She passed through an unbarred gateway onto the broad plaza.

Remembrance of its liveliness by day made it feel all die more empty. Statues of former high officials, military commanders, senators, and, yes, caravan leaders ringed it in like sentinels around a necropolis. Aliyat walked through the moonlight to the center and stopped. Her heartbeat and breath were the only sounds she heard.

“Miriamne, Mother of God, I thank you—“ The words died on her lips. They were as hollow as the place where she stood, they would be mockery did she finish them.

Why was she barren of gladness and gratitude? A son had been born to the son of her son. The life that was in Barikai lived on. Could she call his dear shade out of the night, surely it would be smiling.

A shudder went through her. She could not raise the memory. His face had become a blur; she had words for its lineaments, but no vision any-longer. Everything receded into the past, her loves died and died and died, and God would not let her follow them.

She should praise Him with song, that she was hale and whole, untouched by age. How many, halt, gnarled, toothless, half blind, afire with pain, longed for death’s mercy? Whereas she— But the fear of her gathered year by year, the glances askance, whispers, furtive signs against evil. Hairan himself saw in the mirror his gray hair and lined brow, and wondered about his mother; she knew, she knew. She held as much apart as she could, not to remind her kin, and understood what an unspoken conspiracy was theirs, to avoid speaking of her before outsiders. And so she became the outsider, the one forever alone.

How could she be a great-grandmother, she in whose loins burned lust? Was that why she was punished by this, or what dreadful childhood sin of hers had she forgotten?

The moon moved onward, the stars turned their wheel. Slowly, something of heaven’s bleak tranquility came to her. She started homeward. She would not surrender. Not yet.

5

The war devoured a generation, but in the end Heraklios prevailed. He drove the Persians before him until they sued for peace. Two-and-twenty years after they left, the Romans re-entered Tadmor.

On their heels was a new resident, Zabdas, a dealer in spices from Emesa. That was a somewhat larger city, nearer the seaboard, therefore wealthier and more closely governed. Zabdas’ family firm had an affiliate in Tadmor. After the chaos of battle and the latest change of overlords it needed reorganization, a cunning hand on the reins and a shrewd eye out for such opportunities as might appear. He arrived and took charge. That required making acquaintances, alliances, among local people. He was handicapped in this by being newly widowed, and therefore soon began looking for a wife.

Nobody told Aliyat about him, and indeed when he first visited Hairan it was on business. The dignity of the house, the guest, and herself required that she be among the women who bade him welcome before the men supped. Out of sheer rebelliousness, or so she vaguely thought, she left off her shapeless grandam’s clothes and dressed in modest but becoming wise. She saw his startlement on learning who she was; eyes met eyes; a thrill that she fought to control went through her. He was a short man of about fifty, but erect, alert, the white hairs few and the visage well-molded. They exchanged ritual courtesies. She went back to her room.

Though she often found it hard to pluck a single memory out of the multitude that crowded her, certain experiences repeated themselves frequently enough that she gained skill from them. She could well read the meaning of Hairan’s glances when he thought she didn’t notice, the words he spoke to her and the words he did not. She could sense a rising current of excitement in the wives and slaves, even the older children. Her sleep became broken, she paced and paced or stole out by dark, the comfort that she had sometimes found in books now vanished.

It was no surprise when at length Hairan asked her to see him privately. That was in winter’s early night, after most of the household had gone to bed. He admitted her when she knocked, escorted her to a cushioned stool, sat down cross-legged on the rug behind a table on which stood wine, dates, cakes.

For a space there was quiet. Bronze lamps sheened in the light that their flames threw soft. It picked out floral patterns of frescos, reds and blues and browns of carpet, the folds of his robe and the furrows in his face. He was wholly gray and had grown a pot belly. He blinked dimsightedly at her slimness. The brocade of green and gold that she had chosen lay close over curves; above her head covering, a wreath of gold wire enclosed the clear brows.

“Will you take refreshment, mother?” he invited finally, very low.

“Thank you.” She reached for a goblet. The wine glowed on her tongue. Drink and food, those were comforts too. They had not lost their savor as she aged, nor had she become fat.

“You should not thank me.” He looked away. “It is my duty to provide for your well-being.”

“You have been a dutiful son.”

“I have tried my best.” In a rush, never meeting her gaze: “You, though, you are unhappy with us. True? I am not blind or deaf so far, not quite. You seldom if ever complain, but I cannot help knowing.”

She commanded her body to be still, her voice to be level: “True. No fault of yours, nor of anyone else.” She must force herself to hurt him. “I daresay you feel you are a young man trapped in flesh growing old. Well, I am an old woman trapped in flesh that stays young. Why this is, only God knows.”

He twined fingers together. “You are—how old? Threescore and ten? Well, some people do carry their years well and reach great ages. If you lived for a hundred years in good health, it would not be unheard of. May God grant you do so.” She marked how he evaded mention of the fact that except for teeth showing wear she bore no trace of the time that had passed.

Let her encourage him to say what he intended to say. “You will understand how my uselessness makes me restless.”

“It need not!” burst from him. He lifted his eyes. She saw sweat on his skin. “Hark. Zabdas, a respectable man, a merchant, has asked for your hand in marriage.”

I knew this, she thought; and aloud: “I know whom you speak of,” She said naught about the cautious inquiries she had contrived to make. “But he and I met just a single time.”

“He has queried people about you, and talked repeatedly with me, and— He is, I say, an honorable man, well off and with excellent prospects for the future, a widower in need of a wife. He realizes that you are older than him, but feels this is no barrier. He has children grown, grandchildren coming, what he wants is a helpmate. Believe me, I have made sure of this.”

“Do you wish the union, Hairan?” Aliyat asked quietly.

She sipped while he stuttered, fumbled with his goblet, looked to and fro, before he said, “I would never compel you, mother. It simply appears to me ... it may be in your best interests. I will not deny, he offers certain business agreements that would ... help. My enterprise has fallen on hard times.”

“I know.” He showed surprise. Aliyat whetted her tone: “Did you think me blind or deaf? I worked closely with your father, Hairan, as you never let me work with you.”

“I—mother, I did not mean—”

She laughed a little. “Oh, you have been as kindly as you know how. Let us put such things behind us. Tell me more.”

6

The wedding and the celebration that followed were an occasion small, almost subdued. Finally the bride was escorted to the groom’s bedchamber and left with a maidservant.

The room was not large, its walls merely whitewashed, its furnishings austere. Some garlands had been hung around it. A screen blocked off one comer. A three-branched candelabrum gave light. Laid across the bed were two nightgowns.

Aliyat knew she was expected to change into hers. Mutely, she let the attendant help her. She and Barikai had frolicked naked, with wicks burning bright. Well, times changed, or perhaps it was people who differed. She had been too long cut off from gossip to say.

When she stood briefly unclad, Zabdas’ slave cried: “But my lady is beautiful!”

Aliyat stroked hands down her flanks. The touch tingled. She barely stopped short of her groin. Tonight she would again know the true pleasure that had haunted her for— how many years? She smiled. “Thank you.”

“I, I heard you were old,” the girl stammered.

“I am.” Aliyat’s manner imposed fear and silence.

She had an hour or two by herself in bed. Thoughts tumbled through her head, out of control. Now and then she shivered. At least her days in the house of her son had been predictable. That, though, was what had become the horror of them.

She sat up with a start when Zabdas entered. He closed the door behind him and stood for a moment watching her. In festival garb, he was ... dapper. Her gown was of rather thick material, loosely cut, but her bosom swelled it outward. “You are more fair than I knew,” he said in his careful way.

She lowered her lashes. “I thank my lord,” she replied around the tightness in her throat.

He advanced. “Still, you are a woman of discretion, with the wisdom of your years,” he said. “Such a one do I require.” He halted before the icon of St. Ephraem Syrus that was the chamber’s sole fixed ornament and crossed himself. “Grant us a satisfactory life together,” he prayed.

Taking his nightshirt, he went behind the screen. She saw how neatly he hung his clothes over the top. When he returned dressed for sleep, he bent over, cupped a hand behind each candle in turn, and blew them out. He got into bed with his usual economy of motion.

He is my husband, pulsed in Aliyat. He is my liberation. Let me be good to him.

She reached out. Her arms enclosed, her mouth went seeking. “What?” Zabdas exclaimed. “Be at ease. I shall not hurt you.”

“Do, if you like.” She pressed against him. “How may I please you?”

“Why, why— This is— Kindly lie still, my lady. Remember your years.”

She obeyed. Sometimes she and Barikai had enjoyed playing master and slave. Or youth and whore. She felt Zabdas raise himself to an elbow. His free hand tugged at her gown. She pulled it up and spread her thighs. He climbed between. He rested his full weight on her, which Barikai had not, but then Zabdas was much lighter. She reached to guide him. Briskly, he took care of that himself, grasped her breasts through the cloth, and thrust. He did not seem to notice how her arms and legs clasped him. It was quickly over.

He got off and lay until his breathing was again even. She could barely see him as a deeper shadow in the night. He sounded troubled: “How wet you were. You have the body of a young woman, as well as the face.”

“For you,” she murmured.

Through the mattress she felt him tauten. “What is your age in truth?” So Hairan had avoided saying it outright; but Zabdas had perhaps avoided asking.

Fourscore and one, she knew. “I have never kept count,” was the safest reply. “But there has been no deception, my lord. I am Hairan’s mother. I ... was quite young when I bore him, and you have seen that I carry my years better than most.”

“A wonder.” His voice was fiat.

“Uncommon. A blessing. I am unworthy, but—“ It must out: “My courses have not yet ended. I can bear you children, Zabdas.”

“This is—“ He searched for a word. “Unexpected.”

“Let us thank God together.”

“Yes. We should. But now best we sleep. I have much to do in the morning.”

7

To Zabdas came the caravan master Nebozabad. They must discuss a proposed shipment to Dannesek. A journey of that length could no longer be lightly undertaken. News was too ominous, of the Arabian onslaught against Persia and threat to New Rome.

The merchant received his guest well, as he did all who were of consequence, and bade him dine. Aliyat insisted on serving them with her own hands. As they sat over their dessert, Zabdas excused himself and was gone for a while. He suffered from an occasional flux of the bowels. Nebozabad waited alone.

The room was the best furnished in the house, with embroidered red hangings, four seven-branched candelabra of gilt bronze, a table of teakwood carven in foliate patterns and inlaid with nacre, the ware upon it of silver or the finest glass. A pinch of incense hi a brazier made the air, on this warm eventide, a little cloying.

Nebozabad looked up when Aliyat came in with a tray of fruits. She stopped across from him, in dark garments that muffled sight of more than hands, countenance, the big hazel eyes. “Sit down, my lady,” he urged.

She shook her head. “That would be unseemly,” she answered in a near whisper.

“Then I will stand.” He rose from his stool. “Far too long has it been since last I saw you. How fares it?”

“Well enough.” She took on expression; her words leaped. “And how is it with you? Aiid Hairan and, oh, everybody? I hear very little.”

“You do not see much of anyone, do you, my lady?”

“My husband feels it would be ... indiscreet ... at my age. But how goes it, Nebozabad? Tell me, I beg you!”

He repeated her phrase: “Well enough. Another grandchild born to him, a girl, have you heard? As for myself, I have two living sons and a daughter, by the grace of God. Business—“ He shrugged. “This is what I’ve come about.”

“Is the danger from the Arabs great?”

“I fear so.” He paused, tugged his beard. “In your days with master Barikai, may he be happy in Heaven, you knew everything that went on. You took a hand in it yourself.”

She bit her lip. “Zabdas feels differently.”

“I suppose he wishes to keep rumors down, and that is why he never has Hairan, or any kinsman of yours, here— Forgive me!” He had seen what crossed her features. “I should not pry. It’s only that, that you were my master’s lady when I was a boy, and ever gracious to me, and—“ His voice trailed off.

“You are good to be concerned.” She jerked her head as if to keep it from drooping. “But I have fewer sorrows than many do.”

“I heard your child died. I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “That was last year. Wounds heal. We will try again.”

“You have not already? No, again I spoke badly. Too much wine. Forgive me. Seeing how beautiful you still are, I thought—”

She flushed. “My husband is not too old.”

“Yet he— No. Aliyat, my lady, if ever you should need help—”

Zabdas returned and she, having set down her tray, said good night and departed.

8

While Roman and Persian bled each other to exhaustion, afar in Makkah Muhammad ibn Abdallah saw visions, preached, must flee to Yathrib, prevailed over his enemies, gave his refuge the new name Medinat Rasul Allah, the City of the Apostle of God, and died as master of Arabia. His Khalifa, Successor, Abu Bekr suppressed rebellion and launched in earnest those holy wars that united the people and carried the faith out across the world.

Six years after the troops of Emperor Heraklios reclaimed Tadmor, the troops of Khalifa Omar took it. The year after that they were in Jerusalem, and the year after that the Khalifa visited the holy city, passing triumphant through a completely subjugated Syria while couriers brought accounts of Islamic banners carried deep into the Persian heartland.

On the day he spent in Tadmor, from her rooftop Aliyat witnessed magnificence, gallant horses, richly caparisoned camels, riders whose helmets and mailcoats, lances and shields turned sunlight into flame, cloaks like windblown rainbows, trumpet and drum and deep-voiced chant. The streets surged, the oasis boiled with the conquerors. Yet she noticed that the far greater number of them were lean and roughly clad. Likewise was their garrison here, and their officials lived simple lives, five times daily humbling themselves before God when the muezzin’s call wailed across the sky.

Nor were they bad rulers. They levied tribute, but it was not unbearable. They turned a few churches into mosques, but otherwise left Christians and Jews in the peace that they sternly enforced. The qadi, then chief justice, held court beneath the arch at the east end of the Colonnade, near the agora, and even the lowliest could appeal directly to him. Then- irruption had been too swift to damage trade much, and it soon began reviving.

Aliyat was not altogether surprised when Zabdas said to her, in the tone that meant he would banish her to a rear room if she gave him any dispute: “I have reached a great decision. This household shall embrace Islam.”

Nonetheless she stood a while quiescent, amidst the shadows with which the single frugal lamp filled their bedchamber. When she spoke it was slowly, and her eyes searched him. “This is indeed a matter of the first importance. Have they compelled you?”

He shook his head. “No, no. They do not—except pagans, I am told.” He formed his thin brief smile. “They would rather most of us remain Christian, so we may own land, which believers may not, and pay tribute for it as well as the other taxes. My talks with the imam whom I approached have been difficult. But of course he may not refuse a sincere convert.”

“You’ll gain many advantages.”

He reddened. “Do you call me a hypocrite?”

“No, no, certainly not, my lord.”

Zabdas turned mild. “I understand. To you this is a terrible shock, you who have been raised to worship Christ. Think, though. The Prophet never denied that Jesus was also a prophet. He was simply not the last one, the one to whom God revealed the full truth. Islam sweeps away the superstition about countless saints, the priests who come between a man and his God, the witless commandments and restrictions. We have but to acknowledge that there is one God and Muhammad is His Prophet. We have but to live righteous lives.” He lifted a forefinger. “Think. Could the Arabs have borne everything before them as they have done, as they are doing and shall do, were theirs not the cause that is blessed, the faith that is true? I am bringing us to the truth, Aliyat.” He squinted, peering. “You welcome the truth, do you not? It cannot harm you, can it?”

Recklessly, she cast across the space between them: “I hear a man who becomes a Muslim must suffer what Jewish boys do.”

“It will not disable me,” he snapped. Curbing temper again: “I do not expect a woman to understand these deep things. Only trust in me.”

She swallowed, willed ease upon herself, moved toward him. “I do, my lord, I do,” she murmured. Maybe she could cause him to beget a third child on her, and maybe that one would survive to give meaning back to her life. He seldom took her to him, mostly when she made herself coax him in that same hope. It was almost as if, more and more, he feared her.

As for the change of religion, that mattered less than he supposed. What had the saints done to help, throughout the endless years?

9

She had not foreknown what the change meant. Islam burst upon Syria too suddenly. Zabdas studied it before he made his move. Only when the thing was done did she learn.

The Prophet had laid upon women of the faith the ancient usages of Arabia. In public they must wear the yashmak, the heavy veil hiding everything but the eyes, and likewise at home in the presence of any man but father, brother, husband, or son. Unchastity was punished by death. Quarters for men and women were separate, like an invisible wall built through the house, to whose door its master had the single key. Submission of wife to husband was not bounded by law and custom as it was among Christians and Jews; while a marriage lasted it was total, his the right to mutilate or kill the disobedient. Aside from such tasks as marketing, she had nothing to do with the outside world; he, his children by her, and his dwelling were to be her universe. For her there was no church, and whatever Paradise she might hope for would not be his.

So Zabdas explained, piecemeal as occasion arose. Aliyat was not sure the Law was quite that one-sided. She was entirely sure that in most families, practice softened it. But be that as it may, she was a prisoner.

She was even denied the solace of wine. That might be just as well, she decided once the first rage had faded. She had been resorting to it much oftener than was wise.

Oddly, however, as the Muslim months passed, she found herself less alone than hitherto. Thrust together, the females of the household—not only she and the slaves,, but the wives and girl-children of two of Zabdas’ sons who had joined him in Tadmor—at first quarreled viciously, then began to confide in each other. Her position and her freedom from aging had set her apart. Those who now saw her sharing then- helplessness discovered they could overlook these things, and if they told her their troubles she would do what little she could to aid them.

For her part, she learned bit by bit that she was not utterly isolated. In some ways, she touched more of the city than she had done since Barikai’s death. She might be confined, but lesser females must needs go out on various errands; and they had kinfolk with whom they gossiped at every opportunity; and nobody cared to be strict with the humble, nor stopped to think that they too possessed sharp ears, open eyes, and inquiring minds. As the touch of a fly quivers through the web to the spider that sits at its middle, so did flickers of information reach Aliyat.

She was not present when Zabdas sought the qadi soon after his conversion; but in view of what was overheard and passed on, and what happened later, eventually she believed she could reconstruct it almost as well as if she had been invisibly listening.

Normally the qadi heard pleas in the open. Everybody was free to come. She could have done so, had she had any real plaint. She thought of it, and concluded drearily that she did not. Zabdas was never abusive. He provided adequately. If he no longer came to her bed, what should a woman close to her ninetieth year expect—whether or not she had again borne him a child, and this one did keep on living? The very thought was obscene.

He asked for a private audience and the qadi granted it. The two sat in the house of Mitknal ibn Dirdar and sipped chilled pomegranate juice while they talked. Neither paid heed to the eunuch who waited on them; but he had acquaintances outside, who in their turn knew people.

“Yes, of course you may divorce your wife,” Mitkhal said. “It is easily done. However, under the Law she retains all property that was hers, and I gather she brought a fair amount to this marriage. In every event, you must see to it that she does not become destitute or lack for protection.” He bridged his fingers. “Moreover, do you wish to offend her kinfolk?”

“Hairan’s goodwill is worth little these days,” Zabdas clipped. “His business fares poorly. Aliyat’s other children—by her first marriage—scarcely know her any more.

But, hm, the requirements you describe, those could prove awkward.”

Mitkhal regarded him closely. “Why do you wish to put this woman from you? In what is she at fault?”

“Proud, resentful, sullen— No,” said Zabdas beneath that gaze, “I cannot in honesty call her contumacious.”

“Has she not given you a child?”

“A girl. The two before, they soon died. The girl is small and sickly.”

“That is shabby ground for blame, my friend. Old seed gives thin fruit.”

Zabdas chose to misunderstand. “Old, yes, by ... by the Prophet! I have inquired. I should have done so at the first, but— Sir, she nears the hundred-year mark.”

The qadi’s lips formed a soundless whistle. “And yet— one hears rumors—is she not yet fair? And you tell me she remains healthy and fertile.”

Zabdas leaned forward. Sunlight fell through the grille over a window to dapple his balding head. Behind sparse whiskers, the wattles under his jaw wabbled as he cried in a high-pitched, cracking voice: “It’s unnatural! Lately she lost a tooth or two and I believed at last, at last— But new ones are growing out, as if she were a child of six or seven! She must be a witch, or an ifrit, a demon, a— That’s what I beg for. That’s what I ask for, an investigation, a—an assurance I can cast her out and—not have to fear her vengeance. Help me!”

Mitkhal raised a palm. “Hold, hold.” His words flowed soft. “Be calm. Truly we have a marvel here. Yet all things are possible to God the Omnipotent. She has not been impious or sinful in any way, has she? You may have done right to keep her as secluded as you could—since you, her husband, have had this terror brewing within you. If the tale went abroad and spread panic, she might have been set on in the streets. Beware of that.” Severely: “Ancient patriarchs lived close to a thousand years on earth. If God the Compassionate sees fit to let—Aliyat, is that her name?— linger for close to a hundred, ageless, who are we to question His will or divine His purpose?”

Zabdas stared at his lap. What teeth remained to him gritted together. “Nevertheless,” he mumbled.

“My counsel is that you keep her as long as she does no evil, for this is both justice for her and prudence for you. My decree, upholding the Law, is that you offer her no harm when she has offered none, nor make accusations that are baseless.” Mitkhal reached for his cup, sipped, smiled. “But, true, if coupling with a crone strikes you as indecent, that is a matter of your choice. Have you considered taking a second wife? You are allowed four, you know, besides concubines.”

In these latter years of his, Zabdas was quick to cool down from both his angers and his fears. He sat a moment silent, looking into a corner of the room. Then his mouth tilted upward and he murmured, “I thank my lord for his wise and merciful judgment.”

10

The day came when he summoned Aliyat to his office.

It was a chamber bare and cramped. A window opened on the inner court, but was too high up to afford sight of water or flowers. A niche gaped white where once the image of a saint stood. At the far end, a dais held a table bestrewn with letters, records, and writing materials. Behind it, he sat on a bench.

She entered. He laid aside a papyrus sheet, which crackled, and pointed downward. She went to knees and toes on the bare tiles before him. Silence stretched.

“Well?” he snapped.

She kept her eyes lowered. “What is my lord’s desire?”

“What have you to say for yourself?”

“What must your handmaiden defend?”

“Mock me not!” he shouted. “I’ve had my fill of your insolence. Now you have struck my wife in the face. It is too much.”

Aliyat looked up, caught his glance, held fast. “I thought Furja would go whimpering to you,” she said steadily. “What tale did she bear? Fetch her and let me hear.”

His fist struck the desk. “I will settle this. I am the master. I am being kind. I am giving you your chance to explain why you should escape a whipping.”

She drew breath. This had been foreseeable since the thing happened; she had had a pair of hours wherein to marshal words. “My lord must know that his new bride and I are apt to quarrel.” Stupid, weak-chinned, spiteful creature, forever seeking to squirm herself into the man’s favor and shrill herself into sovereignty over the harem. “Alas that this should be. It is wrong.” That tasted foul but had better be said. “Today she gave me an intolerable insult. I smote her once, open-handedly, across the chops. She wailed and fled—to you, who have things of importance to deal with.”

“She has often complained to me. You have been overbearing ever since she came into my house.”

“I have demanded no more than the respect due your senior wife, my lord.” I will not become a slave, a dog, a thing.

“What was this insult?” asked Zabdas.

“It was vile. Must I take it in my mouth?”

“Um-m ... describe it.”

“She shrieked that I keep my looks and strength by— means unspeakable in decent company.”

“Um! Are you certain? Women have flighty memories.”

“I suppose if you haled her in and put the question, she would deny it. Not her first lie.”

“Word against word.” Zabdas sighed loudly. “What is a man to believe? When shall he find peace to get on with his work? Women!”

“I think men, too, would grow jangle-witted, were they shut away forever with nothing to do that was worth the doing,” said Aliyat, for she felt she had little to lose.

“If I have left you ... undisturbed, it has been out of consideration for your age.”

“And yours, my lord?” she dared purr.

He paled. The brown spots on his skin stood plain to see. “Furja does not find me wanting!”

Not quite every night of the month, Aliyat thought. And, in sudden, surprising pity: He fears that his uneasiness about me would unman him; and likely that very fear would.

But they were moving toward deadly ground. She drew back: “I pray my lord’s pardon. No doubt some of the blame does fall on me, his servant. I simply hoped to explain to him why squabbles trouble his harem. If Furja will show me courtesy, I will do likewise.”

Zabdas rubbed his chin and stared beyond her. She had a brief, eerie feeling that somehow this was a chance for which he had waited. At length he regarded her and said, his tone strained, “Life was different for you in your young days. Old people find it hard to change. At the same time, this vigor you have kept makes it impossible for you to resign yourself. Am I right?”

She swallowed. “My lord speaks truth,” she answered, amazed that he showed any insight.

“And I have heard that you were helpful to your first husband in his business,” he went on.

She could only nod.

“Well, I have given you much thought, Aliyat,” he said faster. “My duty under God is to provide for your welfare, which should include your spirit’s. If time has become empty for you, if our daughter is not enough—well, perhaps we can find something more.”

Her heart sprang. Blood thundered in her ears.

Again he looked past her. “What I have hi mind is irregular,” he said, cautiously now. “No violation of the Law, understand, but it could cause gossip. I am willing to hazard this for your sake, but you must do your part, you must exercise the utmost discretion.”

“Wha-whatever my lord commands!”

“It will be a beginning, a trial. If you acquit yourself well, who knows what may follow? But hark.” He wagged his forefinger. “In Emesa is a youth, a distant kinsman of mine, who is eager to go into the business. His father will be pleased if I invite him here and train him. I, though, I lack time to teach him the ins and outs, the rules and customs and traditions peculiar to Tadmor, as well as the basic practicalities—especially where it comes to making shipments, to dealing with caravaneers. I could assign a man of mine to his instruction, but I can ill spare anyone. You, however; I suppose you remember. Of course, the utmost discretion is essential.”

Aliyat prostrated herself. “Trust me, my lord!” she sobbed.

11

Bonnur was tall, broad in the shoulders, slim in the waist. His beard was the merest overlay of silk across the smooth features, but a man’s strength rested in the hands. His movements and his eyes were like a gazelle’s. Though he was Christian, Zabdas received him cordially before sending him to find a bed among the other young men who served and learned here.

A twelvemonth back, the merchant had bought a lesser building adjacent to his home. He set workers to erect walls and roof joining the pair together, then knock out what separated them and make them one. Thus he would gain added offices, storerooms, and quarters for an expanded staff; his trade was burgeoning. Lately he had ordered a halt to the construction. He declared it was better to wait and see what effect the ongoing conquest of Persia would have on the traffic with India. The addition therefore stood unfurnished, unoccupied, dusty, and silent.

When he led her into it, Aliyat was astonished to find a room at the far end had been swept and outfitted. A plain but thick wool carpet softened the floor. Hangings flanked the second-story window. A table held a water carafe, cups, papyrus, ink, pens. Two stools waited nearby. And Bonnur did. Though Aliyat had been introduced to him earlier, her pulse quickened.

He salaamed deeply. “Be at ease,” said Zabdas with unaccustomed cordiality, “at ease, my dears. If we are to be a little irregular, we may as well enjoy it.”

He took a turn around the room, talking: “For my wife to explain things to you, Bonnur, and for you to ask of her, you need freedom. I am not the dry stick people take me for. I know that the folkways, the subtleties of a city cannot be entered in a ledger or parsed like a sentence. Stares and sniggers and the constraint you would feel, did you sit conferring in plain sight of every fool, those would bind your tongues, your minds. The task would become difficult, prolonged, perhaps impossible. And, to be sure, I would be considered eccentric at best for setting you to it. Men might wonder if I was near my dotage. That would be bad for trade, oh, yes.

“Therefore this retreat. At such times as I deem right, when your services are not required elsewhere, Bonnur, I will send word. You will leave the house and enter this section by its back door, on the lane behind. And I will give you a signal, Aliyat. You will betake yourself directly here. In fact, sometimes you will come here to be alone. You have desired to help me; very well, you may look over such reports and figures as I shall lend you, undisturbed, and offer me your opinions. This will be common knowledge. At other times, unbeknownst to anyone else, you will meet Bonnur.”

“But sir!” Red and white went in waves over the boyish face. “The lady and I and nobody else? Surely a maidservant, a eunuch, or—or—”

Zabdas shook his head. “The protestation does you honor,” he replied. “However, a watcher would defeat my whole purpose, which is to give you a true feel of conditions in Tadmor while avoiding derision and insinuations.” He looked from one to the other of them. “I never doubt I can trust my kinsman and my first wife.” With a flick of a smile: “She is, after all, aged beyond the usual span of me.”

“What?” Bonnur exclaimed. “Master, you jest! The veil, the gown, they cannot hide—”

“It is true,” said Zabdas, a low sibilation. “You shall hear of it from her, along with things less curious.”

12

A day approached sunset. “Well,” said Aliyat, “best we stop. I have duties still before me.”

“And I. And I should think upon what you have revealed to me this time.” Bonnur’s voice dragged.

Neither of them rose from the stools on which they sat facing. Abruptly he colored, dropped his gaze, and blurted, “My lady has a wonderful intelligence.”

It felt like a caress. “No, no,” she protested. “In a long life, even a stupid person learns a few things.”

She saw him break down a barrier so that he could meet her eyes. “Hard to believe you are, are old.”

“I carry my years well.” How often had she said it precisely thus? How mechanical it had become.

“All you have seen—“ Reckless impulse: “The change of faith. That you were forced away from Christ!”

“I have no regrets.”

“Do you not? If only for, for the freedom you have lost— the freedom your friends have lost, the simple freedom to look upon you—”

For an instant she was about to hush him. Nothing closed off the doorway but a bead curtain. However, such a thing muffled sound somewhat, and deserted corridors and rooms stretched between it and the inhabited part, and he had spoken softly, deep in his throat, while tears glimmered on his lashes.

“Who cares to see a hag?” she fended, and knew she was teasing.

“You are not! You shouldn’t have to cower behind that veil. I’ve noticed when you forgot to stoop and shamble.”

“You have watched me closely, it seems.” She fought a dizziness.

“I cannot help myself,” he confessed miserably.

“You are too curious.” As if a different creature used her tongue, her hands: “Best we quench that. Behold.”

She drew the yashmak aside. He gasped.

She dropped it back and stood up. “Are you satisfied? Keep silence, or we shall have to end these meetings. My lord would mislike that.” She left him.

Her daughter met her in the harem. “Mama, where have you been? Gutne won’t let me play with the lion doll.”

Aliyat groped after patience. She ought to love this child. But Thirya was whimpery, and sick half the time, and resembled her father.

13

Sometimes the sameness of the days broke, when Zabdas gave Aliyat materials to study and report on. In the room that was apart, she tried to grasp what she read, but it slipped and wriggled about like a handful of worms. Twice she met there with Bonnur. The second time she took off her veil at the outset, and she had dressed in a gown of light material. “The weather is blazing hot,” she told him, “and I am only an old granny, no, great-grandmother.” They accomplished little. Silences kept falling between them.

More days flowed sluggishly together. She lost count of them. What difference did their number make? Each was just like the last, save for bickerings and nuisances and, at night, dreams. Did Satan brew certain of those for her? If so, she owed him thanks.

Then Zabdas summoned her to his office. “Your counsel has gone worthless,” he said peevishly. “Does your dotage come upon you at last?”

She bit back rage. “I am sorry, my lord, if no thoughts have occurred to me of late. I will try to do better.”

“What’s the use? No use in you any more. Furja, now, Furja warms my bed, and surely soon she’ll be fruitful.” Zabdas waved a hand in dismissal. “Well, be off. Go wait for Bonnur. I’ll send him. Perhaps at least you can persuade him to mend those woolgathering ways he’s taken on. By all the saints—by the beard of the Prophet, I regret my promises to both of you!”

Aliyat stalked through the empty part of the house with fists clenched. In the room of meetings she prowled back and forth, back and forth. It was a cage. She halted at the window and stared out through the grille. From there she could look over the walls around the ancient temple of Bel. Its limestone seemed bleached under a furious sun. The bronze capitals of the portico columns blazed. Heat-shimmer made the reliefs on the cella waver. Long had it stood unused, empty, like herself. Now it was being refurbished. She had heard at fourth or fifth hand that the Arabs planned to make a fortress of it.

But were those Powers entirely dead? Bel of the storm, Jarhibol of the sun, Aglibol of the moon—Ashtoreth of begettings and births, terrible in beauty, she who descended into hell to win back her lover—unseen, they strode across the earth; unheard, they shouted throughout heaven; the sea that Aliyat had never known thundered behind her breasts.

A footstep, a click of beads, she whirled about. Bonnur halted. Sweat sheened on him. She caught the smell of it, filling the heat and silence, man-smell. She was wet with her own; the dress clung to her.

She unfastened her veil and cast it to the floor.

“My lady,” he choked, “oh, my lady.”

She advanced. Her hips swung as if of themselves. Breath loudened. “What would you with me, Bonnur?”

His gazelle eyes fled right and left, trapped. He backed off a step. He raised his hands against her. “No,” he begged.

“No, what?” she laughed. She stopped before him and he must needs meet her look. “We’ve things to do, you and I.”

If he is wise, he will agree. He will sit down and begin asking about the best way to bargain with a caravaneer.

14

“I have business in Tripolis,” Zabdas said. “It may keep me several weeks. I shall go with Nebozabad, who leaves a few days hence.”

Aliyat was glad she had left her veil on after reaching his office. “Does my lord wish to say what business it is?”

“No sense in that. You’ve grown barren of advice, as of everything else. I am informing you privately so that I can state what should be obvious, that in my absence you are to abide in the harem and occupy yourself with a wife’s ordinary duties.”

“Of course, my lord.”

She and Bonnur had thus far had two afternoons together.

15

Thirya stirred. “Mama—”

Aliya pushed fury down. “Hush, darling,” she breathed. “Go to sleep.” And she must wait while the child tossed and whined, until finally the bed was quiet.

Finally!

Her feet remembered the way through the dark. She clutched her nightgown to her lest it brush against something. The thought flitted: Like this do the unrestful dead steal from their graves. But it was to life that she was going. Already the juices of it ran hot. Her nostrils drank the cedary odor of her desire.

Nobody else woke, and there was no guard on as small, as drab a harem as this. Her fingers touched walls, guiding her, until she reached the last dear corridor. No, do not run, make no needless sound. The beads in the doorway snaked around her. The window framed stars. A breeze from the cooling desert drifted through it. Her pulse racketed. She pulled off the gown and tossed it aside.

He came. Her toes gripped the carpet.

“Aliyat, Aliyat.” The rough whisper echoed in her head. Bonnur stumbled, knocked a stool over, panted. She gurgled laughter and slipped to him.

“I knew you would come, beloved,” she sang. His arms enclosed her. She clawed herself tight to him. Her tongue thrust between his lips.

He bore her down, they were on the carpet, the thought flashed that she must take care it show no stains, he groaned and she reached after him.

Lantern light glared. “Behold!” Zabdas cackled.

Bonnur rolled off Aliyat. Both sat up, crouched back, crawled to their feet. The lantern swung in Zabdas’ hand. It sent huge misshapen shadows adance over the walls. She saw him in fragments, eyeballs, nose, wet snags of teeth, wrinkles, hatred. Right and left of him were his two sons. They bore swords. The steel gleamed.

“Boys, seize them!” Zabdas shouted.

Bonnur reeled. He lifted his hands like a beggar. “No, master, my lord, no.”

It tumbled through Aliyat: Zabdas had planned this from the first. He had no passage arranged with the caravan. ; These three waited in another room, their light muffled, for that which he knew would happen. Now he would be rid of her, and keep her property, and believe that even an ifrit— or whatever inhuman thing she might be—would not return from the punishment for adultery.

Once she would have welcomed an ending. But the weariness of the years was burned out of her.

“Bonnur, fight!” she screamed. “They’ll tie us in a sack and the people will stone us to death!” She laid her hands on his back and shoved him forward. “Are you a man? Save us!”

He howled and leaped. A man swung sword. Unpracticed, he missed. Bonnur caught that arm with one hand. His fist crunched into the nose behind. The second brother edged around, awkwardly, afraid of hitting the wrong body. The struggle lurched past Aliyat. It left a smear of blood on her. She bounced clear.

Zabdas blocked the doorway. She snatched the lantern from the old man’s feeble grasp and dashed it to the floor. Oil flared in yellow flame. He staggered aside. She heard him shriek as the fire licked his ankle.

She fled past the beads, down hall and stairway, out the rear door, from the lane into ghost-gray streets between blank walls. The Philippian Gate stayed open after dark when a caravan was making ready. If she took care, if she moved slowly and kept to the shadows, its sentries might not see her.

Oh, Bonnur! But she had no breath or tears to spare for him, not yet, not if she wanted to live.

16

Those in the caravan who glanced behind them saw the towers of Tadmor catch the first sun-gleam. Then they were up the valley and out on the steppe. Ahead of them the sky also brightened-until the last stars faded away.

Signs of man were sparse on that day’s travel. After Nebozabad left the Roman road on a short cut across the desert, there was nothing but a trail worn by the generations before him who had fared likewise. He called halt for the night at a muddy, pool where the horses could drink. Men contented themselves with what they carried along in skins, camels with what scrawny shrubs were to be found.

The master strode through the bustle and hubbub to a certain driver. “I will take that bale, now, Hatim,” he said. The other grinned. Like most in this trade, he considered smuggling to be a part of it, and never asked unnecessary questions.

The bale was actually a long bundle tied together with rope, which had been nestled into the load on the camel. Nebozabad’s slave carried it back, into the master’s tent, laid it down, salaamed, and went to squat outside, forbidding intruders. Nebozabad knelt, undid the knots, unrolled the cloth.

Aliyat crept forth. Sweat plastered her hair and the djellabah he had lent to the curves of her. The countenance was hollow-eyed, the lips cracked. Yet once he had given her water and a bite of food, she recovered with eerie quickness, well-nigh minute by minute as he watched.

“Speak low,” he warned. “How have you fared?”

“It was hot and dry and gut-wrenching bumpy,” she answered in a voice husky more than hoarse, “but I shall forever thank you. Did a search party come?”

He nodded. “Soon after we left. A few Arabian soldiers, rousted out—after Zabdas gained himself ill will by waking the qadi, I gather. They were sleepy and uninterested. We need not have hidden you so well.”

She sighed where she sat, knees drawn up, ran fingers through her matted tresses, gave him a smile that shone and lingered in the lamplit dusk. “You cared, dear friend.”

Cross-legged before her, he scowled. “Reckless was I. It might cost me my head, and I’ve my family to think of.”

She reached to stroke fingers across his wrist. “Rather would I die than bring harm on you. Give me a waterskin and a little bread, and I will strike off across the desert.”

“No, no!” he exclaimed. “That would be a slower death. Unless the nomads found you, which would be worse. No, I can take you along. We’ll swaddle you well in garments too large, keep you offside and unspeaking. I’ll say you’re a boy, kin to me, who’s requested a ride to Tripolis.” He grinned sourly. “Those who doubt the ‘kin’ part of that will snicker behind my back. Well, let them. My tent is yours to share while the journey lasts.”

“God will reward you, where I cannot. Barikai in Paradise will intercede for your soul.”

Nebozabad shrugged. “I wonder how much good that will do, when it’s the escape of a confessed adulteress I’m aiding.”

Her mouth trembled. A tear ran down the sweat and grime dried on her cheeks. “It’s right, though,” he said in haste. “You told me what cruelties drove you from your wits.”

She caught his nearer hand in both hers and clung.

He cleared his throat. “Yet you must understand, Aliyat, I can do no more than this. In Tripolis I must leave you, with what few coins I can spare, and thereafter you are alone. Should I be charged with having helped you, I will deny all.”

“And I will deny I saw you. But fear not. I’ll vanish from sight.”

“Whither? How shall you live, forsaken?”

“I will. I have already seen ninety years. Look. Have they left any mark on me?”

He stared. “They have not,” he mumbled. “You are strange, strange.”

“Nonetheless—simply a woman. Nebozabad, I, I can do somewhat to repay a morsel of your kindness. The only things I have to offer are memories, but those you can bring home with you.”

He sat motionless.

She drew closer. “It is my wish,” she whispered. “They will be my memories too.”

17

And gladsome they are, she thought when afterward he lay sleeping. I could almost envy his wife.

Until he grew old, and she did. Unless first a sickness took one or the other off. Aliyat had never in her life been ill. Her flesh had forgotten the abuse of the day and the night that were past. A pleasant languor pervaded it, but if perchance he should awaken, she would instantly arouse to eagerness.

She smiled in the dark. Allow the man his rest. She would like to go out and walk about a while, under the moon and the high desert stars. No, too risky. Wait. Wait. She had learned how.

Paul twinged. Poor Bonnur. Poor Thirya. But if ever she let herself weep for any of the short-lived, there would be no end of weeping. Poor Tadmor. But a new city lay ahead, and beyond it all the world and time.

A woman who was ageless had one way, if none eke, to live onward hi freedom.