The Divining (12 page)

     Sebastianus had been on his way to meet with Gaius Vatinius, to inform the general of the location of the hidden rebel camp, when he had been stopped by a stab of conscience. Although the information he carried to the Roman commander was priceless beyond measure, and would surely guarantee the granting of the
diploma
to him by Claudius, Sebastianus had suddenly thought: the insurgents might be this girl's family. And he could not betray her. She trusted him, had placed herself in his care, and Sebastianus always prided himself on being an honorable man. So he had turned back, deciding that he must earn the
diploma
by other means.

     "Can you not go to China without one?" she asked. "Do merchants not travel that route already?"

     "No merchants from Rome have ever gone as far as China. The route is long and fraught with danger. Caravans are constantly being attacked by brigands and mountain tribes. A
diploma
from the imperial court at Rome guarantees some degree of safety, but only as far as Persia. Beyond that, little is known about that fabled far-off land."

     
Hoot! Hoot!

     Ulrika turned to the entrance, her eyes widening.

     Sebastianus stirred the fire. "It is but an owl," he said quietly. Or, he thought, it is a secret signal. And he imagined the Barbarians using the cover of night to plan their assault on the cave. He kept his sword close.

     Ulrika turned then to peer into the darkness at the back of the cave. "What is it?" he asked.

     "I thought I heard ..."

     "There is nothing there," he said, looking into the black abyss beyond the fire's glow and feeling the dark forest at his back with its myriad sounds and whisperings.

     Ulrika slowly rose, her body stiff as she leaned toward the darkness.

     Sebastianus reached out, touched her arm, to reassure her. She gave a cry and whipped about. "It's only me," he said.

     Ulrika's eyes went to the scallop shell that lay on his chest, a cream-colored mollusk with fluted ribs and a wavy outer edge. "What does it mean?" she asked as she sat down.

     Sebastianus looked down at the shell suspended on a leather cord and said, "There is an ancient altar near my town. No one knows who built it or when, or to which god it was originally dedicated. Since the arrival of the Romans, someone has carved the word 'Jupiter' into the stone, but I believe the altar was originally dedicated to a goddess because it is decorated with hundreds of scallop shells which, as everyone knows, is the symbol sacred to the goddesses Ishtar and Mari. For many years pilgrims came from all over, each adding a scallop shell. In this way the altar became large and beautiful."

     Sebastianus was proud that he was a descendant of the distant ancestress who had built the altar. In fact, he had taken his scallop shell directly from the altar instead of collecting it at the shore as others did. The shell around his neck was very old and might possibly be one of the originals placed there by his ancestress herself, and so it carried great power.

     "Unfortunately," he added wistfully, "the highways to the remote altar became rife with brigands who set upon the unarmed pilgrims. Visits are sparse now. I fear the altar might someday be forgotten."

     "It means a lot to you?" Ulrika asked.

     He gave this some thought, weighing his answer. "I was praying there one night, ten years ago, and ..." He hesitated.

     
Lucius
, she thought, holding him with her eyes.

     The flames crackled and snapped. The darkness of the forest hovered at the cave's entrance, a constant reminder of the dangers beyond. Behind her, Ulrika felt the darkness of the cave's belly, empty and hungry. She saw how the fire brought out the bronze highlights in Sebastianus's hair.

     "Ten years ago," he said quietly, his green eyes reflecting the light as he relived a memory, "I was to accompany a shipment of wine to Cypress with a fleet of our merchant ships. My brother Lucius was to take a local caravan in Hispania. But he knew of my desire to go to China, that I had recently come into possession of new maps to the East, that I needed to study them,
plan my route, meet with traders who had recently come from kingdoms that lie on the road to China. And so Lucius offered to change places with me. Our father would not have approved, but he was in Rome at the time, and would not have known of the switch. So Lucius accompanied the ships to Cypress. He perished during a storm at sea."

     He touched the gold bracelet on his wrist. "I was at the scallop-shell altar," he said, "the night a shower of stars fell from the sky. A river of debris covered the countryside, mostly bits of ice and rock no bigger than a grain of sand, but that night, as the star-shower streaked the sky, I saw a star fall to earth, and I ran out into the hills to find it." He touched the small, gray stone on his gold bracelet. "The crust was hot at first, but it cooled, and I kept it as a trophy, an actual fragment of a star."

     His face darkened, his gaze going inward as he said, "And then the letter came, informing me of Lucius's death, and when the author of the letter specified the exact date—the tenth day of that month named for Julius Caesar—and I realized it was the same day on which I had found the star-stone, I knew it was a sign from my brother. But I also realized that I had sent my brother to a death that should have been my own, and so I made a vow that day, on the sacred scallop shell, never to remove this bracelet, in memory of my brother."

     "I'm sorry," Ulrika said. "That is a sad story." She suddenly sat up. "Did you hear that?"

     "Hear what?"

     Ulrika listened. Beyond the cave's entrance, the forest stood in complete darkness, with not even moon glow to relieve the night. She turned and looked toward the back of the cave, also plunged in darkness. "We are not alone," she whispered. "Someone is in here."

     Sebastianus shook his head. "It is impossible. There is no other entrance."

     "There is someone at the back of the cave. I'm sure of it."

     Wrapping a dried vine around the end of a stick to form a torch, Sebastianus rose and walked toward the back of the cave, Ulrika following. But the light illuminated only cold, stone walls and an earthen floor, with a ceiling so low they had to lower their heads. When they reached the end, they found no exit, no way for an intruder to get inside.

     "You see?" Sebastianus said. "There is no one here."

     "Look!" Ulrika whispered, pointing.

     He turned and, lifting the torch, saw the rock wall suddenly spring to life. It was covered in vivid paintings, and as Sebastianus examined the figures rendered in bright reds and yellows and browns, he was able to identify bison, deer, wolves. There were also small figures of men carrying spears, chasing the animals, hunting them. All executed in a lifelike manner. Sebastianus had never seen anything like it.

     "Someone is buried here," Ulrika murmured. "He was a holy man ... a long time ago."

     Sebastianus turned to her and saw Ulrika's face cast in strange shadows. Her eyes were wide as they swept the darkness, as if searching for that ancient holy man, as if expecting to find him there, welcoming the two intruders.

     "This is why we are safe in here," she added quietly. "This is why those men outside will not come in here. It is a holy place, and taboo for them to walk on this ground."

     "How did you know?"

     "I think—" she began. "Do you remember the old woman who told you in which direction I had gone? She took me into her hut for a while and she told me that I have a gift."

     "What sort of gift?"

     "I am visited by visions, dreams. I thought it was a sickness, but the old woman said it is a power given to me by the gods and that I am to use it to help others."

     Sebastianus nodded. "My mother believed in such powers. She called it the Invisible Eye." He took in the loose tawny hair, trailing over one shoulder but still coiled on the other side, the smudges on her cheeks and chin, the tattered dress that spoke of disappointment and grief. And suddenly he was gripped with the impulse to take her into his arms and hold her, keep her safe, make love to her. "It is late. You need to sleep."

     As he led the way back to the reassuring fire, they both tried to ignore the forest beyond the cave's entrance, an uncanny realm of ghosts and owls and Barbarian rebels awaiting the unsuspecting trespasser. Ulrika gave Sebastianus's
cloak back to him, saying her own would be sufficient now that the fire had warmed the cave, and then she took a place by the amber flames, to lie down and curl up in her cloak.

     Soon, troubling images filled her slumbering mind. The valley strewn with the victims of Roman treachery. Her father, cut down by an imperial sword. Did he fight to the very end? Did it take ten soldiers to finally bring the great Wulf to his knees? In her dream, Ulrika wept until she thought her heart would break.

     And then she realized she was not sleeping by the fire anymore but had somehow made her way to the back of the cave, where she was alone beneath the stony vault ceiling.

     In the next moment, sandaled feet stood before her. Ulrika pushed herself up and saw an old man looming over her, robed in a bear skin and carrying a spear. His hair and beard where white and long. He spoke. "I am the shaman of our tribe. We are Wolf Clan. I created these paintings eons ago. They tell the story of our people.
Your
people. You have forgotten who you are, your ancient names, your purpose and destiny. It is not for you, Ulrika of the Cherusci, to sit at a loom, recline on silken couches, and have slaves attend you. Ancient blood swims in your veins. Feel it. You know in your bones, you know in your sinew, who you are. You know, too, that the gods have singled you out for a special purpose. You have been given a great gift, which you must use for the good of humankind. But first you must return to the place of your beginning."

     "My beginning," Ulrika whispered. "I do not know where that is."

     "Your mother told you the story long ago. You have not forgotten. The name of the place sleeps in the deepest part of your soul. Think, Ulrika!"

     She struggled with her thoughts. Yes, her mother had told her of her journey through Persia with Wulf. But there had been many place names—

     "Go deep into that place you rarely venture, Ulrika, to that part of your soul which slumbers, a repository of precious memories. Your mother and father stopped to rest at a place called..."

     "I remember," Ulrika said in wonder. "They stayed beside the Crystal Pools of Shalamandar."

     "And that is where you must go ..."

     The old man was bent and wizened, skin and bone, but as he stood before Ulrika against the backdrop of vividly painted bison and deer, the flesh began to grow on his limbs, muscles filled out beneath the shriveled skin, he grew tall. His hair turned from white to bronze, the fragile jaw filled in and grew a stubbled beard.

     Sebastianus!

     He wore only a loincloth. She saw the wound on his upper arm, which she had cleaned and bandaged, an injury to muscles that had wielded the heavy sword when he came to her rescue. He glistened with sweat.

     What had
he
to do with this cave, with the shaman who slept here?

     Sebastianus filled the stone chamber with his masculine power. Ulrika had never known a man so strong, so
male.
She became warm, feverish. She rose to her feet to stand before him, to face this powerful man.

     He spoke in the voice of the ancient shaman: "You must not turn your back on the call from the gods. You are courageous, Ulrika. You will not deny your destiny."

     "But I do not know how to find the Crystal Pools of Shalamandar. And it is such a long and hazardous journey."

     "Great destinies do not come easily."

     Sebastianus reached up and drew down the other side of her hair, undoing the Grecian knot entirely. At his touch, her skin caught on fire. She had never known such sexual hunger. But she felt something else, too, a power she had never sensed before, as if it were waking up, stirring from a deep, ancient slumber.

     He swept her into his arms then and, pulling her to him, pressed his lips to hers. Ulrika's arms went around his neck. She clung to him, kissing him back, relishing the hardness of his body, his masculine power and strength.

     And then he began to fade, leaving her arms empty and cold.

     
Don't leave me ...

     A
CROSS THE FIRE, SEBASTIANUS
watched Ulrika as she slept. It was a fitful sleep, her eyelids fluttering and small sounds coming from her throat. Of
what did she dream, he wondered? She was enchanted somehow, touched by a special magic. The admission of her special gift did not surprise him. But where in all the world did such a special creature belong?

     When she started to shiver violently, he took his cloak and laid down beside her, covering her with the thick blue fabric and drawing her into his arms. Her hand went up to his neck, and Sebastianus struggled against desire. Ulrika was asleep, vulnerable, and he was her protector. He would never betray that trust.