The Divining (44 page)

     T
HE TWO-STORY HOUSE
in the Jewish Quarter had been built against the city's western wall and was embraced on either side by other houses. An outside stairway led to bedrooms above, while the business of daily life took place in the large, central room downstairs, furnished with chairs and a table, pedestals for lamps, tapestries on the windowless walls. Here the rabbi's widow sat in a high-backed chair as she received visitors who had come to pay respects.

     "It was kind of you to come," Miriam said to Ulrika. The rabbi's widow was dressed all in black, with dark shadows under her eyes. Her sons, whom Ulrika recognized, stood at her side.

     Ulrika glanced around at the others in the room, and those out in the garden, people from various walks of life, she saw, for not all were of the Jewish faith, nor were they all Babylonian. Apparently Rabbi Judah had reached many people with his sermons of peace and faith, and with his ability to cure illness and make the lame walk, simply by laying on his hands. Ulrika lowered her voice so that no one else could hear: "I came, honored mother, to tell you that your husband's body will not be put on the fire with the other executed men."

     Miriam listened in astonishment to Ulrika's message about a Spaniard
named Gallus, who had friends and connections, and the rescue of Judah's remains. Tears filled her eyes, and when Ulrika was done, Miriam broke down and wept. Immediately her sons drew close. Ulrika recognized the eldest, Samuel. He was a tall, lean young man with olive skin and jet-black hair that hung in ringlets on either side of his face. He wore a fringed prayer shawl and displayed the same leather phylacteries his devout father had worn. His dark features, Ulrika saw, were etched with pain and fury. Her heart went out to him. He had witnessed what no son should.

     "I am all right," Miriam said in a tremulous voice, putting a hand on Samuel's arm. "This dear daughter has brought good news." To Ulrika she said, "God will prepare places for you and your husband in Heaven. The consuming fire would have robbed my husband of the resurrection."

     "Resurrection?" Ulrika said.

     "We will live again when the Master returns and the faithful are restored to their physical bodies, just as the Master was."

     "Forgive my astonishment, honored mother, but this is an extraordinary coincidence, for this the second time I have heard of this rebirth among Jews. The other was in Judea when I stayed awhile with a woman named Rachel. She was guarding her husband's grave against desecration by his enemies. His name was Jacob."

     Miriam gave her a startled look. "But I used to know a Rachel and Jacob in Judea! Jacob was executed in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa. We never knew what became of his wife."

     Ulrika told her of her ordeal by the Sea of Salt, how Rachel and Almah found her and her took her back to their camp.

     "Wonder of wonders!" Miriam declared. "Jacob and his brother John were the sons of Zebedee. They were part of the Twelve, and we wives followed them as they traveled with the Master during his ministry of the Good News. Yeshua worked miracles and after his death, thirty-one years ago, he passed that power to his disciples. This was how my Judah was able to help people. But he will work miracles again, when Yeshua returns to this earth, as he promised, and I will be reunited with my beloved husband in the resurrection." She frowned. "But now, like Rachel, my sons and I must protect my husband's body."

     "Honored mother," Ulrika said quickly, praying that Sebastianus was having success with his contact in the governor's office, "I told you once that I am blessed with visions, as I know you are. I had a dream. Judah spoke to me. He wishes to be buried at Daniel's Castle, for that is sacred ground. Sebastianus will take him there. You must send someone to meet him. But be careful. It is very dangerous."

     As Miriam rose from her chair, Ulrika added, "There is one more thing. In the dream-visitation, Rabbi Judah said, 'Tell them to remember me.'"

U
LRIKA PLACED HER TRAVEL
packs in front of the tent and turned her eyes to the city's eastern wall and the Enlil Gate, through which heavy traffic endlessly flowed. Sebastianus had left that morning to inform the custom's agents of their departure, and to pay the tax. Now it was late afternoon. He should be here any moment. And tomorrow they would start for Rome!

     Around her, in the spring sunshine, the caravan camp was bustling with industry as slaves prepared the many animals for the journey, and the treasure-filled tents were being taken down, folded, their precious contents secured in sealed boxes. Ulrika had not been able to eat her lunch—soft warm bread, sharp goat's cheese, and spicy olives soaked in vinegar and oil. She was too excited. And she was in love and ached to feel her husband's touch again.

     She would never cease to marvel at the man she had married, his kindness to strangers at risk to himself. Sebastianus had been successful in secretly obtaining Rabbi Judah's body. He had taken it to Daniel's Castle
where, out in the wilderness, far from traffic and passersby, Miriam and the family had buried him.

     When she saw Timonides stumble through the camp and slip inside his tent, Ulrika's thoughts shifted to the astrologer. She had tried to talk to him, comfort him. Timonides's usual zest was absent from his speech, there was no life in his body and his eyes. She knew it was due to the manner of Nestor's death. Because his head had been trampled beneath horses' hooves, no eyes had been left upon which to lay the coins for Charon the ferryman. There was no way to pay for passage across the River Styx. Where had Nestor's soul gone? Timonides had asked. Was the poor boy destined to roam the underworld for eternity?

     Ulrika wished she could use her gift to comfort him, wished Nestor's spirit would appear to her, as Rabbi Judah's had. She had meditated upon it with no success. Why did some spirits visit her and others did not?

     A strangled cry suddenly tore the air.

     Ulrika turned to see Timonides's small tent sway as if it had been struck. She went to the entrance and called his name. From within she heard gagging sounds. Ulrika went inside. Her eyes flew open.

     Timonides was hanging from the main support, a rope around his neck, his legs kicking.

     Ulrika rushed to him. Seeing the wooden boxes he had kicked away, she quickly stacked them, climbed up, and threw her arms around his legs. Lifting him up so that the strain on the noose eased, she said, "Timonides, remove the rope! I cannot hold you for long!" The boxes beneath her wobbled precariously.

     "Let me die ..."

     "Help!" Ulrika shouted. "Someone help us!"

     Two slaves came running in, big men with broad backs who reached up and drew the frail old man down and out of the noose. "Find your master," Ulrika said as they laid him on the floor. "Find Sebastianus!"

     She knelt next to Timonides and slipped an arm under his shoulders, shocked at the feel of skin and bone beneath his clothes. His face was white, his eyes closed, lavender lids fluttering. "Why, Timonides?" she said.

     He parted his gray lips and words came croaking out: "Nestor is in Hell ... I cannot leave him there alone ... I go to join him ..."

     "What nonsense," Ulrika said, tears rising in her eyes. "Your son was innocent and the gods know this."

     But Timonides rolled his head from side to side. "Let me go to him. Nestor needs me ..."

     Ulrika rocked him gently, her tears spilling on the face that was the color of cobwebs. What had happened that would make him think Nestor was in Hell? Mother of All, please help this man.

     As she listened to the camp outside, waiting for the sound of Sebastianus's arrival, she stared at Timonides's thin neck and saw his pulse flutter like a moth, weak and irregular. She feared that he might die from sheer will of not wanting to live.

     "Let me go ..." Timonides whispered.

     She looked down to see him staring at her with forlorn eyes. "I spoke with philosophers in China," he said. "I met with priests and learned men. I visited temples and prayed to the most powerful gods on earth, but no one can tell me where Nestor is."

     "He is with the gods," Ulrika said gently, "enjoying the next world."

     "No ... he is in Hell and he needs me."

     The tent flaps flew open and Sebastianus came running in, bringing daylight and slaves with him. Dropping to his knees, he said, "What happened?"

     "He tried to kill himself."

     "He needs a physician."

     "It is not a sickness of the flesh that afflicts him, but one of the soul."

     Sebastianus thought of men he knew in the city, physicians of sterling reputation. But today marked the beginning of the spring celebrations and, for Babylon, the New Year as well. Where would he find these men?

     "I have to go back into the city. Will you stay with him? I'll bring a doctor back with me."

     Ulrika sat with Timonides, making him comfortable, placing poultices on his bruised neck, coaxing cool water down his throat. But when she offered food, he turned his head.

     Sebastianus returned at dusk, having been unable, in the city celebrations and parades, to find a medical man who would come. "I will stay with him," Ulrika said. "His neck and throat will mend, but I fear he will make another attempt on his life."

     Sebastianus stayed as well. They dined in Timonides's tent, persuading him to drink a little wine and to talk about the fears that troubled his soul. But he would not talk much. He was able to sit up after a while, and stare morosely at the carpeted floor. They heard him mutter and saw him shake his head. Devils plagued the old Greek's soul.

     The next morning, Timonides told Sebastianus that he was not going to do his usual daily reading. "I will never cast another horoscope again. For the rest of my days, I will look at the stars no more."

     Sebastianus became alarmed. There had been times in the past when he had had to resort to a hired astrologer—when Timonides was ill—but he had never thought Timonides would cease reading the stars altogether. Out of the old man's hearing, he said to Ulrika, "I will find a star-reader in Babylon, who will do for now, but I cannot be certain that I can find one who is willing to travel to Rome! Especially an astrologer of excellent reputation. I cannot rely on someone who is second-rate. What can we do to bring Timonides around? I dare not move this caravan without consulting the stars."

     "I will talk to him."

     After Sebastianus left, Ulrika said to Timonides, "Come and sit in the sunshine with me, dear friend. The daylight will make you feel better."

     "Nothing will make me feel better," he said, but he joined her on a stool in front of his tent. Eyes that used to focus on the stars stared moodily at the ground. Ulrika poured him a cup of wine and placed it before him, but he did not touch it.

     Timonides dwelled in thought while life and industry went on about him. The sun climbed and breezes blew from the Euphrates. Presently, he said, "Do you know ... I am not even sure I am Greek. I was abandoned as a baby and a Greek widow took me in. She gave me my name and taught me her language and culture. She apprenticed me out to an astrologer when I was six, and when she died, I was sold into slavery. Sebastianus's father bought me and I have been serving his family ever since. Nestor was the
only human being in this whole world that I was connected to by blood. He was more than my son. He was my universe. And now I am lost ..."

     He reached for the wine and when Ulrika saw how his hand trembled, she thought: He is a tangle of dark emotions. He cannot think straight.

     And an idea came to her.

     "Timonides, when I taught myself the skills of meditation in order to tap into my spiritual gift, I found that a side benefit was a feeling of peace and serenity afterward. Perhaps if I showed you how ..."

     He squinted at her. "Meditation?"

     "It is really very simple and requires little effort, only concentration. And it is not unlike the way I have seen you prepare yourself before you read your star-charts. A clearing of the mind. A way to focus. Would you like to try it?"

     "To what end?"

     "To bring peace to your soul, Timonides."

     "My soul does not deserve peace."

     "Then do it as a favor to me. I have never taught the technique to someone else. I want to know if it is possible."

     He shrugged.

     "Have you an object that is precious to you? Something you can grasp in your hand and hold onto, like an anchor."

     Timonides did not have to think about it. He was inside his tent and out a moment later, holding a long wooden spoon that Ulrika recognized as Nestor's favorite.

     When he resumed his place on the stool, Ulrika saw, for the first time, a spark of hope in his eyes, as if just holding Nestor's spoon brought consolation. "Now hold an image in your mind," she said, "a familiar and comforting one."

     A faint smile curled his lips. "A bubbling pot of stew. It is how I remember my son best."