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.”
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.