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.