“I’m sorry,” he answered in compassion. “I’m a stranger here.”
He understood, or supposed he did. She wanted desperately to get married: less to have a husband and put an end to the barely veiled scorn and suspicion in which the unwedded were held, than to have children. Among these people, few fates were more terrible than to die childless, to go doubly into the grave…. Her defenses broke apart and she wept against his breast.
The light was failing. Everard decided to forget Yael’s fears (and – a chuckle – Pum’s exasperation) and take his time, treat Sarai like a human being simply because that was what she in fact was, wait for darkness and then use his imagination. Afterward he’d see her back to her quarters.
The Zorachs were mainly upset because of the anxiety their guest caused them, not returning until well past sunset. He didn’t tell them what he had been doing, nor did they press him about it. After all, they were agents in place, able persons who coped with a difficult job often full of surprises, but they were not detectives.
Everard did feel obliged to apologize for spoiling their supper. That was to have been an unusual treat. Normally the main meal of the day occurred about midafternoon, and folk had little more than a snack in the evening. A reason for this was the dimness of lamplight, which made it troublesome to prepare anything elaborate.
Nonetheless, the technical accomplishments of the Phoenicians deserved admiration. Over breakfast, which was also a sparse meal, lentils cooked with leeks and accompanied by hardtack, Chaim mentioned the waterworks. Rain-catching cisterns were helpful but insufficient. Hiram didn’t want Tyre dependent on boats from Usu, nor linked to the mainland by an extended aqueduct that could serve an enemy as a bridge. Like the Sidonians before him, he had a project in train that would draw fresh water from springs beneath the sea.
And then, of course, there was the skill, the accumulated knowledge and ingenuity, behind dyeworks and glassworks, not to mention ships less frail than they looked, since in the future they would ply as far as Britain….
“The Purple Empire, somebody in our century called Phoenicia,” Everard mused. “Almost makes me wonder if Merau Varagan has a thing for that color. Didn’t W. H. Hudson call Uruguay the Purple Land?” His laugh clanked. “No, I’m being foolish. The murex dyes generally have more red than blue in them. Besides, Varagan was doing his dirty work a lot farther north than Uruguay when we collided ‘earlier.’ And so far I’ve no proof he’s involved in this case; only a hunch.”
“What happened?” asked Yael. Her glance sought him across the table, through sunlight that slanted in a doorway open to the garden court.
“No matter now.”
“Are you certain?” Chaim persisted. “Conceivably your experience will call something to our minds that will be a clue. Anyhow, we do get starved for outside news in a post like this.”
“Especially adventures as wonderful as yours,” Yael added.
Everard smiled wryly. “To quote still another writer, adventure is somebody else having a hell of a tough time a thousand miles away,” he said. “And when the stakes are high, like here, that really makes a situation feel bad.” He paused. “Well, no reason not to spin you the yarn, though in very sketchy form, because the background’s complicated. Uh, if a servant isn’t going to come in soon, I’d like to light my pipe. And is any of that lovely clandestine coffee left in the pot?”
– He settled himself, rolled smoke across his tongue, let the rising warmth of the day bake his bones after the night’s nippiness. “My mission was to South America, the Colombia region, late in the year 1826. Under Simon Bolivar’s leadership, the patriots had cast off Spanish rule, but they still had plenty troubles of their own. That included worries about the Liberator himself. He’d put through a constitution for Bolivia that gave him extraordinary powers as lifetime president; was he going to turn into a Napoleon and bring all the new republics under his heel? The military commander in Venezuela, which was then a part of Colombia, or New Granada as it called itself-he revolted. Not that this Jose Paez was such an altruist; a harsh bastard, in fact.