One night Macedonia suggested that, for a change, they make up a story, each continuing from the point at which the previous teller left off. The suggestion being received with enthusiasm, she offered to be the first.
‘Once upon a time,’ she began, ‘on an island to the east of Taprobane,* there lived a poor fisherman. One day he found in his catch an oyster, which yielded an enormous pearl. It was as big as a — ’
‘Pomegranate?’ suggested Pelagia.
‘Foolish girl,’ scoffed Sister Agnes. ‘Everyone knows that’s impossible; a grape would be more like it.’
‘Perhaps something in between,’ said Macedonia tactfully. ‘An apricot. Anyway, the fisherman, knowing that his pearl was worth a fortune, realized that he could greatly ease life for his family if only he could sell the pearl. But who would buy it? There was no one on the island anything like wealthy enough to offer a fair price. So this is what he did.’ Macedonia turned to Pelagia with a smile. ‘I pass the baton on to you.’
‘Hearing of the wondrous pearl, a prince of Araby determined to acquire it for himself,’ gushed Pelagia, her eyes shining with excitement.
‘There you go again,’ sighed Sister Agnes. ‘You haven’t told us how the prince heard about the pearl.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ retorted the girl impatiently. ‘Let’s say the fisherman told his fellow fishermen to spread the news among any ocean-going vessels they encountered. Will that do?’
‘Admirably,’ put in Macedonia. ‘Carry on, my dear.’
‘Well, the prince told his boldest sea-captain to try to find the island and, after rewarding its owner, to bring him back the pearl,’ continued Pelagia, and went on to relate how, after various adventures — surviving storms, near-shipwreck, attack by pirates and so on — the captain reached the island and bought the pearl. ‘However, just as he was setting sail for home — ’ Breaking off, the girl turned to Sister Agnes. ‘Your turn, Sister,’ she invited.
‘For their love of filthy lucre and the vain object it could buy, the Lord decided to punish both the prince and the fisherman,’ declared the nun, clearly relishing the opportunity to wreak divine retribution (if only in imagination) on weak and worldly sinners. ‘And so He commanded Porphyry* to leave the Bosphorus and swim to the island, where — ’
‘But how would it get from the Mediterranean into the Indian Ocean?’ interrupted Pelagia. ‘There’s no entry into the Red Sea.’
‘To the Lord, Who split asunder the Red Sea to allow the Children of Israel to pass, all things are possible,’ replied the nun loftily.
‘That won’t do,’ objected Pelagia. ‘I had to explain how the prince found out about the pearl. What’s good for the goose. . Porphyry would have to swim round Africa; but we don’t know if that’s possible.’
‘This is supposed to be story, not a Geography lesson,’ laughed Macedonia. ‘Actually, it probably is possible — if Herodotus was right in claiming that an Egyptian called Necho circumnavigated Africa about a hundred years before his time. Anyway, let’s assume Herodotus was right and that Porphyry reached the island. What then?’
‘The monster waited until next the fisherman put out to sea, then, with a swish of his mighty tail, he sank the vessel, and devoured the man. After that, he appeared, just above the surface, beside the ship in which the captain was returning with the pearl. Thinking the back of Porphyry to be a small island or strange rock and curious to know more, the captain and his crew rowed out and landed on it. Whereupon the monster dived, leaving the men to drown.’ Having despatched the erring mortals in the tale, Sister Agnes sat back with a leer of satisfaction at a job well done.
‘Now you’ve gone and spoiled the story!’ complained a disappointed Pelagia. ‘I wanted to find out what happened to the pearl, and the fisherman’s family, and everything. .’
‘Come, pet, it’s only a story,’ soothed Macedonia, with a rather forced laugh, and casting a reproachful look at Sister Agnes. ‘We’ll tell it again some other time and you can make up a different ending.’
For something so trivial, the abrupt and gloomy ending of the story seemed to cast a disproportionate pall on the mood of the evening. Conversation dried up, and shortly after, the three lay down to sleep on mats of sedge and rushes.
Almost as though the story of the pearl and the fisherman had been the cause, Fortune — which thus far had seemed to smile upon the trio’s bid for freedom — now turned her face against them. The following day, a strange unearthly light suffused the skies at first. These then darkened, the weather breaking in a series of thunderstorms and torrential downpours. Macedonia suddenly fell sick from fever, with chills, sweats, and fits of violent shivering, caused, they thought, by the poisonous miasma supposedly arising from the marsh.* Her condition worsening, they were forced to make semi-permanent camp in one of the marshland’s deserted villages whose ‘guest-house’ (as usual, of stouter construction than the ordinary huts) provided adequate protection. Here, rest, and shelter from the incessant rain would, it was hoped, aid Macedonia’s recovery.
One morning, the rain having eased somewhat, Pelagia was foraging along the island’s ‘shore’ for wind-blown palm-fronds to dry for fuel. A heavy drop of water struck her cheek, warning her that the lull in the weather was destined not to last — a message reinforced by a sudden darkening of the skies, accompanied by a rumble of thunder. As she was bundling up her spoils, Pelagia became aware of an unfamiliar noise close by, its source invisible behind dense screens of reeds. The noise grew louder — a large animal, to judge by the splashing and loud snorting. Terrified, Pelagia stood stock-still, scarcely daring to breathe, almost tempted to believe that the pounding of her heart must give away her presence.
The reeds before her trembled, then parted, to reveal a monster from the realm of nightmares: a huge bull-like creature, with shiny dripping muzzle, patches of bare brown polished hide showing through bristly black hair, and a pair of enormous, curving back-swept horns. The creature stared at her balefully from little red-rimmed eyes.
Suddenly, a crack of thunder sounded and the sky lit up, as a jagged bolt of lightning struck a palm not twenty feet away. Pelagia’s nerve broke; with a scream, she dropped her bundle, turned and began running. Maddened by the thunderclap and lightning flash, the girl’s flight was the trigger for the buffalo to go into attack mode. With an enraged bellow, it raised its head and charged. Docile enough when domesticated, water-buffalo quickly revert to a feral state if returned to the wild. This must have been such an animal — abandoned by its owner in whatever crisis had caused his community to migrate.
Pelagia stood no chance. In seconds the huge beast was on her. With a sound like a snapping branch, her back broke beneath a vicious swipe from those terrible horns. Her screams of agony and terror died swiftly as, butting and trampling, the creature proceeded to reduce her body to a tattered pulp. .
Some hours later, Sister Agnes found Pelagia’s remains. Recovering fast from her initial shock, the old nun, no stranger when it came to dealing with the dead, covered the corpse with vegetation and stuck in the ground near the head, a cross crudely fashioned of stalks from the girl’s discarded bundle. A poor apology for a committal, she thought sadly, but under the circumstances the best that could be done. After muttering a prayer, she returned to her patient in the ‘guest-house’.
Two days later, despite Sister Agnes’ unremitting solicitude, Macedonia passed away. Just before the end she woke from a delirious slumber, and in a clear voice said to the nun, ‘Would you, dear friend, go to Constantinople for me. Tell Empress Theodora that I truly loved her, and ask her sometimes to remember Macedonia? It is much to ask, I know; but you will be amply recompensed.’ She clasped the other’s hand; her grip tightened — then suddenly relaxed in death.