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.
Hairan looked up. Tears ran into his beard. “I fear he is dying, mother,” he said.
“I know.” She knelt, brushed his hands aside, laid her arms about Barikai and her cheek on her man’s bosom. She heard, she felt the life go away.
Rising, she closed his eyes and tried to wipe his face. The physician arrived. “I can see to that, my lady,” he offered.
She shook her bead. “I will lay him out,” she answered. “It is my right.”
“Fear not, mother,” Hairan said unevenly. “I will provide well for you—you shall have a peaceful old age—“ The words trailed off. He stared, as did the physician and the slaves. Barikai, caravan master, had not reached his full threescore and ten, but he seemed as if he had, hair mostly white, visage gaunt, muscles shriveled over the bones. His widow who stood above him could have been a woman of twenty springtimes.
4
Unto Hairan the wine merchant was born a grandson, and great was the rejoicing in his house. The feast that he and the father gave for kinfolk and friends lasted far into the night. Aliyat withdrew early from the women’s part of it, into the rear of the building where she had a room. No one thought ill of this; after all, however much respect her years entitled her to, they were a burden.
She did not seek rest as everybody supposed. Once alone, she straightened her back and changed her shuffling gait. Fast, supple, she went out a back door. The voluminous black garments that disguised her figure billowed with her haste. Her head was covered as usual, which hid the blackness of her locks. Family and servitors often remarked on bow amazingly youthful her face and hands were; but now she lowered a veil.
She passed a slave going about his duties, who recognized her but simply made salutation. He would not babble about what he had seen. He too was old, and knew that one must bear with the old if sometimes they grow a trifle strange.
The night air was blessedly cool and fresh. The street was a gut of shadow, but her feet knew every stone and she found her way easily to the Colonnade. Thence she strode toward the agora. A full moon had cleared surrounding roofs. Its brilliance hid the stars close to it, though lower down they swarmed and sparkled. The pillars lifted white. Her footfalls slithered loud in the silence. Most folk were abed.
She took some risk, but it was slight. Mostly, the city guards had continued under the Persians to maintain law and order. Once she hid behind a column while a squad tramped past. Their pikeheads sheened like liquid in the moonlight. Had they seen her, they might well have insisted on bringing her home—unless they took her for a harlot, which would have led to questions for which she lacked answers.
“Why do you prowl about after dark?” She could not say, she did not know, yet she must get away for a while or else begin screaming.
This was not the first such time.
At the Street of the Marketers she turned south. The grace of the theater fountained upward on her right. On her left, the portico and wall around the agora lay ghostly under the moon. She had heard that they were but fragments of what formerly was, before desperate men quarried them for fortification material as the Romans closed in on Zenobia. That suited her mood. She passed through an unbarred gateway onto the broad plaza.
Remembrance of its liveliness by day made it feel all die more empty. Statues of former high officials, military commanders, senators, and, yes, caravan leaders ringed it in like sentinels around a necropolis. Aliyat walked through the moonlight to the center and stopped. Her heartbeat and breath were the only sounds she heard.
“Miriamne, Mother of God, I thank you—“ The words died on her lips. They were as hollow as the place where she stood, they would be mockery did she finish them.
Why was she barren of gladness and gratitude? A son had been born to the son of her son. The life that was in Barikai lived on. Could she call his dear shade out of the night, surely it would be smiling.
A shudder went through her. She could not raise the memory. His face had become a blur; she had words for its lineaments, but no vision any-longer. Everything receded into the past, her loves died and died and died, and God would not let her follow them.
She should praise Him with song, that she was hale and whole, untouched by age. How many, halt, gnarled, toothless, half blind, afire with pain, longed for death’s mercy? Whereas she— But the fear of her gathered year by year, the glances askance, whispers, furtive signs against evil. Hairan himself saw in the mirror his gray hair and lined brow, and wondered about his mother; she knew, she knew. She held as much apart as she could, not to remind her kin, and understood what an unspoken conspiracy was theirs, to avoid speaking of her before outsiders. And so she became the outsider, the one forever alone.