Timonides jumped to his feet, wheezing as he did so. The other patrons had already left, the innkeeper had vanished into his private quarters, and Nestor had gone upstairs to bed. Only the astrologer and Ulrika remained. "Did he tell you how to find Shalamandar?" Timonides asked.
Ulrika rose and went to Sebastianus, taking him by the arm to lead him to the fire, lifting his damp cloak away from his shoulders. A goblet of warm wine awaited him, and she pressed it between his cold hands.
Sebastianus fell silent for a moment, filling his eyes with the sight of this fair-haired maiden silhouetted in front of a dying fire. I wish, Sebastianus said silently, I could give you so much more. I wish I could find your mother for you, or explain your gift from the gods. I wish I could take you into my arms and never let go.
Instead, he sipped the wine and said, "Bessas does indeed know of Shalamandar and the crystal pools. Even better, he will show us the way."
"And you believe him?" Timonides cried. "He is not going to take your money and vanish?"
Sebastianus smiled as he looked into Ulrika's eyes. "Bessas is called a holy man, and people around Daphne revere him, they take him food and offerings, and bless his name. They say he has brought luck to them. And he asks for no money."
"But he did tell you how to reach Shalamandar?" Timonides said in irritation. He had seen this lovesickness blossom between Sebastianus and Ulrika over the weeks, and knowing that nothing could come of it, wished his master would find a cure for it!
"He said he will guide us to it," Sebastianus said as he turned to the astrologer. "I offered Bessas what no one else had thought to, what all travelers in foreign lands yearn for: passage home. We depart for Babylon in the morning!"
TIMONIDES AWOKE WITH SWIMMING BOWELS. Moaning softly, he crawled out of bed and padded across the wooden floor on bare feet, cursing himself for taking that third helping of leeks. The innkeeper's wife had stewed them in too much oil and now he was paying for it.
A floorboard creaked and he stopped, looking at the other bed, which was a sack filled with straw on the floor, covered by woolen blankets. He didn't want to wake Nestor, who sometimes had difficulty getting back to sleep.
Timonides blinked in the darkness. The rain had passed and the stars were out. Enough light seeped through the cracks of the window shutters to reveal a vacant bed. Where was Nestor?
Deciding that his son must have gone outside to answer nature's call, Timonides resumed his journey across the small chamber, to rifle through his travel pack for a stomach powder he always traveled with. A few pinches in a cup of water, and his insides would calm down.
When he heard the door, he muttered, "Go back to sleep, son, I'm all right," knowing that Nestor would worry about his father.
But instead of mumbling his incomprehensible, "Yes, Papa, good-night," Nestor remained standing in the doorway.
Timonides turned to frown at him. Nestor was grinning, and in his right hand he clutched a sack.
"What's that then, eh?" Timonides said, eyeing the sack. "What do you have there?"
Nestor's child-grin widened as he lifted the sack. "Reeka," he said with delight.
Timonides waddled up to him, cursing leeks, innkeeper's wives, winter nights, and life in general. "A gift for Ulrika? At this hour?"
He held out his hand, wondering what the boy had gotten into now—Nestor had a penchant for bringing flowers for Ulrika, or colored pebbles—and took the sack, thinking it held a melon of some sort, by the weight and shape.
Praying the boy hadn't stolen it, and that Timonides wouldn't have to find the owner in the morning, and explain things, he opened the sack and peered in, wrinkling his nose, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light in the room. "What—" he began. Narrowed his eyes. Brought the sack closer. "I don't..."
And then—
Timonides cried out.
He dropped the sack and tripped backwards to land on his buttocks. "Nestor!" he cried. "Nestor! What have you done?"
For Nestor's gift was the head of Bessas, the holy man whom all of Antioch revered.
14
IT WAS A LONG moment before a stunned Timonides could scramble to his feet. And then it was to rush to the small window, throw open the shutters, and thrust his head out in time to vomit down to the street below. He broke out in a cold sweat and let the night air revive him.
The head of Bessas ...
What had possessed Nestor?
His mind reeling, Timonides closed his eyes and tried to think. As sweat poured from his face and dripped from his nose—as wave after wave of nausea hit him—he recalled words he had spoken earlier by the fire: "My master should just pluck the bastard's head from his neck and scoop the information out!"
And there sat Nestor with his knack for two things: taking words literally, and always wanting to please. Especially Ulrika.
"By the stars," Timonides whispered, feeling the leeks swim in his belly and come up again. He vomited twice more before he could bring his head inside, and then it was to worry that his scream might have been heard. But the mudbrick walls of the inn were thick. Had he disturbed the others, he would have known by now. But the night continued on in its objective silence, and Timonides was alone with a monstrous problem on his hands.
A problem that grew in size and proportion as several facts began to sink in: primarily, that Sebastianus had said Bessas was believed to have brought luck to people.
And people didn't take kindly to holy men getting their heads cut off.
As the immensity of Nestor's act began to sink in, Timonides felt his bones and muscles melt. He feared he was going to faint. But he had to maintain a stout heart and a clear head. What was he going to do?
They will be coming for my son ...
For it was certain that Nestor, who continued to stand there smiling, oblivious of what he had done, would surely not have been careful to go about his grisly task unseen, nor would he have covered his traces. Knowing Nestor, he might have even shown his "gift" to a passerby! The hue and cry could be out at that moment, the guards of the night watch stamping down the street that very minute, to take Nestor away for certain execution.
Timonides's legs gave way and he slumped to the floor. They will crucify my son ...
AS HE WATCHED HIS FATHER take a seat on the floor, Nestor thought of the gift he had just brought, and was thoroughly delighted with himself. He hadn't done it for his father, it was for the lady with the sunlight hair.
Nestor loved Reeka and would do anything for her, she talked to him so soothingly, calming him, telling him that everything was going to be all right. He loved her voice. It caressed his inside mind. Like a mother's touch.
He giggled when he looked at the sack on the floor. In the simple mechanisms of his mind, Nestor had discerned that Papa and Uncle Sebastianus were looking for a pool. They hoped to take Reeka there, to make her happy. But Papa and Uncle Sebastianus had seemed to be having a hard time finding the pool, and there was a man who knew where it was, but he wasn't telling. Papa said it could be scooped from his brain. Uncle Sebastianus had said the man lived in a hut near the big statue of Daphne. Nestor remembered the statue because it looked so comical, a woman with tree branches growing out of her hair. Papa needed to scoop the pool from the man's brain, so here it was!