"You are arrogant, daughter," Gaia said. "You do not come to this sacred place with a humble heart, but rather seeking ecstasy and joy. And you are impatient and impulsive. Remember the recklessness in the Rhineland, when you left the caravan and endangered your companions."
"I am sorry for that," Ulrika said, surprised that she was being chastised, and then accepting that she deserved it. "But I wish to understand my gift. What is the Divining? What am I to do with it? And where is Shalamandar?"
"So many questions in your arrogance. You wish all things to come to you without any effort on your part. Overcome your flaws, daughter. Turn your weaknesses into strengths, and your spiritual power will grow."
"But how do I do that?"
"You must be taught, you must learn."
"But I have learned. I am doing everything right."
"You are not yet ready. You have not yet learned all you need to know."
"But from whom do I learn?" Ulrika cried silently. "It makes no sense, the student teaching herself!"
The Galician countryside shimmered and grew unfocused. Ulrika now saw palm trees and stars. Once again, she saw Sebastianus walking toward her. "Gaia!" she called out. "Please come back."
Now Ulrika found herself in the warm tavern in Antioch, and then it too grew distorted until she was back in the shaman's cave in the Rhineland.
I cannot control my visions ...
She summoned the inner flame again, struggled with her respirations, attempted the repetitious chant once more, but the visions faded, the soul flame dimmed, and when Ulrika finally took her hands away from her face, she saw that the sun was near the western horizon, and that she was lying on her side in the sand.
She had fallen asleep!
Gaia was right, she thought in disappointment. I came here with an arrogant heart, thinking I had mastered my thoughts, thinking I had perfected Rachel's meditation. I still have no control. My gift is still in its infancy.
But as Ulrika lifted herself to her feet, steadying herself on the walking staff, she realized that although she had not made better progress in gaining answers, she was excited nonetheless about a new development: the vision of Gaia had not come to her unbidden. Ulrika had been the one to command a vision—she had chosen the time and the place.
It was the first step, she knew, toward controlling her gift. From now on, she was confident, her power would grow.
18
ULRIKA'S ANKLE HEALED OVER the course of the weeks she spent with the two women, and eventually the day came to say goodbye. A small wine caravan had rested at the oasis, and the owner was willing to take Ulrika as far as Petra in the south, which was located at a major trade crossroads and where she would find a caravan to take her eastward to Babylon.
Rachel and Almah accompanied her to the oasis, where Almah wept and embraced Ulrika as a daughter.
Then Ulrika turned to Rachel, her new friend whom she would never forget. "I have a gift for you," she said.
During one of her first nights in the camp, Ulrika had asked, "You have sacrificed so much. What do you miss the most?" And Rachel, after a moment, had replied, "Perfume."
Ulrika now opened her medicine kit and brought out a small glass vial stoppered with wax. An Egyptian hieroglyphic identified the precious contents. Pressing this into Rachel's hands, she said, "This is oil of lilies. It soothes the troubled heart."
In return, Rachel placed a talisman around Ulrika's neck, to join the scallop shell and Cross of Odin. It was small and carved from cedar, and hung at the end of a slender hemp thread. "It is called the mogan david," she said, "which means the Shield of David." Ulrika saw that the talisman was made of two triangles united around a central point, making it resemble a six-pointed star. "Between here and Babylon," Rachel said, "you will enter into Jewish communities, and when they see this star, they will take you in as one of their own."
"Tell your stories at the oasis, Rachel, as you told them to me."
"I will," Rachel said. And then she took Ulrika's hands into her own and said, "'For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you.'" She squeezed Ulrika's hand. "That is from the prophet Isaiah. Peace unto you, Ulrika. And God's blessings. I pray you find what you are searching for."
BOOK FIVE
BABYLON
19
THEY WERE SIX SISTERS in search of husbands, and they had come to Babylon to find them.
Ulrika was not sure the young women, ranging from thirteen years old to twenty-four, had been given accurate information, but they were hopeful and full of cheer, and had livened the journey from the oasis at Bir Abbas, where they had joined the flax caravan and told their remarkable tale. Their father, a widower, had had to sell his house, his sheep, and himself into slavery to cover gambling debts. And so he had been forced to send his daughters out into the world in the hope of finding a better life.
They rode on the back of a flat dray drawn by mules, seven young women, two grandmothers, and one elderly carpenter, swaying with the vehicle as they watched the towers and smoke fires of Babylon draw near. Ulrika had joined the caravan in the town of Petra, where a Babylonian flax trader had brought massive sacks of fibers, seed, and flowers to sell to makers of linens, medicines, and dyes. To fill his empty drays for the return trip, he took paying passengers who joined or left at various settlements and farms along the way. Now he was reaching the terminus of his biannual journey, and his passengers looked forward to food and lodgings and a steady ground beneath their feet.
Ulrika's excitement grew. After weeks of desert travel, camping at oases, walking, riding, constantly on the move, she felt the fresh breeze from the Euphrates River whisper against her face. The desert gradually gave over to lush green farms, dense groves of date palms, fields of wheat and barley. Marshes and ponds appeared now, from which lively waterfowl flew up in rainbows of color. Beyond, a ribbon of blue lazily wound its way between banks thick with poplars and tamarisks, to disappear under city walls—Babylon straddled the Euphrates—and emerge on the other side, bringing water to thirsty sheep and goats.
As Ulrika's small caravan neared the Adad Gate, a major entry in the western wall, through which heavy traffic was passing to and fro, she recited a silent prayer of thanks to the All Mother. She had come through the long trek unscathed, and now would soon be reunited with the man she loved—her love growing with every dawn as she held the handsome Sebastianus in her heart and mind, picturing his bronze-colored hair in the sunshine, hearing his deep authoritative voice, seeing his dimpled smile. Although many in Ulrika's group would leave the caravan here and enter the city on foot, Ulrika would stay on the road and follow it to the southern tip of the walled city, where she had been told the caravans to the East were launched. She knew she would find Sebastianus there.