BOOK SIX
PERSIA
21
HE STOOD BEHIND THE cover of trees as he watched the tavern, the patrons coming and going with lanterns glowing against the forest night.
He had followed her to this place, from the last village, tracking her along the mountain trail as cautiously as he would a deer. She had not known she was being followed—a young woman with fair hair and a confident stride. Her cloak covered her from head to foot, creating a tall, slim figure, with travel packs hung securely over her shoulders and on her back. She appeared to be strong, but as far as he could see, she carried no weapon. And she traveled alone, which was unusual, but which was going to make it easy for him to snatch her.
As soon as she emerged from the tavern, one swift move and she was his.
"I BELIEVE I CAN help you, sir," Ulrika said.
"No one can help me!" the man cried. "A thousand devils plague my head! They spin the world about me in a fiendish game. I cannot sleep. I am at my sanity's end. I wish only for death!"
"Good sir," Ulrika said calmly, in a soothing tone as the other patrons in the wooden shack, where travelers and local people gathered against the cold night, looked on in interest. "I have seen this disorder before, and I have skill in treating it. If you would but allow me to touch you."
The poor man had been complaining loudly when she had entered the small establishment and had taken a stool by the fire. A paunchy Persian with a stringy beard and shadows under his eyes, he had lamented to his companions about the affliction that kept him from working his small farm, that made it almost impossible for him to walk even, until Ulrika had risen from her stool and approached him, offering to help.
This was how she had journeyed for the past fourteen months—going from settlement to settlement, earning her keep with her healing skills, staying always on the move, never in one place for more than a day or a night, keeping to herself, not even telling people her name, her mind focused on but one goal—to find the prince who needed her help.
When Miriam the rabbi's wife had told her there was a stranger in Persia whom she was to rescue, Ulrika had believed her. After all, Miriam enjoyed a reputation for being a prophetess. But also, Ulrika had been born in Persia. This journey to aid a prince was meant to be.
But there was another reason Ulrika had decided to undertake the mission to find the prince. Long ago, when she and her mother had journeyed through this ancient land, when Ulrika was not more than three or four years old, they had encountered a very striking-looking man seated on a magnificent throne and dressed in splendid robes. A tall round hat crowned his head, beneath which thick curls cascaded to his shoulders. His beard was prodigious, covering his chest to his waist, and coiled in tight ringlets. He held a staff in one hand and, curiously, a flower in the other. In front of him, a golden censer burned incense.
Ulrika could not recall how long she and her mother had visited the nobleman, if they had dined with him, or slept in his house. She did not remember his name. But his appearance had struck her as so magnificent that she remembered him in detail. Was he the prince Miriam had spoken of? It seemed likely that this could be so. And perhaps he lived near the Crystal Pools of Shalamandar. Finding the man, Ulrika had decided, would surely be a simple task: all she needed to do was re-trace the route she and her mother had followed out of Persia eighteen years ago and she would cross his path.
But the task had turned out to be not so simple after all. She had been following that route for over a year now, she was nearing the end, in fact, and was no closer to knowing the identity of that magnificent man, or where he could be found.
Ulrika asked the farmer to lie down on a long table, while everyone gathered around and watched, men and women in woolen mountain garb, bearing the distinctive features of a race that had sprung from ancient Parthian blood mingled with that of invading Greeks. A handsome race, Ulrika thought.
She paused to look at a niche in the far wall, where a solitary lamp flickered. She had seen many such niches since entering this mountain territory called the Place of Silent Pines. They were shrines to local deities called daevi, which meant "celestial" or "bright"—holy and beneficent divinities who had been worshipped in this region for thousands of years. Ulrika thought of the statues of gods and goddesses around Rome, and the massive Marduk effigies dominating the streets of Babylon. She thought of the oak trees in Germania, carved in the likeness of Odin, and Rachel's god near the sea of salt, who had no likeness at all. And now here in this remote mountain region, gods who were represented by solitary flames kept burning eternally.
Deities, Ulrika realized, were as diverse and various as the people who worshipped them.
Positioning herself at the head of the table, she said to the farmer, "Please look up at the ceiling." She spoke Greek, a language of these people—another legacy of Alexander's conquering ways.
"It spins," the man moaned.
"Just a moment more, please. Say a prayer, it will help."
He did so, muttering his god's name three times in clusters of three, while he traced signs in the air three times each with one hand and clutched what appeared to be a rabbit's foot in the other. Ulrika had learned that although people's religions might vary around the world, and even be at odds, one human trait remained universaclass="underline" superstition. Whether they were warriors in Germania, citizens in Rome, sailors in Antioch, tent dwellers in Judea, onion sellers in Babylon, or mountain folk in Persia, all believed in good luck and bad luck, and the many ways to invite the first and fend off the latter.
Everyone in the tavern watched in silence as Ulrika placed her hands on either side of the man's head and then, gently, rolled his head from side to side, bringing his face to look upward again. "Quickly now," she said. "Sit up!"
He sat bolt upright on the table with eyes wide, jaw slack. The onlookers held their breath in anticipation. And when he cried, "Breasts of Ishtar! The dizziness is gone!" they threw up their arms and cheered.
Ulrika was secretly relieved, as some forms of dizziness could not be cured by this treatment. But this was a simple therapy for an affliction that sometimes drove men to suicide, and she was glad she could help.
"Dear lady!" the Persian farmer cried, falling to his knees on the earthen floor. "I am forever in your debt! I had become so desperate I was going to search for the Magus and beg him to put me out of my misery."
Ulrika helped the man to his feet. "The Magus?"
The Persian blinked owlishly. "You do not know of the Magus? But everyone in this territory knows of him! He lives in the City of Ghosts, in a high tower, a man of royal blood who is the last of his kind. He is said to work healing miracles, if he can be found. Dear lady, how can I pay you for saving me from certain suicide?"
Before Ulrika could reply—a man of royal blood, the last of his kind—the Persian shouted, "Wait wait!" Reaching around his neck, he pulled a cord over his head and held the offering to Ulrika. "This is a claw from a sacred gryphon, an ancient beast whose spirit will protect you from harm."