Watching him go, Casca thought, "Cautious little bastard, but maybe he knows more about this part of the world."
Dismounting, Casca lost his footing for a moment and almost fell. As he straightened, a soft whispery voice broke the silence as a hand came forward taking the reins of his horse.
"Welcome, we have been expecting you, Latin."
Regaining his balance, Casca took in the figure of his welcoming committee of one who spoke the language of Rome.
A tall thin figure in brown homespun robes reaching to the rocky floor of the gorge smiled at him. "Welcome," his host repeated. "I am Elder Dacort, the senior brother of this refuge for the lost and weary."
Casca looked at him, the hair on his neck still tingling. "How did you know I was coming?"
The man calling himself Elder Dacort laughed easily, his voice stronger than his appearance. "From the ridge you just crested to reach us. We could see you coming for a full day across the plains. This is the natural approach that one would follow after leaving the plains below. But where is your companion?" He looked about squinting at the darkness.
Casca shrugged. "Gone. After we reached the crest he decided to go on his own. No great loss. We were just traveling together for convenience, but all trails end sometime."
Elder Dacort smiled. "Yes, they do. They most certainly do. But enough of standing out here in the cold. Come inside and make yourself welcome. As you can see, there is no danger for you from such as we." He indicated his weaponless condition. Gently he took Casca's elbow and escorted him inside the confines of the building.
Casca still kept his sword at the ready. Then he saw the carvings on the door, the sign of the fish and the cross. He grumbled silently to himself, "Oh, no, not more Christians. At least I know they are harmless always preaching about steal not, kill not, and whatever else the Hades they can think of not to do."
Dacort noticed Casca's recognition of the symbols. "Yes, my brother, we are followers of the way of the gentle lamb. Here we study his words and preserve them. Our years are spent in quiet meditation and prayer for the salvation of the souls of the world." Escorting his guest to a side room from the hall lit with torches in iron brackets to a table laid with food and wine, he said: "You see we have been waiting for you. We cannot perform the miracles of our Lord Jesus and turn water into wine or make one loaf of bread feed thousands, but we do have some small fields not far from here that provide enough for the brotherhood and the few guests who come this way." He seated Casca at the head of a wooden table designed to seat some twenty or more, in a room projecting a feeling of great emptiness. Casca looked around, noting he had seen no one but Elder Dacort since entering the place.
Dacort observed Casca's look and replied, "The rest of the brotherhood are at rest or at prayers. We rise quite early to say our devotionals, then go to the fields." The smell of roast goat and fresh bread convinced Casca to sit. Elder Dacort handed him a plate piled high with food and sat watching. Casca started to take a drink of wine and then hesitated, putting the cup back on the table.
Dacort laughed gently and took the cup in his hands and drank. Smiling, he then ate a small portion of each of the foods on Casca's plate.
Casca smiled, embarrassed. Dacort halted his protestations with an up lifted palm. "No need for explanations my son, it is a cruel world and there are many pitfalls awaiting the unwary."
While Casca ate, Elder Dacort talked of Rome and the world. Casca found this gaunt man quite well informed on happenings in Rome, as well as what lay beyond to the east and other lands Casca had never heard of. The man's voice was soothing and soon Casca's limbs felt heavy, his eyes like leaden weights. He began to feel the first distant tinge of fear and tried to stand. His legs were like water. All the while, Dacort talked to him softly of the world and its happenings as if not noticing the wine being overturned and the wooden plates crashing to the floor as Casca fell, face first, into a left-over mess of goat and bread.
Dacort smiled to himself as he stood over the sprawled out figure of the former legionary. Reaching into his robes, he took out a small vial in the shape of an amphora and took the remaining fluid with a grimace of distaste. "The antidote was bitter as green figs," he thought. "Prior planning pays off," he smiled as he had when he had dosed himself long before Casca's appearance at the steps of the Temple of the Lamb.
The next day, Casca lay as one dead to the world. His host and the rest of the brethren were preparing for the most holy day of their year. Prayers echoed throughout the halls and chambers. Soon it would be time.
Dacort trusted no other than himself to watch over his unconscious guest. Casca lay on a skin-framed cot wearing only his tunic, his sword on a shelf nearby. Dacort knew well the strength of his potion. The Roman would sleep for yet another day, but it paid to be careful. Administering another dose to his guest that would guarantee his remaining in a comatose condition for another twenty-four hours, Elder Dacort went to prepare himself for the great day ahead. Giving Casca one last look and satisfied that the man would remain as he was, the elder left.
Casca's mind filled with images leaping across and then fading, images of ships and pyramids, Saxons and Parthians, mountains and deserts. His stomach turned inside out, spewing out the fluids given him. Consciousness returned by millimeters, Head aching, he rose to his elbow and ran his tongue over his gums. "By Mithra, it tastes like a camel just shit in my mouth.” His stomach turned again and the last of its contents spilled onto the stone floor. Weaving on unsteady legs, he rose trying to focus. His sword. Where was it?
Stumbling to the shelf, he held the blade in his hand and pulled it from its scabbard, the feel of the familiar grip restoring him. "Now I'll give those psalm-singing, drink-dopers something to pray about. They better pray I don't carve all of them into legs of lamb."
Breathing deeply through his mouth, he let his strength return. Shaking his head from side to side to clear the fog from it, he moved to the door. Raising the latch, he stuck his head out and glanced down the hall. The lamps in the iron brackets were out; cracks of bright light told him it was day outside.
"Where in the Hades are they? Is everyone here mad? What do I mean by everyone?" He stopped and thought, "The only bastard I've seen is that damned so-called Elder and that sucker certainly doesn't behave in a Christian manner. Where are they?"
Making his way on still unsteady legs, he held his short sword ready, wondering if Jugotai was still on the loose.
"Probably," thought Casca. "The little desert rat has more sense than I do."
The large door swung open on greased hinges and Casca slipped out looking to see if his horse was there. No luck. Staying close to the sides of the building, he kept to the shadows until he came close to a patch of boulders and brush. Bending low to the ground, he raced across and threw himself to the gravel behind the boulders leaving a skin mark running from his ankle to his knee.
He saw nothing. Only the dry wind whispered through the brush and the rocks. It was close to midday. Crawling backwards, he kept his eye on the temple until he was certain he couldn't be seen from that direction and headed for high ground. If Jugotai was anywhere around, that's where he would find him.
Climbing over rocks and boulders, he reached a small plateau and there lay flat on his stomach, letting his gaze run over the countryside, searching for any sign of movement. As far as he could see from his aerial perch, there was nothing but the wild country and the temple in the gorge below.