Shadow of Ararat

THE VALLEY OF THE ARAXES, PERSIAN ARMENIA

H

Dwyrin bent close over the surface of the stream, the round disk of the sun glittering up from the waters into his eyes. The water was cold, born in high mountain springs and melted snow. He was stripped to his waist, his pale freckled skin dewed with sweat. Each hand he held just above the water, drifting this way and that like the shadows of the few clouds that marred the otherwise perfect blue bowl of the sky. Around him, spreading out on either side of the stream, was the army of the Emperors. A camp was rising on either bank, the armies segregated not by race or nation but by the order of their march.

Soon, within days, the Romans would meet their allies for the first time. At the moment, however, Dwyrin shut out the sound of axes on wood, the shouting of centurions eager to see their men complete the raising of their tents, and the preparation of cleared lanes among the brush and stands of trees. He focused on the flickering shadows of fish in the stream. Old experience, from when he was only a lad, taken in hand by the great paw of his father, told him that fat-bellied fish, their flanks stippled with pink and gray and black, were waiting.

His hand dipped into the water slowly, without making even a ripple on the fast-moving surface. He ignored the chill in his feet, clammy dampness of his trousers. His hands nestled between a pair of rocks, matching the current. He waited, his breathing steady and even. A fine fat trout swam into the channel among the rocks, brushing over his hand with its supple skin of tiny scales. A grin flickered for a moment on his features, and his fingers moved gently, caressing the flanks of the fish. It shivered at his light touch, but he continued to tickle it gently.

Then Dwyrin’s hand darted and the fish thrashed in his grip, but it was too late. The Hibernian laughed and strung it on a line of cord that hung from his waist, sliding an arrow of bone through its gills. It joined six of its fellows on his belt. Dwyrin turned at a sound.

On the bank, clad in a simple white gown and half cloak of pale green, a young woman was clapping her hands in delight.

“Oh, well done!” she called out, shading her eyes with one pale white hand. Dwyrin flushed and, remembering his manners, bowed. The woman bowed back but then sat down heavily. Dwyrin splashed through the stream, weaving his way among the rocks, to the bank. The lady, for the quality of her bracelets and hairpins marked her as one-, was a little pale. The Hibernian could see, too, that she was very pregnant.

“Domina,” he said, his voice concerned, “are you all right? Should I call your servants?” ‘

“No!” she said, though she was short of breath. “They cosset me to death. Here it is, a gorgeous late-summer day-the sky like the sea, the air freshened by wind. I refuse to sit inside and listen to the natterings of my maids. We are in uncharted lands, filled with savages and Persian spies-I should like to see something of the land I travel through.“

Dwyrin nodded sympathetically, though the thought of being cosseted by white-limbed maids with golden hair was distracting. Still, it was far better to be out and about than stuck in some sweltering hide tent, in the dark, wondering what was going on. “True words, my lady, though in your condition you should take care.”

“Feh.” She snorted. “My condition is held up to me as a fine example of all the things that I should not do. I am tired of it. Tell me, young man, where are you from and where did you learn to beguile fish so?”

She smiled at him, her green eyes merry, her perfect complexion like lustrous pearl. Dwyrin felt a little faint, but somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that she was barely older than he was. A young woman, being carted around by some rich husband-doubtless one of the grandees of the Eastern army-well with child. Distantly, the great brass gong of the school sounded in his head. He looked around furtively.

“Ah, my lady, shouldn’t you have a chaperone, or a maid, or someone with you? Your fair skin and soft hands mark you for a noble’s wife! I’m only a soldier in the Legion-I’m not supposed to traffic with the likes of you. No disrepect meant!”

The lady sighed and looked around as well. The line of her neck did not match the classical beauty of the Greek sculptors, and her nose was too pert and rounded for the image of Athena, but her good humor and ready wit had already captured Dwyrin’s heart. She made a moue and pouted, putting her hands on her cheeks. “Oh, I hate a chaperone! And look at you, a soldier, brave in the face of the enemy, doubtless noted for your daring and courage- looking like a schoolboy caught with an extra pastry! I will be driven mad by this… I am sure of it.”

Dwyrin forbore telling her that he was, in fact, a schoolboy.

“I should go,” he said, mumbling and trying not to look at her. She frowned and patted a rock next to her.

“Sit,” she said with asperity, “and tell me of your life in the Legion. I see so many soldiers, but I never know what they are doing! If you do not, then I shall cry out, making a scene, and you will be punished!”

“I will be killed!” he blurted, then covered his mouth. The lady smiled sweetly at him and patted the rock again. He sat down, though he was not in the least pleased by it.

“Now,” she said, pulling a waxed tablet out of a pocket sewn into the inside of her cloak, “tell me about the life of a soldier in the army of Rome. Spare no detail-the sun is still high.”

Dwyrin sighed and arranged himself cross-legged on the rock, the hooked fish carefully laid in the stream. They twitched, trying to escape the line through their gills, but could not. He felt much the same.

Well after nightfall, Dwyrin trudged up the hill, through stands of birch and cedar, to the edge of a meadow where his five had made camp the day before. He scratched at his shoulders, sunburned again, and muttered darkly to himself about the nosy nature of young Greek ladies. He had retained the fish, at least, and that would make dinner far more palatable than the hardtack and salt pork they had lived on in the mountains. He passed through a sentry line, giving the password of the day to two long-bearded Armenians leaning on their spears. The tents of his five were couched under tall red-barked trees, and a little fire was going in front of them.

Zoe looked up with a murderous expression as he shuffled into camp and flopped down next to the fire. Odenathus looked guiltily at him too, making him surmise that the five-leader had been holding forth upon his unprofessional behavior and the extent to which it merited punishment. He smiled weakly at them.

“I found some fish,” he said, mumbling. A cooking stick was near the coals in the fire and he began gutting his catch. “A noble lady saw me in the stream and called me over- then she pestered me with questions all day! I couldn’t leave, it wouldn’t have been polite…”

Zoe, her expression thunderous, toyed with a knife, one of the several that she carried in her belt or thrust into the uppers of her boots. The side of the blade caught the glow of the fire, shimmering with red and orange.

“A noble lady…” The scorn in her voice cut at him. “A poor lie. A penny-hatiera in the baggage train, more like. Did you bring her fish too, to pay for her time? Was it worth it?”

Dwyrin stiffened at the vitriol in the five-leader’s voice. Unconsciously he sat up straighter, his eyes narrowing. “She was a noble lady, well mannered and she could write. She asked me all about our lives in the service of the Emperor-what we eat, how we march, who carries the axes to fell trees, everything in the world, it seemed! In my country,” he finished, glaring back to Zoe, “we are polite to strangers and accord them honor.”

Zoe half sat up, her face stilling at the implied insult, the knife in her hand sliding forward toward him. Dwyrin felt the air chill, but he did nothing, keeping his balance- though it was hard! Part of him, some thing that lived in his gut, wanted to jump up and smash the Palmyrene’s face with his fist or call fire to burn her. But he did nothing. He knew that he was telling the truth.

Zoe breathed out, calming herself, and sat back down.

“I suppose that she was very beautiful,” she said, her voice weary and bitter.

“Well, no,” Dwyrin replied, accepting the olive branch- if that is what it was. “Very pregnant, though! My mother would guess only a few weeks before she births, I imagine.”

Zoe’s eyebrow crept up at this, a procession of unreadable, but marked, emotions crossing her face. She slid the knife back into its sheath and put it away in the back of her belt.

“Pregnant?” she asked, her voice a study of innocence. “A noble lady, you say?”

“Yes,” Dwyrin said, now suspicious that she believed him. “Richly dressed, though the paints not overdone, with green eyes, long brown hair, and soft skin.”

Odenathus hissed in delight, leaning over the fire, eager to catch every word.

“Did you touch her?” His voice was touched with a lurid amusement. “What else happened?”

“Nothing, Macha be praised!” Dwyrin said, making a sign for good luck. “We talked by the stream is all.”

Zoe‘ curled her arms around her knees, watching Dwyrin over the light of the fire. “Your noble lady, did she have a name? A house perhaps? A bevy of maids? A glowering chaperone? Bands of guardsmen?”

“No.” Dwyrin sighed. “More’s the pity-if she had, I would have made my escape much easier and been back here hours ago. Why should anyone care how the spearmen lace up their boots, or that we have sour wine one day in three?”

“Well,” Odenathus said slowly, unable to contain himself, “did you kiss her?”

Dwyrin turned a freezing glare upon the Palmyrene boy, which made Odenathus sniff and poke industriously at the fire.

“I think,” said Odenathus said, when Dwyrin said nothing, “that our barbarian friend was too polite to take such advantage-among his people it is not done, or so I surmise… this is why there are so few of them!” He laughed, but Dwyrin laughed with him too. It was good to sit all around the fire like this, sharing the events of the day.

“And, you say, this noble lady was pregnant too.” Zoe’s voice cut in from the side. “You did not say whether she had a name or not?”

“Oh,” Dwyrin said, scratching his head, trying to remember if he had managed to get a question in amid the flurry of hers. “Yes, Martina-if my memory serves. Her husband is an officer from Africa-from Carthage, I think. I’m not a bard or druid, you know, to remember every little thing that happens…“

Zoe shook her head, then stood, staring up at the stars peeking through the crown of the trees above. She hooked her thumbs into her belt and turned, warming the backs of her legs at the fire. The nights were growing colder, even down here, out of the mountains. “I suppose that you were polite to her.”

“I was on my honor,” he snapped back, bridling at the implication of poor behavior in her tone. “I treated her as one of my aunts, or my mother-though she is neither or young nor so nosy as that one.”

“Good,” Zoe said, looking over her shoulder for a moment. “The penalty for such familiarity, you know, is blinding, I believe, or perhaps just torture and death. But still, I suppose that the tribune will understand. He is a caring and forgiving soul.”

“Do you think trouble will come of it?” Odenathus tapped a long stick on the rocks at the edge of the fire, watching Zoe carefully. “I have heard that she is rather wise, even for her young age. Surely she saw what a lack-wit our Hibernian friend is…”

Zoe cut him off with a motion of her hand, turning back to the fire. Dwyrin looked from one to the other, a damp chill percolating in his stomach.

“The Empress is not my concern,” Zoe grated, “but rather the temper of her husband.”

“Empress?” Dwyrin squeaked, feeling dizzy and faint. “What Empress?”

Without sparing him a look, Zoe continued: “The Emperor of the East once had a man cut to bits and fed to swine for insulting her. Granted, he was an enemy of her house and a lying fool, but still… Or the matter of the usurper Phocas-there was a grisly death! He is a man, with a man’s rages. He loves her too much, I think, to be as good an Emperor as he might be…“ Zoe’s voice trailed off.

“Lady Martina is an Empress?” Dwyrin laid down on the cold pine needles. He felt quite faint.

“Yes,” Odenathus said, sighing as he removed the trout, now crisping in the heat of the coals, and slid them off the stick onto a wooden platter he had stolen from the ruin of Tauris. “I fear so. The only pregnant noble lady in this army would be the Empress Martina, the young and scandalous wife of the Emperor of the East, Heraclius of Carthage.”

“Scandalous?” Dwyrin perked up, leaving off from nervously chewing on the end of his thumb. “I didn’t hear! What did she do? Did she cavort with stableboys? With gladiators, shining with oil?” Maybe she talks to young barbarians all the time!

Odenathus cuffed the Hibernian gently on the head. “No, you idiot… she is his niece. These Greeks are beside themselves with outrage that the Emperor should follow his heart-it is said that he loves her, and no less because they have known each other for years. Some odd concept that they should spread their seed afar…”

“That,” Zoe said, her voice serious, “is not the issue. The problem is that fisher-boy here has poked his nose into a political hornet’s nest. We are more likely to be screwed by something political than killed by the Persians. You”- she stabbed a finger at Dwyrin, still lying on the ground, feeling overcome-“are not going anywhere without someone to watch you.” She grimaced. “Me, I suppose.”

Well, Dwyrin thought, watching the moon slide across the sky, it was a good day after all.