The Ravens of Falkenau & Other Stories (9 page)

"You've come in through the wrong gate for that," Dion said. "The Jewish quarter is that way, but you'd find a kosher grocery or six in all the other markets, even the fish market. But this is the Canopic Market, and there's only one kosher grocer here. Not as many Jews live in this part of the city, you see."

"Do we have to stay in certain places?" There was a shadow of fear in her eyes, and he saw her hand tighten just a little on the baby's shawl.

"No," Dion said kindly. "Of course not. It's just that some neighborhoods are more Jewish than others. What does this cousin of yours do?"

"He's a cabinetmaker," she said. "Samuel the son of Reuben. He makes furniture. I thought that everyone would know him." She looked out over the square, where women and slaves alike were starting their shopping, the women calling to each other and greeting each other like long lost kin, when they'd probably seen each other the day before. "But now I see the city is too big. It's bigger even than Jerusalem."

"Alexandria is the largest city in the world," Dion said. "There are more than half a million people in the City proper. There are more Jews in Alexandria than Jerusalem, so you shan't lack for company." He smiled down at her. "I am Dion, and I am a scholar of astronomy, and a teacher at the Museum."

"Is that like a magi?" Something cautious lit in her eyes.

"Yes," Dion said. "You could call me a magus." He was rather surprised she should know what a magus was, country bred as she seemed to be.

"My name is Maryam," she said. "It's just that it's taken so long to get here, and my cousin's not really expecting us because there wasn't a way to send a letter. Everything is so much bigger and farther apart. We came by road from Pelusion, and we thought when we got to Pelusion from Gaza that we must be almost there, but then it's been another week and we were running short of everything…"

Dion blinked. "Why in the world didn't you sail? It's a much easier trip by sea, and cheaper really when you figure in the cost of travel." And easier on the baby too, Dion thought but did not say. The baby might be six months old, with his mother's wide dark eyes and sooty lashes. He was watching everything with fascination, pausing occasionally to throw out his arms and yell, "Ah ya
ya
ya
!" If his mother had stinted herself in the journey, clearly she was still feeding him all right.

"We were afraid to," she said quietly. "King Herod's men guard the ports."

"Ah," Dion said as it all became clear. Since Herod was in his dotage, he'd gotten more than a little irrational. Living under a wretched old king was one thing, but one who had always had a bloody streak was just plain dangerous.

"Well, you are beyond Herod's reach now," Dion said proudly. "This is Alexandria, and it is still the freest city in the world. You can do anything or believe anything here. Well, anything as long as you pay your taxes to the man in Rome. I won't dignify that little pissant Octavian with the title of Caesar."

She looked confused.

"The Emperor Augustus," Dion said. "He used to be Octavian. He still is, as far as I'm concerned. Caesar's heir is dead these twenty four years."

Her voice was very low. "Aren't you afraid to say that?"

Dion laughed shortly. "My dear, this is Alexandria! If they threw in jail everyone who cursed Octavian, the prison should be full to bursting! You can believe anything you want here, as long as you pay your taxes. Octavian doesn't care for our blessings, just our money." He glanced toward the Roman guards on the gate. One young man, in scarlet tunic under his leathers, had rather nice legs.

"Oh," she said, and there was a furrow between her brows that did not belong on the face of one so young.

"It's a safe place to be," Dion said kindly. "A good place to raise a child. You can start him in rhetoric and mathematics sooner than you think. Five or six is good. A clever boy can become anything here — teacher, sage, doctor, scientist, voyager."

"I had thought he would learn a trade," Maryam said, one hand caressing his unruly curls. "I hadn't asked yet or anything, but maybe he could learn cabinetry from my cousin. That's a good trade."

"It is," Dion said. The baby looked up at him, curious no doubt, his eye drawn by the bright borders on Dion's robe. "But a boy should have school too, even if he's to be a tradesman. You need to read and write to get by in Alexandria, read and write in Koine as well as Hebrew. And you've got to keep accounts. And a firm grounding in the sciences and literature even if you don't intend to go farther. Everyone ought to be familiar with schools of philosophy and understand how big the world is."

"I think he will understand that," she said, bending her face to plant a kiss on the top of his head.

"So let us wait for that husband of yours," Dion said. "Where did he go, anyway?"

"To see if he could find anyone who spoke Aramaic," she said.

"Well, you've found someone. We'll wait for him, and then I will find you some breakfast and we'll start asking about this cousin of yours. There are some Jewish cabinetmakers in the Old Market. If he's not there, they probably know him."

"I couldn't possibly put you to all that trouble," she protested. "We're strangers to you, not even kin. And you must be an important man with business to attend to."

"I don't teach today until late afternoon," Dion said. "It would be my pleasure." Besides, he thought, looking at the baby, fresh from the country as they were they'd be an easy mark for anyone unscrupulous. He'd hate to see that. Though he thought the girl had a toughness underneath, a steel center she was only beginning to discover. He grinned at her. "Just call me Dion ex
machina
."

Maryam blinked. "I don't understand."

"It's a Latin joke," Dion said. "Never mind. When the gods throw something into one's path out of the blue."

"Oh." Her eyes widened, and she smiled, a beautiful smile that lit her entire face, naïve and wise at the same time. "Do you believe in angels then, who come to you in dreams?"

"Yes," said Dion gently, "I do."

This short piece was written for my oldest friend, Robert Waters.
 
Everyone has to tackle the story of King Arthur sooner or later, don't they?
 
This is the story of Gull/
Lydias
/
Charmian's
life then.

My father held this land for Ambrosius, and held it well these twenty years, without strife or doubt. Yes, there was the scandal and the whispers when he married a witch, but my mother died long ago, proving that she was mortal after all, leaving nothing behind her except my gray eyes and a breath of the sea that swept through our rooms. My father, in his mourning, married no other and got no son, leaving no heir except me to a crumbling villa and a hill fort on a crag overlooking the sea, where we watched for Saxon raiders.

Three times they had come, and three times my father had pushed them back. So far we had been lucky. We had not seen more than one ship at a time, as many places had.

The villa had mosaiced floors, one with Perseus on winged Pegasus, holding Medusa's head before him, and a stone altar of Mithras inscribed on one side Valeria Victrix, and Sol Invictus on the other. It was for that he named me Valeria, seeking some tie to those men who were gone. Macsen took the legions over the sea long ago. We are not Roman now, except my father, who will never let Rome die in his heart. For him I must read Latin, and write in neat letters, copy every word in our few books, traveler's tales of places distant as the moon. And if there was any whisper of my mother in me, it did not make itself felt, save that sometimes the things that happened in books seemed more real to me than the world I stood in.

In the winter I could read. In the summer we labored and waited for the Saxons to make our toil in vain.

They rode in on a spring day, after Beltain but before Pentecost, eighty young men on scrubby horses, and the dust of their passage lingered in the air.

"The Saxons will come to Caer Leon," their leader said, "And we will be here before them. When they beach their ships we will be waiting with horse and steel, and we will drive them back into the sea." He had an old helm made pretty with a white plume, and I could not see his face.

Behind him, his second rode bareheaded and unshaven, his long red hair caught behind him in a long tail, the same bay as his horse. He winked at me, and I turned my head, but not before I saw him smile.

"This is Bedwyr son of Griffith," their leader said. He dismounted and saluted my father like a Centurion to a Senator. He was dark and small and with his helmet off was hardly taller than I. "I am Artorius, the nephew of Ambrosius. These are my Companions."

"Of course they are," I said. "I know my
Arrian
too."

Another story with Dion, almost two thousand years later.
 
Dion is a small girl, but still absolutely Dion.
 
And then there is Emrys….
 
We will see more of these versions of them in my upcoming novel Fortune's Wheel.

Her name was Victory, and she had never known anything but war. She was a child of the Revolution, born the month that Robespierre was guillotined, and the war had lasted forever.

When she was small they had lived in a little house in Marseilles. It was on a narrow street, and from the windows of the third floor room where she slept with her older brother and sister you could see the masts of the ships in the harbor moving over the roofs, see the sails catching the wind as they moved out to sea. Her stepmother had always been afraid of a knock on the door. If someone came she would catch at her throat before she went to answer it.

“She is afraid,” Victory’s older brother told her, “that someone has denounced Papa.”

She almost didn’t remember the little house. They had moved to a bigger one, on a street where you couldn’t hear the sea. It had carpet on the stairs, and her baby brother was born there.

Now they lived in a much bigger house, with a park around it and a fountain and lots of grass to play on. There were ten servants and lots of rooms, and her older brother had a pony.

Papa was still gone. Now they said that he was a hero. For a while everyone said he was going to die, and her stepmother had black dresses made up so that when he did she would have something to wear.

But then he didn’t die and he came home.

He looked very thin, and his black hair was streaked with gray at the temples, and he was very glad to see them all. Victory was glad too, even though she was one of the girls in the middle, she and her sister, and not the baby who was cute or her older brother who could ride a horse.

It was summer, and he hadn’t been home long when they had a party.

There were big tables set up on the lawn and games for people to play with tenpins. There were some men who played violins and a tent if it was too sunny. Her stepmother rented six peacocks to walk around showing off their feathers.

Papa thought that was funny. “They just shit everywhere,” he said. “Why do we want that?” But her stepmother thought they were very aristocratic.

The party was fun. It went on all day, and there were lots of people who came and went. Some of them had children too, though most of them were older. And some of the ladies wanted to pinch her cheeks and say how cute she was, just like a little Catalan shepherdess in her white lawn dress and her bare feet.

Her stepmother flushed at that and told her sharply to go find her shoes, what was she, a ragamuffin?

Victory decided that it would be better to stay out of sight for a while, since she’d lost her shoes and didn’t know where they were. Nurse would probably find them eventually. But it might be better not to attract attention until she did.

She climbed up one of the trees and stayed there, lying on her stomach on a big branch, nibbling on a piece of bread, watching the people down the hill at the party walking around and eating and talking to each other. Two of the peacocks were fighting and the footmen were trying to separate them. She thought the ladies looked like peacocks too. She wondered if they’d have a fight and throw their big hats at each other. Or maybe there would be a duel. That might be interesting.

Someone was coming across the lawn semi-furtively, looking back as though he didn’t want to be seen. It was a young man with long black hair pulled back in a tail, a dark blue coat and buff pants, with a black sling holding his left arm. He stopped under the tree and sat down with his back against it.

Victory leaned down to see what he was up to.

Stealthily, he pulled a book out of his pocket and opened it, settling back against the tree trunk.

Victory threw a chunk of bread at him. It bounced off his head and landed on the book.

He looked up. “Strange birds in this tree,” he said, smiling.

“Tweet,” said Victory.

“What are you doing up there?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing. What are you reading?”

He closed the book with one hand. The other was still in the sling. “In the Year 2440. It’s about a man who travels 600 years in to the future and what he finds there.”