When last spring was so disappointing, I bred only a few of my better brood mares, and now I am glad that I did, for only three foals have survived beyond their sixth week, and they are not as hearty as I would like. I am bringing them south with me, and I am hoping that in the slightly warmer and brighter environs of Roma, I will be able to save at least one of them, for I know another hard summer will be more than these foals can deal with, young as they are. I have taken to feeding them raisins from the vines we could not get wine from last autumn, and that seems to have a little benefit, as do the dried apples you had stored at the villa’s stables. We have been able to travel at twelve thousand paces a day—hardly any speed at all compared to the days of my breathing youth, when messengers could cover eighty-five thousand paces a day, and troops could march for twenty-one thousand paces a day. Still, given the weather and the poor state of the roads, twelve thousand paces is acceptable, or so Niklos informs me. He is going ahead to Roma to make my estate ready, and to see to yours. I have not had word from Romulus Ursinus in more than eight months, and that is beginning to worry me, what with the raids on Roma and the problems of scarcity, for in such times, even the most upright man may be driven to steal and maraud for the sake of his family.
For that reason, I am taking as little with me as I providentially can. Those with much in the way of food and goods require armed men for protection, which only serves to alert desperate men that there are things of value to be seized. I have two small carpeta, drawn by mules, and six riding horses, and the mares with their foals at their sides—not very rich pickings for anyone. I am planning to spend the summer putting our estates in order and then working on building up my stud again, but that is for later, when I am once again on my native Roman earth and have access to my three casks of gold, which you so generously provided me before you left for distant lands. Not even Niklos knows where the casks are hidden, and that inclines me to believe that at least two of them are intact, since they are not hidden together, but, as you recommended, are secreted in separate locations.
There are two minor advantages to these horrendous times: mal aria has not struck in over a year, some say because of the cold, which has kept the miasma from rising; and the Byzantine army in Italia has not made as much progress toward conquest as the Emperor in Constantinople has ordered. General Belisarius has been delayed in the far south, and that has given the people some opportunity to prepare for his coming. The barbarians from the north are retreating, which I, for one, view with mixed emotions, for it may be that we are trading one ill for another. I would like to see Roma returned to Roman hands, but I am afraid that will not be possible.
I have finally had it confirmed that it is true: Emperor Justinian has ordered the Academy in Athens—Plato’s school—closed because its teachings do not all conform to Christian dogma. I was saddened to hear this from a reputable scholar, bound for Pisae, who had gone there in its last two years to improve his knowledge of geography and ethics, neither of which meet with Justinian’s approval. I know the loss of that school will distress you, and I am sure that many others will share your grief, but I cannot think that such useful knowledge will be forgotten.
This is going into the hands of Brother Servus, who is leaving on a mission to the churches in the East, to report on how this cold has affected the Christians in those foreign climes. I have asked him to put this into the hands of Chinese merchants bound to the south and the city of Yang-Chau. I have done my best to copy the scratches you told me in your last letter—years ago—were proper writing for that place. I hope I have done a good enough rendition of the lines to get this into your hands, just as I hope you have not had to endure all the vicissitudes that have been visited upon us.
In haste but with affection, nonetheless,
Olivia
RAGOCZY FRANCISCUS
T
ext of a report from the Apostle Gideon of the apostlary of Kuldja-and-Almalyk; sent to the apostlaries of Cambaluc, Khara-Khoja, Kumul, Khanbalik, Kuldja, Kashgar, Ning-Hsia, and Wu-Wei; written in vernacular Latin.
To my most esteemed, most highly valued Brothers in Christ, the greetings of the Apostle Gideon from the apostlary of the Most Sacred Crucifix in Almalyk, where God has seen fit to strand me for the winter, and where I am prepared to depart this world, if that should be His Will.
For the last eleven fortnights I have had no news from anyone, Christian or pagan, due to the remaining depth of the snow and the bad condition of the road leading to this place. We have had avalanches and rock slides at many places along the Silk Road, and that has impeded progress for all caravans. But there is now a way around the worst of the slippage, and the snow is retreating a little, all of which has meant that I have at last been able to read your accounts of the autumn past; nothing more recent has arrived, although we are well past the Feast of Resurrection, and for that reason, I will strive to tell you as much as I can of what we have endured in this place, and how it has shown God’s Hand to us.
I must inform each and all of you that the past winter has been worse than any in living memory or in the records of any region that has them to consult. God had already made demands upon us, and that has only increased in the last year and a half. We have borne all in patience, offering our affliction to God, with thanks for His Mercy, but we have had to bear hunger and the continuing raids of unbelieving clans. Turks are the most persistent, but there have been Jou’an-Jou’an and Mongols as well, though the groups have been smaller and their damage less extreme. One of the small clans of Jou’an-Jou’an did little more than steal three goats and two sheep before going on to the West. They said their magician—a woman with white hair—had warned them against shedding human blood, for which we are grateful to God for so moving her pagan heart. Others were not so charitably inspired: twenty-six of our congregation have died from wounds received in resisting the pagan attacks. Another forty-three have starved to death, four as a show of sacrifice, giving up their food to those in greater need of it, by which example all of us have gained in the strength of our faith. We have defended the apostlary and the town, in the hope that if we prevail by force of arms we will also demonstrate the Power of God that is bestowed on all true Christians in the face of danger.
How have we failed in our efforts, that God has so greatly reclaimed our stewardship over the earth? In what way have we sinned, but in our inability to bring all souls to God? Since we have received God’s mandate to care for the world, it is our responsibility to deal with the new conditions He has created, and to see our lands in good heart again, with flourishing crops and fruitful herds and flocks. By giving us this new world, which is harsher than the one we have lost, we are punished for our lapses and our pride and provided the opportunity to bring our sins and our failures to God in our devotion to repairing and restoring the earth. It is for us to fix what has been broken before we will be sufficiently worthy of the salvation bestowed so lovingly upon us, to return the land to the natural garden God intended, not to let it languish in this state of decay and infertility. Those who run from such burdens are not deserving of Redemption or a place in Heaven, and so I have told my congregation. I can only thank God for His Goodness in bringing the consolation of faith to those mired in want and despair.
Not that our condition has been relieved: our supplies are all but gone—I have only a dozen sheets of paper left when this report is dispatched, and a single ink cake remaining, which is commensurate with the state of our other supplies—and what little we have left at Most Sacred Crucifix has been carefully rationed and will be so until God sees fit to provide us with food and sweet water again, for although not so odious as the water of a year ago, there is still a yellow tinge in the stream and in the snow, and a faint odor of rotten eggs. We have done all that we may to extend charity and shelter to those in need and, in so doing, have brought more souls to Salvation, although many have proved obdurate because of their dread of writing. If any of you have supplies that could be added to our stores, we would bless you and give thanks to God for your charity. We are almost at Midsummer Festival, but so far there is little to celebrate; I have ordered that the lamps we light burn only until midnight, not through the night, so that we may not squander what little oil is left. I hope that the Four Evangelists, whose Feast the festival is, will understand and forgive our decision. We will go to bless the fields, but it will be a sad occasion, for we have almost nothing growing in them, and our prayers may have more of despair than thankfulness in them. If you have any new crops that have been strong enough to thrive under this cold sun, then I beseech you in the Name of Christ to send as many shoots as you can spare so that we may have some degree of harvest. Our crops are not developing in spite of all our efforts, and even our trees are dying. If you have it within your power to aid us in this effort, I ask you to lend us your aid, for God’s Glory and your joy in Paradise.
May God show you His Favor and may He bring you to triumph, if not in this world, in the next,
Gideon, Apostle of Kuldja-and-Almalyk
At the apostlary of the Most Sacred Crucifix
In the dusty marketplace of Tok-Kala a small crowd had gathered to marvel at what the foreigner in black had brought in from a camp on the eastern branch of the Kushan Road; the afternoon sun had dropped low enough in the west to cast long, purple shadows from brilliant yellow skies, making the huge, stone bone appear more impressive than it was, and it was remarkable on its own merits. The marketplace was surrounded by two- and three-story buildings of clay bricks, most without decoration of any kind, but with two marked by ominous swaths of dark-reddish brown stains and ornamented with racks of skulls, now shining in the spectacular colors of early sunset.
“How did you find it?” asked a Byzantine merchant in a tattered paragaudion of dark-blue, nubby Antioch silk. He spoke the dialect of Silk Road merchants in the West—an amalgam of Persian, Byzantine Greek, and the local vernacular.
“There was a landslide, coming into Ferghana, that brought down a long section of the hillside, and the bone was exposed; there were bits of what I suspect were other bones, but I could not wrest them from the earth; they were all of great size,” said Ragoczy Franciscus in excellent Byzantine Greek; the merchant gave a hearty sigh of relief as he heard his native tongue, and he nodded his thanks to Ragoczy Franciscus. “I also found two teeth,” he added, taking the sharp, triangular objects from the sleeve of his sen-gai; they were nearly as long as the palm of his small, elegant hand. He cast his mind back to the early morning three days since when he and Rojeh had come upon the swath of fallen rocks that blocked the road. The work of clearing the slide away had taken most of the morning and half the afternoon, and in the process they had come upon the great stone bone, which, when stood on end, came up to the middle of Ragoczy Franciscus’ chest. He had struggled to load it onto one of the camels, after adding the camel’s chests and sacks and barrels to the other animals’ pack saddles; at the time it had seemed a very important thing to take with them. “Whatever this being is, it is ancient.”
“Ancient? I should say so! What manner of creature has such teeth, if they are truly teeth?” the merchant exclaimed. “They could be arrowheads, or spear-points, from an ancient battle.”
“Both with no means to fasten them to a shaft?” Ragoczy Franciscus inquired gently. “No, I must suppose they are teeth, but I cannot imagine what creature has such teeth.”
“A giant, whatever it was,” said the Byzantine merchant.
“I think we must assume that,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.
“How could such a creature manage to—?” The Byzantine merchant looked about. “They say strange beasts have come down from the northern forests.”
“It could be one,” said Ragoczy Franciscus quietly, and prepared to join Rojeh at the inn they had chosen. “But I have heard nothing of anything like this, and I would expect news to travel quickly about such a beast.”
“Very true; very true. I would like to discuss it with you, later, if I may?” He slapped his chest. “I am Vermakrides, from Kaffa. I may still do some trading before I return home.” He grinned, his openness a deliberate ploy to encourage Ragoczy Franciscus to volunteer as much about himself and what goods he might have. “That bone of yours interests me.”
Ragoczy Franciscus ignored the last. “Then I wish you a successful end of your journey.”
Vermakrides nodded. “Yes, it is almost done, and never have I been more glad to see the end of travel ahead. Have you far to go?”
“I, too, am returning to my native earth,” said Ragoczy Franciscus with a slight, formal reverence, aware he was being prodded for information.
“And where might that be?” Vermakrides. asked, annoyed that he had to press for information.
“In the Carpathians,” said Ragoczy Franciscus in a formidably polite tone that discouraged more inquiry. “Very high in the eastern crook.”
“Have you been gone long?” Vermakrides realized he was pushing his luck to ask, but the habits of his trading were too strong to be broken.
“More than a decade,” said Ragoczy Franciscus; he did not mention that his absence from his homeland would be correctly calculated in multiple decades—nine of them since his last visit there.
“A considerable time,” said Vermakrides, prepared to embark on more conversation.
But Ragoczy Franciscus cut him short. “If you will excuse me?” He sketched a reverence to Vermakrides and went to where Rojeh was standing, next to the enormous bone. “Have you found a place for the night?”
“The inn at the corner of the market? The one with the blue shutters? It is called the Wayfarers’ Refuge. The innkeeper has taken our animals into his barns and is preparing a room even now.” He spoke in the language of Egypt, fairly certain that only Ragoczy Franciscus would understand him.
“For a price,” said Ragoczy Franciscus drily in a slightly older version of the same tongue.
“Naturally for a price, luckily one that can be paid in silver,” said Rojeh; he paused a moment and finally broached a matter that had been niggling at him. “I hope the bar of silver you gave Ourisi will be enough to keep her safe.”
“So do I.”
“Will she survive?” Rojeh persisted.
“Will any of us? At least with silver and her freedom, she has a chance, unlike she would have, had she remained with Kasha. There was nothing more I could do: she was too ill to travel.” He reached down and touched the stone bone and said in Persian, “Hire some of the marketplace men to help you move this to the stable at the inn. Speaking of silver, give them a silver coin each—that should help to encourage them.”
“I will,” Rojeh said loudly enough to be overheard. “One silver coin each.”
Ragoczy Franciscus began to walk toward the inn, but stopped and turned back to Vermakrides, who was exchanging jokes with a group of camel-drovers from the south. “Why are you interested in the bone?”
“It is a wonder. I would like to display it,” said Vermakrides promptly. “Many would pay to see it, I think.”
“Pay to see it,” Ragoczy Franciscus echoed. “What a notion.” He paused. “I will consider it.”
“Well and good; I will come to your inn after supper, to make you an offer; you are at the Wayfarers’ Refuge, are you not?” said Vermakrides, and turned back to the camel-drovers.
“Yes; come there when you like,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, and continued on his way.
The interior of the Wayfarers’ Refuge smelled of smoke and wet leather, with a hint of slightly rancid cooking oil. The innkeeper—a man who had once been rotund but was now so thin that his flesh hung on him like an inner garment and whose face was so sunken that he resembled the Chinese fighting dogs—reverenced Ragoczy Franciscus, indicating the flight of stairs behind him. “Be welcome, Man from the West. Your servant has already prepared your quarters.”
“That is very good of you,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.
The innkeeper set a scale on the counter and waited. “Do you want feed for your animals, Man from the West?”
Ragoczy Franciscus considered for a moment, then said, “Yes.” He saw the greed in the innkeeper’s eyes and asked, “Has my traveling companion paid for our accommodations yet?”
“He has given me the initial payment for the rooms. Anything else must be paid when requested.” The innkeeper looked narrowly at Ragoczy Franciscus. “You have come from far to the east, your man told me: they say that the clans from the east are coming in greater numbers now. What have you seen?”
“Why do you ask?” Ragoczy Franciscus inquired.
“Travelers who stop here ask for advice; I want to have good information to provide them, for their sake. Traders pay well for such news.”
“Of course. They pay.”
“You do not give your goods away, foreigner,” said the innkeeper brusquely. “News is as valuable as goods in this town, and more so now, the last year and a half being so hard.”
“I will tell you as much as I can, for the protection of other travelers.” Thinking back to the Desert Cats, Ragoczy Franciscus answered carefully, “I would reckon that if the clans are on the move, it is because their own regions can no longer support them.”
“But where will they go? There is nothing for them here, and Ferghana is already overrun by clans looking for horses to steal.”
“The scrub is dying, giving way to moving sands,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, reporting what he had learned from Baru Ksoka as well as what he had seen. “They cannot survive on sand.”
“Nor can anyone,” said the innkeeper. He pointed to the window. “The wastes between the seas are doing much the same thing, the grass and scrub drying up and giving way to shifting sands. At least we have the Amu Darya to give us water, or we might have to abandon our homes, too. We are fortunate to have the river.” He glowered, his head down. “As it is, many of us have starved already.”
“It is much the same everywhere we have been,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “Starvation and its companions—illness and desperation.”
“We gave foals and kids to the gods, and when they did not suffice, we gave sons and daughters. It has not been enough.” The innkeeper looked at Ragoczy Franciscus. “What have you lost, foreigner?”
“All my family,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, accurately but misleadingly.
“I have only one wife and two children left. I could not bear to part with any of them,” said the innkeeper in a sudden burst of overwrought emotion. “Those coming from the West say that there the sun remains weak and the cold is everywhere.”
Ragoczy Franciscus took money from the string of cash in his sleeve. “Here are coins enough for the food, the feed, and something extra so you may make other offerings to the gods.”
The innkeeper took the cash and did his best to smile. “This is most generous.”
“May it bring you what you seek,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, ducking his head before going off toward the stairs. “Which rooms are assigned to my companion and me?”
“The two at the end of the north arm.”
“Thank you,” said Ragoczy Franciscus as he began to climb. “Oh,” he said, stopping on the third riser, “there is a Byzantine merchant coming later in the evening to talk with me.”
“It will cost you to receive him,” said the innkeeper automatically.
“Of course it will,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, resuming his climb to the unusually wide corridor that led to the north arm of the building.
Some little time later, one of the slaves came up to Ragoczy Franciscus’s room to announce, “There is a Byzantine merchant waiting in the visitors’ room.”
Ragoczy Franciscus tapped on Rojeh’s door and said he would return shortly. “He and I may strike a bargain.”
“For the bone,” Rojeh said incredulously.
Vermakrides. was waiting in the visitors’ room, seated on a pile of cushions near the newly lit fire. He had a cup of wine in his hand, and he nearly spilled its contents when Ragoczy Franciscus came through the door. “May the Saints be praised!” he exclaimed.
Ragoczy Franciscus reverenced Vermakrides. “You said you wanted to discuss the bone I brought to—”
“To the point. Yes. Yes, I do,” Vermakrides said impulsively. “I very much want to discuss the bone. You say you came upon it in a landslide?”
“I did,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.
“You said this was in Ferghana?” Vermakrides persisted.
“Yes. On the road from Kokand and Tashkent.” He regarded Vermakrides for a short while. “Do you plan to look for the place?”
“It had occurred to me,” the Byzantine admitted.
“I will hope you have good fortune, if you try,” Ragoczy Franciscus said cordially. “There was a second landslide shortly after my traveling companion and I removed the bone, and all that had been uncovered by the first was buried again by the second.”
“If what you say is true—” Vermakrides began, and stopped short as he glanced at Ragoczy Franciscus.
“Why should I speak false? If I wished to conceal the place I found the bone, there are many easier ways to dissemble. I could have claimed to have found it anywhere from here to China, on another branch of the Silk Road.” His voice remained genial, but there was something in his eyes that held the attention of the merchant.
“It could be that your account is fanciful,” he said cautiously.
“It could be,” seconded Ragoczy Franciscus, a slight emphasis on
could
, “but as it happens, I am telling the truth. You will have to take my Word for it.”
“If I must, I will,” said Vermakrides. “I will also accept that I might not be able to find it.”
Ragoczy Franciscus shrugged. “You may find other bones, if you decide to look for them.”
Vermakrides tapped his fingers on the rim of his wine cup, and then looked up, startled. “I should have offered as soon as you came in: let me buy you a cup of wine.”
“Thank you; it is a most gracious offer, but I do not drink wine,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.
There was a brief silence between them, then Vermakrides coughed and said, “About the bone? Do you have a price in mind?”