Raptor (97 page)

“I told you,” said Fillein with malicious satisfaction, “that he is less intelligent than I. After all, Galindo is a Gepid.”

When we visitors took our leave next morning, Maggot jogged along between my horse and Swanilda’s and again talked enough to relieve the tedium of our crossing of the grassland. For a while, his talk was merely gossip about various colorful inhabitants of Noviodunum. But finally, as I had expected, the Armenian broached the subject of future travel.

“Where will you and the lady Swanilda be going next, fráuja?”

“After I have put to Meirus a few questions I have in mind, we will repair to the pandokheíon for a night or two of rest and refreshment. Then we will pack the belongings we left there and simply ride far northward, toward the wilds of Sarmatia. According to all report, that is the direction the early Goths came from.”

“And you will go ultimately to the Amber Coast?”

I laughed. “I have not forgotten your nose, Maggot.”

“His nose?” said Swanilda in puzzlement.

She had not heard of the Armenian’s ambitions, so I enlightened her.

“Seeking amber,” she said to him, “certainly sounds a nobler occupation than seeking mud. But will not your fráuja Meirus be disconsolate when you announce that you are leaving his employ?”

“More likely irate, my lady,” said Maggot. “And I doubt that I will even have to say a word. Meirus is what we call in my language a wardapet, or in his tongue a khazzen, or in yours a wise-sayer.”

Truth to tell, when we got to the town, soon after dark, and went first to Meirus’s warehouse, the stout old Jew was standing outside as if waiting for us. And, giving me and Swanilda the briefest of “háils,” he thumped Maggot comradely on the shoulder and said, in a honeyed voice:

“Good to have you back, my boy. Your nose has been sorely missed. In these past days, the dredger men have brought in saprós not nearly pélethos enough. I was forced to realize that my expert mud-finder deserves to be better paid for his labors.” The Armenian opened his mouth to speak, but was not given the chance. “Go now and rest at my house, Maggot—I mean Maghib. You have had a long run. We will discuss your new, increased wage as soon as I have made the marshal and his lady welcome.”

Maggot, looking crestfallen, shuffled off along the street, leading our horses. The Mudman turned to us, expansively opening his arms.

“Now, waíla-gamotjands, Saio Thorn.” He waved us inside the warehouse, where we sat down on some hay bales. “I am sure you are overwhelmingly anxious and curious to know—”

“To know first,” I interrupted, “whether there has been any message from Theodoric.”

“Ne, nothing but routine matters. Nothing about the expected uprising of Strabo and his Rugian allies, if that is what you mean.”

“It is. No word, eh? I wonder what they could be waiting for.”

“Akh, I wager I can tell you that. Very likely those forces will not march until they are well supplied. When the harvest is in. Ja, I predict that they will make their move in September or later, after the harvest. And before the winter clamps down.”

“It sounds reasonable,” I said, and nodded. “If so, I may be able to finish this quest and be back at Theodoric’s side…”

“Come, come,” Meirus prompted. “You have no other urgent questions to ask?”

I knew what he was hinting at, but I refused to give him the pleasure of hearing me ask for the latest news of the shadowy Thor. Instead I said:

“Ja, I have a question of… what would it be? History? Theology? Anyway, tell me—since it was you Jews who gave us Jesus—”

Meirus rocked back on his heels and exclaimed, “Al lo davár!” which I took to be an expression of surprise.

“And since it was Jesus who gave us Christianity,” I continued, “perhaps you can verify something I recently was told. I believe, Meirus, from my reading of the Bible, that you Jews used often to go to war on behalf of Judaismus—trying forcibly to convert to your faith other peoples of the Orient.”

“Akh, indeed, ja. I might cite for illustration the exploits of the Makhabai. That family name means ‘hammer,’ and it was an apt name. One of the Makhabai, when he defeated some other nation, did not even wait for them to submit to conversion. He had all the men circumcised on the instant.”

“And you Jews also fought among yourselves, I understand, trying to make each other agree on matters of faith.”

“Indeed, ja,” he said again. “As the Book of Amos says, ‘Shall two walk together except they be agreed?’ There was, for example, the centuries-long rivalry, frequently violent, between the Perushim and the Tsedukim.”

“But we western peoples, so I have been told, though we often warred on each other, never did so for religious reasons.”

“To a Jew,” Meirus said drily, “you never
had
a religion.”

“I mean to say, we did not make war for that reason until Christianity became our prevailing religion.”

“To a Jew, the Goyim
still
do not have a religion.”

“Hear me out, please. We Europeans never had holy wars until the arrival of Christianity. It was born in the Orient, and came to us from there. And in the east, as you have just attested, holy wars are no novelty. And Jesus was a Jew, so…”

The Mudman clutched his head with both hands and bleated, “Bevakashá! I have heard many a mean Christian revile the Jews for slaying Jesus. You are the first I ever heard accuse us of
inflicting
him on you.”

“Still… would that not be our heritage from the east?”

“Ayin haráh! Ask me a question I can answer!”

I shook my head. “I have nothing further to ask.”

“I do,” Swanilda said shyly. “I have a question, my lord Meirus.” With obvious relief, the Mudman turned from me to her. “Ja, child?”

“I was recently wondering about something, and Thorn and I talked it over, and he said that I might ask you about it.”

Meirus leaned forward to see her better in the darkness. Then he turned the same searching gaze on me, and was silent for a moment before he said, “Ask. I will answer if I can.”

“I would like to know… can you foretell… if Thorn and I will be…?” Whatever she had started to say, she broke off and rephrased it. “If Thorn and I will long hold one another dear…?”

Meirus gave each of us another piercing stare, then for some while indecisively stroked his black beard.

I said, “Can you not answer?”

“I have divined an answer, ja. But I do not know what it signifies. I can wise-say nothing about it. I would prefer not to give you an answer so dry and uninterpreted.”

I said, “Come, come. You cannot simply tantalize us and then dismiss us.”

“You are sure you wish to hear it?”

Swanilda and I said in unison, “I am.”

Meirus squared his bulky shoulders. “As you command.” He spoke first to me: “You will hold Swanilda dear for all the years of your life.”

I could not imagine why he had hesitated to speak, for I saw nothing ominous or extraordinary or even very perceptive in that prediction. Swanilda seemed quite pleased with it. She was smiling happily when Meirus said to her:

“You will hold Thorn dear until midday tomorrow.”

Swanilda’s smile vanished and she looked totally dumbfounded. I was, too, but I recovered sufficiently to complain.

“What kind of prophecy is that? It does not make sense.”

“I
told
you so. I can only say what I see.”

“If you can divine that much, Mudman, you could at least venture a conjecture as to what it means.”

“Confound it, Marshal! First you ask me to account for the atrocious behavior of all the world’s Christians. Now you want to hold me responsible for what the future will bring. You might have some better idea of that yourself if you had asked me the question that must have been longest on your mind. What news of the person who calls himself Thor?”

“All right! What news, then, of that lurking son of a fitchet bitch?”

“He came here again, of course. Just as arrogant and demanding and ill-humored as he was before. And as you are whenever you hear mention of him. I told him that you had gone traveling about the delta, but would eventually return. He growled that he was not going to muddy his feet tramping after you. He said he would await you here, that I was to tell you he has taken lodging in the same pandokheíon as you. And he hopes—he said this very mockingly—he hopes you will not go on cowardly dodging the hammer of Thor.”

I snorted my contempt of that taunt. But then Meirus added, “He said also that he hopes you will not hide behind a woman’s skirts. He must think that you keep the lady Swanilda by you merely as a shield against assault.”

“I do not give two tords for what he thinks. Or says. I will go and find out what he is capable of
doing.”

“You will confront him?” the Mudman asked, almost eagerly.

“Right now?” Swanilda asked in alarm.

“Of course. I must not keep a god waiting. However, since he seems to scorn the company of ladies, I will go alone to meet him.” I stood up and went outside, the other two following. “Meirus, is there another lodging place nearby where Swanilda can abide for a short while?”

“My own residence is just yonder,” he said, pointing. “She will stay with me, and I will have my servants prepare nahtamats for her, and I will have Maggot see to the horses.”

“But… Thorn…” Swanilda said beseechingly. “We have been companions for so long and so far. Must you separate us now?”

“Thor asked to see only me, and so he shall. I will go alone and on foot, and carry nothing but my sword. I should not be long, my dear. I wish to end his damnable bedevilment of us.”

“Come, Lady Swanilda,” Meirus said cheerfully, as he took her arm. “I am happy to have a visitor. I so seldom do. And I would welcome your advice about some commercial plans of mine.” As they disappeared down the dark street, he was enthusiastically laying out those plans. “I have decided to expand my business to include trading in amber. Therefore, I should like to send Maggot north with you and the marshal, if you and he will allow it—to the Amber Coast—where Maggot will be my prospector and agent and…”

His voice trailed away, and I smiled—the old Jew evidently
did
have some skill at foreseeing—as I strode purposefully off in the opposite direction.

I was longer at the pandokheíon than I had expected or intended to be. When I finally left there, I realized that Swanilda must be fretting and worrying about me—and Meirus no doubt slavering to know the outcome of my encounter—so, on my way back to them, I tried to hurry, but I could walk only numbly, woodenly. And my mind was in such a whirl that, when I did get back to the riverside warehouse district, I had to cast about for yet a while longer before I could recognize the house that Meirus had pointed out to me. All the way from the pandokheíon I had been composing a coherent story to tell. But I must not have composed my face very well, because, when I rapped my boot against the doorframe and Meirus himself let me in, he gave me one look and exclaimed:

“Akh, Saio Thorn, you are as pale as a gáis! Come in, come in quickly. And here, have a long pull at this wineskin.”

I did, and drank gratefully, while he and Swanilda and Maggot, crowding into the entry hall behind him, watched me with mingled concern, expectation and apprehension.

“Was there a duel, Thorn?” Swanilda asked breathlessly when I at last lowered the wineskin.

“Did you prevail, fráuja Thorn?” Maggot asked timidly.

Meirus said, “Well, he is here, and upright, and not visibly bleeding.”

“Did you defeat a
god,
fráuja Thorn?” Maggot persisted. “In hand-to-hand combat?”

“Thor is no god,” I said, trying to laugh lightly. “And there was no duel. He is no enemy. His seeming angry pursuit of us was all pretense and prank.”

“Akh, I had
hoped
it was!” cried Swanilda, laughing with me and throwing her arms about me. “I am so
glad
it was!”

Meirus said nothing, but narrowed his eyes as he regarded me.

“I am surprised, old wise-sayer,” I chaffed him, doing my best to seem offhandedly devil-me-care, “that you did not divine something of the sort.”

“So am I,” he muttered, still eyeing my face.

It occurred to me to say, “If I am pale, it is doubtless because I went there
anticipating
a duel, and have not yet quite recovered from that gloomy mood.” I laughed again. “But our supposedly fearsome stalker turns out to be… well, very much what you originally thought him to be, Meirus. An associate of mine, so to speak, sent to assist me in my historical quest.”

Now the Mudman was frowning thoughtfully, so it occurred to me that I might be seeming over-ready to laugh away everyone’s earlier anxieties.

But Meirus said only, “Come then, Marshal. Come and eat. There is food still on the table.”

“And tell us all about it,” Swanilda said merrily. “Who Thor really is, and why he is here.”

I had a good many more things on my mind than the appeasement of simple hunger, but I tried to conceal my inward agitation and to make as good a show of appetite as I could. Swanilda and Meirus apparently had already eaten their fill, so they merely sipped wine as they listened to me. I daresay Maggot also had dined to repletion, but he companionably and voraciously continued to eat for as long as I did, perhaps because this may have been the first time he had ever been allowed to eat at a table indoors. When I told my story, I tried not to talk too glibly, as if I had been practicing it—which I had, in my head—so I spoke in snatches, between bites of food and gulps of wine.

“I do not know if it was coincidence,” I said, “or it may be that all kings simply think alike. Anyway, at almost the same time Theodoric decided to seek an accurate history of the Goths, so did his cousin-king, Euric of the Visigoths, over in Aquitania. And Euric, like Theodoric, sent a man to retrace the old trail of those early migratory Goths. Of course, Euric bade his man Thor stop in Novae to pay his respects to Theodoric and explain his mission. And of course Theodoric told him that I was doing the same thing and was already on my way. So Thor made haste to catch up to me. As we all know now, he just missed us at Durostorum. But he stayed on our trail and, I suppose just to enliven his journey, took the notion of making a japery of that pursuit—pretending to be trailing us for some dark, mysterious purpose.” I airily waved the bone I had been gnawing. “As I said, pure prankishness. And coincidence.”