thirty pages beginning Anaxagoras draft

Anaxagoras

Muchos años después, frente al peletón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.

Gabriel García Márquez, Cien años de soledad

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You know, of course, my young friends, that the great Alexander of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian empire, died in Babylon when he was scarcely thirty-three years old. You, Timaeus, are what – only twenty-four?

Twenty-six, holiness.

Ah. And your wise friend here, whom you brought to speak with me, you, sir, Nicodemos, are only… what, forty-five?

Forty-nine, sir.

Ah. Well, both of you are younger than I, much younger, young enough to have children and watch them grow into men and women. While I, who am eighty and some, well, I will tell you this advice in all honesty. Do it. Have children. They, and the memory of your friends, are all you can ever leave behind you, when you depart from this world of life.

Yes, holy father.

Well. You asked me to tell you of my life. The history of events that have passed before my eyes. But first I ask you, by way of digression, to imagine how things might have been different, here in the east, if Alexander had fathered children. That great young king, only thirty-three when he died in the palace of Nahbukadrusur, down there in Babylon, a palace which the Persians had kept beautiful and fine, maintained as their seat of power in the ancient land between the rivers, yes, imagine if Alexander the Macedonian Greek was to have had children – and if he had lived to become a wise, old king, well, then perhaps he might have seen his children grow into men and women, and married his daughters to important men throughout his empire, and chosen one of his sons to follow after him, yes, while appointing the other sons to be governors and great ministers of court. You see how the empire he dreamed of creating, the empire he was working to build, how it might have survived, and made our own history completely different here in the east; and more – who knows now whether his power might have reached out to the west, taking all the Greek cities under his influence, if not his rule, or perhaps even bringing Rome under his power, Rome, which then was still a young republic – remember this was before the wars between Carthage and Rome, is that not so, Nikodemos?

Yes, sir. Alexander died a hundred years before Hannibal crossed the Alps.

There you are. If Alexander and his empire had survived, then events might have transpired differently here in the east, and even in the west, the great king of kings might have found some way to cause both Carthage and Rome to become his allies, if not conquer them both outright. Even the wild tribes and towns of Gaul, later conquered by your Caesar, might have respected the great king of the east. Yes, things might have been different.

But holy father, that is not how events unfolded.

Exactly not. That is my point, Timaeus, a point which I feel must be made before I tell you and your friend the story of my own life. For as we all know, the great Alexander, that wild, desperate young man, died childless except for an infant baby or two. His generals and armies, men who had literally marched to the ends of the Earth for him and with him, well, now that he was gone, they all fell apart from each other, and the great empire of Alexander, which might have lasted for a thousand years, well, it shivered and shattered and fell apart into several different pieces and his children were forgotten. His generals divided up his empire between them. You know the story. One general took Egypt, another took Greece and Macedonia, another Anatolia and the Pontus, and then there was Seleucus, who had been governor of Babylon, who took Syria and Persia and Mesopotamia, the same lands where I was born scarcely three hundred years later.

And yet, holy father, that kingdom too came to an end. His descendants eventually lost it all.

Correct, Nikodemos. The children and grandchildren of Seleucus Nikator, and their descendants, well, they thrived for a while, and then they, too, fell before the rise of two new powers in the east and the west. A new Persian kingdom, whom we now call the Parthian and, of course, in the west, we have Rome. But worse than those rising external powers, was the royal family itself, the descendants of Seleucus, who began to fight each other for control. Brothers, and then cousins, declared war on each other. The kingdom became weaker, and divided against itself, generation after generation, while the Parthians took back Persia and Media, then moved into Mesopotamia itself, were briefly beaten back into Persia, but came back again a generation later. Now they rule there.

Yes, father Anaxagoras. You point out the most dangerous problem for any kingdom: to stay united as one power, and not fall apart into separate, fighting, pieces. When that happens, invaders can come in and take down the kingdom, piece by piece by piece.

So you see what I am saying. Good. By the time I was born, in the city of Seleucia, the capital on the Tigris river, by then the kingdom of Seleucus was gone. We were all subects of the new Persians, the Parthians. Fortunately for us, however, or rather fortunately for my grandfathers’ generation, the new rulers understood how important it was to maintain peace and keep the trade routes open, to protect the wealth flowing between all the cities of Mesopotamia and more, reaching east toward India and west to the Mediterranean. The caravans must move. The silk, inscense, ivory, and spice, must flow.

That is why, even though we were conquered by the Pathians, Greek remained our native language, and Aramaic became our second tongue. The city of Seleucia, you see, is half Greek and half Babylonian, if I may simplify things a bit. Yes, simplistically you could say that in the city of Seleucia we are almost all either Greek or Babylonian, or both, although there are dozens of other, different, languages and religious groups, including the Parthians of course, to whom we pay taxes, of course.

Of course.

And… well, a little over a hundred years ago, when the Parthians finally conquered Mesopotamia, there were already so many Greeks there, especially in Seleucia, the Hellenistic capital, that the new rulers simply told us to swear allegiance and continue to go about our business, which in my family’s case was, and is, the management of caravans and cargo.

But, my friends, it was not so simple as that. It did not happen overnight, as the saying goes. Because the Seleucid empire, Basileia ton Seleukidon, was huge, comprising nearly half of Alexander’s conquests, from India to the Mediterranean. Thousands of wealthy cities and farms and orchards poured taxes into the royal treasury. Even with all of its weaknesses and civil wars it took almost three hundred years for this great kingdom to fall apart and die. The last years were terrible. But my ancestors survived. By the time I was born the worst times were over. We had come back into peace again.

Yes. Well. So it was.

The city where I was born was new, compared with the other ancient towns of Mesopotamia. For you see, Seleucia on the Tigris was founded less than four hundred years ago, as the capital for the kingdom, the metropolis for the empire of the east. It was not even twenty years after Alexander died, when the first king, or basileas, Seleucus Nikator, decided to leave Babylon and build a new city, midway between Persia and the Mediterranean, in the heart of Mesopotamia, on the Tigris River. Not only did he encourage, and often command, that Greeks should settle there, but he ordered most of the population of Babylon, the great city, to move to his new city of Seleucis. With one royal stroke, he set in motion the creation of a new hellenistic hybrid, a capital city that was half Greek and half Babylonian.

That was where I was born, in a house near the walls, with high windows looking out from our private rooms above the business halls on the main floors below, where clerks and scribes kept their records and receipts. Those business rooms were in turn built above the storerooms and warehouses and our small family stables. No, we did not live upstairs from camels and other beasts of burden, although we kept a few animals for our private use in stalls on the ground floor, but all the important caravan animals, the horses, mules, and camels, were stabled outside the city at larger corrals and work areas attached to a caravansary my family has owned and maintained. That was, and is, in open land beyond the walls of the crowded city. It, too, eventually became part of my childhood world.

I remember some of my earliest memories, at home, staring out the high windows, gazing through the wooden lattice and grill, across the rooftops, toward the walls of other tall houses, and wondering what was out there, what were those animals and birds crying in the night, who were those people whose voices I heard echoing far below me in the crowded streets during the daytime, or the scattered sounds of men running and shouting in the night, young voices laughing, old voices grumbling and cursing the dark, and occasionally the cry of a woman calling out for a lost child.

I heard the singing voices of the street vendors in the morning, calling out their wares, cakes of bread freshly baked in the darkness before dawn – as I learned later – or the stuffed-date man selling his sweet delight to eat with your breakfast gruel – the broom-man or woman with their stiff palm fronds for sweeping away the dirt and dust – the juice seller with jugs of sweet drink suspended from either side of a small donkey – all these voices I heard coming through our windows before I was even two years old, before I even knew who or what they were I had already learned their song having heard the voice rise up in air from the street, up past the solid warehouse walls wherein my father and uncle and cousins kept precious cargoes safe behind locked doors on solid rooms with no windows, yes, those rooms, too, I did not learn about for a few more years but already the song of the street was rising up beyond the storeroom walls, up past a main floor of solid office and business halls where clerks sat with clay tablets and precious paper crushed from river reeds, and they worked their counting boards, the abex or abakos, with pebbles constantly clicking in the notched grooves, counting and recounting, checking one tablet against another, calculating and figuring and reconciling and recording how much, what quality, where from, who brought it, who bought it, who sold it, where is it going next and when. Those rooms had windows for light and air shafts to let the air circulate and cool the heat of day. The song of the street rose up beyond them, mixing with the hum and click of calculation, rising farther up toward the windows of my family’s private rooms where the baby, now walking, now talking, sat in the window beside the wooden screen, listening to the song from the street far below.

So that was I. That baby child, listening. Already learning. By two I was repeating the song of the street, the bread vendor, the broom seller, the juice carrier, and I learned to amuse my nursemaid and my mother, singing the songs back to them, in Aramaic. They told my father, and I sang for him. He looked at me and listened, stroking his beard, and thinking. This child has a gift for language. I soon learned that I had now been chosen to be groomed for the next speaker of the family and the business. The translator. The negotiator with foreign princes and merchants of power and wealth.

In the beginning, my mother and the nursemaid were encouraged to tell me stories and talk with me. My mother, I found out later, regularly told my father of my progress. Later, a tutor was brought in to sharpen my skills with both Greek and the Babylonian tongues. He was the first scholar I met – and I have met many through the years, my young friends, and I can tell you it is not an easy life to be learned. Either you must dedicate your life to some business or another, just to be free to choose what you read and write, yet never have enough time to study, or you must become a client, as your Romans call it in Latin, and be forever at the beck and call of some great man or another who will be your patron, and if you please him, then you may have time to study and write, but you will forever be at your patron’s beck and call, to write what he asks, or sometimes commands. You remember, perhaps, that the great Augustus had his Maecenas, a wealthy man, who cultivated his own circle – or stable, if you will allow me to make like Diogenes the cynic – a stable of writers and artists. Yes. That is the way of the world. You either inherit wealth, or you make it yourself, or you work for other great men who pay you.

In my case, I was perhaps more fortunate. I had my family who became my patrons, encouraged my learning, and yes, bade me work with them in service to our business. But we were privileged, my friends, because we had both money and property, as well as our reputation and honor. My grandparents and their parents before them had come through the times of turmoil, and then prospered. Yes, we lost some animals and cargo to brigands and thieves, but in the main, we prospered. That was the world I was born into, and for which I was groomed and educated and trained.

You, Timaeus, told me how you learned to ride from the stables near the market in Antioch, and then helped your mother and her sister to prosper in their sales by delivering purchases to your customers.

Yes, holy father.

And you, Nikodemos, you are also learned… I do not know the details yet, but Timaeus has told me you were on the general staff with Corbulo, before he sent you here.

Yes, sir. That is so. But my childhood, and youth, was, well, complicated.

Nevertheless, you learned, and worked, and studied. Is that not so?

Yes, divine priest. It is.

So did I. In the first ten years of my childhood in our city of Seleucia I learned languages and writing and mathematics and the rudiments of history. For example, my tutor told me, and my father and uncle later confirmed, that the year I was born a great peace treaty was signed between Augustus Caesar of Rome and king of kings Phraates of Parthia. That our family business thrived in the years after that, with caravans coming and going from Persia in the east, Arabia in the south, and the Roman province of Syria in the west.

Then, when I was almost to turn twelve, I was told by my father that it was time for me to learn first-hand about the core of our business, and to accompany my uncle across the river from Seleucia to the Parthian winter capital at Ctesiphon. Although short – only a few miles – this was the first trip I made in business, though there were many, most far longer, to follow in the years to come. But it was on that first, short sales trip that I learned we owners and masters of trade had another cargo we carried, much more quietly, privately, and carefully. That cargo was intelligence. Knowledge of how things were proceeding politically, perhaps even changing, in the different cities and lands we visited with our caravans and cargo. This was one reason why I had been taught to speak several different languages. From my earliest childhood, when I showed how easy it was for me to listen and mimic the street vendors’ songs I had heard rising up into our windows, from those early days my father and uncle grandfather decided I would be one to listen and learn, firsthand, about what was happening in the different lands where we did business. I was to travel with the caravans, keep my ears open, to openly speak Greek and Aramaic when the time came to do business, but not to advertise how many other languages I spoke or understood. I would discretely listen, remember whatever I happened to overhear, keep this knowledge private, not discussing it with anyone along the road, and only report back to my father and grandfather and uncle when we returned to Seleucia. Then they would discuss my news, along with other sources, and decide whether our plans should be adjusted, perhaps next year, to either become more cautious if danger threatened, or to make adjust ments in what cargoes we actually sent in one direction or another.

XXXXXXXa caravan from Seleucis into Persia. That was the first trip I made, and there were many to follow. But that first trip was also when I learned that we owners and masters of caravans had another cargo we carried, much more quietly, privately, and carefully. Intelligence. Knowledge of how things were proceeding, or perhaps even changing, in the lands we visited. That was one reason why I had been so carefully taught to speak several different languages. To become one who would listen and learn, firsthand, about what was happening in the different lands where we visited and did business. I was to keep my ears open, to not openly advertise how many languages I spoke (other than Aramaic and Greek), to discretely remember whatever I happened to overhear, and to keep this knowledge private, not to discuss it with anyone, and only to report back to my father and grandfather and my uncles when we returned to Seleucia. Then they would discuss my news, along with other sources, and decide whether or not any dangers or opportunities might be arising in the next year or two, and whether our plans should be adjusted for the next year, either be more cautious or perhaps make adjustments in what cargoes we actually sent in one direction or another.

I mention this work of intelligence gathering because it was on that first short trip when I overheard a very powerful man in the royal court of the king of kings briefly speak of a certain political reality. We had been honored, or commanded, to bring several trunks of Arabian and Mediterranean goods across the river to the winter palace. The royal court of the king of kings, Phraates of Parthia, normally spent their summer in the cooler highlands of Persia, then descended into Mesopotamia for the cooler months of winter.

They had recently arrived from the distant highlands, and we were asked – such a request must always be obeyed – to bring Greek vases, Roman glassware, Arabian incense, Egyptian and Italian wine, along with some delicate dried fruits and certain herbs.  At the palace, three courtiers – all men, of course – would inspect the goods, one trunk by trunk, then small box by box, and each would turn to whisper through tall, carved wooden screens, behind which the more important women of the court who were hidden from our view, but who were allowed to choose from our goods, always working through the men, who would then speak directly with us.

Now, as I said, I was told to speak Greek and Aramaic openly, but carefully, and give no indication that I understood any other languages. The royal courtiers were intrigued that a young Greek boy of twelve could speak Aramaic, although of the western dialect, and then I heard the women quietly whispering and laughing behind the carved screens, and I assumed that they, too, were intrigued by my obvious youth. I saw, in the corner of my eye, a shadow draw near to the screen and heard a whisper. I had been warned not to stare directly at the screens but to keep my eyes fixed on the feet of the men who were studying our cargo. But I heard the shadow say, in Aramaic, with a woman’s voice, “Ask the boy how old he is.”

The courtier who was closest to me, asked me, in passable Greek, how old are you, child?

Eleven, sire, I said, in Greek.

There was another whisper from behind him. He tilted his head and listened. Then turned back to me, and asked, “Do you also understand Aramaic?”

A little, sir (“adon”), I answered in the tongue. The man turned to my uncle, and asked, in Greek, who was this young man.

My uncle answered, he is my nephew, sir. We hope he will one day learn to speak the Babylonian tongue with better grace.

The courtier said, oh yes, that would be good for your business and family. I hope he continues to learn.

Yes, sir. Thank you sir, my uncle answered in fairly good Aramaic.

Then there was another whisper behind the screen, and the courtier turned his head slightly, and said, in what I would later learn is very formal Aramaic, “If his majesty the king of kings will agree with her majesty the queen, then I would ask the boy to listen and to speak with her grace.”

As if from a slight distance, I now heard a man’s voice mutter, “The king is pleased to have his queen speak with the boy.”

At that moment a dead silence fell across the large room, and I felt a twist of fear in the bottom of my stomach, for I had heard the man’s voice come from behind the screen, and not only was he in the hidden place, he was also not speaking in Aramaic, but in a language I had studied but rarely ever spoken for myself. It was Parthian. My father and grandfather had warned me not to let anyone know I understood this tongue. Not yet. Not until I was older, if ever. I kept my head bowed and waited. My uncle shifted on his feet and asked, in Greek, “Is a member of the court curious about some item in particular?”

I noticed my father’s mother’s brother had spoken of the court, not of any person in particular. From the careful phrasing of his words, I felt we were walking on delicate ground, here. The courtier now laid a hand on my shoulder, and turned his fingers under my chin, lifting my eyes to meet his. I turned my face toward his and tried to smile.

“The queen would speak with the boy, and the king has agreed, because the boy is not yet a man.”

Suddenly I felt the blood run to my cheeks and I knew I was blushing from embarrasment. The courtier laughed, and I heard his mirth echoed from behind the screen, in ladies’ tittering giggles, and including that one man’s deep, powerful chuckle, all of it somewhere back in the screened hareem, and I struggled to speak straight into the courtier’s eyes, without looking away to the left or to the right, and forcing out the words in broken Aramaic, “I am not… worthy, my lord adon.”

“Nevertheless, the honor is yours, and your family’s, for the king knows you are all loyal servants of the empire of Parthia.” His hand settled more firmly on my shoulder, and he turned me, slowly, inexorably, toward that wall of carved screens behind him. I bowed my head, and heard my uncle’s sigh of relief as my eyes looked down again. The courtier stood behind me now, one hand on each of my shoulders. He did not raise my chin, and I knew I must not look up, ever. Yet even though I kept my face bent down toward the floor, in the top-hand corners of my eyes I could see two shadows drawing close behind the dark, carved screen, and I knew, by what power I knew not, that one shadow was a man, and one was a woman. The man’s voice muttered, again in Parthian, “Go ahead, my sweet Musa, speak to the child.”

There was deathly, sudden silence. I later would learn that that silence was because it was the king of kings who had spoken, granting his beloved wife’s wish. And so she spoke to me.

And it was in Greek!

“Child, is it true, are you only eleven years old?” Her Greek was good, with a slight accent, but still passable.

The courtier’s fingers delicately pressed on my shoulders and I knew I must answer. “Yes, if your majesty please, it is true.”

The woman’s voice translated this into Parthian. The king answered her, “I heard, my dearest.”

Again, silence. Again, the king of kings spoke to his queen, “Is there nothing else you would ask, my queen?”

I silently uttered a prayer of thanks for the language masters my father had hired to teach me Parthian. But I followed his strict instructions to give no sign that I understood what was said. In order to keep my lessons secret, my father had hired only Greek teachers in Seleucia who were already beholden to our family and would not talk about who or what they were teaching. I knew now, listening to the few words the king and queen exchanged, I knew I could not speak that language like he did, or like she did, either, although when she spoke to me again in Greek I understood that her Parthian had been less elegant than her husband, the king. Close, but not as smooth, and certainly not as powerful.

“Child,” she said in Greek, “is it true you also speak Aramaic?”

“Yes, my royal mistress,” I answered, again in Greek, “but I have much to learn before I will be able to speak well enough to help my family in our business with the Babylonian people.”

It was only half a lie. But… then the king spoke and all were silent.

“If my queen would like to child to show her some of the small yet no doubt precious items his family has brought to sell to us…” he said, clearly now in Aramaic, “perhaps one of the painted vases from Greece, the delicate glassware from Rome, the spices and incense of Arabia, and even the wine from Egypt and Italy, then my queen, would you not look upon these things and choose what you desire?” With a slight shock, I realized that the king of kings had spoken in excellent Aramaic. True, it was accented different, but the words were clean and clear.

The queen answered, “If it please the lord my king there are so many wondrous items these good men, and their boy, have brought to show us, and well, I hardly know which to ask to see first.”

The king’s voice began to laugh softly, and I could hear the sound of his arms enfolding the woman behind the dense screen of carved wood.

After a moment, my uncle cleared his throat behind me, very quietly, and I knew it was time for me to speak what they had told me I might have to say, and so began to utter the words my grandfather and father and uncle had taught me, and then had rehearsed and rehearesed me to say, in case I was called upon to speak. First, protocol demanded I make a request to be heard. I spoke, in Aramaic, “If the great king of kings is pleased to let me speak unto him and his royal queen, now that I have understood his words that have been so excellently spoken in the Babylonian tongue…”

The king laughed, and said, again, in Aramaic, “Go ahead, boy, say what you must…” and now I felt the courtier’s fingers very faintly brush my neck, before he lifted his hands from my shoulders and stepped back. I was on my own, now. rested his hands lightly on my shoulders. I was on my own, now.

I knelt down on the floor, and said carefully spoke the words I had been taught (with only a slight variation) “if the great king and his queen so please, my father and my uncle have instructed me to say, if I were asked, that all these items were brought as gifts for your majesty and your royal court, and you need not go through them and choose now, but if you may please to be so kind as to receive them all, and the boxes and trunks bearing them, receive them from our hands as gifts and tokens and pledges of our loyalty and love for you and your long life. Oh great king live forever!”

And my uncle echoed me in Aramaic, “Oh great king live forever!”

The old king burst out laughing and said, “Child, your family is teaching you well. We are glad to receive your gifts, and my queen and I will look upon them presently, after you have gone. But before you go, please, boy, you and your uncles must receive from our hands a small gift, also.”

And the king’s royal servants brought in several small strongboxes, which were filled, as it turned out, with golden coins. At that same moment, over the noise and bustle of movement, I heard the courtier behind me whisper four hissing little word. I only understood one of them. But then, in the excitement of being paid and packing the chests onto our donkeys, I forgot about that whistper.

My father, when he heard from my uncle what had happened, was very pleased with me.

For a few days. Almost two weeks.

Then, not half a moon later I asked my tutor what those words meant. Words I had heard the courtier mutter under his breath behind me, just after the woman beyond the screen laughed with delight when the king had commanded the strongboxes of gold be given to my uncles and to me.

I carefully uttered the three words, one after another. I did not say them together like I had heard them. I knew from the pressure of the courtier’s fingers on my shoulder that something was wrong. I remembered how every time the queen had spoken, his hand near my neck had grown hard and cold, before he forced himself to relax again. And then, for that one moment, while everyone was laughing, I heard him whisper right above my head, I heard him almost hissing, very quietly, but furiously, four simple words, three I did not recognize, and one I thought that I knew.

Those words came back in my dreams, several times for the next few days, and every time I remembered them, they became angrier and more vicious. Finally, one morning after they had broken my sleep again, and left me shivering in fear, that morning, two days after the full moon, that day when my tutor came to work with me, I asked him.

But I did not tell him the fourth word, which I was sure now that I knew. Italian. That was the one word I thought I knew. I had heard the courtier quietly hiss the word “Italian” and three other words I did not know. Neither did I tell my teacher that I had heard the words at the court of the king of kings. I knew somehow that I must not tell him that. For days I had wondered how to ask him, and every time I questioned myself, some small voice in my heart, like Sokrates used to say, some power of the mind, or oracle, warned me not to tell him where I had heard those words. So I said that I had heard them in the street and I was wondering what they meant.

He frowned, but asked me what they were.

I said the three words.

He froze. The bitter frown on his face turned deeper, and he said oh, my boy, you must never, ever say those words. Never.

But master teacher, how can I learn a language if I do not know the worst curses as well as the best blessings?

His frown broke a little, but he shook his head. I cannot tell you that, little one. Your father has forbidden me. You know he is very strict, and expects you to learn only the best, the finest, the words necessary for business.

But…

No, Anaxagoras. If your father wishes you to learn such words, then he must tell me himself. Not you.

But… you will not tell him I asked you?

I must tell him, my child. And so must you. But I tell you this: Convince him to let me teach you such things, and I will. But not without his approval.

That night, after supper, just as I had feared, my father sent word for me to come to his office downstairs. All the clerks and accountants were gone. The scrolls and tablets and counting boards sat silent on the work tables in the halls of business. My father was reading by lamplight in his private study. Alone.

Anaxagoras.

Yes, sir.

Come.

Sir.

You know why I must speak with you.

The words I asked my teacher to tell me about today.

Yes.

What do you have to say for yourself? He growled, and I saw him glance at the rod he sometimes had hit me with, across my backside, in punishment. It had been a long time since he had threatened me with that.

Father, I lied to the master teacher.

What? His hand began to reach for the rod.

I thought it better not to tell him something else.

Explain yourself.

Father, I told him I heard the words in the street, when a Parthian was shouting, angry, at a slave, here in Seleucia.

That was not true?

No. I heard the words when you sent me with my uncle, across the river, to Ctesiphon.

What? You heard the words in the street over there? And then you lied to your teacher about where your heard them?

His hand took hold of the rod.

No, father. Not in the street. I heard them in the palace.

What? He stopped. Laid the rod on top his table.

Yes, father. In the palace.

My father sat back, and his eyes glanced up toward heaven, or rather the ceiling, then fell back toward my face. In the flickering glare of his lamplight, I watched the emotions struggling inside him then, and suddenly I wondered if he, too, had a voice of conscience, warning him not to hit me, not yet. The last time he had struck me had been years before, and strangely enough, because I had lied to him. Now I was confessing I had lied to my teacher, as well as asking him to teach me what I knew could only be cursing words.

Finally my father spoke. At the palace?

Yes, sir.

He closed his eyes. Slowly nodded. Spoke softly, almost whispering. Very well. Perhaps it was best you not tell him where you heard them.

Thank you father. But there was something else.

Oh?

A fourth word.

No.

Yes, father.

Why did you not ask him this word?

Because I already knew what the word meant.

Oh. What was it?

Italian, or from Italy.

My father froze, then, and stared at me. Shook his head, and stood up. Lifted the lamp, came around the table, and held it high, looking out across the large room where accountants and clerks worked during the daylight hours. At last, satisfied no one was there, he turned back to me. Whispered. Anaxagoras, tell me the words, very quietly.

I said them. All four.

My father cursed, softly, in Greek, telling me what the words meant. I knew those words. Damned fucking Italian bitch. I had heard the Greek words before, many times before. Not always together. Usually separately. Always in anger, or cursing. After he whispered them above my head, he sighed, turned, then went back around the table to his chair, and sat down. Looked at me.

Finally, he spoke. Did you hear me? Just now.

When you… cursed?

Yes.

What did I say?

May I say those words, now, here, with you?

Yes. If you must.

I… I don’t think I need to. But I will. Damned fucking Italian bitch. Did the teacher tell you that was the meaning of what I asked him?

Yes. But… something else.

Yes, father?

Tell me who said those words to you.

Father, it was the man behind me. The courtier. The one who put his hands on my shoulders and told me to speak to the queen.

He? He said those words to you?

No. Not to me. But yes, he whispered them, almost under his breath, when his head was right above mine. I barely heard them, but I heard him say them. He seemed to growl them at the floor, and then they came down to me.

When, exactly, did he say those words?

At the end, when the king had commanded to give us the strongboxes of gold.

Oh. After your… speech.

Yes, father.

And then… the courtier said… Italian bitch?

Yes sir. But now I recognize one of the words in Pharsi. I did not recognize it before because it is conjugated differently.

Which one?

The words that means… damned. Sir.

You are forgiven.

Father?

Yes, my son?

The other words, do they truly mean… fucking bitch?

Please, son. Not again. Not here. We must not offend… the gods.

No sir.

However, yes, that is what they mean. According to your teacher, in that exact order, too.

But sir, why Italian?

You don’t know why he said she was Italian?

No, father, unless…?

Yes?

Unless she actually is from there?

Yes. She is. The queen, Musa, is from Italy.

From Rome? But….

Yes. She was a slave. A gift from Augustus, the year you were born, I believe, yes, the year of the great peace treaty. No one taught you that?

No sir. Well, about the peace treaty, yes, but not about… the slave. A slave? You say she, the queen, was a slave?

Yes. Augustus sent her as a gift. Then, the king of kings, it seems, fell in love with her. Hmmm. It is time for you to learn more than language, my son. You must study history. Politics.

Yes, sir.

Anything else, my son?

Father, do you understand the Persian tongue?

A little, Anaxagoras. But I cannot speak it.

My teacher explained the meaning of the three words to you?

Yes, son. But he said nothing about Italy. You are certain you heard that word?

Yes, father. That was the only one I understood.

How did you know it?

The master thought I should know how the Parthians said the names for the different places in the various lands in the world around us. What they call Greece and Egypt and the Mediterranean, for example.

Ah, yes, of course. Is that why you did not ask him about it?

Yes, partly, but I also felt… the same feeling that led me to lie to him about where I heard the words. To tell him I heard them here, in Seleucia, not across the river in the palace of Ctesiphon.

Yes. That was… astute of you, my son.

May I say those words now? Can we talk about them?

Well… yes, I suppose we can. Now that we are alone.

Uh… the word for… well, the dog.

Female dog.

Yes. And the word for… it is the sexual act, is it not?

Well, yes, son, but the word is only used as a curse. You would never use that word with your wife, for example, when you get married, but you will… you will have… how can I put this… you will have sexual relations with her. You know, my son, that is how children are… conceived.

Yes, father.

Who told you?

Uh… father, please. They made me swear never to tell.

Oh, so. I imagine some older boys, sharing the secret of sex.

Yes, father.

Your brothers, perhaps. Well, never mind. Whoever they were, they taught you the curse word, also?

Yes, father. But….

What, Anaxagoras?

Was the master certain it was the curse?

Yes. And I, too, have heard it. When a camel master curses one of the animals in a caravan.

Oh. That would make sense, I suppose.

Yes. In fact the curse is also used in Aramaic, often directed at an animal when it does not do what the animal driver demands of it. Not just the camels, mind you, but the mules, also.

All three words?

Not always. Sometimes only two. But… I have never heard the word “Italian” cursed at any animal.

Nor, I imagine, Father, at any queen.

No. Which is why you must never tell anyone what you have heard. Or at least, not for many years, and only tell me or perhaps one of your uncles, if I die.

Father!

Hush, son. You know we all must die, one day. Sooner or later.

Later, I hope.

As do I. But… well, do you know who the man was who laid his hands on your shoulders when the Queen asked to speak with you.

No, father. Only that he was an official of the court.

That is true. He is. I have known him for many years. He is a man entrusted to oversee much of the personal property of the king. He is also a noble, head of a great and powerful family.

But, Father, why should he curse the Queen?

This is what you need to learn, my son. It is what I must think about, and perhaps discuss with one or two of your uncles. But I think we already know why. Why he cursed her as a damned fucking Italian bitch.

Because she is a… foreigner? Not a Parthian, but a Roman?

Exactly, Anaxagoras. That is exactly why, but there is so much more, you see. The courtier hates her because his King has fallen in love with her, and… again, I am going to tell you something you must never repeat or discuss in public. It would be most indiscrete to speak of this, although everyone knows it is true.

No, Father, of course not.

The king has had other queens before this Musa.

Oh. But that is nothing secret.

Wait, let me finish. You also know he has sons, and daughters, by those other women.

Yes?

Then, after queen Musa came to him, he fell in love with her, then married her, made her his leading wife, and she had a son by him. Now, here is the part you should not talk about. In the past two years, she has convinced the great king to send the other, older sons away, and to make her son the prince who will succeed him, when he dies.

When he dies, even though we pray for him to live forever.

Don’t be smart with me. But, yes, even though we say he will live forever.

I waited. I wanted my father to think me smart, even wise, but I seem to have offended him somehow. It must be those words, I thought to myself.

Well, my son?

Father, the word damned… is that like the punishment Prometheus suffered? Or should I say suffers?

Oh, Anaxagoras, you are asking a question that none of us is really able to answer, except that the word is used as a curse, yes. However, in this case I do know something about the courtier you heard whisper that curse week before last, so I can say that yes, it is something like that. But their religion is Zoroastrian – and it is different than ours – except that… what do any of us really know about these matters? We have our stories, yes, but do you believe in… well, you mentioned Prometheus?

Yes, father.

Do you believe there ever was such a… a god, or titan, as he?

I… I don’t know. I am beginning to think that… we humans are hungry for explanations, and that all these stories of gods and heroes are attempts, made long ago, to explain life and the world.

Yes. That is what our natural historians teach us, is it not?

That is what my teachers have said, father. You chose them, did you not?

Yes. Your uncle, and your mother and aunt, and I, well, we have tried to be careful about choosing teachers for you and your brothers, and sisters, and your cousins, here in our house. There are seven of you in your classes now, yes?

Yes, Father. The older children are being tutored in natural history and rhetoric. But…

Yes, son?

I hope soon to be able to learn more from you, in business, and perhaps even go on trips with you or with my uncles, as I did, last week.

I believe you will, Anaxagoras. My brothers and I, and your mother, are pleased with the way you behaved in your trip across the river two weeks ago. But…

Father?

I am also worried. It is not safe, we fear, for you to return to the winter court of the King of Kings.

Not safe?

It might be dangerous for the Queen to take an interest in you.

Oh. But…?

Yes, my son?

Do you believe she is… a… well, you know, what that man whispered to himself when he cursed her.

No. But we know there are people who hate her. Or at least, we know there is one person who hates her. Fortunately for us, I don’t think he knows you heard him whisper that curse.

I… I hope not.

That is wise. One day, perhaps in only a few years, the great king will… will die. Then there will be problems. I do not want you to be involved. Not yet. Perhaps when you are older. But not now.

Father… I was afraid, when he put is hands on me.

But you remembered the words we had taught you, and you made your speech. That was good.

Yes, father. Thank you.

My son, you mother and I have… been talking. She does not like the idea, but… well… your uncle, who was with you last week, he also feels there is great danger for you if the Queen asks the King to summon you back to court while they are here for the winter.

Father.

You mother and I have been, talking, as I said, about what can we do to help you get away from this danger.

Father?

Now that I know what you heard, I am almost ready to make a decision, if only I can convince your mother, to let you go.

Not across the river?

Oh no, not that, no. We will send you to the west with a caravan for Antioch.

Oh, father.

Yes, son. This comes sooner than we had thought, but your uncle Patrokles is leaving this week and he suggested that would be a good time.

To Antioch, father?

Yes. Through Osroene.

.

.

So, my friends, that was how it came to pass that I was sent away from home. Nearly seventy years ago, now.

Is that when you first came here? To Melitene?

What? No. we did not come here. I was sent to Antioch. This city – Meletine – (or is it Melitene) has moved before and it will move again, I believe. The ancient town was much larger, but that was hundreds of years ago. Now it is what you see – scarcely a frontier outpost with one small temple.

Your temple.

Yes. But with the legion camped north of the ancient town, that is where the new town will grow, if my guess is right. I believe your general will decide to maintain a permanent camp here.

It seems a perfect place. The wide valley full of fields and orchards, with a link east to Armenia, and the old road running south through Commagene to Edessa in Osroene, and from there, Mesopotamia.

Yes, this is a crossroads between the west, the east, and the south.

The south. Osroene. Corbolo warned us not to go through that kingdom.

I would imagine so. Things are very unsettled there, recently.

I thought they were a Roman ally.

Well, perhaps they were, ever since the victories of Pompey and Antony, seventy years ago, which re-established the reputation of Rome. But remember that Crassus was destroyed ten years earlier there, in his failed invasion of Mesopotamia.

Back and forth, the pendulum of the east swings.

Yes. Recently, Osroene had a strong king. For more than thirty years. Abgar, who chose to be very friendly with Rome. But he died only seven, no, eight years ago now, and his sons are, well, holding together, but you know how it goes when two brothers have to share one small kingdom in-between two larger empires.

You mean one son favors Parthia, and the other is for Rome?

Something like that, but nothing so blunt. My understanding is they are keeping the doors and windows open to any wind from either direction. At the moment, with your general’s success in Armenia, Rome seems stronger. But Parthia will never go away, and I am certain Osroene is very tempted to be at least neutral.

Yes. That is why the general sent us across country to Melitene, before we turn south toward Syria.

Ah. You are to see the governor in Syria, with dispatches from Armenia.

Yes. It must be obvious.

And it will, young man, also be obvious to any Parthian agents in Osroene.

No doubt.

You might be interested to know they also have men here in Melitene, sometimes.

Oh?

Yes. Usually they come and go with the caravans.

That would explain the riders we saw when we crossed the river.

.

.

The route from Seleucia to Antioch follows the great canal from the Tigris across to the Euphrates, then takes other roads north along the river toward Osroene. Mile after mile we walked past irrigated fields of barley and groves of date palms, the precious fruit and grain on whose cultivated pillars the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia was built and rebuilt. Many other crops are grown, vegetables, fruits, you name it. But the date palms and the grain are the most important of all.

The roads were good – not strong stone paved roads like the Romans make, but good solid dirt roads. Every day we covered about fifteen or twenty miles. Each string of camels was led by a “camel-puller” – the one man on whose shoulders rests the duty of leading the chain of cargo business animals forward from one great city unto the next distant market. Each morning, a train of camels, donkeys, sometimes horses or mules, are loaded, then tied together, nose to tail, and the puller, or leader man, with a first cord from the leading camel, draws the whole string down the beaten earth road. At the end of each chain of animals, the follower brings up the rear, holding the line from the last animal.

As we traveled past the fields, we could see the water wheels turning their circles of earthen jars, lifting liquid life from the large or small canals, endlessly revolving, dipping down, filling, rising up, up, up, then turning and pouring out their contents, one after another, into a much higher channel raised on brick walls, to flow off toward the fields and orchards and feed them the precious gift of wet life.

There is also a much simpler system, a counter-balanced pole that lifts one container up while letting the other one down to the water, filling, then bending up and emptying into a small channel higher up above the canal. Both these systems endlessly raise up the water into the fields and orchards, irrigate the trees and plants.

While we pass by the larger sytems of the wheel, a boy will drive a donkey continually around and around the small turnstyle that clatters through a cogwheel to push the water wheel round and round, turning, lifting, watering, an endless but simple mechanical system whose original design is perhaps older than most ancient cities themselves. Same for the smaller machine, the simple beam with a big container at each end going up and down, up and down. Upon such simple machines, watering the fruits of the earth, are all great empires built. Oh, yes, and on our caravans, who carry one product or another to far off land, then exchange it for yet another precious cargo, and either carry that further on, or return it back home in exchange for the first. All along the way, from city to city, like water lifted up to feed the fields, the price of our cargo rises, from the land where it is widespread and easy to gather, into another where it is rare and much more precious. But you know all this, my friends. I only say it to remind you of what I was learning, as a boy, to prepare my way forward into adulthood, when I would stand beside my father and uncle, brothers and cousins, bringing wealth and prosperity back to our family and kingdom.

But the gods, if you believe such things, or the one God, if there be such a one, or the fates, or my own fate, my small piece of life, my fortune, moira, had other plans for me – if there be such a thing as order formed out of chaos, yes – and whatever the reason, I was not destined, neither by chance nor fate, to become a prince of commerce like my father and uncles before me. I would come close, yes, but be different. The change began while I was still young, and only beginning to learn the ways of our family business. That first trip, to send me away from Seleucia and the queen who had expressed an interest in me, on that trip to Antioch I met the man who was to begin to change my path from business to religion.

He told stories in the evening, after we had settled and made camp for the night. Or in the caravansaries of towns along the route, when we gathered after supper, before sleep, he would recite the old tales from days long gone. Of the great kings and warriors who had ruled the ancient land between the rivers. Because I had already learned the Babylonian tongue, Aramaic, my uncle approved my sitting with the men and listening to the stories. That, my young friends, was how my interest was first awakened in the ancient kingdoms from long, long before the time of the Greeks and Persians, before the great new kingdom of Nebuchadnezar that we think was so very old, and before the Assyrians who ruled Mesopotamia before Nebuchadnezar of Babylon, yes, before all of those people who seem so ancient to us now, before them, yes, there were other great kings and kingdoms, hundreds and hundreds of years, even two, three, perhaps four thousand years the great cities of the plain have risen and fallen and risen again, all the way back to before the days of the great flood, or at least, so the stories say. I cannot tell you what is true, I can only say that when I heard these stories told round the evening fire, they awakened something in me that was more than simple learning and understanding, no, on that first trip from Seleucia to Antioch, I was given the gift of passion, a burning desire to hear more, even one day to read more, for always the story teller would say that these stories, these words themselves are those which were written by the ancients and preserved in the temples and the libraries of the great kings, and passed down from story teller to story teller, until I tell them to you tonight, here, at our fire, on the road between those ancient cities, some of them ruined, some of them still thriving and rebuilt.

“Enkida,” I asked him one day while we were walking, for that was my job, as a boy, to walk with the camel puller and learn how he called them, those great beasts, those animal ships of the land, “Enkida, last night you said those stories were written down and preserved in the temples and libraries?”

“Yes, little Greek. They are. I have seen them. My cousin is a steward for the temple priests in Babylon, at the temple of Mardok. He has shown them to me, ancient tablets of clay covered with the old writing. Not Aramaic, mind you, Anaxagoras, but the older tongue, Akkadian. Or at least that is what he told me.”

(MUST CORRECT AND REWRITE TO REVISE ENKIDA INTO ENKIDU)

“Did he also tell you the stories, Enkida?”

“No, little one, that was my grandfather, my cousin’s mother’s father, who was a priest in the temple when I was a child.”

“Oh.”

“It is good you speak Aramaic so well, Anaxagoras. You like the stories we tell?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your uncle told me you have a skill for languages. That is good. If the gods are willing, you may grow up to be a fine master of caravans, able to speak with leaders and business dealers in many different lands.”

“Thank you.”

But already a new hunger was rising in my heart. I kept it to myself, however, because of that small voice we all have within us, and to whom we should always listen, told me not to share my desire to give up business for storytelling. I knew, if I were to tell them I cared more for ancient writing than I did for the family business, this desire would displease my father and uncles, and my mother, too. Besides, I already had half of what I wanted, I knew that they wanted me to learn languages, for the family to succeed better in trade, and that this would also get me what I wanted, what I began to dream of: to read the ancient tablets that Enkida the camel master had told me were still guarded in the temples of Babylon.

So I listened, and learned.

I spent almost ten years in Antioch, much to my mother’s grief, as she would tell me in her letters from home. From time to time one of my uncles would come with a caravan to the capital of Syria, bringing me news from home. That was how I learned that the queen had, in fact, asked for me, and expressed her disappointment that I had been sent away, and even sent me a gift, in way of hoping to pursuade me to return when I was older. When I was fifteen, my father and mother came in person with a caravan of silk, spices, and incense. I did not know it until they arrived, but they meant to stay. It was something of a secret, as my mother told me the day after she arrived.

My father had gone to the emporia, the street of stores and business houses that sits on a piece of the main street through Antioch. I expected to go there with him, but in the morning he stopped me.

“Son, I want you to stay with your mother.”

But father, I said, I must help you inspect the warehouse and offices. No, he said, you uncle can do that. Your mother has something very important to discuss with you, and I want you to keep her words as private as you possibly can. Not even the servants must know what we are planning. Not yet.

I was stunned. It was a lovely spring afternoon, and so my mother had the servants serve us luncheon on the roof of the house, which was located partway up the hillside above the center of the city. She bade the servants leave us alone after they had brought the food.

Then she took me in her arms and began to weep.

Oh, Mother, I said, it’s all right. I am doing well.

Aren’t you glad to see me then? She laughed, touching at her tears with a soft, fine cloth.

Of course I am, but… what’s all this about secret plans?

My son, a week before we left Seleucia, the Queen of Parthia summoned me to her chambers in the palace across the river. Your father went with me, of course, but he could not go in to see her. Only women, and the king, and her son, and a few courtiers, are allowed to visit in her royal chambers.

Mother?

She asked about you.

Oh.

You remember when you left, four years ago?

Yes. Only a few weeks after uncle took me with him across the river with the gifts for the king of kings.

You remember how the Queen spoke with you?

Yes, mother.

Your father has also told me what you overheard a courtier whisper under his breath.

Mother.

Yes. You remember all that?

Yes, Mother.

Well, my son, here, sit down. Pour us some juice.

Very well, Maman.

Oh my dear, you remember the little name you used to call me.

Mama don’t cry.

All right. I will try. But I have missed you so very much.

Have you come to take me back with you?

No. Not that, my dearest.

Oh.

You are disappointed.

Yes, I am. I have tried to be brave, ever since you sent me here, but…

Is it possible you have missed you old mother as much as she has missed you, my dear Anaxago?

Yes. You are sure I cannot go back with you?

No, dearest, but listen. This is what no one knows yet. We are going to stay here with you.

What? Oh!

Yes.

You and father, both?

For a while, both of us. Then he will go back, for a few months, and perhaps come back here. Oh, Anaxagoras, it is very strange, but your father and your uncles, and I, too, believe the Queen wants you to join her and live with her son. Study with him, train with him, hunt with him.

Oh… that is… complicated.

Yes. It is. I did not believe it at first, when your father told me, but… when the queen asked me to come see me… commanded me, then I began to suspect it was true.

You went to see her?

Of course. One does not refuse a summons from the king of kings or his chosen queen.

No.

We talked for a long time, that warm winter day. She showed me her garden. A beautiful spread of fountains and flowering trees. Even an artificial hillside with waterfalls and hanging vines. She told me she wants her son to be educated in Greek ways, so that he can take his place in the world one day soon. You know his father is… well, getting on in years, let us say.

Yes. She is his favorite, still?

Oh yes. You also know she had the great king send his other sons away, not long before you first met her. Oh my son, I hope you never have to meet her again, but if you do, you must be prepared. You are not ready yet. But she kept speaking of you, and finally asked me if I would exercise every power of pursuasion I possess in order to bring you back Seleucia, and ask my husband to let you live with her son and share his education with him.

Oh Mother. That is serious.

Yes. And you, well, we, that is your father and uncle and I and you, too, we know that that is not the best thing for you.

But, Mother…

What? You want to go back?

Well, yes, only if you are going back. But if you stay here, then no, I do not want to go back.

Oh dear I was afraid….

Mother it would be a great honor to live with the prince, but… well, to be blunt, there are many in the palace there who hate the queen. When the great king dies, there will be trouble.

Yes. She will have her son be made king, then, and others there will resist. Maybe not at first, but soon.

That was the meaning of the man who cursed her under his breath when I met her.

Yes. That was why we sent you here, four years ago, to put you beyond their reach. That is why you must not go back. Not yet, at least. If you were there, my son, the ones who hate her might have you killed.

No.

Yes. That is how they do things in the world of power, my son.

I… I suppose it is so.

I promised your father I would tell you these things. But you must tell no one.

No. Of course not. Never.

Not even the servants must know that we are staying here, or at least not until we are ready to announce that we are not going back. Not this year, at least.

Oh. What is wrong, mother?

We are worried about that woman, the queen.

Musa.

Yes. You know she was a Roman slave? Given to the king of the Parthians as part of the peace settlement between the king of kings and the Roman emperor, Augustus.

I have learned that.

She is meddling very deeply in the affairs of the Parthian state, and we fear she may want you to become her agent.

Oh. She seemed very kind, when I met her.

She does, doesn’t she? When she invited me to talk with her, I was deeply impressed by her intelligence. She speaks rather good Greek, but you know that, don’t you?

Yes, mother. Her Aramaic is also good.

She has completely charmed the great king of kings. Do you know she convinced him to send his other sons to Rome, and to promise her that their son, the one she had with him, will be named prince and heir to the throne.

Yes. Father told me that, and my teachers here in Antioch confirmed that the other sons passed through here five years ago, on the way to Rome.

My son, I tell you she will stop at nothing to get what she wants, and what she wants now is you to serve her son. As long as she thinks there is a chance of that happening, you are probably safe.

What about the courtiers in the king’s service who dislike her?

There is the other side of this problem, Anaxagoras, my son, and your father and I believe that as long as they think we are trying to keep you away from her, you are safe from them.

That is why I must not go back to Seleucia.

No. Not yet. Not until you are older, more of a man, who can fight and defend yourself against… well, a killer.

Mother, look at me.

Yes.

You are frightened, aren’t you?

Yes.

My gymnasia teachers are teaching me swordplay as well as hand to hand fighting.

Good.

But…

What is it, Anaxagos?

I had hoped to study the ancient Babylonian tongue. Akkadian. I believe it would help us to get more business with the temples and priests in the older cities.

Oh. But there are not teachers here in Antioch?

Well, the best are in Babylon, itself, in the temple of Bel, or Marduk, or Innana. But you have said I should not go back to Seleucia. I assume that means not to Babylon either.

No. It is too much under the power of the Parthian king of kings.

Yes. That much is clear. But there is a teacher here in Antioch, an old priest who, unfortunately, requires higher payment than most Greeks or Aramaics. Uncle has been unwilling to spend extra money.

Oh. He usually is right.

Yes. He is. So I thought I would wait until I go back. But….

You won’t be going back.

No. Not yet, you tell me.

This teacher, is he that good?

He was much consulted last year when the great conjunction of planets took place. He even traveled with one of our caravans that year, to negotiate with the Nabataeans.

Oh yes?

He is a very famous astrologer here. A native chaldean and he has studied in Alexandria, so he is familiar with Greek astrology also.

Oh dear. He sounds expensive.

That is why your brother said we must ask my father.

Ah. I see where you are going, little one.

Please mother, I am not so little any more.

Sorry, Anaxos, but you know you will always by my child.

Yes mother. But if you could speak with father. And your brother.

He is that much more costly? You already have very good teachers.

Yes, I know. But none of them understand Akkadian.

How much more?

Twice what the Greek and Aramaic teachers ask for private lessons.

Oh my. That is a bit… steep. But you say this will help us with the temple business, in Babylon?

And the other old ones.

Hmmm. Well. You father showed me reports from your teachers. You have done very well. Perhaps if you think you can handle even more.

I do.

My son, there is something else your father has asked me to discuss with you, in private, to get your thoughts and feelings on the subject.

Yes, Mother?

I don’t know how put this in any delicate way, so I will simply say that we have started to think about your marriage.

Oh. Well.

Surprised, my little… no, you are obvious not little any more or I would not be asking you what you think about marriage.

Well, Mother, I suppose it is the natural and obvious course for any man to follow.

Mmm, yes, it is. Well, you are just now fifteen, or will be next month – that is part of why we came here this time of year, you know, not just because the weather is better for travel, but to finally be with you again at the time of your birthday.

And yours too, Mother.

Oh, aren’t you sweet.

It is only a few days after mine.

Yes. That is true. But what I want to say is you will be fifteen, and although neither your father or I want you to marry for at least another two or three years, nevertheless, it is time to begin to search for an appropriate… ah, candidate, I suppose we could say, and of course we want you to be happy and so your father and I want to ask you how you would feel about different kinds of women.

Well, mother, I suppose we should find someone who will be a good match, not just for me, but for the family, and our business.

Yes. I am glad to hear you say that.

I suppose the usual course would be for me to marry another Greek, or Hellene, perhaps even in Seleucia. But….

But?

I would not be averse to someone of another origin.

You already speak several of the languages, so you would not have that problem, if I can call it a problem.

No. I would not. Yes, I would look kindly on a good woman from a good family, who could help our business, perhaps, but….

Yes?

Had you thought of any group in particular?

Well, we talked about a Parthian, perhaps someone from court who could help us with our… situation with the queen, but your father and uncles are not happy with that idea. Nor, for that matter, am I. I think it better we stay away from that area altogether.

Oh. Yes. I would most likely agree. But…

But?

Had you thought of perhaps the daughter of a… Babylonian family?

Oh… well, only in passing, but, now that you mention it, and with what you said earlier about studing to ancient language, how it might help our business with the temples, well, a marriage with the right priestly family might also help us improve our business and cargo and caravan arrangements with them. Yes. But Anaxagoras… don’t mention this to your father. Not yet. Both he and my brother are… well, very much in favor of a Hellenic or Greek girl, even a Macedonian, if possible. But with your talent for languages, the right marriage with a Babylonian family might open up an entirely new field of trade and merchandise for us. Just… just let me talk with them about it.

Them?

Yes. My brother and your father seem to have it in their mind that they know better about what a man wants than I do. Imagine that, you own mother.

Maman, didn’t your brother always try to tell you what to do?

Yes. You have heard those stories, I guess. How he convinced my father to let me be married to your father. Even give a larger dowry than he thought he would have to give.

Exactly. So I will let you talk with them.

Would you marry a Babylonian girl?

Yes. I would.

Anaxagoras – is this about the language? Are you trying to get me to tell them to pay more for your teacher?

Yes, Mother, it is.

Well. What do you know. Fifteen and alteady negotiating, even with your mother. At least you admit it. That is a lot like what your father did.

Negotiated for a larger dowry?

Exactly. But he had my brother on his side. This time… well, we shall see, my little man. We shall see.

Thank you, Mother.

It is nothing, my love.

And that is exactly what happened. Years later, when I had become a mature man, I eventually got my wish to study in the old temple libraries of Babylon. But first, while I was still in Antioch, I was four years learning the dead language of Akkadian, after my parents approved my study with the old Babylonian priest who had been exiled to the city of Antioch. Then I went to Babylon, and married – for the good of the family caravan business – the daughter of a temple steward, grand-daughter of a priest, in Babylon. But it was still several years of travel after that before I actually lived and studied there. 

My young friends, let me give you a bit of advice – be careful what you wish for, you might get it. For better and for worse, let me not tempt fate, or whoever, or whatever decides these things, even if our fate, our portion in life, even if it be only chance, chaos, luck, and a bit of our own personal will… well, while it is true that living and studying in Babylon made me what I am, an old priest telling you his story, but… to be honest it was not the great pure dream I thought it might be. No. It was only as I turned out to be: nothing but another human life, with all its tragedy, love, joy, and grief.

Well. How to tell my disappointment? Hmmm. To start with, most of the oldest books were gone. Destroyed, stolen, given away, lost. Oh, there were many tablets there, thousands and thousands, but most of them – not all, but most – were copies of copies of copies. Furthermore, even the best copies had been carried away by the same empire that had destroyed the city. The Assyrians.

Yes, it had been destroyed. Babylon the great. Hundreds of years before I got there. The Assyrians. You have heard of them, I know. They destroyed it, and took most of the books, too.

But what’s this, you say? Wasn’t Babylon the great city where Alexander died, the great city of the world that he, great Alexander, chose to make the capital of his universal empire? Yes, it was. And it was mighty, and great. But that city, and the little that remains, was only the rebuilt city. The earlier Babylon had already been destroyed and rebuilt, then destroyed again. Several times, in fact, through the ages. Even before the Assyrians, Babylon rose and fell and rose again, and fell again. But most recently, only six hundred years ago, the new Babylon was built. That is the one whose remnants are still there today. You see, my dear Nikodemos and Timaeus, the Babylon that the Persians cherished, the great city that Alexander made his center of the world, that city was only three hundred years old when Alexander the great conquered the Persian empire and took it. His Babylon, the Babylon whose mighty remains still stand today, was New Babylon, raised up by Nebuchadnezar, mighty king of the new Babylonian empire, which rose upon the ruins of the Assyrian empire which had swallowed old Babylon. Yes, Nebuchadnezar and his father built the new city for their capital, six hundred years ago, to replace the older, ancient city which the Assyrians had completely destroyed.

Why? Oh, my young friends, it is a long story. You know how young the city of Rome is? Rome, who has taken the entire Mediterranean sea and made it her lake, joining the east to the west, uniting Europe and Africa and Egypt, and even reaching out from Antioch and Jerusalem into the east, only to stop in the face of Parthia, this boundary between empires where we live and die, yes, Rome is only what… what does the Roman calendar say… eight hundred years since Romulus and Remus built their city on the hill where the wolf mother suckled them as babies… you see, I know those stories, too, yes, I am an old man and a priest of many gods and… well not quite a believer in all of them, no, but I do know many of their stories, including the new ones from the west.

And the Greek stories, they too are new, compared with Babylon and the kingdoms which were before Babylon. Yes, now you take Homer, whoever he was, with his magnificent poem we call the Illiad, about the struggle between two warrior peoples and their heroes who fought to death outside the walls of Troy, yes, that old story, or we say it is old, the oldest of Greek poems and noblest of stories, but even that great poem is only eight or nine hundred years old now, since the bards sang it around the great fires in the halls of the first kings of the Hellenes, but even then, in those first days of Greece and Rome, even then Babylon, and Egypt too, were already old.

Nikodemos, you have been to Egypt, you say, and you know that the pyramids are two thousand, perhaps even three thousand years, built long before these Roman days. But they did not spring into being overnight, no. As old as the pyramids are, they were not built until Egypt herself was already hundreds and hundreds of years old. No, we Greeks and Romans are young, very young. We simply do not know how old the world really is.

Our calendar, our mathematics, our star-gazing, perhaps it all came from the Babylonians and Egyptians who wrote it all down and measured it for thousands of years. While we were still chasing wild sheep up and down the mountains and carving the nights of the moon on a bone, well, the Chaldeans and the Pharoahs were measuring the year and dividing the circle into 360 degrees and making the week be seven days long and naming it after the lights in the heavens, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn – except that those are our names in Greek and in Latin. The older stargazers had other, more ancient names. When we lived in grass huts, they were already standing on pyramids and measuring the heavens day by day, degree by degree, and even calculating when the next eclipses would be.

Julius Caesar may have forced the Romans to reform the calendar a hundred years ago, but he did it by standing on the shoulders of ancient wise men. Sixty-five years ago, when I began to study the Akkadian language at the feet of a Babylonian exile in the modern Greek city of Antioch, I thought I would immediately enter into the ancient myteries, that I would instantly touch that secret place I dreamed about when I first heard the camel master telling stories around the fire at night, in the trip with my uncle from Seleucia to Antioch. Little did I realize that the story-teller was standing on the shoulders of another story-teller who was standing on top another on top another, layer after layer, copy after copy, reaching back back back into a time we have all forgotten.

I was so young then. I felt the fire burning me and I thought I could learn how to cast sparks. Soon I began to grow up, and learned that I had to know thousands and thousands of words, their grammar and tense and case and conjugation and all their unwritten sounds and a myraid of other little language details that most of us ignore and simply plow ahead through our lives without paying much attention to anything but our work and our family. But my teacher saw I had the gift and could learn and so he drove me mercilessly until I could read five different types of writing and set down the words from seven different languages and understand several more. My father and my uncle went back and forth with the men of our caravans, traveling between two empires, crossing over the border from Syria into Mesopotamia, attending to business in Seleucia, then returning to Antioch again. My mother stayed with me, made sure I ate well, wore clean yet simple clothes, and often shook her head with disbelief when, every morning she woke me for the day and heard me muttering strange words in my sleep.

After four years, in the springtime of my nineteenth birthday, my father came with the news that would change my life once again. I was, he hoped, betrothed to a girl from an old Babylonian family. Grand-daughter of a priest – it makes me smile to think of this, my friends, for now I am the old priest, telling you my story – and well, she was to be the pledge between the temple with their orchards and date palms and sacred harvest, and I would stand for my family with our caravans and warehouses and market dealerships in the cities of the west, and our contracts with ships on the sea that would carry the fruit of Babylon as far as Rome itself. There was just one small problem, my father said at dinner, the day after he returned from the east. “The girl is only fifteen, lives in Babylon, and does not wish to leave her home without meeting you first.”

My mother clicked her tongue. “I was fourteen when I was betrothed to you, dearest.”

“Yes, my dove, but we did not marry for another year.”

“True, husband, but… what is it, Anaxagoras?”

“Mother, Father, forgive me, but could we not go to see her, and her family?”

“Ah, yes, but…” he glanced at my mother. She shook her head. My father frowned, looked at me, and said, “Anaxagoras, I believe you know why you were sent from Seleucia, to live here in Antioch, and why your mother came to live with you, and why we do not want you to go back there.”

“The queen, favorite wife of the king of kings, wanted me to become a companion of her son.”

“Yes.” He looked at my mother again. And again, she shook her head. ”No, I have not told him.”

“Mother, what is it?”

“Something your father told me last night, after he arrived.” She looked around. Servants were clearing the dishes from the main course, preparing to serve a sweet desert. “Not now. Later.”

I was seething, inside. Hungry to know what they knew and had not told me. But I held my tongue.

After sweets and salad, we retired to the roof. My mother, mistress of our household, dismissed the servants. When they were gone, and we were alone, my father sat close to me, and spoke in a low voice, but even now glanced around every few moments to see that no one was there to hear. My mother sat close, listening, and with the lamplight flickering in faint breeze, I could see the worry on her face as my father told me what I guessed he had told her last night.

I imagined them whispering in each others arms, quietly sharing the rather disturbing information he now shared with me.

“My son. When I reached Seleucia this time, I had not even been in our home – you know it is home to our business, with many employees and servants coming and going, as well as family – and I had not even been home for a day when a messenger came with guards from the palace inviting – commanding, you understand – that I go to see the king of kings that same day. With the messenger. With the guards.”

“Oh father – someone told them you had returned.”

“Yes. It does seem that that was what happened. The house was being watched, and when I arrived, I was summoned.”

 “Oh. I trust the king was pleased to see you come so quickly.”

“No. Not him. The queen. She had commanded, in his name, with her son, that I be brought.”

“Oh.”

“Of course, she is forbidden for one like me to see her, but her son – who is your age, and rather headstrong and demanding – spoke to me before a carved wooden wall, a large screen in fact, while she stayed behind the carved wall, occasionally speaking a word or two through the ornamentally carved openings. A very lovely piece of work, but… well, her son spoke openly to me. How is your son, he asked me. Very well, I said, he is learning the business in Antioch and will soon be working with our ships, watching over the cargoes as they are loaded onboard for shipment to Italy.

“Oh? He said, then frowned, and asked when would you be coming back to Seleucia, for he would like very much to meet with you and perhaps hunt with you and ride. Perhaps you could go to Ecbatana in the mountains, and even, he said, hinting, see how the caravans of silk come in from the east.”

“Oh father, they were playing with you. They would never let any Greeks touch the silk before it gets to Seleucia.”

“No. Of course not. But this was not a question of giving our family business, no, more like them asking something from us. The Queen whispered something, and her son turned to me and said, ‘My mother wishes very much for your son to return from the west and spend time with me here, and as I said, perhaps with me in Susa or Ecbatana during the summer. Please, if you can, we would be grateful for you to arrange his return from Antioch.’ Then he gave me a golden coin and asked me to bring it to you as a token of his wish to become your friend.”

Now, sitting beside me on the rooftop of our house in Antioch, my father pulled a small silk handkerchief from a purse hung inside his shirt, and handed it to me.

I savored the precious, soft cloth in my hand, and weighed the heavy metal disk hidden within its delicate folds. “I don’t want to look at it,” I said.

“Son, never turn your back on your enemy. Look at it.”

I did so. Unfolded the silk, studied the metal coin. On one side was a young man’s face. On the other, a woman.

“Father? Is this… them?”

“Yes. The son and the mother. They have already begun to strike their own coins.”

“But….”

“Wait. There is more. As I was leaving, I saw the man who introduced you to the queen, eight years ago. You remember him?”

“The one I heard whispering a curse?”

“Yes. The very same. He has always been a great patron of our business, and one of the most important lords of court. He greeted me openly and asked for you, and said, in a normal, polite voice, that he understood the queen was hoping my son would soon return to serve with her son.”

“Oh?”

“Then, Anaxagoras, he leaned closer and whispered that the ‘Italian woman’ was using liquid fire on the king. Then he straightened up, and gave me a coin, and said the king would be pleased to see you, also.”

“Liquid fire?”

“Poison.”

“Oh, father.”

“And here is the coin he gave me.”

I looked at it. The same. The prince on one side, his mother on the other.

“Son, do you know what this means?”

“They… they are preparing their own money to pay people to support them, after….”

“After they kill the king.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“And that man… the courtier… he knows what they are planning.”

“Yes. He has his own sources and contacts, and has learned of this new money.”

“Or perhaps they paid him some already.”

“Yes. That, too, is very possible.”

“Both sides of the coin of power.”

“Exactly. You have learned something of politics in your studies, I see.”

“Thank you. Do you think he speaking the truth? About… the poison?”

“I think he believes it was true.”

“Then he was warning you to be ready for a change.”

“Yes. But as we parted, he said, again in a louder voice, ‘Perhaps we will see you again, when the time is right,’ and then he left me.”

“So to bring me back, or not to bring me back. But to be ready for change, in either case?”

“Something like that.”

We sat quietly, my mother and father and I, reflecting on this news from home.

At last my mother spoke. “Anaxagoras, I would suggest you bring your teacher here tomorrow. Invite him for luncheon with us. Yes. Let him speak with your father and me. Here, on the roof top.”

“My love, what are you planning?”

“I will tell you later,” she whispered, and picked up a bell. Rang it. Soon the servants had returned. “Do not forget, my son. We will speak with your teacher tomorrow. So your father can hear from his own lips how well you are studying with him.”

“Yes, Maman, and goodnight, Papa.”

“Goodnight, Anaxagoras,” he said, but his eyes were on my mother. She was smiling. We all rose, and they left.

I sat back down again. Waited on the rooftop for a while longer, gazing at the stars. Pondered what my mother had said about my teacher. What does she know about him, I asked myself. She knows he was exiled from Babylonia by the Parthian king for… oh, yes. He escaped by way of… the Arabs. Not the regular silk road caravan route from northern Mesopotamia to Damascus and Antioch. No. He had come west between the Nefud and Syrian deserts, west from Babylon to Petra, along the Nabataean route, cutting through the desert across endless miles of barren rock and sand, from oasis to oasis, with only camels, rarely horses or mules, no, and… but they would never let us take a caravan through there – those were their lands and theirs alone. No Greeks could ever… except as paying passengers, and well armed, of course, ready to defend ourselves if need be, but paying, for the priviledge of traveling with them, oh yes, definitely paying. But… something else… what could we offer them to make it worth their while that we reached our destination safely… of course. The temples in Babylon would buy incense, and sell dates, and if we could offer a better price for both… then….

That was it. That was what mother had seen. Tomorrow she would let father see it… no. Tonight she would tell him, in his arms, while he burned with love for the woman he had always adored more than any other… or at least that is what my uncle believed, and he knew them longer than I did. From before I was anything but a dream between them, he had seen the spark that flew between them, and led to my birth, and my sister’s… (WHAT ABOUT HIS OTHER BROTHERS?) and I said a quick prayer for her soul in hades. Let her rest easy, oh god of death, let her sleep in peace.

I turned my thoughts back to my teacher. Yes. Tomorrow she would let him see it. She and father would charm him into going back with us. He was, after all, the one who had told me about the southern route.

And more. His wife, and his children, were themselves Nabataean. Oh mother, you are cunning. Thank the gods you love us. The great queen has no idea just who she is dealing with. One quaint little Greek woman, the wife of a simple caravan owner. Oh my. Yes.

This will almost be fun.

I only hope my future wife will be worth all this… trouble.

word morning

I started to eat my muffin and the dog came to beg.

No, I said. She turns away. Disappointed. No appointment.

Finish my tea.

cliff hanger

The other day, young man, we were speaking of song and the making of poetry..

Yes, my lady.

You see this – what do you call it, book? Scroll?

Yes. It looks like it might be one of your own books, from the east.

It is. Here. Open it.

Such beautiful writing!

Thank you. It is what you might call a poem.

Ah. I cannot read it.

No. Have you ever seen writing like this?

Only once, in the libraries of the king of kings of Parthia.

Yes. It is written in our records that a book was given to them a hundred years ago.

That must be what it was.

Can any of your… scholars… read them?

I was told that none can, my lady.

Ah. Pity. What do you think of this writing, young man?

It looks… different. Very different. Not at all like our writing in the west.

No. You, I have been told, have your language written in shapes that only tell the different sounds of words.

Yes, great lady. There are several different… systems of writing, but most of them use what we call letters, which, as you say, only record the sounds.

I suppose that is easier to learn.

Perhaps. There are only twenty or thirty letter in the different forms of writing. But none of them are as beautiful as these… are they words, my lady?

Yes, Anaxagoras. Each one, as you can see, is different. Each one is a word. All by itself. Sometimes simple ones are combined together, sometimes they are written side by side. It is not always easy, and many mistakes are made. Men, and some women, spend lifetimes learning how to write these words, and to write them well.

How many words are there?

Thousands and thousands, perhaps ten thousand words, just to write the simple messages that officers must send to one another. Ten times more, if you wish to serve the son of heaven.

Your emperor.

If you wish to call him that.

The son of heaven.

Yes. In our land at the center of the world, one man receives the command of heaven to rule the world.

Ah.

You smile?

I am happy that you honor me with such knowledge.

Oh my, young merchant, such a little flatterer you are.

Please do not be offended, great lady. Your son of heaven must have many scholars to… offer him their wisdom, and to write for him.

Oh, he does. But this is not… that. This is not government writing. This is a very old poem. A song. Would you like to hear it?

I would be honored.

Here. Sit. We will ask my daughter to sing it for us. She is quite skilled in this art of… music.

Thank you.

Ready?

Yes, my lady.

Szu Mei?

Yes mother.

Please begin.

As you wish.

青青河畔草     鬱鬱園中柳

盈盈樓上女     皎皎當窗牖

娥娥紅粉糚     纖纖出素手

昔為唱家女     今為蕩子夫

蕩子行不歸     空床難獨守

You do not understand this, of course, my little man.

No, my lady, but… it felt… sad.

Oh, it is. Tragic, as you Greeks say.

That is one of our words. Yes.

Some day I must ask you to explain that word to me.

I would be happy to.

But not now. For now, here, look at the written words again and using this language of the horsemen we both understand, along with a few of your own words I know, I will try to tell you something of what the writing says.

Green green river bank grass     thick thick courtyard willows     so full so full the upstairs woman     bright bright beside the window edge     lovely lovely red powder make-up     delicate delicate she extends her hand     she used to be a song house girl     now she is a wandering man’s wife     the wanderer travels and does not come home     an empty bed is hard to keep alone .

Forgive me, great lady, but I… I have tears in my eyes.

Yes. Great songs will do that sometimes.

.

That day we had the conversation, when her daughter sang the poem to us and then the lady translated it for me, that day was such a day in summer as shepherds drive their flocks forth to graze upon the green mountain pastures. There was sun, yes, but also gentle puffy white clouds passing through the sky, shielding the sun for moments, then revealing it, while a gentle breeze wafter slowly in through the wide open windows of her chamber, high up in the fortress’ central tower. The enormous wooden shutters, heavy with bars of reinforcing iron, were standing wide open, and at the lady’s invitation, the three of us, the lady and her daughter and I rose from our places by the table full of books, and walked across the chamber toward the tall windows.

We gazed out on the mountain view, which on this side of the fortress bent down to the east. I could see the track of the road from our location, passing down around the curving mountain feet, toward the distant valleys. There, miles away, I saw a pair of tiny figures – which I knew were two men on horseback – appear in the far-off haze of the road. The lady gasped, and whispered to her daughter, who immediately flew toward the door. But before she got there, heavy knocking began to pound on it from the outside. A muffled voice shouted something in that language I still did not understand, but now recognized as the same – or nearly so – as the tongue of the old poem, or song. Different in stress and urgency, but still with those shifts of tone buried within the words.

Szu Mei opened the door and one of the eastern soldiers appeared, stepped in, and after a command from the lady, rushed across the chamber to the open window. She pointed. He nodded.

She spoke. He answered. She gestured. He left. I could hear shouting from outside, in the halls and beyond, in the courtyard below.

“They are messengers from my husband,” she said, simply.

“You are sending men to meet them?”

“Yes.”

“Let me send my two horse soldiers with them.” I said. She nodded. At that moment, Daga appeared in the doorway. The lady smiled at me, turned, and in the nomad tongue to the horseman, commanded, “His two will go with you.” Daga bowed and disappeared.

A moment later we heard the clatter of hooves from below, and knew a squad of guards was racing out to meet the approaching pair.

As we stood before the window watching the road, our own rushed out from the fortress walls, galloping down the road toward the distant pair.

Then another small group appeared in the distance, far down the hill, beyond the two messengers. “Pursuit?” I asked, simply.

“I would think so. In his last message, ten days ago, my husband said every road was being watched. That wherever they rode, they were shadowed by more and more bandits.”

We stared at the groups of horses running, near and far. I felt strangely impotent. Nothing I could do except watch. All in their hands, now. Our group raced headlong down the ragged track, while far away, the two tiny figures in the distance, perhaps aware they were pursued, seemed to desperately rush forward.They had a long way to go, to climb all the way up the long grade toward the fortress.

After a few moments I began to fear. Our two messengers looked to be losing ground. The pursuing group was getting closer. “Their horses are tired,” I said.

The lady sighed. We both knew it was a race. Would the pursuers capture her husband’s messengers? Or would our own soldiers – I say ours, although they were mostly hers – would our men reach them in time to avoid their capture?

The road, meanwhile, played its own role in this unfolding drama. Not a road in the Roman, or even the Persian sense of the word, no, not a developed, smooth, road, oh no, but rather a beaten track on the hillside, a barren path followed by horsemen and the occasional wagon, a rough, rutted dirt road twisting back and forth on the hillside slopes of the mountain range above, bending inward around steep canyon cuts, then out again around the swelling breasts of the earth, avoiding the most precipitous gorges, turning in and out, climbing slowly up toward the mountain fortress where we stood, here, gazing out the windows into the east.

Even as we watched, we saw our two messengers come out from one side canyon and begin to bend around the hill, into another. We held our breath, wondering how soon before their pursuers would appear from out of the same gulley. Only a few minutes of time, and then there they were, drawing closer and closer. But suddenly they stopped, drew out their bows, and waited on the spot closest to the brink.

The lady hissed beside me. Clutched her daughter’s arm, and in a very selfish moment I wished it had been my arm she grasped, but no, I cast that thought from my consciousness and turned back to the drama outside, far down the greater canyon. Our two messengers appeared opposite their pursuers, whose arms I saw plucking their bows and refitting arrows and plucking them again, and I knew they had waited at the mouth of the side-canyon, in hopes of shotting across the bend of the road and striking at their enemies – our men – just when they might be in range. In a twist of despair I saw one horse fall. It was too far away for us to hear but I knew the horse was screaming, the way he fell and kicked his rider off from his back. The other messenger turned back, grasped his friend, pulled him up behind him, and took off again. The lady cried out beside me, and this time she grasped both our arms, and growled at me, “Anaxos – please tell your holy men to pray for us…” and as if unbidden but prescient, I saw in the corner of my eye that several men and women were gathering outside the interior door of my lady’s great chamber, among them my wife and Yusef and Ashad, and I raised three fingers to them, and the lady’s sister ran across to the door and pulled them in, and in a moment, while our two messengers fled uphill on one horse, beating around another bend of the canyon, my wife was beside me, with the lady of the east grasping her arm, and the Jew and the Zoroastrian intoning God only knows what prayers to beg the almighty whoever to lend aid to our people, or rather her people, and…

Then I saw something else. Two somethings, actually. First, I saw a dark horde of horses and men appear far down the valley, and I knew by the great lady’s gasp of grief that they were not her people, no, they were a horde of bandits, the same perhaps her husband had gone out to hunt, the same perhaps she feared would have given him grief, and then…

Then I saw further to the right, up among out own soldiers racing down the wild mountain track toward the messengers, I saw two, then three, four, now five and perhaps six, pull ahead of the remainder of the troop of horsemen rushing down toward rescue, and I knew that my two men, Hyrcanus and Parthanos, along with several of the Ferghana horsemen, had broken away from the eastern soldiers, and were rushing forward, with their faster horses, hoping to reach the messengers, who now were riding on only one horse, and falling farther behind, hoping to raach them before their pursuers, who continued to chase after them. All the while, farther behind, down the long, wide valley, a greater horde of bandits was now beginning to climb up the mountain road toward the fortress.

I could see it would be close.

some more ancient memories

The outer gates were kept shut now, day and night. The fortress entrance was not so much a gate as a huge, thick door, constructed from thick beams of wood, held together and reinforced with thick bands of iron. The surrounding door-frame, and the lintels themselves, were dense blocks of hard, granite stone, with holes drilled deep within them, into which more bars of iron, huge round bolts, could be deeply driven, further reinforcing the main portal against all but the most determined ram, which might only now be hammered against it until the wooden beams of the door would shatter into huge splinters, long before the gate itself could be broken open. Or so it looked to me.

“You must understand, my young traveler,” the lady said to me, when I asked, “this fortress tower is meant to guard the road between the valley of Fergana and the city of Tashqent. That was why our people built it, two hundred years ago, when we opened the road. This mountain tower is the final link on the great silk road. West of here, it is all the open land of the horse people. East of here, the vast Taghiz desert sweeps from oasis city to oasis city until you reach the boundaries of my homeland, and pass under the great wall.”

I thought about this for a while, and finally understood I had much to learn. But what was more important at the moment was that now the gates of the fortress were kept shut all day, and of course never opened at night.

It was a few more days before she told me why.

some lines

.

come walk beside the sea

smell the salt air

listen to the gulls             laughing at fish

touch the weathered rocks

beaten by their waves.

.

endless, washing, waves

.

you can do it.

you are it.

you.

.

some cliche and parody

Data Purge

My heart is broken by deleted files

Who sing and warble as abandoned birds

In your garden. Whatever be the miles

That separate you from these long lost words

Can not quite see you there, my pretty ones

Who once upon a time were so important

Unto me, oh yes, that now my heavy guns

Fire out their rant and rave to scream I can not

Live without your precious archived smiles.

Those tender mercies were my shining suns

That orbited round distant colored worlds.

Their data flowed to bear the beaming brunt

Of all that we have lost. Oh Psyche tiles!

Eraséd lamps can none your absence blunt.

Bella

She walks in dogshit like the blight

From my brother’s filthy yard. I’ve

One thing fair to say of her: bright

Gleam her eyes beneath that stale hive

Of matted, tangled fur, a sight

Which heaven can scarce but leave alive.

One snarl the more, one tooth or less

Hath half impaled the separate beast

Who dared to touch her kibbled mess

Or stole her master’s pizza feast;

While thoughts serenely beg caress

How pure her kennel cage at least.

And on that snout, and o’er that brow

So fierce, so wild, yet eloquent,

The smile that wins, the wags that grow

To tell of days in lock down spent.

A dog that begs from far below,

A bite whose love is innocent!

With a pat on the head for Lord Byron.

some more ancient story writing

.

When we arrived in Ekbatanah, I did not see the king or his mother for many days. Instead, Yusef and Diomed and I, having seen that our three camels were safely housed, began to visit the markets and workshops and warehouses and other related places where the parthian merchants did business. Sometimes Nanina came with us, often with a servant or two she was given by the Queen – I suspect they were also required to spy on us, and I did notice them always looking about wherever we went. Sometimes they even knew people in the city, which was both informative and helpful, since I was a complete newcomer and knew virtually nothing, although in theory I was “in charge.”

We had very rarely been given license to send our cargo trains into the east, as both the Parthian nobles and the eastern merchants (some of whom were Greek) were all jealous of any routes that led east from Mesopotamia, as the knowledge of where, exactly, silk came from was a state secret – even more secret than plots and plans against the new king and his mother. It seems everyone knew that Artemos and his father were Senu, and the assumption even among the common people in the street – or at least in the streets of this capital city – was that they were opposed to Phraates IV – or Phraacetes, little Phraates, as they called him – becoming king of kings. For the moment, however, everyone was waiting to see what would happen. Would the elder Artemos and the Senu family agree to crown him? What price would they ask for to do this? Would a daughter of some clan member be married to little Phraates, and would she be named queen, or merely become a concubine or secondary wife.

I laughed when I heard this gossip – it was Ninana who told me what she heard from her new servants. As the stories and questions, one after another, were fed to me, I realized that the servants were assigned not only to serve my wife in the cooking and household chores, but to tell me whatever the queen and her son wanted me to know.

You see, my friends, I think now that for whatever reason – and I believe there was more than one reason – I was to be kept away from the king and his mother.

“Why?” I asked Artemos the younger.

I had finally asked to see his father, and his father had sent him to me.

“We think you know something.” He said.

“What?”

“We don’t know. It could be something the king, or the queen told you, and perhaps you don’t realize how important it is, but still will not tell us what it is out of… loyalty to one or both of them.”

“But… your father does not want me to see the Queen or her son the King?”

“Yes. I mean no, he does not. However…” he paused, then leaned forward and whispered to me, “they don’t want you to see them, either. Or perhaps only one of them doesn’t want it, and has convinced the other, for whatever reason, to stay back, not summon you, not invite you to dinner, or even send you a message.”

“Oh.” I frowned. He smiled. “My father, however, has asked me to see you, whenever and wherever you should ask or wish to see me.”

“Ah. That is good.”

“Thank you.” He laid his hand on my arm, “In fact, I have been told to ask you to dine with us this evening. No women. Only you and my father and myself. Will you come?”

“I don’t know where your house is.”

“We will send a guard for you. Remember, alone. Not your wife. Neither of your two men.”

“Very well.”

“The guard – or escort – will come here for you shortly after sunset. He will also bring you back, later tonight.”

.

Nanina was not happy, but bowed to the inevitable. Her servants seemed particularly attentive while we were talking. I wondered unto whom they were reporting. But of course it would have been pointless to ask them. Even in their whispers between themselves, in either Aramaic or Pahlavi, they were extremely circumspect.

The escort – of two soldiers – arrived at our part of the palace just around sunset, as the light was fading. I found myself wondering whether their arrival had been late enough to make it hard for me to see where we were going, and yet early enough to get me there in time for talk before supper. Both, I finally decided.

In any case, it was not far. The great lords and ministers all had houses in a part of town close to the palace. I believe that even now, years later, I could find my way there – unless the buildings have been torn down. It has been almost sixty years, after all, since that night. But like many events in my life, the memories are clear. That is part of my talent, I believe, not only can I learn, remember, and understand langauges, but all my powers of memory are very strong. I can remember details like where the moon was on a particular night, or which birds sang while we walked past the trees inside the closed garden gates, or how many guards were on duty at those gates. So I can remember nearly every step of our path, from when we left the palace, until when we arrived at the house of Aretmos Senu, minister of court, lord of the ancient family of Senu.

The keeper of the doors met us as we came in from the street. My two escort guards were peeled off from my presence and taken somewhere, some chamber near the central courtyard where they would pass the evening eating and resting before taking me back to the palace several hours later. Myself, I was escorted to the staircase leading to the upper floors, and led quickly past the official rooms of the noble family, then further up past the private family rooms, where I could hear children laughing and being told to shush and eat their supper – in rather formal Persian – and last shown through a carved grill and told to climb up a narrow wooden step ladder to the roof, where the masters were expecting me. A lamp glimmered in an alcove by the base of the steps, and above I could see another.

I climbed up the narrow diagonal shaft, and soon emerged past the upper alcove lamp.

A servant was waiting for me. He held out a hand, and then announced me, “Anaxagoras ben Anaxagoras.”

“Yes.” A voice in Aramaic answered. The servant bowed to me, and gestured with his hand, a gesture that clearly meant, now you may go in, sir.

I stepped out onto the roof and was greeted by the younger Artemos, who embraced me in the Persian fashion, and whispered that I was welcome to his house. Then he said, “Peace be with you, friend of the king.”

I answered, “Peace be with you, noble Parthian, son of the lord of Senu.”

I heard a grunt from behind the young man, and saw, hidden in the shadow of the roof wall, the man himself. In the darkness of twilight, I could hear his voice call to me, “Come here, boy.”

I went. He rose to his feet, and took me in his arms. He too, whispered in my ear, “You are welcome to our house,” and then, louder, “and may peace be with you, son of Anaxagoras, the faithful servant of Parthia.”

“And with you, my lord.”

“Sit. Son, tell them to leave us alone for an hour, and then your, alone, bring the food they have left for us over here.”

“Yes, father.”

I heard the servant – who had announced me – disappear down the ladder stair.

Artemos the younger brought tray over to us, set it down and sat down, pulling me down between his father and himself.

“So,” said the elder, “do you remember me?” He spoke In Persian.

“From that day, ten years ago, when you presented me to the Queen.” I answered him.

“Yes.” Then I felt him, and faintly, in the twilight dark, I almost saw him reach out, take up a glass, a real glass, of crystal, not metal, which oh-so-faintly sparkled in the glint of heavenly light on that rooftop, under the starlight, and he said, “Here, dear boy, take this. It is wine. From Italy. Like your queen. Our queen, I dare say.”

“For many years, great lord. Ever since the king of kings, father of the new king, took her as his queen.”

“How well you say it. Yes. Took her from the hand of that Roman, Augustus, emperor of the west.”

“So it was, my lord.”

“Your lord? I?”

“Did you greet me as the son of my father, faithful servant of Parthia?”

The man chuckled, and his son joined him, softly. “So?”

“You are a noble of a great family.”

“As is my son.”

“Yes.”

“Taste the wine.”

I did. It was very fine. I said so.

“It is from Italy. You father’s ships brought it from there. Then his caravan – your family’s caravan – brought it from Antioch, to Seleucia. From there, a Parthian merchant sent it to us, here in Ekbatanah.”

“Ah. It has not been… much damaged in all that travel.”

“No. We are fortunate.”

“You know about my father’s – our family’s – ships on the sea?”

“Yes. Your father was always very honest with me. I once asked him where the wine came from and how he got it and he told me.”

“Oh.”

“Little boy, young man, do you realize we have been talking in Persian ever since we sat down?”

“Yes, lord Senu.”

“Hear that, my son? He knows something.”

“Yes, father.”

“And yet, Anaxagoras,” he said, switching into Aramaic, “you also speak the common tongue of the people, yes?”

“Yes, my lord,” I answered.

“And of course, Greek,” he said in Greek.

“Yes.”

“And what about the first language of the queen,” he asked, in Latin.

“That, too, I speak, great lord. But…”

“Yes?”

“I did not know that you speak Latin, or understand it.”

“I had to, of course, to understand the woman who spoke it… that… that woman from Italy.”

I switched the language back to Persian, and leaning closer to him, whispered, “Fucking Italian bitch.”

The man burst out laughing, and then coughed, violently for a moment, and then, recovering himself, and still laughing, shouted out in Persian, “Give me your glass, Anaxagoras son of Anaxagoras, give me your glass, no, give it to my son, and you, Artemos?”

“Yes, father?”

“Take this glass and pour him more wine, that we may further loosen his tongue.”

“That is not necessary, father. I fear he knows already what stones lie in the road, waiting for him to stumble and fall.”

“Fear?”

“Ask him about the dream, father.”

“Oh yes.”

A shiver of fear swept down my throat and chilled the wine in my stomach.

The old man – I realized now that he was much older than my father, and his son was possibly a child of his older age, even – leaned against me, and whispered, in Greek, “We have heard that on the first morning you awoke in Babylon, you were overheard telling your priest teacher – the one whom the… Italian queen,” and he laughed, and I suddenly knew he was drunk, and wanted me drunk, too, “whom the queen had banished…” he sighed, and sat back, then said, “son, you tell him. I will listen.”

Artemos, the younger, put his hand on my hand and said, “We did not hear what your dream was, although we know you told the priest what it was. We only know that you told the priest you had a dream, and then, later, that same day, you told your parents that you would go to the queen and offer your service to her, and the priest – whom she had exiled ten years ago – agreed this was wise. So you did tell him your dream?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Don’t call me that. Not until my father… is gone.”

“Yes… Artemos.”

“Better.”

“In any case, yes I told him what I dreamt.”

“And will you tell us?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“One day my lords, the queen and her son will no longer be king and queen mother, but your family will still be here, and you or your son or his son will still be called upon to present the crown to the next king of kings, whoever he may be.”

They were quiet. Finally, the older man said, “You sound like your father.”

“Thank you.”

Another few moments passed. Then the younger one said, “Father, perhaps we should ask him about the stars, before much more time goes by. Some of them are setting soon.”

“Yes. Well, we shall ask you about your dream, later. But now, as my son says, tell us about the stars you can see in the west, above the last pale hint of twilight.”

I looked, and admired the view from their roof. “Here on top your house there is a good seeing. You must have had astronomers here before, to advise you.”

“Of course. But what would you say, about the queen and her son?”

“You can see the king of wandering planets, Bel, or Marduk, whom the Romans call Jupiter, standing next to the brightest star of the Lion. Both of those are strong signs for a king. Below them, Inana, or Venus, is approaching. In another few weeks she will be close to Jupiter. One night the moon will be next to one, the next night close to the other. Those two days would be a good time for crowning a king, and for a marriage with that king.”

“Huh. That is close to what our Chaldean recommended.”

“Not so surprising, my lord. The planets and the Lion are both very strong.”

“Yes. Whom will he marry?”

“I cannot tell, but I would assume it might be one you recommend.”

“Yes. My niece, in fact.”

“Ah. And Queen Musa?”

“That is her name.”

“She has not agreed.”

“How did you guess?”

“It is only a guess.”

“Well, you are right. Guess again what she wants.”

“If you dare,” said the younger Artemos.

“She wants to be, and to stay, the queen. Your niece, or your cousin, would only be a concubine for her son.”

“Exactly.”

“What my son does not say is she also wants him. For herself.”

“Oh.”

“And you.”

“Oh. Well. That is… unfortunate.”

“Yes, since you appear to be so smitten with your own new wife, my dear young Anaxagoras.”

“Just as your great king was with her.”

“Again you see through to the truth. But now, tell me about this dream you had, in Babylon.”

“I… I woke in the morning with the vision very clear in my mind. First I had seen the queen and her son, and they had welcomed me into… a large room of some sort, full of people. Then, I began to wake up, and I heard a voice that said my name, and then the words, ‘Four, or six, years, no more.’ Then I was awake.”

“That was when you told the priest.”

“Yes.”

“A servant overheard you say you had a dream, but did not hear you tell him what it was.”

“I… whispered it to him.”

“That is what we heard.”

“You have… friends among the priests.”

“Yes. They are… usually very loyal to us. We help them, you see, and they help us. Much like your father and his… business.”

“Father, you heard what he said. What he heard in the dream.”

“Yes, ‘Four or six years.’”

“Have you told the queen this?”

“No. She never asked. You, however, heard, and asked.”

“Hmm. Yes. You are like your father. Very practical. Pragmatic.”

“Usually, my lord. Yes.”

“Not always?”

“Well, in my case, he might have gained favor with the queen if he had sent me to live with her and her son, ten years ago. But he did not. He sent me away to the west.”

“Your mother had a hand in that, too, I believe. Did she not go to live with you there?”

“Yes.”

“What do you suppose your father could have gained by letting you go to the queen, ten years ago?”

“The east.”

“For his caravans?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. That is impossible. Was impossible.”

“I believe he knew that. But she might have… helped him.”

“Yes, she might. But she did not.”

“No, and in the end, he sent me away from her.”

“But you came back, didn’t you.”

“Yes. I… I believed, and I still believe, that the future of my family, and our continued success in the business of trade and caravans, lies with the peace and power of the parthian empire.”

“You are your father’s son.”

“So I came back. Partly because my father had arranged a marriage for me with the temple in Babylon, yes, but then, when we discovered the queen and her son were in Babylon, and I had that dream, I knew my fate was to answer the summons from the court.”

“From the queen, you mean. The Italian…  woman.”

“Well, yes. But she is only… for now… the face of the empire. But as I said before, after she and her son are gone, the empire will still be here, and I hope my family business will also still be here.”

“You speak as if she is already gone. But you and I both know how… powerful she is, that… woman. She has what you Greeks call charisma. I myself, as much as I do not like her, sometimes I feel her… charm, let us say. The old king, may he rest in heaven with the creator Ahura Mazda forever, the king was very… beholden to her. You know she killed him, I suppose?”

“My father told me you said as much to him.”

“You father was also enchanted by her, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“You know… she wants you, now.”

“I… I sensed as much, in Babylon. And later.”

“For the moment, she is holding back. Letting you enjoy your new wife, but… it worries me. Now, you are like your father. But if she captures you, as she captured the great king, well… I… it worries me.”

“Then send me into the east.”

“But… we do not permit Greeks from the west to take caravans there.”

“Not my family. Not our caravans. Only me.”

“With your wife? And the two men you have with you now – that Jew and the young Greek?”

“Yes. With our three camels. Nothing more. No one else. We will go with one of your caravans.”

“Hmm. A very interesting proposal. On the one hand, we would have you out of the way, yet safe, and….”

“And I would be… beholden to you.”

“Yes, I suppose you would.” The older man sat back in the darkness beside me. After a few moments, he spoke to his son, “Artemos, what do you think?”

“That you have both put forward the advantages for both of you. Both of us.”

“But…? I sense you have something else to say, my son.”

“Yes, father. I believe there is something else Anaxagoras wants from us.”

“Well, young Greek, is there something to what my son says?”

“Yes, my lord. When the time comes, if it is possible, I ask that you let me help them to escape to the west.”

“Oh ho – she does have you under her spell, then?”

“Perhaps, my lord, she does. But it is also for her son that I speak.”

“Why? I know young men often stick together against we elders, even as you do what we ask, or sometimes tell you to do. But… why him?”

“I believe he may be my brother.”

“You mean… your father… and….”

“Yes. But I beg you, my lord, don’t ever tell my mother that I told you.”

“If she is half the woman I suspect, she already knows.”

“Father… that would mean… may my God have mercy but on whose head are we to set the crown?”

“Only for four, or six years, perhaps.”

“Yes. Perhaps.” Then he turned to me, “If possible, my son and I will let you help them to escape. But… Anaxagoras, you must tell no one. Absolutely no one at all.”

.

I told my love none of this when I was escorted back to the palace later that night. The older man and his son had served me a wonderful dinner, after having lamps brought up to the rooftop. We had continued to talk, but in the presence of the servants we no longer spoke of such personal matters. In the end I was brought back, sometime in the middle of the night. The streets were quiet all around us. Probably because I walked with two soldiers.

Two or three more days went by, and I continued my studies of markets and cargo warehouses, meeting with men – and some women – the family had done business with before. Then, one day, I was finally summoned into the presence of the king and the queen mother.

“It is our royal pleasure,” Phraates commanded, “that you and your four companions travel with Parthian caravans through the cities of the eastern portions of our empire, to inspect the caravanseries, the markets, the cargo warehouses, entrepots of merchandise, and all places relating to trade between our cities, and then return to us within one year from this time, here in our summer residence of Ekbatanah. As our inspector general, you are to report on conditions as you find them in the eastern cities and roads, both in our lands and neighboring kingdoms wherever possible, and compare them with conditions with which you are already familiar in the west, both in our lands and in the neighboring kingdoms. Should you find any circumstances which are not favorable to our empire, you are to advise and recommend any possible changes you may deem advisable. Do you understand our commands in this matter?”

“Yes, great king, your will shall be done.” But I wondered… fourth companion? Who might that be? Perhaps he meant we four. I had been warned by Artemos not to question the king. This was to be a very formal audience. All I was allowed to say was yes, great king. Your will shall be done.

Sp we made ready to go; I, who had once dreamt of rebuilding Babylon, now threw myself into another dream: that I might explore the unknown cities and lands of the east, in Persia, Media, Bactria, and even unto the frontiers of Scythia. My wife Inana and our two men, Yusef son of Yusef, and Diomed son of Archilaus, these were my three companions, and we took our three camels with us. The queen and her son Phraates, king of kings, made a gift to us of weapons. Swords, helmets, shields, and three bows, with many arrows and fine sinew strings. Fortunately I and the two men had learned to hunt on horseback, and that reminds me of perhaps the most precious gift of all, five fine horses on which we could ride like nobles.

“After all,” said Artemos, the younger, “you are now the inspector general and his official companions, we cannot have you walking all the time. Although, if you wish to carry trade goods on the horses as well as on your camels, neither my father nor I shall object. In fact, it is part of your orders – that you are to inspect, by engaging in trade yourselves. But no more than your three camels and five horses.”

He smiled. Shook his head, and said, “There is still a question in your eye. Something you do not understand?”

“I… I only have three companions.”

“Oh, you will have a fourth. Do not ask who. There are ears listening to us.”

“You don’t want them to know?”

“No. We want them to be distracted by this question. You already know how complicated our system of government is. This is merely another… diversion, if you like.”

“As my lord wishes, then.”

“Come, let me show you the horses.”

.

The next day, Artemos accompanied Yusef and Diomed and myself to the warehouses attached to the palace of Ekbatanah. “The king has commanded, and my father has approved, that you may choose from goods stored here, to take with you on your journey to Rhages, Zadracarta, Margiana, and Bactra.”

The sound of the names of those cities washed through my mind like a far-away river, whose rushing waters can be heard, echoing, somewhere in the distance, long before you can see the water or smell the green meadows. “Have you been there, Artemos?”

“No.” He stopped in a doorway between a passageway and another large storeroom, put his hand on my arm, and whispered, “In fact, we are sending you because we need information that is… outside of official channels, you undertand? There are rumors that the wild tribesman in the north are moving south again.”

“The Scythians?”

“That is what you Greeks call them, but there are different groups, there. Some of them are ancient relations to our own ancestors, the nomadic Parthians. Others are… different. Come.”

He led me into another chamber of the warehouse. I could smell the wooden ceilings over our head, but other than that the fragrance was clean. “No problems with rats in here?” I said.

“Not many. We have some very good cats. We have to be careful with the doors, of course, solid door frames that shut with hardly any gap. We also keep most goods in solid, closed trunks. But even more, there is no food in this chamber. Only glass and ceramic from the west. Also… here… this is what you may see offered for trade when you get out there. It is very fine porcelain from the far east.”

He gestured, and two attendants opened a chest. Inside, items were wrapped in cloth. “Silk?” I asked.

“Yes, and cotton too, but neither of very high grade. We use it mostly to protect the fine ceramic ware.”

He picked one up, unwrapped it. Exposed a small, delicate cup. It was painted with simple strokes, portraying a flower. I sighed to behold such an item. “These are new,” he said, “and we believe they are sending us better work these past few years. It would be a great pity to lose such items to bandits… or worse.”

“Yes.” I frowned, “What could they possibly want for something as beautiful as this?”

“Some of the Italian glassware. The Romans seem to have a style of blowing glass goblets which the… easterners greatly admire. That is how we… I mean the caravans from Bactria… got these cups. For glass. And a little wine.”

“Exquisite.”

“This is the kind of work we hope you will look for. So far, it is very rare.”

“Where is this place, in the east, that it comes from?”

“The same place as silk, which as you can see in this trunk is used along with cotton, simply to protect the cups. There are also plates – here. Here is one.”

He took the tiny cup from my hand and handed me a small, flat bundle wrapped in cloth. “Go ahead, Anaxagoras, unwrap it. Just don’t drop it. It may be worth more than both our lives.”

“Don’t tell me that. It makes me nervous.”

“Heh.”

I gently unfolded the cloth of rough cotton, itself of no little value, and I found another cloth within, but this one of silk. Handing the cotton cloth to one of the attendants, I carefully unwrapped the silk, and found, within, a small plate exquisitely decorated with an image of… “Is this a dragon?”

“That is what we call it, yes, but you can see it is of a very different style.”

It was not at all like the bones and monstrous forms we have found here and there in the west, bodies transformed into stone, somehow, but still preserving fantastic beast shapes like lizards and other gigantic creatures who no longer walk the earth. This, however, was different. A great, snake-like body, twisting in sinuous curves almost like… like a river… but with short legs with claws, and a fierce, snarling head half lion, half lizard… “A griffin snake dragon?” I asked.

“Notice where it is standing.”

“On clouds?”

“Yes. One trader from Bactria told me he was told this is a heavenly creature, a force of natural power who gives strength to great kings and warriors and also to wise men and teachers.”

“All of that on one small plate.”

“Yes.” He took it from my hand, “There are some here who will pay a great fortune simply to eat a few sweet dates from such a small plate.”

“I believe it. The piece is… superb.” I looked at him. “This is what you want me to look for?”

“Yes. And when you find it, or them, do your best to learn how to talk with the masters who brought it from the east. Some of them speak one or two of our languages. Others you must rely on translators to speak with.”

“Hmmm.”

“And not just about these items or where they came from, but the dangers on the road from those lands.”

I paused. Artemos handed the plate to his attendant, gestured that he should wrap it up again and close the box. Then took my arm and led me away from there.

“Perhaps if you told me what you do know about these lands, it might help me to find out more, or confirm what you already know.”

“Perhaps.” We passed through a small door with a very solid door frame. “Anaxagoras, one reason we have chosen you to go into the east is because you are so… talented with languages.”

“Thank you.”

“It is nothing, my young friend. But there are other reasons, too. You are your father’s son, and my father trusts your family.” His voice dropped to a whisper as we moved through another dark corridor, illuminated only by a lamp carried in a servant’s hand. “Another reason is the queen wants you to prove yourself as valuable in more ways than simply being Greek and your father’s son.”

“Yes. Thank you again.” I almost stumbled on a floor tile. “It is very dark in here.”

“No windows means fewer places for pests to enter.” At that moment I heard a distant meow from a cat. It was answered by another. “You hear them? Hunting, I hope. I almost hope that they find nothing. We shall feed them, of course, whether they catch any mice or rats or not.”

“Of course.”

“Here. This way.” The servant opened another small door. The chamber within was lit by several lamps. I could hear two or three men moving within. “I asked some of your friends to meet us here.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You are no doubt wondering what you will be taking with you, to offer in exchange for such treasures as those ceramic plates. Or cups.”

“True. I was. I assumed you answered that question, when you mentioned glass from Italy.”

“Exactly. Here we are.”

The small chamber was piled high with wooden boxes, small trunks, and bags of both leather and woven canvas. Somewhere behind the piled boxes, I heard familiar voices. “Yusef? Diomed?”

“Yes. One moment, young master,” the old Jew called back to me.

“Hush,” whispered Artemos, “remember.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“How is your inventory proceeding?”

“Very impressive goods, sir. But…”

“Yes?”

“Forgive me, masters, but there is too much here for us to carry on only the three camels we have.”

“Yes. You shall also have four horses.”

“Two strings of beasts? One of horses, one of camels?”

“Yes.”

“We are only three men.”

“You shall have a fourth. One you already know. Arshad, son of Zadok.”

“Oh… I… you lordship is very kind to us. He is an excellent choice. Thank you.”

“You are welcome. My father and I realize you must only go with men you completely trust, for yourselves, to manage your two chains of animals. One of you to lead each chain, and one to follow, is that not so, Anaxagoras?”

“Yes, sir. It is.”

“Good. However, for safety, and security, my father has suggested – and the great king agrees – you shall accompany one of our regular caravans from here to Rhages.”

“All right.”

“We will discuss further details at another time, soon. For now, Anaxagoras, you and your two companions must select from these goods, here in this chamber, only what you believe can carry on your animals.”

“Where do they come from?”

“You do not recognize the trunks and bags?”

“They look very like what my father and his brother use.”

“They are. Yusef, Diomed?”

“Yes, sire?”

“How much of this have you been able to inspect so far?”

“About a quarter of it.”

“Does it appear to be all sent from your master Anaxagoras’ business?”

“Yes, sire, it does. Some of the bills of lading inside the boxes, or bags, even appear to be signed with his seal.”

“Excellent.”

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He left us there, in the storeroom, only making certain we knew our way back to our regular quarters.

Gradually we made our choices, and drew up a list of what we would be taking, not only which items, but even, after unpacking and choosing and repacking, which boxes and trunks and bags. Several small amphorae of wine, but only a few. A good number of glass pieces, wrapped and sealed in boxes. Several bags of Arabian incense. Some Greek ceramic pieces, carved alabaster from Egypt, and dates from Babylon. I then had an idea – why not bring some of the fine, soft fleece from the Zagros mountains of western Parthia. That was not among the items my father had sent to the court at Ecabatana, and I had to ask for it, specially, but both Arbastos (father and son) and the king and his mother, they were all pleased at my request.

“So, young Greek, you think the treasures from the west are not enough?” Musa smiled at me, her hand on her son’s shoulder.

“Majesty, the incense from Arabia is not from great Parthia, that is true. But the dates of Babylon are from the lands of the great king.”

“Ah yes,” she laughed, tapping her fingers on the king’s upper arm, “but these dates are from your wife’s people, no?”

“The queen speaks the truth.”

“But now you ask for fleece from our nomad mountain people?”

“Majesty, I believe that the distant people in the far east, or at least the caravans who serve them, will find Parthian fleece and wool to be of a most superior grade.”

“Oh ho, my son,” she said, “hear how he asks not only for whole fleece with soft-cured skin, but also the wool itself, sheared from the tender lambs.”

“Oh mother, he speaks well, and will bring honor to our own mountains when prized by the distant peoples of the east. Let it be so. Go with our blessing, Anaxagoras, but come back to us within a year and bring us word of what we wish to hear – how the markets and the trades are in our own eastern lands.”

“It shall be as the great king of kings commands.”

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What I did not say was that I felt such a fine fleece might be valuable as a gift to the nomadic tribes we might find in the open land around the cities. If rumors were true, and their horsemen were riding – and raiding – then such a gift might be more valuable to them than a piece of glass or chunk of incense. With such a piece of woolly lambskin, or the wool alone, a horseback warrior might turn and please his own women, give them a valuable resource to work, or weave, perhaps even create one of their famous tribal carpets – a commodity quite valuable not only for its own beauty and useful function, but also a tool to help convince the wild horsemen that frontier cities and their markets were better alive than dead, better standing full of men, women, and children, rather than burnt, broken, and destroyed.

I knew, and each of the men traveling with me understood, that trade was not only good for wealth and interchange of cargo, but also as a weapon of peace. A caravan not only carries merchandise between different lands, but it binds those lands together in a lasting system of shared cooperation, better than any conquering army ever could hope to achieve.

Nevertheless we took arms – swords and helmets and bows – along with us, and Artemos the elder specifically assigned us two horseback archers from his own family guard, to accompany us, under my command, as members of our own little group, whereever we went and in whosever company we traveled. For, as you know, and I do not have to remind you, my friends, that no matter how well-organized a market may be in any great or small city, or how straight and true a road of earth may lie, there are always thieves and bandits who will steal you blind behind every corner if you don’t keep your eyes open and your arms strong and ready to fight.

I know that Diomed and Yusef and Arshad and myself, both old and young, we were all reasonably skilled with bow and arrow, and if need be we would, and could fight to defend ourselves and our small train of beasts and cargo, but the company of two professionally skilled horsemen, archers of military grade and quality, who could scout out the land around us, if need be, or escort us through the streets of any town, well that added layer of strength was most welcome. Especially if we were to meet any raiding tribes or nomadic groups. Two Parthian horse archers could be invaluable. When Artemos the elder told me of his order for them to accompany us, I bowed deeply in gratitude and understanding before him.

“Besides,” the old man said, “they will be a sign of respect to any wild riders you may meet, eh? Showing that you honor them by riding with your own guards.”

“You see the truth, great lord.”

“Oh, and something else which you might find of particular interest, my young Greek linguist… they each of them also speak two or three of the tongues of the different nomadic groups you may encounter. They are both of them sons of recruits from the frontier beyond Hyrcania and old Parthia.”

“My lord is most gracious and wise.”

“Go with the blessings of the fire, young man, and come back to us in the spring.”

“As my lord, and your great king, command.”

Then there was the question of my wife. We decided, first she and I, that she would go with us. The powers that be, both the king of kings, and the queen mother, as well as Artemos, agreed that her presence would be a worthy complement and unspoken reason for the provision of our two armed guards. We would be free to let it be known that she was a princess – that is to say the daughter of a great priest – in ancient Babylon, and herself a sign of the power and cultural wealth of the Parthian empire.

She and I laughed, our last night in bed in our chamber in the palace of Ekbatanah, laughed to realize that our marriage was not just a matter of family, but a political statement. To send such diverse representatives out into the hinterlands, amongst the wild Scythians – we whispered to each other in Greek, then – was to us an adventure, but underneath, written on the backside of the parchment, so to speak, was a hidden message, a text within a text, a testament to the importance of trade and merchandise, as well as a small witness of the glory of the king of kings.

“Do you think, my love,” she whispered between kisses, “that you will have a chance to meet any travelers from the distant land of silk and porcelain?”

“I do not know, but I hope so.”

“At least,” she muttered, “I will see you every day while we travel. Here in this city you have always been busy, in the warehouses – where I was not permitted to accompany you – or in the markets, where both of us were always busy with other details. On the road, I hope, I shall have you once again all to myself.”

“Alas, my love, there will always be the animals. I must either pull, or follow, one of the two chains.”

“But I can walk beside you, no?”

“Yes.”

“And every night, when we camp, I shall be alone with you.”

“Yes. But no more words now, my dove, rather open your wings and touch me with the feathers of your heart…”

“….”

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thinking about buying a mobile home (episode 01)

For the three years since my mother died at 97 (I was living with her and helping her keep her home), I have been planning on eventually buying a small place to live, hopefully not very expensive, and most probably in southern California, although I confess I have looked elsewhere around the Unites States and in Mexico.

Let me say right now, before we go any further, that my mother’s home for her last forty years was actually her second husband’s house, who after nearly thirty years of marriage (1978-2007), graduated from this mortal life where I am still writing, and gave in his will the right for his widow to live in his house for as long as she wished, and that after her decease, the property would pass to his three children from his first wife (who had deceased three or four years before he remarried). Following my mom’s death, my now ex-steps were kind enough to let me stay on in the house for another two years, before we finally knuckled down to clearing out everything so that they could begin to prepare it for sale or lease or whatever plans they may agree upon in their own time.

Goodness but it is easy to get distracted. I almost fell into the labyrinth of writing about my mother Marjorie and stepfather Herb and their many years together, but have somehow managed to hold it down to simply preparing a background to describe my search for a new place to live. Even at that, I can only introduce the search today, and continue later in succeeding episodes.

If you are familiar with astronomical prices for real estate here in California, then you will not be surprised that I can most probably only afford a mobile home in a trailer park somewhere. Either that or go back to work; and at seventy, with a small income (barely twenty thousand a year), I would prefer to remain retired. Well, except for writing, translating, and making video (https://vimeo.com/user962132), of course.

Originally – two years ago – I had thought about relocating to the desert, most probably in Borrego Springs, an area I know rather well. But then I got side-tracked by a dream of traveling around the golden state, and all of North America, in fact, and camping out at various natural wonders. I am still obsessed by this “crazy-ass dream” (as my ex-wife calls it). Yet, even as I bought camping equipment, in the back of my mind sat the realization that I am always and only getting older and that sooner or later I must find a place to settle down. As it turned out, “sooner” came much sooner than I had anticipated.

During my first camping experience last summer, after two weeks at Blue Jay campground in the Santa Ana mountains (Cleveland National Forest), I fell victim to heatstroke, spent two nights in the hospital, and then took shelter with my brother and nephew, who were kind enough, and tolerant enough, to let me “camp out” indoors, at their house in San Jacinto.

San Jacinto is a small town in a rather large valley, part of what is called the “inland empire” of Riverside, San Bernardino, Redlands, Hemet, Temecula, and dozens of other similarly named towns, valleys, and hills, making up a sprawling, widespread mix of agricultural areas and suburban zones, almost all within an hour or two drive from Los Angeles (except at rush hour). I have been living here for six months now, sheltering from the corona virus, but at the same time finding myself more and more enamored with this landscape, this geography of rocky hills and flat valleys, where there are always mountains in the distance, and the sun is usually dominant, sometimes quite brutally overpowering, other times merely mildly warm. It is not so harsh as the desert beyond the mountains, but certainly not a particularly well-watered area, either.

In fact, like San Diego where I grew up, a hundred some miles south of here, the inland empire, in fact the entire megalopolis of Calangeles, is completely dependent on imported water. Without aqueducts from the Colorado River in the east, or the Owens Valley and the Feather River in the north, we would all die of thirst within one, or at the most, two years. Yet it is my homeland, this South California, and although I still hunger to explore America, I begin to feel more and more that the time has come for me to find a permanent home of my own, no matter how humble, as the saying goes.

Besides, I can always take my van and go camping, and still have a safe little house to come home to. Unless the neighbors steal my furniture while I am gone, ho ho ho LOL.

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to be continued

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night mare

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I thought that flying was dangerous   and it is           have to watch out for the wires

Power Lines    full of electric shock               tangle my heart in their slender threads

dangle their                                         Dangerous Liaisons

my life             in a dream

comes undone             by leaps and bounds               do I glide or do I flap my wings in strength                                                                                           beware these cubes, these lines

those squares of thought         “but I thought”

don’t               don’t think                  f e e l               it          now

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some of what I wrote today

I am remembering too much. I wanted to tell you how my teacher finally showed me the ruins in the south, where the first cities were, Ur and Uruk and Lagash and Larsa and the others, the first cities of the Shumer, long, long ago, but no we did not go there for ten or twelve years. Not until after the young king Phraates and his mother Musa were overthrown. Then other members of the family of Parthian kings, sons, nephews, even cousins, took the throne, one after another, first Orodes, for two years, then Vonones, for four years, then Artabanus, who ruled for a much longer time, almost thirty years – he was a great one, yes, then came his nephew Vardanes, who had six years before his brother killed him while they were hunting, that was Gotarzes, who himself ruled Parthia for eleven years, followed for less than one year by Vonones II, brother of great Artabanus. Vonones II had been king of Media for almost forty years, and a faithful ally – and brother – of Parthia, but the second Vonoes was very old, and soon died, and his son Vologases became king of kings. This is the man who has been on the throne now for ten years, and has shown himself to be as strong, and cunning as Artabanus his uncle – who ruled for thirty years, remember. He is the one you and your general Corbulo have been fighting, and even though there be peace now, only by strength can the Romans hold the frontier against this one.

Fortunately, both sides want the trade to flow, the silk and spice and precious glass and ceramic, yes, and in my last years working for the family, I found this small temple here, in the north, in the province of Cappadocia, and decided that this is where I will spend my last years. The caravans come and go – sometimes with my great-grandnephews as their masters, so I have that pleasure of hospitality, and sometimes soldiers or diplomats like yourselves come to keep me company. Thus far it has been a good retirement, and the war… may fate be kind to me… the war has not hurt me. Not yet. Not like it did sometimes in my younger days, when the kings were fighting and killing each other. Yes, those ones I named, and others who plotted against them.

Yes, I do remember them, for good and for bad, and no, I would not trust even my own memory except that before finally coming north to Melitene I myself helped to write a chronicle of those kings of Parthia, for them, in service to their empire. Yes, we completed it only a few years ago, during the first days of great Vologases, may he live forever. We preserved a copy in the Esagila temple library in Babylon. No, my friends. We wrote it in Persian for the king of kings. Who knows how long it will last? Some of it on clay tablets, yes, and some of it on papyrus scrolls, in the Greek fashion, so yes, or no, who knows if  anyone will ever find it, after the kings die and sleep with their fathers.

We all die. You know that.

As for me, well I am so old now that although I remember these things, they no longer seem so important to me as they did when I was young and hungry to learn the ancient languages and uncover their ancient stories.

You ask what is important now? To help younger men like yourselves to remember the ancient past, before it is all forgotten. Somewhere in the south, yes, it is all buried, but I fear no one will read it for a long time to come. Perhaps one day some other men like myself, or like you, men who are hungry to read the old stories, will find them, and read them. If they can read the language, that is. I have told you how the ancient Babylonian language, Akkadian, is almost completely forgotten now. When I finally lived in Babylon, after Phraates and his mother fled to the west and took refuge in Rome, there were only a few hundred Kaldean priests who still could read and write the old tongue. Or the other, even more ancient Shumerian, from the south, nearer to the sea, the one which had come before. But yes, those old priests could still read, and they copied, and I copied with them, and we buried the clay tablets in their large jars, hoping to protect them for the future. Yes, I was one of them, for a while. Almost fifty years, through war and peace and all those great Parthian kings.

Yes. Until I finally felt a call from deep inside my heart, to leave Babylon, and come here. To Melitene.