A fragment of a forgotten tale

A couple years ago, I worked on a story featuring Victoria of Alexandria and Coem of Hibernia, side characters to Ya’el the Immortal Champion of the Holy Land. It fizzled out, as my tales often do, but I’m inspired to go back to Ya’el for a new collection now, and I think I’m going to use a good part of the story below for that. (It will remove Coem, alas, and relocate the action to Jerusalem and the Temple instead of the Library of Alexandria, but a lot of it will still appear in modified form.) Anyway, here you go! I hope you enjoy it, and the mutated version when that one is done!

The Cursed Crowns

Roman Province of Aegyptus

The Twelfth Year of the Reign of Emperor Nero (AD 66)

“Eternal Spring! Soft breathing zephyrs soothed and warmly cherished buds and blooms, produced without a seed. The valleys though unplowed gave many fruits; the fields though not renewed white glistened with the heavy bearded wheat: rivers flowed milk and nectar, and the trees, the very oak trees, then gave honey of themselves.”

Victoria sighed contentedly as she finished the verse. She rolled up the scroll and held it to her chest for a moment, then set it down next to the many others that had been read that night.

“Do you see, my friends? It is as Paulus said to the Athenians: ‘As one of your own wise men hath said: From Him is our descent.’ And even Ovid saw a true glimpse of what we had, and lost.”

The five listeners gathered together in the villa of gens Gelus, Victoria’s noble clan, nodded appreciatively. But one of them stirred a little.

“What is it, Bassus?” Victoria asked him.

“I know the words of Paulus, and I know too the poems they speak of. They address Zeus, not your Caelus.”

Victoria smiled. “They, no less than Ovid, were reaching out in the dark, and took hold of truths greater than they could imagine. No, my friends, they shot short of the mark. It was Caelus, the God Above Gods, they honored in their poetry.”

While all five of the listeners were of like mind to Victoria, to one degree or another, Bassus and Valeria both looked doubtful at her assertion.

“Can we be certain of this?” one of the others, a young woman named Leto, asked. She was a newer member of their little society, but Victoria had known Leto her entire life. Their fathers were good friends – Leto’s father Apollophanes had once been a captain in the family fleet, carrying precious cargoes of grain to Syracuse and Neapolis and other, more distant, ports, and now he managed their warehouses here in Alexandria. Leto’s dark eyes and complexion compared to the Romans spoke to her Egyptian ancestry.

“Ovid is not here to speak for himself, but we do have his words,” Victoria said.

“And the priests would say you understand them wrong,” Leto countered.

“And I would say they understand wrong,” Victoria said with a patient smile.

“Of course,” Leto said. “But what does logic say is more likely? That he really meant this strange faith of the Jewish barbarians was the true one, or the beliefs of his own people instead?”

“I am of his people, but I believe in the strange faith of the Jewish nation,” Victoria said.

“Yes, you are strange indeed,” Leto said, smiling now. “But I think you are wrong, too.”

“Then give me time and let me show you more of my logic in this matter. But it would be better if you spoke to Marqos or his followers. I am a philosopher, not a priest.”

Leto looked doubtful, but Victoria sensed a hint of curiosity. That wasn’t surprising. Victoria chose her friends for their lively minds – she wanted to be surrounded with fellow seekers, not sycophants, like those who saw her only as a lovely and rich young woman, or merchants, like her father and brothers.

Before they could discuss the matter further, Felix, one of the household servants, appeared in the doorway that linked the garden courtyard with the interior of the villa.

Victoria turned to him and gestured for him to speak.

“My lady, there is a... person... at the door bidding entrance in your name.”

“A person?”

“There’s a riddle,” Hosidius said with a quick grin. “Let us apply our intuition! A beggar, I say, of Egyptian blood.”

“No,” Bassus said. “A Greek – from Greece, mind you – come to seek your wisdom, oh seeker,” he continued with a solemn nod to Victoria.

“A barbarian,” Valeria said. “But not as uncouth as most.”

“Leto?” Victoria asked her silent friend.

Leto considered it and shook her head.

“Ah, that’s not sporting of you!” Victoria chided, then she turned to the man reclining next to Leto. “And what say you, Dexion?”

The eldest of the five, a merchant like Victoria’s father, one who dealt in cotton instead of grain, frowned for a moment before answering. “Trouble. You’d be better off if you send her away.”

The words chilled Victoria for just a moment, then she smiled. “We shall see. Felix, bring her here and we shall see who is blessed with intuition.”

Felix hesitated.

“I am mistress of the house, and the gens, am I not?” Victoria asked him in a kindly tone. That was true – her father, mother, and two oldest brothers were all away in Syracuse, attending to family business, and her younger brother Photius was not yet old enough to manage the family affairs.

“She is a wild one,” the servant said.

Valeria laughed and raised her cup. “Crown me with laurels, my dear friends.”

“She may be wild, but we can tame her with our words, Felix,” Victoria said. “And if that fails, Bassus Bovis will subdue her with his thews. Or at least his long stories of service in the legions.”

Bassus jumped to his feet and raised his right arm slightly in a salute, then sat down again.

“As you wish, my lady,” Felix said after a moment perhaps spent wondering about the moral and mental decline of the youth. He departed and returned a few moments later with a somewhat striking figure in tow, a woman not much younger than Victoria. It was clear she was a barbarian, for her hair was a brilliant red and her eyes bright blue, while her fair face was marked with vivid blue tattoos. Her garb was a mix of foreign and familiar. She had on the clothes of a Roman plebeian, but over that wore a thick, colorful cloak in a checkered pattern of black and green. Around her neck hung a leather thong holding a rough talisman the size of the small toe. “I give to you Cohem of Hibernia,” Felix said, his tone hopeful the gift would soon be sent on her way -- the farther away, the better.

Cohem... Cohem... the name was tantalizingly familiar, but Victoria couldn’t put her mind’s hand on it right away. She and her five guests gazed at Cohem for a moment and then the hostess smiled. “You seem to have come quite a way to seek me out. I am flattered.”

“You should not be,” the Hibernian woman answered. “I do not come with the good news but the bad.”

And now Victoria remembered. “Ya’el wrote of you! The Hibernian singer.” It had been a strange tale, even coming from a teller of strange tales such as Ya’el of Bethany, about the girl’s vendetta against one of the little gods of her distant land, a quest that had taken her from Hibernia to Judea. For a moment, Victoria was saddened. Ya’el had sent her away from Jerusalem last fall, insisted she go, but hadn’t explained why. Only now, as news came of the great revolt of the Jews there, did Victoria understand. The protective gesture touched her heart.

“I am Cóem, yes,” the woman said with a nod. “And I must speak with you.”

“Yes, we deduced that. What is this bad news you bear, barbarian?” Valeria asked.

“You misunderstand me,” Cóem said. “I mean Victoria and her alone.”

Valeria scoffed. “You are more uncouth than I thought.”

Cóem looked at her, slightly puzzled, then turned back to Victoria. “I am a teller of tales by nature, but I say it would be better if we spoke alone. But you are the mistress of the house, and you have the dominion, as I understand your Roman ways.”

“Do you?” Valeria asked.

“These past three years I have traveled from Gades to Greece, and from Britannia to Bithynia. I have seen the power of your legions, and felt the fierceness of your laws. Look here.” She drew back one sleeve and displayed a forearm scarred with whip wounds. “I know you write poems lauding conquest, give laurel crowns to tyrants, and call it civilization.” She smiled fiercely and Valeria blanched, while Bassus stirred, anger in his eyes.

“Enough, enough,” Victoria said. The girl wasn’t wrong. Here in the learned city, tens of thousands of Jews had been slain this very year for the sin of seeking to defend themselves. What price would be paid for such wickedness? “I will deal with the Hibernian. Let the rest of you take your leave, and consider what I said earlier instead of what she said now.”

It took some persuasion, but in the end, Victoria’s guests yielded and went off. The hostess and the guest spoke for a time until Victoria called a halt and slept a restless night plagued with strange dreams.

* * *

In the bright, cloudless morning, Victoria felt as if the previous night was a dream. Then the blue-faced woman sought her out, and that feeling faded like morning dew. “Sit, stranger, and partake as you like,” Victoria said to Cóem. Her servants (gens Gelus, at least its Alexandrian branch, had very few slaves) had prepared a fine morning meal for her, enough for two at Victoria’s direction. Once all that was done, Victoria laid her hands upon the table. “In the night you spoke of many things, but briefly. For your own sake, or more likely mine. But Helios Hyperion is on the ascent, and dark fears flee. So loosen your tongue and tell me more clearly what bad news you bear.”

“It came to me when I was away to the west, in the city your people built over the many bones of the slaughtered folk of old Carthage.”

Victoria could have risen to the bait, but instead she just nodded without saying a word. Not least because it was true, if not the whole of the truth.

“I slept in an alley behind a tavern, and there I dreamed a bardic dream. Do you understand?”

Victoria had read enough about the Britannians, kin of the Hibernians, to make a guess. “A vision.”

“Yes. I saw a red hand and a black hand digging in the sands for a golden crown, and then a voice spoke. ‘Seek thee the victorious daughter of the victorious man, seek thee the seeker, seek ye the crown-seeker, stop ye the crown’s desire.’ And when I woke I knew where to go and who to call upon.”

Victoria blinked. “Did you?”

“Yes,” Cóem said. “I did not stay long in Ya’el’s house in Jerusalem, but I did stay there. And she spoke of you more than once. Victoria, daughter of Victor. Victoria, who seeks for proof of her god in his subtle writing upon the world.”

“I would say it otherwise, but you are not far from the mark,” Victoria conceded.

The Hibernian nodded, seemingly well-pleased. “Then tear away the veil and tell me what it all means.”

“What?”

“The dream! You were the one who was supposed to make sense of it!”

“You speak boldly – and loudly,” Victoria said. “Soften your voice lest it startle my guards.”

“Pah! Your warrior folk are no good unless there are ten of them behind a wall of shields,” Cóem scoffed.

Victoria did not agree, but she held that back. “Very well. Is that all you can say of your dream? Was there nothing more?”

“Nothing that I recall. And if it was a message from –” She hesitated here and then found the words she sought. “– the land of youth, the land of the gods, then nothing would have been held back.”

From what little Victoria had read of the ways of Britannia and Hibernia, she wasn’t so certain, but she yielded to Cóem’s authority on the matter. Land of Youth, Terra Iuventutis, it was not so far from Elysium as the Romans understood it, and that was merely a grasp in the dark at the true blissful afterlife Caelus had crafted. Truth was a web, was it not? “You might well be right. Well. Let us work with what we have. I am the one you seek, that is clear. It is less clear what you seek me to prevent. Red hand, black hand, golden crown, crown-seeker, crown’s desire. What do you make of that?”

“Why do you ask me? That is your task!”

“I think not. If it was given solely to me, the dream would have been mine, not yours,” Victoria said. “Your part in this is more than messenger. Let us begin at the beginning. Red hand and black hand – does it mean anything to you?”

Cóem shook her head.

“Nor to me,” Victoria admitted. “We must unravel that mystery before we can go any further.”

“But how?”

“How? Hibernian, we stand but a mile from one of the greatest libraries in all the empire! And my own collection is not so modest, either, if I may say so. I have studied under many masters, some holy and some horrible, and my scrolls are just the same.”

Cóem frowned. “I can speak your language well enough, but I can read it only a little.”

“Then I will teach you even as I learn,” Victoria said. “And so shall you. Enlighten me in the language of Hibernia. Thus both of us will profit even as we seek these starkly colored hands.”

Cóem eyed Victoria for a moment and then almost smiled. “So be it, victorious daughter of the victorious man.”

* * *

Victoria sighed deeply as they approached the Library. “Behold one of the true wonders of the world!” she said, voice tinged with awe.

“I thought that was the lighthouse.”

Victoria made a dismissive gesture. “A useful tool, and a massive one, but not an edifying one. You scorned us and our civilization, but there is more to Rome than swords and whips, Cóem. There is law, and philosophy, and history. Logic, rhetoric, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, music, all the learned arts. This is Rome, too.”

Cóem looked around and picked at the sleeve of her garment. She was dressed wholly as a Roman now, in the guise of Victoria’s servant. “Perhaps,” was all she said.

“You will see. If nothing else, these things will help us understand the words that were said to you.”

Victoria was often a visitor in the learned halls of the Library, and the door wardens recognized her. “But who is this?” one of the men asked with a nod at Cóem.

“Ah, this is Cohem, lately come into the service of my family,” Victoria said.

“What are you, then? A Britannian?”

“Hibernian.”

“Ah, it’s all the same, isn’t it?” That said, he turned away before she could answer. “Go on, then, my lady,” he said to Victoria.

Victoria nodded regally and stepped into what was, to her, the truest temple in the entire city. There were, she knew, many other great libraries in the empire, and this one had lost much in the wars that brought Julius Caesar to ultimate power, but her devotion to it could not be overshadowed by such things.

Besides, Caelus, or His messengers, had pointed Cóem to her, to here, so what other library could hold their answers?

“Where do we begin?” Cóem asked, unable to keep a touch of awe out of her voice. Roman ways were far from those of her own people, but she could scarcely imagine how much wisdom was contained in the scrolls and codices – so many! Long hallways and large chambers stuffed with them from floor to ceiling. It was bewildering.

“We find a guide,” Victoria answered. “A good one, too,” she added in a low voice.

Cóem caught her meaning right away. Away home in Ériu, there were good bards, and bad ones, too. Maybe civilization wasn’t so different as she thought.

“Let us walk,” Victoria said. “There are some I would meet, and we aren’t likely to do so if we stay here by the doors. And I have a question for you, too.”

“Ask, then.”

“How many languages do you speak?”

Cóem hesitated for the briefest of instances before saying “Two. My own tongue, what your people call Gadelica, and yours, which we call Laiten.”

Victoria nodded. And what is the third that you will not speak of? she wondered. But she did not ask.

“And how many do you speak, oh learned one?”

“Seven.”

Cóem looked at her. “Truly?”

“Truly.”

“Name them,” the bard challenged.

“Latin and Greek, of course, and besides them Egyptian as she is spoken today, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Punic.”

“Why would you learn so many languages?” Cóem asked. “All the peoples of your empire speak Latin or Greek.”

“That is not wholly true, but even if it was, I would still seek out new ways of speaking.”

“Why? There is so much else to be learned.”

“Too much for anyone, even an immortal, to learn in their life,” Victoria agreed. “But first, I find pleasure in it. And while I am no Cyrenaic, I do value pleasure within its proper bounds. And besides that, while the empire is the highest civilization that has ever been, there is wisdom in the ancient world, too, and even today, beyond the schools of Alexandria and Rome and Athens.”

“Imagine such a thing,” Cóem murmured with a smirk on her face. She noticed which city had pride of place in Victoria’s ranking.

“Imagine it indeed,” Victoria said, then laughed.

“Ah! I know that laugh!”

Both women turned to see who had spoken from a side passage behind them. It was a Greek woman, aged and crowned with steel-grey hair, but still hale and clear-eyed.

“Priestess Rhoxane,” Victoria said with a quick bow of her head.

After a second, Cóem did the same, but she stayed silent. These Romans took offense when a servant spoke unbidden.

The two embraced for a moment and then parted. “And what brings Victoria Viatrix to the Library?” Rhoxane asked.

“The search for knowledge, as always,” Victoria said. “But an urgent one instead of an idle one today. Tell me, Rhoxane, have you ever heard of a creature with a red hand and a black hand? It seems as if it might be one of Herodotus’ tales, or the logographers who came before – what is it? Why do you blanch?”

Rhoxane grabbed Victoria by the arm and squeezed with far more firmness than was her wont. “Be silent and come – and you, too, girl,” she added with a nod to Cóem.

Slightly bewildered, the younger women followed the older until at last they came to a small meeting room adjacent to one of the library’s gardens. Rhoxane closed the door and gestured for Victoria to sit herself down, and for Cóem to do likewise. The Hibernian eyed Rhoxane curiously. Was it normal for a servant and a mistress to sit side by side? She did not think so. This one was worth treating with respect.

“Where did you hear of such a thing? Speak!” Rhoxane said to Victoria.

“I heard of such a thing from her, and she heard of it from –”

“From a lady of what you call Hades,” Cóem said.

Victoria looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, I did not speak the whole truth,” Cóem said. “I knew the voice. I have heard it before, but with my ears instead of my mind. I will say no more of that.”

“You will say more of that,” Rhoxane said. “You will say everything.”

Cóem scowled and glared, but the priestess glared back, and the young bard relented – without looking away. “I was in Carthage, sleeping in an alley, and I had a dream. First I saw a red hand and a black hand digging in the sands for a golden crown. Next the voice I know spoke to me. She said ‘Seek thee the victorious daughter of the victorious man, seek thee the seeker, seek ye the crown-seeker, stop ye the crown’s desire.’ I had heard of Victoria already, so I knew I must go to here. And now we are here. I have told you what I know. Now repay us in kind.”

“Speak on, girl,” Rhoxane said. “These hands. Were they human? Were they hands in truth?”

“I am no liar. They were hands and they were human, although I have not heard of any human with one red hand and one black hand.”

“But you have, haven’t you?” Victoria asked Rhoxane. “Speak on, elder, I beg you.”

Rhoxane hesitated and wrung her hands, then she drew herself up. “So be it. This may be strange tidings to you, Hibernian – don’t wonder, I know the flesh-painting of your people, that’s all – but not to you, Victoria, disciple of Caelus.”

Victoria sat up straighter, eyes bright with curiosity. Disciple of Caelus and seeker of His subtle works, yes, and she now knew she had found one – or one had found her.

“You Romans know well enough that there are many gods – yes, yes, you dispute it, but they are real, call them what you will but they are real. The Greeks will call each one by their own names, and you Romans by another, and the Teutones and the Egyptians and the Indians and the Hibernians and on and on from sunrise to sunset. Some people have gods nobody else does. But there always two in every land. A god of the heavens above, and a god of the darkness below. That second one my people call Typhon and the Egyptians, Apophis, and your people name him Orcus, and the Jews, Satan. It is all the same.”

“What is that to do with red and black?” Victoria asked after a moment.

“It is this,” Rhoxane said. “There are here in this very library some of the most ancient scrolls written by the first pharaohs of this land. I have studied them in search of the Seshat Scrolls.”

Victoria nodded. She knew well enough that Rhoxane’s true calling was to find those scrolls, the first written words in all the world – so, at least, the priestess thought. Victoria had her doubts, but she admitted if the scrolls existed, they were surely of the uttermost antiquity.

“And in one such scroll, so old and frail that to touch it is to risk destroying it, I read these words of Serk, one of the first kings of all Egypt. I have studied them well, and copied them on fresh parchment for those yet to be born. This is what Serk said. ‘I knelt in the holy place and made the sacrifices and cried out: O Queen of Rivers, speak to me of what has happened before, and is happening now, and will happen again, for the woe-bringer defiles your people. What is to be done against the beasts with the black hand and the red hand? And the River spake: Burn the grass and raise ye your voices in prayer to the Sky God, and then gird for battle. You fight not the woe-bringer, but instead his champions, and so rejoice, for they are not as they were of old. The red hand is the warrior and the black hand the trickster. The one and the other both seek the crowns of old, and these ye will find in the well of the Hidden One.’”

Victoria nodded, paused and then said “I understand completely now.”

“Bah!” Rhoxane said. “I am not finished. I have told you the tale, now let me explain it. You, Hibernian, might not know some of what I said.”

“I know enough, I think,” Cóem said. “In Egypt, what can the Queen of Rivers be but your Nile? And this Sky God is your Zeus, or your people’s Jupiter,” she nodded at Rhoxane and then Victoria, “and my Dagda. And Victoria and Ya’el would say these are just name-masks we have put on the true Sky God. And I know the woe-bringer, even if my people give him no name. But the rest is new to me. A warrior with a red hand and a trickster with a black hand, these crowns, and the Hidden One, all that I do not know, I do not understand.”

Rhoxane smiled a little for a moment. “Nor do I. But I think that is your task, Hibernian, and yours too, Roman. These two seek the crowns, and you must stop them.”

“That, and no more?” Cóem asked.

“That and no more,” Rhoxane said, a grave look upon her face.

“Let us be on our way, then,” Victoria said. “For I know where the well of the Hidden One is.”

Cóem rolled her eyes. “Don’t be coy. Where is it?”

“Ammonium.”

“Of course!” Rhoxane said.

Cóem rolled her eyes again. “Have pity on an ignorant barbarian. Where is that?”

“It is an oasis in the western desert,” Rhoxane said.

“Home to an ancient temple to Jupiter Ammon, and a powerful oracle,” Victoria added. “Alexander the Great went there after he conquered the land.”

“Why?”

“He was guided there by birds –”

Rhoxane frowned at that. “Owls, in some accounts,” she said in a contemptuous voice.

Victoria nodded. She knew enough about owls and their human servants. “He followed them across the desert to discover the oasis and oracle alike. And there he was proclaimed to be the son of Jupiter Ammon.”

“Bold.”

“Alexander was not timid, no,” Victoria agreed. “He would claim that identity for the rest of his life. As a sign of this, his coinage changed, showing him with a horned visage now.”

“Horned?”

“As on a crown of the ancient style...” Rhoxane said.

“Exactly!” Victoria said. “It cannot be a coincidence.”

“But if he had the crowns, how could they have come back there? And a man can only wear one crown at a time without looking like a fool.”

“There was a time of struggle after his death,” Rhoxane said. “It was his wish to be buried at Ammonium, but one of his generals laid him to rest here in this city. You can see his tomb today, if you wish.”

“I doubt it would impress me.”

“You doubt for no reason. It is a fit memorial to a man who conquered a quarter of the world,” Victoria said.

“Perhaps, but I stand with my words. And at any rate, I would rather do what I was bidden,”she said.

Rhoxane nodded. “You’re right. There are priorities.”

“Then let us be on our way!” Cóem said.

Victoria smiled. “Patience, my friend. Traveling across the desert is not so easily done. We must make preparations. We will need a guide, and guards.”

“Guards you can manage on your own, no doubt,” Rhoxane said. “But do you know any reliable guides?”

“No. We are a clan who have mastered the sea, not the sand.”

“Then let me offer my recommendation.”

“Of course.”

“There is a man born into the saddle, one who knows all the paths and oases between here and Tingis. His name is Amanar and he does not work for a pittance.”

“If he is as canny as you say, then I am willing to pay handsomely,” Victoria said. “Can you make the introductions?”

“Without doubt. You will want someone who can read the ancient hieroglyphics, as well,” Rhoxane said. “Unless you have that skill?”

Victoria glanced at Cóem. “I can speak your language well enough, but I can read it only a little.”

The younger woman laughed.

Victoria smiled and turned back to a slightly puzzled Rhoxane. “Fate smiles upon me. There is one of my fellow philosophers who has studied hieroglyphics. Leto, the captain’s daughter.”

“Curious, the threads the gods weave for us, isn’t it?”

“Curious and joyful,” Victoria said.

* * *

Leto’s family villa was not very far from where Victoria lived, and it was ordinarily a pleasant walk on a warm spring afternoon. Less pleasant was the increased patrols of Roman soldiers, edgy and impatient after the Jewish revolt against the iron boot of the eagle. Victoria remembered the flames and smoke and not-so-distant screams. Maybe Cóem was right. At the very least, there had to be a better way to gain what Rome had. She quickened her pace, moving just fast enough to avoid drawing the patrol’s attention. They would do nothing to her, but she suddenly felt ill-at-ease with even the slightest of delays.

She soon reached Leto’s villa and the doorman, Lucius, knew her quite well. “Enter, my lady. You come at just the right moment.”

“How is that?”

“Leto is about to leave, but she can tell you all of it.”

Victoria nodded and felt a little chill run through her bones. A curious chance, it seems...

Soon she was at the door to Leto’s room, or off to the side of the door as an endless stream of servants came and went with either empty arms or arms full of Leto’s belongings.

“Leto! Where in all this madness are you hiding?” Victoria called out.

“Victoria? Is that you?” a voice called out from within the room.

Victoria waited for a gap between servants and then stepped inside. It took her a moment to spot her friend in the midst of the chaos.

“You came at a bad time,” Leto said.

“Or a good one,” Victoria countered. “I didn’t know you were leaving.”

“I didn’t know myself until this afternoon,” Leto said. “My aunt Euphemia, my mother’s sister, has invited me to spend the summer in Heliopolis. There are some ancient scrolls recently sold on the market that she wants me to translate in case they are of any value.”

“Ah,” Victoria said. “A tempting invitation indeed. But may I make an invitation of my own?”

“A moment,” Leto said. She cleared her throat. “Leave us for now,” she said to the small legion of servants. Once they were alone, Leto looked to Victoria. “What do you mean?”

“Sit yourself, my friend, it’s not a short story...”

It wasn’t, and by the end, Leto looked a little dizzy. But, to Victoria’s relief, she also looked very intrigued. “You’re certain of this?”

“Not entirely certain, at least not for reason’s satisfaction. But we are being guided by either the high god Himself or His servants, that’s clear. And what have we to lose if it’s all just a fantasy?”

Leto scoffed. “On a journey through the western desert, we could lose a great deal.”

“We could be run over by a chariot while crossing the street, too,” Victoria said with a dismissive tilt of her chin. “Besides, Rhoxane will find us a worthy guide, and I can bring a dozen of my father’s best men to guard us. And think! If it is true, we will be doing a great good... and you will see wonders wrought by your ancestors that you would never otherwise even know existed.”

Leto looked at her in thoughtful silence for a moment, then gestured at the messy room. “And my aunt?”

“Visit her in the fall when all of this is done. The scrolls will still be in her library. And the weather will be more pleasant then, too.”

“You’re not wrong...” Leto was silent again and finally nodded, firmness in her eyes. “Then let us see what tale the gods have written us into.”

* * *

Meeting Amanar the Berber. A mountain of a man, with muscles that put even Bassus’ to shame. He was so large that Victoria wondered what kind of camel could bear his weight.

Cóem, yes, but Victoria and Leto, not so much.

Doubtful at first. “This is no pleasure voyage to Heliopolis and back, my lady.”

“I know it.”

“Then think again, while you still have the chance. The desert is a harsh place even for those who know it.”

“Rhoxane said you were one who knows it well. I trust her, she trusts you, and therefore I trust you.”

“It is not a question of trust. Even if I were twice as canny as I am, I cannot protect you from heat and thirst.” Amanar eyed her again. Finally he scoffed and tugged at the top of his tunic. “Ah, there’s no arguing with some people. Very well. But I want half the money in advance, and time to spend some of it, too.”

“Fair enough.”

Their route gone over.

He’ll go ahead overland to Paraetonium, and the Alexandrians will join him there in two week’s time.

“Where will we find you?”

“Ask around the harbor for the house of Tabat and Monnica, and there I will be.”

A brief sea voyage from Alexandria to Paraetonium, then southwest across the desert to the great oasis. It will take time – two weeks and a half weeks, most likely. We will need to take our water with us – there are no oases between Paraetonium and Ammonium.

* * *

Much later, when the sun had fallen and the moon had risen, Victoria left her family villa and quickly trod to Baucalis near the eastern harbor. Here it was that Marqos had built his assembly hall within the bounds of the estate of Victoria’s uncle Anianus. Marqos was one of the students of the Great Teacher, Iesus Nazarenus, and had come to Alexandria to spread the good news. Anianus and his wife and children had been drawn into his fold, and were thus sundered from Victor and his side of the family. But Victoria, who had been a student of Marqos away in Jerusalem, was the single thin thread that still connected the two, and she often found herself at his feet, a student here and now as she was there and then.

The watchman of Baucalis knew Victoria, and bowed and bid her enter. Marqos had just ended his preaching to a large crowd, and now he and the other elders were giving the gift of bread and wine to that crowd. Victoria stood back and waited until that was done. Afterwards, the believers mingled together and shared their news with each other. Victoria worked her way to Marqos, and also to Anianus, and bowed to both in turn.

“I am surprised but glad to see you here,” Marqos said. He was the oldest of the three, but only just compared to Anianus.

“It gladdens my heart to be here, master,” Victoria answered. “But I admit I come for what might be selfish reasons.”

“And what reasons are those?” Marqos asked.

“I seek your blessing. I am soon to go on what may well be a long and dangerous journey into the western desert, and I would be comforted by the assurance of one of the Great Teacher’s students.”

“Why should such a student bestow his blessing on one who does not believe?” Anianus asked, scowling as he did.

Victoria drew herself up. She had hoped it would go otherwise, but knew it would be like this. “We worship the same God, Anianus.”

“You toss a toga on the LORD and nothing more,” Anianus said. “Cast aside your pagan ways, Victoria, and walk the true path!”

“I have gone as far as my reason says.”

“Then look beyond reason, dear niece,” Anianus said.

“There is nothing beyond reason, dear uncle,” Victoria said.

“May the LORD tear the scales from your eyes!”

“May Caelus give you back the mind you were born with!”

“Bah! May both of ye still your flapping tongues,” Marqos said, thumping the floor with the butt of his staff. “Ye drink the same wine from different glasses. Think on that. But yea, I will give thee the blessing, Victoria. And yea, I will beseech thee to ponder why the LORD works His wonders through we Jews instead of the mighty folk of Rome.”

Victoria fell silent, and felt afraid, as Marqos laid a hand on her shoulder and spoke in a deep voice. “Our Father, who is in the Heavens, may Your Name be hallowed, may Your Kingdom come, may Your Will, as it is in the Heavens, even so be in the Earth. Give unto us the bread of our need, today, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And don’t let us enter into testing, but rather, deliver us from evil.”

“Truly,” Victoria whispered.

“Go now, daughter, and may He guide thee along your road,” Marqos said.

Victoria looked to her uncle, but he turned away, so she bowed to Marqos and took her leave of the assembly.