Dinner. It was perhaps the most beautiful word Rab had ever heard. No matter that it had been uttered in Latin and by a Roman soldier no less. He could only smile hearing Livius’s voice and knowing that he, too, had survived.
Somehow, Atia had saved them both.
‘How do you fare?’ Atia was asking Livius now. Rab’s back was turned to them and he breathed deeply as if he were still asleep, but was listening to everything they said.
‘Better than I have in years,’ Livius replied. Rab heard the clanking of plates, smelled the rich aroma of roasted mutton. ‘But if you are asking about my knee, it is improving. It seems to be healing in direct proportion to the number of honey cakes I am fed.’
There was a woman’s soft giggle, and Rab heard another woman’s voice speak in Nabataean. ‘I think Livius favours you, Gamilath.’
‘Don’t be silly, Shudat.’
It was nice to hear his mother tongue—like donning an old pair of sandals.
‘Hageru, pass the bread.’
Bread. Rab’s stomach rumbled—a terrible, growling noise that sounded as though it had come from the depths of the earth.
And yet he made no move to get up. He kept his eyes closed, grateful to be alive. He wished to savour this moment.
‘The stew is delicious,’ remarked Atia.
Her voice was like a soft ribbon. Gods, how he loved the sound of it. It had wrapped around him in the depths of his fever, consoling him, cajoling him, keeping him anchored to the world.
‘Have you always lived in this place?’ Atia asked.
‘We grew up here,’ said the woman who had been called Shudat. ‘But before the Romans came, two of us—my brother and I—lived in the open desert. We were frankincense traders.’
There was a long silence. ‘I envy you that freedom. A Roman woman would not be allowed to engage in such trade.’
‘You must become a Nabataean woman then,’ said the woman who had been called Gamilath. ‘We have always enjoyed more freedom than our Roman sisters.’
‘So I have heard,’ said Atia.
‘You can marry our brother!’ exclaimed Gamilath.
Rab’s eyes flew open.
Atia was laughing gamely. ‘If your brother is anything like his sisters, then I would be a fool not to consider it.’
Rab tried to keep his breaths even. The thought of Atia marrying any Nabataean other than himself gave him a strong desire to throw fists.
‘What does your brother do now if he is no longer plying the routes?’ asked Atia.
‘Oh, he is still plying the routes—just not the desert routes,’ said Shudat. ‘After the Romans came, there was no more profit to be had in the desert routes, so our brother went to work at sea.’
‘I am sorry,’ replied Atia.
‘What is there to be sorry for?’ said Gamilath. ‘He works on a large sailing vessel that runs between India and Egypt. He makes more coin than he ever did before. He brings us beautiful things.’
Rab heard the clanking of what he guessed to be bracelets and then the sounds of children squealing. ‘Why do I frighten them so?’ asked Atia.
‘They think you are a Greek goddess,’ Hageru explained.
Rab smiled to himself. She was a goddess—a strong, fearless, beautiful goddess whose divine determination had brought him back from the dead. How could he let her know that? How could he make what was wrong between them right again?
‘Why on earth would they think me a goddess?’ Atia asked. Rab could almost picture Atia putting her hand over her nose.
‘I believe it has something to do with your unusual dress.’
‘Ah, yes, the stola,’ said Atia.
‘That and the fact that you speak perfect Greek,’ said Hageru.
‘That is very kind of you to say,’ said Atia.
Suddenly, Rab saw his chance.
‘But that is not the only reason,’ he said, rolling over to face the group. ‘You are also beautiful.’ He smiled and propped himself on his arms.
‘Rab!’ Atia exclaimed. She moved to stand, but he motioned her to stay seated. ‘Please, if I cannot manage to make my own way to a tableful of food, then I am truly lost.’
Though what he had truly lost was the moment, for in her excitement to see him awake, she had not heard what he had said.
Slowly, he stood. He stared down at himself. His long robe seemed to hang from his wasted bones and his knees shook with weakness. But all he could think about as he made his way across the tent was how good it was to see her.
He took his seat across from her and noticed the sheen of tears in her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and feigned a sneeze.
‘An omen!’ shouted the woman whom he assumed to be Gamilath. Her bracelets chimed as she clapped her hands together and grinned. ‘The gods intend to favour us.’
‘They favour us already,’ said Livius, sliding Gamilath a wink.
Rab had the distinct feeling of joining a party that had begun long before his arrival. After a barrage of introductions, he found himself confronted with his wildest dream: a thick, meaty bowlful of mutton stew.
He approached it like a stalking lion: cautious, respectful, determined. When finally he lifted the bowl to his lips, something like an explosion took place inside him. He drank slowly, letting the soft shreds of meat caress his tongue and the wonder of their energy suffuse him. At last he returned the bowl to the table and let out a hearty sigh. ‘The gods are great,’ he pronounced and everybody cheered.
They feasted and talked until the sun had disappeared and the light of oil lamps shone in their eyes. Rab stole glances at Atia across the table. She was so lovely in the low light. Her auburn locks tickled her cheeks, making feathery shadows, and her soft, sensuous lips seemed to glow with a new shade of red.
He wanted to kiss those lips. He wanted to spend the rest of the night kissing them.
And yet it seemed fated that he was to spend the rest of the night among a troupe of friendly strangers.
‘A story!’ shouted Gamilath.
‘Ah, yes, let us have a story,’ repeated Shudat.
‘A story! A story!’ sang Hageru’s boy and girl. Their hosts were gazing at them expectantly and Atia and Livius looked piteously lost.
‘It is Nabataean custom for a guest to entertain his host with a story,’ explained Rab.
‘I fear that the only stories I know are of war and of the gods,’ said Livius.
‘And I know none at all,’ said Atia. She sent Rab a pleading look.
Rab sighed. He was not going to get any time alone with Atia—but perhaps there was another way to speak to her.
Rab levelled a playful smile at the two children and stretched his arms theatrically. ‘Then I believe it is up to me to ensure that our wonderful hosts learn the story of the enchanted horse.’
‘The enchanted horse!’ shouted the children in unison. They clapped and cheered gleefully as Rab cleared his voice and began.
‘If you were to step outside this tent right now and start walking south-east, you would pass over rows and rows of golden hills that would stretch out into a great sand sea, and beyond that sea you would encounter a rich, verdant land between two rivers. In this land there are great herds of horses.’
‘I love horses!’ shouted the girl.
‘That is well,’ said Rab, ‘because in this fair green land there was once a girl much like you who also loved horses. One day, a trader came to her village and sold her father the tallest, smartest, most beautiful horse her father had ever seen.
‘But when the girl’s mother saw the new horse she became worried. “She is ugly,” said her mother. “And just look at that bump on her back. She will never be able to carry a hunter or a warrior. You must sell her back.”
‘Now, the little girl had a brother much like you,’ said Rab, pointing at Hageru’s son. ‘And together the brother and sister begged their father not to sell the new horse and vowed to take care of it themselves.
‘They decided to call the horse Thirsty because whenever she stopped to drink from a stream it was as if she was trying to swallow up all the water in it.
‘“Where do you think all that water goes?” the girl asked her brother one day.
‘“I think it goes into the bump on her back,” said the boy.
‘“Maybe you are right,” the girl replied.
‘One day, the boy became very sick, and the medicine to save him lay beyond the sand sea. The father prepared several of his best horses to make the dangerous crossing.
‘“Take Thirsty,” said the girl. “She will survive the journey. She keeps water in her bump.”
‘So the father agreed and he set off across the sandy desert. The sun beat down each day. So much sun—and no water to be found. All the horses perished—except one. Which one do you think that was?’
‘Thirsty!’ shouted the children.
‘You are right!’ shouted Rab. ‘With Thirsty to carry him, the father was able to return with the medicine and the little boy was saved. The mother was amazed. “I am sorry that I called your horse ugly,” she said. “She is the most beautiful creature in all the world.” And every day from then on they celebrated the beautiful, tall horse with the strange long legs and beautiful, perfect bump. The end.’
‘But it wasn’t a horse at all!’ shouted Hageru’s daughter.
‘It wasn’t?’ said Rab, feigning ignorance.
‘It was a camel!’ shouted the boy.
‘Really?’ said Rab in mock surprise. ‘Are you certain?’
Scandalised, the children shouted and howled, followed by a quiet laughter that told him that he had succeeded with at least two members of his audience. He braved a glance at Atia. She was studying the floor.
She did not look at him for the rest of the night, and he feared his scheme to affirm her beauty had failed miserably.
He half-wished his fever would return, for now it was no longer proper for her to sleep beside him and she had rightly moved her bed mat to the place where the women slept.
He gazed across the darkness, trying to make out her shape. He thought about the softness of her body against his and grew warm. Perhaps his fever had not passed, after all. Perhaps the only thing that could remedy him was her.
The next morning, he opened his eyes to discover Atia’s mat unoccupied. ‘Where is Atia?’ he asked Hageru.
‘She and Livius have gone with my sisters and brother to tend the flock.’
‘Your brother?’
‘He arrived early this morning.’
Rab discovered the group standing at the top of a hill overlooking part of the canyon. A tall, muscular-looking Nabataean man who appeared to be roughly Rab’s age was speaking animatedly while the others peered down the slope. Spotting Rab, the man smiled and gestured to him. ‘Greetings, Brother!’
Brother? Rab was not this man’s brother and he did not like how closely he was standing to Atia.
‘Rab, this is Yamlik,’ said Atia as Rab joined the group. ‘He is a sailor and a trader. He just returned from Barygaza in the land of India. Is that not wondrous?’
‘Well met, Brother,’ said Yamlik, grasping Rab’s arm with heavily ringed fingers.
Rab forced a grin. ‘Well met.’
‘I was just showing your companions our magic carpet,’ he said. Yamlik gestured down the canyon at an unexpected swathe of green.
‘Is it not amazing, Rab?’ asked Atia. She was shaking her head in wonder at the sight of the grassy field. ‘I have no idea how they do it.’
Rab stiffened. It was just an irrigated pasture, by the gods. ‘They simply employ an Archimedes screw to reach the groundwater,’ Rab said shortly. He turned to Yamlik. ‘Purchased in old Amman, I presume?’ he asked.
‘Indeed it was—with the proceeds from my last sea journey.’ Yamlik petted at his own short beard in a way that Rab found maddening.
Yamlik gestured to a bump in the ground running up the slope. ‘The screw lies inside a pipe hidden beneath the earth just there. Whenever we need to water the field, we hook a donkey to a wheel that turns the screw. Water is lifted from a spring through the twisting spirals inside the pipe.’
Was Rab mistaken, or was Yamlik looking at Atia more than he was Livius? And did Atia’s smile appear just a little brighter as she listened? ‘It is truly remarkable,’ she said.
‘Just amazing,’ Livius parroted, though he was gazing at Gamilath, not the pipe.
‘Utterly magnificent,’ Rab said with sarcasm and felt Atia’s elbow in his side.
‘We have several others installed at other springs nearby,’ explained Yamlik, ‘and we rotate the sheep between the fields they serve.’
‘But how do you defend the fields?’ asked Rab.
‘I am sorry, I do not understand,’ said Yamlik.
‘From Romans, I mean. How do you prevent them from taking your pastures?’
Yamlik was shaking his head. ‘We have never had any need to defend our pastures from Romans. Besides, Hageru’s husband will soon become a Roman himself. He has already completed ten years of military—’
‘That matters not at all,’ Rab interrupted. If he heard about another Nabataean joining the Roman ranks he would lose his wits. ‘You must take precautions now. The Romans will come eventually and demand unreasonable taxes. If you cannot pay them, you could lose everything. You must be prepared to fight.’
Rab sensed Atia watching him closely. Gamilath was shaking her head. ‘I am afraid that we have spent all our money on obtaining the screws,’ she said.
‘Then you must sell more sheep,’ urged Rab, feeling his nerves grow short. ‘You must arm yourselves well.’
Atia moved to touch his arm. ‘Rab—’ she said, but he yanked his arm away. He knew what she was going to say. She was going to tell him to be reasonable. But he did not need a Roman telling him to be reasonable.
Yamlik flashed a righteous frown. ‘If you spend your days preparing for a fight, how can you ever be at peace?’
Rab’s breath seeped through his teeth. ‘I think I need to go change my bandage,’ he said, then he turned and walked away.
That evening after dinner, Yamlik retrieved a scroll from the shelf and carefully unfurled it. He gave Rab a glance and began to read.
‘You have heard it said that you should love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you so that you may be the children of your father in heaven, for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust alike.’
Atia was shaking her head in admiration. ‘Words of wisdom,’ she exclaimed. ‘May I ask which philosopher penned them?’
‘A man called Jesus of Nazareth,’ said Yamlik. ‘He met my grandfather many years ago when he journeyed through these hills.’
Atia’s mouth fell open. ‘Your grandfather knew the prophet of the Christians?’
‘Yes. Do you know of him?’
‘He is quite infamous in Rome,’ said Atia, ‘though I find his message fascinating.’
‘You, too?’ said Yamlik, his eyes sparkling.
Rab found himself loathing the excessively handsome man with the colourful rings and closely trimmed beard. Yamlik was the worst kind of Nabataean. He spouted his high-minded philosophies while less fortunate people suffered all around him. Did Yamlik think he could just erase the need for vengeance against Rome? And did he really believe that he could just swoop in and steal the woman Rab loved?
Rab cleared his voice. ‘I believe it is time for another story,’ he pronounced.
Yamlik shot Rab a look of alarm, while Hageru’s children erupted in cheers.
‘Are you really going to gift us yet again, Rab?’ asked Shudat.
‘It is the traveller’s obligation, is it not, Sister?’ Rab said magnanimously. ‘And also his greatest joy.’
‘You are too generous,’ Shudat said and everybody gathered around the dinner table as Rab cleared his voice.