The man turned and began to step away, still enshrouded.
“Sir!” Telamon hailed the fellow to turn about. The mercenary thanked him for the honey and for access to the spring and camping ground. “How did you know that we sought someone? Or that we were bound for the Anthill?”
“Only a fool or a madman ventures into this wilderness unless he seeks an item of value. I possess acquaintance of the man who passed by three nights ago. He told me you would be following.”
David wished urgently to ask, Did the man mean us specifically? Or just any party who might be in his pursuit? And did he give you permission to direct us upon his trail?
The boy bit his tongue, however, seeing Telamon refrain from seeking this intelligence.
The man made of bees stood now directly before the mercenary. His face had momentarily cleared of the swarm. He was an individual of middle years, David saw, with kindly eyes etched by what the boy could reckon only as sorrow.
“If I may ask, sir,” said Telamon. “How did you come to be in this place? Were you born here?”
“I was born in Jerusalem,” the man said. He displayed his palms, void now of their sheathing of bees. In the pit of each stood a deep lurid scar, the produce of such a puncture as could be inflicted by no instrument other than an iron spike.
Again David curbed his tongue.
“Enemies of the empire preserved me,” said the man made of bees. “They brought me to safety here. These healed me.” He indicated the swarm still buzzing about his arms and shoulders. “I serve them now,” he said. “And all who pass by.”
Telamon again thanked the man for his hospitality and for the intelligence he proffered. The mercenary’s glance to David instructed the youth to take up his mule’s halter and to follow to the camping ground at the terminus of the ridge. As David did so, he saw Telamon turn back and again hail the man made of bees.
“May I trouble you with one last question, my friend?”
The man faced about.
“If others,” said Telamon, “should pass this way and inquire if the boy and I have come through here, will you tell them?”
The man indicated the swarm now re-enveloping him. “That,” he said, “will be up to these.”
− 10 −
THE FIVE-MILE PAN
DAVID COULD NOT GOVERN HIS restless mind and tongue.
“Why do we lead these mules?” He spoke up on the postnoon beyond the Lavender Valley. Telamon had terminated the day’s trek and set about to make camp. The mercenary did this always hours before last light, selecting a site that could not easily be gotten above by enemies. He would prepare bread in a ground oven, a flat loaf that he tore in two and which he and David devoured with olive oil and raw onions. The mercenary’s drink was posca, a Roman brew of vinegar and wine that David found repulsive.
At camp the man-at-arms saw to the animals first. Only after the beasts’ needs had been attended to did Telamon permit himself and David to take food or even to sit. The mercenary performed next his calisthenics, a chore of half an hour. Man and boy then repacked such kit as they had made use of in preparing camp, reloaded the mules, and moved camp to what, to David’s eyes, invariably appeared the most remote, inhospitable site imaginable.
“Sleep,” Telamon would say. “I’ll take the first watch.” But David could not sleep—until it was his turn to stand sentinel, when he struggled so mightily against slumber that he took to slapping himself across the face and even pricking his flesh with camel thorn to keep from dozing.
Telamon enacted the identical protocol the following day, from trek to early camp to sleeping camp. David held silent throughout. As man and boy off-loaded the mules for the second time, however, the youth could maintain this posture no longer.
“Why must we pitch camp twice each day? I thought we were in haste pursuing the Nazarene Michael. And why won’t you let us ride these beasts? Don’t we wish to make speed? Why didn’t we take horses? Why must we tarry at the pace of these glue-footed creatures? And why not at least let them bear our personal kit? You make us carry all our gear ourselves. All these animals pack is water and fodder for themselves and a few spear shafts that we’ll never use and a couple of pots and a hand mill. And why must we pitch camp so far up these stupid slopes? It takes us two hours of trekking to get to these sites. What for? We only descend again in the morning, wasting even more time! I thought the reason for Roman training was so the legions could cover long distances fast. Yet we amble and dawdle, making camp in the middle of the afternoon letting hours of daylight go to waste, only to pack up and make camp again!”
Telamon said nothing.
“And why do you never answer my questions? How will I learn to be a warrior if you will not teach me?”
The next morning, an hour into the day’s trek, the mercenary drew up on a ridge overlooking a basin between two basalt ranges. Spines of rocky hills flanked this pan, extending ahead as far as the eye could see.
“By what route,” Telamon asked the boy, “would you cross this flat?”
David pointed to a camel trace running down the center.
Telamon said nothing.
Two hours later, as man and boy stumbled, leading the mules, along the talus line of the northernmost of the ridges, slipping upon jagged scree and laboring with painful effort across broken ground, David cursed himself for even venturing a query.
Several hours on, they halted. Telamon lifted the pack frame and panniers from his mule to let the beast rest. David did likewise, though he thought it ridiculous to favor the animals so.
“We never cross a valley or any stretch of open ground by a road or trail,” the mercenary said, “but always from ambush site to ambush site. This is called highlining.”
He indicated the stony trace beneath their feet. “This track is called the talus line. You have been a shepherd. What do you see now before you? A trail made by wild goats and harts and mountain asses. These shy animals will be our guides. From this trail we can see any enemy crossing the pan below, yet he cannot see us unless we choose to show ourselves. If we were a legion, indeed we would cross by the valley floor. We’d have no choice, trekking with a baggage train and camp followers as numerous as our soldiery. But we are only two. Upon this ground we are the equal of a legion.”
A few hours farther, making camp, Telamon spoke again.
“We travel with mules because horses’ legs will break in these mountains. A mule descending a slope in darkness will never step false. In extremity a mule will lead us to water, while a horse will wander in circles and die. We can sell these beasts if we need cash, or trade them, or eat them should we become desperate. And they’re good company. See how attached these two have become to us already? You lead yours by its halter no longer, nor do I. We have stopped hobbling them at night. They will not abandon us, believe me, even under fire.”
David was so relieved that Telamon had spoken that he found himself actually smiling.
“Should we give the animals names, then?”
“No,” said Telamon at once. “I’m sorry I know even yours.”
Night fell. Man and boy had moved to even higher ground, having dispersed their “bread camp” so that no sign of it remained. The mercenary bedded down the mules in a hollow. He himself took up a position—hatless, cross-legged, with his gladius sword in its sheath across his knees and two pila javelins at his side—upon a stony eminence looking back over the pan they had been crossing all day.