Twice during the second night Michael arose from his delirium into intervals of lucidity. In the first he spoke urgently and for no small duration to his daughter, taking pains that his speech be overheard by none other. The child for her part made fervent report to her father, apparently about events at the Anthill and afterward, communicating via sign and an idiom of grunts and bleats that served as a language between the two.
The Nazarene’s primary preoccupation, judging by his gestures and the attendance he displayed by means of observation, appeared to be to assess the character and aims of the man within whose captivity he now found himself. His queries to the girl seemed to be, before all else, about Telamon.
At the second instance of clarity, the Nazarene found the strength to address the mercenary directly. Telamon had crossed to the wounded man’s side. He knelt beside his litter. Michael pleaded with the man-at-arms to leave him to die. “Only take the child,” he implored. The Nazarene declared himself a burden, whose care slowed the company and made it vulnerable to being overtaken.
Telamon refused to hear this.
Michael continued. “You are the man Severus Pertinax sent after me from Jerusalem, yes? Why you, when he has dispatched cavalry and published bounties as well? Who are you? What are your instructions?”
Telamon silenced the Nazarene with a hand. “Save your strength,” he said. “Your job now is to survive.”
Michael studied the mercenary. “Why are you helping me? I will die before giving up the letter to you. You know that.”
Telamon made no answer. He wrapped the Nazarene for warmth in his own cloak and pillowed the man’s broken body with his own sleeping fleece. Only later, when the Christian at last fell into a merciful drowse, did he, the man-at-arms, break his silence, addressing the girl-child, though in the hearing of David and the witch.
“The Romans could not break your father on the wheel, and neither could those bastards with the rope or with fire.”
Telamon’s gaze turned to the slumbering Nazarene.
“Here is a man,” he said.
At dawn the mercenary sighted a squall line to the southwest. He drove the company toward it. A great windstorm arose with the evening. Telamon pushed the others through this. He would not let them stop. The gale effaced the party’s trail, even the deep tracks of the laden mules. Finally, at the third dawn, the fugitives scoured the horizon to their rear and saw nothing.
They were deep into the inner desert now, beyond maps or experiential knowledge.
A basalt ridge ascended a mile to the west. Telamon led the party up this face, carrying Michael in his arms when the big mule balked from fatigue. A cut in the rock would serve to conceal the company. The mercenary himself, with David, sought and found an overlook, a shallow shelf with a ten-mile vantage back across the series of ridges they had spent the past two days crossing.
“Sit.”
Man and boy took up postures exactly as they had on the second evening into Sinai. The hour was dusk. As they peered east, their vantage extended unbroken, lit dramatically by the sun sinking behind them.
Over his shoulder, Telamon could hear Michael’s voice, coming from the rock-face cut. The Nazarene could make speech more comfortably now. His straits remained extreme, but his spirit refused to yield. He was speaking, in Greek, quietly and purposefully, to the girl.
The mercenary could feel David, seated upon his left, struggling to banish the exhaustion that racked his bones. The youth fought to bring his mind to focus upon what he must do now, to be still and to look out.
“David,” said Telamon.
The boy straightened with a start. This was the first time he had heard his mentor address him by name.
“Yes, sir?”
“Back there on the strand . . .”
“Sir?”
“You did well.”
The man could feel the boy flush with pleasure and summon fresh resolve.
Telamon felt a figure approach from behind on his right.
The girl.
The child had come forward from the rock camp. Telamon did not turn toward her. He spoke no word, nor proffered any indication that he had become aware of her, yet his senses held keenly attuned to every aspect of her posture and intention.
The child remained stationary for several moments observing the mercenary and the boy in their seated stations.
She sat too now, upon Telamon’s immediate right.
She assumed an attitude identical to his.
As the mercenary’s gaze faced east over the desert, so did the girl’s.
Telamon said nothing.
He listened to the child breathing.
The girl was matching her inhale and exhale to his.
Her eyes scanned the desert exactly as his did.
Telamon could feel David fidgeting on his left.
The girl had settled, still as a stone.
When darkness fell and a hard chill came down, she did not move.
Her breathing had composed itself into a steady, soundless rhythm.
Once, after several hours, Telamon rose. He returned with bread and oil, on a flat stone, and a half bowl of posca. He gave some to David and some to the girl.
He reported to the girl that Michael was resting comfortably. The sorceress, he said, sat up beside him.
Past midnight Telamon thought he spied a flicker, miles out, on the pan to the east.
Flame?
He blinked and rubbed his eyes.
Could the pursuers be advancing under torchlight?
The mercenary felt a sharp rap on his right shoulder. The girl. She had shifted from her perch and moved flush to Telamon’s side.
She pointed out across the desert.
“I see it,” said Telamon.
David had come alert as well. He too peered into the distance.
The girl shook her head adamantly.
She held up two fingers.
Again she pointed east.
Telamon’s eyes strained.
He saw only one glimmer.
The girl rapped his shoulder again. Again she held up two fingers.
She thrust this sign emphatically before Telamon’s gaze and pointed with fiery intensity to the south of the first glimmer, the one Telamon’s glance had fixed upon.
Telamon saw the second column now.
The girl was right.
“Torches?”
The child nodded vigorously.
David strained but could make out neither the first glimmer nor the second.
What he did note, turning back toward his master, was a flare in the mercenary’s eye—the faintest flicker only, appearing for an instant and then vanishing.
This look was for the child, and it was unmistakable.
It was a glance of respect.
− 18 −
KNOWLEDGE OF TERRAIN
THE SUN WAS UP AND the party was moving fast to the west, or as fast is it could, burdened as it was. Telamon wanted the rising sun behind him. He wanted to see as many miles ahead as possible.
“We’re in trouble,” he said.
He tramped beside Michael. The Nazarene could lift his head now, at least a little, from his berth upon the litter. The sorceress strode a few steps ahead, leading the smaller mule. Telamon addressed them both.
“There’s a term in the legions—locorum notitia. ‘Knowledge of terrain.’ ”
David and the girl trekked alongside, edging closer to hear.
“We don’t know this desert. The Arabs chasing us do. They are leading the Romans and the Romans are following willingly. Why have they split their party into two columns? They’re herding us. They’re driving us where they want us to go.”