The Nazarene addressed Telamon.
“Our friend the witch declares that you worship naught but treasure. And so it would seem, from your own speech. Yet you trek with as little resource, if I may say so, as a holy man or a renunciant.”
“Indeed,” said Telamon. “These are my vocations.”
Michael smiled.
“Why have you no money, Telamon . . . if I may address you by name? You cannot deflect this with a jest or dismiss it with silence—you who have surely amassed fortunes serving the eagle of Rome.”
It was the man-at-arms’ turn now to smile. He grasped the halter of Michael’s mule, along with that of his own, and stepped off toward the distant ridge.
The Nazarene with two unsteady strides overtook him. He seized the leather and compelled the mercenary to draw up.
“Let me guess,” said Michael, facing the man-at-arms directly. “You have donated every copper you’ve earned—and to those as could neither make return or care to.”
Telamon again made no answer, only tugged his animal by the halter apart from the Nazarene.
“Clearly you are not the brute you pretend to be,” Michael observed, speaking with emphasis for the benefit of David and the girl. “What, then, are you? I have studied you, brother, more than you know. You claim to believe in nothing. Your actions belie this. I believe you possess, if I may say so, a profound and highly developed philosophy, whether you will admit it or not, or acknowledge this, even to yourself.
“I have watched you kill,” said Michael. “You perform the act not like a butcher but like a monk. I witness no rage within you toward the foe. You take no joy in the slaughter. Stop me if I speak aught but truth. I have watched your face as you take station in readiness to face a mortal foe. You step into that moment—‘beneath extinction’s scythe,’ as the poet says—having accepted, even embraced, your own death in advance and willingly offering this up. This is what makes you unkillable. Call me out if I speak false.”
Telamon responded nothing.
David attended intently, as did the girl, and indeed the witch.
“This is an act of profound self-abnegation,” continued Michael. “Worthy of him who offered the same upon the cross. But let me press this proposition further, Telamon. To whom do you offer your life? To money? To randomness? To nothing? Shall I tell you what I think, my friend?”
“I’m sure,” said Telamon, “that I could not stop you.”
“Brother, I believe that you, in battle, offer your life to the one who stands unseen and unborn within you. I mean that self you will become. You want to die. Tell the truth. Only then may you become that which, within you, yearns desperately to be born.”
Telamon smiled. “You will not convert me, brother.”
Michael responded with his own smile. “On the contrary, it is you, mercenary, who are converting me. You have given me my life and preserved it when others would strip it from me. You have given me my life when you yourself had every incentive to take it, and for that prize—money—which you claim to value beyond all others. You are a model and paragon for me. You are he, in part, whom I wish to become.”
− 24 −
THE SUMMIT
THE GIRL’S NAME WAS RUTH.
The man-at-arms inquired of Michael as the party raced the dawn toward the track that ascended the ridgeline.
The girl heard and turned in her saddle.
The mercenary, afoot, faced toward her as they trekked.
“I am Telamon,” he declared, “of Arcadia, in Greece.” He extended his hand. The child took it.
The sorceress, trailing, observed this communion. She spoke:
“And Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go. Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’ ”
The others turned back toward the woman. Their expressions seemed to inquire, Does the witch mock? But the woman’s tone seemed indeed sober, even solemn. She intoned as if proffering a prediction.
“Where thou diest, I will die, and there shall I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”
Now on the summit, the party, absent the sorceress, whom Telamon had bound to a granite shelf beside the animals in a notch a quarter mile below, strained beneath the noon glare, scouring the ten-mile plain to the north. The company lay prone, four abreast, at the pinnacle—Telamon on the left, the girl Ruth beside him, then Michael and David.
The pan beneath was of firm level sand, cut by dune lines at intervals of about a mile. A forbidding granite ridgeline sealed the basin along its northern rim.
A fierce gale ripped across the pan from south to north, raising great clouds of alkali and loess that ascended as cyclones and storm funnels.
The child’s vision now, as earlier, proved the keenest. After an interval scanning tediously across the deep distance, she pointed to a crease or canyon-head, barely perceptible, at the base of the ridge ten miles distant—a notch that appeared to be some kind of pass, or to lead to a way across the range to the sea.
It took Telamon long moments before his focus settled and permitted him to see, barely, what the child indicated.
The girl pointed out three mounted columns, miles apart, advancing across the flat from the east, toward this notch. The leading column included wagons.
“Severus,” pronounced Telamon gravely. “Only Romans use wheeled transport in this desert to pack their impedimenta. Our friend the tribune has caught up by sea, summoned by his nephew, the young lieutenant, as this officer said.”
Michael reacted. “Severus? How do you know? How can you be sure?”
The man-at-arms smiled. “You’re more important than you realize, Michael. You and the Apostle’s letter.”
At that moment Telamon’s attention was caught by what he feared was an additional, and new, mounted column. He turned to the child. “What’s that line of dust?” He pointed to a squall of sand-colored billows, scudding erratically across the plain.
The girl answered in sign, dismissing this.
“What is she saying?”
“Tumbleweeds,” said Michael. “Like the storm of diaspores that trapped us last night.”
Telamon peered intently, shielding his eyes from the sun, until he had satisfied himself that the child’s determination was correct.
The party remained on the summit for most of an hour. During that time the three additional columns converged upon a single point at the foot of the mountains. The girl spotted another—horseback- or camel-mounted, it was too far to tell—then a sixth. All were coming together at the same notch at the base of the range.
“Give me a horse,” said Michael to Telamon. “Let me draw them off. The rest of you may see a chance to get through.”
The mercenary rejected this.
“Every party down there knows about the girl,” he said, “or suspects. They’d let you run. Even if they did chase you, the Arabs or the Black Hoods would run you down in minutes with three men or fewer. That notch will stay as stoppered as it is now.”
Telamon led the company back down the mountain to the hollow where the mules and horses waited. He unbound the sorceress from the boulder to which he had secured her.