Daughters of Babylon (38 page)

Through lingering scents of mutton grease, Silvina caught glimpses of Thomas peering through the circular bands of light, the places in between the furrows where Arturo and the prioress conversed. “How did you end up here?” she asked the boy.

“Mom wrote poems for us every day. She’d rock and rock, and the vegetables grew, and the apricots and pecans were making us rich. Some of the villagers didn’t like our remembering. The priest said we were evil, but Mom and the other Daughters didn’t care.”

“I’ve been dreaming,” says the prioress, “of lands on fire, humans tied to stakes, the stench of burning flesh. I came to warn you, but perhaps you have no need of dreams from me.”

“To the contrary, Reverend Mother, you have always kept my spirit on course, and your dreams speak truly. Villagers from Cerabornes beat two shepherds to death last night, accusing them of heresy, theft, stealing wives and babies. We have a saying in Galician...”

Silvina felt a shudder of nausea that turned to confusion and then excitement as she mouthed the words along with the knight she recognized from somewhere.
“Cando os pastores están en perigo, a morte de Deus non pode estar moi lonxe.”
When shepherds live in peril, the death of God cannot be far behind.

“Well done.” Dr. Shirazi patted her left shoulder. “Rewarding, isn’t it, to recover one’s proficiencies. You were lucky to have a grandmother who kept you safe from doctors.”

The djinn’s commentary made it hard for Silvina to keep track. Thomas resided in the light bands, the medieval events took place in the dark; only the djinn seemed capable of traveling the corridor with her.

The knight pulls on his boots, stamps his feet a few times, and rises. Thrown over a chair is a long woollen cloak. He lifts the cloak and beneath it is a bulging leather satchel.

“Do you see it?” whispered Thomas excitedly.

“See what?” Silvina felt a pull of urgency but didn’t know where it was coming from, and Thomas didn’t answer.

“To leave now would be folly,” the prioress says. “The moon is not half full, the stairs slick with ice.”

“The orchard path is clear, and I know it well enough. God willing, I should be well past St. Jacques by daylight.”

“Well, at least, let me gather provisions for your journey. Two to three days’ worth will keep you off the main roads until you cross the border.”

“There is no time for that.”

“But I have not heard from the Reverend Mother Eusebia for months. For all we know, our sister priory in Aragón may already be ashes…”

A crackling, rhythmic stomping sound outside the cloister distracted Silvina. Not quite unified, except in the colour and shape of their intent, their minds were pushing in, squeezing the dimensions of old
Reine du Ciel
from all sides, like a fist around fruit. She could see them. They were the men of Cerabornes, the ones who’d beat the shepherds to death, only now they were greater in number, carrying clubs and sacks of stone and mortar, crosses round their necks, blessed by the priest, they trudged up the hillside.

The leather satchel is heavier than it looks. Arturo grunts as he lifts the strap over his head.

“Do you have them all?”

“I took whatever was in the vault.”

“Now do you see it?” A series of furrows lit up, turning the corridor from gloomy infra-red to a miasmic yellow. She suspected it was Thomas who made that happen, running off ahead, the way happy kids do when they’re excited.

“Do I see what?” she said. “The leather bag?”

Arturo throws the cloak over his shoulders and pins it shut, concealing the satchel. “Your loyalty will be well rewarded, Reverend Mother.”

“For the love of saints!” Tears spill down the old woman’s cheeks, and she claws at the starched tight fabric at her neck. “Would it be so great a sin in these remaining moments for you to call me Catarina—or is your heart is still tied to her?”

His face crinkles into a sad, beautiful smile. “No, dear wife, it would not be so great a sin.”

And it suddenly dawned on Silvina what the men of Cerabornes were doing, hiding in the bushes with cudgels, stones, and mortar until Arturo departed, not giving a rip about the old knight. Gavriel showed her that first day the ruins of stone in the refectory that stood thicker than the rest.
La Tapiada
, he’d called her. The walled woman.

Eleanor had never known what became of Catarina. How could she, sequestered and mouldering for eight years at that point, and still Henry’s prisoner in England? Silvina leaped with the combined strength of who she’d been and who she was—not so terrible a thing, knowing—toward the dark bands to warn her former lady-in-waiting, but as soon as her feet left the floor of the corridor, her being, her entire physicality fell apart. She pixillated into hexagons of light, confetti, bits of tiny coloured memory, and all that remained were random, floating senses.

“I told you to be careful!” Thomas cried out, his voice wracked with distress. “I thought you’d be smarter than Aunt Viv and my Mom and the rest, but you’re not!”

And all around her was a click-click-clicking, the sound of a triumphant djinn laughing.

The boy and the shaman-poet in his light body crept along a band of spectral frequencies, one behind the other, that arced over the hut of the dying
bruja
. In realms of time, the scene they observed, unnoticed, as if from ceiling rafters, was taking place in the year 1182 A.D., the season, winter; location, the mountains of Gudal in Teruel, Aragón. And vastly, across space, upon the throne of Aragón-Barcelona sat Alfonso II, friend of Richard the Lionheart and composer of verse, a troubadour in his own right.

A storm had moved in from the southeast, bringing pellets of icy rain that pushed through the crumbling mortar of the
caseta
, whistling gusts of cold air through the chimney. A cauldron of white bean soup bubbled softly from an iron hook over the fire. The woman sat on a three-legged stool and threw in her last handfuls of kindling. She poked at the logs shooting sparks and flakes of ash into the air. When the fire went out, she would lie down, cover herself in fleece and let the cabin grow cold. If she felt so inclined, she might savour bean soup one last time.

While into the court of Alfonso, her king in Barcelona,
rubielos de la Cérida
were slowly making their way—small, dangerous poems, rousing and intentional, said to draw from the power of pre-Christian pockets of terrain still ruled by
La Diosa
, the Goddess Ceres. Troubadours spoke of one knight in particular, former Dedicate to the imprisoned Queen of England, whose skill at
rubielos
was so pronounced, so immediate and all-encompassing in its effect that Creation itself could be renewed. And if the king’s sources were correct, he was somewhere at this very moment in the kingdom.

“Hmph, how about that?” Gavriel said, from his spectral vantage.

“Shh,” said the boy. “The lady’s a witch.”

The wafting aromas of garlic and onion caused the old woman’s belly to rumble, while the storm drove a solitary traveller to the only hut with smoke wisping from the chimney. People used to journey often to the house of the
bruja
, high on the mountain pass, and she herself had traveled every year to the painted caves where carnivals were held, and she would set bones, cure fevers, and cast stones of fate. But those days were gone. The Cistercian order was spreading its dark, humourless wing across these mountains, and soon, the secret places of
La Diosa
would be discovered and destroyed, and women with her skills and inclination would become kindling.

“Do you have a line yet?” the boy asked the shaman, whose ear for Catalán and Iberian rhythms, in general, brightened their location to a hopeful green.

“A scattering of words, no lines. There’s so much coming in, I don’t know where to look.”

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to,” said the boy whose name was Thomas. “I’ve been at this awhile. Stay close behind me, and don’t focus on any one thing for too long.”

“I don’t understand why you’ve brought us here,” said Gavriel, who’d watched his friend Silvina vanish before his eyes, fully flesh and vibrant one moment, a vacuous shimmer like a heat mirage the next.

He’d understood it was her naming the djinn that caused the rift, suspected too that she had created an unintentional corridor of power through her intricate assembling of poetry, a vortex of energy he’d not anticipated. And he also felt responsible.

Then he heard her shout from the
foganha
: “Look behind the Big Dipper!” He thought she’d meant the constellation, some kind of metaphor. But it was midday, no stars to be seen, and she’d mentioned a dipper moments earlier, a small one at the sink, partner to its larger counterpart hanging on the wall panel.

A crowbar from Jean-Luc’s toolbox in the van exposed ancient stairs and a tunnel in short order, but Silvie was not there—the wall clearly hadn’t been opened in years—and 340 people in caravans and tents were expecting his return. Gavriel decided in a shaman’s maneuver to split himself, appearing to function normally at the Navarrosa event while searching energetic pathways for his friend. No sooner had he made that decision than Thomas showed up in his mind’s eye. “I can help you. I’ve seen her.” He also knew about the djinn who’d attached himself to Vivian and was now accompanying Silvina. After fourteen hours of real time, Gavriel had yet to catch a glimpse of inorganic being or woman, and he was having trouble believing he would find Silvie in 12th century Aragón.

“Just keep watching,” Thomas said.

The old woman carried the stool to the small table at the center of the room. From a shelf beside the hearth she took down a bowl and ladle. She was lifting the first spoonful of soup to her mouth when there came a pounding at the door. She was so startled she forgot to blow and burnt her mouth. The pounding came again.

Who, at this hour, would disturb an old woman? Some brigand, a king’s guard, his wages guzzled, intent on pillaging her meager possessions. If she did not answer the door, he or they would break it down.

She picked up the iron poker and crossed the room. At the door, she spoke in her clearest
bruja
voice. “Who knocks? Declare yourself.”

“I am a traveller, man of words, who…his way.”

The wind had made off with part of what he said, but she caught enough to sense his turmoil. “I have no horses and no money.”

“A few moments of warmth is all I ask…some directions, if you would be so kind.”

Perhaps this was a test, a final rigour to determine the levels of Paradise to which she’d be entitled. She slid the bolt across the door and opened it.

The broad-shouldered man in a long woollen cloak towered over her even with his head bowed. The hood of his garment was pulled close against the wind, and in his right hand, he gripped a walking staff. Without looking up, he stepped across the threshold, nodding his thanks, then faltered.

She reached out to steady him, and a heavy leather satchel swung out from inside the cloak, walloping her across the shoulder and breast, nearly knocking her over.

“Forgive me,” he said, pulling the bag into the folds of his cloak and wincing as he caught her, mid-fall. His breath was raspy, and she saw with a healer’s eye that every move and word cost him dear. He dragged himself another step or two, enough for her to close the door and to understand the cause of his suffering. From the middle of his back, there protruded the long quivering shaft of an arrow—

“That’s it!” said the boy, who dove across the arcs of light as if they were cascading waterfalls, and he, a lithe young salmon.

For Gavriel to follow into realms of such high frequency, even with his training, was impossible. The boy was gone. But he could see the final moments of the man he’d once been, and his heart wrenched at all that Arturo de Padrón had achieved and failed to do. He poured strength and gratitude to the old woman who’d wanted nothing more that night than to fall asleep and not waken. He watched her remove the arrow—shot by whom, he didn’t know and didn’t care. Tears fell onto the empty page of his notebook where he’d written three lines of a rubielo since the boy asked.

I find you scattered cross

the river bed, translucent

stones of pink and violet

The notebook sat on Gavriel’s lap in his bed at St. Jacques de la Rivière, the Navarossa weekend with its workshops and gala award dinner over, his mind and body exhausted. He never should have asked Silvina to pick up where he and Viv left off. If he’d known there was sorcery involved, if he’d known she would take his request so damned seriously—but he hadn’t.

Gavriel watched the frail, kind, determined woman lay Arturo’s scarred and battered body across the floor where she washed him gently with warm water. She placed copper coins, her last, upon his eyes, wrapped gauze around his head and chin, and spoke the prayers to La Cérida she’d known since childhood. When there was nothing more that could be done, she climbed into bed, pulled the covers over her face, and closed her eyes. If the
bruja
noticed during her labours that the satchel on the table shimmered, oscillated, and disappeared, she gave no sign. All things, Gavriel thought, find their way home.

and bitter green, a gown

once radiant, a smile worth

the crossing of a kingdom

swordless, while my paying

guests the ones I guide

they want to know the value.

Are they gems? I tell them

no, the only lie that lies

between us now.