"No," Nicholas said, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood. " Constantinople is the farthest east I'd been before this. Lad, have you been there?"
Dwyrin shook his head. Aelia Capitolina was one of the hill-cities in Judea, across the wasteland of the Sinai from Egypt. He had heard a little about it- a rough land with rocky valleys and hilltop orchardsbut had never set foot there. "Sorry, Centurion, I've been in Egypt at the School and up in Armenia. We kind of skipped the whole middle part:"
Nicholas sighed, then flicked the splinter out the window. "No matter. We're supposed to meet up with the rest of the century in Caesarea, and they- by this roster- are all veterans. They'll know the lay of the land, I'm sure. That will bring our strength up to just over a hundred men. Hopefully it will be enough to deal with these bandits. Hmm: I hope they can all ride, otherwise they'll be in for some rough instruction!"
Dwyrin nodded, though his thoughts were far away from the little cabin on the ship. Aelia Capitolina was not so far from Palmyra; perhaps he could work a finding pattern on his friends- if they could bring themselves to speak to him again. The raw pain throbbed in his gut again, and he reached for his beaker of wine. The sweet grape brought relief from the memories of Zoee's face and her terrible anger.
Nicholas looked over and grinned at Vladimir. The lad had fallen asleep, curled up in the bunk, his gear-bag under his head as a pillow. The Walach shrugged, but he seemed to have relaxed a little. " You're too nervous, my friend. He's a good soldier- he'll follow orders if nothing else. He won't singe your taiclass="underline" " Vladimir grimaced at the jibe and put his head in his hands. Nicholas watched him carefully. The nervous energy that had marked the Walach the day that they had met the two girls during the Triumph was absent, but something was preying on the dark-haired man's mind. Nicholas' fingers drifted to Brunhilde's hilt, which was close to hand. The touch calmed him, and her whispering voice settled his nerves. Despite what he had told the boy, he kept a very close eye on the Walach. They could not afford another incident, not while on a mission.
"Vlad, something is troubling you. What is it?"
The Walach looked up, his liquid dark eyes filled with lingering fear.
"We left just in time:," Vladimir whispered. "The dark Queen came to me in my dreams last night. If we had not left today, she and hers would hunt me tonight. I care not where we go, as long as it is away from that cursed city."
Nicholas nodded sagely, feeling the weight of his coin purse. It was a good day to leave- before a certain moneylender realized that the Gothic merchant he had lent so much coin to was not a merchant at all. Vladimir got up and crawled into his bunk, his face turned from the dim light of the lantern. Nicholas sat up, and went over the maps and scrawled notes he had received from the office. He was puzzled by the mission. The rapacity of desert bandits was trouble, to be sure, but not usually the kind of thing that he undertook. His masters back in Rome usually set him to hunt a man. This business of a whole province was new.
Rummaging in the dispatch bag, he took out a copy of the original report. It was penned in a straight, strong hand and had come from this hill-town in Judea, this Aelia Capitolina.
To the Magister Militatum, Eastern Empire, Constantinople.
Greetings,
Noble sir, I wish to draw your attention to the depredations of fierce bandits that have taken to infesting the hills around our town. As you know, this place has long been a hotbed of rebellion, religious fanatics, necromancers, and thieves. It pains me to admit that the local garrison, though loyal, is not able to deal with the troubles that beset us. To understand this, I must relate some of the history of this old city, once called Hierosolyma in the time of the Divine Emperor Trajan, or- in the native tongue- Jerusalem:
Nicholas read on, seeing a litany of feuds and wars and petty death. At last, his eyes grimy with exhaustion, he put the documents away and climbed into his own bunk. The roll and slap of the waves lulled him to sleep in moments. Soon they would reach the coast of Judea and get all these troubles straightened out.
The Jabal Al'jilf, Outside Petra, Capital of Roman Nabatea
Mohammed crouched down, his black beard and face thrown in sharp relief by the light of the hooded lantern he held in his hand. The lantern was a bronze box with an iron loop and a wooden handle. The candle inside was of the best beeswax that his foragers could find and it burned cleaner than he had hoped. His hand moved over the planed surface of the tunnel wall, feeling a rough patch. At some time in the past there had been an earth tremor, and the underground passage had been damaged. Part of the mountain that the tunnel bored through had slipped a foot or more. Artisans whose skill did not match the craft of the men who had first cut the tunnel had repaired it, leaving a jumble of bricks and plaster at the slippage point. Mohammed held the lantern out, peering into the tunnel beyond.
The passage continued, though it would be a bit of a squeeze to make it through the break. The Quryash turned and nodded to the men behind him. Then he ducked down and crawled through on one hand, the other holding the lantern just above the dusty floor. Like the long flight of steps that he and his army had ascended to reach the passage, it was cut from the raw sandstone of the mountains.
A hundred of the Sahaba followed him through the heart of the ridge, their swords sheathed or their spears muffled with wool. Despite this, the sound of their movement seemed very loud, magnified by the close space of the tunnel. They had crossed a highland plateau just after dark, after spending the heat of late afternoon toiling up into the hills that held the hanging gardens and water cisterns serviced by this passage. The main entrance to the city, the Siq, lay barely two hundred yards to their north. That passage was a narrow road that wound through a tight canyon. It was dark and twisty, with a man at midday unable to see the sun above his head. A dozen soldiers could hold it against an army, where it reached the first sight of the city. An elaborate tomb was there, where the passage suddenly opened out into daylight, and a garrison post. Mohammed had no intention of trying to force his way through that dogleg trap.
His army moved through the fringes of the rugged terrain that bounded the hidden city, following a goat path and tracks worn by farmers who cultivated tiny crops of wheat and rye and squash in meager patches of soil in the high canyons.
Steep cliffs and round-browed mountains ringed Petra in a fierce barricade. There were no gentle slopes of pine or juniper, but sheer wind-carved red stone instead. To the undiscerning eye, the heights of Kubtha and Al'Madras seemed impassible, the city impregnable behind the great gate and dam that closed the entrance to the Siq. Mohammed had often come to the Red City in his travels and he knew that there were other ways into the fastness. This was one, shown to him by a shepherd with a taste for foreign wine.
Mohammed smiled grimly, thinking that an Arab tribe- not grown soft in this easy northern land- would have put a guard on the dams and springs that provided water to the city. But these were troubled times, and the city garrison might have other concerns. The Quryash laughed inside at that. For his people, water was always the first concern. That, and secret ways into their city that might allow enemies to surprise them while they slept in their beds.
The tunnel ended, opening out onto a wilderness of great round boulders and canted slabs of sandstone. The moon had risen and the rocks were bathed in a cool light. Mohammed cast about with the lantern and then found a stairway leading down to the left. Beyond it, a path wound between the huge monoliths, cutting across the head of a narrow streambed that had worn its way into the rock of the mountain.