My name is Tiberius Gaius, and I have been asked by Jacob the rabbi to keep a written account of our journey. Who are we, and where are we bound? To that I know no better answer than this: we are a mixed company of orphans, widowers, wives and young men, brought together by chance or Providence in a design which I cannot yet read. Cassius, our leader, insists there is nothing to read, and that as I grow older I will come to realize this. Perhaps he is right, but I do not believe it.

It is no accident that I speak of him first, Drusus Cassius, soldier of Rome. For until very recently he and I shared a common bond, an irresolvable conflict which has been the dominant theme of my life. For we both loved, alas, still do love, the same woman.

But reading back what I have thus far written, I see that this disjointed narrative is no way to make a start. If future generations are to read this chronicle, and understand what it is to be alive in this of Age of Darkness, I must somehow order my thoughts. I must find a way to tell you who we are, and where we come from. For where we are bound, none can say.

Cassius is our leader, a Roman like myself. Yet very unlike myself. He fought in Rome’s latter wars, for which I do not envy him. Had he been born during the time of Julius Caesar, he would have been part of the greatest army the world has ever seen. Perhaps also the most destructive, I do not know. As it is he was thrust into a desperate battle to protect a failing Empire. It was a fight he could not win, and in it he lost everything: his country, his family, his reason to live. But he has found another, in Ariel. Too well do I understand her power to heal the dying heart, and instill in it the desire to live and keep giving. I would do anything for her.

Ariel is his woman. I do not say his wife, for no ceremony was ever performed between them. But she bears his child, the reason I at last relented, and there is no denying the bond between them. He took her from a smoldering village, savaged and laid bare by barbarians, and in so doing saved her life. For a time I believed it was only gratitude she felt for him. And fear, for he is not a gentle man. Yet it is not so. And though he is some years older, neither can it be truthfully said that he is but a replacement for her father, who abandoned her in childhood.

Oh, let it go, Gaius. The sweet, soul-stirring creature is not yours. You will never stroke her long dark hair, or feel her radiant eyes turn their love upon you. Nor touch her cheek, nor kiss her full and sensuous lips. Her olive skin and supple figure, the possession of another man. Stop torturing yourself and go on.
But a gentle touch, a living body interposing itself between my arms and settling comfortably in my lap, have just reminded me that I am not alone. It is Sarah, my adopted daughter. That word is still very new to us both, and even as I write it, I feel again all the emotion it engenders in me. I would not have believed such feelings possible. But as I kiss her hair and wrap my arms about her, reassurance to us both, I believe in this moment that anything is possible.

Her parents were killed but recently, a trauma which in her extreme youth I do not know how she survived. For she is but a child, five years old. Yet somehow she did survive. And more than this, she greets each day, each rising of the sun as a thing entirely new, in a world full of hope and promise. How much better a man might I be, if I could learn to do the same!

And despite the presence of a living uncle, Malachi, she has chosen, and been given, to me. To me, can you understand? A living child, to care for and protect. And not just any child. I have heard it said there is a special pride that only a natural parent can feel, and I do not doubt it. But I assure you, the love I hold for her is deep, and tender, and things which I cannot begin to tell you.

I am told that she resembles her mother, though I do not see it. Perhaps at times in her expression, though that is natural enough. For she is one of those rare and special children who strongly resemble neither mother nor father, but is a unique creation unto herself. Her hair is blonde and brown, her eyes chestnut, rayed with gold. And her smile. It is like the morning sun, the song of birds, the gurgling of a fountain. Perhaps if I were less devoted to her I could give you a more objective description. But that is impossible, so let this stand. She is beauty itself in my eyes. And if others cannot see it, so much the worse for them.
But now I must break off the narrative, for we are approaching the port city of Barceno. I will tell you quickly that here we mean, despite the danger, to acquire a larger vessel. For the winter sea, even our temperate Mediterranean, can be bitterly cold at night. And Malachi is ill. The open boat in which we travel is sturdy, but provides little shelter from the elements. If we cannot improve upon it, he will surely die.

Enough, Cassius said just now. I must go.

II

Well, it is done, and there is much to tell. But if you are to understand what has just happened, I must go back a bit and explain how I, a Roman youth on the threshold of manhood, came to be so far from my home. In so doing perhaps I may also shed some light on how Cassius came to be here, in the wilds of outlaw Spain.

Rome had been conquered by barbarians, sacked, as any future history must surely record. It was in the hopeless battle before its gates that Cassius was severely wounded, and in the brutal pillaging that followed, lost his wife and son. Though he is reluctant to speak of it, I have learned from Ariel that he fled in despair but a short time afterward, in the same boat we have but recently abandoned. He made land for the last time just north of here, after a wandering of untold years. I know nothing more of that time than that it was spent on both land and sea, a journey without destination, a self-imposed exile, a futile attempt to renounce and forget. For he lives on, and is called once more to lead and to protect.
But as to Rome, and to myself, know this. The Gothic leader, Alaric, did not remain long upon the city he had raped. Migration and pillage were all he understood, and he had neither the interest nor the intellect to rule what remained of the Empire. He left Rome but a short time after he entered it, heading south with the horde he had mustered. From the scattered accounts that reached us, it seems he went on to fight several meaningless battles, tried to take Naples but failed in the attempt. He then mustered a fleet at Rhegium, meaning, it is thought, to sail on to Africa. But a storm arose and wrecked them in the straits. Alaric turned back inland, and promptly died of fever.

No tears were shed for him in Rome, I assure you, and the only reason I record this is to relate its effects upon our ravaged city, and my subsequent arrival here.

As the Goths left Rome, and went on to ill fortune at sea, we were able to recover ourselves somewhat, though still living in fear of the barbarian dagger, deep within the breast of Italy. Honorius was now an Emperor in name only. Of his character, or lack of the same, you need know only this. He lived in constant fear of the return of Alaric’s forces, now led by his half-brother, Ataulf. In the hope of appeasing him, and therefor remaining alive and in power, Honorius put to the sword many of the old ruling class. Among those executed was my father, Antony Tiberius, Senator of Rome. I am his illegitimate son, and he used my mother badly. For this reason I could not mourn his death. But by simply being his son, I too must be punished. I was given this choice: enlist in the army then mustering, or be executed in turn. For obvious reasons I chose the former.

Then Honorius, at the urging of Ataulf, assembled and despatched a fleet for Spain, with the absurd idea of conquering the Vandals, and bringing it once more into the Empire. I say absurd for two reasons. First, our army was little more than an organized rabble, a few legitimate Roman forces, thrown together with mercenaries from half the tribes of Europe. Second, because the Vandals are the most skilled and savage warriors of the realm.

As to their reputation for cruelty and senseless brutality, I have witnessed it with my own eyes. Ariel’s mother died of it. Krieg, the strongest man I know, was broken by it. And I will see charging horsemen in troubled dream all the days of my life. It is no small comfort to know that whatever lies ahead, the Vandals are behind us.

But here, I am ahead of myself.

My journey to Spain was indescribable. Sitting at the rowing bench day after day, seeing nothing but the ribbed bowels of the galley, and the sweat-stained backs of the men in front of me. The nights were worse still, forever watching my own back, in constant fear of the rough and foul smelling men all around me. Some of them openly sought to use me as a girl, and threatened violence when I refused. I would hate them still, but for the knowledge they are dead. Or worse than dead. It was the darkest time of my life, but it prepared me for what was to come.

The fleet finally arrived at Barceno, on the northeastern coast of Spain. We made anchor, and after assembling unopposed, headed inland. After some early success against their weaker cousins, the Sueves, we ran afoul of the Vandals, and met with the inevitable disaster. I survived only by feigning mortal injury, and hiding among the corpses of my fallen comrades. For friends, too, had been sent on this fool’s quest.

If I seem to tell this lightly, it is not what I feel. I simply lack the skill to express it any other way. For I was educated as a scribe, and though I have copied many learned texts—the reason that Jacob has asked me to keep this journal—I have never set quill to parchment for any meaningful work of my own. I despair of my ability to do so, but it seems I must try.

So far as I know, I am the only true Roman to have survived the Battle of Bent River, and this at terrible cost. For I nearly bled, then froze, to death. And this I surely would have done if something indefinable, and in whose existence I would not have believed, had not risen up inside me. Perhaps that is why I still seek the God that Cassius denies. For if I had not seen the glint of his sword, calling to me like a pillar of fire, I would never have made for the point, been found by him and carried to shelter. For this reason also, the three of us are closely linked—myself, Cassius and Ariel—though to what end I cannot say.

But whatever the cause, the Vandals, after routing our forces and returning east to finish the Sueves, did not destroy the fleet that brought me here. Perhaps, God help us, they hope to use it to expand their own empire. At all events it remained, safely anchored in the port of Barceno. The great mainmasts of the galleys could be seen several miles out to sea, and inspired Cassius with the plan we have just executed.

Here is what happened.

III

The sun had set perhaps an hour before. A half moon struggled fitfully through the streaming cloud cover. All was dark and hushed. The tide was calm, neither with us or against us. Cassius and I took to the oars, and rowed into the harbor as quietly as we could. We passed the northern headland, like a great horn thrust out into the water. At its height stood a lonely pillar, carved in the classic style and set upon a massive pedestal. Erected far in the fabled past as a tribute to Augustus, it loomed eerily against the darkling sky, reminding us that this had once been a Roman port. As indeed all the Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria, Carthage to Athens, had once been. The Roman sea, the bath of Tiberius. Even the chaos brought by the barbarians cannot erase Rome’s monuments. Though the body of the Empire has died, though all around are the signs of decay, these bones will live on. To some a testament to tyranny, to others the mark of greatness. For I have seen both, and cannot honestly choose between them.

As I said, we rowed as soundlessly as we could. But in the calm waters, as we moved slowly in among the galleys, every creak of the oarlocks, every straining of rope and chain as the ships fretted against their moorings, seemed a thing intolerably loud. I fancied I could even hear the beating of my heart. As we passed between two of the largest, their great sides loomed like frowning cliffs above us. I could not help but think of the men, both good and bad, who had journeyed so far within them, and come to such a terrible end. My imagination thus stirred, these dark hulks now seemed a fleet of ghost ships, a prison of lost souls, unearthly and unreal.

But whatever Cassius thought, he remained locked onto his purpose. He whispered harshly for me to return my attention to the oar, and keep my eyes sharp for any sign of torch or lamp that would signal a watch was kept within. But there was naught to be seen. If a guard had been posted, they remained dark and silent.

The wind freshened, turning from the north, and all at once the moon broke free. After the clinging darkness that had come before it, the pale light it shed seemed almost bright. We were coming to the stone quays now. Torches could be seen there, and still we found no ship that could be manned by so slight a crew. Though his face was partly hidden in shadow, I knew Cassius well enough to read the marks of rage upon it. He looked at each of the ships in turn, no doubt recalling Rome in its glory, and dreaming of what he would do with such a fleet, and an army of his own. Or perhaps one ship and a handful of fierce men would be enough, to raid the coast as pirates, and carry off the women and the gold.

I should not speak of him this way. In truth I do not know what he thought. I only know that he was angry, to have to leave such a prize behind. But by now we had come too close to land, and could hear muffled voices from within the open doors of the guardhouse. So we turned and headed back again, this time weaving a different path among the abandoned vessels.

But as we left the lights and voices behind, a different thought seemed to come to him. He turned to me and asked quietly, did I know which were the armorers’ ships’? I replied truthfully I did not, but that, speaking for the ship I myself had been on, it was fully stocked, the weapons more numerous than the men. At this he muttered something about mercenaries, and the old days. Then pointing to the most impressive galley we had yet seen, he said that we must make a search. If we could not take a ship, we must at least avail ourselves of better weapons. Together we rowed toward it to find the gangway, the netting of rope, still trailing forlornly over the side, as if awaiting the return of its vanished crew.

“Hold tight to the ropes,” he instructed Jacob and Malachi. “If you hear fighting within, cast off. If we survive it we will hail you. If not, you had best be gone.” That is his way, blunt and without feeling. But it served his purpose, for both Jacob and Malachi forgot their fatigue, and rousing themselves to strict attention, did what was asked. Then Cassius and I clambered up and over the side.

Again there was no light, no sight or sound that anyone remained on board. We nearly tripped over the body of a man on the deck, near the cabins of the officers. This only confirmed what we might have guessed: that the few Romans left behind to guard the fleet and keep it in readiness, had been attacked and killed by the Vandals. Cassius entered a cabin through the broken door, returned with a torch and flints. We moved below decks, felt more than saw the great belly of the ship. It took a good deal of time to strike even a modest flame to the old and disused torch, and he cursed the world in general beneath his breath. But at last the bulbous end spluttered with life.

When it at last caught solid fire, we had a rude shock. There before us, between the rowing benches that I knew so well, was a man. He had been tied to the mast, which rose from the keel below, and up through the deck to its height some hundred feet above. But tied is not the right word, for it implies the use of rope. Again my lack of skill hinders me. I must simply tell you what I saw, in the only words that will come to me.

After a victory the Vandals are notorious for two things: greed and torture. Often the two are employed together. The man before us was an officer, and they must have believed he knew more than he told, of treasure and of secret compartments. So they made a small gash in his abdomen, pulled out a gut, and wrapped it around and around him, perhaps asking at each new turn if his memory had grown clearer. Surely the man knew nothing, for at least twenty feet of intestine had been wrapped around him and nailed to the mast. The dead man was now hunched and falling forward among them, with dozens of rats upon, and all about him. It was a sickening sight, and I will say no more about it.

The door of the armory was broken in as well, and at first I thought we had come in vain. But being horsemen, and shunning both breastplate and helm as the uniform of cowards, two things had been left untouched: armor and spears, the two things Cassius wanted. But now he was growing uneasy for the safety of the others. He quickly handed me a bundle of spears, ordered me to take them over the side and be sure there were no signs of danger. So I left him, and did not return for several minutes.

When I did return, stepping furtively over the gunnel, I received a further shock. My mind still pondering the spirits of the dead, I was perhaps left vulnerable. Whatever the cause, my limbs froze utterly and my breath would not come. For there, standing in the fore of the ship and wrapped in mist and moonlight, I saw what was surely a spirit of days past, an apparition of Rome as it had been.

A warrior, a general, a leader of men, stood gazing forward with one foot upon the prow, dreaming of glory, and conquest, and ruling all the world. His face was set and determined, as if he sailed down from Olympus on a wind of the gods. In time he turned, and looked at me.

The apparition, the spirit world, dissolved at once. But still the warrior remained, a man born out of his proper time, a vision of the past. It was Cassius, of course. He had found within the armory not only steel and plume, but memories, some no doubt painful, but still too strong to let go. For the memories of a Roman soldier do not begin with his birth, nor end with his death. They are passed down from father to son, an unbroken chain reaching back to the time of Romulus: tales of honor and glory turned golden by the years, become myth, not mere words but a profession of Faith: a belief in righteous conquest, the foundation of order and discipline upon a dark and chaotic world. I must say as I watched him there in stark resplendence, I half believed it myself.

But only half. I could not forget that for every battle won is a battle lost, by death and mutilation. That for every stirring victory of Rome, there was a crushing defeat for those with the courage to resist her. That each time she added another jewel to her crown, a nation was no more, its people subjugated or scattered, thrown into the bondage of slavery, or sent on the long, futile road of the refugee. And that for every ruthless man who prospered, one of perhaps more compassionate nature must be broken. The human cost of Empire is high indeed.

Oh yes, I have seen war and slavery first-hand: the death of young men and young dreams, the rape of woman and the anguish of child. Taken all together, I cannot mourn the loss of the old order. No need. Cassius mourns it for us both.

He quickly came back to himself, pointed to a pile of breastplates and javelins that together we would carry. And soon enough we were back in the boat, rowing on in search of a vessel better suited to our purpose.

There was no indecision of the tide now; it was squarely against us. And combined with the wind from the north it set the black hulks swaying at their anchors, drifting apart and coming together in a most alarming way. Once we were nearly crushed, as a forty-oar galley and a lesser craft, double-anchored like the rest, but by vastly different lengths of chain, came close to colliding.

But the size and shape of the smaller vessel were not lost upon Cassius, who now seemed doubly determined. Shortly thereafter he whispered that we must be coming to the ships of the high officers, designed to carry fewer men, in greater comfort. Perhaps also meant to carry off the spoils: the women and the gold. Anyone who doubts that lust and greed are the prime forces behind conquest, does not know the hearts of such men.

Nor was Cassius wrong. The warlike galleys behind us, we came among a gathering of lesser ships. No portals for the oars to come rattling out, no armored sides, or treble thick prows for ramming. These were sailing ships.

But alas, still too large for our purpose. Again Cassius was wroth, and this time I shared his frustration. Had we been but a few more men, here were swift and sure vessels of trade, easily turned to our purpose. For we mean to search the Mediterranean, from one side to the other if necessary, for an island we can call our own. A lofty goal perhaps, but one which is shared by all of us. Alas that we are but four men, one ill and the other aged. Not enough.

But the stubborn will that is Cassius’ dominant trait asserted itself once more. If we could not take the trim yacht before us, we must at least search it for coin and jewels. For surely somewhere in the world are places where people still trade for the necessary goods instead of killing for them.

We drew closer. The vessel looking both sleek and fast, I wondered aloud if it were not the ship of the Consul General himself, and therefor ripe for plucking. Cassius only grunted. In my eagerness I had forgotten the Vandals, who were likely to have drawn the same conclusion, and searched this prize more thoroughly than the rest. I will admit that on this occasion, as on many others, with the least effort he was able to make me feel like a foolish child. That is the way he rules us. By calling attention to our weakness he asserts his own strength, his right to lead. I will also confess that it has begun to grate on me.

As we boarded we found less violence and mayhem: there were blood-stains on the deck but no bodies. I thought this strange, but said nothing. Such a detail was not likely to escape his notice, and I had no intention of giving him further cause for rebuke.

The door of the main cabin had been stoved in, the place ransacked.

But Cassius, again lighting the torch, was meticulous in his search, examining nooks and corners that I would not have given a second thought.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“If this is the Consul’s ship,” he answered gruffly, “then it was built with secrecy and craft. The Vandals are greedy, to be sure, but perhaps they won’t be as patient. And I know a shipwright’s trick or two.” He stopped. Running his fingers along the inner seam of a closet, he tapped first against the back, which rang hollow behind, then pushed on the top of a piece of inlaid hardwood. At this the other end, near the bottom, swung out. He lifted it further, and a kind of rude handle was in his hand. He tried to pull, and then to push. Failing in this, he took it in both hands and applied a sideways pressure. A panel slid open, half the height of a man, and a shadowed space loomed empty beyond.

But not for long. Something lept out of it, hands clutching wildly at Cassius’ throat. He fell back with a cry of rage, and was soon wrestling with a lesser figure on the floor, and reaching for his knife.
Perhaps because I had not been attacked, my senses returned more quickly, and I saw the possibility of a tragic mistake. But already Cassius had drawn the knife from its sheath, and I knew that I must act at once. There was time for nothing else but to step on his wrist and try to take the blade from him. For in battle he is the most fierce and thoughtless man I have ever known. But at the pain and immobility this caused he let out a second cry, more terrible than the first, and turned his fury on me.

“Cassius!” I cried as I fell, his hand collapsing my knee from behind. “Cassius, stop! He’s just a boy.”

My words must finally have reached him, and at least partly allayed his fear of betrayal, for he loosed his hold on me. But not on the other.

“If you ever do that again,” he said menacingly, seeming to address us both, “I swear to God I’ll kill you.” Need I say that he meant it? But at the words that passed between us the boy had ceased to struggle. This puzzled me until he said, also in Latin.

“You are Roman?”

“Yes,” I answered, the three of us still in a tangle on the floor. “I was part of the army that sailed here, under Count Asterius.”

“My master,” he replied, becoming almost docile. But I thought at the time, and still do, that this was more out of conditioned obedience than a passive temperament.

At this we gathered ourselves and stood up, myself confused, Cassius seething, the stranger watchful and unsure. I recovered the torch and held it up. Cassius, who had never loosed his grip on him, held the boy forward in the light to examine him.

I exaggerate when I say boy. He was perhaps fourteen, a few years younger than myself. From his darker hair and skin, along with large and intelligent eyes, I wondered if he might be Greek. Cassius voiced this same conclusion, along with another I would not have guessed.

“Athenian?” he asked bluntly.

“Yes.”

“Pleasure slave?”

“Yes.”

I could not believe the young man said this without blushing. I could not know then, as I do now, that he had been raised, more truly bred, for this purpose and no other, by a slave trader from Sicily. I knew only that he was handsome, almost godlike, and his Latin flawless.

“Attack me again,” said Cassius without mercy, “and I’ll make you a eunuch as well.”

“I’m sorry,” said the youth, though he flushed more in anger than embarrassment. Such a strange combination of emotions. His attempted manner was one of supplication, and of something else for which I have no name. He was, and still is, an enigma.

“I don’t want your apology,” said Cassius, not letting go of him. The young man then tried to put a hand to his face, but Cassius knocked it aside. “I don’t want that, either. Are you alone?”

At this the youth hesitated, as if protecting someone.

“No,” came a voice, from within the shadowed hiding place. I was startled to see the same face appear again, this time streaming with tears. “Are you all right, Alexander?” asked the twin in a higher, almost womanly voice. And unlike his brother, this youth exhibited all the emotions I would have expected in such an encounter. His face registered both fear and shame: at his profession, and for his cowardice at remaining hidden while his brother fought for both their lives.

“Yes, Cleades,” replied that brother. “You will not hurt him in any way,” he said to us, no longer trying to submerge his fierce protective instinct.

I began to assure them both that it was all right, we would not hurt them, but had to check myself. For I had seen Cassius in the role of inquisitor before, and knew that any compassion I showed would only make him harder and more ruthless. He must satisfy himself that the newcomers posed no threat.
But to my surprise he did not seem to consider the twins dangerous. Or perhaps that concern was overshadowed by the danger, and immediate need of our position. The dawn could not now be more than two hours off, and we had not yet found our ship.

But as Cassius studied the two in silence, regarding the callouses on their hands and the strength of their arms—Alexander in particular was like a living sculpture of Apollo—I saw the inner conflict written on his face. An idea was stirring in his mind, as I realized with a qualm of fear and sudden hope what he intended.

“Get the others,” he said decisively. “You boys, you know how to sail this ship?” A statement more than a question.

“Of course,” began Alexander, but in an instant Cassius’ knife was at his throat.

“Obey my orders,” he said mercilessly, “and you leave here with us. Cross me once, just once, and there will be two more blood-stains on the deck. Do you understand!”

Alexander could not answer without plunging the blade into the soft flesh beneath his chin, so Cleades answered for them both, nodding emphatically.

“Good,” snarled Cassius. “Raise the anchor at my signal, then set the mainsail. I will man the tillers. And if you value your lives, guide me well..... Move, Gaius!”

In truth I had barely hesitated, only wanting to be sure that the brothers would help us. But with Cassius even this small humanity was too much. As a Centurion, and of the legendary short swordsmen at that, he is too accustomed to giving orders, and having them obeyed without the least thought or comment. For such is the creed of the true soldier class.

Of our treacherous passage out of the harbor, with the wind sometimes swirling and the tide dead against us, I will say only this. It is the most desperate chance we have taken for weeks, and that is saying much. It is a wonder we did not smash ourselves to pieces against the other ships that leered and swayed around us. As it is we collided with one such vessel, doing extensive damage to the beak and starboard rail, perhaps deeper in the bows as well.

And whether we were far enough out of sight when the light came, or any on land had heard our tumultuous passage, none of us can say. Cassius had us furl the sails just before the sun cleared the horizon, and let us drift northeastward with the current. But whether this was enough to convince a watchful eye on shore that the ship had simply lost its moorings and drifted out to sea, I do not know. No other vessel has appeared all the long day, and with sails once again straining at the masts, we now make our way steadily east and south. We will see.

But this entry has run longer than I meant, and the daylight is fading. More than once Cassius has threatened to throw the scroll on which I write over the side, and me along with it, though in truth I have worked as hard as anyone. I only wanted to get this down fresh, for it may be several days before I can return to the narrative.

Enough, Gaius. No one reads this but yourself. See to your daughter’s care. Take your watch on deck, then sleep.

IV

I said previously that it might be several days before I could return to the narrative. Alas that I spoke the truth. Not long afterwards, Alexander reported that we were taking on water. For Cleades had discovered a leak near the bow, just above the water line. That is to say, just above the water line when we are not moving. And needless to say, we have every reason to move.

On hearing the news, Cassius let forth a series of curses which seemed excessive even for him. He accused the two brothers of everything from poor guidance to deliberate sabotage. But they seem accustomed to such treatment, for they were not much ruffled by it. Instead they quietly set to work, Cleades to preparing a temporary seal of wood and caulk, Alexander to rouse out buckets, and establish a human chain to bail the water and throw it over the side.

But with all our efforts, the leak would not be stopped. During a storm two nights after—and here I must tell you that a squall you think nothing of on land can be quite perilous at sea—the long, vertical crack deepened, and we no longer bailed to keep the prow high in the water, but for our very lives. And when the storm subsided, it became clear that if we did not make land and undertake more serious repairs, the ship would be lost. It is true we still had Cassius’ boat tied up behind; but our hopes, if not our lives, would be ended unless we did.

This put us in a quandary. For we had been heading due east, away from land, most of all, away from Vandal Spain. And though the brothers have some knowledge of navigation, and with the clearing skies were able to roughly establish our position on the charts, it was clear to all of us that escaping Spain entirely—that is to say, making for southern Gaul—would be a difficult, if not impossible undertaking.
But Cassius was adamant. I realize now that what I once took for rage, is in fact a kind of fear: fear for the safety of Ariel, his adopted son and unborn child. He has changed of late, become quite protective of them. And while Ariel welcomes the change, and I in fairness cannot condemn it, he has become, if anything, more ruthless with the rest of us. To a man we argued that the south of France was an unreachable goal. And to a man he rebuked us, saying that if we returned to Vandal-occupied territory we might just as well cut our own throats. Or nail our own guts to the mast.

But I have begun to learn the value sometimes of an intractable will. For though the intervening days have been nothing short of hell on earth, moving all the cargo to the back of the ship, rigging a fathering sail across the bows, and bailing incessantly night and day, in the end we achieved our purpose. After turning to the northeast, and sailing on in such a state for nearly a fortnight, we spotted land. And not the stark mountains rising row upon row of the Pyrenees, but the gentler slopes and beaches of southern Gaul.

But even here we must find a safe place to make landfall, and repair our gallant ship. No small task, since we must not only be out of sight of plundering eyes on land, but in a place calm and shallow enough that when the tide is out her bows will rest easy upon a sandbar, and we can set to work with more permanent repairs.

When at last we found such a sheltered mooring, an isolated inlet two days’ journey to the east, we brought her in gently with the tide, and secured her from both land and sea. And though by this point we were completely exhausted, Cassius and I used his launch to go ashore and look about us.

We moved with some trepidation, for any clear sign of the land beyond was blocked by the granite outcroppings that rose to either side of the stream. Anyone looking down on us as we climbed would have caught us at a severe disadvantage. And with Jacob’s bow across my chest, Franzi’s arms about Cassius’ neck, we had no small trouble in reaching the more level ground beyond.

Franzi. I now realize there are some within the company whom I have not yet mentioned. Please allow me to do so now.

Franzi is Cassius’ adopted son. Born to the warlike Vandals, and abandoned by them on the battlefield where his father was slain, he is so much the son of a soldier—both his natural father and now Cassius—that I often find myself thinking of him not as a child, but as a fifth appendage, the living shadow of our leader. They go everywhere together, and it was only with harsh command and much hard feeling that he was able to make the boy remain behind as we searched the ships at Barceno. He is, incredibly, only four years old.

Then there are Jacob, Meryl and Malachi to tell you of, and I can proceed less encumbered.

Jacob is our senior member and spiritual leader. He is a Rabbi, and a man whom all in the company save Cassius hold in high esteem. It was he who conceived, and saw to the building of the mountain fortress that for a time kept us safe among the swirling dangers all around. That its secret was in time discovered, its sanctuary violated, is in no way his fault, nor the fault of any living man. This modern-day Masada was simply overtaken by events. A great battle—indeed, the one in which I myself took part—was fought near the base of the great rise on which it was built, and in its aftermath the inevitable stragglers and deserters found us out. And though Jacob tries to keep such feelings to himself, and to project to the rest of us an aura of Faith and confidence, that we will not feel ourselves abandoned by God, I know it wounds him dearly to think that the refuge he created for his people, became in the end a place of torment and death. For both Sarah’s parents were killed there. Lest they be forgotten, I name them here as Ezekiel, by trade a blacksmith, and Vera, his wife.

Malachi is the younger brother of Ezekiel. He was wounded in avenging his brother’s death, and delivering Sarah from the hands of men so vial and depraved, that even as I write this I feel a catch at my heart. Of what they might have done to her, I cannot even think. All I can say is that whatever dark wisdom the years may have brought Cassius, I do believe in God, and thank Him with all my soul for her deliverance. He may be slow to come to the aid of those who seek Him, and may at other times withhold all help, to test us. But he protected my Sarah, and for that the tears I shed at the memory are but a poor repayment. Malachi, too, shall always find me in his debt.

For one other thing at least I must give Cassius his due. He plainly saw that Malachi, long troubled by fever, had come to a desperate pass. So while the rest of us toiled these many days to bring the ship safely out of troubled waters, Cassius saw to it that Malachi did not join in our efforts, but remained warm and resting in the Consul’s cabin, his wife there to tend him when possible. And it seems that in the calmer days which followed, the worst of his illness slowly passed. He is able to rise and walk about, though he still cannot risk the chilling ocean breeze for more than a few minutes at a time. I now believe that he will live, and I could not have said that with any certainty at the outset of our voyage.

Meryl is his wife, a lovely and wistful young woman, seventeen years old. I will confess that had Malachi not survived, it would have taken no great effort on my part to fall in love with her. And I must here interject that the prejudice I have heard voiced against the Jews, both in Christian Rome and Arian Spain, is something I will never understand. For those descendants of Israel whom I have known have almost always been intelligent and thoughtful, quietly devoted to each other and their God—who is, after all, the one true Father of Christian and Jew alike. How some narrow minds could find them wanting, and more than this, place upon them the blame for their own failures and frustrations, is something for which I have not the least sympathy. That I have loved Ariel with all my soul, as I could have loved Meryl, should tell you that from a young and yearning heart there can be no higher praise.

Meryl and Malachi have been married for less than a month. Their love has been sorely tested, as indeed the young woman herself has been. I am told she led a somewhat sheltered life before the barbarians invaded Spain. Her father, a prosperous vintner, is said to have kept her from physical labor, teaching her instead the skills and refinements of a woman of property. If this puts her in some kind of debt to the less fortunate, then let us say once and for all, that debt has been paid.

For she received a rude awakening from any dream of wealth and comfort. And though the memory of innocence can sometimes be read in her face, the shadow of more recent suffering only serves to make it lovelier still. Her features are not as perfectly balanced as Ariel’s, her figure taller, less rounded. But her softly rolling hair, her eyes which seem to smile at you in gentle supplication through her sadness, touch me, if no other, with profound tenderness. Forgive me, Malachi. She is your wife, and I harbor no secret hope of possessing her. But you are fortunate, for all your recent hardship, to have been given such a bride. For when you recover, this gentle flower is yours alone.

Again I must tell myself, surrender. Because in truth, when Malachi was most ill, Cassius planted in my heart a seed which I would not otherwise have encouraged to grow there. He said that if her husband perished she would need someone to care for her, and comfort her in her loss. And while I never wished him ill, and have done, like the rest of us, all I could to restore him to health and well-being, there was in truth a part of myself which had begun to dream of her. Perhaps it was to ease the pain of losing Ariel; perhaps, as Cassius has said in moments less harsh, because I am becoming a man. I do not know. Only that she is beautiful, and wistful, and any further harm to her would make my heart bleed.

Come, Gaius, you paint yourself the fool for nothing. The company is now introduced, and you can proceed with the tale.

At all events, Cassius, Franzi and myself reached the summit. The land opened broad and peaceful beyond, a gentle sea of grass waving in the wind, and bordered at its edge by rich and sheltering forest. And in the distance, beautiful snow-capped peaks. An earlier plan, formed before we left the mountain refuge, returned to me. The land looked so fertile, so untroubled by the ravages of Spain, I could not help but wonder if we had found a place to lay down our burden, after all, if only for a time.

But reading the thought in my face, Cassius directed my gaze to the left, a few miles further west. Here, where the plateau falls more evenly to the sea, was a village neither large nor small, dotted with fishing boats, and laced with the trails of many cooking fires.

“The Visigoths?” I asked him, still clinging to my stubborn hope.

“Probably,” he said, “or some native people who live in fear of them, and pay a high tribute just to keep their precarious hold on life. No doubt they’ll inform them of our presence, if they haven’t already.”

“But the Visigoths weren’t always the enemy of Rome. If not for the Huns driving them west and south….. And didn’t they fight with us—”

“With us?” he demanded sharply. “And how many battles did you fight with them?”

Again my eagerness had betrayed me. Cassius knows this country and its people firsthand. Far to the north and west, in the long retreat from Britain he had battled the Franks, killed many, and lost still more of his own: friends and comrades who could never be replaced. There, too, he had taken Arna as his wife— some years before we knew him. Such years of war and bloodshed are beyond my experience, and for all the pain it cost me, I knew that he was right.

“Would they permit us to live among them, if we found some secluded place, and got in no one’s way?” For this, too, we had discussed.

“No,” he said, with the sudden humanity that has marked him of late. “It is tempting,” he went on, his eyes turning inland again. “The thought of rest and shelter: solid ground beneath our feet, instead of a storm-racked sea that may drown us at any moment. And perhaps for a time we would be left in peace. But this would never be our home. Sooner or later the prejudice, the fear and hate, would rise among the Visigoths, or the Alans, or some invading army. And we would be killed, or driven out, or sold into slavery.”

To be let into his confidence this way never fails to stir me, though I cannot honestly say why. Perhaps because I never had a real father. Perhaps because it is so difficult and painful for us both. I don’t know. I only know that as on other rare occasions, with Jacob or myself, he was opening his heart, his secret mind, though he would no doubt scoff to hear it.

“I’m tired,” he went on, his eyes misting. “So tired of living on the run…..

“But we must find a home,” he ended stubbornly. “A place that is truly ours. Or the efforts of a lifetime are wasted.”

And for a moment I felt the terrible weight he carries, the burden of responsibility as our leader. And I no longer envied him, or judged him harshly. Then he turned again without a word, and we began to climb back down.

Yet when we reached the launch, then were safely back upon the ship—or as safe as we are likely to be, so long as we remain thus anchored—he quickly reverted to the other, harsher man I have so often described. He laid into the twins as if they had been sunning themselves on the beach, when in truth they had set to work at once, repairing the ship with hammer, saw and nail, and fresh planks taken from the hold.

At this latest abuse Alexander nearly rebelled. As I have said before, he is not nearly so docile as his brother. But at Cassius’ implacable glare he thought better of it. And at the gentler, reassuring glance of Ariel he desisted, and returned to his work. Such is her effect on all of us.

As it has already played a significant part in our lives, and no doubt will again, I feel I must here give some description of Roman merchant vessels in general, and of the Aphrodite—for that is her name—in particular. I will try to relate what I know, and what seems necessary to tell. And while I am nothing like a skilled seaman, Alexander and Cleades are, and they have agreed to answer my questions, and to fill in the gaps of my own, admittedly incomplete knowledge.

Merchant vessels are generally two-masted, the more prominent mainmast running from the keel— the bottom, or backbone of the ship—up through the crossbeams and deck toward the sky. It is reinforced from the prow, or front of the ship, by the forestay, a thick cable running down from it, to keep it in place. From behind it is similarly lashed to the stern, or back of the ship, by the backstays.

Perhaps two-thirds up the length of the mainmast is the main yard, a stout pole running parallel to the deck, and from which the largest, or mainsail is lowered. Smaller sails are sometimes mounted above this, for use when strong winds would carry away the mainsail, and possibly the mast as well. I am told these smaller, ‘gallant’ sails have saved many a mariner’s life in rough weather, allowing the ship to sail directly before the wind, and keeping her straight when she might otherwise careen wildly before the waves and be sunk.

‘Braces’ run from either end of the main yard to the stern. Other lines, called sheets, run back from the sail’s lower corners. Taking in one side of the sheets and braces, while letting out the other, is used to turn the mainsail on the mast, to make better use of the wind and, along with the rudders, to guide the ship on the desired course.

The second, or ‘fore’ mast, angles far forward and, so I am told by Alexander, is called by the Celts a bowsprit. Triangular, or ‘jib’ sails can be set from it along the forestay, to catch winds largely from left or right: the port and starboard sides, respectively, of the ship.

The foremost part of the prow is called the beak, and serves as a cutwater, allowing the ship to slice forward through the waves. Our own beak is (or at least was before the collision) sharp and proud, ornamentally carved, and with the foremast joined to it, seems to point our way bravely toward the horizon.

The body of the ship is, of course, the hull. The keel both forms, and runs across the base of it, a kind of bow-shaped spine. Cleades has just told me that an extended fin along the bottom, used to maximize the leverage of the wind against the sea and propel the ship forward, is sometimes referred to as the keel as well. Most vessels, he adds proudly, sail more or less directly before the wind; but ours, with the forward sails and more pronounced keel, can sail in nearly the opposite direction, ‘tack’ against the wind at angles that few vessels, and no galley ever built, can match.

The gunnel refers to the uppermost sides of the hull, to which rails are sometimes attached. Our own vessel had, before the accident, two very graceful and elegant forward rails, running back from either side of the prow. The port rail is still intact, but the starboard, alas, is now ruined.

The Aphrodite, like many merchant vessels, utilizes not one, but two rudders, sometimes called steering oars, one running behind from either side of the stern. Each has its tiller, a lever fitted to its head, and with which the pilot steers. It requires a good deal of strength and practice to take one tiller in each hand, and accurately guide the ship. Perhaps that is why Cassius could not do it well enough—though Alexander offered several times to do it for him—to guide us without accident from the harbor at Barceno. But in fairness he did not yet know the twins, had not witnessed Alexander’s remarkable skill at handling the ship. Perhaps when he has come to trust him, as I have, Cassius will relinquish the post to him entirely—as Count Asterius must have—for he knows and can guide her as no one else.

The ‘blocks’ are carved pieces of wood through which the various ropes are run, to serve as pulleys. The accurate use of these, along with the sheets and braces, is essential in working the sails. I have examined one in particular, and the skill and subtlety of the shipwright are something to behold. To be able to take a solid block of wood, round it off, and cut into it curving holes for the lines to pass through without catch or tear, is truly remarkable.

The ‘rigging’ refers to all the ropes, great and small, which run like an intricate spider’s web between the masts, yards, sails, deck and hull. I am similarly impressed by the complexity of the skills involved in operating them, which is Cleades’ domain. We are truly blessed to have the brothers with us, and I think that even Cassius will realize this in time.

As to the dimensions of our ship, she is roughly seventeen fathoms—a measure of approximately six feet—from stem to stern, and four fathoms across, amidships. She is slender, unlike the squat galleys, and of a more graceful line and deeper keel than most vessels of her class. She is, in fact, a wonder of design and engineering, worth more in gold pieces than any of us are likely to obtain in a lifetime. When whole and undamaged—as she was, and will be again through their efforts—the twins tell me she sails magnificently, swift and true, as few ships ever built. And while part of this, no doubt, is pride, you will remember that she was in fact a Consul’s private yacht, his personal treasure, and the apple of his eye. Alas that we have tried her too hard already.

Well, I have tried to describe the design, and basic workings of the ship. No doubt more experienced writers and sailors can and have done it better. In truth, as the brothers pause in their labors to read this, they have more than once exchanged glances as if to say it is useless: I am too much an ignorant landsman to ever get it right. But I pray this flawed description will serve well enough for you to at least in part visualize our proud Aphrodite, and help you to understand the entries that are sure to follow.

Such, at least, is my hope.

VI

As I said, we all set about the labor of repairing the ship. Jacob and I provisioned the launch, in the event of any sudden hostility while Aphrodite is beached upon the sandbar. For we did not yet know how far down the hull the breach went; and in fact the damage is considerable. A good number of planks will have to be replaced, the whole re-caulked. Thank God no beams were seriously damaged, or we could be here for weeks.

If I may stray from the subject of our immediate survival for a short time, I feel compelled to note a strange truth that I have just discovered. Thinking much on the twins, how very different they are, I put the question to Cassius, and received a startling answer.

Cleades is a eunuch, castrated as a boy to retain his high voice and wistful demeanor. Alexander was not, allowed his manhood for the perverse uses of his eventual master. And in raising them thus, the Sicilian trader had been well rewarded. For they were bought as the pleasure slaves of a Roman Consul, a Count, and therefor at great price.

The knowledge of this inhuman scheme has opened to my mind such bizarre and unsettling images of man’s unseemly nature, that I confess I am quite shocked, and don’t know how to take any of this. I find myself regarding Cleades with pity, only to have Alexander glare at me in protective wrath. Does he suspect me of some terrible longing? Do I suspect myself? For the feelings this sympathy arouses in me are not at all what I first felt for Ariel, and then for Meryl. I have no conscious desire to touch him, am in fact somewhat revolted by the thought. Cassius, in his maddening way, told me just now that I need a woman. Perhaps I do.

When our preparations for the launch were completed, Jacob and I returned to our vigil on deck. I was assigned to mount the mainmast, and keep a close watch inland.

Only another man who has done this—with no other perch than the uppermost yard, no other way up or down than a narrowing web of rope—can appreciate the sensations one experiences while looking down on the world in such a state. For though at low tide we are moored upon a sandbank parallel to (and not far from) the shore, even then the ship is anything but still. And when the tide came in, as it must, I clung to the mast as if to life itself, swinging with the sudden and exaggerated arc of a torch, swung back and forth by a lunatic.

This is perhaps a fitting metaphor. For here we all are, caught between sea and shore, a flickering flame of life and hope, moved this way and that by a god or spirit lost in the fearful dark. What is he looking for, and what, therefor, is our course? No one knows. Despite my Christian upbringing I sometimes feel that the ancient Greeks had it right: that we are all trapped in a myth about the futility of human effort, when set against the Chaos of this world.

Yet these feelings were nothing to what I experienced when I saw them coming. Barbarians. For now the safety of the group lay entirely with Cassius and myself, the only two likely to understand their language, and having any real skill with weapons. I forgot my fear, and slid down the backstay so quickly that when I reached the deck I didn’t have to say a word. Cassius instantly went to the hold, called softly but insistently to the brothers, still at work below, as Jacob took up his bow with a trembling hand.

“How many?” was all that Cassius asked me.

“Ten or twelve,” I said, taking up the station I had been assigned in such an event, near the prow, where javelins had been laid in readiness, hidden by the gunnel from view of anyone approaching on land. Cassius had assigned me here as the fairest-skinned among us, and the only member of the company besides himself with some knowledge of Germanic languages. The ability to translate foreign texts is essential in a city as cosmopolitan as Rome, and as such, multiple languages were a part of my education as a scribe.

“Vandals?” he asked quietly, and I could hear the trepidation in his voice. The possibility, unrealized until that moment, passed over me in a cold wave of horror. Had those thoughtless killers ventured north and east into Gaul? It would mean crossing the Pyrenees again, or taking the sea route as we had, but it was not unthinkable. When the Vandals once put fear into your heart, it stays there.

“No,” I said finally, as we both gazed west to where the company of horsemen, as if they owned the place, were taking a path that angled slowly down to the fishing village, then riding steadily across the beach, straight toward us. Cassius, knowing my eyes were sharper, asked me to describe them.

Their hair, unlike the Nordic stereotype, was anything from blonde to darkest brown, just this side of black. Their eyes were blue or brown, their faces high browed and bearded. Those in front wore rough breastplates—nothing like the ornamented muscle cuirasses of true Roman officers—the others, leather jerkins studded with iron. All had roughly conical helmets of steel, though only the two at their head, leaders of some kind, wore the flowing horse-tail that denoted their rank.

“Visigoth warriors,” he said uneasily, when he too could make this out.

“Will they attack?” I asked nervously, going down on one knee, and without taking my eyes off them, seeking the grip of a javelin. At this Cassius took hold of my elbow, and firmly raised me once more to stand beside him.

“They will if you provoke them,” he hissed. I released the weapon, then stepped on it to keep it from rolling. I looked back to see the men of our party in a similar state of readiness, at their assigned places, the women and children out of sight below.

The riders, fifteen in all, came on steadily, their expressions stern, if not yet openly hostile. When within speaking distance they fanned out in a rough semi-circle and stopped on the sloping beach, perhaps forty yards away. And regarded us with narrowing eyes. Then without any signal that I could see, they drew their swords almost in unison.

Cassius did not wait, but greeted them in a strong, unwavering voice. There is no substitute, I think, for long military training and experience. It was clear he had done such things before. I understood most of what he said—native Visigoth, rather than the mongrel German spoken by mercenaries—and having talked with him since, can roughly translate what was said.

“Hail, Soldiers of the Cross. Well met, Sons of the Son.”

Subduing his surprise, their leader answered gruffly. “Who are you, Roman, to speak to us in this familiar way?” His voice was sharp, but Cassius’ manner and accent had not gone unnoticed. Already the man had separated us in his mind from the lesser barbarians and sea-faring rabble.

To my astonishment Cassius told them the truth, at least so far as he and I were concerned. “I am Cassius, son of Drusus, Centurion of the disbanded Seventh Legion. This is Gaius, son of Tiberius, Senator of Rome.”

The man, late middle-aged and with straight dark hair and beard, along with a younger man of similar features beside him, probably his son, examined us closely, though neither spoke. Then the elder turned his eyes on Jacob and Malachi, amidships, and Alexander and Cleades, poised by the anchor-chain and tillers, respectively. The brothers must have believed that if it came to flight, Cassius intended to cut away the thick mooring line forward. But surely the Visigoths would be upon us before he could. Six had already turned to their bows, and with arrows fitted, were aiming them fixedly at the twins.

“These others are not Roman, whatever you say of yourselves. Surely those are Greek.” He pointed his sword at them, and with a further gesture, warned Alexander away from the capstan.

“True enough,” said Cassius, confirming the order with a stern nod. “But able sailors both.”
With this the man turned back to Jacob and Malachi. His eyes narrowed further still.

“Jews?” he asked accusingly.

All I can say of this last, is that although Cassius must have been prepared for such a question, it took all his courage to answer without wavering. I know him that well, at least.

“No,” he said dismissively. “The old man is from the Balkans, our navigator. The wounded man is Syrian.”

“Mercenary?” asked the Visigoth sharply.

“Aye,” agreed Cassius, finding less danger in this wrongful surmise than the truth. Forcing myself not to turn towards him, I thought of the deep scar on Malachi’s neck.

“And from whom did he receive the mark of his trade?”

Did Cassius pause for emphasis?

“The Vandals.”

At this there was a stir among the company. Cassius has just confided to me as I write this that he took a desperate chance in speaking the name of a hated enemy, but had done so to demonstrate we were neither friends nor spies of them.

“You come from Spain?” asked the leader, with something more than polite curiosity.

“Newly sailed from Barceno,” was Cassius’ honest reply. “We’re stuck here for a fortnight at least,” he added, “while we make repairs.” I hoped to God it wasn’t so.

“Come down,” said the Visigoth, with a wave of his sword. In that moment I realized how our ship must appear to them: a kind of movable fortress, with high walls, and the sea for a mote. Thank the risen Christ that the tide was now in, the gangway raised.

At this summons (or command) Cassius did not lower it, but instead clambered out onto the bowsprit, and lept directly toward them. He landed in water that was still waist-high, righted himself and drew his sword. I thought for an instant that Ariel’s worst fears were coming true: that he meant to take them on single-handed, while the rest of us retreated in the launch.

But again his shrewd gamble paid off. For the Visigoths, like most Germanic tribes, respect courage above all else. As he moved unerringly onto the flat, wet sand, he turned his sword hilt-first toward their leader, whose name, I now know, is Thorundil.

“The blade of Titus Drusus speaks for my honor,” he said. “It is the sword of my father, and was ever a friend to the Visigoths. I myself fought beside Theodoric at Rheingold, and with Ataulf in Rhetia (the truth and a lie, respectively) against our common enemy, the Huns, who have since allied themselves with the Vandals.”

Thorundil hesitated, again scrutinizing ship and crew. At last he breathed heavily, seeming to relent in his angry suspicion, and raised the hilt of his own blade to his forehead in answer. I saw there, for the first time, the cross of our Savior set upon a weapon of war. I thought to myself how glorious, and at the same time perilous, was this mingling of the true Faith and human violence.

“I am Tomas Thorundil,” he said. “I am the cousin of Ataulf, ruler of Rome, and of our people to the east.” Cassius nearly bridled at this, but restrained himself. “A strange meeting to be sure, but I would have further proof of your identity, and news of Spain. If your second will come down as well, if you will give us food and drink, and pay tribute for your presence in our lands, perhaps we need not come to blows.”

“My thanks,” said Cassius. Then he turned to me, and said in Latin.

“Bring us food and drink, and the pouch of silver we took from the Vandal dogs.” This last article was a fiction, but Cleades, understanding both Cassius’ words and the meaning behind them, went quickly to take the desired coins from the Consul’s chest. These he placed in his own purse, then emerged and tossed it down to Cassius, while Jacob and I fetched food and wine.

Cassius and I spoke with them, in the end, for several hours. They were hungry for (and a little fearful of) the news we carried, which he gave them in their own fashion, leaving out the uncomfortable fact of the Romans’ defeat at their hands, and our subsequent theft of the ship.

Then the talk turned to Rome itself—growing trouble with the Huns—and I related what I could of the state of the Empire under Honorius: of the impending marriage between Ataulf, the eastern Visigoth King, and Galla Placidia, the Emperor’s sister, which was supposed to unite our two peoples after the death of Alaric, the bloody-minded fool. Needless to say, I did not put it in these words.

At the mention of Placidia’s name, and the powerful position this afforded her, Cassius turned somewhat pale in spite of himself, and had to cover his dismay with a large draught of wine. For she is known to all—save the Visigoths, apparently—for her beauty and ruthless cunning. With any other man I might have worried that the wine would loosen his tongue; but such was not the case. He no doubt feared the same of me, though under the circumstances I think I did rather well.

But while Cassius’ adage about, “a true Roman can never be drunk,” may be untrue—for I assure you, I have seen my father and his friends in a state near to madness—still he holds his drink as well as anyone. And after recovering from the further shock of what I had to tell—the folly of Alaric and his subsequent death, which Thorundil knew already—in time he brought the conversation to a close, and we returned to the ship.

But once there, meeting with the others in the Consul’s cabin, there was no disguising his anxiety. For while the Visigoths, after their initial examination, had shown no further sign of hostility, this in itself troubled him. Speaking one way and acting another, is as old as warfare itself.

Cassius believes they will come back again soon, and in greater force, to storm the ship, which they covet. I must admit I caught several of them looking at it with open envy. And while, after the initial shock of their presence, my perceptions of them are less sinister, Cassius’ instincts in such matters have proven true too many times to discount.

So when they were gone, when nightfall came at last, bringing ebb tide with it, we quietly slipped our moorings, turned the ship about and set off once more. Alexander would have liked more time to complete repairs, but he too sensed the danger of remaining there: the way their leader eyed Cleades, I make no doubt.

So with our combined efforts, with Alexander restored to his post at the tillers—for even Cassius has come to trust his judgment when it comes to Aphrodite—we set sail once more upon the dark bosom of the waves, and rode on a strengthening breeze throughout the night, to south and east, away from them.

It is evening, and I write in haste. For a storm is approaching from the north, riding on a land-breeze from Gaul, famous for its sudden fury. This is nothing to take lightly, looming black and terrible on the horizon, devouring the sky. Alexander insists, and our leader does not dispute him, that we must take in the sails, keeping but a single, reefed stormsail aloft, a single jib upon the forestay. He also insists that we run due south, before the wind: yielding to, rather than trying to fight the terrible power of the storm.

And though this runs counter to our plans, though Cassius has threatened to kill him if he pursues some course of his own, or bends westward to seek harbor in Spain….. We must do as Alexander says, or perish. Cassius has enough experience of the sea to know this, and the twins were born to it.

May God protect us, and help us weather the rage of wind and water that is now upon us. Mere survival, yet again.

*                         *                         *

Alexander stood at the tillers like a man possessed. Though Cleades had asked to remain on deck beside him, the more manly twin refused. For together they had already done all that was possible to prepare the ship for storm. They had lashed down the hatches, and tied restraining ropes to the rudders, allowing them only a limited sway in either direction. This last so that the agitated seas cannot tear them from Alexander’s grasp, or cause the ship to broach to: turn parallel to the great waves, and thus be overwhelmed. On this point he was adamant: his brother must remain below. Whether he did this to protect him physically or emotionally—I suspect it was both—Cleades reluctantly obeyed.

And while Cassius too had offered to stand beside him, taking one of the rudders and coordinating their efforts—as much to watch as to assist him, I think—after seeing the young man’s strength and skill at riding before the waves, after being knocked down and nearly washed overboard by a cross-wave he did not see coming, he helped lash Alexander to his post by a rude sling about the chest (to avoid a similar fate), and came into the cabin with the rest of us.

All our lives were now in the hands of the young Athenian. I could just see him through the small portal in the door. Such courage and determination I have rarely seen in any man, but also something else I cannot give a name to. Though I dared not speak the thought aloud, he seemed intent on some purpose of his own: as if this fearsome trial, which might well kill him, were the sign, the opportunity he looked for. But who can say what another man thinks?

Cassius extinguished the single, swinging oil lamp we allowed ourselves. It had crashed so violently into the overhead planks that it nearly burst asunder. Cold and blind as this left us, it was better than one or more of us being set ablaze. Thank God that ours is a taught, and fairly dry ship. For now we were shut up in darkness, with the often alarming motion of the waves, the wind and rain screaming like banshees all around, clinging to each other and to the supporting ropes we’d strung for stability and support. God help us.

As Alexander battled the storm deep into the night.

Schism

The same bolt of lightning missed the ship, striking the water less than forty fathoms off.

The mainmast split, the tops crashing back and down. Alexander saw it coming and was able to dodge the mast itself, but was caught square on the forehead by a falling block.

Alexander reeled at the nearness of the strike, as a split second later his entire being shook to the overpowering crack of thunder. He gathered himself as best he could and steered the ship away, but remained undaunted in his resolve to escape the brutal and over-peopled Mediterranean, which had forced his brother and himself into a life worse than death.

He fell to the deck in a heap, only the impromptu harness keeping him from being washed over the side. The ship now swam of its own accord, the jib and restraining ropes alone preventing it from careening wildly and being rolled completely over, sending them all to a watery grave.

Alexander considered. Cassius might well kill him if he knew—too well did he understand the violent nature of such men—but the fury of the storm and the need to yield to its force, survival first and all else after, could not be questioned. The thing that troubled him most was the element of time. He could not hope to pass the fabled Pillars of Hercules in less than two days, and on to the free Atlantic: the Seven Labors, from which he would not shrink. But would the storm, and his strength, last so long? For if the cloud-wrack abated, and direction could be told by sun or star, all might still be lost.

Alexander remained at his post, mind bending from the strain, muscles knotted and trembling with the force of his exertions. Yet somehow he held to his purpose. Summoning not only the last of his physical reserves, but every bit of seamanship he possessed, he sailed by dead reckoning, using both wind and wave to steer the ship—first southwestward for an entire day, then nearly due west, toward the modern-day Straits of Gibraltar.

Toward noon of the second day the clouds thinned a little, just enough for him to be startled by a rocky coast less than two hundred fathoms to starboard. Not the lee shore of every mariner’s darkest dream, wind and wave alike driving the ship inexorably to ground, death and ruin. But under these conditions—with nothing more than the reefed stormsail and jib, the lashed rudders to steer by—every bit as dangerous. He mastered his panic as best he could, and bellowed for Cassius to cut the restraining ropes, then help him steer, to live or die.

“What shore?” shouted Cassius at the top of his lungs. At that Alexander could just catch his words above the roar of surf on stone, blown straight at them and now not ninety fathoms off.

But before he could answer the lie was laid bare. For beyond the crashing sprays the clouds broke and the great rock leered, sudden and colossal.

“Gibraltar!” cried Cassius in a rage. “How?”

But Cassius’ rage was wasted and he knew it. There was but one course open to them now. Cleades rushed out to join them. “Steer hard southwest!” roared Alexander, forcing Cassius’ free hand, which had strayed again to his sword-belt, onto the starboard rudder as well. “My brother and I will set what sail we can, to claw us off the rocks. But not too sharply south, or we strike the coast of Africa instead!”

Cassius hesitated, then nodded grimly, his anger drowned by the fury of the storm.

I

At last I have a chance to write, though this entry must necessarily be brief. For great peril still awaits. While the wind has lessened somewhat, that makes our situation sane, but hardly safe. We still ride low in the water, the waves are unabated and the gale still blows, if no longer with hurricane force.

Somehow we keep the ship afloat. Through day into night into day again, we have guided our course due south, the only way open to us, and toward the only destination we can hope for: North Africa. It is not what any of us wanted, but Cassius is right. We must survive, or all else is meaningless. Our one hope now is to bring our battered craft to rest in some safe harbor, let the storm blow itself out, and proceed with repairs as before. Of the alternative—to run her aground and strike out for shore (only Cassius, the brothers and myself can swim)—I dare not even think.

It is late afternoon. The light is already failing, and the storm drives us relentlessly onward. And now. . .can it be? Cleades leans forward from the shattered mast, peering ahead with a mixture of hope and fear.

“Land!” he cries. I will describe it as best I can when it becomes visible on deck.

The site of the great, dark continent ahead does little to encourage us. “Numidia,” said Cassius bitterly, recognizing the dry desert hills, the almost featureless coast before us. Cleades climbed down and began speaking with his brother in Greek, but Cassius interrupted them.

“Speak Latin or not at all!” And he drew his sword to emphasize the point.

“All right,” said Alexander, with the dominant submission we have come to know so well. “My brother and I agree that we must bend our course as hard to the east as may be, so as not to drive her straight onto the shoals.” He looked as if he wanted to add, “Unless you want to die,” but thought better of it.

“Then do it,” was Cassius’ blunt reply.

“Take the rudder and steer,” he returned in a cold voice. “Cleades and I must continue to improvise what sail we can.”

“Not too much,” warned Cassius, “or as heavy as she rides you may yet roll us over.”

“Of course,” said Alexander irritably, and he and his brother set to work trying to salvage what remained of the mainsail. “Will you help us, Gaius?” he asks just now, and I must go.

Sweet Jesus, give me the strength to write this. For I must look back now on tragedy, and record it in the only way I can, plainly and without feeling. My emotions are so drained, our loss so grievous….. But now more than ever I am bound to keep the journal Jacob asked of me. For he is no more.

Even with the greater spread of sail—and here you will remember that the splintered mainmast and driving wind would only allow us an easterly bend to our southerly course—we were not able to search long for shelter, or even a more suitable place to beach our craft. And with no harbor or inlet in sight, we were left no choice. Cleades, crawling far out on the foremast, spotted for his brother as Jacob. . .as Jacob and I stood ready to let fly the sheets and spill the wind from our sails, if and when the fatal moment came.

It did. Even with Cassius and Alexander together expending all their strength and curses upon the rudders, the water-logged ship simply would not turn sharply enough to save us from the lee shore. The Aphrodite moved, more than anything, like a snake in a mudslide, the bitter waves driving her always toward land, toward ruin.

At nearly the last instant, Cleades read from the motion of the waves a series of sandbanks running more or less parallel to the shore. And with the coast becoming rocky just ahead, our hand was forced. The two men steered us into them. We let fly the sails. . .and struck. For ours is—alas, was—no shallow-bottomed galley, but a fully keeled sailing ship. And in the ever shallower waters, that keel must strike.

With a sudden jolt our momentum was checked and the deck pitched forward, as a second later the waves laid us over. All was confusion as we were thrown or washed over the side, into a tumult of crashing waves and screaming voices. Then the wreck of masts and rigging, momentarily righted by a hollow between the waves, came crashing down on us, pinning those who had not been thrown clear, until the hull again righted itself, just enough for those still alive to struggle toward shore.

Before we struck I’d had just enough time to put Sarah on my back, wrap her arms about my neck and bind them with a sandal lace. I expect Cassius had done more or less the same with Franzi, telling him to hang on for dear life. What preparations the women had made I’m not certain—some kind of impromptu raft, I think, made useless by the violence of the strike.

I swam for shore with Sarah clinging to me like a mad-thing, nearly choking the life out of me. God bless her, it got us as far as the strand. For after being thrown forward by the waves, dragged back by the undertow, then swimming with all I had toward the ghostly sands that in the starlight looked as pale and gray as the shores of the river Styx, I at last felt something solid beneath my feet. And though it was but a last sandbar, the waters beyond were less treacherous and I was able to swim, stand briefly and then swim again, finally staggering up onto the beach.

But Sarah was not breathing. I turned her over in a panic, pushing at her diaphragm to force the water out. Then, not knowing what else to do I began to breathe into her, covering her mouth with mine, as I suddenly remembered from copying a physician’s volume long ago.

Nothing happened. “Please, God!” I tried again, exhaling too hard in my terror. But with this she began to cough, and I turned her onto her side. She retched, choking on the bile. I cleared it frantically from her throat with a sweep of my crooked finger, then began breathing into her again, this time more gently. Again she coughed, again I turned her, and as the dregs flowed out she began to struggle for air.

“That’s it, Sarah! Breathe!” She gasped and sobbed, but with the life still inside her. I cannot even think what I would have done…..

But there was no time for gratitude. I carried her free of the sprays, well up on shore, and sat her on a stone. I told her to stay there, no matter what happened, and I would come back for her. Then ran to the crashing waves edge to search for the others.

I could just make out Alexander, struggling to stand some distance further east, and dragging a half-dead Cleades to shore. But Meryl was floundering desperately in the waves farther out, and crying for help.

I dove in and swam towards her with all the love and fear of a bursting heart. My lungs screamed as loud as my voice, telling her to hold on. But somehow I reached her, and by diving below and lifting her, was able to push her head above the waves. She took several breaths, flailing wildly. Then I surfaced beside her and wrapped one arm about her neck and chest, and with the other struck out for shore with all that I was.

She and I made it to land, as did Cassius and Franzi ahead of us. Ariel had managed to seize hold of what remained of the raft, and it carried her to land, cold and trembling, but alive.

But Jacob and Malachi….. Lost! Sweet Jesus, dead and gone! Why?

It is dawn, cold and dead. As if in mockery my scroll, protected by its taut leather cylinder, had washed up on shore largely undamaged. As if anything is worth saving now!

For there is still no sign of Jacob, and Malachi lies tangled, like a fly in a broken spider’s web, among the rigging. As the proud Aphrodite leers and sways in ruin, her back broken, never to swim again.

II

At last the seas have calmed enough for us to consider, and myself to record, the astonishing circumstance in which we now find ourselves. For we have cleared the Straits of Gibraltar, and now float upon the great Ocean of Atlantis, wreathed in myth and mystery. Perhaps that is why Alexander, his mind tortured by the perverse uses of his flesh, seems to have sought his escape in fantasies of it. Who can say? For none save that inscrutable man-child whom life has so abused, ever thought to breast its vast, uncharted waters.

And while Cassius is wroth with him, what can he do? For here we are, with only Spain and Africa to return to, if we go that way, and perhaps a more perilous, even deadly passage back. And to what end? The Roman Empire, the world that we have known, is gone forever. The old Order lies in ruin, and Chaos is master. This being so, is Alexander’s vision of an ‘Emerald Isle’ any more fanciful than Cassius’ dream of an uninhabited island that we can call our own? The Mediterranean, for all its vastness, is the most traveled waterway on Earth, and with the collapse of Roman power, perhaps the most treacherous as well. I have not had time to think, let alone speak of the pirates that terrorize the waters off the coast of North Africa, and for whom mercy is as non-existent as it is among the Vandals. Perhaps it is as well that I did not. For I would not knowingly have brought Sarah within a hundred miles of them.

The two men argue, near to violence as I write this, though Ariel, as ever, tries to calm her sometimes reckless companion. As for Alexander, he seems to have drawn his proverbial line in the sand, and will not take one more backward step in his quest for freedom, and a life without shame. Listening to them speak, distracted as I am by the need to rise and intervene if Cassius actually tries to kill him (I do not believe he will, so long as the great change that Ariel has worked in him remains), I must amend what I said earlier. For Cassius has in fact sailed the Atlantic, if only to Britannia and back, by the famous Channel that bears its name. Of course. He took part in Rome’s inglorious retreat from that savage island, inhabited by barbarians so wild and uncouth that many in Rome wonder why we ever set foot upon it. Though of course that is how every ‘civilized’ nation views those not as advanced as themselves.

Now Cassius argues for the western coast of Gaul, while Alexander is intent upon….. What is he saying? ‘Erin?’ A vast green island inhabited by the Celts? Does such a place exist?

Cassius claims—seemingly without conviction, though perhaps I read too much into the slow cooling of his fury—that it is only a myth told by the Gaelic peoples of Scot-leine, which the Romans were never able to subdue. Thus the construction of Hadrian’s Wall.

But Alexander insists that Greek mariners both visited and wrote of the island centuries ago, and just now, that he can prove it. I must pause for a time in writing this, as such a paramount decision requires my participation. I have a daughter to think of now, and must not be excluded. I will continue again when I may.

Amazing. Alexander has not only produced the charts, but the log of a Neapolitan trader who sailed there and back less than fifty years ago. It is old and faded, and how he (or Count Asteria) came upon it is unclear. But it is not implausible. Italian mariners are adventurous by nature; and Roman scholars, as much as anyone, have saved and translated nearly everything they could lay their hands on. I know. I was a part of that process.

Cassius has become silent, which leads me to believe this Erin, or Eire-leine’, may in fact exist, and that he knows of it. And now that he is calmer he has not disputed Jacob, who reminds us of the animosity that the Visigoths and other Christians, in Gaul and elsewhere, harbor against the Jews. While it is not clear how the Celts would receive us, they at least would not pre-judge us. For they are a pagan, rather than a Christian people, and perhaps would loathe us on sight as ‘Christ-killers’ and all the rest. Strange. And with the Mediterranean island we sought perhaps forever beyond our reach…..

Cassius has taken the trader’s log into the cabin to read it, while the rest of us discuss with Alexander his plan for escaping the persecution we have all known, in one form or another, among the wreckage of a fallen Empire. He is so sure, so passionate, claiming that the inhabitants of Erin have been ruling themselves for centuries, unpoisoned by the pride and prejudice of mainland Europe.

Having said this, I could not help reminding him that men are still men, whether Greek, Roman or Celt, and that greed, lust and violence are universal. He insists he knows this, but I am not convinced. Too well do I understand how the young mind can be carried away by flights of fancy, and thinking the world a better place than it is. It wasn’t so long ago…..

Forgive me, Alexander. I sometimes have to remind myself that you were forced to grow up far sooner than I, to survive an insane world of bizarre and brutal sex, and somehow preserve your own, and your brother’s sanity. It is a wonder such experiences have not left you a raving lunatic.

Ariel in particular seems fascinated by his idea, having read of the place somewhere herself. You will recall that the Jews, along with the Greeks and Romans, are among the most learned peoples on earth, and one of the first to possess a written language. Jacob has told me before now that Judaic scholars are as prolific, and even more concerned with posterity, than the Romans.

One note of caution, and in truth I am glad to hear it. Alexander asked her (accused her) if in all her reading she had ever heard of the Celts persecuting the Jews. Somewhat stung by his vehemence, she says that she has not—does not know that the two peoples have ever met—but that the inhabitants of Erin, along with those of Scot-leine, to whom they are related, are said to jealously defend their island from any outside migration.

And here, to me, is the crux of the matter. Would a small group of us, finding some uninhabited place, be allowed to settle there, and live in peace?

For that is why we set out upon this journey, and it remains our only hope of true freedom.

I

There was no time to grieve, let alone recover the body. Cassius bluntly reminded us that the coast is teeming with pirates. No doubt the terrible winds and seas had kept them in port until now. But with their swift and slender xebecs, which, when they turn to their oars, can pull directly into the wind, they would surely come out now, scouring the shoreline for just such a wreck. They are human vultures, but with this exception: they need not wait for their victims to die.

Meryl, on the point of hysteria, refused to leave. She still clung to the hope that somehow Malachi had survived the thrashing—that he was not drowned but merely stunned—though even from the shore he showed no sign of life. On the contrary (oh gruesome death!) his body had already begun to bloat and turn pale.

Any other time, under any other circumstance I would have admired her loyalty. But not now. Through my exhausted despair I knew the danger was real, and would not leave my Sarah at the mercy of men whose souls had died within them. If they ever lived at all.

Cassius began to grow quite fierce with her, and even with Ariel, who wished to remain and search for Jacob, clinging to the same, irrational hope that he was still alive. Both women turned entreating eyes on me, which despite my exhaustion, yet wrenched my heart. For as much as I try to reject our leader’s grim view of life, in times like these it has almost never been wrong. Such is the world we live in, and in answer I could only hang my head.

It was Alexander who came forward to second him, saying in his implacable way that if we were not miles inland when the first corsairs arrived—which they inevitably must—the men among us would be killed, the women brutally raped and then sold as slaves. And this last, I knew, would be done to his brother as well. So that this time, when the two women I love turned their questioning gaze upon me, I must speak the truth.

“We must leave here, now!” For they would sell the children as well.

If there is anyone on earth more savage toward women and children than these sea-faring raiders, then I have never heard of them.

Crushed, Meryl clung to her friend, sobbing. But Ariel, as both adoptive mother and mother-to-be, slowly turned her face from the heartless sea, and tried to lead her in the same direction. But Meryl fought her off, gave a dreadful cry of, “Malachi!” and collapsed in a heap upon the rough and crusted sand.

What else could I do? With Sarah beside me I went to her, and as the others made their way up onto the battered rocks that fringed the beach, tried to lift her gently. She resisted, of course, sobbing and wailing. I was at a loss until Sarah, through some miracle of child’s intuition, put her little hand on the woman’s shoulder and said simply:

“Uncle Malachi had to go away. He didn’t want to, but bad men made him.” With a further pang I remembered where I’d heard those words before: from my own lips, as I tried to make her understand the senseless murder of her parents. All belief in Providence left me. For how could any God visit such horrors upon my innocent daughter, my forlorn and wretched Meryl? “And they’ll make us go away if we don’t hide.”

The young woman’s face seemed to lose all expression. Perhaps it was a form of shock. But she let me raise her, and without looking back, staggered with us up the stony slope, her soaked and bedraggled dress sometimes catching among the rocks as she shivered and moaned. But at least we were moving.

It was impossible at first, though a fearful necessity, to make her attend to her footing. But after a slip brought one knee down hard, the pain it produced in her seemed to force something like attention, or at least awareness. She rose and limped on, my arm about her waist, while my right hand clutched Sarah’s protectively.

When we stopped to rest, a staggering thought came to me. Was this my family now? For a moment—all our emotions had been strained to the breaking point—I felt a wild, irrational urge to deny, to cast off and run away. Surely I could not be responsible for both of them. This in turn filled me with such a horror of myself that I quickly embraced the young widow, and whispered passionately in her ear.

“I’m sorry!”

But this would not lead us to safety. And my instinct for survival, wakened on the battlefield where I had so nearly perished, again proved the stronger voice. There was no time for this, nor was it a matter of God or philosophy. These two hapless girls—for in moments of trauma we are all children—were now in my charge, and I was going to protect them.

At the thought of what lay ahead—of Meryl as mine, the image that Cassius had placed in my heart—of comforting her in her loss, and with gentle caresses opening her to me. . .I’m ashamed to say I felt something akin to animal lust. Even then. But because it gave me strength in the last extremity—for by now we were moving through grassy dunes, our feet sinking deep and every step an intolerable weariness—I did not resist it. Instead I put Sarah on my back, hooked my arm tighter about Meryl, and gave myself up to hopeless plodding. On. On.

When at last I allowed myself to look up, our way was barred by a shallow cliff: sandy stone pocked with holes that had been eaten out by wind and weather. Ariel gestured from the mouth of one, while Alexander led his gasping brother toward another. I was dismayed to see that the older of the two—I don’t know why I think of him this way—cradled in the other arm the cylinder containing my scroll.

Why had he brought it? Of what use was it now? Yet even as I asked myself the question, the answer came. He had grown up on myths and epic poems, and in his delusion thought of me as his Homer, the recorder of his mighty tale. Or was this my delusion?

But looking over at Meryl, as I had not the strength to do before, I found that she was in a bad way. Her skin was pale and covered with goose-bumps, and she was shivering uncontrollably. Perhaps only her exertions had kept her warm until we stopped. And now there was no fuel left to burn.

“We’ve got to get you out of your wet things,” I said urgently. “Can you climb just a little farther, to the cave there?” But there was nothing left, and she slithered to the ground.

Instructing Sarah to go and join Franzi in the cave, I bent over and struggled to lift her. My reward, my cross. Somehow I did lift her, and carried her to the entrance where Cassius, the rounded opening too small to allow our passage, took her about the chest as I handed her in.

Nothing left in all the world. Yet somehow he lit a fire—was it then or later, day or night?—as far from the entrance as possible, as Ariel removed my fallen angel’s wet and tattered clothes. My last thought, as I sloughed down and passed into unconscious sleep…..

I’m here with you, Meryl. . .here where the world runs out.

II

Well, the choice is made. We make for Erin. This is not the result of any rebellion against Cassius’ authority, but due instead to the unalterable needs of motherhood. For Ariel is well into the middle term of her pregnancy, and it would take a man far less sensitive to her needs to subject her to any more tribulation at sea: a long and wandering voyage with no clear destination, searching only for an uninhabited island, which may in the end not exist. Thank God she’s never suffered from sea-sickness—as Jacob, Meryl and Malachi have all done—and that this is her first child. First-time pregnancies are said to be less harsh, and her strongest complaint until now has been a lingering fatigue.

I believe it was she, in the end, who made the decision for both of them. Strange that Cassius, who can be such a tyrant with the rest of us, is so much under her sway—though I suspect that in this his conscience, his past failings play their part. While I cannot be certain—for on this point Ariel says little, knowing how deeply it grieves him— it seems he is unable to forgive himself for not having been a better husband and father to Arna and Jared. And there is no amending their deaths. I begin to believe her quiet assertion that there is another side of him: that he cares deeply not only for her, but also for Franzi and the unborn child: that they are his life, his last chance for redemption.

Come, Gaius, speak plainly and admit the truth. He loves his new family, and for all his demons, would not harm them for the world.

So. We bear away west by northwest on a land breeze from Spain. According to the charts, once we clear its westernmost tip, we sail due north for Erin. There, if we can find it, a great bay, dotted with many smaller islands, opens in the southwestern coast of that legendary realm.

Why this particular mark? Because it would be folly to leave our craft anchored off-shore, and move inland without it. We might be cut off from all escape by sea, for one thing, and leave behind an invaluable prize for the taking. For the sea-faring Celts are said to be skilled watermen, and such temptation should not be placed before any man.

Such sweet sailing! Our beautiful Aphrodite, now that the rigging has been restored and new sails set, takes to our northern course like a dolphin bound for home waters. And with a fine bow wave running, we make our way straight and true toward what we hope will be our home, at last.

One other thing I must confess, though it is far less painful. I love this ship, these people, and the magnificent adventure on which we have embarked. Our spirits, so deadened by danger and hard choices, now seem to rally around thoughts of Alexander’s Emerald Isle.

Yet through my euphoria come pangs of despair. What if it is all just a fantasy? He seems so sure…..

I

I was not allowed to sleep long. I woke to feel rough hands undressing me. Strange to say, in my weakened state it did not feel like the darkest fear of my passage to Spain: being sexually assaulted by perverse sailors and soldiers. I knew it was Cassius, and that he took no pleasure in it. I also knew why he did it, for I was shivering violently.

“Stop,” said Ariel irritably. “Do you want to tear his private parts off?”

“Then let Meryl—”

“No,” was her emphatic reply. “Look at her.”

At this I looked myself, saw her lying naked, face down in the sand, trembling. And though I hated myself for it, all I wanted in that moment was to cover her body with mine. Cassius, pulling hard, had only succeeded in making a knot of my canvas belt, and was in fact on the point of injuring me.

“Let me do it,” said Ariel more gently, her voice a balm to my soul. Sweet angel! How I longed for her touch, though I knew it was forbidden me. I was therefor startled when after a moment of silent rage Cassius growled at me:

“You get an erection and I’ll cut it off!” Then moved out of the way. Only then did the firelight, behind them, allow me to see that they too had disrobed, all our clothes steaming on driftwood stands by the fire.

Ariel. Unable to stand in the small enclosure, she came toward me bent forward, one hand above her on the grainy stone. Her pregnant form—fuller breasts and rounded stomach—were not the least bit repulsive to me, but shadowed, soft and sensual.

“Close your eyes,” came Cassius’ grim command. But in anticipation of the longed-for touch I had already done so. And when it came, when I felt her hands upon my hips, I gave myself up to fatigue, no longer bitter, and slipped into a dream of paradise regained. How well I remembered her gentle hands after the battle, when I lay unconscious, body and soul so nearly parted, calling me back to life and love.

When I came back to myself I found that I was naked, but not ashamed. “Gaius,” came her voice, sounding husky. “You’ve got to lie with Meryl, and warm her body with your own.”

Only then did I remember it was night, cold and pale as death. Then she went to her friend, gently but firmly turning her onto her side. She placed Sarah before her, wrapped her arms about the child, and gestured for me to come and lie behind them both, as my heart nearly stopped in sudden love and fear.

Meryl began to resist, but we were both so cold and miserable….. With a despairing cry, as if admitting at last that her husband was gone, she craned her neck forward and let me lie down behind her. I did. Then instinctively, protectively, I put my arm around them both.

“Forgive me,” I nearly sobbed, choking back the three words that tried to follow. Then all was warm confusion, my loins against her, my face, as she at last relented, so close to hers. Her long hair was laced with sand, still smelling of the sea. It all seemed more a dream…..

“Closer,” she said angrily. “Hold me closer or I’ll die.”

How can I tell you the emotions I experienced in that moment? Sorrow for her loss, shame at my flaccid state, forlorn affection, all welling at the sudden intimacy. But cold, exhaustion, and the body’s elemental need to warm itself, would not be denied. Almost without realizing it I found my chest firm against her back, my forearm rubbing her thigh to warm it, then her stomach and ribs. And as I inadvertently touched her breast, withdrawing the hand in alarm, her reaction again surprised me.

“It’s all right,” she whispered softly through her tears. “I want you to touch me. . .like Malachi…..”

She could not finish. And truly wishing nothing but to comfort her, I kissed the side of her face, stroked her arm and said sadly. “My poor, sweet Meryl.”

Then together, feeling awkward and warm as I would not have believed possible, we slowly fell asleep.

II

I write this after perhaps a fortnight. The count of days seems so meaningless with nothing but the sea before us, behind and all around. I am grateful for the sounds of wind and water, for without them I would feel as if we were standing still, with the world turning under us. An odd sensation, to be sure.

Until now there has been little to tell. Both in spite of and because of our soaking in the Mediterranean—for we could not rig sails to catch the rain, and the seas that leaked down into the hold ruined many of our stores—provisions have begun to run low. And with no fruit or vegetables to eat these many days, sickness and languor have spread among us like a plague.

But most oppressive of all is the fear: that we have made a terrible mistake. Even with the mariner’s log, the charts, and the navigational skills of the brothers, which are not inconsiderable, we must all begin to doubt. For we have not seen land of any kind—even a lonely islet where we could draw fresh water and search for greens—in days uncounted.

Where are we, and where is the land that was promised?

Well. Alexander is nothing if not dramatic. He remained at the tillers throughout the night, as he has done more than once during the long passage, with Cleades to work the sails. The rest of us were startled awake by the sound of the anchor chain running loudly through the haws-hole. For this could only mean one thing.

I ran up on deck to find Cleades smiling broadly, and furling the mainsail. Cassius soon joined me from the cabin he shares with his family, looking groggily about him.

For a moment I thought I must still be asleep, dreaming of what could not possibly be. For the panorama that greeted my eyes, as I turned this way and that, seemed impossible after weeks of nothing but the unchanging liquid world of sea and sky…..

Yet I was not asleep, and the new reality grew more solid with every moment of the slow-rising dawn. And our blessed Aphrodite, beneath us still and protecting us from the fathomless void. . .lay anchored just beyond the sheltered harbor of an island. A beautiful island.

“Land!”

But that is not all. As the rest of the company staggered up on deck from their various quarters, squinting in the sudden light as the sun rose dazzling, we looked about to see not one island but several: an archipelago, lush and green!

Ariel, still the soul of our company, embraced first Cassius and Franzi, then Jacob, then to my joy and astonishment, me. Meryl wept in Malachi’s arms, as he looked past her like a man reborn. Sarah was the last to come out—in my excitement I had forgotten how hard it is for her to climb up the fore-hatch alone—but the first to express the wonder we all felt. She looked about her, then ran towards me shouting “Hooray!” so that I thought my heart would burst.

I lifted her in my arms and—somewhat to my own consternation, as much danger and uncertainty await—exclaimed, “We did it, Sarah! We’re home.”

Cleades slid down from the rigging and embraced his brother with tears in his eyes. Yet Alexander remained rigid, seeming unable yet to release the fierce tension that had kept him going for so long.

The thought suddenly came to me, as it had already done to him, that we should investigate the islands first, remaining hidden (so far as this was possible) from the mainland, just hinted at to north and east by mist and shadows, and the slow gathering of clouds above. Can it be, that letting go our dream of a Mediterranean island to call our own, we have found another, in safer and more virginal waters? How the hope tears my heart!

Can we settle here, and be left in peace?

I

Do all new husbands and fathers—for I can now think of myself as nothing less—begin that changed life under circumstances so bleak, and with such desperate resolve? I find myself capable of no other outlook, no other emotion. Am I being melodramatic? The word loses all meaning in the face of the life or death of those you love.

For we are landed, none too gently, on the coast of a dark continent, under whose rule we cannot guess and dare not assume, unable to return to the killing sea, or move far inland away from it. We are lost—literally do not know where we are—a situation only compounded should we venture this way or that without even knowing our starting point.

Cassius has a rough idea of Numidia’s geography, as I have. His was acquired as a boy, traveling, and even fighting beside his father at the ripe old age of ten. My knowledge of the place is second-hand, gleaned from whatever maps and texts were part of my work as a scribe. Alexander and Cleades have apparently sailed in these waters, more or less, but without ever going ashore.

But none of us, in long and sometimes heated debate, have been able to determine exactly where we are, or where we should go to find safety and shelter. The very words are as meaningless in Africa as they were in Spain. For we are trapped between two deserts. In one, the salt sea, the water is undrinkable, while in the other, the grim Sahara, there is no water at all, unless you know where to look for it.

The one thing we’re sure of is that the strip of arable land we now traverse, making our way cautiously in no particular direction, becomes barren little more than fifty miles inland: a rocky escarpment fringing endless dunes: the Sahara, the greatest desert on earth: an anvil for the beating of the merciless African sun.

Of course we could not stay where we were, in the weathered holes perhaps a mile from the shore. Again I must try to tell the tale sequentially, though it seems, like ourselves, unlikely to go much further.

The morning of my last entry we set out again, climbing the grainy, wind-riven cliffs of which the holes are part. It is well that we did, for the dreaded corsairs came upon Aphrodite that very noon. It must now be more than a fortnight ago.

Cassius, Alexander and myself, as heads of our respective families—so different, and yet so alike in tragedy—watched them from the emaciated cliff’s edge, the women and children crouching low behind. For none of us were willing to let them see or be seen, especially Meryl. An emotional outburst at the looting of the ship or the rifling of the body meant certain death.

The scavengers did not stay long, a fact which none of us knew how to interpret. Of course they lowered boats from their long and lean black xebec, which seemed a very centipede of the sea, rowed by slaves they had no doubt acquired in similar ghastly raids. One boat touched at Aphrodite—curse their foul feet on that once beautiful deck, now broken and angling like a splintered roof—and perhaps a dozen mud-colored men in outlandish garments searched her for anything of value, the sunlight glinting on their scimitars.

Another boat went ashore, where they surely found signs of our passage, as any snuffling scavenger would. One man in particular, bending so low that he seemed to move on all fours, followed our footprints as far as the rocks, finding there a torn shred of Meryl’s dress, and even pointing toward the caves we had so recently inhabited. At this we crouched even lower, my heart beating like a mad thing.

But the leader of the group—if such a being can be said to exist among human predators—soon waved him back. Both boats then pulled for the narrow galley, which rose and fell hypnotically in the calmer waters beyond the surf, all after something less than an hour’s time. Why? What was their hurry?

I put the question to Cassius and Alexander, whose knowledge of such vermin is greater than mine. Was this normal behavior for pirates?

“Not unless they fear pursuit,” was Cassius’ ominous reply.

“By other marauders?” I asked. For as we watched, they had stolen anxious glances not inland, but behind them, out to sea.

Alexander’s answer held even more foreboding. “They seem to fly before some irresistible force, as smaller craft did before our Roman fleet. Do you remember?”

“Yes.” And I seemed to realize for the first time how we ourselves must have appeared to them: an overpowering armada. While he, at the tillers of Count Asteria’s ship, no doubt had a better view of it, through the portals I too had caught glimpses of lesser boats, fleeing before us as from the Devil himself.

“But who else in these waters could muster such a fleet? Alaric tried to sail on to Africa, but his ships were destroyed—” All at once my blood ran cold.

Cassius answered slowly, as if the same thought had occurred to him. “The Romans kept smaller fleets at both Caesarea and Hippo Regius, to the west and east of us, respectively. But that would hardly be a new threat.”

“Or,” said Alexander darkly, “it could be the fleet we left behind.”

“No,” I said, in desperate denial.

“Yes.” The young Greek seemed to enjoy the effect his words were having. “Now manned by a different enemy: one whose power waxes rather than wanes.”

“What do you know?” demanded Cassius sharply, and for once I agreed with him.

“Only that several days before you took our ship”—there was undisguised resentment in his words—“a great host rode into Barceno, its vanguard assembling on the docks.”

“The Vandals,” I cursed, anticipating nightmare.

“Of course. Do you want me to tell it or not?”

Cassius seized his tunic in both hands, dragging him to his feet. “You’ll tell me everything you know, or die on this spot!”

Alexander calmly but firmly disengaged himself. “I am trying to. Don’t do that again.”

At this point the others came up, Ariel to soothe her husband, Cleades to do the same for his brother. And somewhat to my surprise—for nothing further had been said between us—Meryl moved toward me, taking hold of my arm and silently urging me not to become involved. Of course she then looked toward the ship, and sobbed at the site of Malachi’s body, cut down by the pirates, now washed up on shore and fretted by the waves.

“Please, Alexander,” said Ariel gently, as Meryl wept against me. “Just tell us what you saw.”

Alexander sighed darkly, collected his thoughts. “Two or three days before we took the Aphrodite, a great host of riders assembled in the square, even as the Romans had done before them. Then a smaller group, no doubt the tribal leaders, came down to the quays, and spoke with the guards assigned to watch the fleet.”

“Did one of them walk with a limp?” demanded Cassius, “as if his spine was twisted?”

This the youth did not have to consider. “Yes.”

“Gaiseric,” muttered Cassius. “Go on.”

“He and one other, who wore a golden circlet, seemed to be the rulers. Because after a time the others withdrew, even the guards, so that they could speak in private. While it was hard to tell from a distance—though one was clearly older, and the other lame—I wondered if they might not be brothers.”

“Gunderic and Gaiseric,” said Cassius with disgust. “They are brothers: the first their bloody-minded King, the second his heir, more terrible and ruthless still, if he ever comes to power.”

“Was it he who rose in the stirrups?” I asked. “After the battle of Bent River, I mean. And led the Vandal army in a body to the east? Even as he raised his sword, he seemed unable…..”

“To stand straight in the saddle,” said Cassius bitterly, “but must turn his horse in the direction he wished to look.” As in my mind the pieces came together like a horrible mosaic, which would then come to life and destroy us. “I wondered at the time why he, and not Gunderic, led them into battle.”

“The elder of the two seemed worn, possibly ill.” Alexander.

“Probably being poisoned by his brother, and too stupid to know it.”

“What does it all mean?” asked Ariel. “You’re scaring me.” For she, like myself, had awful memories of Vandal cruelty.

“There’s no way of knowing for certain,” said Cassius, trying to calm her, unable to calm himself. “We may be reading more than we should into the pirate’s haste. It’s only one of many possibilities…..”

“Tell me.”

At this her husband exhaled painfully. “…..that the Vandals have sailed on to Africa, in the fleet that the Romans left behind.”

“But it can’t be,” she exclaimed. “That’s why we left Spain, and risked all our lives never to go back. It can’t be the same animals who burned our village, raped and killed my mother…..” She faltered, in tears.

Meryl again huddled close beside me. I remembered that she, too, had been stripped of her former life by these men—the deadliest of the Nordic barbarians. For their minds are not dull as with the true savage, but hard, sharp, and cold as steel.

“Easy,” I whispered, kissing her forehead. “We don’t know anything for certain.”

“But nothing good,” she replied, with a panic in her voice that troubled me. “Please. Take me away from all of this!”

And feeling again the burden of my responsibility—for her, and for Sarah—I knew that something must be done. I scanned the horizon: empty once more.

“We can’t stay here,” I said. “Whoever they’re afraid of—Roman, Visigoth or Vandal—could land at any time, and be upon us before we can escape.”

“Yes,” said Cassius and Alexander, almost in unison.

So we gathered our meager belongings and struck out—southeast, because the greatest danger lay northwest—toward what we do not know, only that the coast is now more perilous than ever.

God help us.

II

Again we took to the launch: myself, Cassius and Franzi climbing down the gang-ropes into it. Others wanted to come, most notably Alexander and Malachi, but Cassius was adamant. Enough men must remain behind to defend the ship, or slip her moorings if need be, out-sail all pursuit, then come back for us when the danger had past.

And he was right. As much as we all want to be ashore, solid ground beneath our feet for the first time in weeks, we did not yet know what we would find. Whether the island was inhabited or uninhabited, benevolent or hostile, remained to be seen.

Alexander had chosen his mooring place wisely, solid holding ground for Aphrodite, the ship itself partly screening us from the waves, with the sheltered harbor not far off. We rowed toward it carefully, the empty water casks rocking in the bottom of the boat.

No cross-grained current took us as we entered the narrowing mouth, only crystalline water showing white sand and green growth below. Again Alexander had anticipated correctly. For with her extended keel the Aphrodite draws nearly three fathoms, and the depth, at least here at the entrance, was clearly less than that.

The water grew deeper again as we entered the lagoon itself, keeping as near to the center as we could. But still we saw no sign of habitation, and the hope of settling here began to rise in me. Too soon. Cassius pointed grimly to a finger of reddish stone, roughly the height of a man, standing erect halfway up the northern beach.

“If that’s not some kind of pagan marker, then I’ve never seen one.”

“It could be natural.”

“Not likely, unless it dropped out of the sky.”

“What should we do?” I asked uneasily, strange fears beginning to stir as I eyed the rocky rim of the land, the scrubby growth beyond it. For again, it was not my safety alone that was at stake.

“One mooring place, no boats: I’d say we go ashore.” And he inclined his head toward several flat stones on the western bank, darker and seeming more natural. We pulled for them, then grounded softly, hauled the boat up onto the pebbly sand.

“Should we bring the water casks?” I asked.

“Unless you want to start drinking piss,” he hissed softly, wrapping the line about a stone. “Keep your voice down.” I did, as visions of rude tribesmen waiting in ambush filled my mind.

But as we moved inland no such creature appeared, no fauna at all save for the crabs that had scurried away from us on the beach, seeming to vanish into unseen holes, and the gulls that wheeled overhead. We continued on. A long incline lay before us. We moved among rock and earth, briar and bramble as we made our way up it.

But as we reached the summit, a hundred feet above the level of the sea, we were met by a broad plateau, a flattened disc perhaps half a mile in diameter. And barring our way we found another, surer sign of Man: a fence of stones, not piled on top of each other, but side by side like the fingers of many hands protruding from the earth. It did not guard the place physically—for it stood only three to four feet high, and was not a complete circle—but morally. Its stones, like the finger-post, were of a reddish hue, not the native gray granite all around. And beyond this fence lay not the heather and high holly of the island’s two capes—to right and left they lay, like the wings of a giant bird—but scrub grasses, low moss and lichen covered stones, and scattered wildflowers of the purest white I’d ever seen.

Near the back of the disc a pair of tall trees stood alone, the only two I could see on the whole of the island. “Ash,” whispered Cassius, “revered by the Druids.” They had attracted our eyes first because of their height, but could not hold our gaze for the ring of stones about them.

Because the most striking feature of the dell, and the one that removed all doubt of its function, was the great Stone Circle that surrounded them, and beyond which the land fell sharply to the sea. While of a more natural hue, these bones of the earth could not possibly have come here by chance, but were precisely placed, a measured ring, and three times the height of a man.

“Standing Stones,” said Cassius, not much surprised, “with the Sacred Grove within. The island must be a ritual gathering site.”

“Druids,” I echoed, though with far less complacence. “I’ve read of them, from the memoirs of Julius Caesar. They’re supposed to perform human sacrifice. But what are they really, and what do they do here?”

“Nature worshippers, and there’s only one way to find out.” He inclined his head toward the grove. “That should also tell us whether they’re White or Black: benevolent or wicked.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked him.

“The Celts of Scot-leine, Scot-land, are closely related to these people, and such monuments are to be found throughout the whole of Britannia.”

“You knew that Erin existed, and said nothing?”

He didn’t answer, as if the question were foolish and beside the point. Instead he lifted Franzi over the fence, hand-hurdled it himself, and on into the strange, unearthly plain.

I followed, torn between fear and fascination. I don’t know why the faiths of others arouse such dread hostility in men— perhaps the thought that their own may be as false (or real), based on superstition—but there is no denying the fact.

When we reached the Stone Circle he passed right through, apparently more interested in the trees, or something on the ground between them. As I followed more reluctantly, I saw him uncork the cask he’d brought and dip it into a low, stone-rimmed cistern.

“How do you know the water isn’t poisoned?” I said, “as a punishment for trespass?”

“Because it would kill the trees—that’s what it’s here for—and the Druids would never do that. They hold them sacred, as they do the seasonal movements of the sun and stars, which the Stones probably indicate. They believe trees to be the homes of spirits, if not the living gods themselves. I haven’t seen the two combined before—Stone Circle and Sacred

Grove—but it makes sense. The stones may have stood here for more than a thousand years. Thus they combine the ancient and modern beliefs, like the Old Testament and the New.”

As a Christian I resented the comparison. “A thousand years?” I asked, incredulous.

“The Egyptian pyramids are older still, built perhaps three thousand years ago. It’s humbling to realize, but the great stone-works of history pre-date Rome (and your precious Messiah) by hundreds, even thousands of years.”

What he said was true, if unsettling. The antiquity of the place only added to its aura of strangeness. He may have felt no sense of awe and foreboding, but I did. How could he remain unmoved? Yet when his cask was filled he merely gestured that I should do the same, then moved to study the left-hand tree.

But preceding him with my eyes. . .I gasped in horror. For halfway up its bare trunk was a band of iron, with two leathern cuffs hanging down from it. . .and a white dress at its base, stained with blood.

“Human sacrifice!” I exclaimed, as Cassius bent to examine it. But he only lifted the dress and held it toward me, emphasizing the smallness of the stain.

“Hardly. No corpse, no smell of death: I’d say it was a fertility ritual, and certainly no one died. Haven’t you ever seen a virgin’s blood before?”

“…..they raped her? How can you be so indifferent!”

“Grow up, Gaius. Is the dress torn? Are there signs of a struggle? I’d say she came to this place a maid, and left it a bride.”

“But bind her to a tree? It’s barbaric!”

“One man’s sacrilege is another man’s Faith. This is the Mother Tree, I think, the other one the Father: the White Druids’ way of blessing the couple’s union and encouraging childbirth….. Would you mind filling your cask, so we can get the hell out of here?”

“But surely we can’t stay on this island? What if they come back, and find us desecrating their sacred site?”

“Did I say we were staying?” he answer gruffly. “Just fill the damned cask and let’s go.”

I did as he asked, though not for him. And without further exploration we returned to the ship.

I

Our worst fears would seem to be confirmed. For to the west great columns of smoke appear. And while (brutally) this is so much a sign of the times that it could mean anything, there are other portents as well.

We have taken refuge in the Tell Atlas, a somewhat less desolate spur of the Atlas Mountains. I find no irony in the name; nor, I suspect, do any of the others. For stripped of Aphrodite, bereft of Jacob, our spiritual leader, and Malachi, who deserved a far better end, all of us must feel—I do feel—that we carry the weight of the world upon our shoulders, and that one misstep will send it crashing down, destroying those we love.

I will also confess that at times I feel my mind racing from one extreme to the other: despair at the loss of friends and the wreck of our fortunes, euphoria at the thought that Meryl may soon be mine, our family joined and made whole forever. Such thoughts seem to chase one another like mad figures in a dream.

Has the unthinkable happened? Am I no longer in control of myself—now, when I most need to be, when I am solely responsible for the safety and well-being of the woman and little girl I love more than my own soul? Please, God, don’t let it be so! Bring us to some place where I can find peace, provide for them, and give them the good life they deserve.

At least we have a better idea where we are, and if one must struggle through Africa there are worse places to do it. Or would be, if not for the cloud that hangs over us all. For we have met other refugees—so many now upon the road—from whom we gathered tidings, and discovered our true location. Alas that their words are but the surer proof.

The Vandals have sailed to Africa, and set about the grim work of pillage, rape and murder in even riper fields: the fertile plain between the desert and the sea. For the most part the dispossessed come from the coastal cities—Caesarea and Igilgilis—flying before them like birds and beasts before a fire.

We were not far out in our reckoning. We must have come to ground about twenty miles east of Igilgilis, eighty west of Hippo Regius. And now that we have moved inland after a southeastern trek of perhaps fifty more, we can establish our position as being roughly a dozen again from Roman Cirta—an inland trading hub roughly half the distance between them— though what it is now called, and by whom it is ruled we cannot know for certain.

From the high ridge in which we have taken shelter—a dry cave in a crease near the top, and where no one would come by chance— we should be able to follow the stream that runs near its base, east and a little north, towards it. Both from Cassius’ recollections and mine—I was fortunate enough to do the lettering for several maps of this area—others streams like it feed into a broader watercourse, until in Cirta it joins another, swelling to a river, then makes its slow, meandering way to the sea.

Should we choose that way, it will bring us unerringly to Hippo Regius, the closest thing to a free Roman port we are likely to find. There, at least, we may have the opportunity to earn a living, or take to the sea again to escape the madness that has spread, like a pestilence, from one continent to another. Or, to use another metaphor, like the vultures that fly to Spain above the pillars of Hercules. Only these filthy scavengers have flown south, and like the land corsairs they are, need not wait, but bring death with them.

Would the Vandals try to take Hippo as well? I put the question to Cassius, and this was his reluctant answer. They could well try to do so, but might find it a tough nut to crack. Why? Because this same river provides the city with fresh water in case of a siege; and the land between our present position and Carthage, with Hippo in its midst, is so rich and fertile that it has been called the Granary of the Empire. As such, they are bound to have great store of food, enough to sustain them through a long and bitter siege.

And while none of this would mean much if the city itself were not a walled fortress, well defended, in point of fact it is. The Roman Consul General may well choose to make his final stand here, the place not yet weakened by the corruption and intrigues of Rome.

127 Yet Cassius is uneasy in his mind, reluctant to be caught between two fires. For the Christianity of Italy is as nothing to the religious fervor of Hippo. There the famous bishop, Augustine, is said to rule his flock with an iron hand, having done so for a quarter century. How much greater would his power become, Cassius asks, with the Vandals at the gate? For he knows the man, has heard him speak, and assures us he is quite cunning enough to turn such a threat to his own advantage: in fiery sermons and proclamations declaring the invaders an Old Testament plague, a punishment from God for impiety and sin, with unquestioning obedience (to him) the only salvation.

And while Alexander tends to discount this, and Meryl along with him, I cannot help but wonder if they are both falling into the age-old trap: hearing only what they want to hear, and discounting the rest. Or am I so accustomed to yielding to Cassius’ alarmist views that I accept all he says without question? After all, if we had stayed anchored by the inlet in southern Gaul, perhaps none of this would have happened….. I know that is probably unfair, but in truth I do not know what to think, much less what to do.

Time alone will tell, and it may well be running out.

II

When we came back on board, the others began to ply us with questions. What had we found? Could we make this island our home? Why were we so reluctant to speak?

“The island is sacred,” said Cassius at last. “While these Druids appear to be White, we would still be massacred if they found us here. In fact we’ve got to leave now. Right now.”

And while the company was of course disappointed, between his bluntness and my lingering apprehension, they took the point directly. The men (including ourselves) moved to the capstan and began reeling in the anchor, while Cleades scrambled up into the rigging. Alexander stood ready at the tillers, as always.

“Where now?” was all he said.

“The larger island to south and west,” replied Cassius, “and farthest from the mainland.”

“Oileán Cléire,” said Alexander calmly.

“Yes. I’m afraid Sharcaen must be left to the natives.”

I looked from one to the other, first in confusion, then in rising anger. “You knew where we were, and said nothing to me?”

“You should have read the log and studied the charts,” returned Cassius levelly. “Alexander and I did, and so made the decisions.”

“Then you knew the island was forbidden.”

“No,” said Alexander, as he took us out into the offing to gain more sea-room. “Liolus (the trader), though he made a rough sketch of the archipelago, never ventured to land on the islands, thinking it might be viewed as hostile or seditious by the Celtic rulers. We had little water, and therefore no real choice.”

“He sketched this very place?”

“Yes, though without much detail, which suggests he went straight on to make his landfall. When I’m free I will show you his course.”

By this time Cassius had returned with the appropriate scroll from the captain’s log—scrupulously kept by every serious mariner—and now opened it to Liolus’ drawings of Erainn, the southwestern corner of Ireland.

“Here,” said Cassius, indicating a deep channel knifing up into the mainland. “His goal was trade, and so he sought contact. Ours is to settle—a different proposition entirely.”

By this time Cleades had set the sails and come down again. After a brief exchange with his brother as to the course, he took a turn at the tillers, and Alexander joined us. Though I could see they were trying to include me, I remained somewhat defensive.

“He was allowed to sail unchecked,” continued Cassius, “though not unwatched, up the knifing trough to the place where a castle stood on a promontory. Here.” And he pointed.

Then Alexander took up the narrative. “The opposing island there reduces the channel to only fifty fathoms across. There, a number of craft barred his way. So he furled his sails and made anchor, hoping to parley.”

“And did he?”

“Yes. He invited their emissaries on board, and after long discussion, using signs and drawings to make his point, he accompanied them back to the castle, where the king received him.”

“And obviously reached some kind of understanding,” I said, “since he lived to tell of it. I just wish you had told me.”

“You’re becoming a man,” said Cassius, not unkindly, “the head of your small family. But you’ve still got to learn responsibility and self-reliance.” I bridled at this, but he went on regardless.

“Alexander knows this log, these charts, by rote. He assumed full responsibility for our coming here, and so—though at first I wanted to ring his neck—I gave it to him, as being more knowledgeable of the sea than I am.”

“But why was I excluded?”

“Simple. If you want to scribble at Jacob’s scroll all day, so be it. When you’re fully committed to our venture, rather than merely recording it, I will confide in you, and give your thoughts and opinions their due weight.”

“That’s so unfair,” I objected. “Along with the working of the ship and caring for my daughter, the journal is my responsibility. I haven’t neglected any of them! Keeping it faithfully has been harder than you’ll ever know, whether you recognize its value or not.”

“No one ever said life was fair, Gaius. And I suppose your notes on the sea-voyage, at least, may have some practical application. But the question before us now, right now, is whether or not Liolus’ impressions can be applied to the present situation.”

“Another writer,” I could not help pointing out. “Was his journal meaningless?

“No. But it was made fifty years ago, several lifetimes in a place as remote as this.”

I realized then that he was holding back a flood of impatience, trying, probably at Ariel’s request, to treat me as a man: as he said himself, the head of my own family. I was in fact being included. I had to accept it, and so, with an effort, put away my resentment, and gave them my full attention.

“But it does give us some idea what to expect,” said Alexander. “The lands roundabout are, or at least were, ruled by a kind of triumvirate, with military, religious and tribal leaders all having their say. Liolus met with their King, along with the High Druid and the heads of the various clans, and was eventually allowed to trade here. It seems they even revered him in a way, because of references to the Greeks—our myths and teachings—in their long and well-kept oral histories. Our ancient explorers were remembered in any event, respected, and with the passing of time, may even have become a part of their own mythology. For the two are not unlike.

“That’s why I knew,” he concluded, with the secret passion I had previously remarked, “that we should come here.”

I considered. “So. Unless things are much changed, you and Cleades might be honored as Greeks, with some of that rubbing off onto Cassius and myself—assuming they have no personal grudge against the Romans. But what of the others, the Jews?”

“Yes,” said Malachi, who along with Jacob had joined us, wanting to be part of the discussion, and have a better idea of how they would be received.

“As Ariel said,” replied the young man, “there has probably been little or no contact between your people and theirs. At least they will not hate you on sight as the Christians do: as unbelievers, or rivals in their devotion to a single God.”

Now all the company gathered round. For this was a critical point.

“All the same,” said Cassius, “I don’t imagine the Druids are any more open to foreign beliefs—a different kind of invasion—than anyone else. If and when we do meet them, don’t do or say anything to call attention to Judaic beliefs. Or Christian ones, either.” This last with a stern look at me. “They may have absorbed, or even incorporated, some of the Greek mythology. Liolus suggests as much. But the belief in a single, omnipotent, and above all foreign God, might be more than they’re willing to consider.”

“But how,” I asked, “can they object to Christ’s message of love and forgiveness?”

“Easily!” growled Cassius. “And if you can’t say anything more intelligent than that, keep your mouth shut. This is serious.”

“So was I.”

“Then get this through your thick, adolescent head. We’re no longer in Roman lands, or anything like them. These people, like any other, are bound to be proud and righteous in their beliefs, fiercely territorial, and not about to listen to you, or anyone else, who tries to tell them they’re wrong: that your God is God, and everything they believe is ignorance and superstition. Or they might put you against a tree, and marry you to the point of a spear!”

“He’s right,” said Jacob gently, touching my shoulder. “We Jews have wandered for centuries, and the first lesson of emigration is not to make waves: to keep our beliefs and rituals to ourselves, and honor the local customs wherever possible.”

“I agree,” said Alexander firmly. “If the Celts choose to respect my brother and I as Greeks, so be it. But we must not assume any such thing, or call attention to our differences. We are outsiders in this country, and must not be proud or aggressive in any way.” Cassius grunted his assent.

I felt like a fool. It was all true. And what was worse, I knew it. I felt the color rise in my face. But Ariel reached over and took my hand affectionately.

“This is new for all of us,” she said, “and none of us quite know how to feel. You made a mistake. How could you not? You learned from it. And I hope you know, because it’s true, how much we all value and care for you.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Cassius dryly, but without rancor.

“Yes,” agreed Jacob emphatically. “Never doubt it. And I appreciate your keeping the journal as I asked. It is important.”

And glancing round at these people who mean so much to me, I was embarrassed now in a very different way. They did care, all of them. Cleades seemed on the point of tears, as if choking back even deeper emotions. Could he somehow have gotten the wrong idea about me?

But feeling a familiar pressure against my legs, I looked down to see Sarah smiling up at me. I needed no other reassurance.

“All right,” I said simply. “Thank you for including me.” And I walked off with her little hand in mine, only to lift her to me to hide the tears. Emotion. How effortlessly it overpowers thought!

But after getting us both something to eat and drink, I was calmer. How important, too, our daily needs. I remembered something that Ariel once said to me, something Cassius felt but could not articulate.

“Love is not a thing of words, not a noble thought or lofty sentiment, but a steady and unending course of action. To truly love someone means to care for them, and to give them what they need.”

Do you still wonder at my feelings for her, or why I can never truly let her go? I tell you now, and without shame, that I have never known a truer heart, a deeper soul. But for my Sarah, I would gladly die for her. Ariel, if you ever read this, I only want you to know, never hoping to take you from the family that is your life and love:

I can’t stop loving you.

But now I become too emotional again. There is too much to do, to find out, and the consequences are far too important.

And so, studying the captain’s log until my mind would take no more in, I returned it to Alexander and set again to my own account, as I have so often done, trying to get this down while the impressions remain fresh inside me. And trying to understand it all myself.

Yes, this is new for all of us, our emotions heightened by arriving at the place where dream meets reality, and hope and fear alike must be reconciled to the truth.

I pray that we will not be disappointed.

I

Forgive me. I have not been myself, and reading back my last entry, I find that I have put the cart well before the horse. Before telling you of our emotional state, I must give a clearer idea of the physical: of our surroundings, and day-to-day existence. Now that we have one.

For the moment we are safe enough, living in a high cave of the Tell Atlas, a moderate mountain range which overlooks the fertile lands that lie between them and the sea. There is clean water fairly close at hand, taken from one of the many rivulets that wind down from them, as they catch the last of the coastal rains. Yet another extreme. Only a few miles south, on the far side of the divide, there is not a hint of water: the desolate Sahara, which runs the entire width of Africa. Where does one find the balance point? Perhaps we already have. For if we are careful and diligent, we will not perish through hunger or violence. At least not yet. And in the current state of unrest, that is saying something. Though the future remains uncertain, our present, at least, is not so bleak as it was.

We did some scavenging (and stealing) along the way. Cassius has the soldier’s gift for it. By one means or another we have acquired two bows and a quiver of arrows, along with the lethal, broad-bladed spear favored by the hunters of the region. This we traded for, as trying to take it from a man so armed would be perilous indeed. It is used by the black-skinned natives farther south to hunt lions, and that should tell you something: about man and weapon both. I understand that in some tribes the passage to manhood is only accomplished by hunting and killing one of the terrible beasts—alone. So if you harbor any racism, my friend, or consider these people inferior in any way, perhaps you should reexamine your beliefs. Cassius says they are the greatest survivors, and among the greatest warriors in the world.

The cave we now occupy is not much like a home, and Meryl in particular seems ill-suited to such a life, as her imprecations attest. In her defense (as if she needed one, after all she has been through), it’s not what she’s used to at all—the comfort and finery of her father’s vineyard. Also, she is terrified of the leopards and hyenas we sometimes hear in the night.

But from the cave’s hidden entrances we are able to descend, north or south, to hunt and gather as we may. We will not starve, or perish from the elements. But you see my dilemma. One man’s shelter is another man’s prison, one woman’s contentment, another’s crisis. Cassius and Ariel are happy here. They have each other and they have the boy, and with her pregnancy advancing, no wish to travel further. I have Meryl to consider, though she has not yet declared herself mine.

Alexander has no woman, though I view with growing resentment his covert attraction to her. Does she feel the same toward him? God forgive me, I sometimes think I could kill him for it. Doesn’t he know that I love her, that we were always meant to be together? Or why the incredible series of coincidences that brought us together? Can he not recognize the hand of God in all that has happened?

And yet she is not happy here. Would she go off with him? Intolerable thought! Then I would be the man alone, the one bereft, the intruder.

So clearly, painfully, another difficult choice lies before us. For there is no greater barrier than the rocky slopes themselves to keep the Vandals from coming here, as they may well do in time, when the coastal cities and inland towns are picked clean. We are not in the first line of hills, or even the second or the third. And if I have somehow given that impression, it is not a stream that runs at the base of the ridge, but a rivulet…..

But here, I think I have already made that correction. I don’t know why it is so hard for me to think clearly now, to concentrate. Writing, which once came so easily—or at least came, in the end—is now a bitter, even a desperate struggle. The thoughts and images come crowding into my mind like headlong seas—the distorted visions of which continually haunt my dreams—trying to pour through my eyes and onto the page….. What am I saying, and why can’t I stop it?

Where was I? Yes. We are out of the way, and no one would come here by chance. Still…..

Against this danger, which he does not think imminent, Cassius has nonetheless set us all to work fortifying the place. This we have done with a curving wall just beyond the entrance, made of native stone and crushed mortar, so that nothing unnatural can be seen unless one comes very close. We are also building a stout wooden barrier within, set back so that it is hidden in shadow, as is the inner wall of the entrance itself. We only found the place ourselves after several days of scrabbling among the barren rock of this, and other ridges. And with the thick door able to be propped from behind, it will resist a good deal of force. Of course this would not stop the assault of a determined enemy: a band of marauders, to say nothing of an army. But it would buy us time. There is another entrance, an escape passage opening onto the far side of the ridge. Here the land becomes quite dry, uninhabited, seemingly, by anything but snakes and scorpions. For this reason, along with its isolation, attack from that quarter seems unlikely, though of course we are securing it as well.

As ever, Cassius takes nothing for granted, the reason Jacob first chose him as our leader, and the reason that none of us rebel, hard and abrasive as he can sometimes be. For he understands the dark side of human nature. One could almost say he shares it. But such a grim outlook is needed in our present plight, and it is only because of it we yet survive. If the world ever becomes less dangerous and chaotic, I daresay he will be lost in it. But as it shows no signs of doing so, we have all learned to rely on his judgment. We work hard to improve our defenses, and discreetly trade with the nomadic peoples of the desert beyond for weapons, food and clothing, though never revealing from which direction we came, let alone where we live.

So things are not all bad, though I confess I remain anxious about Meryl. While she says little, and sleeps beside Sarah and I at night, the combined trauma of losing her home, her father and her husband, are sure to have left deep wounds in her heart. How could they not? She is reluctant to trust me wholly, no matter what I say or do. And as I said, this is simply not the life she is accustomed to: the wealth and comfort of her father’s home before the invasion. While she doesn’t complain, comparing this reality to that, in her weakened state I don’t know if she will ever be happy or at peace here. And I want her to be, more than I can say.

Alexander and Cleades also have misgivings. Two things, beside the isolation and loneliness I’ve already alluded to, make them long for a Mediterranean port. The first, of course, is the sea, which has been their natural element since childhood. The other is the attention that Cleades continues to draw whenever we meet with the Berbers, Arabs, and other nomads of the desert. We are not so foolish as to expose our women to the predatory lusts of any man. But while there may be no more homosexuals here than in Europe—such things, I think, are universal—in North African culture it is not considered perverse or wicked for the most virulent of men to have male, as well as female slaves and concubines. Need I say that the brothers have no wish to return to such a life?

But Cleades can no more hide what he is than his brother could pretend it. He is viewed with open longing wherever we go, and I suppose if I were drawn that way, I would be also. While Alexander is a true Adonis (at least so the women tell me), handsome in an infinitely masculine way, Cleades could almost be said to be beautiful, certainly wistful, and he draws the hungry, possessive stares of the pederasts here as never before. 

Would he be less exposed to such peril in Hippo? Possibly. Why? Because it is inhabited, in large part, by Roman families who have lived there for generations; and the taste for boys, though not unheard of in Rome, is not encouraged there, either. In our long, and truly martial culture, men are supposed to be strong and aggressive, dominating (to say nothing worse) foreign women, but not boys or men. Add to this the fervent Christianity of Hippo, and the presence of Bishop Augustine, the consummate moralist and a true giant of the Church, and sodomy is not only abhorred, but punished as an crime, an ‘abomination before God.’

Yet this raises another concern. How tolerant of the ‘disbelieving’ Jews and sensual Greeks are its inhabitants likely to prove, molded by his sometimes severe writings, which in Hippo constitute not only Church canon, but civil law? Because added to what Cassius knows of the man and his City—we are told it is nothing less—I’ve begun to remember passages from the Catechismus Romanus, the Roman Catholic doctrine he helped to shape. It is one of the first things I copied out, and though much of it is gone from memory, I do remember how dark, strict and pedantic it was. And how it frightened me, as a tender lad of twelve.

So. Do we proceed to that powerful Roman port, with its perils, (relative) protection and opportunity, or do we remain here and hope the Vandals don’t choose to move so far inland?

Food for thought, to say the least.

II

Astonishing. Oileán Cléire is, if possible, even more lovely than Sharcaen—an almost tragic beauty, but without the strangeness of standing stone or sacred grove. And now that we have thoroughly explored it—a full week’s labor in which all participated—now that we find it unmarked and uninhabited, the serious debate begins.

For it too has a sheltered harbor opening to the south, largely protected from violent wind and wave, at least to date. And now that the brothers have sounded it, we know it is deep enough for Aphrodite to moor in, unseen from the mainland, or any other island of the archipelago. This is no small consideration, as we remain unsure of our welcome. And while a few fishing boats have come and cast their nets off the northeastern headland, they have not yet come ashore or entered the bay, and thus far at least, shown no inclination to do so.

Herein lies our dilemma. While we have kept out of sight and knowledge of the Eire-landers (so far as we know), and may continue to do so for a time. . .dare we stay? Most of all, dare we stay without seeking permission from the local rulers, whoever they may be? Scarcely five miles from the mainland, we are bound to be discovered sooner or later.

We have returned to the Aphrodite, now safely moored (and hidden) in the harbor, not yet venturing to construct the kind of shelter needed to live comfortably ashore. And now we gather in the main cabin, trying to decide what to do.

Jacob is for remaining hidden, even living aboard ship if need be, until the natives grow used to our presence. While Cassius acknowledges the thought, he also finds it dangerous, given what little we know of the Celts: that they are fiercely territorial, as anyone would be in such a beautiful and unspoiled land.

Alexander agrees. The two of them are for retracing Liolus’ course up the knifing waterway, and hoping for a similar outcome. Malachi and I have not yet decided, finding hope and peril in either course.

Don’t suppose the women aren’t involved. They are, having their say at such meetings, and perhaps a stronger influence upon their men (and the rest of us) than can easily be counted in terms of a single vote. And while Cassius will not yet allow us this kind of democracy, having kept us all safe and united until now, we are nonetheless free to voice our opinions, which he promises to take into full account.

“Any other thoughts?” he asked just now. “I’d like to hear from everyone.”

Jacob lowered his head and sighed. “I am still for remaining here, and keeping a low profile until we get some clearer sense of how the natives will receive us. But you were right about leaving the refuge, and many other things besides, so I will defer to your judgment.” A good and honest man, our Jacob, and I think Cassius knows this deep down, though he remains wary of the rabbi’s influence over Ariel, who loves him like a father. Many men, I think, secretly fear to lose their women, and so seek to control them. It is no compliment to the male sex, but I think that it is often true.

Next Malachi spoke. “My foremost concern is for my family: Meryl my wife, and Sarah, our niece. I was there when the deserters raped and killed Vera, having already murdered my brother and his son. And they would have done the same to Sarah if they could. For myself, I will never again place our women and children in such peril. I am for the men journeying alone up the sound, and discovering, rather than guessing, how their leaders would answer our coming, our wish to settle here.”

Ariel and Meryl, each for their own reason, shared his concern.

“I agree,” said Cassius. “And this raises another point: that of a tribute. They are not likely to give us the island out of charity.”

“Are you suggesting that we buy it from them?” asked Jacob.

“I wouldn’t put it to them that way, for two reasons. First, they are bound to reserve fishing, shoaling, and other rights.”

“And second,” said Alexander, anticipating. “It might be taken as an insult, a bribe.”

“Yes,” said Cassius, not pleased at being interrupted, with something else in his mind as well.

There is, as I think I have intimated, both a mutual respect and an unspoken tension between them. Sometimes they work together; sometimes they seem on the verge of violence, from which Alexander does not back down. For both men were born to lead—of that there can be no doubt. Sometimes Cassius welcomes, and makes use of the younger man’s strength and confidence, at other times he resents it. He said:

“Not a bribe. Say rather, a token of our good faith.”

I could not help asking. “What do we have that they would want? The brothers were shrewd enough to hide some of Count Asteria’s treasure, but surely not enough to satisfy a king, his priests and counselors.”

“No. We’ll need that for other things.”

“Then what?” I asked.

He turned slowly toward Alexander, whose face clouded as he sensed what was coming.

“The ship?” he demanded. Never! It’s worth a king’s ransom.”

“Or our freedom,” pursued Malachi, “and the island home we seek.”

Alexander waved his hands before him in denial and dismay.

“Think about it,” said Cassius sternly. “A sea-faring people are sure to see its worth, to value and covet it.”

“No!”

“And how would you keep it from them? Even if they didn’t try to take it by force, as the Visigoths intended, such a prize would draw every sea-borne raider for hundreds of miles.”

“There are pirates here?” I asked. “Why didn’t you warn us?”

“Grow up,” growled Cassius, his favorite insult.

“There has never been a sea without them,” said Cleades gently, taking his brother’s hand and stroking his arm to calm him. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been worried about that, too.” And at his brother’s hurt expression, he explained. “Because I know you’d never surrender her—that you would die first, defending her…..”

“Yes,” agreed Cassius, grateful for the unexpected support. “Word of such a beautiful, fast ship is bound to spread in time, and it would take every one of us every hour of the day to protect her from raiders, tribal chieftains and the like.” He took a deep breath, perhaps trying to persuade rather than to bully Alexander, which has become far more difficult of late.

“A shrewd, sea-faring people: the men all around will lust for it, every bit as much as they would the women.” But at the youth’s hostile glare he finally lost his temper. “Or your brother, you short-sighted whelp.”

At this Alexander began to advance, and Cassius drew his sword. But Cleades restrained him, as did Ariel her seething companion.

“I’m afraid he’s right,” said Jacob, always the peacemaker. “About the ship, at least. But I know how much it means to you, and I would not ask you to part with it unless there was no other choice.”

“I would,” said Cassius bluntly. “It doesn’t belong to any of us, if you think about it, and won’t keep trouble off forever. I have no wish to spend my life at sea, an outcast, a living ghost upon the waters.”

At this Alexander turned and strode out on deck—not in rage, I think, or not entirely so, but to weigh this unexpected, and very dear cost of freedom.

Then it was my turn. “I would not put my daughter in harm’s way, either, cannot even think of such a thing. I am in support of a parley, and I think it would be best if only Cassius, Alexander and myself took part. I don’t want to tempt the inhabitants’ darker nature with the presence of women and children, or of a new and unknown people. I mean the Jews, Malachi, if you’ll forgive me.”

“I know what you meant,” he said. “And enough of us must remain behind to guard the women.” This with a look at Meryl, who nodded gratefully.

After several more minutes, in which our thoughts (and hearts) went out to the young man pacing the deck, who had risked so much to bring us here….. Alexander returned, looking downcast, but not yet despairing of the ship. Some dreams die hard, as I know all too well.

“I agree that we must meet them,” he said, “and that my brother, too, might be in danger among them. And while I respect Jacob and Malachi, Cassius, Gaius and myself, two Romans and a Greek, will at least be a known quantity.”

He could not know we had already settled the point, continued. “Neither would I tempt religious prejudice, speaking of our own beliefs. And if they wish to tell us theirs, along with other customs and taboos, we should listen. Truly listen,” he added, with a glance at me, “and not contradict them in any way.” I nodded, having already accepted this as well.

A thoughtful silence ensued, then Cassius looked around him. “Does anyone else wish to speak?”

“I would,” said Ariel, not wholly unexpected. For of the two women and Cleades—forgive me, my friend, but that is how I think of you— she has been the most assertive throughout, having not only her Franzi to think of, but the unborn child as well. “I feel as if we’re all in agreement, though we come to it in different ways. I trust my husband’s judgment, of course, and am not ashamed to say I do so with love.” For a moment I thought he would actually blush. But he mastered his features, nodded for her to go on.

“I’m also grateful to Alexander,” she said, “for bringing us here. And to all of you, for the unique gifts you bring to our fellowship. But as Jacob once said, ‘Let us not be divided.’ And let no one feel their part any less than that of others. We are one in this, a family.”

We all nodded, Jacob adding an affectionate, “Yes.” For she means the world to him.

She added one thing more, which brought a sudden tear to Alexander’s eye, though he refused to shed it. “As for the ship, perhaps we need not mention it. If they make it a condition of our staying, all right. But I would not ask the twins to give up what is to them a living, breathing being, and one which kept them sane through sufferings we cannot imagine.” Cleades actually embraced her, and did let a few tears fall. How had she known what the rest of us could not? Because, my friend, she is Ariel, and the woman I will always love, in vain.

“Then we’re agreed?” said Cassius as they separated, somewhat embarrassed, as always, by such displays of affection. “I’ll only add that Alexander and I should do the talking. Alexander, because he has studied their language and culture. Myself because I’ve done such things before, and they will expect one of us to act and speak as leader. Lastly, we go in the launch, rather than the ship.”

“We’d never be able to out-sail them in the boat,” said Alexander, “if it came to that.”

“I know,” said Cassius. “But I think if they took a mind to board the Aphrodite they could to do it, well within the sound, cutting off all retreat.”

“Do you still mean to. . .surrender her?” And this time the tear would not be stilled.

“Yes,” said Cassius, turning from the sight. “If there is another way to pacify them, I will try it. And in any case, I don’t want to tempt violence in the sudden urge to possess it.” The youth looked down, nodded gravely. “The others will remain behind in the ship, as we agreed, standing out to sea, where they will have a chance to flee if we are taken, or other vessels appear suddenly.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” said Alexander, shaking off emotion. “Cleades knows her as well as I do, and can pilot her at need. But he can’t work the sails at the same time, which someone would have to do in a chase.”

“I’ve been watching you both,” said Malachi, “learning as much as I could. I’ve taken my turn at the tillers, as you know, and I think that between us we could manage. And if there’s faster ship anywhere, I’ve never seen it.” I believe that he, too, was sensitive of Alexander’s mood, and wished to soften the blow if he could. A good man, Malachi, if somewhat absorbed in the care of his wife.

“You would have to be several miles out,” said Alexander to his brother, “and make straight for deep water. They’re bound to know the local winds and currents far better than we do.”

“Yes,” said Cleades, not wishing to be parted from him. “But be careful. You are the heart and soul of Aphrodite. . .you too are loved and needed.”

“I know,” said his brother gently. “I will be.”

“Then let us do it,” said Cassius. “We’ll move out into the offing at dawn, and there cast off the launch, the three of us making for the sound.” He looked about him, found no dissent.

Then Jacob asked us to form a circle, putting our hands into the center of the group as we had done once before, and said a simple prayer for all of us, one in which I shared wholeheartedly. And when it was finished, as we clasped each other’s hands a moment longer, caring so much for each other and knowing what was at stake, I added my own in silence. Just three words:

“Please help us.”

For the meeting of such vastly different cultures is bound to be perilous, with the outcome far from certain. Then we began to disperse.

“I’ll keep the watch,” said Cassius. “I could never sleep the night before an engagement.” This was in fact untrue, but generous all the same.

“I’ll relieve you at midnight,” said Alexander. “Cleades and I must see to the ship in any case.”

“All right.”

We all said our various goodnights, and returned to our quarters, though it is doubtful whether any save the children will sleep more than an hour or two. I know I won’t.