With a smile, the older woman, Almah, gray-haired and bent beneath black clothes and a black veil, handed Ulrika a plate of sweet fig cakes and a bowl of dates. "Thank you," Ulrika said as she accepted this most welcome offering.

     While she ate, she wondered about her rescuers. Rachel was in her early forties, Ulrika would guess, slender, and dressed in a long gown that was gathered at the waist with a sash. The gown was made of soft wool dyed in brown and cream vertical stripes, and Rachel's thick black hair was concealed beneath a cowl-like veil of soft brown wool that pooled around her shoulders in gentle folds. She wore no jewelry, no cosmetics. But her face was arresting: square and tanned with large black eyes, wrinkled at the corners and framed by black lashes, thick black brows. Ulrika wondered why Rachel and her elderly companion seemed to live alone in this desolate place, or were there perhaps others whom she would meet in the morning?

     "What happened?" Rachel asked, taking a seat on a large cushion and drawing her feet under her skirt. "Why were you out there alone?"

     Ulrika told them about her search for her mother in Jerusalem, her intention to go to Jericho and from there to Babylon, and then about her abandonment that morning. "My donkey is out there with all my things."

     "We shall find it in the morning," Rachel said. "When you have eaten your fill, I will treat your ankle. It is quite swollen."

     "Thank you," Ulrika murmured and then addressed her food with singular attention. But after a moment she felt her hostess's eyes upon her, saw a question in them.

     "The place where you fell," Rachel said after a moment. "Were you in that spot for a reason?"

     "What do you mean?"

     Rachel smiled and shook her head. "It is nothing. Here, let me bind your ankle. Almah has something for the pain."

     Ulrika accepted the wooden cup containing a dark brew. She recognized the aroma. Her own mother, back in Rome, had made such a bracing tonic by setting twice-baked barley bread into water, leaving it to ferment in a large clay vat, and then, straining the liquid through a cloth, producing a strong, medicinal beer.

     As Ulrika brought the cup to her lips, she thought again about her vision in the desert. It had been much more intense than any she had experienced. And this time, two people had spoken directly to her. Had it perhaps only been a trick of her mind? But what troubled her most was the peaceful, loving feeling that had engulfed her, a sweet state that, for one brief moment, she had not wished to leave.

     And had she remembered to practice her new conscious breathing, to control the vision and make it last longer, would she have indeed stayed in there forever?

16

AS ULRIKA SURVEYED HER new surroundings in the morning sunshine, she wondered about this curious group of tents in the middle of nowhere, inhabited by two women on their own, with no family or friends, not even the humblest servant, just the company of chickens and a pair of goats.

     Rachel had told her that an oasis lay three miles away, northward along the foothills, where a natural spring came from the dun earth and gave life to date palms, fish, and birds. Several families lived there year-round, and travelers stopped there to rest. Rachel and Almah visited the oasis to fetch fresh water and other supplies, but they did not live there, preferring to return to this lonely spot in the embrace of a barren canyon.

     Why?

     Hearing footfall, she turned to see Rachel leading Ulrika's donkey up the ravine, her travel packs and medicine box still attached. "He didn't wander far," Rachel said with a smile. "How is your ankle?"

     It was feeling better, although Ulrika couldn't put any weight on it.Nonetheless, she was anxious to resume her journey to Babylon, and was determined to find a way, a passing caravan, a traveling family who would take her.

     As Rachel tethered the beast and untied Ulrika's packs to take them into the tent, Ulrika wanted to ask her why she and Almah didn't live at the oasis. Why did they stay in this barren place where not even a thorn grew?

     Rachel emerged from the tent and as she bent over the cooking pot that was suspended over a fire, to stir a simmering lentil soup, she glanced at Ulrika. "Please," she said, pointing to the stool beside the tent door. "Take the weight off your ankle."

     Ulrika gratefully took a seat and turned her face to the refreshing morning breeze. From the vantage point of this small encampment, she could see all the way to the crusty white shore of the salty sea, could see the desolate wasteland that stretched from the acrid water to the base of these cliffs. And then she realized in shock that she could see the very spot where she had fallen and had experienced a vision that even now, in the comforting light of a bright sun, continued to trouble her.

     Ulrika scanned the small camp, the tiny tents, deserted, the larger tent that was Almah's, and the largest, Rachel's, which looked upon a little compound of campfire, stools, a pen for chickens, two goats. Wet clothing, washed at the oasis and brought back by an uncomplaining Almah, was spread out on boulders to dry.

     When Rachel saw how Ulrika looked around in curiosity, she said, "I am a widow, and my beloved husband died before he could bless me with children. So I am alone. Others lived here with me for a while, but they left, one by one, until there is only Almah."

     Ulrika thought of the Vestal Virgins—a sect of nuns in Rome who took vows of chastity and who lived a cloistered life devoted to prayer. But Rachel was Jewish—Ulrika had recognized the menorah inside the tent—and she had never heard of Jewish nuns.

     "What is in Babylon?" Rachel asked with a smile. "You are in such a hurry to go there."

     "There is a caravan about to depart for lands in the Far East. A ... friend is the caravaneer, a Spaniard named Sebastianus Gallus. We parted in Antiochwhen I had to come to Jerusalem where I thought I would find my mother. But I promised to join him in Babylon if I could."

     "There is something special in Babylon?"

     Ulrika paused to give Rachel a thoughtful look. The handsome Jewish woman possessed a unique voice. Deep for a woman, but smooth and soothing. It made Ulrika think of warm honey. A voice that one could not ignore. Ulrika wondered how much to tell Rachel, wondered if her hostess would think her mad—visions that were a gift from the gods, and a necessary quest to find a place called Shalamandar, the place of her conception. "I am searching for something," she said. "I was told it is in the back of the east wind, in mountains that have no name. Sebastianus is helping me to search for it."

     Rachel stirred the soup, adding a pinch of salt. "Sebastianus is a good friend?"

     "I have known him but a year, yet it seems I have known him forever." The words tumbled from her lips—meeting Sebastianus at the caravan staging area, the journey to Germania in Sebastianus's company, Sebastianus rescuing her from attackers in the forest, a night spent in hiding with Sebastianus, the journey back, getting to know more about him, an ocean voyage, a rainy night at an inn in Antioch. Ulrika blushed, suddenly realizing how she must sound. Every sentence began, "Sebastianus ..."

     Bringing two bowls of soup, Rachel sat next to Ulrika, giving her one, and said, "When I first fell in love with my Jacob, I could speak of nothing but him. Sometimes, I just spoke his name because it felt good in my mouth and I loved to hear it spoken. You speak the name of Sebastianus the same way."