The Divining

     "It is just myself," she replied, taking a small step back to put space between herself and this man, turning to look down the rows of camps. When she had left home that morning with such determination to reach the Rhineland, she had not anticipated difficulty in finding a party with whom to travel. Who could she trust?

     "You travel to Colonia on your own?" the Galician asked in surprise. "But it is such a hostile place for a lone girl to visit."

     She brought her eyes back to his—wondering where she had seen irises so green. "I have family there."

     His frown deepened. "Still," he said. "A girl traveling on her own."

     "Travel is not new to me. I was born in Persia, and from the age of three, when I left that distant city, I have traveled the world. I have seen Jerusalem and Alexandria. I have even crossed the Great Green on a ship."

     "That may well be," he said, "but the world will only see a vulnerable female without protection. You will need to find a family that is going northand willing to have you join them, or a group of females. Unfortunately, my own caravan consists only of men, and I ca

     "I am Ulrika," she said, "and I welcome your kind assistance."

     When Hashim and Kaptah, who had watched the exchange in curiosity, began to protest Sebastianus's stealing their customer, he shot them a look that silenced them. As he started to escort the young woman away, with the two traders accusing each other of causing the loss of a profitable fare, Sebastianus glanced back at his compound where Timonides the star-reader was still cradling his head and moaning.

     Following his line of sight, Ulrika saw the fat, bloated man with a ring of white hair around his bald head. "What is wrong with him?" she asked.

     "We do not know. He is my astrologer and he is unable to cast a horoscope."

     Ulrika hesitated. She was in a hurry to start her journey northward, but the man was clearly in distress. "Perhaps I can help."

     AS THE STAR-CHARTS SWAM before his blurry eyes, Timonides thought he was going to burst into tears. Never had he known such despair, such bleakness. The stars were his life, his soul, and the messages contained within them were more precious to him than his own blood. He had dedicated his entire life to the heavens and interpreting the secrets written therein, but now look at him! Unable to distinguish Cassiopeia from Leo!

     Lifting his head, hoping to dislodge the pain but feeling it only worsen, he saw his master walking toward him and he seemed to be accompanying a young lady.

     Timonides momentarily forgot his pain as he watched Sebastianus take the girl's travel packs and water and food bags and shoulder them himself, leaving her free to hold her veil modestly in place—a skill known to Roman women that never ceased to amaze Timonides.

     Strange girl, he thought as they drew near. By the drape and color of her dress and palla, she was patrician, yet she had been carrying her own packs. No doubt she was off to visit family, maybe attend a birth, for that was what motivated most women to travel. To his surprise, she stepped away from Sebastianus and approached.

     "Is it a toothache, sir?"

     He stared up into sky-blue eyes framed by hair the color of a young deer. Great Zeus, where had his master found this one? "Of the teeth remaining to me, mistress," Timonides said, "none give me grief, thank the gods. What ails me, miss, is my jaw."

     "I am Ulrika," she said gently, "may I take a look?" To his surprise, she took the seat opposite him and, reaching out, gently palpated his jaw and neck with soft fingertips. "Is the pain worse when you eat?"

     "That it is," he said in dismay. Timonides was fat for a reason. While astrology was the focus of his spiritual and religious life, food was the center of his mortal life. Timonides lived to eat. From his morning breakfast of wheat cakes and honey, to his late-night supper of pork fried in oil with mushrooms, his day consisted of chewing and swallowing and filling his belly in a continual feast of taste and texture sensations. When not eating, he was reminiscing on his last meal and anticipating his next. Timonides would give up women before he would give up food. And now, to be unable to eat! Was life even worth living?

     "I believe I can help you," the young woman said in a voice soft yet confident.

     "I doubt that!" he cried in misery. "My master took me to a doctor in the city who wrapped my neck and jaw in a hot mustard poultice that resulted in a burning rash. The second doctor prescribed poppy wine that sent me into deep sleeps. The third extracted my back teeth. No more doctors!"

     He was wary as she continued to gently probe, but he had to admit that her touch was gentle and light, not like the ham-fisted doctors who had pried his mouth open so wide he thought his jaw would snap off.

     When her finger touched a sensitive spot below his jaw, and he cried out, she nodded solemnly and asked Sebastianus to bring something sweet or sour for Timonides to eat. Sebastianus stepped inside a tent and returnedwith a small, yellow fruit, handing it to Ulrika, who recognized it as a costly fruit imported from India. Instead of peeling it, she slipped the entire lemon into the old Greek's mouth and said, "Bite down."

     He did so with much protesting—didn't this girl know that lemons were a medicine, not food?—and while he struggled not to spit the sour thing out, Ulrika's fingers were immediately at the spot below his jaw, massaging and pushing mercilessly.

     Sebastianus watched in fascination as saliva and spittle flowed from his astrologer's mouth, while those fingertips manipulated and probed until, after an agonizing moment, the girl said, "You may spit the lemon out."

     Timonides did not need further encouragement. He spat saliva and lemon pulp into the girl's hand.

     "Here was the cause of your distress," she said, showing him the speck in her palm. "A tiny calculus had formed in your salivary gland, and it needed the flow of saliva to flush it out."

     "Great Zeus," Timonides murmured as he rubbed his jaw.

     "You will have a little tenderness for a while," Ulrika said as she gracefully rose from the chair, "but it will go away and you will have no more distress." She delicately wiped her hand on the hem of her dress.

     "What form of payment do you desire?" Sebastianus asked, amazed at what he had just witnessed. How had she known to do that?

     "No payment," she said. "Just introduce me to an honest trader who will take me to Colonia as quickly as possible."

     Sebastianus picked up her packs and bundles and said, "I know just the man." He paused to say to Timonides, "I assume you are now able to cast an accurate reading?"

     "That I am, master, just as soon as I get some sustenance into my stomach!"

     Sebastianus nodded curtly and led the way through the noisy throng, with Timonides watching his master and the strange girl vanish into the crowd.