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did not do so with good grace. They resented the Egyptian legionaries, and
because they had no common language, they could not discover that, as farmers,
they had more in common with each other than either did with Roman officials
and tax collectors.
"Thus when Gaul and Egyptian met at a crossroads or a well both sacred places
to Gauls there were often fights, because the Egyptians did not know how to
behave there. And when Egyptians averted their eyes in passing, it was a mark
of respect, but Gauls considered them sneaky, because they would not look a
man in the eye. Because the legionaries had no wives, they looked covetously
at Gaulish women, not knowing which ones were married, and which not. Gaulish
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fathers and husbands took offense, and sometimes sneaked up on Egyptian farms
by night, and killed the farmers.
"That was the situation Saint Martha found when she arrived. 'You go on to
Lugdunum,' she told
Magdalen. 'I see that my mission is to be here.'
"Now Martha spoke with the Gauls of Tarascon in Latin, because most educated
people knew a bit of the Roman language. She told them of her God, and his
Son, and said that those who believed and worshipped them were like brothers
and sisters who sometimes quarreled, but in the end were reconciled, and
shared the house and land of the Father in peace.
" 'Go tell that to the legionaries,' said the Gauls. 'It is they who covet our
women and defile our sacred places.'
" 'To the one God and his Son, the whole world is a sacred place,' said
Martha, 'but I will speak with them also, and tell them the Word.'
"So she trudged the roads from one farm to the next, Gaulish and Egyptian
alike, and gave the farmers the same message: that in the House of the one
true God, they were all one family. To the Gauls she said, 'Come to the
basilica in Arelate, where the bankers, scribes, and moneylenders preside, and
I will tell you more.' To the Egyptians she said the same, for the basilica
was neutral ground for both peoples."
"Wait!" objected Gregorius loudly, breaking everyone's rapture. "If Gauls and
the Egyptians had no common speech, how did the Saint address both of them?"
"Did I not say that the Jews of Palestine spoke a language much like Egyptian,
and was not Martha a
Jew? And was not Sarah, left behind by the sea, also Egyptian? Had not Martha
spoken with her often enough, during those long weeks at sea, to learn where
Jewish Aramaic and Egyptian were different, and where they were the same?
Saint Martha stayed in Tarascon because she knew she was the bridge between
the Gauls and the colonists, or rather, the Christian faith was."
Gregorius snorted. "You led us into your trap, didn't you?" Ibn Saul, annoyed
that the mood of the tale was now broken, scowled at the priest. Lovi put a
restraining hand on his lover's knee.
"We are all tired," said Pierrette. "If you wish, we can continue this another
night. Now I'm going to lay my bed." She stood, then made her way from the
fire to the place she had tethered Gustave, beneath a pine tree where the
ground was cushioned with fallen needles.
* * *
At the far end of the portage was a village, a cluster of stone-and-timber
houses without walls or a gate.
The Liger was narrow there, and ibn Saul was concerned that it might not be
navigable. "Those long, narrow boats seem just right for such a stream," said
Pierrette who, a fisherman's daughter, knew more of boats then the others did.
"I suspect they drift with the current, which is quite fast, and use those
long
poles to fend from the banks."
So it was. A single boat could not bear the four of them, their baggage, and
Gustave the donkey, so ibn
Saul was forced to hire two. The scholar and his treasured instruments,
Pierrette, and the donkey went in the first boat, and the others in the
second, with the rest of their goods. One poleman on the trailing boat was
very tall. He seemed to wield his long, heavy pole with great ease, as if it
weighed nothing at all. Was that Yan Oors? If it were, how had he managed to
get his position there? The boatmen were clannish, and Pierrette thought they
were all from the same village. How could a stranger fit in among them?
The valley through which they threaded that first day, and several that
followed, was heavily forested.
Willows, elders, and cedars crowded the banks and leaned out over the water.
If there were villages or tilled fields beyond, they could not be seen from
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the water or the occasional beaches that formed on the insides of bends in the
stream.
To Pierrette, it seemed as though every bend they rounded took them deeper
into a darkening land.
Strangely, it was not exactly unfamiliar. Ordinarily, within the limited scope
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