Free Seeker of Stars: A Novel by Susan Fish

affection. Despite his physical weakness, Balzar pushed himself to keep up with the rest of us, but when he couldn’t, he would tell Shaz. With no attempt to disguise his annoyance with the old man, Shaz would call a brief halt.
    It was on one of those halts in the white sun that Shaz began to speak about Jerusalem and the great Jewish king, Herod. Shaz and Caspar agreed that the star signaled that Herod had had a son. Balzar warned Shaz of all he had heard of Herod—the rumors, the wives, the murdered sons, Herod’s jealousy. These traits were all well known in diplomatic circles.
    Shaz, however, was dismissive. “Every great man is slandered by lesser men,” he sneered, including Balzar in his insult.
    Each day the sun blazed hotter. Heat rose from the ground like steam, confusing our perspective. I did not always know whether we were headed toward our destination or turning in circles. The days were endless infernos of heat, and at night we fell into unconsciousness.
    One day I saw strange lumps on the horizon. As we drew closer I saw that it was a nomad with a herd of sheep. The sheep stood crowded close together, though they were in a wide space. I pondered this sight for hours and could come up with only one explanation: in this shadeless terrain, each sheep could find relief only in the shadow of another sheep. I had no shadow to protect me from the relentless blaze of the sun. I felt exposed and small on the vast landscape.
    All that long day, I felt as though I were on a long tether and had unexpectedly reached my limit. I felt choked and stuck. My horse plodded with the rest through the raging waves of sand, but I resisted every step of the way. I did not understand this feeling. We were five days beyond my brother’s home and still a week from Jerusalem. The road we traveled was called the King’s Highway, though which king owned the highway was subject to local interpretation. We were on the outskirts of my own king’s territory. Aside from the nomad and his sheep, we had seen no one for several days.
    Not only were we alone in the desert, we were also now traveling entirely by faith. Shortly after our departure, the moving star had disappeared from view. Some speculated that it could have been a seasonal phenomenon rather than a herald of a new king, and with bitterness I realized that if Herod were to look at us in puzzlement and mockery, this journey and my absence at my child’s birth would be foolish and costly indeed. I had not been able to bring myself to think of my own sweet mother as I prepared to leave home, but on the journey I dreamed of her almost nightly, though it was Reta’s face I saw.
    The storm broke the night after we saw the sheep. My dreams shifted with the change in weather, though while the temperatures eased, my night visions became more disturbing. The night of the storm, I could not recall the details of the dream, only the atmosphere of fear and suspicion, but I attributed my restless sleep to the tempest outside. The second night, however, Balzar woke me when he heard my tossing and muttering. I lay still so as not to shatter the images from my dream.
    “It was Herod, the Jewish king,” I whispered to Balzar’s eyes, bright against the darkness. “He had two faces, one behind the other.”
    Balzar nodded. “I, too, have been dreaming of Herod. This new king poses him a real threat.”
    Shaz had boasted to us some relative of Herod’s was a distant cousin of his—one of our people who had converted when she married Herod’s father. Herod had risen to power much as Shaz hoped to do. We could see that Shaz was hoping the family connection would lead to a faster route to success.
    In the dark, Balzar whispered to me that he was worried for our safety if Shaz were to approach Herod wrongly.

~ 13 ~
    O asis
    One afternoon, we found a small but welcome oasis and were resting in the heat of the day when another caravan appeared on the horizon. Idly, I watched it come slowly