THE PROPHET QUEEN

Chapter 2  

 “Leya, come quick!” Leya’s young cousin Kushan shouted. “Come see what the waves washed in!”

“What is it?” They had gone out to inspect the sheep herd. As usual Bogday the herding dog had wandered off and they had had to go find him. “What is it now, Kushan? Another sea-monster?”

Her tone was light, but her hand crept to the dagger at her side and moved to caress the fletched ends of her arrows.   Since Bulan had gone away last month, she had never let her weapons out of sight. She had practiced with them every day, shooting from the back of her horse as she rode.

She had not forgotten Bulan’s words to her. Now you’ll be the defender of our family. Remember!

Her cousin waited for her at the crest of the ridge overlooking the Black Sea. “Look.” He pointed, proud of his discovery.

The sea waters appeared tranquil enough now, but last night’s storm had left its remains: the angered water spirit Yer-Sub had brought piles of driftwood, shells and stones, broken branches--and a large pile of splintered wood and shredded cloth.

“It’s a boat,” she exclaimed.

"And there's people in it." His black eyes, shiny as coins, sparkled in excitement.

Now she picked them out: figures lying among the wreckage. “Shipwrecked sailors,” she murmured.

“Think they’re dead?”  

“I don’t know. Stay back.” Her hand reached out to caution her cousin. 

“Why?” The boy whispered. “Are they pirates?”

“Maybe.”

Many enemies threatened the kingdom of Khazaria. It was Pechenegs by land, and as for the sea….

The Viking seawolves came in their great longships
their prows like carven dragons with hungry eyes
Searching for trade, but mostly for plunder
They fell on the villages like wolves on the prey.

If Mama feared the Pechenegs would steal her daughter, how much more so the Rus Vikings, who made a fortune from the slave trade. Sometimes Leya used to dream of the Dragon Ships, looming off the seacoast, their fierce heads turning to search for her with eyes of glowing fire.

Just then one of the figures in the boat moved and called out to the other in a weak voice. Leya saw no weapons--just two half-dead folks with a third one lying beneath a crushed mast. “They don’t look like Vikings,” she decided. “We have to help them.”

“Why?”

“Because it's a sacred obligation, donkey’s head. If we let them die, their spirits will follow us. “ She turned to her cousin. “Kushan, go back to the camp and get Father or Uncle. Tell them to bring extra horses.”

Kushan started to frown. “But I want to stay with you—“

“Go,” she cried, with the authority of the older over the younger. “There’s no time to waste!”

Her cousin pouted as he turned away.

Leya began working her way down the slope, keeping a firm hold on her dagger.  At the bottom of the hill she struggled through the tangles of driftwood and crouched to observe the castaways. The larger figure in the boat had gone over to his companion and was trying to rouse him. Unable to do so, he raised his arms to the heavens and gave a weak cry of entreaty. At last he crawled out of the boat and collapsed on the sand.

They look nearly dead, Leya realized. Pity overwhelmed her caution and she dared to approach.

 “Ey,” she called out in greeting.

The man looked up at her. His eyes fixed on her dagger with an expression of terror. She saw herself as he must see her: a savage, bristling with weapons.

“Oh. Don’t be afraid,” she assured him, placing the dagger on the sand and showing him her open palms. “I came to help.”

He coughed, spoke a few words in a foreign language and pointed back toward the boat where the second figure lay.

It was no Dragon ship, but only a simple sailboat. The storm had snapped the mast in half and ripped the sail into tatters. She climbed into the ruined boat.

A woman lay beneath the snapped mast, and by her waxen color and sprawled posture Leya felt sure that the Water Spirit Yer-Sub had claimed her life.

 She bent over the other figure who lay face down against the planks. Turning him onto his back, she beheld a youth about Bulan’s age. But he looked nothing like Bulan.

Her breath caught, for this was the most beautiful lad she had ever seen. His long dark lashes lay closed against fine olive-toned skin. With one glimpse she memorized the contour of his finely shaped lips, cheekbones and chin. “Wake up,” she murmured, trying to rouse him. Her fingers brushed against his cheek and trailed through the mop of curls that tumbled over his ears and neck. “Don’t you be dead too! Please!” 

In sudden panic, she put her lips over his and blew in a lungful of air. Once she had revived a newborn lamb this way.  “By Tengri the Almighty God—wake up—live!” She patted his cheek, pried his eyelids open. At last the youth stirred, coughing up water.  

 “Ah! You are alive. Come on—let’s get you out of there.” She tried to help him up. His head fell back; he had no strength. But Leya did. As though he were one of her sheep, she hauled his weight over the side of the ruined boat and laid him down on the beach next to his companion. “Is this your father?” she asked the youth. 

The man crawled over to the boy and his face lit in a smile. “Yakob,” he cried out. “Yakob!” 

She wondered how long they had been on the sea without food and water. “Friends, I’m Leya of the Kimmeri. Do you speak Khazar?  My cousin went to get help. We’ll get you shelter, food.” It finally occurred to her to take off her wool kaftan and wrap it around the shivering young man’s shoulders. She took off her sheepskin cap as well and placed it on his head, and patted his cheek as her mother always used to do to her. “There you go, Yakob. Feel better?”

Yakob, hearing his name, gazed at her as if she were an emissary of the Sky Father himself.

***

“We offer you hospitality,” said Father.   “I am Bashtu sher Kimmer, and this is my wife Parsbek, my daughter Leya, my sister Gul.” 

The two shivering refugees huddled by the fire in Leya’s family dwelling, wrapped in blankets. They clutched mugs of hot tea, while gazing about the circular tent and its appointments--the lattice of supports and ropes that formed its frame, the walls of felt, the floors of rugs and sheepskins. The eyes of Yakob and his father roamed over the jugs and cooking utensils, the implements for shearing and weaving, and the baskets of provisions that hung from its roof supports. Their glances settled on the collection of amulets at the doorway—the clan tamgas and a prayer in the Sacred Script of Yisrael, which no one could read. And, of course, the bows, arrows, spears and swords which hung from pegs, readily available.

“Would you like some more tea?” Father pressed the visitors with attention, while peering at them with curious glances. Finally he came out with it. “Tell us now--where have you come from?”

The man spoke hesitant words in his foreign tongue. He drew a circle with his arms and held out his hands in a shrug, as if asking a question.

Father squinted, trying to understand. "It sounds like Greek," he said after a moment. "I've heard it spoken at the Karachai market.”

"He wants to know where he is, and who we are.” Mother said.  “Any fool can figure that out.”

"We are the Kimmeri clan,” Father tried to explain to the newcomer. “We graze our sheep here in the Kabarda foothills. That way,” he pointed west, “is the Kerch Straits.” The visitor showed no recognition. Father pointed north. “ The Azov Sea is that way, and the town of Karachai.”

“Oh, Bashtu, he doesn’t understand a word you say,” Mama scolded him.

“Well, then. Maybe they come from the west. From Crimea? Goth country?”  Father pointed.  “Lots of sailors get blown off course by the storms.” 

But the newcomer didn't seem satisfied. He kept asking his question, spreading his arms in a gesture of forlorn bewilderment. "Um, well.” Father pointed northward, searching for a name they might know. “Don River? Sarkel?"

“Sarkel?” The stranger’s face brightened, as if he recognized this name. "Sarkel? Khazaria?"

"Yes, we are living in the kingdom of Khazaria --"

This produced a strong reaction. "Khazaria," he repeated, his face lit with joy. He reached over and kissed Father's hand. “Medina ha-brakha,” he murmured, and knelt to kiss the ground in unmistakable gratitude. Then he pointed at himself and his son. "Constantinopol," he said.

“Constantinople!” Leya blurted in disbelief. The fabled city, greatest in the known world, lay far to the south across the Black Sea. "That far away? I can't believe it."

"Constantinople," Father said, "Trading ships used to come to Tamatarkha from there. It took more than two weeks! And you people made the trip in a leaky old boat? How did you do it?"

"It's a miracle they survived," Mother said. Which reminded Leya that there was one person who hadn't made it. After two uncles had brought the refugees up, they had had to bury the dead woman. Surely that woman had been Yakob’s mother.

For now, the stranger finally felt safe enough to introduce himself. "Zacharias." He drew his son to him. "Yakob."

Father didn’t press them any more, but left them to sip their tea. Meanwhile Leya tried not to be too obvious about staring at them, wondering who are they? Why would anyone risk their lives to leave a fabulous place like Constantinople? Everyone had heard of the fabled Empire of the Byzantine Romans--their great stone palaces and their fabulous parades and festivals and their world-famous horse races. Why did these people seem so glad to have traded that world for this lonely windswept country?

As for the shipwreck victims themselves…she had never seen a young man so refined-looking as Yakob. He had slim fingers like a scribe’s…she wondered if those fingers had ever held a weapon. Perhaps he needed one, for he had the look of a hunted man. He sat hunched over, coughing, his round dark eyes alert. A horse nickered outside and Yakob flinched, covering his ears. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked him. “Are you afraid of something? Enemies?” Yakob could not answer, but his bone-deep fear was plain enough.

That evening Yakob’s cough worsened. He lay down beside the fire and curled into a ball, shivering. Mama put a hand on his forehead and frowned. “He has a fever.” She covered him with a sheepskin and the two women kept vigil over him as they often did for sick animals in the family’s herds.

But this lad was far more interesting to watch than a sheep, Leya thought.  His eyelids twitched; he murmured in his sleep.  What was he dreaming of, Leya wondered. Surely he had led an exciting life in the land of the Byzantine Romans. Did you watch the Emperor’s processions? Race at the Hippodrome? No, Yakob’s dreams did not seem happy. Tears squeezed from his closed lids and he cried out foreign words full of anguish.

It wasn’t proper for a young girl to touch a strange man…but Father wasn’t watching, for he had gone to sleep on the men’s side of the yurt.  Anyway the boy was under their roof; by the rules of hospitality he had become a brother. And…he was sick. So Leya took his hand to reassure him. “What’s wrong, Yakob? Don’t be afraid.” But the refugee lad flinched away.  

Yakob’s father Zacharias sat by his son, trying to soothe the delirious boy and spoon broth between his lips. When he had no success, at last he folded his hands and rocked back and forth, murmuring a prayer to the Heavens.

The lamps burned low.  “I’m going to fetch the qam Almalik,” Leya’s mother decided, after several hours had gone by. She left the yurt and returned with Leya’s grandmother, a wizened little shaman whose head reached as high as Leya’s shoulder. 

“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” the medicine woman scolded. She put an ear to the sick lad’s chest and listened, frowning. “Just as I thought. Aza—the evil spirits--have lodged in his lungs.”

She reached into her medicine bag with wrinkled brown hands, and took out a handful of leaves. Humming to herself, she brewed them up on the family’s portable clay stove that sat next to the fire-pit. While she waited for the brew to steep, she placed an amulet containing sacred letters on the boy’s chest. She uttered two words in the sacred Hebrew tongue: Adonai echad. God is One. Thus she enlisted the aid of the God of the Universe to her cause.   After that she played a soft note on her bone flute and invoked the bird spirits and the Wolf Guardian of all the tribes. “Begone, aza who threaten this boy!”             

Yakob’s father watched all that she did, with a perplexed frown.    

When the brew was ready, she lifted the boy’s head and tried to pour a few sips down his throat. But despite the efforts of Grandmother and Zacharias, Yakob’s breathing grew more labored as the night progressed.  Leya drowsed until her grandmother shook her awake.

 “Leya--the lad’s spirit has wandered away. We must persuade him to come back.”

“How…?”

“Close your eyes…repeat the Sacred Words. Sh’ma Yisrael. Take his hand. And give me your other hand.”

Leya obeyed, and her grandmother pulled her into a dream: they floated in a vast expanse of blue sky. There he is. Grandmother pointed at the soul of Yakob as it drifted away from them. Come back, the shaman cried, and grabbed his hand. But Yakob slipped out of her grasp, like a wisp of smoke.

Yakob! Leya managed to take hold of him. And for a moment she experienced his terror and the soul-wound that stabbed him like a dagger through the chest. Something evil happened to him…something that made him want to die.  

But she wouldn’t let him. Come back! She tugged at one hand, while her grandmother pulled on the other one. I saved you once—now we’re bound together, she cried.  Friend, listen. Whatever you fear—whatever torments you—don’t run away. I’ll help you fight it. I’m a clan defender! 

At last Yakob submitted and let the two women lead him back to the living realm.

“There, that’s better,” said Qam Almalik, patting his cheek. “You can’t leave your poor father now. You both fought too hard to live. ” She spooned another sip of the medicine into his lips. “Listen, chochuk—you can’t run from your enemies by dying. They’ll just follow you into the spirit world. The only thing you can do is stay and fight.” 

***

By noon the next day Yakob had recovered enough to go down to the shoreline with the others, to the place where the uncles had buried Yakob’s mother. Zacharias and his son began to chant a singsong prayer while the others respectfully stood aside. “Father,” Leya whispered, "the words sound familiar. They’re praying in the sacred Hebrew Tongue, aren’t they? But I thought the Byzantines were Christians?"

"Oh yes, they certainly are.” Father folded his arms. “But not these people. I see it now—they’re Jews. Perhaps the Byzantines have launched a jihad." 

Leya recalled another story. The Jews came to Khazaria from Damascus and Baghdad, seeking refuge from the jihad. They brought a magical scroll given to them by the One God. They allied with the Khazar King Bulan, and the God of Israel favored the Khazars with victories. And so the great King Bulan chose the Covenant of Israel, the faith of the Jews. And the people of Khazaria learned that the Great Sky Father Tengri is also named Adonai Elohenu, God of Israel, Lord the Universe, blessed be He.

Leya frowned. "But Father,” she said, “I thought the Greeks of Byzantium were our allies?"

For Leya had heard no war tales involving the great city of Constantinople. Only tales of dynastic marriages--"the Khazar princess Chichak went to marry the Emperor…she wore a gown decorated with thousands of mirrors and pearls from China." --and of course, the races: "the Byzantine nobles came over in their galleys loaded with gold, looking for Khazar horsemen and horses to win their races for them."

Father put a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "Yes, Byzantium was our ally…but things can change. Come--stop talking now, show some respect for the dead."

They let the two refugees finish their devotions. And though Leya and her family did not know the chants that Zacharias spoke, they knew to join in at the final "ameyn."

Leya and her clan knew little of the faith which their King had chosen, for they could not read the Sacred Scroll which was kept in the House of Worship at Karachai. Still, they wore prayer amulets containing the Name of God, and that evening Mama lit an extra lamp for the Holy Day of Shabat-kun: the weekly day to honor the Highest One. Yakob and Zacharias, realizing at last that they were among friends, freely chanted their blessing. 

In the following days Leya took Yakob along when she and her cousin did their chores. She tended to a sick lamb while Yakob watched in fascination. He wasn’t much help holding the squirming animal, and he seemed a bit afraid of the horses. “You mean everyone doesn’t ride in Constantinople?” She laughed. 

“See? This is Karalpa, my Black Hero. I won him in battle,” she could not help boasting. An inspiration hit her. “Would you like to ride?”

Yakob, of course, couldn’t understand her words. But he soon caught on to her gestures and her excitement. “Go on, stand on my hands and swing your leg over—like this. Karalpa is gentle—he won’t hurt you! That’s my good Karalpa,” she crooned, patting the horse’s warm flank.

She helped Yakob up, and he sat there astride the horse, gripping its mane in his fists, his eyes wide with mingled fear and delight. She laughed aloud at his comical expression, and realized that she hadn’t enjoyed herself so much since her brother had left. I missed Bulan.

One day Yakob came with Leya and her cousin as they led the sheep toward the spring. As they passed her uncle’s yurt, Leya couldn’t help overhearing a scrap of conversation within.

“Criminals, you think? Escaped slaves?” said one man.

“Mmm….no. Slaves are branded, and I didn’t see any…”

Leya recognized her father’s voice. She strained to hear, realizing that the men within were talking about Yakob and his father.

“Fishermen, then.”

“But the wife… whole family took to sea. Why?” 

“…blown off course. They’ll head home in the spring…”

“I don’t think they want to go home,” her father said. “It’s just a feeling I have. They’re…” The conversation dropped lower, and Leya knelt, pretending to adjust her boot strap, and strained to listen.

“…don’t need more mouths to feed. What should we do with them?”

Yakob watched her face with the perplexed attention of someone in a strange land, trying to pick up clues.

 “We should invite them to join us. We could use the extra men,” Grandfather said from inside the yurt.  

“City men…” came the scornful reply. “Useless in a fight…can’t even shoot a bow. Wouldn’t last a winter on the steppes.”

Leya crouched, taking a long time to lace up her boot while the occupants of the yurt remained maddeningly silent. She could imagine them sitting there, cross-legged, smoking their herb pipes and deliberating. They seemed to do that a lot these days.

“…a handsome Greek lad.” Grandfather Mugan said. “Your daughter has an eye for him, you know.” He murmured something Leya couldn’t catch, and a round of laughter filled the yurt.

“I don’t think so,” Father said, loud enough to be heard distinctly.  “They’re really not our kind. They’re Scroll-Readers. When we winter in town, they’ll surely find others like themselves.”

“Leya,” cousin Kushan called out. “Come on!”

“Surely there’ll be better prospects in town,” she heard father say.  She strained to hear. Prospects? For what?

“Leya!” Kushan’s voice took on a whining note. Cursing her annoying cousin under her breath, Leya stood up and shouldered the yoke that held the water buckets. Yakob followed her, patient and trusting. What could Father mean? Why did he say Yakob wasn’t our kind?

“Come on, Yakob. Let’s go in for some tea.” She gave the foreign lad an encouraging smile, and he looked back at her with innocent admiration. So, Father and all those old men didn’t approve of Yakob now?

Your daughter has an eye for him. The realization struck her like a sudden ray of sun:  she became aware of her companion’s attractiveness, and of the feelings which he woke in her. When he turned his luminous dark eyes on her, her breath stopped and the hairs on her arms rose in a chill of delight.

Unmarried men and women weren’t supposed to touch, but Leya had forgotten propriety. Before she could stop herself, she reached out and grabbed his arm. “Yakob, you are my kind. You won’t leave us, will you? Please stay with us always.”

Chapter 3
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