READ THE STORY
The Messenger
The bread had begun to burn.
Mara smelled it before she saw the thin curl of smoke rising from beneath the edge of the stone. She pulled the loaf away and dropped it onto the table. Her husband looked up.
“You were watching the road again.”
“I was watching a man.”
“That is considerably more interesting.”
She ignored him and returned to the doorway. The stranger had appeared near the fountain a few moments earlier. His clothing bore the dust of travel, and a case hung from a strap at his side. He hadn’t stopped for water.
The day had been warm, and even merchants hurrying through the quarter usually paused long enough to drink. This man had walked straight past the fountain and disappeared between the buildings. Mara couldn’t explain why she was still thinking about him.
She went back to the table and turned the bread over. One edge was black. Her husband tore off the burnt piece.
“You see? Saved.”
“From what?”
“Your cooking.”
She slapped his hand away, but before she could answer, someone knocked at the door. Her husband stopped chewing and looked toward it.
The knock came again, quieter this time. He crossed the room and opened the door only far enough to see who stood outside. Mara couldn’t hear the first words exchanged, but she saw his shoulders relax before he pulled the door wider. She knew the man waiting there. He lived several streets away.
“There will be a reading tonight,” he said.
Her husband glanced back at Mara. “A reading of what?”
“A message arrived.”
“From whom?”
The visitor looked toward the street before answering. “Come and hear it.”
Then he was gone.
Mara stepped into the doorway and watched him disappear around the corner. “That’s all he said?”
Her husband nodded.
The fountain was still busy. A woman balanced a water jar against her hip while a child waited beside her. Across the street, a shopkeeper was pulling in the awning over his stall. Evening was settling over the quarter as it always did.
Before long, Mara noticed a man farther down the street step from his house and turn toward the upper quarter. A woman emerged from another doorway a little farther on. Neither called to anyone. They simply seemed to know where they were going.
Mara looked at her husband. “You’re going.”
“Yes.”
She turned toward the table. Supper was ready except for the ruined edge of the bread.
“Now?”
He reached for his cloak.
“Do you know what the message says?”
“No.”
“Who brought it?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara looked toward the street again. The traveler with the case had disappeared somewhere beyond the fountain. Perhaps he had been carrying accounts for a merchant or a private letter intended for someone else. But people did not leave their evening meals to hear a merchant’s accounts.
Her husband opened the door.
“Wait.”
He turned. Mara took her cloak from its peg.
They joined the others moving through the fading light. No procession had formed. No one announced where they were headed. They passed through a narrow street until a man standing beside an open doorway motioned them inside.
The room was already crowded. Mara found a place near the wall while her husband remained beside her. The warmth of so many bodies had gathered in the small room, and the faint smell of lamp oil hung in the air. Someone near the back whispered a question she couldn’t hear. Voices softened until the room became quiet.
A lamp burned on a table near the front. Beside it lay a scroll.
Mara stared at it. So this was what had passed the fountain.
A man stepped forward, placed his hands on the table, and lifted the scroll. The last conversation in the room ended. Mara watched him unroll the beginning.
He raised his eyes to the people waiting before him.
Then he began to read.
