The Promised Hand

                                    

                                          
      Frank woke up to the sound of unfamiliar voices. His head was pounding and he forced his eyes opened. The people standing above him spoke in an unfamiliar tongue, the words falling from their lips faster than he could process. Frank strained his mind to guess what language they spoke. It wasn't English nor German nor Latin. 
    There were three people standing around him, one woman and two men. They all wore tunics made of fine, colorful cloth unlike anything Frank had ever seen before. As they continued to speak in their strange tongue, he realized he had been separated from his friends. He let out a cry before closing his mouth. The strangers looked at him, foreheads pinched. They jabbered away like colorful peacocks, leaving Frank feeling more disoriented than ever. 
      "Please," he said. "I don't understand you. I speak French."
    They looked at him as if he'd started speaking the language of mice. "I know a little Latin too," he managed to say.
    The woman's eyes widened. "You know Latin?" she said.
    Frank nodded. The woman turned to the men and spoke again in their tongue. They kept sneaking glances at Frank and he had an uncomfortable feeling that they were speaking about him. Eventually, the men nodded, satisfied. The woman turned to Frank and spoke in perfect Latin. "Follow us and you'll be clothed and fed."
     Frank raised an eyebrow. "And if I don't?"
     "You don't have a choice," the woman said unsympathetically. "You washed ashore here with no means of identification. You obviously don't speak Greek, so you'll never find a job here. Really, it's a charity we're doing, taking you in as a slave."
   Frank wanted to argue, but the look in the woman's eyes scared him. What if she was right? How could he support himself here? So he got up, clothes still damp and smelling of the ocean, and followed the strangers to their house.
     From the size of their house, Frank could tell they lived comfortably. There was no shortage of objects strewn around and he saw several icons featuring the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. The artwork was done in an unfamiliar, but beautiful style. In one of the large dining rooms, however, the decoration was different. There was a mosaic showing figures feasting and drinking. "This house dates back to the post an days," the woman explained to Frank. "It's been in our house for generations."
    After he was given a brief tour, the woman led him to a sleeping pallet and bade for him to rest. "Work starts tomorrow."
    She left and head spinning with thoughts, Frank quickly fell asleep.
***

     A jab to his side woke Frank up. He rolled over to see a woman with auburn hair staring at him. He sat up quickly. She said something to him in Greek, and he shook his head to indicate that he didn't understand her. She frowned. "I speak French," Frank said.
      The woman stared at him. "And some Latin," Frank said.
      "I know a bit of Latin from Mass," the woman said, speaking slowly. "But not much. Don't worry. You'll pick up on Greek fast. They all do."
      Frank felt more intimidated than reassured, but he nodded complacently. What else could he do? He was a slave now in a foreign land, far away from his wife and daughter. Frank's heart ached for Hazel. He knew she'd worried about him falling in battle; had she ever considered that this fate might befall him?
     You're still alive, Frank reminded himself ruefully, and where there is life, there is hope. The auburn-haired woman introduced herself as Kinzie and led him to one of the large rooms. On the wooden shelves sat dozens of books. Frank stared at this conspicuous display of wealth. 
      Kinzie introduced Frank to an elderly woman named Iris. Something about her warm brown eyes and graying hair reminded him of his mother. Frank swallowed the lump that had built up in his throat. After all the hardship he'd endured, why did the sight of a friendly face evoke such sorrow?
      Kinzie left and Iris spoke to Frank in Latin. "Our master wants you to work as a scribe," she said. "Can you write?"
     "A bit," Frank answered, thinking back to the days before his mother died, when he'd learned to make letters.
     Iris tested his knowledge out that morning on scraps of papyrus. As his hand moved to make the shapes, memories flowed back to him. There was the scent of vellum and the dusty light of the church. Frank closed his eyes and savored that memory for a moment before getting back to work.
    By the end of the day, Frank's hands were cramped and his body stuff from sitting. He was given some soup and bread for dinner and then told to sleep. The next day passed the same and the next and the next.
     The days to turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months. Slowly, Frank picked up on the Greek spoken in the household. Iris helped him with it in between copying documents and books. Once he was deemed competent, Frank's first project was to copy a book of psalms in Latin. "Once your Greek improves enough, you can help me with copying The Bible," Iris said.
      Frank grew used to the scents of scrolls and ink. He grew accustomed to the dim, candle-lit library. He grew comfortable with spending hours copying down another's words. Yet even as he slipped into his new life, Frank yearned for the past. He missed hearing French. He missed seeing his friends. He missed working the mill — even tilling the earth. He missed the feeling of sunshine on the nape of his neck. He missed the taste of fresh air. He missed the freedom he had known he'd had. 
    But more than anything, Frank missed his family. He missed his parents, whose grave he could no longer visit. He missed his grandmother with her long-winded stories and direct advice. He missed his daughter with her gurgling laugh and wide smile. But most of all, Frank missed Hazel.