Five Voices on One October Day

October 10, 19 CE · Syria · Antioch, wringing cloths beside the general's cot

In Syria, Germanicus is unfolding. The Roman general Germanicus dies near Antioch. He was convinced that the mysterious illness that ended in his death was a result of poisoning by the Syrian governor Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, whom he had ordered to leave the province.

I am bending over a basin of vinegar and water, wringing out a fresh cloth for the general's burning brow. The pavilion's linen lifts and falls with each gust from the Orontes. He is thinner by the hour. The physicians speak of corrupt humors, but the officers on the portico speak low of poison. The Syrian governor's name passes among them - Piso, the man our general had ordered out of this province. Outside, the legions stand in uneasy clusters, their eagle standards catching the low sun. A lictor keeps watch at the threshold. The general's breath catches, steadies, catches again. My hands move, wringing, folding, laying the cloth one more time. The autumn dusk settles over Antioch, and we wait.

October 10, 415 CE · United Kingdom · Constantinople, setting my lamp among a thousand others

In United Kingdom, Hagia Sophia is unfolding. The second church structure of Hagia Sophia was inaugurated.

I lift my taper forward through the packed nave, my veil damp with incense, my shoulder brushing the cool marble of the ambon. Clergy in gold vestments drift in slow procession, and doves coo somewhere up in the rafters. This second church rises on the old foundation - wider arches, taller clerestory, polished columns raised by generations of masons. The choir swells; the people answer. Laurel is strewn across the floor, and the air is heavy with myrrh. I carry a small clay lamp of my own and add it to the tiered stands along the nave until the lamps ring us like a low field of stars. The patriarch raises his hands. The packed congregation stills. The consecration proceeds, breath by breath, flame by flame.

October 10, 680 CE · Iran · Karbala, binding a scrap of cloth on a spear

In Iran, Battle of Karbala is unfolding. The Battle of Karbala marks the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali.

I crouch behind a camel baggage line at the edge of our small camp, watching the riders circling in the dunes. We are few - the little band that left Mecca after the refusal, the grandson of the Prophet at our head. Their tents ring us in a wide circle, horsemen carrying the caliph's banner. A man has gone ahead under safe-conduct, and he has not returned. The thirst is a second enemy. Our horses stamp in the sand. I bind a scrap of cloth around a spear shaft and step into the open to set it as a marker for the wounded. The wind moves the standards overhead. The horsemen tighten their ring. The afternoon sun sinks low on the reed-beds of the river.

October 10, 732 CE · France · Between Tours and Poitiers, gripping an axe I have never lifted

In France, Charles Martel is unfolding. Charles Martel's forces defeat an Umayyad army near Tours, France.

I stand among the hedge of Frankish shields above the clover field, the haft of a woodsman's axe locked between my hands. The mayor of the palace has called us here - farmers, drovers, smiths, all of us dressed for the cold. The Umayyad horsemen spread below us, their cloaks red against the autumn green, their lines uncountable. A horn sounds and we lock our shields tighter. Their first charge pounds our line and breaks short. The day turns on shouts and steel. Stones and javelins fall from our side of the slope. By dusk the field between us is a forest of abandoned saddles and torn standards, and the enemy is drawing back toward their camp. I do not yet know what the morning will show.

October 10, 1471 CE · Sweden · Brunkeberg, climbing the ridge with the miners

In Sweden, Sten Sture the Elder is unfolding. Sten Sture the Elder, the Regent of Sweden, with the help of farmers and miners, repels an attack by King Christian I of Denmark.

I have come up from the copper mines of Dalarna with my short-handled axe and the men who answered the regent's summons. The king of Denmark has marched with his banner over the hard ground, and we take our place on the higher slope, our breath quick from the climb. The regent's men are spread in loose array among the birch stumps and the boulders. A small body moves on our flank, and the Danish line bends toward them. Sledges creak behind us where the farmers have stacked provisions. A horn rings once and stops. The Danish banners shift. I brace my axe against my knee and wait, awaiting the first footfall up the slope.