Soldier of Sidon (14 page)

"Certainly," I said.

Sabra's laugh was music, soft and sweet. "One more. I may have another, I hope? Myt-ser'eu, who has been with you as your wife for all the time I have known you, is a woman of no family. Let us suppose you were minded to take a second wife, as a replacement for her or in addition to her. Which one doesn't matter. Let us further suppose that this second wife, too, was of no family. Would you reject her on that account?"

"No," I said, "not if I loved her."

Uraeus asked, "Do you love Myt-ser'eu, master?" and I assured him that I did.

"He is your slave," Sabra told me. "I will be more than a slave to you. I will anticipate your wishes and leap to obey. I will do everything you ask, no matter how distasteful. You may retain your first wife, and lie with her whenever the desire seizes you. No lightest word nor glance of mine shall reproach you, and should you wish me to fan you both, or do any other such service, I will do it gladly. I ask but one very small service in return, something you can do for me tonight and be done with."

I was curious and asked what it was.

"Cut the cord that holds her amulet, and cast the amulet into the river."

Sahuset sighed. "Shall I explain?"

I said I wished someone would.

"These images must be fed. One feeds them by anointing them with the blood of the thing they represent."

"She sleeps," Sabra hissed. "I swear no harm--"

"Latro?" It was Myt-ser'eu, with Uraeus at her side. "Have you been talking about me?"

I said that Sahuset and I wished to protect her, and had been telling Sabra that she must not harm her.

Myt-ser'eu was asking who Sabra was when a new voice, rich and soft and of the night, interrupted her.

THE SPEAKING PANTHER
interrupted Myt-ser'eu, as I have said. I myself was interrupted in writing of it by the scribe of my commander. We were to wait upon the sagan. I went, but brought with me the leather case in which I carry this scroll and my writing materials. Now we sit in the forecourt of his house: Qanju, Thotmaktef, Sahuset, my friend the captain, and I. I have opportunity to write. We may wait all day, the captain says, and frets, because of it. I do not fret, because I have things of importance to set down. When I have done it, I will read this.

"Great Seth speaks," Beteshu told us. His voice, which is otherwise deep but soft, stung like a whip when he said it. "Lucius the Roman has his favor. Sahuset of Miam has his favor. They are to come to his temple and remain until dawn. Hear the words of the Red God."

Sahuset bowed to the deck. "We hear, and will obey."

Bolder than I would have thought her, Myt-ser'eu whispered, "Latro loves me. What about me?"

"The Red God has not spoken concerning you," Beteshu the Panther told her. His words were black velvet,
like his coat. "He saved you. Have you forgotten so soon?"

Sabra said, "He will not have to protect her from me again, Beteshu. You have my word." It was thus that I learned the speaking panther's name.

Beteshu said, "Wax is readily shaped. Shall I remain with you, Holy One?"

"If you will come at my call, that is all I ask," Sahuset told him.

"Then call when you will," Beteshu told him. Rushing waters flow no swifter than he. He sprang from our bow toward the pier. Here occurred a thing so strange that this pen of ragged reed stammers in trying to describe it. I saw him spring for the pier, a great black cat. But at the apex of his leap there was only empty moonlight.

He is an evil thing, Uraeus says. I am less sure, and know that Myt-ser'eu thinks Uraeus evil and Beteshu lovely. "To stroke him would be like stroking you," she said, and kissed me.

Must I describe him? I have no doubt he can change his shape as Sahuset has said. He is not so large as a lion but much larger than a cat. His color is the darkest black. His eyes are burning gold.

Here is all Sahuset said. "I had a familiar, Latro, who took the form of a cat. Qanju leagued with priests of this land to drive him away. I implored the Red God to send another. He did as I had asked and sent Beteshu with him. Beteshu has been a servant of Apep's. The Red God won him and gave him to me. Apep is chief of the bad xu, a terrible enemy and a dangerous friend. Beteshu is very wise, but slow to share his wisdom. At times he appears to be a man, black and taller even than I. His eyes are not changed--that is so for all shape changers, so our sacred knowledge teaches. Man or cat, he is swift to slay."

I said, "Then why do you not order him to kill this Qanju for you?"

"Because I do not wish him to die," Sahuset said, and left me.

MYT-SER'EU AND I
are ashore in Abu. We ate in this inn with Muslak, Neht-nefret and Thotmaktef. Myt-ser'eu says the beer is better here than in the inn in which we dined last night, and Neht-nefret that the food is better. We danced and sang and enjoyed ourselves greatly. Myt-ser'eu and I made love and slept for a time. She sleeps still. I slept much while we waited upon the sagan, Muslak said at dinner. I am not sleepy now but thirsty and restless. My head hurts. I would mix wine with the water and drink a great deal of it, but there is no wine here, only bad-smelling water from the well. I write by the first light of the sun in the garden.

The sagan was a man of Parsa with a scarred face. Qanju gave him the letter of a prince. He will give Qanju a letter from the governor to the Nubian king, and send a man with us. The man has not come, nor is the letter prepared; thus we must wait in this city.

Earlier I wrote that the panther called me Lucius the Roman. This is of great importance if it is true. I must ask Sahuset and Muslak. I asked Myt-ser'eu when we returned to the ship. She says that the river we sail empties into the Great Sea, and that Muslak sailed on that sea to bring me to her land. This land is Kemet. I asked whether all the nations of the world were named for colors, as hers is. She says there are only two, and an island named for the rose. She once knew a man from this island. I asked what other land was named for its color. It is the desert, the Red Land. The Red God, she says, is god of that land. She is afraid of him, and she should be. There is no water
in the desert and nothing grows there. It is a land of dust and stones, of sun and wind. I do not know when I was there, yet feel I have been there--and suffered there as well.

This is not so strange as Beteshu the Panther, but it is strange nonetheless, and I should set it down. The landlord lit our way to the chamber we had rented for the night, and left the lamp with us when he bid us good night. (This is the custom.) Myt-ser'eu blew out the lamp before taking off her gown. Later, when I woke, it seemed to me our lamp had been of silver, formed like a dove. I thought it strange that an innkeeper should leave such a valuable lamp with his guests. I rose and examined it with my fingers, and at last carried it to the window to see by moonlight. It was a common lamp of clay. Anyone may buy a score of such lamps in any market for a few coppers. Who visited us, bringing a silver lamp?

At dinner Thotmaktef talked of this city. "Abu is the gateway to the lawless south," he said, "the last civilized town below the first cataract."

Muslak said, "I hear there's a canal."

"There is," Thotmaktef told him, "I believe we will have to pay to use it."

Muslak nodded. "Fee for the city and hire oxen to pull the ship. Qanju will attend to all that."

Myt-ser'eu said, "I saw a woman today as black as my wig."

We had all seen black men, although I did not say so.

"All the people of Kush are as black as your wig," Thotmaktef told her, "and they rule here."

I said, "They are good bowmen--as good as the men of Parsa."

Thotmaktef nodded. "When my nation was in its glory, we enlisted mercenaries from Kush and Nysa by the thousand for that reason. Our own men are as brave as
those of any nation, and we are the oldest nation and the best, but--"

Neht-nefret said, "What's this about Nysa? I thought we were going to Yam."

"We are going as far as the river will take us." Thotmaktef smiled. "And it will certainly take us deep into Nysa--my master told all of us that some time ago, and you should have listened. Of course, it may require a year to get there."

(Myt-ser'eu had been holding my hand beneath the table; I felt her grip tighten.)

"You'll drive my wife off," Muslak complained.

"If she's going to interrupt me, I would just as soon drive her off."

"He's angry because you have a river-wife and he doesn't," Neht-nefret told Muslak. "I've seen this kind of thing before."

"Then he'll be angry at Latro and me too," Myt-ser'eu said. "Are you, Thotmaktef? What harm have we done you?"

"None." Thotmaktef smiled again. "No doubt Neht-nefret's right. But I'll offer you both a morsel of good advice. You must learn to be kind, and polite, to those who have money. Suppose Latro were to cast you off because you interrupted him too often. Do you interrupt him?"

Myt-ser'eu shook her head. "Only when we're playing."

"Then you have little to fear. And of course he cannot store up such slights as Muslak can. But suppose he did. You would need another protector, and neither his soldiers nor Muslak's sailors would do. They haven't any money. My master is too old, I think. That leaves Sahuset, the Hellene, and me? Can you think of others?"

Neht-nefret began, "If you--"

Thotmaktef interrupted her. "You might try to join the women of the town, of course. That is to say you might try if we were in a town when your present protector beat you soundly and told you to go. They would stone you, wouldn't they? There are too many such women already in most towns, and too few men who want them."

Myt-ser'eu said very softly, "I would go to the temple of Hathor. So would Neht-nefret."

Thotmaktef nodded. "There may be one here. Certainly you might look. I very much doubt that there are any left south of the cataract."

A stout, middle-aged man whose curling hair is starting to gray had come in. Neht-nefret waved to him. "Join us, Noble Agathocles! There's plenty of room for you."

He brought up a stool, sitting between Neht-nefret and me. "I didn't see you over here," he told me in a new tongue. "You don't mind?"

I spoke in that of Kemet. "You're very welcome here, but you'd better talk like this or the others may think we're plotting."

"They have river-horse meat here," Neht-nefret told him. "Can you imagine? Just like our king used to eat in the old days. We never got that in the delta."

"I've never eaten it," Agathocles said.

"Neither have we, but we all ordered it. It's supposed to be delicious."

Thotmaktef said, "I hope it really is river-horse, and not pork." Looking straight at Neht-nefret he added, "Sahuset eats pork. He told me."

Myt-ser'eu said, "They eat sheep's flesh in that place downriver where the wolf-god was."

"He is Ap-uat," Thotmaktef told her, "and his city is Asyut. They do indeed. They do, but I do not. What about you, Neht-nefret?"

"Certainly not!"

"But pork, of course. You eat pork?"

She shook her head violently.

Agathocles said, "Well, I do. Or I have, back home."

"Ah!" Thotmaktef smiled again. "Sahuset and our new friend here are eliminated, I think. That leaves only me, Neht-nefret."

Muslak nodded. "You'd better be nice to him, and not interrupt. Only not too nice. You know what I mean."

"It sounds like I've stepped into the middle of something," Agathocles muttered.

"It's over now," Muslak told him.

Everyone was quiet after that until a serving girl came with more beer, and Agathocles ordered. Then Myt-ser'eu said, "Sahuset has a wife, really. Latro and I met her last night. I suppose he's forgotten by now."

I had, but had read of her here. I nodded. "Her name's Sabra."

Muslak said, "There's no such woman on my ship."

"I suppose she met us here." Myt-ser'eu looked to me for support.

I said, "She must have known we were coming to this city--no doubt Sahuset told her before he left. Couldn't she have hired a boat?"

Muslak shrugged. "Well, she's welcome to travel with us, if her husband allows it and the Noble Qanju doesn't object."

Thotmaktef said, "What about me, Captain? You're bringing a wife, and so is your friend Latro. Might I have one too?"

Muslak laughed. "Do you expect me to find you a girl?"

"No, indeed. I'll do my own finding."

"Then I don't mind if Qanju doesn't."

KNOWING SPEECH IS
ever worth hearing. Thus, before Myt-ser'eu blew out the lamp, I asked her whether she thought Thotmaktef would really find a woman that night.

She stretched and belched. "I had wonderful time, dancing and everything, but now I wish I hadn't drunk so much beer. If I hadn't, I could tie into you properly, O my lover and protector. Every now and then you can be just unbelievably stupid."

I laughed and said I was glad I had forgotten all the other times.

"Well, I haven't, and I wish I could. Didn't you notice him slipping away as soon as I got out my lute?"

"Of course I did. That's why I asked."

"Well, you might go looking for a girl at this time of night, and you might get knocked on the head for your trouble too. Should I leave on this amulet?"

"Yes," I said, "and if you take it off, I'll put it back on you after you go to sleep."

She yawned and stretched. "Twenty days in the moon you're asleep before I am. No, dearest Latro, that young
priest is not the type to sift the alleys after dark. Is it all right if I lie down?"

I said I would prefer it.

"So would I." She removed her wig, hung it on the bedpost, and stretched herself upon the bed. "Let me say all this before we get too excited." She yawned again. "Thotmaktef has his girl. When he left us, he went to see her or went to get her. One or the other. He would never have spoken out the way he did, right in front of Neht-nefret and me, unless he had one. He might--I said might--have asked the captain privately this afternoon. But I doubt it. He--"

"Agathocles and I were there, too."

"Were you? Let me talk. What you said only makes my argument that much stronger. What he did, and you may bet that sword you love so much on it, was ask Qanju. In private, of course. The two of them are always whispering together anyway. Then he went out and picked out his girl at Hathor's temple here. He may have arranged to meet her there tonight, or he might have taken her to a room in another inn. My guess is the first one, since it would have saved him the price of a meal. Then he asked the captain, knowing nobody would make fun of him and the Noble Qanju would back him up."

"You're very clever," I said. "I would not have guessed all that."

"Of course not." Myt-ser'eu belched. "What the Noble Qanju says goes, my tall poppet. I have to keep reminding you of that."

"It certainly does with me," I said. "I know he's my commander."

"If he were to tell the governor here to chop us up for bait, we'd be chopped up for bait. You, me, Neht-nefret, Captain Muslak, everybody. He--well, he's noble and
he's from Parsa, and he has the ear of that foreign prince. You've forgotten the prince, but not me. Now kiss me."

MYT-SER'EU WAS STILL
sleeping when I returned to our room, so I took a stroll around the city. Porters were bringing all sorts of goods into the market. I was surprised to see how much of the meat was game.

The important point is that I went into the temple of Thoth. A priest I met there said its doors open at dawn every day. I asked him to direct me to the temple of Hathor. There is none in this city. None south of Nekhen, he said. His own god is a man with the head of an ibis.

URAEUS URGES ME
to write. This is what just happened. Myt-ser'eu piled her soiled gowns with Neht-nefret's and asked me to have my slave find an honest washerwoman here, whom they would pay when their clothes were returned. I had forgotten that I owned a slave. Myt-ser'eu described him, told me his name, and said he was probably in the hold.

I climbed down the hatch. The hold is dark, silent, and very hot, for there is no wind there; it reeks of bilge water. I called, "Uraeus! Are you here, Uraeus?" He answered at once, but I could not see him and walked aft to look for him. When I had gone as far as one can, I turned to go back and found him bowing behind me. "You're too quiet," I told him.

He agreed. "It is a bad habit of mine, master, and once someone stepped upon me. I beg you not to punish me for it."

"If you've been stepped on, that's punishment enough. I hope it wasn't I who stepped on you." I told him what
the women wanted, and asked whether he had been in the city yet.

"Yes, master. You had gone, so I went into the city to get my dinner."

"And drink beer. Had I given you enough for that?"

"More than enough, master, but I do not care for beer. I went only to find food."

"Don't you drink?"

"Water, master. Or milk. I like milk, when I can get it."

I said, "Perhaps you can find some when you've found a woman to do the laundry. Go up on deck, look for Myt-ser'eu, and do as she tells you."

I could not walk past him in the hold; the path through the cargo being very narrow. He went up the ladder first and stepped out onto the deck, where I lost sight of him. I was starting up myself when a voice behind me whispered, "Stay, Lucius. We must speak, you and I."

I turned at once, my hand on the hilt of my sword. I had thought myself alone in the hold.

Toward the prow, two little yellow flames gleamed in the dark. "You will not require that blessed blade. I am your friend Beteshu. Come talk with me. Sit down."

I advanced. The flames were his eyes, but he remained invisible in a darkness they did nothing to illuminate. I asked whether I knew him.

"Oh, yes. We have met before, and we serve the same master."

"The Noble Qanju?" I had read what Myt-ser'eu had said of him not long ago.

"No." He did not laugh but I saw his teeth, whiter than foam. "Great Seth. Do you know that name?"

I said I did not.

"Set? No. I see that you do not know that name either. Sutekh?"

It seemed strange that he could thus read my expression in that darkness, but I only said, "No. Who is he?"

"The Desert God." He paused, and I wished I could have seen his face as well as he saw mine. "Here is a piece of true wisdom for you. Circle it in your scroll so you will read it each time you glance at the place. The true god is the desert god. Do you understand that, Lucius?"

"No," I said. "It seems to me that every god must be a true god. If he is not, he is no god."

"We are both right. Repeat what I told you."

I did.

"You will not recall it. Still you may recall having heard it before when you see it again. You are at the last cataract."

I had thought this the first, having heard the sailors talking.

"This river is born far to the south. Six cataracts stand between it and the sea. This is the last. All is sure and safe below it. There are soldiers of Parsa and Kemet to keep the peace, and the Medjay still function as of old in many places. Above, it is not so. A wise man going south will seek to know his future."

I asked how any man could know it.

"If he cannot see it, he must heed those who can. Set seeks to reveal yours to you. Will you hear him?"

"Gladly," I said.

"That is very well." He laid his arm across my shoulders; it was only then that I realized that he was a larger man than I, though I myself am larger than any of the sailors on this ship.

"Do you object to the company of beautiful women?" he asked me.

I said, "No man objects to it."

"You are wrong. But you do not. Neither do I. Creature of Sahth! Come forth!"

The lid of a long box not far from the open hatch was
lifted. The woman who joined us was young and beautiful, and wore a necklace and many rings and bracelets. "You knew I overheard you, cunning Beteshu."

I believe the one who called himself Beteshu must have smiled. "I overheard your breathing."

"I do not breathe," she told him.

"How could I be so mistaken? Will Lucius take you to wife? I know you wish it."

I remembered that Myt-ser'eu had told me she was my wife, and said that I had a wife already and could not support so many women.

"I will not ask for food or beer," the woman declared. "I cannot do heavy work, jewel of my heart, but I can do all else a wife can do, and you will never hear an angry word from me. May I go to Latro, Beteshu?"

"Would you slay your present husband? If I were to say yes?"

"Do you?"

Beteshu did not reply.

"You are as far above me as the stars, Beteshu. Have pity!"

"Do not say such things." Beteshu's voice is as soft as the night wind, but there was an angry snarl in that wind tonight. "Slay your husband and you will be destroyed. Not as my master once destroyed you." He paused and drew breath. "As I destroy." He held out his hand and blew upon it, and red fire shot up from its palm.

I have seen many black men today. Black men unload a ship on the farther side of the pier. Most are dark as tar, but the palms of their hands are not. In the light from that flame I saw this man's hand, and its palm was blacker than charcoal.

The woman returned to the box from which she had emerged without another word, and reaching out of the box picked up its lid and closed it upon herself.

"We were interrupted." Beteshu's voice smiled again. "Do you blame me for that interruption?"

I shook my head. "I do not blame anyone for it."

"That is less than just. You yourself are to blame for it. Your presence stirs her to life. That is why she would be with you always. Did you know?"

I had not, and said so.

"It is true. You see gods and spirits whenever they are near, whether they would be seen or no. There was a time when I had to leap off this ship so that you would no longer see me. You will not recall that time." His hand closed upon the flame, and it was no more.

I laughed as fear makes men laugh.

"You have power over me," Beteshu said. "I have power over you. I could destroy you if I wished, yet I am your friend. You have nothing to fear from me."

"I am a friend," I told him, "to those who are friends to me."

"I must speak about your slave. He is a cobra taken from the crown of a certain one. You must not kill him. He may kill you if you try."

I said, "I will not try. What sort of man kills his own slaves?"

"Every sort of man."

We sat in silence for a time. Now and then, faint voices came through the hatch. Now and then, feet pattered on the deck above our heads. I felt then that we had been sitting so for years, side by side, and might continue so until the Golden Age returned, though the ship rotted around us.

"One man works his slave to death," Beteshu told me. "Another turns drunkard and beats his. You must strike to kill. A slave owns no slaves. Circle that too."

He was gone; and I sat in the stinking hold alone, sweating in the heat. I have told Uraeus what was said, and written the truth at his urging. I must believe it.