Soldier of Sidon (5 page)

MY WIFE, MY
home, my parents--everything I once knew came rushing back--my service to the Great King and the death of my friends. I know this because Muslak and Myt-ser'eu have told me. Now they say that I must write, as I do. This is what I remember now.

We were at this inn. A woman came, a strange and silent woman whose eyes do not move as other women's do. She spoke to Muslak, saying that we were to go with her at the setting of the moon. Neht-nefret was afraid, and Muslak would not go. She spoke to me, the last time I heard her speak, saying that if I wished to remember I must come with her. Myt-ser'eu and I said we would both go, but sleep a little first, for the moon was not yet high.

I wrote. Afterward we went to a room here, barred the door, and made love. It was long and slow and very good, for Myt-ser'eu knows much of love. When it was done, I slept.

I woke. Myt-ser'eu slept beside me, and the silent woman sat upon a stool on the other side. I supposed that Myt-ser'eu had admitted her while I slept. She says she did not.

The silent woman woke Myt-ser'eu and beckoned to us. We followed her; her name is Sabra. She led us very far, through dark streets, to the house of Sahuset. It is a small house in a large garden. I held Sabra's hand and Myt-ser'eu mine; even so, it was hard to keep to the path. There was an animal that watched us, or something that appeared to be an animal. It did not snarl or roar, but I saw its green eyes gleaming like emeralds in the shadows.

Sahuset's door stood wide. Someone I could not see lit a lamp as we entered, and Sahuset entered from another room. That was when he dismissed the silent woman, calling her Sabra. I expected her to leave the room; she did not, but went to a corner and stood motionless there, regarding Sahuset and us with an unseeing stare.

"You cannot remember, Latro. I have asked you to come here that I might help you." Each time that Sahuset uttered a word, one of the crocodiles hanging from his ceiling stirred.

I said that if he could help me see again the days now long past, I would be most grateful.

"I seek your gratitude. I seek the good will of this woman and of all who will be with us in the south, too. But yours I desire most of all. You have been cursed by a god. That is an ill thing, for you. Yet numinous."

Seeing that I did not understand, he added, "To be cursed by a god is to be touched by a god. To be touched by any god is to share divinity in some small measure. When the high priest leaves the sanctuary he strips off his clothing and bathes. Did you know that? His clothing is burned."

I said that I did not. Myt-ser'eu said she did, but I think she lied.

"He does not wish to infect the worshippers with divinity. Were they so infected, what need would they have
of priest or temple? I myself am a priest, a priest of the Red God. Do either of you know of the Red God?"

Myt-ser'eu shook her head. I said that since I was a soldier I might be a servant of the Red God.

"The ignorant masses believe the Red God evil," Sahuset taught us, "because he commands the evil xu. If he tells an evil xu to leave a man, that xu must go. They are compelled to obey him in all things." He sighed. "The Red God is the desert god."

Silence filled the crowded room that seemed too big for that small house. In it we said nothing.

"The horse and the river-horse, the pig and the crocodile are sacred to him. He has a great temple in the south--"

"Set!" Myt-ser'eu sounded frightened. "This is Set."

"The Red God has many names." Sahuset spoke as those speak who calm a frightened child. "You may use whatever name you wish. The names of gods do not matter, because no one knows the true name of any god."

"I think we'd better go," Myt-ser'eu told me, and took my arm.

I shook my head.

"You are a man of courage," Sahuset said. "I knew it. None but brave men have value. I have told you that I will earn your gratitude, if I can. You have not asked why I want it."

I said, "Then I ask now. What favor do you wish from me?"

"Only your favor," Sahuset told me, "only that. Suppose that we found a scroll in the south, a yellowing scroll inscribed with long-lost wisdom. Would you keep it for yourself?"

"Yes," I said, "if I could read it."

"If you could not?"

I shrugged.

"Bring it to me, and I will read it for you. Will you do that?"

"Certainly," I said, "if you wish it."

"Or a stone so inscribed? Any such thing?"

I nodded.

"That is all I ask. You will remember your promise to me--or I will remind you of it. Now take your hand from that."

I looked down at my left hand, and saw that it was holding a winged fish, carved of black wood. I had not been conscious of picking it up, but must have taken it to toy with while I spoke. I put it down as Sahuset asked.

"I will require a drop of blood from you," he said, "and a drop of blood from an impure woman."

"I will gladly give you a drop of mine," I told him, "and go into the city to find such a woman for you, if you wish it."

From a drawer Sahuset took a long, straight knife with a thin blade of bronze, the tongue of the crocodile of green stone that formed its grip. "I doubt that will be necessary," he said.

He took my left hand in his and examined all its fingers, looking, as it seemed to me, for the places in which they had touched the fish. At last he pricked the fourth finger, and squeezed drops of blood into a small red bottle.

"And you," he said, motioning to Myt-ser'eu.

She came forward, trembling. He did not search her fingers as he had searched mine, but pricked the palm of her hand, caught her blood in the blood-groove of the blade, and crossing the room to the corner where Sabra stood, presented it to her.

She dabbled her fingers in it and dabbed it on her face, reddening her cheeks with it. That was the last time I saw her move.

When it was done, he poured water into a wide bowl and dropped the red bottle that held my blood into it. From a metal box he took dust the color of old blood, which he sprinkled with great care over the surface of the water.

We waited for a time that seemed long to me. At length the surface was disturbed, as if by a frog or some such creature swimming below it. This persisted for a time, then ceased. Sahuset peered intently at the pattern of floating dust, sighed, stroked his chin, and last picked up the bowl and dashed its contents on the floor. "You have been cursed by a foreign goddess," he said, "a goddess of the north."

Myt-ser'eu inhaled sharply.

"There is little I can do here, but I will do what I can--if you wish it."

"I do," I said. "You spoke of gratitude. You will have mine, if you can do anything to help me."

Sahuset shrugged. "I can give you a xu to fight the curse. He will enter into you. Do you understand? You will be two, a thing that you may not enjoy."

I said, "Do you mean that there will two of me?" (I am not sure I understood all that Sahuset said correctly. I give it here as I understood it.)

Sahuset reached out to tap my forehead. "This is a house, a tomb. One dwells there, and you say 'Me.' Two will dwell there, Me and Xu. You may not like sharing the house in which you have lived alone for so long."

"But he will lift the curse?"

"He will, for as long as he remains with you."

Myt-ser'eu asked, "How long will that be?"

Sahuset shook his head. "Until he is expelled, but how long it will be I cannot say. Nor can I tell you, now, who or what may expel him. He will have to tell me that."

Slowly, Myt-ser'eu nodded.

"Do you wish it, Latro?" (The tails of all the crocodiles moved, as if they swam.)

"Yes," I said, "I wish it."

"Very well. I must prepare." Sahuset turned to go. Already his closely shaven head gleamed with sweat. As he reached the doorway he added, "Wait here. You may sit in this room, but you must not lie in it. Open no chest."

Myt-ser'eu began to look around the room as soon as he had gone. It seemed to me that she was looking for something to steal, so I made her sit down upon a high stool brightly painted with the picture writing of Kemet. I myself went to the woman in the corner and spoke to her. She did not reply. I touched her forehead then, in a place where Myt-ser'eu's blood had not been smeared. It was wax. When I touched her hand, her eyes saw me. It was as if I had awakened her from sleep, though she did not move a muscle. I backed away.

After that Myt-ser'eu and I waited a long time, kissing once or twice but saying little.

When Sahuset returned he laid a finger to his lips, and with a rod of ivory motioned for us to follow. We did, saying nothing. He led the way through several rooms and down a steep winding stair to a dark chamber where the air was cool but without life.

It must have been far underground. The floor had been strewn with black sand, or perhaps with sand mixed with ashes. A tall box shaped like a man stood there. A man's face had been painted at the top, so that it almost seemed the man stood before us, a hard and handsome man who had lost something else before losing life, and told himself many times that the thing lost was not important. This box was painted as the chests and other things had been, though this paint was old and dull. In places, it had fallen away. In some, the wood was cracked.

Sahuset put my hand upon Myt-ser'eu's shoulder and
hers on mine, indicating by signs that we were to stand so. Then he drew a circle around us with his ivory rod, he himself standing always on the inside of this circle he drew. Three lamps stood in his circle too, near the edges of it. He drew a triangle whose points were these lamps, and kindled them by tapping each with his rod and muttering words I did not understand and could hardly hear. As he spoke to each, its flame sprang up, yellow and bright. Strange fragrances came and went in that chamber.

After that, we waited again.

Soon it seemed that someone walked in the house above, the footfalls sounding only faintly down the steep stair. I supposed that it was the wax woman, Sabra, who walked there; and perhaps it was. After a time, it came to me that the walker was searching the house, going from room to room in search of someone or something. Someone screamed, but the steps came neither faster nor slower.

Steps sounded on the stair. The flames of the lamps sank, turning green, then blue. Something or someone taller than Sahuset descended the stair. It was not a man but was like a man. It wore a mask of fresh leaves.

Sahuset spoke to it in a tongue I did not know. It answered in the same tongue, uttering three words each time it spoke, neither more nor less.

"The xu will remain in you until the wind that stirs the grain is in your face," Sahuset told me. "Then it must depart." With these words he took my hand, led me to the edge of the circle, and indicated by a gesture that I was to step out of it. I did.

I will not believe this when I read it, but after that I remember little. What I do remember, I set down here. I walked a dark street with a woman I did not know, and talked loudly and very fast. The faces of my father, my mother, and my sister floated around me. I knew our farm again, every meadow and field, and I relived the deaths of
my friends. The woman beside me spoke often to me, but I did not heed her, only telling her everything that raced across my mind--a thousand things I have forgotten once more.

At last I recalled Justa and struck the woman. "You're a whore!" I remember shouting it. I drew my sword and would have killed her, but she cowered and I could not strike.

She led me to this inn. I was speaking loudly all the time, but in this tongue, not in hers. Men stared at me and laughed, thinking me drunk. We climbed many steps to the roof, where there were two bright tents and a hundred flowers that lifted lovely faces to the rising sun. She turned me from it. "Look!" she said. "Look, Latro!" I looked and the morning wind was fresh in my face, cooling it, drying my sweat.

"What is it?" I asked in her tongue. "What are you pointing at, Myt-ser'eu?"

"At the Imperishable Ones--the stars of the north. They're almost gone." She kissed me. "And you're mine again!"

THE SCRIBE IS
here. His master has sent him to assess the readiness of our ship. His master is Qanju. He did not tell me this, but I heard him say it. He himself is of Kemet, and a priest. We spoke of writing. He showed me their picture writing, and explained the way it is read. It may be written in either direction, but the man must face toward the end. The birds face the end also. It may also be written down, but not up. He wrote the satrap's name and enclosed it in a shield.

He said we should take a Nubian with us because such a one would know the country. I had not thought of that. He says there are many Nubians in the army of Kemet. "They are fine archers," he told me. "We have archers as good, but not many."

Neht-nefret whispered, "They are wonderful lovers, Latro. I had one once."

"Yes," Myt-ser'eu said, "foreigners always make the best lovers." She squeezed my hand when she spoke.

"They are good fighters," Thotmaktef declared.

I asked about their tactics.

He laughed and said, "You neglected to tell me that
scribes and priests know nothing of war. You are more courteous than my own countrymen."

I said, "What can I know of what you know of war?"

"I know very little, just what I've picked up from Qanju and the other men of Parsa. But they know a great deal."

"Not more than we," Neht-nefret insisted.

"Not
those
tactics," Myt-ser'eu said, and everyone laughed.

I like this young scribe. He is eager to teach, yet very ready to learn. Not many men are like that. I cannot know whether he is brave or not, for Myt-ser'eu says we have not known him long and there has been no fighting. Yet his eyes say he is, and what is better yet, that he does not know it. I would rather have him at my side than most men. Surely his god must favor him! What god would not favor such a priest?

He will tell his master we are ready. Muslak says there will be no need to wait for tide or wind.

I CAST US
off and leaped on board. Men on the yard untied the sail. The wind is stronger in the middle of the river, but we keep to the bank where the current is less--though it seems to me that there is hardly any current at all. The river is very wide, so that little is lost to such current as there may be.

There are three archers of Parsa and five spearmen of Kemet with us. All obey me, and none like it. Two quarreled. I knocked both down. They drew daggers, which I took from them. When they got up again I gave them back and told them that if they did not sheath them I would kill them both. They sheathed them. I hurt Uro's spear arm, although I did not intend it.

I inspected them, and set them to work cleaning their
gear and sharpening their weapons. Just now I inspected them again and dressed them down for their shortcomings, both individually and as a group. Just now I set them to cleaning and sharpening some more. The captain suggests that we have them sweep the ship and scrub its deck each day, saying that it will become dirty very quickly with so many men on board. I told him we would do that as well.

All the soldiers wish to be my friends, but I am not friendly with any. Myt-ser'eu says that is wise, and I know she is right. She is my river-wife, just as Neht-nefret is Muslak's. Neht-nefret is a pretty woman, taller than Myt-ser'eu and more graceful. But Myt-ser'eu is beautiful and loving. I would not exchange her.

Both are more clever, I think, than Muslak and I might wish; they are great friends, whispering and gossiping.

I HAVE BEEN
thinking of the things I must know when I read this again. We are on Muslak's ship. Its name is
Gades
. We are two women and twenty-seven men. Men: Qanju commands, Muslak is captain, Sahuset is a learned man of Kemet, Thotmaktef is a scribe, I command eight soldiers, and the rest are sailors. Women: Neht-nefret and Myt-ser'eu. The first is Muslak's, the second mine. She is four fingers shorter and I think a year or so the younger. Certainly she is younger than I. I think her afraid of all the other men, save perhaps for Qanju and Thotmaktef--very afraid of Sahuset. She stays so close to me when he is near that I am tempted to tell her to go away, but that would be cruel. It would be unwise as well; she remembers much that I forget.

THERE ARE CROCODILES
in the water. I saw a big one just now that must be very dangerous. Muslak says we
will soon see river-horses. Myt-ser'eu has seen many pictures of them, but never seen them. Neht-nefret says the kings hunted them when this land ruled itself. They cannot really be bigger than this ship, but she says it.

We spoke of pigs. This is because Neht-nefret said they look like pigs on land, though they are so much larger and eat grass like other horses. Muslak said that pigs are good food, which is true, I know. The women were disgusted. No one in Kemet will eat a pig, they said. Sahuset smiled at that, so I knew otherwise.

Muslak also said that the river-horses are good eating, but very dangerous to hunt whether on land or water. I said that fat animals could not be dangerous, no matter how large they were. I said this because I wished to hear more.

"I have never hunted them," Muslak said, "but I know that they wreck big boats and trample men to death. Their jaws are immense, and their bite kills crocodiles. Their hides are thick and tough, and their fat keeps a spear from reaching their vitals."

"Not mine," one of my soldiers declared.

Laughing, Neht-nefret told him, "Tepu will kill you, Amamu." Tepu is the river-horse.

I READ WHAT
I had written about this ship to Myt-ser'eu. A sailor joined us to listen. When I stopped reading he said, "There's another woman."

Both of us said there was not.

He shrugged. "I slept on board last night. There was a woman with us. We offered her money, but she refused and went below, and we couldn't find her."

Myt-ser'eu asked, "Who was her protector?"

The sailor only rose and strode away. Myt-ser'eu says he is Azibaal. I asked Myt-ser'eu how she knew the woman had a protector.

"Because they would have forced her, of course. When we're back home in Sais, the priests protect us. That's why you have to go to the temple to get us. You don't remember the money you made Muslak give the priest, do you?"

I admitted I did not.

"I knew you didn't. It was a lot, and we don't get any of it. What you give us afterward is all we get--if you make a present of money to me when we part, or buy me jewels while we're together."

"I don't have much money," I said.

"You will have," Myt-ser'eu told me.

THAT WAS EVERYTHING
we said then, but I have been thinking about what Azibaal said. There cannot be a third woman on the ship this afternoon. Therefore, she was a woman of the place where we stopped last night. It was very large, so there must have been women there beyond counting. If she came on the ship but would not take money, she must have come to steal. If that is so--and it seems it must be--her protector was another thief. Since she went below, her protector was there stealing. Perhaps he told her to keep the sailors occupied while he stole. I have gone below and looked at everything, but if there is something missing, I do not know what it is.

Besides, Azibaal and the other sailors who stayed on board were there to guard against thieves, and would have seen the man and this woman when they left. Would not many men have taken everything? Would Azibaal and his sailors not have beaten one man or even two or three and driven them off? There is something here that I do not understand. I will stay on the ship myself tonight.

THE BRIGHT MOON
we saw has slipped behind the western mountains, leaving the sky filled with innumerable stars; Qanju studies them even now, but I sit where he sat, writing swiftly by the twofold light of his lamps. Much has taken place tonight that I must record.

The village at which we stopped had no inn, only a beer shop. Qanju and Sahuset have tents; I had Aahmes and the other soldiers put them up for them as soon as we landed.

After we had eaten and drunk, I returned to the ship. Myt-ser'eu wished to come with me. I wanted her to stay behind, but she cried. We had drunk beer, and she fell asleep as soon as we sat down. I had persuaded Muslak to let my soldiers guard his ship, some of his men having guarded it the night before; and I had assigned the three from Parsa to do it. Now I questioned them. They had seen no one and heard nothing, so I told them they could go into the village and enjoy themselves. When they had gone, I laid Myt-ser'eu in a more comfortable place (earning a kiss, with sleepy murmurs) and covered her to keep off the insects. I sat up, swatting them from time to time and smearing myself with grease. To tell the truth, I did not expect to see or hear anyone; but I was reasonably sure that the sailor had not told Muslak, and I could not tell him myself without betraying the sailor. Guarding the ship seemed to be the only thing to do.

I had nearly fallen asleep when I heard her step. She emerged from the hold, her gems and gold bracelets gleaming in the clear light of a quarter moon, and walked with graceful, unhurried steps toward the bow.

Rising, I ordered her to stop. She turned her head very far to look back at me, but did not. It was only then that I felt certain she was not Neht-nefret.

I overtook her easily and caught her shoulder. "What are you doing on this ship?"

"I am a passenger," she said.

"I haven't seen you on deck. Were you below all day?"

"Yes."

I waited for her to say more. At last I said, "It must have been very hot and uncomfortable for you down there."

"No." Her voice is low, but quite distinct.

"Now you want to go ashore?"

"Yes." She smiled at me. "I've no quarrel with you, Latro. Stand aside."

By that time I had seen that she was carrying nothing and had no weapon. Also that she was tall, young, and very beautiful. "I can't leave the ship unguarded to take you to the village," I told her, "and if you go alone, you may be attacked."

"I do not fear it."

"That's courageous of you, but I can't let you risk yourself like that. You'll have to stay here with me until someone else comes."

"Someone else is already here," she told me.

As she spoke, I heard the spitting snarl of a cat behind me. I spun about, drawing Falcata.

The cat's eyes blazed brighter far than the moonlight, smoking braziers of cruel green fire. When I took a step toward it, it snarled again, and I saw the gleam of its teeth. I feared, at first, that it might attack Myt-ser'eu--then that it had already, tearing her throat swiftly and silently. I advanced, wishing with all my heart for a torch. It moved to its left. When I moved to counter it, to its right. It was as large as many dogs.

As a bubble bursts in the river, it was gone.

I looked everywhere for it, certain it could not have jumped from the ship without my seeing it. At last it seemed to me that it could only have darted down the hatch and into
the hold. There may be men who would have pursued that cat into the pitch darkness of the hold, but I am not such a man. (This I learned only a short time ago.) I replaced the hatch cover and tied it down with the rope that had been coiled beside it.

Only then did I look around for the woman who had come out of the hold. She was already well along the path leading to the village. I called to her, but she did not stop or even turn her head. Perhaps I should have run after her, although Qanju says I was right to stay on the ship. In a moment or two the woman had vanished into the night.

He arrived, and his scribe with him, not long after. "I came to study the stars," he said. "Are they not beautiful? They are best seen when the moon is down."

He lay on his back on the deck so as to see them without craning his neck.

"The moon has not set," I said, wishing to tell him what had happened but not knowing how to begin.

"It will be down soon," he told me, "and I will be ready. Even now, one may learn much."