The Wadjet Eye

by Jill Rubalcaba

  Damon undid his cloak and passed it to Artemas. "Certainly, I'll do what I can." He stepped forward. With each step the unmistakable odor of decaying flesh grew stronger. It overpowered even the rankness of the unwashed soldiers.

  Artemas looked uneasy.

  The wounded man lay on a bed of straw. Damon climbed into the open wagon next to him. The bandages were stiff with dried blood. This close, the stench was overwhelming. Damon gagged. He breathed through his mouth.

  He knew what he would find when he peeled back the bandages. There was no mistaking this fetid odor. "Have you fresh bandages?"

  One of the soldiers volunteered to get some from the inn.

  "And water to bathe him and give him to drink," Damon called after the soldier.

  The man lay feverish, tossing his head from side to side and muttering in Latin, words unfamiliar to Damon. "Could someone translate, please?"

  "He calls to his wife," a soldier told Damon in Greek.

  Damon clenched his jaw, breathing through his teeth, fighting back the spasms and the bile that rose in the back of his throat. He cut the bandages free with his knife. He peeled back the cloth. A writhing mass of pale yellow maggots fell away from the rotting flesh, dropping like rice from a stalk. On the wagon floor they curled first one way and then the other, protesting the light. One soldier retched beside the wagon wheel. Another turned ashen but stayed near. Artemas fainted.

  "Shall I bring your friend to?" a soldier asked Damon.

  "No, leave him. It's good he fell in the brush. He'll get a few scratches, but at least he didn't crack his skull open on the road." Damon worked quickly now. "You'll need to keep the maggots in darkness."

  "You're not going to remove them?"

  "Most likely the physician in Munda put them there. They eat away at the dead flesh that poisons the leg. It is good."

  "Not so good to look at."

  "No," Damon agreed. "Not so good to look at."

  The man's leg had angry red streaks up into the thigh from the wound below the knee. The flesh was gray and spongy.

  "You'll need to get him to his family—quickly."

  "Can't anything be done?"

  "Just make him as comfortable as possible." Damon packed the maggots back into the fresh linen. "And travel with speed."

  The soldiers nodded grimly. Damon knew they had expected as much.

  He jumped out of the wagon. "See if you can get him to take some water."

  Damon crouched beside Artemas and slapped him lightly on the cheek. Artemas rolled his head from side to side, dazed. He looked at Damon as if he were having difficulty keeping him in focus. His eyes lost their dull look, then widened. He pulled back from Damon, staring horrified at Damon's shoulder.

  Damon tucked in his chin to see what Artemas was looking at, then flicked a maggot from his shoulder into the dirt. "Are you ready for some lunch?"

  "I'm not very hungry," Artemas answered weakly.

  "Then let's get back on the road." Damon felt a sense of urgency. What if his father were wounded like this man?

  TWENTY-ONE

  They saw the smoke in the distance. Wagons piled with the dead and wounded clattered past them. At first Damon searched every soldier's face, looking for his father, but then there were too many. Now a steady stream of men flowed against them, the faces smudged with dirt.

  Damon looked down at his own spattered cloak. It was stiff with mud. His legs were caked with it. His face must look like those they passed—eyes too big and sunken from lack of sleep, staring out from a black mask. His horse stumbled on a stone. The roads built by Roman soldiers had ended days ago.

  Damon twisted from the waist to look back at Artemas. "We must be near."

  Artemas nodded, his face grim.

  Damon's aches were old from so many days on horseback. Some were so deep they were just memories of earlier pains. His hands were calloused from the abrasive rope reins. His buttocks were numb. He felt as if he had been beaten with a club.

  Artemas cupped a hand and hollered forward to Damon. "Look ahead. A standard."

  A pole rose from behind an outcropping far ahead. A banner tied to it flapped in the breeze. Damon could see only the colors, but he guessed it marked the hospital tent. They headed for it.

  Looking east, they were blinded by the sun as it rose over the top of the makeshift hospital tent. A canopy had been hastily erected, with curtains too light to keep out the weather, should it turn bad.

  Damon parted the curtains. Soldiers groaned. Every cot was filled. Many men lay on the floor. "Can we be of service?"

  A lone doctor stood over a patient. The apron tied over the doctor's tunic was spattered with blood. "Do you have a wagon?" he asked without more than glancing at them.

  "No, I'm afraid not," Damon answered.

  "The last of the wagons has left. Some of the more able are carrying the wounded here from the field. What we need is a wagon. They'll bleed to death out there." He tossed his head in the direction of the smoke. "If the enemy doesn't get them first."

  Damon threw off his cloak and dipped his hands in the basin. The mud turned the water black. "I can help. I'm a physician. No training in battle wounds, but if you show me what to do..."

  "There's fresh water just outside."

  Damon had forgotten about Artemas until he saw him just inside the entrance. He stood like some giant statue. But he stood. He hadn't fainted. "I can help carry the wounded to you," he said.

  "There's no wagon," Damon said.

  Til carry them, one at a time."

  Damon moved close to Artemas and whispered, so the doctor could not hear, "You can't do that."

  "Why not?"

  "Because if you faint, you'll be vulnerable. The enemy..."

  "I'll be fine. You help here. I'll help the others."

  "It's not dishonorable to be light-headed from the sight of blood. It's common."

  "I am not light-headed," Artemas insisted.

  "Fine. Thick-headed, then."

  Artemas left.

  Damon stared at the closed flap for just a moment, then followed outside to scrub off the mud.

  "What can I do?" Damon asked when he returned. He held his wet hands away from his mud-caked clothing.

  "If you prepare them, I'll stitch them," the doctor said. "Clean the wounds. Remove any arrow tips, broken shafts. Stop the flow of blood with pressure."

  Damon began at the nearest cot. He had cut away the man's leather breastplate with a knife and was wrestling with the shaft of an arrow when Artemas came in, followed by two other men, each cradling a wounded soldier. Blood covered Artemas's chest. He gently laid the unconscious man on the floor with the other wounded soldiers.

  "Are you all right?" Damon asked him.

  "I'm all right. There are at least twenty others out there. Not far. I've got to go." His face was pale, but he stood without wavering and quickly left.

  Damon watched the curtain fall back in place behind Artemas. A groan brought him back to the present. He deftly pulled the arrow free and with the heel of his hand applied pressure to the wound.

  The doctor and Damon worked steadily. Damon now could tell those wounds that needed attention immediately from those that could wait. He had seen everyone in the tent and knew in what order he should prepare them for the surgeon. He did his best to make them comfortable, moving quickly from patient to patient. The unconscious moaned. There were so many that it sounded like the chants of the priests at the temple of Karnak.

  Artemas had brought in seventeen men. Seventeen men he had saved that would have otherwise died. He hadn't fainted. By now he was so covered in blood, Damon wouldn't have recognized him if he had to search him out in the field. Damon looked down and realized he, too, was covered in blood. He'd forgotten his sore muscles.

  "Here, tie this tight." The doctor held out the ends of a leather strip wound around a soldier's thigh. Damon tied the leather tight enough to cut into the flesh. The doctor found a saw in the pile of tools beneath
the table. "We can't save the leg. We'll have to cut it off. You hold him."

  Damon stepped in to hold the man just as Artemas came through the doorway again holding one end of a stretcher. "Look who I found!"

  Damon looked at the man lying on the stretcher, then up at Artemas in confusion. Damon had never seen this man before. From his uniform he was obviously an officer. But this couldn't be Caesar. Who else would Artemas be so excited about finding? Then Damon looked into the face of the man carrying the other end of the stretcher. He was smiling. How strange to see a smile amid this blood and gore. It seemed hideously out of place. With his chin Damon motioned where they should put the wounded man, but Artemas didn't move. Annoyed, Damon said, "Can't you see we're about to amputate—" Then he looked at the smiling man again. It couldn't be. But it was. It was his father.

  TWENTY-TWO

  His father put down his end of the stretcher and held out his arms. "Son!"

  Son! That single word hit Damon in the gut as if he had been punched. He felt a fury let loose that made him nearly go blind with its intensity. Son? Who did he think he was, calling Damon son? Where was he when Damon had needed him? Where was he when his mother lay dying? When she was in pain? Where was he then? And why had Damon been forced to travel across the sea—barely surviving—to get to this bloody battlefield just so he could tell this—this father that his own wife was dead?

  "How are things at home? Artemas hasn't told me anything. Leaving it for you, I suspect. How is your mother?"

  "Dead."

  With satisfaction, Damon watched Litigus's face. He watched the smile freeze. Then the look of confusion. Then he saw the man, who so wanted to call himself Damon's father, crumple under the weight of that one word.

  Litigus looked at his own arms—still outstretched—as if he wasn't sure what they were and why they were reaching or how to make them do anything else.

  "She's dead, Litigus."

  Litigus looked again at Damon as if Damon were speaking a language he didn't understand. And then he sat down—fell was more like it—on the floor beside the stretcher he had just put down.

  Artemas gave Damon a look so full of contempt that Damon stepped back. He'd never seen Artemas look at him that way. Not even when they had been so angry that they hadn't spoken. Damon didn't care. What did Artemas know about a father like Litigus? When Artemas's mother died, his father had been with his family. Artemas didn't understand.

  "How ... did she ... ?" Litigus looked at Damon with a face like an open wound—raw, disbelieving, full of turmoil.

  "There are men who need my care. I'll explain later," Damon said, turning back to assist the physician.

  Artemas grabbed his arm and nearly spat his words. "Your father needs you now."

  "Well, he'll just have to wait. He can see what that feels like."

  "I've seen you do a lot of things, Damon. But I've never seen you be cruel. Until now."

  "Aren't there more soldiers out in the field who need rescuing?" Damon asked. Then he looked away from Artemas, too.

  Damon held the wounded soldier's leg still. The physician seemed unaware of what had passed between Damon and Litigus. His attention was on the thrashing soldier. Damon turned slightly so that he could see Litigus and Artemas without them knowing that he was watching.

  Artemas stormed out of the tent. Seconds later Litigus stood, like a man in a dream, and followed—slowly, each movement awkward, as if he had forgotten how to walk.

  Through the night Artemas and Damon's father came and went. They worked in silence. Each time his father entered the hospital tent, Damon could feel his presence, even before he saw him. Each time his father looked more stooped. Once, when Damon thought Litigus might be going to speak to him, Damon turned quickly, busying himself dressing a wound that he would later only have to re-dress. He had nothing more to say to Litigus.

  It was near dawn, and Damon didn't think his legs would hold him up much longer. The physiclan's eyes were rimmed in red. They would have to take turns sleeping soon. They couldn't keep this up. They needed to get these men to a real hospital. They were running out of supplies as quickly as they were running out of the strength to treat the flow of wounded.

  Just as Damon was about to suggest to the physician that he rest for a few hours, the tent flap parted and Artemas came in carrying yet another soldier. Damon put his face in his hands and asked Thoth for strength. He was so weary he wasn't sure he could shift the men to make room for another soldier. But Artemas did not lay this man down with the others. He brought him directly to Damon. Damon felt the flutter of panic in his chest when he saw the pain in Artemas's eyes. He was afraid to look. Afraid not to.

  "He called for you before he collapsed."

  What had Damon done? This was all his fault.

  TWENTY-THREE

  "Lay him here. Gently." Damon cleared a table, sweeping jars and bandages to the floor.

  Artemas cradled Damon's father's head in the crook of his arm while he lowered him to the table. Damon folded his cloak for a headrest and then pressed his ear to his father's chest.

  "Is he—?"

  Damon silenced Artemas with a raised hand.

  At first Damon heard nothing. But then one beat. Then another. Uneven. Faltering. But beating. "He's alive." But for how long?

  He lifted his father's arm, searching the shoulder for wounds. His skin feels so cold and clammy. He looks gray, not like the others, who paled from the blood loss. He looks gray.

  Artemas straightened the scabbard at Damon's father's belt. "He was carrying another soldier, protecting him with his own body. From the armor the man was wearing, I'd say he was a legate."

  "Legate?"

  "His commanding officer. He's dead. I'm going back for him."

  "Don't." Damon grabbed Artemas by the arm. "Don't risk your life for a dead man."

  "We can't leave him for the enemy. Your father understood that."

  "And look where that got him." Damon grabbed a blanket from under a cot and spread it over his father. He called to the physician, "I need help over here!" When he looked back, Artemas was gone.

  "There's nothing we can do for him. It's his heart," the physician said, with nothing more than a glance.

  "There must be something!" Damon shouted at the physician's back. His heart! Damon had broken it—he knew it. He had wanted to hurt his father. Hurt him like Damon had been hurt. But not this. Damon hadn't meant for this to happen. "You can't just let him die!"

  The physician turned with a questioning look.

  "He's..." Damon looked at Litigus, then without looking back at the physician said, "He's my father."

  "I'm sorry. It's between him and his gods now. I can stitch a wound. I can sometimes remove an offending limb and save the man. But there is no way to mend a failing heart."

  "No spell?"

  The physician shook his head. "I'm sorry." He returned to his operating table.

  Damon wrung out a cloth dipped in water and swabbed his father's neck and arms. "I'm here, Father. I'm here." His father lay so still that Damon kept putting his ear to his chest to be sure the heart still beat, each time holding his breath for fear he would hear nothing. "I'm here."

  Damon groped for the amulet around his neck, then remembered it was with his mother. He searched through the pouch tied to his belt and pulled out the stone Cleopatra had given him. With his thumb he rubbed the carved surface of the wadjet eye and recited the healing chants. He begged Horus to make his father's heart speak out again.

  Damon closed his eyes. He was startled to see behind his closed eyelids the god Bes waving a sword and sticking his tongue out of his lion's mouth.

  Damon opened his eyes and listened again to his father's heart. It fluttered. Then beat. Then was quiet. Damon pressed his ear harder. There it was, faintly.

  Damon closed his eyes and Bes appeared again. Damon wanted to shout at the image. Go away. Take your sword. Then he remembered a story about Bes his mother had told him when he was
little. God of family. Strange little god. But his sword repelled danger. Damon squeezed his eyes shut and watched the dwarf-god Bes dance behind his eyelids, all the while stroking the stone.

  When Artemas entered the tent carrying the dead legate, Damon silently thanked Isis that Artemas was safe. Artemas slumped in the corner still holding the man in his arms. There was nowhere to put him down.

  Damon stood quietly and shifted two stretchers to make room for the man. He strung a torn cloak between tent posts so the men could not see what had befallen their leader. He looked back at his father. He looked so old. And fragile. How could he have said those things to him? This wasn't the giant he remembered. This man was no bigger than Artemas. Did six years make such a difference? He took his father's hand in his own, pressing the amulet between their palms.

  Artemas sat in the corner, his head drooping his arms resting on his knees. The physician rubbed a damp cloth across the back of his own neck and stretched his shoulder by rotating his arm. How long had the man been without sleep? Days, Damon was sure. Sleep. They all needed sleep.

  The groans of the soldiers had quieted. Or had Damon grown used to them? He felt his head bob. He jerked it up. He couldn't sleep. Not yet. He prayed to Ra to give him the chance to tell his father he was sorry. He prayed their last words spoken on earth weren't those he had shouted in anger. ]ust one more chance, Ra. One more.

  Damon snapped his head back. He'd fallen asleep. His father groaned and rolled his head from side to side. Damon stroked his brow. "I'm here, Father." He gripped his father's hand in his own. Pressed between their palms, the wadjet eye felt warm, with the Pharaoh's own heat.

  His father blinked. "My Seshet?"

  Damon blinked back tears—the first tears he had shed. His father was calling for his wife. Did he see Mother in the otherworld? Did his father have one foot in each world?