by Gary Corby
I tried to imagine Markos as a stand-up comic, and surprisingly, it wasn’t too difficult to do. Somehow in my mind’s eye I could see Markos performing prat-falls and making people laugh with pig’s bladders and farting sounds.
“It’s not too late, you know,” I said earnestly. Because I would like nothing better than to have Markos out of my life. Or at least, not trying to kill me.
“It is too late,” he said quietly. “Sparta doesn’t have comics.”
“You could leave?”
“When was the last time you heard of a Spartan leaving Sparta?” Markos said. “Besides, do you seriously think Athens would have me?”
It was a fair question, and deserved a fair answer.
“Never,” I told him.
“There you are then. I couldn’t go to a lesser city, could I?”
“No, certainly not,” I agreed. Markos was like me, we both wanted to serve the very best. In Hellas, that meant Sparta or Athens. Every other city was an also-ran.
“How about you look the other way while I kill him?” Markos said.
“What?”
“Barzanes.
I remained silent.
“Nico, think for a moment. Athens would like nothing better than Barzanes removed, right?”
Markos was right, but there was a problem.
“It would start a war,” I said.
“You mean, like the war we’re not having now?” he pointed out.
“It would start a worse war.”
“Not if I kill him,” Markos said. “Then it’s not your fault. All you have to do is look the other way.”
This was the Markos of old. The one who could make any plan that helped him seem reasonable.
The problem was, the plan was reasonable. How could removing Barzanes not help Athens? The man was worth half an army to the Persians.
“All I ask is that you look the other way, if it comes to a fight.”
Markos was making sense. What he proposed in essence was an alliance between Sparta and Athens against Persia. There was plenty of precedent for that. What’s more, I knew that Barzanes was the man most likely to stop me in my quest for the crook and flail. But what Markos proposed was also dead against the oath that the three of us had sworn. How could I go against my word?
I knew what Pericles would say. Pericles never let ethics get in the way of a good decision. He would make his choice based purely on one single criterion. It was a phrase he used so often I thought he must mutter it in his sleep. For the good of Athens. Pericles would do whatever he did for the good of Athens.
On the other hand, killing the Eyes and Ears of the King might possibly annoy the King. Ever since the Persian invasion in my father’s time, Athens and Persia had been locked in a low-level conflict. We fought each other in proxy wars, like this one in Egypt. Neither side dared attack the other directly. If Barzanes died at the hand of a Hellene, it might trigger Artaxerxes to assemble his armies once again. I didn’t like that thought at all.
Here was I, a humble agent, forced to make a decision that might mean war or peace across the civilized world. I didn’t know which decision meant war, and which meant peace.
“What do you say, Nico?” Markos asked. He looked me square in the face with his most sincere expression.
I didn’t dare open my mouth. I knew my voice would squeak if I tried to speak. Instead, I looked away.
Markos got the message.
“Then it’s a deal?” he persisted.
I took a deep breath. “It’s a deal.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, Nico. It’s good to know Sparta and Athens can still work together against Persia.”
Markos stood to leave.
“Wait, Markos,” I said. “There’s one more thing.”
He leaned over to hear me. I could smell the beer on his breath. “What?”
“This.”
I slugged him. Hard. But from a sitting position. I didn’t know if I could knock out the Spartan assassin with a single blow, but I gave it my best. Perhaps his recent weakness and the beer made it easier. His eyes rolled up and he fell back like a rag doll.
The other patrons of the tavern swiftly looked our way. But when they saw that it was a simple punch up they went back to their own business. It was that kind of place.
I eased Markos back into his seat, made sure he could breathe, then pulled the crossbow from his warm and unresisting hands.
“Thanks, Markos,” I said to his unconscious form. As an afterthought I relieved him of his crossbow bolts.
Diotima sprinkled our cups of beer liberally down his front, and pushed an empty cup into his right hand. Anyone who came across him would think he was sleeping off a drunk.
There was a reason for my perfidy. I now had the upper hand on every important mission that I had undertaken. In accordance with my agreement with Barzanes, I had relieved Markos of the crossbow. I had never promised that I would give it back to Barzanes. Instead I would take it back to Athens. If Spartans armed with crossbows could only be bad for Athens, then Athenians armed with crossbows could only be good. We Athenians would never again need to fear a Spartan army.
In accordance with my agreement with Markos—the one I had concluded with him just before I knocked him out—I had left him alive and free to assassinate Barzanes, whose elimination could only benefit Athens. Markos would have to do it without his favorite weapon, but I had never promised I’d make it easy for him.
I could even argue that by taking the crossbow but leaving Markos alive, I had fulfilled the non-aggression oath that the three of us had sworn together in the inn beside the White Fort.
Best of all, my party had discovered the location of the crook and flail. Soon we’d be on our way to retrieve the items, thus making both Inaros and Pericles happy.
All in all, I felt very pleased with myself.
This feeling lasted as long as it took us to return to the inn.
Fire in the Night
Djanet was standing at the door of our inn, despite the very late time of night. I had thought everyone would be asleep.
“What is it?” Diotima asked. She sounded worried.
Djanet pointed. A fire blazed above Memphis.
“Those flames are to the south of us,” she said.
It could have been any building in the south that burned. There were hundreds of them. But that was the direction of the House of Tutu. I had a bad feeling.
Word spread quickly. Fire is the most dangerous threat to any city, anywhere. In Egypt where the sun turned the wood to dry kindle it would be even greater. Men streamed past us, all heading to the source of the flames.
Herodotus and Max came downstairs. They’d been woken by the noise of the crowd. We joined the throng heading south.
It was as we all feared. The House of Tutu blazed. We stood in the street and watched helplessly. Locals who knew the area better were quickly forming a chain to pass buckets of water. I wondered where they were getting it from, until I realized that this was not Athens without a river. This was Memphis, where the enormous Nile flowed by.
The men at the head of the chain began to throw water on the fire. I had never seen anything so futile. They could no more put out that blaze with buckets than I could drink dry the Nile.
The Egyptians thought so too. They began to tear down the adjoining houses, to the wails and imploring screams of the owners. The firebreak would save the rest of the city.
“How can it burn so hot?” Djanet said. She had to speak loudly over the noise of the burning house.
“Do you recall all the amphorae in the embalming room?” Herodotus said.
“Yes. There were many rows of them.”
“Those amphorae contain spirits and oils to preserve the dead.”
“Dear Gods.”
We didn�
�t need Herodotus to tell us what that meant.
Diotima said, “Tutu must be in there.”
“We’re not going in to find him,” I said firmly. It would be suicide.
As I spoke, the roof caved in. The door blew out, and from within staggered a man. He was on fire, but he barely seemed to notice. It was Tutu.
I ran forward. So did Herodotus and Maxyates. Together we picked him up and carried him away from immediate danger.
We only had to lay him gently on the ground to see that there was no hope. His skin was charred and peeling away. The blood oozed from his body in more places than we could hope to staunch. His hair was gone.
He whispered in a voice that sounded somehow wrong, through lips that had been almost burned away, “My House . . .”
“Your House is gone,” Herodotus said, as gently as he could.
Tutu closed his eyes. “I do not fear death, but I fear failure,” he said in that strange voice. I realized his lungs had been burned beyond repair. “I have lived alongside death all my life. How could I fear it now?”
“You have smoothed the path for so many who have gone before,” Herodotus said. “Your heart is pure and there will be many friends who await you in the Field of Reeds.”
Tutu nodded, then coughed. Much blood came up. Diotima wiped it away with the hem of her dress.
“There is something I must say before I die,” Tutu whispered.
We all leaned closer to hear.
“When the General came to my house the other night, he spoke of something I did not tell you about before.”
“What?”
“He talked of a child.”
“A child? You mean the child who sees for him.”
“No.” Tutu coughed again. Flecks of blood struck our faces. Tutu was whispering now, so quietly that we struggled to hear. “The General spoke of a child of the Pharaoh. He said he must speak to the child. That the child must decide, before he would tell you what he learned from me.”
“Where do we find this child?” I said urgently.
But it was no good. Tutu belched an enormous amount of blood. He died before our eyes.
As we walked away Herodotus asked, “Who will embalm the world’s best embalmer?”
“The second best?” Diotima suggested.
“It hardly seems fair, does it?” Herodotus said. “For such a man to receive second-best treatment seems almost . . . sacrilegious. Of all men his ka and his ba deserve the best.”
There was nothing we could do about it. We left Tutu’s body in the care of his neighbors and servants, and went in search of the next step in our quest.
“A child,” Maxyates said in wonder.
“Is this why he was killed?” Diotima asked. “To stop him from telling us more?’
“Probably,” I said, considerably annoyed. I’d had a vision of finishing this job, now that we’d learned that the crook and flail were in a sarcophagus that had probably gone to Siwa. Instead we had yet another mystery to solve.
“Do you recall the General’s last words to us?” Herodotus said. “‘I will have to ask permission.’”
“Yes.”
“He said the same to poor Tutu. The Blind General didn’t strike me as the sort of man who asked permission of anyone.”
“I agree.”
“Then why did he need to in this case? After so many years?”
“Could it be that Psamtik is still alive?” I asked, in a moment of inspiration.
“After the embalmer sewed his head back on?” Diotima scoffed. “It’s not likely, is it?”
“This news does make a certain amount of sense,” Herodotus said. “The Blind General might not have been friends with the Pharaoh, but with the Pharaoh a prisoner in his own former palace, the Blind General was perhaps the only man with access whom the Pharaoh could be sure wasn’t in the pay of the Persians.”
“Who is this child Tutu spoke of?” I wondered. “Could it be Psamtik’s son? Or his daughter?”
“We know the answer to that,” Diotima said. “The son was killed. The daughter was enslaved and sent to Persia. She must be a very old woman now. She’s probably dead. No one would call her a child.”
“The General was an old man,” I said. “Even a middle-aged adult might count as a child to him.”
“True enough,” Diotima said. “But this daughter, even if she’s still alive, would have to be almost as old as the General. I can’t believe he meant her.”
Herodotus said, “Could there be a third child?”
“No one’s mentioned one.”
“What about his time as a prisoner? Psamtik wasn’t too old to sire a child in the months before he died.”
There was a brief, stunned silence while we all realized that Herodotus was right.
“Dear Gods, a true child of the last Pharaoh,” I said. “If the Persians found out, they would be wild to kill him.” Then I did a double-take. “Wait a moment. That child’s not Inaros, is it? Could it be that he’s telling the truth about his ancestry?”
Diotima did some mental arithmetic. “No, it’s impossible. Any child of the last Pharaoh would have to be at least sixty-seven years old. Inaros can’t be older than forty-five.”
“The father of Inaros is not in doubt,” Herodotus said. “Everyone knows his father was the previous Prince of Libya. The question is, could Inaros’s father be the true child of the Pharaoh?”
We all looked at Max. He was the only one among us who might know the history of his country.
Max shrugged. “Certainly Inaros claims it is true, but if I am honest then I must say this is unknowable. You ask me about a time that was three generations ago. Not even my father was born then.”
“That’s why we need history books,” Herodotus said. “So we know what happened in the past.”
“Alas, there is no such thing,” Maxyates said.
“I’m working on it,” Herodotus said. “Are you noticing a pattern here? Every time we talk to someone, they get killed.”
“It does seem beyond coincidence,” I admitted, rubbing my chin in thought.
“Do you often have this effect on people?” Djanet asked.
“No! Never before,” I protested. But then honesty compelled me to add, “Well, there have been one or two incidents . . . but those were on previous jobs . . .”
“That makes me feel so much safer,” Djanet said in her most sarcastic voice.
“I’m beginning to wonder if I did the right thing in hiring you, Nicolaos,” Herodotus added.
For some reason I was to blame for all our witnesses dying. It was hardly fair.
“But Herodotus, think of all the book research,” Diotima countered. “Can you honestly say you would have learned all these things if you were a mere tourist?”
“No, that’s true,” Herodotus said. “I just wish fewer people were dying for my education.”
“Whoever is doing this is not very philosophical,” Maxyates said.
“Few murderers are,” I replied, and then, because Max rarely spoke until he had something important to say, I added, “What do you mean?”
“Someone is following us, and killing the witnesses after we have spoken to them,” Max said. “It hardly seems logical. Should they not kill those we are about to speak to? To kill them afterwards does nothing useful.”
Max was right. It made no sense.
“Perhaps whoever it is doesn’t know the answer to the mystery either,” Diotima said. “They don’t know the path to follow, so all they can do is follow us and hope to get to the next witness before we do.”
“Then why kill the ones we have spoken to?” Max asked.
“Maybe he finds it cathartic,” Diotima said. But it was obvious she didn’t have an answer for Max.
“Then there is the question of why murder witnesses,
when this person could go straight to the source of his anger and kill us?”
“Maybe they’re not following us,” Herodotus suggested. “Maybe they’re on the same trail for their own reasons, and they don’t know we’re a few paces ahead.”
“In that case, when they discover our existence, we are going to be in enormous danger,” Max said.
That night as we ate dinner I told the party about Markos, and how I had acquired his crossbow.
“That makes it all the more important that we get out of town,” Djanet said gloomily. She had listened to my tale with close attention. “This Markos, you say he is a good man in a fight?”
“The best there is,” I said sincerely. “I wouldn’t want to face him.”
“Hmm.”
“Did you discover anything interesting at the temple of Ptah?” I asked Herodotus.
“Did you know the first race of people were the Phrygians?” he said.
I didn’t. Nor did I care. Diotima, however, had to know everything.
“Oh? How did you work that out?” she asked.
“The priests told me!” Herodotus said. “In the time of Psamtik I—he was the great-great-great-grandfather of our Psamtik, if the priests are to be believed—the Pharaoh ordered two children to be raised without anyone ever speaking to them. These two children never heard a single human voice utter a single word.”
“Why?” Diotima said. “That was cruel.”
“But ingenious. He wanted to find out what language the children would speak if left to themselves. You see, the Pharaoh reasoned that without any adult to teach them, whatever words the children spoke must belong to the very first language ever spoken by people.”
“You’re right, that is clever,” Diotima marveled. “What were the children’s first words?” she asked eagerly.
“They said ‘bread’ in the tongue of the Phrygians. So Phrygians must have been the first people, older even than the Egyptians.”
“We don’t have time for this,” I interrupted. I had been thinking about Djanet’s words. She was right about the need to leave. Whoever was killing witnesses would surely come after us, sooner or later, and now Markos would be in the queue to kill us too. The only sensible option was to leave at once. “Max, I’ll need your help.”