The Singer from Memphis

by Gary Corby

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “To find a boat.”

  Death on the Nile

  Getting out of Memphis was harder than getting in. I went with Maxyates to the docks, where by luck we ran into the captain of the river ferry that had brought us here, the ferry that traveled between Naukratis and Memphis.

  The ferry captain backed away warily.

  “Oh no! Don’t come near me. You people are poison.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, confused, because we had departed from the captain on friendly terms.

  “The word is you have bedbugs.”

  “That’s a calumny. Don’t believe it.”

  “Then how come the Public Service sent everyone this message?” He held aloft the unfortunate notice. “You’re not saying my government would lie to me, are you?”

  “It’s funny you should mention that—”

  “And then there’s this other notice.”

  “What other notice?” I asked.

  He rummaged in his bag. “This one. Here,” he handed it over, from a distance. “It says anyone who deals with you won’t get no government work.”

  I read it quickly. It was the same as the one Tutu had received. Not only did the ban name me, it also described me in detail. “Oh.”

  “I got a family to feed. I’m sorry, but I can’t afford that sort of trouble. Do you know how much money I make shipping tax collectors up and down the river?”

  It was a fair point from an honest man. I didn’t want to damage his business.

  “Thanks anyway,” I said, loudly, to make sure anyone listening heard that the captain had rejected us.

  “I’m glad you understand,” said the ferry captain. He made his way off.

  There was no point asking anyone else for passage. Probably some agent working for the Public Service was watching us. I knew I’d never spot him. Any local could fade into the background to fool a foreigner like me; I wouldn’t know what to look for. It made me realize how much I relied on local knowledge when I took on work back in Athens.

  “But Nico, how shall we travel to Siwa?” Maxyates asked when I told him we were trapped.

  “Psst!” a voice hissed.

  I looked around, but I couldn’t see the source.

  “Psst!” It was a man lurking in the shadows of a dark side alley. “Psst!” he repeated.

  “Do you want my attention, or have you sprung a leak?” I said.

  “Hey, I heard you want to get out of Memphis.” He spoke quietly.

  “That’s right,” I said suspiciously.

  “The Public Service got it in for you?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Word on the street is, some guy named Nicolaos is a troublemaker. Would that be you?”

  “Maybe. What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing, except I got a way out of Memphis, one that doesn’t involve walking across trackless desert.”

  He had my attention.

  “I’m in the import/export business,” he explained. “Except my business doesn’t pay taxes, you know what I mean?”

  A smuggler. Yes, of course. Smugglers were the one people who need not fear the labyrinthine regulations of the Public Service. Smugglers would have fast and efficient transport in and out of Memphis.

  Maxyates spoke up. “Nicolaos, are you sure this is a good idea? These people are criminals!”

  I shushed him. “I deal with criminals all the time, Max. Leave this to me.”

  Max looked dubious, but he said nothing.

  “How much are you charging?” I asked the smuggler.

  He named a sum that was five times the going rate.

  I staggered back in shock. “You must be joking!” I choked.

  He laughed. “Take it or leave it, mate. This isn’t a charity.”

  He knew he had me cornered, the bastard. There was no faster route out of Memphis.

  “We’ll take it,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Meet me tonight at the old shack north of the docks.” He gave us instructions by rote in a rapid speech. He had obviously done this many times before. I paid him half the money—I knew better than to demand a receipt, or to ask his name—and left at once with Max in tow. We had to prepare our party to depart.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Diotima whispered.

  “Of course I’m sure,” I told her. “We’re spies and they’re crooks. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Our party waited by the boatshed. It was a dark night, and surprisingly cold. I wrapped my arms around myself to get warm, then realized that was silly and wrapped my arms around Diotima instead.

  A boat glided out of the night. It was so quiet that I didn’t see it until it was almost beside us. They carried no torch. To have navigated blind like that their pilot must have memorized every tiny bit of the river. As they touched the bank I saw how they could be so silent. Men stood on each side and propelled the boat by pushing against the bottom with poles. There was not a single splash to their movement.

  “You are all here?” a voice whispered from the boat. It was the man from the docks.

  I nodded in the pitch black, realized that was useless, then said, “Yes.” My voice in the night sounded loud as a shout.

  “Speak quietly!” he hissed. “There are soldiers patrolling this area.”

  We clambered on board.

  “Do not try to stand,” the smuggler said. “The boat is built for speed, not stability.”

  Indeed it was. More like a long, thin rowboat than a ship. I asked about this.

  “On a river there is no room to maneuver,” the smuggler said quietly. “Our only way to evade the tax collectors and their soldiers is to be faster than them.” He held out his hand. “You pay me the second half now.”

  “I pay you when we get there.”

  “Then the boat will not move,” he said. “We will have half our money, and you will have nothing.”

  I paid him the second half.

  The smuggler grinned and went aft. The boat made way.

  I knew a great deal about how to move unseen within a big, crowded city. Athens was my usual hunting ground; dark alleys, rooftops, crowds and disguise were second nature to me. I had always thought this was a difficult skill—after all, when you’re surrounded by people, someone could notice you at any moment—but now I realized that out here in the country the problem was infinitely worse. When you’re the only person in plain view, then you’re very noticeable.

  “You must lie down,” the smuggler said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Soldiers patrol the banks,” he said. “Even in the dark, they will see your silhouette and know that you are not one of us. We bribe the soldiers to look the other way when we carry goods, but criminals such as yourselves are another matter.”

  “We’re not criminals,” I said.

  “Of course not. That is why you are sneaking out of Memphis in the dead of night in fear of our government.”

  “It’s more complex than that,” I assured him.

  “We have transported many men who assured us that it was all a misunderstanding,” said the smuggler. “You do not need to justify yourself to me, Hellene stranger. Your gold is good, and that is all that matters.”

  I gave up trying to convince the smuggler that we were a party of innocents. We all lay down on the very uncomfortable floor of the boat and hauled over ourselves a tarpaulin that smelled of mildew and dead fish. Because the boat was narrow we had to lie head to toe. It wasn’t the best arrangement. I shifted about in a desperate search for a more comfortable position.

  “Hey!” A voice at my feet complained.

  I had kicked Herodotus in the face.

  “Sorry.”

  “Tell me again why we’re doing this?” Herod
otus asked from somewhere close to my feet. I remembered then that it had been some time since I washed them.

  I said, “Because whoever’s killing our informants probably doesn’t like us very much either.”

  “Sounds like a good reason,” he said grudgingly.

  It was a good thing we had departed in the middle of the night. If we’d had to hide like this from dusk to dawn I might have died of cramp. We stayed in that position until the sailors said to us that we were clear of towns, at which point we were very happy to shed the tarpaulin and ease our sore muscles upright. If nothing else the fresh air was a relief.

  As dawn broke we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere. Wherever we were, the Nile looked the same as it did everywhere else. To the right and left were farms growing barley, rich, tall, strong plants like nothing I had ever seen in Hellas. The soil was black as Hades—I could see why they called Egypt the Black Land—nor were there any rocks, and the fields were not stony hard, like every farm in my homeland.

  Truly, Egypt was a land rich in food. With all this bountiful wealth, I wondered that no one could make a decent cup of wine.

  The boat pulled over to the side, where there was a stone wharf and nothing else.

  “You get out here,” the smuggler said.

  “Here?” I said. I could barely credit his words.

  The smuggler shrugged.

  “You paid us to get you out of Memphis. We got you out of Memphis.” He pointed at a low sand dune. “Over that dune you will come to a village. There you can hire a guide for your next leg.”

  The Oracle at Siwa lay far inland, across the desert. It didn’t make sense to follow the river any further, so I agreed.

  The boat docked precisely at the wharf.

  “Mind the crocodiles,” the smuggler said, as he handed us across the dry land. “The children of Sobek are particularly fierce on this stretch.”

  With those words the men with the long poles shoved, and the smuggler dwindled into the distance, returning the way they’d come.

  Apollo chose that moment to appear over the horizon, driving his chariot with the sun in tow. Or if the Egyptians were to be believed, then the god Ra came into view, casting golden light. I supposed it was all a matter of perspective.

  In either case we watched this spectacle, all of us exhausted because we had not slept and our wits were slightly addled. That is the only excuse I can give for what happened next.

  Herodotus remarked idly, “You know, it’s a funny thing, but in all my travels, this is the first place I’ve come to where the sun rises in the west. I must remember to mention that in my book.”

  “What?” I said, confused.

  Herodotus said, “Siwa is to the west of Memphis, right?”

  “This is true,” Maxyates said.

  “And our plan is to depart from the territory to the north controlled by Inaros, from there traveling west along a road that is under his protection, to approach Siwa from the northern road, which you say is the safest route.”

  “That is correct.”

  “So we’ve traveled north all night,” Herodotus insisted.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Herodotus pointed. “Then how come the sun is rising on the left bank?”

  We all stared at him, open-mouthed. But I already knew what had happened.

  Those bastard smugglers, in the dead of night, had carried us south instead of north. No wonder they had told us to lie down and cover ourselves. We hadn’t noticed.

  Diotima realized the same thing as quickly as I did. She asked the obvious question. “But why?”

  No one had an answer.

  Maxyates spoke up. “I think our first step must be to ask someone where we are,” he said.

  I nodded. “Good thinking, Max.”

  An arrow came from nowhere and took Maxyates in the chest.

  He was thrown backward and writhed on the ground.

  Diotima shouted, “Don’t pull it out!” She had studied some medicine and knew, as any doctor did, that while the arrow was inside him it would plug the wound and stop the blood from rushing out. She ran for our baggage.

  Max ceased his struggles at once. For the rest of us, however, the struggle had only just begun.

  More arrows came our way. Three at the same time. We ducked and they flew over our heads.

  Djanet threw herself into the narrow ditch behind the low wall. Then cursed when she realized it was a latrine.

  If I’d had any doubt that Herodotus was an experienced traveler, his reaction would have dispelled it. He hit the ground in the blink of an eye and dragged himself behind a low rock, barely larger than a stone. It was the most useless cover I’d ever seen, but he had instinctively made maximum use of what little there was.

  Meanwhile I stood there. The biggest target of all.

  But someone had to find the enemy. I desperately scanned for whoever was shooting, hoping it wouldn’t hurt too much if I was hit.

  There they were, their heads poking over a low rise. I counted seven men and a leader. Bad odds.

  They looked at me; I looked at them. They surely saw that Maxyates was hit. They certainly saw that we were immobilized. They let loose the arrows they held, and I fell back onto my behind. Two of them missed me by a whisker. Another went wild. I was suddenly aware that Diotima was somewhere behind me.

  “Diotima! Duck!”

  I didn’t have time to turn, but I heard noises like she was dumping the contents of our bags. I didn’t stop to wonder why, because the soldiers—for that was what they were—dropped their bows and advanced with swords drawn.

  It was then that I saw something astonishing. They weren’t Persian soldiers. They weren’t Egyptian either. These men were Hellenes. They were dressed in hoplite armor.

  They must be Charitimides’s men, from the fleet. I shouted in relief. “Hey, we’re on your side!”

  They didn’t break their stride.

  “We’re Athenians!” I shouted. Which wasn’t entirely true in the case of Djanet, Max and Herodotus, but it was close enough for the purposes of saving our lives.

  “We’re not Athenians,” their leader shouted back.

  Uh oh.

  Many Hellene men hired themselves out as mercenaries. They would fight for whoever offered the most pay.

  “Surrender or die,” their leader added.

  Herodotus rose during this exchange. “Do we surrender?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “That would be certain death. The way they shot at us without warning, surrender will end in execution, don’t you think?”

  Herodotus nodded grimly. “All I have is a knife.”

  “Me too.”

  I pulled my dagger. The enemy had swords and shields.

  The mercenaries lined up in two rows, exactly as per standard drill. These men knew their business.

  I said to my client, as we faced overwhelming odds, “Herodotus, I owe you an apology. You hired me to keep you safe, and here we are about to die horribly at the hands of trained killers. Is there anything I can do in compensation?”

  “It’s a little late to ask for my money back,” he said.

  I laughed, perhaps a little hysterically.

  I said, in a comradely way, “You know, it’s funny, but when we first met, I thought you must be a Persian agent. Now I know better.”

  Herodotus looked at me oddly. “But I am a Persian agent. Didn’t you know?”

  “You’re what?”

  “Attack!” The mercenary leader shouted at his men.

  There was nowhere we could run on this riverbank that they couldn’t follow, and they were hardened soldiers, and there were twice as many of them as us. Really there was no option. We would have to fight them, probably to the death. That was assuming of course that Herodotus, who I had just learned was a Pers
ian agent, was willing to fight alongside me.

  I shouted to the rear. “Diotima, Djanet! Run!”

  I could buy them some time. It was the best I could hope for.

  “Nico! Catch!”

  I turned my back on the enemy. Not normally a good idea, but Diotima’s yell was urgent.

  She threw the crossbow at me.

  I had stored it in our baggage, which was emptied and scattered about my wife’s feet.

  Thanks be to the Gods. This was what we needed to save our lives.

  There was only one problem. I had no idea how to fire a crossbow. The string was already pulled, but something prevented it from releasing. I could see bits of metal holding the string. I pushed on them, tentatively, but nothing happened. What should I do now?

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Diotima demanded. “Fire the accursed thing!”

  I looked down at the weapon in my hands in confusion. “How?” I asked. I couldn’t see anything that might make the crossbow work.

  “Don’t you know?” Diotima fairly shrieked. The men were getting close.

  “No,” I said. “Do you know, Herodotus?”

  Herodotus shook his head.

  “Dear Gods, what is it with you men?” Diotima snatched the crossbow from me. She nestled the stock against her stomach, as Markos had done. “It’s like a bow,” Diotima lectured me as she aimed. “If I can shoot a bow then I can fire this thing.”

  Diotima looked down at the weapon, then up at the rapidly approaching mercenaries. She made an adjustment in her aim. She stared at the mechanism.

  “There has to be a release,” she half-mumbled to herself.

  The soldiers were twenty paces away.

  “Er, Diotima, could you fire that thing please?”

  “The catch . . . Oh, yes. Here it is!”

  She flicked a lever at the side.

  The heavy bolt flew into our attackers.

  The soldiers paid for their perfect discipline. The bolt pierced the first man in line. It went straight through him into the man behind, who screamed and fell, revealing the bolt embedded in their leader, who whirled about as the bolt struck and then fell heavily.