The Singer from Memphis

by Gary Corby

  The mercenaries suddenly found themselves leaderless, and two of their men dead, from a strange weapon they had never seen before.

  But there wasn’t time to reload. And it was still five trained soldier against two men with daggers.

  The crossbow had fallen to the ground. I picked it up, held it to my stomach, and shouted, “Stand back, Herodotus, I’m firing again!”

  The weapon was unloaded, but they didn’t know that.

  The remaining five soldiers took one look at me, then looked down at their fallen comrades.

  They ran.

  “Good shooting, Diotima!” I said.

  When there was no answer I looked to my left.

  She wasn’t there.

  “Diotima?”

  I heard a splash behind us.

  Diotima was a slight woman. The force of the crossbow had flung her backwards, over the parapet, into the Nile.

  I thought to myself it was a good thing she fell into the water and hadn’t landed on hard ground.

  Then I remembered that the Nile is full of crocodiles.

  “Diotima!”

  I rushed to the parapet. There was Diotima, floundering in the water. The natural buoyancy of her breasts kept her head above water, as they had on the beach at Thera.

  “I’m all right, Nico!” she shouted up to me.

  No, she wasn’t. She couldn’t see what I could see from above. A crocodile in the muddy water, right behind her.

  I jumped.

  I landed straddling the beast. Crocodiles have an incredibly tough skin. I discovered this the hard way when a particularly important item between my legs crashed onto the crocodile’s hide. The pain almost made me black out. Dark circles filled my sight. But I didn’t dare lose consciousness here. If I did, I was a dead man. And so was Diotima. Or a dead woman, rather.

  So instead I gasped and breathed heavily and felt my balls crawl up inside my body to get away from the crocodile. My sight cleared and I felt as ready for action as I was ever going to be.

  That was when I realized I didn’t know how to kill a crocodile. I remembered the captain’s words on the courier boat. If you fall in, there’ll be no point stopping to collect your body.

  I had to do something. I drew my dagger and held the weapon in an overhand grip, raised my hand high and struck down into the animal’s neck with all my force.

  The blade bounced off the skin. The shock of the blow jarred my hand and sent the blade flying into the air. I watched it fall into the muddy Nile and disappear from sight.

  This wasn’t going to end well.

  The crocodile had barely noticed that I’d tried to kill it. It advanced on Diotima, who had swum to the shallows. She turned to see the ravenous mouth about to consume her.

  She screamed. “Nico!”

  The crocodile snapped at her leg and barely missed. Diotima fell over into the mud and crawled backwards as fast as she could through the stickiness. The crocodile lurched forward while I rode upon it. Diotima scrambled in the mud for something to hold onto, but there was nothing. At any moment the crocodile would have her. I beat my fists against the monster, but it had no effect.

  Yet the futile action gave me an idea. I leaned forward and pulled myself along its back, ignoring the pain of the rough skin, until my hands could touch the top of its awful snout. I felt around there until I found two depressions. They were only small, but they were what I wanted. With a hand over each I stuck in my fingers, felt something soft, and then I pushed hard.

  The monster retreated back into the water, away from Diotima. She scrambled on hand and knees out of the water.

  The crocodile had finally noticed I was on its back. It rolled.

  “Whoa!” I wrapped my arms about it. I didn’t dare let the creature dislodge me, or it would eat me.

  I went under.

  My back jammed against the silty bottom of the river. Then I felt the weight of a crocodile on top of me.

  I would have died then and there, except the brute rolled again. My head breached the water and I gasped for air.

  Diotima stood on the riverbank, covered in mud and looking concerned. “Nico! Are you all right?”

  “I’m just fine!” I shouted back.

  The crocodile rolled again.

  At least this time I remembered to hold my breath.

  I surfaced once more, but I was weakening. I could feel pain everywhere that I was pressed against the crocodile. I had to get clear of this monster.

  How do you get off a rotating crocodile?

  “Lean back!” It was Herodotus, shouting.

  “You must be joking!” I shouted back.

  “Trust me, Nicolaos!”

  Trust a man who had just told me he spied for the enemy?

  But you get to know a man when you travel with him for long days in tough circumstances. I had seen him drunk. I had joked with him. I knew he was a good man.

  I could feel the crocodile’s legs move. It was about to roll again.

  I had to make a decision.

  I leaned back.

  A crossbow bolt whizzed over my shoulder. It actually clipped my ear as it flew past. I felt blood spatter my face.

  Was Herodotus trying to shoot me? I was the only one to whom he’d admitted his Persian connection. It would be so easy to have an aiming accident in this situation.

  Then I realized the crossbow bolt that had almost killed me had thudded into the crocodile’s head. The bolt end stuck out like some weird, wooden appendage.

  The great beast lay still for a long moment. Then it gave a long juddering, roaring sigh.

  The crocodile died.

  The Mercenary

  While I’d been fighting for my life—and Diotima’s—Herodotus had loaded the crossbow and worked out how to fire it. He had pointed it downwards and pulled the trigger.

  I remembered Markos’s words, that the tummy-shooter was wildly inaccurate beyond twenty paces. Herodotus could have as easily hit me as the crocodile.

  In fact, he did hit me. My ear bled copiously, but otherwise, it wasn’t as serious as Diotima’s wound. There were gouges in her leg, from when the crocodile had tried to bite her. The mere scrape of the creature’s hide had been enough to tear skin. I worried that she would catch the flesh-eating sickness and die, but Herodotus claimed knowledge of medicines. He explained, inevitably, that he had heard useful things from foreign doctors. He cleaned the wounds with the beer in our flasks and made a batch of lotion that he said would stop infection. I had to hope he was right.

  Max was in a very bad way, but typically he was more conerned about the rest of us. I didn’t dare move him, but I made him comfortable while we sorted ourselves out.

  We recovered Djanet from the latrine. She was a mess. Diotima covered for her, standing by the side of the Nile with the crossbow armed and ready to shoot, while Djanet washed her clothes and bathed off a considerable amount of muck.

  “The good news is, there must be civilization near here, wherever we are,” Djanet said when she returned.

  “What makes you think that?” I asked.

  “Where do you think all the poo I just fell in came from?”

  It was a good point.

  Max was dying.

  Diotima and Herodotus both inspected our Trojan friend, and came away shaking their heads. The arrow had embedded itself in his chest, close to his heart. Any attempt to pull it would certainly kill him.

  Max already knew the diagnosis. He asked in the most astonishingly calm voice to compose a final letter to his father, which Herodotus took down. Herodotus wept as he wrote.

  “I would like to be properly dressed for my descent to the underworld,” Max said.

  “Of course, anything we can do,” I said. Herodotus, Diotima and Djanet all nodded their heads.

  “I am dir
ty, and my dye has worn thin. I wish to die a proper red color. There is dye in my bag. And my hair . . .”

  Max needed say no more. Diotima was already going through Max’s bag. She returned with a flask, which she held up for Maxyates to see.

  “Yes, that is my dye.”

  We washed him, being careful not to touch the arrow, for fear that it pierce his heart. Then all four of us knelt around Maxyates and rubbed the dye into his skin. It wasn’t the moment to ask how the dye was made, but I wanted to because it was a very strong solution that seeped into the skin. Djanet, Herodotus, Diotima and I would have blood-red hands for days to come.

  When we were done we dressed Maxyates in his best clothes. He suffered these indignities with amazing grace. He event went so far as to thank us for our attentions.

  But now the preparations were over. It was time for Max to die.

  “Hey, what about me?” A voice yelled from the distance.

  It was the mercenary leader.

  Diotima had shot three with a single bolt. After the bolt had passed through two men, it had wounded a third. The crossbow might be inaccurate, as Markos had said, but when it hit it did astonishing damage.

  I walked over to where the three bodies lay. The first two were indeed dead. They had the hard mercenary look about them: sunburned skin and calluses, and their equipment was old and worn—a mercenary has to supply his own gear—but well serviced too, which meant they were veterans. Seeing our opposition, I counted us lucky that they had run when they had.

  The third man was their commander. He lay face down on the ground. He’d turned his head to get enough air to breathe. I had thought from a distance that Diotima’s shot had taken him in the stomach. It hadn’t. He had turned at the last moment and the crossbow bolt had ripped his back.

  He heard me approach, but couldn’t turn enough to look me in the eye. Facing the dirt, he said, “Help me. Please.”

  This man had tried to kill us, would certainly have done so if we hadn’t fought back. I wasn’t feeling particularly merciful, but he had something I wanted, and I was willing to go a little distance to get it.

  I said, “If I do what I can for you, then you tell me everything you know.”

  He said, “Yes.”

  I said, “Can you get up?”

  He said that he couldn’t. One of his arms was splayed out and the other by his side, his legs akimbo. It was awkward position. I wondered that he hadn’t shifted, wounded though he was. But he said, “I can’t feel a thing. Can’t move my arms or legs either.”

  “Oh.”

  I knelt beside him, pushed his side up with my left hand. He was a dead weight—he gave me no assistance at all. I felt with the fingers of my right hand along the length of his spine. He didn’t complain; he knew what I was doing, and why.

  Everything felt normal, starting from the small of his back, until, close to the base of his neck, something moved beneath my fingers, a knot of some sort. I stopped, pressed a bit more firmly, felt around.

  He said, “I know you’re touching me, but I can’t feel it.”

  There was no doubt about it, my fingers felt a jagged lump beneath the skin where there should have smooth vertebrae.

  I said, “Your back is broken.”

  We both knew what that meant. Though he still breathed, he was as good as dead. A man with a broken back never healed. He could linger for days—if his family cared for him, sometimes for months; the result was always the same: a disgusting, undignified, inevitable death.

  He said, “I guessed you’d say that.”

  It seemed odd, talking to a man who didn’t move at all. I hadn’t realized before how much attention I paid to the way men fidgeted when they spoke, their body language. A man without body language was half-mute.

  I said, “What’s you name?”

  “Alekto. Alekto from Rhodos.”

  Rhodos was an island in the Aegean. Many men from the islands took to mercenary work.

  “Nicolaos!” It was Maxyates calling, weakly, but audible.

  “Yes?”

  “Does the soldier live?”

  “He lives.” For now, I said under my breath.

  “Will you bring him to me?”

  It was an odd request, but I would deny nothing to a doomed man.

  I unstrapped Alekto’s armor. There was no point carrying that too. He was a big man but I was strong. I hefted him in my arms and carried him back to our group. I expected the mercenary to cry out in pain, but he didn’t.

  I deposited him beside Maxyates. The two dying men lay side by side, both unable to move. They stared at each other. I wondered what they were thinking, but it seemed impossible to comprehend what must go through the minds of men in such straits. I hoped never to find out.

  Maxyates reached out to hold the mercenary’s hand.

  “You must not fear death,” Max said to the man who had killed him. “Death is a chance to gain knowledge. It’s a . . . er . . . once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

  “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

  “And then to experience the afterworld,” Max finished. “There can be no greater opportunity for a philosopher.”

  “You’re not Egyptian,” the mercenary said.

  “I am Libyan,” Maxyates said. “I followed Inaros to free this country. You are Hellene. Tell me, why did you come here?”

  Alekto sighed. “For money. I fight for money. I got a wife, and a son. Can’t farm, can’t fish, so I fight to support my wife and boy.”

  Max nodded. “It is a worthy motive.”

  He was being far more generous than I would have been.

  “I’m sorry I killed you,” Alekto the mercenary said to Maxyates. “You seem like a good man.”

  Max looked to me. “Nico.”

  I knelt beside him. “My friend, when we first met, you called yourself a child of Hector.”

  “It is my greatest pride.”

  “Know then that we will give you the same ceremony that Hector received.”

  Max smiled weakly. “Does that include dragging my body through the dirt behind a chariot?”

  “We might skip that part,” I said, “We’ll move on to a mighty bonfire for the fallen hero.”

  “This is good. Thank you, Nicolaos. Now, may I ask you for your final gift.”

  I had known it would come down to me.

  I didn’t give myself any time to think about it. I grabbed the arrow shaft and pulled.

  It wouldn’t budge. Suction. They’d taught us in army drills how to deal with this. I didn’t want to do it to poor Max, but there was no choice. I twisted the arrow as I pulled. Max’s body jerked in pain, but he uttered not a word.

  The arrow came free.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  “So this is what it feels like to die,” Max said as he lay there. “It’s very philosophical.”

  He gasped. His body shuddered for a moment. Then he was gone.

  I reached out to close his eyes. He had died staring into the sky.

  The mercenary had killed my friend Maxyates, who for some unexplainable reason chose to forgive him. For that reason alone I would be gentle with Max’s slayer. Yet now he was my captive. I would make him talk.

  “Why did you attack us, Alekto?”

  “We were hired,” he said.

  “By whom?”

  “Look, I don’t want to get into any trouble—”

  “Trouble? Your back is broken. How much more trouble do you think you can get into?”

  I had said something he could understand.

  “It was the Public Service,” he said. “They hired us.”

  Dear Gods.

  “Look, they’re the government, right?” he said defensively. “It can’t be wrong to do what the government says.”

 
; “What did they tell you?”

  “They said you would be delivered to this spot. All me and my mates had to do was come here, wait for you to land, kill you all, then go back to Memphis for our pay. They didn’t say nothing about some super weapon. How did you hit three of us with one shot?”

  “It’s called a gastraphetes.”

  “Well, it should be banned. That thing’s not fair.”

  I was beginning to understand. The Public Service must have paid the smugglers to bring us here. The Public Service had issued the decree for legitimate businesses not to deal with me, to force us to take passage with the smugglers, who in fact had approached me first. I had followed their plan, every step of the way.

  Max had asked me, back in Memphis, whether it was a good idea to deal with the smugglers. I had ignored him, and now he was dead.

  I had failed my people.

  Why hadn’t the Public Service used Persian troops? The bureaucrats and the occupying army were tight enough that the Persians would have lent the Egyptian bureaucrats enough troops to finish off a few troublemakers.

  Then the reason hit me. Barzanes had sworn an oath that we would not attack each other. Barzanes never lied. He would not countenance the use of his troops. That was also why the Public Service had waited for us to leave Memphis before they attacked. Only the sheer luck that I had taken the crossbow from Markos had saved us.

  “Couldn’t you find a better job?”

  He shrugged. “Times are hard. I got a family to support. Who’s gonna look after them when I’m gone?” That led him to another problem. “Here now, you gotta take my final pay to my wife. Will you do that?”

  “Yes,” said Herodotus. I would have said no.

  “Camels,” Alekto suddenly said.

  “Camels?”

  “Over the hills here, south up the river, far enough away that you wouldn’t see or hear them, we tied up our camels. They got us here quickly. You’ve been good to me, taking money to my wife and all. So I’m telling you in return. There’re camels that way. Take them.”

  “Won’t your other men have them?”

  “Those idiots ran the other way. They’re probably in the nearest town by now. It’s a run-down village to the north. They won’t be coming back.”