by Gene Wolfe
"Ah!" Thotmaktef smiled again. "Sahuset and our new friend here are eliminated, I think. That leaves only me, Neht-nefret."
Muslak nodded. "You'd better be nice to him, and not interrupt. Only not too nice. You know what I mean."
"It sounds like I've stepped into the middle of something," Agathocles muttered.
"It's over now," Muslak told him.
Everyone was quiet after that until a serving girl came with more beer, and Agathocles ordered. Then Myt-ser'eu said, "Sahuset has a wife, really. Latro and I met her last night. I suppose he's forgotten by now."
I had, but had read of her here. I nodded. "Her name's Sabra."
Muslak said, "There's no such woman on my ship."
"I suppose she met us here." Myt-ser'eu looked to me for support.
I said, "She must have known we were coming to this city-no doubt Sahuset told her before he left. Couldn't she have hired a boat?"
Muslak shrugged. "Well, she's welcome to travel with us, if her husband allows it and the Noble Qanju doesn't object."
Thotmaktef said, "What about me, Captain? You're bringing a wife, and so is your friend Latro. Might I have one too?"
Muslak laughed. "Do you expect me to find you a girl?"
"No, indeed. I'll do my own finding."
"Then I don't mind if Qanju doesn't."
22
WISE COUNSEL
KNOWING SPEECH IS ever worth hearing. Thus, before Myt-ser'eu blew out the lamp, I asked her whether she thought Thotmaktef would really find a woman that night.
She stretched and belched. "I had wonderful time, dancing and everything, but now I wish I hadn't drunk so much beer. If I hadn't, I could tie into you properly, O my lover and protector. Every now and then you can be just unbelievably stupid."
I laughed and said I was glad I had forgotten all the other times.
"Well, I haven't, and I wish I could. Didn't you notice him slipping away as soon as I got out my lute?"
"Of course I did. That's why I asked."
"Well, you might go looking for a girl at this time of night, and you might get knocked on the head for your trouble too. Should I leave on this amulet?"
"Yes," I said, "and if you take it off, I'll put it back on you after you go to sleep."
She yawned and stretched. "Twenty days in the moon you're asleep before I am. No, dearest Latro, that young priest is not the type to sift the alleys after dark. Is it all right if I lie down?"
I said I would prefer it.
"So would I." She removed her wig, hung it on the bedpost, and stretched herself upon the bed. "Let me say all this before we get too excited." She yawned again. "Thotmaktef has his girl. When he left us, he went to see her or went to get her. One or the other. He would never have spoken out the way he did, right in front of Neht-nefret and me, unless he had one. He might-I said might-have asked the captain privately this afternoon. But I doubt it. He-"
"Agathocles and I were there, too."
"Were you? Let me talk. What you said only makes my argument that much stronger. What he did, and you may bet that sword you love so much on it, was ask Qanju. In private, of course. The two of them are always whispering together anyway. Then he went out and picked out his girl at Hathor's temple here. He may have arranged to meet her there tonight, or he might have taken her to a room in another inn. My guess is the first one, since it would have saved him the price of a meal. Then he asked the captain, knowing nobody would make fun of him and the Noble Qanju would back him up."
"You're very clever," I said. "I would not have guessed all that."
"Of course not." Myt-ser'eu belched. "What the Noble Qanju says goes, my tall poppet. I have to keep reminding you of that."
"It certainly does with me," I said. "I know he's my commander."
"If he were to tell the governor here to chop us up for bait, we'd be chopped up for bait. You, me, Neht-nefret, Captain Muslak, everybody. He-well, he's noble and he's from Parsa, and he has the ear of that foreign prince. You've forgotten the prince, but not me. Now kiss me." MYT-SER'EU WAS STILL sleeping when I returned to our room, so I took a stroll around the city. Porters were bringing all sorts of goods into the market. I was surprised to see how much of the meat was game.
The important point is that I went into the temple of Thoth. A priest I met there said its doors open at dawn every day. I asked him to direct me to the temple of Hathor. There is none in this city. None south of Nekhen, he said. His own god is a man with the head of an ibis. URAEUS URGES ME to write. This is what just happened. Myt-ser'eu piled her soiled gowns with Neht-nefret's and asked me to have my slave find an honest washerwoman here, whom they would pay when their clothes were returned. I had forgotten that I owned a slave. Myt-ser'eu described him, told me his name, and said he was probably in the hold.
I climbed down the hatch. The hold is dark, silent, and very hot, for there is no wind there; it reeks of bilge water. I called, "Uraeus! Are you here, Uraeus?" He answered at once, but I could not see him and walked aft to look for him. When I had gone as far as one can, I turned to go back and found him bowing behind me. "You're too quiet," I told him.
He agreed. "It is a bad habit of mine, master, and once someone stepped upon me. I beg you not to punish me for it."
"If you've been stepped on, that's punishment enough. I hope it wasn't I who stepped on you." I told him what the women wanted, and asked whether he had been in the city yet.
"Yes, master. You had gone, so I went into the city to get my dinner."
"And drink beer. Had I given you enough for that?"
"More than enough, master, but I do not care for beer. I went only to find food."
"Don't you drink?"
"Water, master. Or milk. I like milk, when I can get it."
I said, "Perhaps you can find some when you've found a woman to do the laundry. Go up on deck, look for Myt-ser'eu, and do as she tells you."
I could not walk past him in the hold; the path through the cargo being very narrow. He went up the ladder first and stepped out onto the deck, where I lost sight of him. I was starting up myself when a voice behind me whispered, "Stay, Lucius. We must speak, you and I."
I turned at once, my hand on the hilt of my sword. I had thought myself alone in the hold.
Toward the prow, two little yellow flames gleamed in the dark. "You will not require that blessed blade. I am your friend Beteshu. Come talk with me. Sit down."
I advanced. The flames were his eyes, but he remained invisible in a darkness they did nothing to illuminate. I asked whether I knew him.
"Oh, yes. We have met before, and we serve the same master."
"The Noble Qanju?" I had read what Myt-ser'eu had said of him not long ago.
"No." He did not laugh but I saw his teeth, whiter than foam. "Great Seth. Do you know that name?"
I said I did not.
"Set? No. I see that you do not know that name either. Sutekh?"
It seemed strange that he could thus read my expression in that darkness, but I only said, "No. Who is he?"
"The Desert God." He paused, and I wished I could have seen his face as well as he saw mine. "Here is a piece of true wisdom for you. Circle it in your scroll so you will read it each time you glance at the place. The true god is the desert god. Do you understand that, Lucius?"
"No," I said. "It seems to me that every god must be a true god. If he is not, he is no god."
"We are both right. Repeat what I told you."
I did.
"You will not recall it. Still you may recall having heard it before when you see it again. You are at the last cataract."
I had thought this the first, having heard the sailors talking.
"This river is born far to the south. Six cataracts stand between it and the sea. This is the last. All is sure and safe below it. There are soldiers of Parsa and Kemet to keep the peace, and the Medjay still function as of old in many places. Above, it is not so. A wise man going south will seek to know his future."
I asked how
any man could know it.
"If he cannot see it, he must heed those who can. Set seeks to reveal yours to you. Will you hear him?"
"Gladly," I said.
"That is very well." He laid his arm across my shoulders; it was only then that I realized that he was a larger man than I, though I myself am larger than any of the sailors on this ship.
"Do you object to the company of beautiful women?" he asked me.
I said, "No man objects to it."
"You are wrong. But you do not. Neither do I. Creature of Sahth! Come forth!"
The lid of a long box not far from the open hatch was lifted. The woman who joined us was young and beautiful, and wore a necklace and many rings and bracelets. "You knew I overheard you, cunning Beteshu."
I believe the one who called himself Beteshu must have smiled. "I overheard your breathing."
"I do not breathe," she told him.
"How could I be so mistaken? Will Lucius take you to wife? I know you wish it."
I remembered that Myt-ser'eu had told me she was my wife, and said that I had a wife already and could not support so many women.
"I will not ask for food or beer," the woman declared. "I cannot do heavy work, jewel of my heart, but I can do all else a wife can do, and you will never hear an angry word from me. May I go to Latro, Beteshu?"
"Would you slay your present husband? If I were to say yes?"
"Do you?"
Beteshu did not reply.
"You are as far above me as the stars, Beteshu. Have pity!"
"Do not say such things." Beteshu's voice is as soft as the night wind, but there was an angry snarl in that wind tonight. "Slay your husband and you will be destroyed. Not as my master once destroyed you." He paused and drew breath. "As I destroy." He held out his hand and blew upon it, and red fire shot up from its palm.
I have seen many black men today. Black men unload a ship on the farther side of the pier. Most are dark as tar, but the palms of their hands are not. In the light from that flame I saw this man's hand, and its palm was blacker than charcoal.
The woman returned to the box from which she had emerged without another word, and reaching out of the box picked up its lid and closed it upon herself.
"We were interrupted." Beteshu's voice smiled again. "Do you blame me for that interruption?"
I shook my head. "I do not blame anyone for it."
"That is less than just. You yourself are to blame for it. Your presence stirs her to life. That is why she would be with you always. Did you know?"
I had not, and said so.
"It is true. You see gods and spirits whenever they are near, whether they would be seen or no. There was a time when I had to leap off this ship so that you would no longer see me. You will not recall that time." His hand closed upon the flame, and it was no more.
I laughed as fear makes men laugh.
"You have power over me," Beteshu said. "I have power over you. I could destroy you if I wished, yet I am your friend. You have nothing to fear from me."
"I am a friend," I told him, "to those who are friends to me."
"I must speak about your slave. He is a cobra taken from the crown of a certain one. You must not kill him. He may kill you if you try."
I said, "I will not try. What sort of man kills his own slaves?"
"Every sort of man."
We sat in silence for a time. Now and then, faint voices came through the hatch. Now and then, feet pattered on the deck above our heads. I felt then that we had been sitting so for years, side by side, and might continue so until the Golden Age returned, though the ship rotted around us.
"One man works his slave to death," Beteshu told me. "Another turns drunkard and beats his. You must strike to kill. A slave owns no slaves. Circle that too."
He was gone; and I sat in the stinking hold alone, sweating in the heat. I have told Uraeus what was said, and written the truth at his urging. I must believe it.
23
THE WATER-PATH
THE CANAL AROUND the cataract is long and tedious. So says Kha, the man the governor is sending to the Nubian king. Qanju does not think it so long in truth, only that we will be long there.
Kha came aboard today, soon after the scribe and the scribe's wife. Alala is taller than Kha, slender, young, and silent. Her skin is a ripe olive's. My wife says we have not seen her before. Alala brings with her a baboon, very large but quiet and well behaved. Thotmaktef the scribe is young and two hands below his wife in stature. His shaven head shows that he is a priest. (His wife says of Thoth, but I do not know this god.) Now he smiles much and speaks much, too; but this may be because he has a new wife. I like him and her, but wonder whether I could trust either. Those we like best are not always to be relied upon.
Kha is a man of middle years, thick at the waist. Like Qanju, he has dignity. Although a man of Kemet, he is a sagan. Muslak says this, and explains that these are men whose counsel and probity have earned the governor's ear.
When he came, Qanju was speaking to Thotmaktef and Alala. He invited Kha to join him, but did not send Thotmaktef and Alala away. These four wished to confer unheard, but though this ship is larger than most, it is crowded. I saw that Neht-nefret and Myt-ser'eu were standing nearby, and had little trouble drawing near enough to listen too. Muslak did the same.
Qanju introduced himself and explained that he is our leader and a sagan of the satrap's. Kha bowed and named himself. Qanju introduced his scribe Thotmaktef, and Thotmaktef's wife, and all four sat. Kha asked whether Alala could be trusted in confidential matters. Thotmaktef said she could be trusted absolutely. Kha asked Alala the same question.
"Your first duty is to the governor," Alala said. (She spoke more softly than the men, and Kha cupped his hand behind his head to hear her.) "A wife's first duty is to her husband. Nothing you tell me will be safe from mine."
"What of your friends?" Kha inquired. "Those with whom you are accustomed to share secrets."
"I have no such friends."
"Your sisters then."
"My sisters share no secrets with me," Alala said, "and I share none with them."
Qanju murmured, "Nor are they on our ship."
Kha asked, "Do we sail today?"
"We sail now," Qanju said, "unless there is reason to delay."
Muslak pretended not to hear this, but I saw the look he gave Azibaal.
"My bag is on board," Kha said.
Alala murmured, "So is mine."
They spoke of places for sleeping and eating, but I will not give all that.
"I am to ask King Siaspiqa to show you the gold mines," Kha said. "He may refuse, though I think he will not. Rest assured that any mines he shows you will be exhausted."
"I understand," Qanju said.
"May I ask why you wish to see them?"
"I have with me a Hellene who is familiar with the methods used in the silver mines belonging to his city. We hope that these mines will reveal to him the methods employed in Kemet of old."
"You must not speak so in the presence of King Siaspiqa. These mines are in his land. They are his now."
Qanju nodded. "Your counsel is wise. Neither will I speak of mining methods to King Siaspiqa."
Alala murmured, "Is the Hellene here? Should he not join us?"
"I would have sent for him if he were on this ship," Qanju told her. "He is to meet us above the cataract."
Kha smiled; his smile is very small. "This Hellene is wise to refrain from so lengthy and tedious a journey."
"If you would prefer…?"
Kha shook his head. "I am equally unsuited to walking and the donkey."
Alala whispered to Thotmaktef. "He might be carried in a litter or driven in a chariot. He wishes to know everyone on the vessel before we reach Napata."
Kha had caught her whisper, even as I. He smiled again, and nodded. "You have chosen well, Thotmaktef."
Thotmaktef made him a seated bow. "I have, I know."
"I have reason to hope, however, th
at we will find King Siaspiqa south of his capital. If the gods so will it, we may enter his presence north of the second cataract."
There was more talk which I will not give here. Qanju called me over and introduced me to Kha; after that he told Kha, "Holy Sahuset is a learned man of Kemet. Perhaps you know him?"
Kha shook his head.
"The satrap sent him to assist me. He speaks the language." Qanju returned to me. "Could you find him for us, Lucius?"
Aahmes, who knew him, said he had gone ashore. I took him with me to search, and we took with us his four soldiers of Kemet. I soon found Sahuset.
When we returned to the ship, Myt-ser'eu and Neht-nefret were talking with Alala. Qanju sent me away, so I joined them.
"My father is a priest of the temple of Thoth," Alala said. "He has often told me I should marry a priest, but none here are suitable. My new husband is a priest of the temple of Thoth in Mennufer. He is young and kind, and suits me very well."
"He is a friend of ours," Myt-ser'eu told her. "Like my own husband, he has the ear of Qanju, and is thus a person of importance. Have you met my husband?"
Alala said she had not, so Myt-ser'eu made me known to her. "Latro is foreign," she explained, "but he speaks our tongue almost as well as you do."
Alala's smile made me like her at once. "You think me foreign, too. I was born here, though my parents came from the south."
I asked whether she was Nubian-of Yam was what I said in the tongue of Kemet.
"We do not speak as you do. There are two peoples. My own, the Medjay, are the Lion People. The old men speak of King Siaspiqa. He is king of the Nehasyu, the Crocodile People."
Neht-nefret said, "In Kemet, Medjay are what we call those who guard royal tombs and bring anyone who breaks the law to the judges."
"They are we," Alala told her. "You pay our warriors to guard your burial places and drive off those who would come to steal and kill."
"Do you speak the tongue of King Siaspiqa?" I asked her.
"Better than I speak this one," she said, and demonstrated, speaking a tongue unknown to me.
"What have you done with your pet?"