Cheftu crossed his breast in respect, honored that Y’carus would speak so to him, a foreigner. He ran to catch up with Nestor. Within ten minutes he was grateful he had a guide to the palace. Within a half decan he was convinced he would never find his way around. After an hour of touring passages, tunnels, dark hallways, light wells, large grand rooms, tiny staircases, and ramps, he was certain he would die en route. Never had anything been as poorly planned as this sprawling complex.
A headache was starting on the left side of his head when they stepped into a well-lit corridor where men lined the walls. Their bloodstained kilts identified them as Mariners who’d just returned from a skirmish with death. Cheftu was ushered through the door.
A strapping man with a belly wound lay on a woven couch, a rotten piece of wood still protruding from his flesh. Without invitation Cheftu moved forward, observing. The man was severely chilled, and the wound was seeping. The injury was a death sentence; it was a wonder that he still breathed. If Cheftu were in Egypt, he would say the prescribed formula: “Man with fatal wound to belly, this is not a wound I will treat.” Then he would see that the man was fed and cared for while he sent for the priests.
“Your patient, Egyptian,” the towheaded man said. Niko. The man was always underfoot!
A quick touch told Cheftu the patient was burning with fever. Methodically he named the implements he would require and then stepped to the side of the room where a serf pumped up hot, sulfuric water and rinsed Cheftu’s hands while he intoned the wisdom of Thoth, patron god of healers. Then, at his request, wine was poured over his hands.
It was a smooth extraction, but the resulting gush of blood was life-threatening. Shouts brought more cloths to stem it, and Cheftu soaked them in wine before placing them in the wound. While they stanched the flow, Cheftu shaved the man’s body. Only an eloquent plea kept the man’s long blond hair. After the rest of him was shaved he was wrapped in cold, wet cloths.
When the wound had stopped bleeding Cheftu carefully pulled away the cloths and studied it. The aperture of the wound would almost fit his hand; fortunately Posidios’ blood clotted quickly. More wine splashed inside the wound made Posidios come around and then pass out. After it was clean, Cheftu applied a paste of honey and fat, then drew the edges of the wound together. With chewed mastic paste from the lentisk tree, he affixed linen strips over the wound. Dismissing the Kela-Tenata priestesses, he said he would stay and watch his patient. He was left in peace.
Posidios was breathing shallowly. Cheftu wrapped new, cold-water sheets around him. He looked out the window; dawn was just a decan or two away. The ka of man was most likely to flee the body in these darkest hours. Out of rote, Cheftu recited prayers against the khaibits of the night, and in his heart he asked for the protection and assistance of the One God. Then he waited.
Decans later, someone entered the room and Cheftu sat up abruptly, his heart pounding. Standing before him was a wraith of a man. Extremely tall, and slender with wiry strength. His features were bold—a large nose, shapely lips, a pointed chin, eyebrows that rose into sharp angles. His hair was dark, cut short, and he wore a goatee. … His eyes were black as night and his skin parchment white.
He looks the very image of a devil in a painting, Cheftu thought. The tall man didn’t spare a glance for Cheftu but went to the patient’s side. With narrow white hands he touched the man’s brow, then his wound. “How does he fare?” The man’s voice was as dark toned as his appearance. He didn’t even wear the bright colors of Aztlan, but instead a solid blue kilt and shirt that reminded Cheftu uncomfortably of the blue mourning worn in Egypt.
“Not well.”
“What more can be done?”
Cheftu sniffed at his patient’s wound, for though the man was no longer burning with fever, he was hot. Dry. Ukhedu was being battled. “I am preparing a physic,” Cheftu said, gesturing to his arrangement in the corner. “My master, who are you?”
The tall man opened the throat of his shirt. A heavy gold seal lay there, incomprehensible characters inscribed on it. “I am Nekros, clan chieftain of the Stone and priest of the dead. Posidios is my brother.” He walked to Cheftu’s makeshift lab. “Tell me what you are doing, Egyptian.”
Cheftu showed him the prepared medicine. During the night he’d hung a piece of copper over a vial of vinegar and covered the whole thing with a linen. Now, the metal was tinted with a faint turquoise growth, with hints of rust. Nekros looked skeptical but watched as Cheftu took the tape off the wound and scraped in the growth.
The chieftain watched over his shoulder and chewed without question when Cheftu needed more mastic to attach the linen. “What will that do?”
“It will purify the blood,” he said. “If in a day’s time the wound is not red, clear blood, the patient will die.” As he spoke, he mixed cinnamon and olive oil, then capped it and set it aside. “First, we observe what happens with the medication.”
“I wish you could have been with us in Naxos,” Nekros said. “So much death, so many bodies, so many lost. I will send a lustral bath in. My brother must be bathed next.” His head bowed, Nekros left, and Cheftu leaned against the wall, breathing deeply.
“You did a splendid job.”
He turned and saw the envoy Nestor. “Are you a physician?”
“Nay, though I have studied doctoring.”
Without warning, the floor moved. Cheftu staggered toward his patient, shielding his wound from the falling ceiling. A low roar was the counterpoint to the sound of shattering pottery and screaming people. Cheftu felt pieces of plaster hit his back. With Nestor’s help they maneuvered Posidios into the doorway, leaning over him protectively. It was a brief shock, but it had opened Posidios’ wound.
The room was uncommonly still, absent even of the labored breathing of the patient. Panicked, Cheftu felt for the man’s pulse, the voice of his heart. Avoiding the gaze of Nestor, he waited for the faint throb that would signify the man lived.
He waited in vain.
“His bath,” Nestor said. “He needs his bath!”
With a jerk of his head, he and Nestor carried the man to a stone tub, immersing him and covering his face with linen. Nestor summoned a serf to return with Nekros, then Nestor joined Cheftu at the window and clasped Cheftu’s shoulder. “You did all you could. It was in the hands of the gods. We will trust Kela that he got to the bath in time.”
“If only we could have stopped the bleeding,” Cheftu said, anguished.
Nestor dropped his hand. “You are merely a mortal, a man. You cannot know the minds of the gods.” He was silent for a moment. “It is not a good omen for your chieftainship, however.”
As if Cheftu cared.
Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Nekros and his minions. They removed the body from the bath and laid it back on the bed. The chieftain sat down and placed a piece of gold over Posidios’ face. Tears streaming down his cheeks, his hands faintly trembling, he conformed the gold to the dead man’s features.
“It is our custom,” Nestor explained. “A mask to identify him in later generations.” The gold was frail, fine stuff, and Nekros pinched and pressed it, imprinting it with the image of Posidios’ nose and chin, his deep-set eyes, and even his ears. Then carefully Nekros lifted it away, a rough imitation of the man. “The workers will give him more distinct features,” Nestor said. “This, however, will capture the essence of his psyche.”
The priest of the dead rose, and his minions wrapped the body in lengths of cloth. “We bury our dead in the ground,” Nestor explained. “They stay there until they become desiccated. Then they are moved to a burial sarcophagus and filed in the tholoi beneath the Clan of the Stone.”
“You do not preserve your dead?” Cheftu asked with the horror of an Egyptian.
“The soil here is enough embalming. Indeed, for moons the bodies appear to still be alive. If they are bathed before death, they will reach the Isles of the Blessed, so no more need be done.”
Cheft
u shuddered.
Nekros was sobbing openly now, and Cheftu felt guilt weighing on him. He turned to the window; what should he have done? How could he have saved this man’s life? Finally the corpse of Posidios was carried away.
“Come, Egyptian, I will walk you to your apartments,” Nestor said.
Wearily Cheftu followed the golden man out into a corridor. “I sometimes doubt I will ever learn my way around here,” he said. “I keep finding myself in the storerooms.”
Nestor chuckled. “It is good to know where the olive oil is.”
Cheftu smiled wryly. It was the only area he’d found repeatedly. This maze confused him the rest of the time. Once he’d found the ominous archway leading into the Labyrinth; another time he’d found a long tunnel with dozens of doors leading away, through the bowels of the mountain. It was an amazing place, an architectural feat. If only he could see a map of the building.
Cheftu cheered as he began to recognize the hallways.
They climbed several flights of stairs and through another long, wider corridor. Periodically the wall was interrupted by alcoves, painted and fitted with horned altars. Cheftu watched as Nestor walked from altar to altar, turning the axes. What a strange custom! They walked on until Nestor stopped before a brightly painted door. He snapped his fingers, and it was opened.
Cheftu stepped in and stared. In less than twenty-four decans from his landing here, he had changed from being a guest—a prisoner—of the empire to being a chieftain of a clan. In title, at least. He was not used to the idea yet, or to the chambers. Already his personal belongings, gifts from Pharaoh that Nestor had brought, cluttered the room. Kohl pots, tweezers, a small statue of the god Thoth. A few pure white linen kilts were pressed and laid on the end of his couch.
Through a doorway he could see the scroll room. Tablets, scrolls, and papyri filled the cubbyholes in the wall. A chair and desk, both carved from gypsum, sat in the path of the sun. Fresh flower garlands hung over the window, filling the room with the scent of hyacinths.
The exact fragrance the green-eyed priestess wore. He was suddenly, pleasantly aroused.
Then all thoughts ceased as he halted in total shock before the object on the edge of the desk. His lungs felt squeezed as he approached it warily. It was not possible! This was the wrong time! Such things did not exist until the Renaissance!
Layers of disks were connected by a shaft, surmounted by two spheres on metal arms for movement, and controlled by a crank handle to one side: an astrolabe? Cheftu stepped closer. The two spheres were differing sizes, one made of gold, one silver. He inhaled sharply, gazing at the first of the disks. It was painted in a distinct pattern with green and blue, and he recognized the shapes. Continents. “What is this?”
Nestor’s steps seemed uncommonly loud, the room very close and hot. “Unlike you Egyptians, we think the world is a sphere and thus have sent our ships every conceivable direction to give us the truth of the matter. This device tells the motions of the sun and moon, past and future, determines the altitude of stars and constellations. Useful when one is at sea, eee?”
“The gears,” he choked out. What ancient culture had gears? Even the Egyptians, as sophisticated as they were, had no knowledge of this. He picked it up.
“See this,” Nestor said, turning the crank. Cheftu watched as the disks realigned themselves, then stopped. Nestor, smiling, took the back off it and cranked it again. They watched the gears, operating at different speeds, catch and release. Involuntarily Cheftu stepped back, stunned. Who were these people?
Cheftu picked it up, scrutinizing the little shapes of blue and green. He walked to the window, his back to the foreigner. Breath rasping, he searched for his homeland, France. It was there! The details of the coastline were indistinct, but the shape of it, and Spain, were unmistakable.
He looked back at France.
Memories of his childhood hit him like a physical blow, and he leaned against the window frame, staring blankly. Figeac with its green parks and nearby river, the crowded marketplace, and the squalor, had been his world. Memories of his home, his family … his brother Jean-Jacques, who so patiently taught him alphabet after alphabet, giving him the foundation to learn so many languages.
How France had reeked! How infrequently they had bathed! How bitterly cold the winters were and how ill prepared France was to feed and clothe all her children. He turned; the man Nestor had been speaking.
“You are well, my master?”
“What? Aye, of course.”
“You are pale. Please, sit. I will have a serf prepare you a bath and some food.”
Cheftu sat obediently, the astrolabe still clutched in his hand. “How do you know about these, uh, places?” he asked, indicating the astrolabe.
Nestor leaned against the wall, narrowing his eyes. “The Golden came from there. Still our cousins come and bring us news from beyond the Great Green. They travel rivers from here to their white lands.”
“The Golden?”
“The Clan Olimpi. My family.” Nestor laughed at Cheftu’s startled expression.
“So are you a clan chieftain?”
“I am inheritor to the Rising Golden,” Nestor explained. “Apis forbid, should Phoebus die, I would rule until another Golden was born from the mother-goddess.”
Cheftu turned the astrolabe over again and again, dizzy with information. Nestor excused himself so Cheftu could rest.
Nestor was sitting in the library, playing a set of pipes, when Cheftu awoke. Nestor set them down and rose to his feet. “Your new clothing has arrived. Aztlantu clothing,” he said with emphasis.
Cheftu smiled grimly. His pressed white kilt was a stark contrast to the bright patterns that everyone, even the serfs, wore. His wide Egyptian collar was unlike the necklaces and pendants the other men wore, and his headcloth covered hair that was unfashionably short in contrast with the flowing locks of the Aztlantu men. Apparently the Spiralmaster needed to adapt more.
“When you are changed we will go dine. The rest of the Olimpi are returned, and it is time for you to meet them.”
After the elaborate toilette was completed, Cheftu followed Nestor silently through the corridors, light wells, and hallways. Cheftu ignored the stares and whispers of those around him as they passed through a series of wide, busy chambers. The aroma of cooked meat hung in the air, compounded by a mixture of perfumes, body odors, and fire.
He followed Nestor thoughtlessly. The western-angled sun shone in the light wells, and Cheftu realized the day was almost gone. He was exhausted, lonely. He wanted to tell Chloe about his experiences today, whisper his wonder of what had happened against her skin before he—Cheftu closed his eyes at the thought of Chloe; his thoughts alone were betrayals. A serf offered a rhyton of sweet, peppery wine. He drank, then drank more, and still more.
Maybe he could drown his thoughts of green-eyed women. Living and dead.
CHAPTER 10
CHLOE, FOR THE FIRST TIME since she’d heard Cheftu was alive and was here, was not thinking of him. A zigzag path rose before her, climbing to the sprawling metropolis on the hills. She stared at Sibylla’s city in wonder. If she’d been in Crete, then where was she now? Sailing to Naxos first had confused her even more.
Surely this was not Santorini?
Though it was a hike, they walked up the hill. Chloe felt her weary muscles screaming in protest and sweat gathering between her waist cincher and skin. They turned onto a flatter pathway, and Chloe hissed. This can’t be real. Has Disney taken over ancient times? Dominating all was an enormous pyramid in a rainbow of colors with a flat top of gold. A pyramid? A pyramid?
The Minoans didn’t have pyramids, of that she was certain. Well, as certain as modern archaeology was, she amended. Who, then, were these people?
Behind the pyramid was a palace, or meeting hall, with acres of painted walls and columned corridors. To the east and west of the pyramid were graceful gold-and-red temples, with pylons, columns, and flat roofs. A deep channel cut bet
ween the two islands, a channel bridged by suspension bridges, and in the middle, the islands were attached by land. Her brain was in overdrive. Where was this?
The walkway was steep and difficult to manage in sandals. Chloe stumbled, wondering how the Mariners, some barefoot, walked with the security of mountain goats. Of course, Camille had been that way. She was almost roachlike in her ability to climb anything. Oh, Cammy; oh, Mom, Chloe thought. Y’all would sell your souls to see this now!
People bustled all around them, and Chloe just kept staring. Women were bare breasted and tightly corseted, with long black hair flowing around them. They walked on high heels that looked almost like platform wedges from the 1970s. So this is where European women got the ability to scale mountains in heels—their ancestors have been doing it for centuries!
The men were also corseted, with very short kilts and, again, long hair. Most everyone Chloe saw was young, fit, attractive. Where were the elders?
They walked along, jostled by the citizens of this place, carrying market baskets, towing along children, bartering. It seemed like almost any other city, except Chloe couldn’t stop staring at the multitudes of bare breasts and the men who ignored them. Women nursed in the street, and the men just walked by.
And Muslims thought Westerners were wild.
Nearby, a woman approached, and the people stepped back. She was dressed the same as Chloe and everyone else, though she wore far more jewelry and a cloak. As she swept past a group of men, teetering on her high heels, she slipped off the cloak, showing a bit of shoulder. A Coil Dancer with very little style, Chloe thought through Sibylla’s perception. Two men followed the woman, and all three entered one of the white-and-red-columned buildings.
Chloe entered the heart of the town, and the noise was deafening. Buildings, some four stories high, lined both sides of the street, with occasional hanging balconies. Businesses with swinging signs were sprinkled in between the town houses. She glimpsed narrow courtyards and blooming gardens. Up and down, up and down. Her legs were screaming with pain. She really should have taken at least a week to train before coming here. Even slogging through mud—Don’t think about Naxos, she reminded herself. You could do no more, not without bulldozers, EMT professionals, and antibiotics.
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