Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  “Why don’t you push the ship off the mud?”

  “If only we had two banks of oars on each side,” Hannis went on. “We don’t have enough oars.”

  “Had the new sail not been burned in the fire, I could rig a second mast and that would do it,” Critias muttered into his wine cup.

  “Why don’t you push the ship off?” Martala said in a louder voice. There was a tone of impatience. She disliked being ignored.

  “Don’t be foolish, girl,” Hannis said, his worry making him forgetful of his manners.

  “How do you mean, push it off?” I asked her.

  She shrugged, chewing on the tough goat meat, a gleam of grease clinging to her lips.

  “The oars used by the slaves must be very long to reach all the way into the water from inside the ship. Why not release the slaves, and have them stand along either side of the deck, then use the oars like poles to push into the mud at the bottom of the river? That’s what the boatmen do at Bubastis when they get stuck in the mud.”

  Critias stared at Hannis. They both stopped chewing.

  “The mud is probably too soft,” Hannis said.

  “Maybe not. When she struck, it felt solid to me.”

  “It just might work, if there’s anything to push against.”

  Both men stood and left the table without wasting a word or a glance at either of us. Martala grinned at me.

  “If it works, I want ten percent of the profits from the sale of the cargo.”

  In less than an hour, everything had been made ready for the attempt. The small boat held its place against the current of the river, ready to apply the full force in the arms of its crew when the word was given. The sail filled with the fitful breeze. On both rails of the galley the nearly naked slaves stood blinking against the unaccustomed brightness of day, their long oars held upright like poles. Their shoulders and backs shone white from years without sun. The remaining members of the crew stood guard over them with swords and daggers in their hands, which Critias had passed out to them from his storage locker. He was wise enough not to risk a slave uprising in such awkward circumstances.

  Critias flexed his fingers and renewed his grip on the tiller. He gave the word, and all the slaves strained their powerfully muscled arms and shoulders at the same moment. The angled oars sank into the mud of the river bottom, and for a moment I thought they would continue to sink until they were too low for the slaves to hold them, but before they had descended half their lengths, they met solid resistance and kept their places. The slaves strained. The crewmen in the boat churned the water. By a fortunate chance, the wind chose that moment to freshen, and the old patched sail billowed and made the rigging creak and groan.

  A shudder ran through my feet. The motion of the boat was almost too slight to notice. Again the breeze blew stronger, and a longer and more violent shudder vibrated through the planks of the deck. There was a stirring that increased in speed, and the ship began to move.

  “We’re free,” Hannis called, a deep note of satisfaction in his voice.

  “The sail will hold us,” Critias replied as he bent to the tiller. “Get those slaves back to their places.”

  The Elephant’s Foot continued her ponderous course up the river, none the worse for her ordeal. The mud bed had been flat enough that not a single plank in her bottom had sprung. Apart from the destruction of the new sail and minor damage to some cargo, the only consequence of the attack was the loss of twelve hours or so of sailing, and that was a matter of scant consequence, except to a single passenger slowly dying of poison.

  For the rest of the day Critias made Martala his darling. He proclaimed her genius to his wife, his first mate, and the members of his crew, until we were all sick of hearing it. He only stopped when Martala raised the suggestion that she might merit a portion of the profits from the sale of the cargo. At this notion, he became thoughtful and serious, and resumed his naturally aloof bearing, which was a great relief to everyone.

  We made good progress the rest of the way to Thebes, and the voyage passed without incident. A sharp lookout was kept for the small boat that had tried to destroy us, but though many similar boats with triangular white sails passed us going up river and down river, Hannis swore that none of them was the boat that had attacked us. I was forced to accept his judgement, since I could not tell them apart. Even had the boat returned, there was little we could do except stay vigilant against another assault. The ship’s rowboat had no sail, and the vessel of our unknown foes was so fast and maneuverable, compared with the Elephant’s Foot, that it might have sailed circles around us with impunity, as long as it stayed out of arrow range.

  Critias had a Greek war bow among his armaments, and spent some time oiling it and testing the strength of its string. From the way he handled it, I had no doubt that he knew how to use it with competence. It would have been a fine justice to kill one of our attackers with the same weapon that had almost burnt the ship to the waterline. He had no occasion to test his marksmanship.

  On the afternoon of the fifth day the gleaming walls of Thebes came into view on the western bank of the river. Responding to the holler of the lookout in the bow, Martala ran forward and stood leaning out over the rail, staring at the city with wide eyes. I approached behind her more slowly. My muscles had begun to ache, making rapid movement painful.

  “This is where the pharaohs lived,” she said without turning. “This is where they had their greatest temples.”

  “Have you ever been this far up the Nile before?”

  She shook her head.

  “My uncles used to talk about the riches of Thebes. Once they heard about a tomb in a valley not far from the city, and they traveled up river to rob it, but they found nothing.”

  As the Elephant’s Foot rode the wind across the river, I saw that the city extended to the eastern bank, though most of its dwellings were on the western side. Marble pillars gleamed white in the sunlight, rank upon rank of them standing like stalks of ripe wheat. It was an impressive sight, far more intimidating in its aspect than Memphis. The walls and temples of Thebes stretched heavenward and sought to touch the blue vault of the sky, whereas the temples of Memphis seemed to hug the ground as though to make love to the black earth.

  Only as the ship made its slow and cautious approach to the stone docks with its sail furled did the grandeur dissolve and vanish like a fortress in the clouds. The nearer we approached the city, the more evident its fallen state became. Some of the pillars were cracked or missing from their places. Grass crowned the heads of the great statues of the gods, and windblown sand cloaked their shoulders. The roofs of several temples visible from the riverside had collapsed inward many years ago and had never been repaired. Some buildings stood partly dismantled, like those I had seen at Memphis, robbed of their stones by laborers who found it cheaper to steal than to quarry.

  Critias was occupied with the details of bringing the vast bulk of the ship against the dock without damage. I waited patiently beside him as he bellowed his commands to the men of his crew who hauled on the heavy ropes. The side of the Elephant’s Foot struck the dock with a gentle thud that trembled through the soles of my boots, and I saw that it had been secured to the stone pylons. Critias began to yell orders to the men who scrambled over the side of the ship and manned the timber-frame cranes. Almost immediately they began to lift cargo off the deck.

  “How long before we continue up to the Cataract?” I asked when the captain had fallen uncharacteristically silent.

  “Tomorrow around midday,” he said curtly without looking at me. “My men will work all night to make up for the time we lost in the mud, but that’s as quickly as they can unload and load the cargo for this port.”

  “Martala and I will stay on shore overnight.”

  “Suit yourself. Be sure to be back on board before noon. We can’t wait for you.�
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  I gestured to attract the girl’s attention. When she approached, I took her aside where we could speak privately and told her to gather our belongings. She stared at me with surprise.

  “Are we leaving the ship?”

  I nodded.

  “By the Goddess, why? The men who tried to wreck us will be looking for you.”

  “That is very likely. Even so, I need to make inquiries about our destination, and I want to try to hire a faster ship that will take us up the river.”

  After wandering the dockside of Thebes for an hour in the blazing sun, it became evident that fortune would not hurry our progress. Several ships offered passage down river over the next day or two, but none except a few small boats were to be hired to take us in the opposite direction. After the attack we had suffered, it would have been madness to sail in a boat crewed by one or two men, and make ourselves easy prey for the bowmen who had sent fire arrows into the Elephant’s Foot.

  Following the scents of food upon the air, I made my way to the market square, which was not far from the dockside. As I expected, an armorer had his wares displayed on a long table beneath a striped awning of green and white that fluttered in the dusty breeze. He was grinding an edge on a sword as we approached. At a younger age, he had been a soldier, the numerous scars on his weathered face and bare arms testified. He stopped when he saw us standing on the opposite side of the table.

  “I need a knife and a sword,” I told him.

  Martala wandered down the table, picked up a blade, and tapping it with her fingernail. She made a sour face. The armorer lowered his bushy eyebrows in a scowl and frowned in the depths of his curling white beard.

  “Take your pick,” he said, nodding at the blades ranked on the table.

  “Do we look like jackals?” Martala demanded with hands on hips.

  The armorer glared at her, but she met his eyes calmly.

  “No,” he said, hunching his shoulders.

  “Good, because what you have here is trash, and only a jackal picks through the dung heap.”

  Before he could express his rage, I laid a silver dirham of the middle size in front of him.

  “Show us your best wares. I will pay a fair price for fair blades.”

  He swallowed his indignation and pocketed the coin, then drew out from beneath the table a long box bound with iron. It required all his considerable strength to lift it onto the table. When he opened it, Martala made a soft noise in her throat.

  “These are all Damascus blades,” he told me. “There are none finer in Thebes.”

  Examining the swords and knives, I felt inclined to believe him. The steel was even better than that of my dagger.

  For myself, I selected a sword with a blade as narrow as a ribbon of silk, slightly curved near its end. It felt light in my hand when I cut the air with it. The armorer nodded with appreciation as he watched me.

  “It looks thin but it won’t break, I promise you. Only the finest steel in the world could be used for a blade that thin.”

  The scabbard was simple black leather unornamented with jewels or gold, which suited my tastes. It had no baldric, so I slid my belt through it and buckled it on my left hip, then sheathed the sword.

  Martala pulled her head out of the depths of the trunk, a gleam of delight in her eyes. I expected her to have found another tiny blade to match the one she had lost, but she held in her hands a more serious weapon, a straight dagger half a cubit in length sheathed in a leather wrist strap. I took it, and saw that it was designed to be worn with the hilt of the knife toward the hand, yet was so tight that the thin blade of the dagger would not slide out on its own. The weapon itself was feather light.

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded without hesitation.

  I paid the price the armorer asked without haggling, and we left his table better able to defend ourselves. The feeling was almost as satisfying as a good meal. Turning toward a wall of red brick to shield my actions with my body, I drew two dirhams from my purse and pressed them into Martala’s hand.

  “Go and find us a place to sleep. Make sure they can supply a hot bath.”

  She put the silver coins inside the embroidered girdle of her black dress.

  “What will you be doing?”

  “Seeking information. Meet me here in the market in an hour or so.”

  I caught her arm as she started to turn away.

  “Be careful. The assassins sent by Feisel will be on watch for us.”

  There was no trace of fear in her disdainful shrug.

  “You don’t think it was Farri’s men on the boat?”

  “Perhaps. Who knows? Just be sure to guard your back.”

  “Yes, father.”

  I watched her walk out of the market square, an insolent roll to her slender hips beneath her flowing dress. She was overdue for a whipping, to remind her of her manners. Still, arrogance was a part of her nature, and nothing would be gained by breaking her spirit.

  My purse had begun to grow light. It was time to sell another jewel or two in exchange for coins. The bulk of the gems remained safely tied in a rag inside one of my breast pockets, but I had placed several in my purse before leaving the ship with the hope that I might find a money lender or dealer in jewels who would buy them at Thebes. I began to ask the merchants at their tables where I might find a fair dealer in precious stones, and as I expected, soon obtained directions to the house of a Roman trader who would buy any stone of value, though it was said he drove a hard bargain.

  Strolling through the broad streets of Thebes would have been a pleasant diversion except for the growing pain in my joints, which had begun to swell from the relentless attack of the poison. The city was a strange combination of the grand alongside the humble. Towering obelisks rose from the spacious yards of abandoned temples, their interiors gutted and roofs decayed. Many of the statues of gods and goddesses had been toppled or defaced with hammers, but here and there a pagan deity gazed down from its pedestal, serene and perfect, as it had when Thebes was the center of the universe. The inhabited streets were lined with houses and shops constructed of mud bricks, a sad contrast to the well-shaped blocks of stone that formed the temples. Even on the most populous streets many of the buildings stood vacant. Thebes was a city in decline, just like Memphis, although the followers of the Prophet had not looted it for its stones, leaving the majority of its ancient temples looking much as they had looked a thousand years before, provided you did not look too closely.

  A grave-featured servant of some twenty years’ age, dressed in a white tunic and turban, listened to my inquiry at the door of the house on the Street of Olives to which I had been directed. The house was no different from any other on the street, and had it not been for its bright red door, I would not have been able to locate it unaided. There was no sign or number, nothing to show that it was the shop of a trader.

  The beardless Egyptian opened wide the door, averting his eyes from mine, and with a bow of his head led me into the depths of the house to a room at the back where an obese man sat behind an enormous table studying a ring through a magnifying lens of clear glass. Light streamed through the great window behind him, making me blink at its brightness. It was difficult to see his face, but the gold-embroidered green silk of his robe shone in the sunlight like the wing of a dragonfly.

  “Are you Michael Lucellus?”

  He did not reply for a few seconds. Reluctantly, he put the lens down and laid the ring aside in a patch of sunlight. I saw that it was a seal ring of carnelian.

  “I am,” he said in a cultured tone, turning his attention to me. “Have you something to show me?”

  “I do.”

  Without ceremony, I extracted the smallest of the three jewels in my purse and laid it on the table in front of him. As I leaned forward, I saw that his eyes
were an intense blue, and his lips fleshy and red, like the painted lips of a harlot. He wore no beard, and kept the hair on his head unusually short, so that the bald patch on his crown had nowhere to hide itself. Sweat gleamed on his corpulent cheeks in spite of the breeze that found its way past the carved wooden screens of the open window.

  He picked up the jewel with little interest, but when he raised it into the sunlight and applied his magnifier to it, his breathing slowed and deepened. It was a clear and unfaceted stone with just a trace of green in its depths. I smiled to myself, wondering how he would disparage the jewel, which I knew to be almost flawless. To my surprise, he made no slighting remark, but merely laid the stone on the table between his hands and looked up at me with his keen glance.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “That is surely a private matter that need not enter into our transaction.”

  “Are you a tomb robber?”

  I said nothing, meeting his eyes with mine.

  He chuckled and relaxed slightly, waving his hand.

  “Forgive my curiosity. I only ask because this jewel is unknown to me. I thought I had seen every kind of gem stone in the world, but I have never seen this before.”

  “I obtained it in trade from a caravan master in Arabia Petra.”

  “That is a large place.”

  “It was in the region of Sana’a, on the Roba el Khaliyeh.”

  He waited with widened eyes, but when he perceived that I did not intend to speak further about the finding of the jewel, he smiled in a genial way.

  “I will buy it, of course. Because it is unique, I cannot offer as high a price as the quality of the stone merits. I may have trouble selling it if I cannot say what it is.”

  He spoke his price, and I realized that I had no need to sell a second stone. The silver would fill my purse. I agreed without haggling.

  “Have you more of these stones?” he asked casually.

  “One or two. But I do not intend to sell them unless my needs become pressing.”

  From the floor beneath the window he took a small strongbox of cedar wood bound with iron and opened it. I was surprised to see that it was unlocked—although the box was of a size that would allow a thief to carry it away under his arm, so perhaps a lock was deemed superfluous. He counted from its depths my silver dirhams and set the box back into its place.