Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile

by Steven Saylor

  “She’s a witch?”

  He shook his head. “That’s too simple a word to describe Metrodora. When we reach her hut, you’ll wait outside. Enter only if I call for you.” Artemon turned and walked on.

  The secluded structure sat in a small clearing beside the water. It was twice the size of the other huts I had seen, and appeared to be made of two huts built back to back and joined by a connecting room or passageway. Artemon stood before the cloth that covered the nearest doorway and called the soothsayer’s name.

  When she called for him to come inside, I gave a start. The woman’s voice stirred a distant memory, tantalizing but too faint to grasp. One thing was certain: it was not the voice of Bethesda.

  Artemon stepped inside the hut. The rest of us waited. Menkhep sat on the stump of a tree nearby and closed his eyes. Djet amused himself by studying a frog at the water’s edge. As the sun sank behind the trees, casting sidelong rays, the wind began to rise, carrying the scent of rain. The sky to the north grew darker. The dense greenery around us was suffused by a peculiar twilight.

  At last Artemon emerged from the hut. He gave me a quizzical look. “She wants to speak to you, Gordianus.”

  I nodded and stepped to the doorway. It was only as I let the cloth hanging drop behind me that I realized he had called me by my real name.

  The circular room was dimly lit by a single lamp hung from the ceiling. A woman sat cross-legged on a small rug. A hood obscured her face.

  I looked at the clutter around me. By the faint light I saw the gleam of gold, silver, and jewels. Precious objects crowded the room. Were these the offering left by the bandits for her services? I also saw various implements of sorcery—lamps and incense burners, vials of liquids and powders, bits of bone, lead tablets for scrawling curses. Behind the woman I saw a curtained doorway that I presumed must lead to the adjoining hut.

  The woman spoke. “You look perplexed, young Roman.”

  “How did Artemon know—”

  “Your true name? Gordianus is your name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I saw no point in denying it. But how could she have known?

  “Don’t worry. Artemon won’t hold it against you that you gave him a false name. Most of the men who come here do so. He’ll continue to call you Pecunius, if that is your wish.”

  “And you?” I peered at her hooded face, but saw only shadows. “Is Metrodora your true name?”

  She laughed. Like her voice, her laughter was naggingly familiar. “You’ve come through many dangers to arrive here, Gordianus.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you think you were finally out of danger, now that you’ve reached the Cuckoo’s Nest? Your greatest peril is just beginning!”

  Despite the dank warmth of the room, I felt a chill. “How do you know my name? How could you know anything about me?”

  “I know you came here seeking the thing dearest to you in all the world.”

  I gasped, for she seemed to have penetrated my deepest thoughts. Or had she? Might she simply be guessing, using the tricks known to every street-corner soothsayer in Alexandria? Didn’t every man arrive in this place seeking his heart’s desire, whether that desire was freedom, or adventure, or a new life?

  “Will I find the thing I seek?”

  “The thing you seek is very near.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Very near,” she said again.

  “How near?”

  The woman gestured to the doorway behind her. “Just beyond this curtain. Only a few steps away—and yet, still very far from you.”

  What did she mean? Was Bethesda in the next room? My heart gave such a lurch that I thought my chest would burst. My head felt light. My breath grew short.

  I stepped toward the curtain. The woman remained on the floor, but waved me back with a hiss.

  “If you go to her now, Gordianus, you will surely die!”

  I trembled with frustration. “Is Bethesda here or not?” I said through gritted teeth. “Why can’t I see her?”

  She held a finger to her lips. “Lower your voice, or else they might hear you.”

  “Who might hear?” I whispered. “Why are you tormenting me?”

  She peered up at me, holding her head in such a way that for an instant the lamplight clearly illuminated her face.

  “Ismene!”

  There could be no doubt. The woman who sat before me was the witch of Corinth.

  In my travels to see the Seven Wonders, I had taken several side trips. One of the most memorable had been a visit to the ruins of Corinth. When I first met Ismene, she seemed to be nothing more than a serving woman at a tavern, but subsequent events revealed her to be a practitioner of witchcraft. Many men died at that tavern during our stay, by the hand of a culprit other than Ismene; nonetheless, her sorcery seemed to have played a role in the murders, and when last I saw her, she was fleeing from Corinth, weighted down by a great deal of treasure scavenged from the ruins.

  We had gone our separate ways, and I had whispered a prayer that I might never encounter the witch of Corinth again. By some strange twist of fate, our paths had converged in the Egyptian Delta.

  “That was you I saw when I first arrived—the woman who stood behind the crowd,” I said, keeping my voice low.

  She nodded.

  “You must have seen me too—and more clearly than I saw you, for it seems that you recognized me. How else could you have given my name to Artemon?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure I would have known you, Roman, after all this time. But the arrival of the Roman named Gordianus was not entirely unexpected.”

  “You foresaw my arrival? How? By sorcery?”

  “That’s what Artemon thinks. He’s quite impressed that I was able to tell him your true name.”

  I nodded, finally glimpsing the truth. “But in fact, you know who I am, and you expected me to come, because of…” I caught my breath, sudden unable to speak her name.

  “Yes, because of her. Yes, Gordianus, Bethesda is here.”

  I felt such a flood of emotion that I couldn’t speak. Ismene pulled the hood back from her face. She extended both hands, indicating that I should help her stand. She was a short, unremarkable-looking woman, no longer young but not yet old, neither ugly nor pretty, but her features were burned in my memory by the extraordinary events that surrounded our first encounter. Her manner was gruff, and her powers frightening—if they truly existed—but as far as I knew, she had never deceived me or done me any harm.

  “On the day Bethesda arrived, Artemon put her under my care. He called her by another name: Axiothea. He told me that she was his prisoner, but that she was very precious, very valuable. He asked me to look after her, and to see that no harm came to her.”

  “And have you done so? Is she unharmed? Untouched?”

  Ismene raised an eyebrow. “What do you think, Roman? The men in this place are all scared to death of me and my curses. Not one of them would dare to come into this hut uninvited. No one has so much as touched a hair on the girl’s head. From the hour she arrived, your slave has been treated like a princess.”

  I felt another surge of emotion, this time of relief. “Bethesda!” I whispered.

  “You must never call her by that name, not if others might overhear. The men who brought her here thought she was a woman called Axiothea, and that’s who Artemon believes her to be. That is the name she called herself when she arrived, and she maintained her pretense even with me, until she saw there was no point in trying to hide anything from Metrodora the Soothsayer, and told me the truth. Eventually, she also confided to me that she was a slave, and her master was a man named Gordianus. The name was familiar. I questioned her further, and soon enough it was evident that the young Roman who purchased her in an Alexandrian slave market was the very same young Roman who passed through the Peloponnesus a few years ago, the traveler named Gordianus whom I last saw in the ruins of Corinth. Bethesda was certain that you would eventually come for he
r—and so you have. When I saw you step out of the boat and walk up the pier today, I thought I recognized you. When Artemon confirmed that the man who had joined us was a young Roman, I knew it must be you.”

  “And just now, you told him my true name as a sort of trick, to dazzle him with your skills as a soothsayer?”

  She smiled. “Does it matter how a soothsayer comes by her knowledge, as long as she speaks the truth?”

  I considered all she had told me. “You know that Axiothea is really Bethesda, but does she know that Metrodora is really Ismene?”

  She laughed. “Of all the people in Egypt, only you know that I was ever called Ismene. And what makes you think that’s my true name? What do you actually know about me, Gordianus? Do you think I was always a serving woman at a tavern near Corinth?”

  “But what are you doing here? What strange path brought the witch of Corinth to such a place?”

  “Has my path been any stranger than yours, Gordianus? We have arrived at the same spot, in the same moment.”

  “Artemon says that once upon a time you trained to become the Pythia at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.”

  “Do you find that hard to believe?”

  “A bit.”

  Her face lost all trace of humor. “Where I came from, and how I came to be here, is none of your business. You know nothing for certain about me, Roman, and I suggest that you say nothing about me, if you know what’s good for you. Here I am not Ismene, but Metrodora. Remember that.”

  I nodded. “Bethesda,” I said. “Is she truly beyond that curtain? Why can I not see her?”

  “Oh, you can see her, Roman. But you mustn’t speak to her, not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “That will become evident when you see her.”

  Again I stepped toward the curtain, but Ismene gripped my arm to stop me.

  “There is a price to pay.”

  “What do you want from me, witch?”

  “Lower your voice!” she hissed. “Surely no price would be too great, to lay eyes on Bethesda again. Give me the most valuable thing you possess.”

  I looked at her blankly, then understood. I reached into the pouch at my waist and pulled out the ruby necklace.

  “If I give this to you, what can I use to pay Artemon as a ransom?”

  “I hear the jingling of coins in that pouch.”

  “They won’t be enough.”

  “Nonetheless, if you want to see Bethesda, you must give me the ruby. Now!” She held out her hand.

  I looked from Ismene’s stern face to the curtained doorway and back again. I felt an impulse to return the ruby to the pouch, push her aside, open the curtain, and step through. But I remembered the deadly magic Ismene had wielded at Corinth, and also that she had never used it, thus far, to harm me. I would be a fool to make an enemy of her now. And was the sight of Bethesda, after all this time, not worth the cost?

  I pressed the ruby necklace into Ismene’s open palm. She held the jewel up to the hanging lamp. Red spangles of light played across her face.

  “There’s a curse on this jewel, just as Artemon suspected, but I’ll find a way to remove it. Your payment is sufficient, Roman. You may step through the curtain. Tread softly and say nothing. I’ll be right behind you.”

  XXI

  The curtain doorway did not open directly into the adjoining hut, but into a passageway between the two. The dark little hallway was cluttered with trunks, boxes, and piles of clothing stacked all the way to the ceiling—yet more of Ismene’s loot, I presumed. The clutter on either side created a passage within the passage, so that I had to turn this way and that to make my way forward. It also served to deaden the sound, so that a noise in one of the huts could hardly be heard in the other. The wind also covered any noise I made. It had begun to rise, whistling through the thatched roof above my head.

  Even so, as I approached another curtained doorway—the twin of the one I had just passed through—I heard voices from the room beyond. First I heard a man’s voice, so quiet that I could discern nothing more than the gender of the speaker, and then—my heart skipped a beat—a voice I would have known anywhere, even though she, too, spoke so quietly that I couldn’t make out the words.

  I reached for the curtain, intending to draw it aside, but Ismene drew beside me and stayed my hand. Keeping a finger pressed to her lips, she shook her head, then raised her palm, indicating that I should stay where I was and do nothing. Slowly and silently, she parted the curtain, but only to a finger’s width, and indicated that I should put one eye to the narrow opening and take a look.

  Even with her back to me, I instantly recognized Bethesda by her long black hair, and also by the way she stood, with her shoulders back and her head tilted up, looking at the much taller man who stood before her. I had no trouble recognizing Artemon, whose face was clearly lit by the lamp that hung above them.

  Whenever I had thought of Bethesda in the days since she went missing, I had pictured her as I had seen her last, wearing the green dress that I had given her for my birthday. I was a bit disconcerted to see that she was wearing something altogether different—a robe of many colors, made of some rich fabric that glistened in the warm glow of the lamp, cinched at the waist with a leather belt ornamented with jewels and silver medallions. I had seldom seen silk, especially in such a quantity, but surely that was what this garment was made of. According to Ismene, Bethesda had been treated like a princess in her captivity. She had been dressed like one, too.

  Artemon spoke again. Pressed to the narrow opening, I was just able to make out his words.

  “When, Axiothea?” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “When will you give up hope that the old man wants you back? If he intended to pay the ransom, he would have done so by now. He would at least have given some response to our messages.”

  Bethesda bowed her head. “Not yet, Artemon. The time has not come yet.”

  “But it will come—is that what you mean to say?”

  Though I couldn’t hear it, from the rise and fall of her shoulders I knew that Bethesda sighed.

  “Give me a sign, Axiothea—some token to show me that what I long for is not beyond my reach. Do you share my feelings, or not?” His tone became strident.

  From the look on his face, from the words he spoke, from the way he stood before her, like a suppliant rather than a captor, there could be no doubt. Artemon was in love with Bethesda.

  On his face I saw a look of mingled hope and despair. I might have been looking into a mirror. His suffering was the same as mine. I had been deprived of the thing dearest to me, separated by miles of wilderness and water. Artemon, too, was being denied the thing he wanted most—even though she stood before him.

  “If you won’t give me a sign, then let me give you one,” he whispered. He reached into his tunic, pulled out the little sapphire ring he had taken from me earlier, and held it before him, like an offering. “For you, Axiothea.”

  “Another?” Bethesda said. From the exasperation in her voice I gathered this was only the latest in a long line of gifts.

  “Here, let me put it on your finger.” He stepped closer to her. His eyes lit up and his face flushed. He looked so young and helpless that I found it harder than ever to imagine him as the leader of a dangerous band of brigands. He looked like a mere boy, and more than that, like a boy in love, breathless at the mere prospect of touching his beloved’s hand.

  “It fits your finger perfectly! That must be a sign, don’t you think? Go on, hold it up to the light. See how it sparkles.”

  He raised her hand toward the lamp. The jewel caught the light and shone like a star in the space between them, but only for a moment. Bethesda pulled her hand from his.

  “Perfect and beautiful, yes,” she admitted. “Like this dress, and my shoes, and the necklace I’m wearing. Like all the lovely things you’ve given me. Even so, Artemon, I can’t—”

  “I don’t imagine such gifts impress you, after all that Tafhapy must have give
n you. He’s spoiled you, I suppose.”

  “No, Artemon, it isn’t that—”

  “A kiss!” he said. “That’s all I ask. Only a kiss. Only one.”

  He drew closer still. Because he was taller than Bethesda, I was able to see his eyes until the moment he bowed his head, took her face in his hands, and turned it up to his. Bethesda dropped her hands to her sides. She clenched her fingers.

  I gave a start. My body seemed to act on its own, without thought. In another instant I would have been through the curtain, but Ismene dug her fingernails into my arm, so hard that I gasped at the pain. Had it not been for the rising wind and the rain that suddenly pelted the roof, Artemon and Bethesda would surely have heard me.

  Or would they? Suddenly they seemed to be in a world utterly removed from me, totally absorbed in each other. Was he kissing her? Almost certainly he was, but all I could see was the back of her head, and a bit of his forehead just beyond. Was she kissing him in return? It was impossible to tell. Her body seemed tense, her shoulders stiff, but only her eyes could have revealed what she felt. Was Artemon looking into her eyes at that moment? What did he see there?

  Time seemed to stop. The kiss seemed endless, suspended in time, like every kiss between true lovers. I felt the ground drop away below me. I seemed to hang in empty space, surrounded by darkness, seeing only the two of them through the narrow slit.

  With a sudden, resounding crack, the moment ended. The crack was the sound of Bethesda slapping him across the face.

  I stiffened, fearing that Artemon would strike her in return. Instead he staggered back, touching his flaming cheek. He gave her a stricken look and simply stood there, staring at her, for a long time. All expression drained from his face. At last he turned his back on her, squared his shoulders, and appeared to draw several deep breaths, as if composing himself. He pushed aside the cloth that covered the entrance and left the hut.

  I reached for the curtain, eager to step into the room and join Bethesda, but again Ismene held me back.