Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile

by Steven Saylor

  Artemon unrolled a large and highly detailed map of the city of Alexandria—one of the treasures he had chosen to bring with him from his library. Upon it was marked the wharf where the Medusa would dock, and the route we were to take to the Tomb of Alexander and back. All the men were encouraged to study the map and acquaint themselves with the landmarks. Thanks to the rigid grid laid out by Alexander for his city, even the dullest among us were able to grasp the layout of the map. When it came my turn to look, the names and markings evoked a flood of memories and a rush of excitement. In a matter of hours, I would be in Alexandria again.

  Artemon explained his plan for the raid. Some of the men asked questions, which he answered at length. He seemed to have thought of every detail and anticipated every eventuality. Even the most hesitant were won over.

  The men of the Cuckoo’s Gang sailed toward Alexandria in a buoyant mood. The weather was mild, the spume from the prow gave the air a salty tang, and the seagulls overhead seemed to beckon us onward.

  *

  Even by day, the beacon atop the Pharos Lighthouse shone brightly, thanks to huge mirrors that collected and cast back the sunlight. As we neared the city, the beacon grew larger and brighter.

  The first time I had sailed into the harbor of Alexandria, some years before, I had been awed at the splendor of the city. I was awed anew. What visitor, no matter how familiar with the sight, could fail to be amazed at the world’s tallest building, the lighthouse, rising from the waves? Beyond the lighthouse lay the islands of the harbor, glittering with temples and palaces. Along the waterfront stretched the bustling port and the splendid balconies of the royal palace.

  As we passed the lighthouse, I gazed ahead at the distant waterfront and saw the very spot where Bethesda and I had eaten with Melmak and the mime troupe on my birthday, where I had fallen asleep and then had awakened alone, with Bethesda gone. That fateful day seemed a lifetime ago.

  Every ship that enters the harbor must first be given permission, and we were no exception. With the Pharos Lighthouse looming to our right, a small boat came out to meet us. It was rowed by slaves and carried a single official, who looked slightly absurd in his elaborate costume, which included a helmet too large for him and a great many leather straps and brass buckles that appeared to serve no practical purpose.

  Had the official been bribed ahead of time? Were the documents shown to him by Captain Mavrogenis genuine, or a convincing forgery? I was not close enough to observe their conversation, but a few moments later the small boat rowed away and the Medusa proceeded toward the largest of the wharfs that projected into the water.

  I had never seen the harbor so empty. Mavrogenis had plenty of room to maneuver, but still showed impressive skill as he brought the big vessel to rest with our port side parallel to the wharf.

  Before the Medusa entered the harbor, the men had hidden their armaments under the sleeping blankets. Now, very quickly, we threw the blankets aside and strapped on whatever armor we had been issued, took up our weapons, and assembled on the deck. Menkhep moved among us, making sure every man was properly outfitted.

  I felt an insistent poking against my thigh and looked down to see Djet.

  “What about me?” he said. “Where is my armor and sword?”

  I was glad for the laugh he gave me, a distraction from the butterflies in my stomach. Menkhep, who happened to be passing by, also laughed.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, boy,” he said. “You’re to stay on the ship until we get back.”

  Djet looked dejected, then smiled. “I could climb up to the top of the mast and keep watch!”

  “We already have a lookout posted up there,” said Menkhep. He gave Djet an affectionate rap on the head and moved on. I peered down at the boy, realizing I had given no thought as to what would become of him. I squatted beside him and spoke in a low voice.

  “You’ll stay here on the boat when we leave, Djet. But if you see a chance—if it’s safe to do so, if no one is watching you—get off the ship. You’re good at that sort of thing. Good at hiding, too. Get off the wharf if you can, but otherwise, find some nook or cranny in that customs house over there and conceal yourself until the Medusa sets sail.”

  “And wait there for you?”

  “No. Maybe. I mean…” I shook my head. “If you see me come back with the rest, don’t reveal yourself. Don’t call out or come to me, even if I get on the ship—especially if I get on the ship. Stay hidden. Then, as soon as you’re able, make your way to the Street of the Seven Baboons.” I managed a rueful smile. “Tell Tafhapy that you’ve finally returned from the very long errand on which he sent you.”

  “What about you? What shall I tell the master about you?”

  I sighed, and again felt butterflies in my stomach.

  “Tell him that you served me well, Djet, and I was very pleased. Tell him I gave you this, as a sign of my gratitude.” From the coin purse tied around my waist—for I had decided to take with me all the wealth I had accumulated since leaving Alexandria, leaving none of it on the ship—I pulled a silver shekel from Tyre, a beautiful thing with an image of Hercules on one side and an eagle clutching a palm leaf on the other, and pressed it into his hand. I felt an impulse to hug him, and did so, so hard that I squeezed the breath out of him.

  “Now isn’t that touching?” said Ujeb. I looked up to see a smirk on his face. “The Roman is saying a heartfelt farewell to his pretty Ganymede!”

  Before I could answer Ujeb, Artemon appeared atop the cabin. He wore a silver-plated cuirass that caught the sunlight, and carried a beautifully crafted sword. When he placed an equally magnificent helmet on his head, an antique thing of Greek design with an ornate nose guard and flaring cheek plates, he looked like an image of Achilles.

  The helmet also served to hide his face. There were no helmets for the rest of us, who had to make do with the traditional disguise of bandits. Along with the others, observing the ritual that marked the commencement of any raid, I tied my scarf across the lower half of my face.

  Like a general before a battle, Artemon stood before us and delivered a short speech. At first, my mind was so agitated and my heart pounded so loudly I could hardly hear a word he said. Presumably he was trying to rally our courage, or arouse our greed, or both. But as I grew calmer, I heard him clearly, and realized that the speech was not at all what I expected.

  “What sort of man is this King Ptolemy? Why should we fear him? A fat buffoon, some call him. The shame of Egypt. Now the people are ready to get rid of him, and their only choice to replace him is his brother, a man who already had his turn at ruling and was driven into exile. That’s what comes of letting blood determine who should be king. Men are born to the throne instead of earning it, and there’s no good way to be rid of them.

  “Far better to be a king of bandits than the king of Egypt, I say! Their sort of king begins life on a bed of purple pillows, playing with golden rattles, surrounded by fawning slaves. They possess everything from birth, and know the value of nothing. Better to begin as the bastard son of a whore, I say, and become a brigand in the wild along with twenty or thirty sworn companions, men who are absolutely trustworthy and full of spirit and afraid of nothing. Let that company grow to a hundred free men, then two hundred, then thousands, spread all across Egypt. Someday their number will be in the tens of thousands! And the man who is honored to lead them will be the greatest king of all, because he will be their chosen leader, a man who earned his crown not by inheriting a thing that was earned by his ancestors, but by his own hard work and merit.

  “I told you last night that what we do today will make us legends. But the Cuckoo’s Gang is already the stuff of legend. There is a not a man in Egypt who does not know of us, and envy us—our freedom, our boldness, our fearlessness! But time moves on, and so do we. Yesterday we closed the scroll of the past. Today we unroll the scroll of the future—and that future will be a story etched in golden letters and spangled with jewels, filled to bursting with glory!
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br />   “Last night I said that any man who wished to do so might stay behind, and leave the ship when we return, to take his chances as a free man in Alexandria. Does any man choose to leave us? If so, lay down your arms and step aside now.”

  No one moved. For once, Ujeb had no ready quip. Instead, his chin quivered and a tear ran down his cheek. I looked at Menkhep. He did not weep, but his eyes glistened.

  Even I was spellbound by Artemon’s words. I cared nothing for the bandit gang and all their false glory, yet I stood rooted to the spot.

  I looked at the cabin. The door was shut. Was Bethesda inside? Would she be there when I came back—if I came back?

  Artemon looked from face to face and nodded, as if to acknowledge and record the choice of every man present.

  He turned and descended the steps to the deck, and then, to my amazement, took hold of a long leash, at the end of which was Cheelba. Artemon intended to lead us through the streets of Alexandria with a lion at his side—and why not? Cheelba’s roar would send even the bravest opponents scattering in terror.

  Outfitted, armed, and ready, with Artemon and Cheelba leading us, we filed down the broad gangplank and proceeded at a quick pace up the wharf.

  XXXIV

  I had never looked closely at the layout of such wharves, or the paraphernalia with which they were equipped. Now everything I saw seemed to be in stark relief, including the empty wagons and idle hoists scattered here and there. On a normal day, in normal times, these implements of transport and loading would all have been in use, but on this day, all was quiet.

  Midway between the docking area and the shore, we came to the customs house. The building occupied the entire width of the wharf, so that we had no choice but to pass through it. The broad doors were unlocked and opened at a push.

  The interior of the structure was divided into offices, checkpoints, and storage rooms. Every item leaving or arriving in the port of Alexandria was subject to examination, appraisal, and taxation, so it was not surprising to discover that the customs house was constructed a bit like a maze, full of baffles and dead ends. We had to turn this way and that, and pass through several sets of doors. Fortunately, Artemon seemed to know the way. We did not encounter a single armed guard, only a few idle clerks who fled before us in panic.

  It struck me that when it came time to transport our stolen treasure through the customs house, the various baffles and detours would surely slow our progress. One of the passageways was so long and narrow that it would almost certainly pose a problem for any wagon large enough to carry a sarcophagus. But surely Artemon had taken all such factors into account, I told myself.

  Once through the customs house we proceeded at a fast pace up the rest of the wharf to the shoreline. Above the rooftops of the city, far away to the southwest, I saw a pillar of black smoke. The riot near the Temple of Serapis was under way.

  Following Artemon’s plan, we took the quickest and most direct route to the precinct of the royal tombs. Some of the men of the Cuckoo’s Gang had never been in Alexandria, and though scarves hid their faces, I could see by their eyes that they were agog at the magnificent buildings, statues, obelisks, and fountains.

  We met no resistance. As the people we met scattered before us, I began to experience the particular exhilaration that comes from being part of a group of armed men before whom all others cower and flee. I saw the city in a whole new way, through the eyes of a conquering warrior. Whenever Cheelba roared, the rest of us mimicked the sound, making it into a sort of battle cry.

  I have described already, at the outset of my story, how we approached the massive building that housed the tomb, dwarfed by the towering figure of Alexander on the frieze along one wall. There we were met by a small company of men pulling a wagon. In the wagon was the lidded wooden crate in which we would place the sarcophagus.

  The wagon also contained winches, pulleys, rope, and other hoisting equipment, as well as a battering ram made from a single massive tree trunk. When Artemon called for volunteers to man the battering ram, I gladly sheathed my sword and grabbed one of the handles. Better to take part in the sacrilege of breaking open the tomb than to shed innocent blood, I thought.

  Because all the royal tombs were closed to visitors due to the king’s shortage of soldiers, there were few citizens about, and even fewer tourists. Only a handful of people observed us, and no one dared to oppose us, as we battered down the gate and rushed into the tomb.

  Gray-headed guards offered the only resistance. Artemon and his men ruthlessly cut them down. By the time I entered the inner chamber, the last remaining guard, stabbed by Artemon himself, crumpled lifeless to the floor.

  The wagon was wheeled into place. A hoisting mechanism was deployed to remove the lid of the sarcophagus. Before the mummified body was removed and set aside, Artemon invited me onto the dais to gaze upon the face of Alexander.

  So it came to pass that I, Gordianus of Rome, at the age of twenty-two, in the city of Alexandria and in the company of cutthroats and bandits, found myself face to face with the most famous mortal who ever lived.

  But only briefly—because a moment later, a small mob of outraged citizens broke into the chamber. The bandits drove them back, but one of them managed to hurl a rock at me. Artemon pulled me to one side, but the rock struck my temple. I fell from the dais onto the wagon, striking my head against one corner of the wooden crate.

  Groggily, I drew back and saw blood—my blood—on the wood.

  Then everything went black.

  *

  Dreams of darkness and confusion, of being tossed this way and that, of men shouting, wheels creaking, swords clanging, the smell of blood, the odor of the sea, the cry of gulls …

  Gradually, in fits and starts, I came to my senses. I opened my eyes and saw wooden rafters high above me.

  I was lying on my back, wedged in a narrow space between the crate and one side of the wagon. The wagon had been moving, but had come to a halt.

  “It’s not going to fit!” someone shouted.

  “It has to!” said another.

  Then I heard the voice of Ujeb: “I think the Roman’s awake. His eyes are open.”

  “Good. I was beginning to think…” The face of Artemon suddenly appeared above me. “Welcome back to the living, Pecunius. Can you stand? The rest of us are tired of pulling your weight.”

  Before I could answer, he pulled me by my hands into a sitting position and then forward, out of the wagon and onto my feet. We were inside a building—the customs house, I realized. That meant we had come all the way back to the wharf.

  My head ached. I touched my temple and felt dried blood.

  “A superficial wound,” said Artemon briskly. “Many of the men suffered far worse.”

  I looked around me. The boisterous, invincible company that had set out from the Medusa had been transformed into a bloodied, knocked-about group of desperate-looking men. Many were missing.

  Artemon saw my confusion. “Coming out of the tomb, we met more resistance than I expected. Accursed Alexandrians! Always so unpredictable.”

  On the contrary, I thought, it was entirely predictable that an Alexandrian mob would take up arms—or rocks, sticks, and cudgels—against a group of brigands attempting to carry off their most sacred treasure.

  “Menkhep?” I said, for I didn’t see him.

  “They tore him to pieces!” Ujeb blurted. “He was the first to fall. They took away his sword and then fell on him in a frenzy, especially the women. It was horrible! But we took revenge on them, didn’t we? Not a one of that rabble was still alive when we left. We showed them what the men of the Cuckoo’s Gang are made of! No one will ever call Ujeb a coward again.” He raised his sword. It was covered with blood.

  I thought of Menkhep, who had saved my life by guiding me safely to the Cuckoo’s Nest, and then had looked after me in large ways and small. Having kept so much hidden from him, I could hardly call myself his friend, but the thought that he had died a horrible death made
my blood run cold.

  I looked around and realized that another member of the raiding party was missing. “Where is Cheelba?”

  “Somewhere here in the customs house,” said Artemon. “He bolted and ran a few moments ago. There’s no time to look for him. Right now, our problem is how to get this damned wagon through this narrow passage.” He sounded perplexed but determined.

  “It’s so heavy!” complained Ujeb.

  “That makes no difference,” said Artemon. “There are still enough of us to move the wagon. If we position it just so, it will fit in the doorway. We’ll push it into the passageway, until the back end is flush with the doorway. Then we’ll leave it where it is and circle around—that hallway over there will lead us to the far side.” He pointed to a doorway twenty feet to our right; it opened onto a hallway that ran parallel to the passageway through which the wagon needed to pass. “From the far side, we’ll be able to pull the wagon the rest of the way through. Yes, I’m sure that will work.”

  “Some of us should stay here and keep pushing,” Ujeb suggested.

  “No, pushing is useless. If the wagon goes even a little off-course, it’ll get stuck. If we pull, instead, we can correct the course as we go, and get the wagon all the way through in one go. To do that, we’ll need every man here. From the other side, we’ll tie ropes to the yoke of the wagon.”

  “But wouldn’t it be better to—”

  “Shut up, Ujeb! No more arguing! You must do as I say. Now let’s get to work.”

  I moved to join in the effort. Then I saw the smear of blood—my blood—on the corner of the crate, and almost fainted. The sight of Ujeb’s bloody sword had hardly affected me, yet the sight of my own blood made me ill.

  Artemon pushed me aside. “Go on ahead, Pecunius. You’ll only get in the way. Return to the ship.” He grunted as he put his shoulder to the wagon. “Tell Mavrogenis we’re on our way, and to have everything ready.”