The Blood Star

by Nicholas Guild

  . . . . .

  That last year the floods came late, and when they had come and gone the old men in the villages were consulted, and these pronounced that never in living memory had the watermarks on the steep banks of the Nile stood so low. The temple records which the priest kept said the same. For yet another year there would be famine in Egypt, and worse than before.

  One morning, at breakfast, Kephalos presented himself to me. He did not seem particularly pleased.

  “As you know, Lord, I do not often trouble you with business,” he began, nervously fingering the hem of his tunic and glancing about him as if he found the sight of food oppressive. “Yet I wish you to consider whether it would not be for the best if we began to think of leaving Memphis—of perhaps returning to Naukratis, although I think it would be better if we quit this nation altogether.”

  I regarded him with frank astonishment, and after a moment of silence he raised his hand in a dismissing gesture.

  “When there is trouble, Lord, foreigners are never popular, and the trouble in Egypt becomes worse each month. It is time to go. Two years ago, when prices were better and when you were foolish enough to forgive some of your tenants their rents, I saw the way of things, with Egypt and with you, and began selling off your land and sending whatever I could convert into gold and silver out of the country. Most of it is deposited with merchants in Sidon. There is nothing now to hold us here.”

  “Kephalos, I have made a life for myself here,” I said, all at once seized with an absurd panic, as if I feared there might be men waiting behind the door to carry me off by force. “I cannot simply leave—I have attachments. . .”

  “My Lord, be reasonable.” He smiled sadly, apparently believing there was little enough chance of that. “Life here is fast growing intolerable—I can hardly pass through the front gate for the beggars who collect there, and all because you have given orders that no one is to be turned away with nothing. You are not hard enough to live in such a place in such a time.

  “And besides, you and I both know you think only of the Lady Nodjmanefer, and there is no reason why she should be an obstacle. A woman is as easily carried downriver as a bushel of wheat. If you ask it of her—and make it clear you will go in any case—then she will come away with us. If she will not, then you will know she is not worth the staying for.”

  Yet he was right to doubt me, for I did not wish to know which way she would answer. I had not the courage to put her to such a test. Still, it would have been better for both of us if I had, even if she had let me go.

  “You must do as you think best,” I said, “but for myself, since I must die in some strange land, this one will do as well as any other.”

  Kephalos, who understood but was ever my friend, recognized the futility of argument. He withdrew in silence. I did not see him again for several days.

  Yet if his voice was not raised against me, another’s was. That night, over the western desert, there was a lightning storm such as the Egyptians had not witnessed in a hundred years. It was visible from every rooftop in Memphis, and people said that the very stars dripped bloody fire.

  I did not see it—I would not see it, but stayed in my rooms—but I believed then and do still that they spoke the truth.

  I could not hide from this warning, even if I would not listen. The Lord Ashur must have me know that I did evil under his very eyes.

  XIV

  The Night of the Bleeding Stars, as it came to be called, marked the beginning to a season of calamity. The gods had given warning of their displeasure—this was what the priests said—and now all of the Land of Egypt lay under a curse. Prophecies of fearful disaster were whispered about, and the people of Memphis were not kept waiting long to see them fulfilled.

  It is said by the Egyptians that if the sun grows high enough it spawns vermin from the Nile mud, which splits open to let them crawl out through the cracks. I do not doubt it, for the sun was blinding that final summer, and even before the long grass had withered yellow and brittle one had only to walk down to the river to watch hoards of rats crawling over the banks and each other, chattering in their high-pitched voices, loathsome and rapacious. Soon after they reached the city, plague broke out in the poor quarters. The people, weakened by famine, perished in their own doorways.

  There is no answer to plague except fire. The prince ordered entire streets burned. Gangs of soldiers went about torching rows of reed-mat hovels, sometimes with the corpses of whole families still inside, and the smoke from these, mingled with the ever-present smell of death, left a permanent stain upon the air.

  On the first day of the Feast of Opet, which traditionally lasts for four and twenty days but which this year the people of Memphis were too poor to celebrate for even one, Prince Nekau led the procession of the god Amun and was cursed by onlookers and pelted with cattle dung. Members of the crowd were arrested, apparently at random, and these had their hands lopped off and were then hanged, but the scandal did not end there. Such a thing, such an insult to the god, as well as to the prince, had never happened before. For a time people were hardly able to speak of anything else.

  Wild rumors floated about. Pharaoh, it was reported, had fallen ill—I read in letters from Naukratis that he had only turned his ankle while hunting—but soon everyone seemed to believe that he must be dead. After all, to most people Tanis probably seemed almost as far away as the Field of Offerings.

  One man told me he had heard that Pharaoh had been assassinated by foreigners, another that the gods had recalled him to them that the Land of Egypt might be destroyed.

  Not many days later Prince Nekau was forced to issue a public denial that the city grain supplies had been poisoned by the priests, who were now more unpopular than ever and many of whom had been murdered in the streets. I do not know how many believed this denial, but certainly many fewer cared; the poor, if you offered them bread, would simply eat it, whether they believed it was poisoned or not.

  And then, of course, there were the riots, which now took place every few days, almost as if someone had established a schedule for them. Sometimes, when they were dispatched to quell a disturbance, small contingents of soldiers joined in the looting and had themselves to be put down. The gardens of wealthy houses were ransacked and the trees stripped of their fruit. Several people hired guards, which sometimes almost amounted to inviting the thieves inside the walls, and no one ventured into the city without an armed escort. This after a man I knew slightly, a certain Pa’anuket, tempted the gods by visiting the bazaar, which, in any case, was nearly empty, was cornered by the mob and then torn to pieces. His wife did not get enough of him back even to bury.

  Thus the Egyptians, who only a few years before had affected to despise such things, now openly carried weapons.

  I was not such a fool I could not see by now that Kephalos had been right, that it was time to leave Memphis. Things were safer in Naukratis, where the harvests had been better and, in any case, foreign grain was easier to come by, so I thought of withdrawing my household to that city and then deciding if finally it might not be necessary to depart from Egypt altogether. It required only the consent of my Lady Nodjmanefer, for I had no intention of leaving without her. Yet in the end I never had to ask her. My request was forestalled by a visit from her husband.

  The Lord Senefru was as a rule quite scrupulous in all matters of form. He gave the impression of detesting surprises, or anything that suggested cunning. He considered it only polite to give notice of his intentions. So I was surprised when, late in the afternoon, an hour or so before I was engaged to join him for dinner, I glanced out the window of my study and watched him open the gate in the wall that separated our two gardens and walk through.

  He knew he had been observed, no matter that the shutter remained half closed. He raised his eyes to me and made a curt gesture inviting me to join him. I found him studying the fountain, dried up now and the flagstones around it drifted over with fine sand—it had seemed an indecent luxury to k
eep a fountain running while farmers struggled to find water for their crops—frowning as if he had discovered some secret flaw in my character.

  “You will forgive this intrusion,” he said, without looking at me, his attention apparently still held by the fountain. “I did not care to send a servant ahead to announce me. I did not wish to give the impression. . . You will understand, I wish this meeting to seem quite casual, a matter of the merest chance.”

  I nodded, although I was not sure if he noticed. I waited without speaking, for what seemed several minutes but was probably only as many seconds, until he chose to continue.

  “My Lord Tiglath, my wife the Lady Nodjmanefer has asked me to divorce her.”

  He turned to me at last, smiling his tight, meaningless smile.

  “I see I have surprised you,” he said. “You and I have always treated this matter with a tactful silence, assuming that each knew the other’s mind and that, finally, there was nothing to be said. Yet now all is changed, and I must know, My Lord, whether this news is agreeable to you or not.”

  “It—yes, it is agreeable,” I answered, hardly knowing where I found the words.

  “Then I am prepared to release her—provided, of course, that the two of you leave Memphis and undertake never to return during my life. I will mourn the loss of you both, but you must understand that otherwise matters would grow awkward. . .”

  “Yes. . . Of course.”

  “And there is one further condition.” He smiled again, as if at last he had closed the trap on me. “My Lord, I would have a favor of you.”

  “Anything—I. . .”

  Even as the words left my tongue I could hear a warning whispered in my secret soul, yet I would not listen. If the man wanted my arm at the shoulder he was welcome to it, provided I had Nodjmanefer in return.

  Yet I knew, even then. . . Knew what? I could not have said, except that there was no innocence.

  “My Lord, you are not blind,” Senefru began, turning away from the fountain and pointing to the sky above the garden’s northern wall, where a cloud of gray smoke was gathering. In the distance, if one listened carefully, it was just possible to pick out the murmur of human voices—raised, it seemed, in panic. “The people are not content to starve quietly. It seems something must be done.”

  “I gather something is being done,” I said, my voice sounding flat and harsh, even to myself. “From the sound of it, the militia is out clearing the streets again. I wonder how many corpses the crocodiles will have to feast upon tonight, and if they will ever again be content with any other diet.”

  We both listened for a moment. Yes—it was unmistakable. Not four hundred paces from the street where we two lived, prosperous gentlemen, safe from the wrath of the world, there had risen a settlement of miserable reed huts, the refuge of potbellied children who by now could hardly stand and women with withered breasts, farming families, driven from the land by want—driven out now again, it seemed, only this time the goad was smoke and fire and the sharp edge of a soldier’s sword.

  “Yes.” The Lord Senefru spoke quite calmly, like a priest explaining a point of ritual. “The prince has adopted a new policy of burning all the encampments within the city walls, even if plague has not yet broken out. These beggars can set up their hovels by the riverbank, where they will not have such easy access to the bazaar squares. He hopes thus to reduce the rioting, as well as the outbreaks of sickness.”

  “And do you share this hope, My Lord?”

  Senefru turned to me speculatively, as if I had said something remarkable, but at last he only shrugged his shoulders.

  “The hope, perhaps, but without much confidence. Yet he must do something, for if he does not Pharaoh will come with his armies. And the blood that will be spilt then. . . You see, Pharaoh has sent word that he has heard what his priests have suffered at the hands of unruly mobs and that in his realm he will tolerate no disrespect for the gods—it is a pretext only, but I fear it will serve. Pharaoh wishes to remove the prince, saying he cannot keep order in his own city. Yet how is he to keep order while people are starving?

  “No, I fear the only thing that can save us from disaster—and that for perhaps only a brief time—is bread. When the people’s bellies are full there will be peace once more in Memphis. At least for a while. Lamentably, the prince has no more silver with which to buy grain.”

  “If he wishes a loan from me, My Lord, he shall have it.”

  “A loan, yes, but not from you.” Senefru put his hands upon his knees and looked up into my face, squinting as if the light hurt his eyes. “The prince knows you have been sending your wealth abroad—for which he does not criticize you, My Lord, since as a foreigner you must be careful and such precautions are wise in a time of trouble. Besides, the sums he requires are beyond the powers of any one man. What the prince wishes is to avail himself not of your purse but of your good offices. You have many friends among the Greeks of Naukratis—he wishes you to go there and to secure pledges, in his name, for at least five million emmer of silver.”

  I was staggered, I admit it. Such a sum took my breath away—it was enough to beggar a king. For the moment I could not think beyond it.

  And perhaps the Lord Senefru took my silence for reluctance.

  “The prince will, of course, secure the loan in whatever manner your friends think fit.” Having spoken thus, he retreated a little into his natural dignity, like a man who expects to be rebuffed.

  Yet he needn’t have worried, for I knew what answer I must make.

  “And to show my confidence in him,” I said, “I will pledge my house here in Memphis and whatever else I can raise. I cannot guarantee success, My Lord, for I cannot speak for others. Yet if it depends solely on my voice, the prince shall have whatever he requires.”

  Senefru rose and placed his hands upon my shoulders, as if he meant to embrace me. This he did not do, however, but turned away, as if in embarrassment.

  “I ask no more,” he said. “Yet remember that in these matters appearances are all. It would be as well if your friends in Naukratis received no exaggerated accounts of conditions here. And say nothing of Pharaoh, for their tenure in Egypt depends upon his patronage. Prince Nekau would have money to buy grain, that his people might not perish from want. So much is the truth—and as much of the truth as the Greeks need hear.

  “Nor must word of this reach Pharaoh. At present, no one except you, myself and the prince have knowledge of your commission—let it remain so as long as possible. Let it be thought that you journey to Naukratis on private business, and once there speak only to men you trust—and to no one before you arrive. I have come to you privately, and so must you go to them. Make haste, that all this may be settled quickly, and use cunning. I think you may have a talent for that, My Lord.”

  He did not even wait for my answer but turned away, planning, it seemed, to return to his own house. Then he paused, and stood not quite facing me.

  “I do not reproach you because of the Lady Nodjmanefer,” he said, raising a hand to forestall any reply. “I do not reproach you.”

  He departed in silence, the gate swinging closed behind him.

  . . . . .

  “I think you have gone mad, My Lord. The summer sun has baked your brain as soft as fresh camel droppings.”

  “Nevertheless, Kephalos, I wish you to hire a barge with a team of strong rowers. I wish to leave for Naukratis before dawn.”

  I did not keep my appointment to dine that night. Instead, I went to my former slave and told him all that had passed between myself and the Lord Senefru. He was not pleased.

  “My Lord, you have lived in safety here in Memphis these three years. Here no one would dare raise his hand against you. When we leave this place, let us go with a proper retinue. I would not have you slinking off like a thief, exposing yourself to every danger—or have you forgotten you have enemies?”

  “My friend, I will be well enough. I go only to Naukratis.”

  “Have you forgot
ten what happened to Prodikos in Naukratis? Be so good as to furnish me with a towel.”

  Kephalos, naked and gigantic, was standing in water up to his knees in the center of the great green stone tub in which he was fond of bathing. I had chased his women from the room, so there was no one else to attend him.

  Hanging on a hook near the door was a piece of heavy linen which would have served some fisherman quite well for a sail. This I took down and held out to him. He snatched it angrily out of my hand and wrapped himself in it, its edge trailing in the water as he stepped out onto the floor.

  “You have no consideration,” he stated flatly, sitting on a stool to dry his feet. “I had not even had my back oiled yet—do you have any conception how irksome the sun of this country is to me? How my skin cracks like old leather unless it is kept properly oiled? No, I thought you had not. I suppose it is a mark of your princely rank that you are mindful of no one’s convenience except your own.”

  “Kephalos, my friend, what is the danger? If I leave at once, while darkness still covers the face of the earth, who will regard it? No one knows of it except Prince Nekau, my Lord Senefru, and now you.”

  “My Lord Senefru?” He looked at me sidewise, raising his eyes from his foot, which rested on his left knee, to my face. His mouth was a crooked, disdainful line. “Your mistress’s husband, and you trust him? Where have you lived your life, My Master, that you have grown into such a fool?”

  “Kephalos, will you arrange the barge?”

  “Yes, of course. But take Enkidu with you.”

  “And Selana—I do not want her here if real trouble should come. I will say I take her to Naukratis to find her a husband.”

  “An excellent idea. And along the way, be sure to take pity upon the crocodiles and drop her into the Nile.”

  Selana herself was less enthusiastic.

  “I have told you, Lord, I will not be married off to a ship’s clerk. If you force some man upon me, I will only run away. If I cannot escape, I will school myself to make his life a misery.”