The Blood Star

by Nicholas Guild

  But I did not hear for a long time. There was no news yet when we landed at Byblos, and we only stayed long enough to let off our Sidonian passengers and buy water and provisions to continue our journey. Then we left, turning our faces west towards Greece.

  “Kephalos, my friend, what shall we do?” I asked, not very concerned for an answer, since the very emptiness of our future filled me with a curious elation. “I suppose, finally, we can sell the boat, but what then? Are there any wars about? Perhaps I can hire myself out as a soldier.”

  “My Lord, we are poor, but we are not destitute. So much was I able to salvage from those thieves, the merchant princes of Sidon.”

  He opened his medicine box and took out a leather bag, casually dropping it on the deck. It made a quite substantial sound, as well it should have, for it was full of silver coins. When I laughed at this, Kephalos only scowled and shook his head, as if I had committed some breach of decency.

  “I know you mean no harm,” he said, “and that you are merely of a light and careless disposition, having not yet reached an age of sobriety, but give some thought, Master, to the fact that we can no longer afford to live as great men. This is only enough to purchase a start in some profitable venture. We shall have to look about us.”

  Yet I laughed still—I could not help myself—until, no doubt, my wise friend despaired of me. I felt free. If all the wealth we had in the world could be contained within the sides of a leather bag, then perhaps I had at last fallen beneath the notice of the mighty. Who, after all, among the great kings of the east had ever even heard of the lands beyond the Northern Sea? Thus would not Esarhaddon at last forget me? Thus was I not now at liberty to live as other men? I felt as if I had been given a new beginning.

  We sailed north and then west, avoiding Cyprus, whose kings had allied themselves with my brother, always staying within sight of land but putting in at port only when the weather turned bad or our supplies began to run low. There was nothing to hurry us, and we did not pass through the straits of Rhodes until the twentieth day.

  Once we passed an island, and I noticed that Kephalos could not take his eyes from it, as if the sight fed some hunger in his soul.

  “What is this place?” I asked him.

  “Naxos, Lord—where I was born, where perhaps my mother and father live even now.”

  “Then shall we stop here for a visit?”

  He shook his head, and there were tears in his eyes.

  “No, Lord,” he said at last. “As a boy I was eager enough to leave these shores, and it is now too late to return to them. Some things are best left as they are.”

  He watched the island slip past us, even until the darkness closed over it. That night he kept silent vigil with his wine jar, and we spoke no more of the matter. Those who have never known the pain of exile cannot understand.

  For the next several days we traveled west and north, without particular purpose, through the islands of the sea the Greeks call Aegean. We visited Delos, said to be the birthplace of Apollo and sacred to him, and there I consulted the oracle, who took my silver and told me the god was silent. We also stopped at Cythera, which claims to be the birthplace of Aphrodite, as do Cyprus and half the islands between Caria and the Peloponnesos. The Greeks, I was discovering, are not overly scrupulous concerning their gods.

  At last we came to Attica, to the mainland, and we followed its southern shore to Athens.

  We stayed there for six months. I have difficulty in describing Athens, for by comparison with the other great cities I have seen it is hardly more than a tawdry little waterfront settlement, and yet it made a considerable impression on me. For one thing, it was a Greek city, and that separated it at once from the rest of the world.

  I was struck immediately by the fact that there were no grand palaces or temples, for the Greeks seem to think that buildings are only for sleeping in—they live in their marketplaces, for they are the most sociable of races.

  A Greek is always talking, either debating the significance of some piece of news or complaining to anyone who will listen about prices or the general unworthiness of human nature. It is for this reason, I think, that the Greek tongue is so powerful and supple an instrument, for it is in constant use.

  There are also no kings, the Athenians having expelled them at least a hundred years before. The government and most of the wealth are controlled by an aristocracy, but this is a very fluid body into which a man may rise if he has gathered enough silver to himself. In the councils of war, a common soldier may argue strategy with a general, and if he carries opinion with him can succeed to the command. An Athenian, like every other Greek, regards himself as being at least as good as any man alive, so they do not tolerate much insolence from their leaders.

  Yet, although the kings are gone, one can still see the remains of their citadel. Like many Greek cities, Athens is built around a huge outcropping of rock, the site of an arcopolis surrounded with fortresslike walls. The Athenians use theirs as a temple district and for ritual enactments of the stories of their gods during the Festival of Dionysos, which is a rather frenzied affair. They worship their gods as they do everything else, in public, and they seem to have no priestly caste. Piety is a duty of the citizen and therefore incumbent on all.

  The roads leading into the city are lined with linden trees, and I could not but be reminded of the one that grew in the garden in the house of women while I was a boy there. In Nineveh it was rarity, but here they were as common as weeds. My mother came from Athens, and the Greek spoken there always sounded to me as if it could have come from her lips. Thus Athens seemed filled with ghosts, and I found myself much oppressed in spirit.

  A thing that struck me about the Athenians—and I am sure it is characteristic enough of the Greeks as a race—is the tolerance they exhibit towards lovers of the same sex. For men to take beardless boys to their sleeping mats seems a common and accepted practice among them. It is even regarded as beneficial, as part of their education, for youths thus to be brought into commerce with those older and more experienced than themselves. In the land of my birth such a thing, had it became known, would have carried with it scorn and even punishment.

  I had known for some time that Kephalos shared this taste, but I did not immediately connect it to the change that came over him shortly after we arrived in Athens. I had begun to notice in him a certain bemused preoccupation—he would often lose the thread of conversations and sometimes stared distractedly into space for long moments, as if he had forgotten where he was. He drank more wine with dinner and often had to be carried to bed. And he had taken to dressing with more than usual care, even to scenting his beard, before going out for a stroll in the afternoon. I was becoming very worried about him until one day, quite by chance, I discovered what was ailing him.

  Peiraeus is the harbor area of the city and also a place where much business is done. I was returning from an inspection of our ship when I happened to pass close enough to the slave market to catch a glimpse there of Kephalos, in seemingly casual conversation with a boy who wore the bronze collar that meant he was for sale—it was clear from their demeanor toward one another that this was not their first meeting. I kept out of sight, observing their curious transaction, and watched as a few coins changed hands and the two of them disappeared into a shed.

  This explained much. My friend, it seemed, had fallen in love.

  It gave me an idea, for I remembered what Selana had once said: “Someday, if you have pity on him, you will go to the slave market and buy him a dark-eyed boy with a face as pretty as a woman’s.” It seemed a small enough recompense for all that I owed him.

  I waited until they came out again and Kephalos, with a fond smile and a final caress, took his leave. Then I approached the slave dealer.

  “This one, Your Honor, is just eleven years old and was the body slave of Cleisthenes, the renowned charioteer, until that gentleman was dragged to death by his horses while preparing for the games at Nemea. I bought him when
the estate was settled, last month, and have been awaiting a buyer who would appreciate him. Cleisthenes, as you may have heard, had a reputation for being most discriminating in such matters, so I am sure the youth will give satisfaction.”

  “The youth” had round red cheeks and large dark-brown eyes with the longest lashes I had ever seen on anyone, man or woman—I doubted he would ever grow to proper manhood, for he seemed quite hardened in his effeminacy. Already he had acquired the insinuating smile of a practiced harlot, and I suspected he would probably turn out to be a thief and a troublemaker, but it was not I who had to be pleased. I guessed he would do very well.

  “You will observe that his hind parts are remarkably well formed,” the slave dealer told me, pulling up the back of the boy’s tunic so I might see.

  “Yes—most impressive. How much do you want for him?”

  “Two hundred drachma, Your Honor.”

  He cringed slightly, as if afraid lest I might strike him in my outrage. It was not an unreasonable expectation, since the man was obviously attempting to rob me by profiting from the ignorance of a foreigner.

  Two hundred drachma was an absurd figure. The slave dealer in Naukratis had asked only one hundred and fifty for Selana and in the end had settled for thirty silver shekels. Besides, this boy had gone unsold for a month.

  “I will give you fifty drachma, and no more.”

  The speed with which my offer was accepted indicated clearly that even at fifty I had overpaid.

  “My name is Ganymedes—after the cupbearer of Immortal Zeus,” the boy announced in a lisping voice as he followed me back to our lodgings. He smiled, showing his teeth, and allowed his eyelashes to flutter seductively. One did not have to be a soothsayer to observe how extraordinarily vain he was of his beauty. “I know how to make myself approved.”

  The information was not particularly welcome. Perhaps unfairly, I had already conceived a strong dislike for him.

  “It is not I who must approve you,” I answered curtly. “You will serve at my table this evening and there meet your new master, if he will have you. If not, then I will apprentice you to a sailmaker or some other craftsman that you may learn to support yourself through a useful trade.”

  This had the desired effect of ending his flirtatiousness, for it seemed I had guessed correctly that useful trades would be very little to young Ganymedes’ taste.

  “Then you are not to be. . ?” he began again, after a short silence.

  “No, for my inclinations do not tend toward little boys with remarkably well-formed backsides. You will be the servant of a wise and learned man who has traveled widely and served as physician and counselor to princes.”

  “He is not by any chance a fat gentleman who perfumes his beard, is he?”

  “Yes. You shall be my gift to him.”

  “Oh, well then!” he exclaimed. “If it is to be Master Kephalos, I shall not disgrace you.”

  “It would be best for you if you did not.”

  That evening I presented my gift. Kephalos almost wept for pleasure and retired for the night with what could have been taken for unseemly haste.

  The next morning Selana brought me my breakfast.

  “I gather you have made the old pederast a happy man,” she said, drizzling honey over a piece of bread for herself—lately she had fallen into this habit of eating half my morning meal for me. “Do not expect him out of his bed before noon, for he and that horrible boy were at one another most of the night.”

  “You were listening?” I asked, less shocked than perhaps I should have been.

  “Who could help but listen? The walls are thin, and Master Kephalos is noisy in his ecstasy.”

  You are impudent, and you have honey on your chin.”

  “Why don’t you lick it off for me?”

  She smiled—a wicked, lecherous enough smile for one who had never felt a man’s weight on her belly—but when I answered only with silence her eyes filled with tears.

  “Perhaps you too prefer little boys with cheeks like apples,” she shouted, rising angrily and throwing down her unfinished piece of bread. “Unless you have been sneaking off to the brothels, you have not had a woman since we left Egypt. I am grown up now, so what else am I to think if you treat me with such indifference!”

  “I am not in the habit of sneaking, Selana—to brothels or anywhere else.”

  “Then when is it to be my turn, Lord?”

  She did not wait for an answer but ran from my presence in a storm of humiliated wrath.

  . . . . .

  Selana was right, of course. This banter between us, which in earlier days had been merely amusing, had gone past a jest. She was a woman grown, and I would soon have to make some decision about her. I must either take her as my concubine or find her a suitable husband and part from her. I could not account, even to myself, for my reluctance to choose.

  Perhaps this made some part of my weariness with Athens, for I was becoming more and more convinced that I would not find the end of my quest along her sand-covered streets. Athens was my mother’s city, but she was a city of merchants and craftsmen and within her walls there seemed to be no place for me. It was time to leave.

  One day I met a man who spoke of an island in the Western Sea, a place called Sicily, where there was rich, well-watered land to be found, with fewer stones in the ground than one encountered in Greece. He said there were colonies of Greeks all over it.

  “It seems a likely place,” I said to Kephalos. “And I cannot stay in Athens.”

  He raised his eyebrows at this, for he would have been more than willing to stay in Athens, which was very much to his taste, yet he knew me well enough to understand.

  “You are a soldier, Lord. What will you do in Sicily?”

  “Farm—aside from war, it is the only work I know.”

  “Well, I do not know how Ganymedes will fancy the change, since he has had little experience of the rustic life. Yet his jealous nature may find solace in such an isolated place.”

  Selana too expressed her willingness.

  “I will follow wherever you lead, Master, but if you think to marry me off to some farmer with dung where his brains should be, you will find you have made an error.”

  When I told Enkidu, I could not even be sure he was listening.

  We refitted our ship and set sail in the spring, for no man who is not weary of life sails upon the sea in winter.

  It took us four days to make our way around the Peloponnesos to Mount Aegaleos, and on the first of these Ganymedes grew violently ill and spent most of the time with his head over the rails, to the general benefit of the fish. Kephalos gave him a draught, which steadied his belly and took away the greenish pallor from his face, but he continued to complain.

  From Mount Aegaleos, so we were led to believe, we had only to sail “straight into the dying sun.” After the first day we were out of sight of land, a thing every sailor fears, and on the third a storm, lasting all afternoon, tossed the ship about like a piece of driftwood, so that for a time we despaired of our lives. After that we had smooth weather. It was not until the morning of the fifth day that we saw a plume of smoke on the western horizon, the sign we had been told to look for.

  “It is a mountain which burns in its belly,” Kephalos explained. “Sometimes, when the giant who lives beneath it is angered enough, it belches forth fire and even molten rock. I did not imagine I would ever live to see such a thing.”

  He looked very much as if he would have been just as happy not to, but the sight of it greatly delighted Selana.

  “It will be like living next to a god,” she said.

  That afternoon we dropped anchor near a small settlement named, perhaps providentially, after Kephalos’ birthplace.

  “Naxos!” he declared, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “So you have caught me again at last. Now I know we have reached the place where I will lay down my bones.”

  “Then you can have no objection to selling the ship—she shou
ld fetch a good price, for the Phoenicians are skillful builders, and it will give us more to invest in land and seed.”

  Poor Kephalos, he looked as if the cage door had closed on him forever.

  We were spared the trouble of deciding where to stay, for there was but one tavern in Naxos, a village not any larger than its namesake. I slept soundly that night, glad to be on the solid earth, believing that a new life was opening for me and that I had left the past behind me forever.

  The next morning I was up and breakfasted well before sunrise, for I wished to undertake a walking tour of the surrounding countryside and see if this place of exile, chosen almost at random, would answer my hopes for it.

  What struck me at once was its great beauty. The bay was shaped like a crab’s claw, and immediately behind its white sand beach rose the gently sloping, tree-dappled hills, leveled off here and there to form plateaus and hiding in their midst valleys full of tall grass and wildflowers. And behind them all, vast and solitary, a trail of thin black smoke rising from her summit, was Mount Aetna. Selana had been right—it would be like living next to a god.

  And the soil was good. The volcano, I had been told, scattered its fertile ash like a benediction all over this side of the island. I could pick up a handful of the dark, fragrant loam and it would cling to my fingers, almost alive. Anything would grow in this, I thought. A man might have grain, vines, fruit trees, anything.

  I had only to look about me and my heart swelled with happiness. The god had brought me to a paradise. That night I made inquiry of the tavern keeper about purchasing land.

  “Most of the better sites nearby are occupied,” he said, pulling his beard and regarding me mournfully through watery blue eyes. Like most of the Greeks who had settled here, he was from Euboea. “There is plenty of good, well-watered land not two days’ journey from here, though you will have to pay something to Ducerius, king of the Sicels, if you want to be left in peace. He is an old thief who has never reconciled himself to our presence here yet is afraid to make open war against us. We find it wisest to offer him token submission and pay the taxes he levels, for neither are we strong enough to drive him out. Look south and you will find what you want. And, while you are about it, consult the sibyl. She will be on your way.”