by Jo Graham
The vizier took a middle path, neither believing nor disbelieving us. He sent fast scout ships hurrying north to Ashkelon, there to wait and see if there was indeed a pirate fleet. Other ships he held in readiness in Tamiat, while some others he sent south with us to the great city of Memphis. They would escort us up the Nile to the capital of Lower Egypt, where we might carry our news to Pharaoh’s most trusted deputy, the Princess Basetamon, his sister. There she would hear what we would say, and there, not incidentally, we would be far from the coast and unable to break free if it turned out that we were treacherous.
So it was that we began to sail up one of the greatest mouths of the Nile in company of ten Egyptian warships. At first, the river was narrow and shallow, flowing between overhanging trees and vines, choked with reeds along the edges so that it was impossible to tell where the water ended and land begun. Lotus blossoms scented air already thick with swamp smells. Now and again a startled duck would erupt into flight, and herons fished in the shallows.
So too did the crocodiles. One passed by Dolphin’s side, fully as long as a man, eyeing Tia and her child at the rail with one reptilian eye. I was reminded, suddenly, of Mikel’s story. I could easily see why evil would take the shape of a crocodile to these people, and I wondered if this was where he had been born, long ago in the dawn of the world.
On the second day the river broadened and the growth along the banks thinned. We saw farms now, men working in fields of barley, getting the harvest in, women bent over picking beans from bright green vines. There were no olive trees. There were no almonds either, or any kind of tree that I was used to, except figs that grew close beside houses, planted for their fruit. Fishing boats scurried out of our way on the river, too numerous to count. Barges waited to carry the harvest.
At a time when Kos had the tiller, Xandros came forward to stand with me at the prow. “Do you see what I do?” he asked, nodding toward a village beside us on the bank. A boy mother-naked was tending geese, staring out at our fleet, his stick in his hand. Behind, smoke rose from the village bakery, spiraling up into the still sky.
“See what?” I asked.
“None of them are walled,” he said. “Not so much as a mud brick. It’s not just the meanest villages that are unfortified. Look at the towns. They have no walls between their houses and fields, and the fields come right down to the river.”
“That must be what Neoptolemos heard,” I said. “No wonder he thinks it ripe pickings.”
“Who has heard of such a thing!” Xandros said. “Towns without walls? Children who stare at strangers with no fear that one of us will put an arrow to the bow?”
“People who have known peace,” I said. “Long years of peace. Long enough that war is something you go to, not something that comes to you.” I leaned forward, looking out over the river. “There is strength in this land like I have never seen, its vastness and its quiet. Their gods are strong. And their people have not been afraid in many lives of men.”
Xandros shook his head. “Then may their gods help them if Neoptolemos comes! I doubt there is a good sword among these villagers, not one among twenty men.”
I felt Her hand at my back like a whisper of wind. This is what peace looks like. You cannot find it if you have never seen it, child of war, child of the People.
And so I watched them. I rose with the sun and watched them begin their day. I saw the priests of small temples raising their arms to the sun, the laborers going about their work, the women coming down to the water to fill their jars. Some paused to watch our craft go by, black painted among the light, lanteen-sailed river boats, not brightly painted like the Egyptian war galleys. But none ran in fear to hide their families and their goods. They were curious, not afraid.
This is peace.
ANOTHER DAY and the mouths of the Nile rejoined, and I saw why it is called the mightiest river in the world. From one bank the other retreated into distance, almost as though we were at sea. Broad and smooth and flawless between its banks, it flowed unceasing, without any of the hitches or rocks that had been in every other river I had seen. Sometimes there were shallows, where crocodiles lay on sandbanks a hand span beneath the water, only the bumps and ridges of the tops of their heads showing.
The river traffic increased—reed boats like circular baskets big enough for one man only, poling along the banks, barges under fifty oars, galleys moving swiftly upstream, their slanted sails tilted to catch the following wind. It was the custom for southbound traffic to hug the right-hand side and northbound traffic the left. It seemed strange to me at first, until I realized that if we were all intermingled there would surely be accidents and larger craft overrunning lesser ones. As it was, the smaller boats stuck close to the bank, while the largest and fastest took the center of the river.
And so we came to Memphis.
If I had thought Pylos great as a girl, I had been disabused of that notion when I saw Millawanda. If I had thought Millawanda busy, I had not yet seen Byblos. And if I had thought Byblos fair, it was only because I had never looked on Memphis. I tell you that there is no more beautiful city, nor will be to the world’s ending, though Egyptians swear that her beauties are nothing besides those of Thebes, with the vast Great House of the God and the Great House of Pharaoh vying for pride of place. I have not seen Thebes. Yet I find it hard to imagine how any city could be as lovely as Memphis.
Her streets were broad and paved with white stone, tall date palms waving in every breeze. Beyond her broad houses and bright temples the fields were green with harvest, every crop ripe and ready. As though divided by a knife, the greenery ended in desert, so that one might stand with one foot on irrigated fields and the other on sand. Yellow hills rose gently, and beyond some little way what appeared to be the shadow of three perfectly even mountains, all beneath a sky of such piercing blue that I knew what the artists were thinking of when they colored blue faience. It was a pale copy of the sky.
We were lodged very courteously in longhouses of mud brick that belonged to the soldiers of the Division of the Ram. Unlike all peoples I had met, the Egyptians had men who did nothing but soldier, season after season, year after year, as though it were a trade they had taken up. Villagers and craftsmen knew no more of the sword than fishermen knew of the plow. Rather than have the great lords, the Nomes, bring men of their household to war, they all paid taxes to the maintenance of the soldiers of the crown, who were organized in groups with various names.
Just then the Division of the Ram was away from Memphis, ordered to some place or another to help with the harvest. It happened that way most harvest times, I heard. They should be ordered where there was surplus, so that food did not go to waste, and they returned with provision that was then set out for public use, either to feed the army or some other town or village where the crops had failed.
The barracks were one story and built of sturdy mud brick, cool in the hot days and warm at night, with well-dug privies and a broad courtyard that looked upon the river and a dock. Our ships were moored there. We came ashore at last and we divided ourselves out among the buildings. It did not look like home, but it was clean and cool, and it seemed the best we could do.
Lide washed out Neas’ finest clothes as soon as we landed. “He’ll need them soon,” she said, spreading them to dry in the sun. “He’s to have an audience with that princess.” She sniffed, which showed clearly what she thought of a woman about men’s business.
I took off my black tunic and washed it out, and the veil as well. If there was to be an audience, I must be ready as well. If Pharaoh’s representative was his sister and thus a woman, perhaps the Egyptians would not object to my presence or find it strange, as indeed men did in Millawanda and Byblos. As I spread them to dry I looked at them with some embarrassment. The dye had faded from true black to a rusty brown, and they were rent and torn with hard wear. I should look like a beggar, but there was no better among us. But at least I still had my paints.
Before the afternoon was
out, Neas was calling for his clothes and for me. The Princess Basetamon had sent two litters and required Neas to wait upon her immediately. I went, and Xandros and Jamarados, the two captains who were the most capable in dealing with foreigners.
I sat beside Neas in a litter of cypress wood, looking out through curtains of linen drawn so fine that they were almost sheer, carried by four tall dark-skinned men so alike in appearance they might have been brothers. Their heads were all shaved alike and their bodies gleamed with scented oil.
I exchanged a glance with Neas. Either he was being received as a prince indeed, or these people were simply wealthy beyond our imaginings.
It was the latter. When we reached the palace we were made to wait in an antechamber for some while, as there were many people on business with the princess and this was some sort of court day, when she heard petitions. The chamber where we waited was five times the height of a man, and every inch of walls and massive pillars were alive with carvings and with the beautiful colored writing that they make in Egypt. Above, the ceiling itself was bordered with dark blue, and in the center the sun rode gilded with real gold. There was a fountain of clear water, and a maidservant who came and washed our hands and arms with a golden ewer lest we bring the dust of the street into the royal presence.
After some little time a man came to us. His head was bald and he was quite old, dressed in a long skirt of pleated linen, with a staff in hand and a leopard skin draped across his left shoulder and wizened chest. To our astonishment he greeted us in the tongue of Wilusa.
“Be welcome to the Great House of the Black Land, Prince of the Windy Towers,” he said, his voice only slightly accented. “I am Hry, a Priest of Thoth, who is master of all learning. In a few moments you will go before Princess Basetamon, She Who Speaks with Pharaoh’s Voice in Memphis, Beloved of Amon. I will speak your words to her in Khemet, which is the tongue that the Gods have given to the people of the Black Land.”
“You speak our tongue well,” Neas said. “I have not heard it so well spoken in any land.”
The priest’s dark eyes twinkled. “Many years ago I traveled the world, seeking knowledge as Thoth himself did. I traveled in many lands and came at last to Wilusa, the City of the Windy Towers, where I sat at the hearth of Priam and heard new tales. Are you his kin, Prince Aeneas?”
Neas’ hesitation was so brief that perhaps no one but I would have seen it. “I am his grandson,” Neas said, “and the last of his house. My mother was Lysisippa, his oldest daughter.”
Hry smiled. “I remember her indeed, Prince Aeneas. She was a beautiful young girl, a maiden intended for the service of some goddess. She had your eyes and your hair, yes, the same look to her face, though not your carriage and she was not tall.”
“My father was a tall man,” Neas said. “Anchises the son of Capys. He is here with us, and lives yet.”
Hry shook his head. “I do not believe I knew him.”
And how should he, I thought? Anchises is ten years Lysisippa’s junior. He should have been a crawling child on the floor when Lysisippa was a maiden.
“I shall also instruct you in how things are done in the court,” he said. “As you are in our land, we shall expect you to make due reverence.”
Neas nodded. “We should not wish to offend in any way. It is wise for travelers to heed the laws and customs of their hosts, and to honor the gods of that place in due fashion.”
“Ah, you are indeed Lysisippa’s son!” Hry said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in his ancient face. “I have never seen a child so hungry for stories of other places, so full of interest in the gods and customs of others! Were she a daughter of Egypt she should have been a dedicant at the Great Temple, but her gifts were recognized there and she was to be sent to service at a great shrine, so did the worth of her shine forth! That is one of the maxims of Thoth, if you did not know.” He thought for a moment, translating the words in his head. “A lamp shines out like the sun if you put it under a basket.”
“If I had a lamp,” Neas said, “I should not put it under a basket.”
Hry looked at him for a moment and then laughed. “I see that you should not, Prince Aeneas. For is this not one such that you have brought with you?” He looked at me and I truly saw him, old man of an old people, and the ibis shape that surrounded him, eyes as keen as the skies.
I lowered my head in reverence. “Holy one,” I said. “We wait upon your grace.”
He raised my chin with one crabbed hand, and I heard Neas shift his feet nervously. “You I would talk to further, Maiden of Nepthys.”
“Nepthys?” I asked.
“That is what we name the wife of the Lord of the Red Land here,” he said.
“The Red Land?” I asked.
Neas cleared his throat. “The audience?” he said. “The fleet that’s planning to burn Egypt? Perhaps the two of you can talk about the gods later?”
Hry laughed. “A true son of Horus, this one! Very well, we will leave off talking of our trade.”
He led us into the audience chamber in due turn.
It was a very great hall, with pillars carved in the shape of lotus blossoms to hold up the ceiling. Nobles stood among them, bright as flowers in a field, their dyed linens and starched white skirts gleaming, gold glinting at their throats, on their arms, at their ears, and even on the thongs of their sandals. At the end of the hall was a stone dais, and on a chair of carved ebony wood sat the princess. Her gown was green, caught up beneath her breasts, and a massive collar of gold and malachite covered her chest and her breasts. Her hair was black and held in many plaits, each one dressed with beads of gold and malachite. At one side stood a slave with a plume of great iridescent feathers, and on her other side stood another with a cheetah on a chain. It was the first time that I had seen one of those great cats. It waited patiently sitting on its hindquarters, and could have been carved and painted except for the faint twitch of its ears.
Then I saw no more, for we bowed low, Jamarados and Xandros behind us. Hry was talking, translating Neas’ words into Khemet. The princess spoke, and her voice was melodious. “You may rise,” Hry said.
Her eyes were on Neas’ face, and I saw that beneath the green paint over her brows they were brown, a faint wrinkle beginning between them. A woman of twenty-five or more, old enough for the responsibility her brother entrusted to her.
Hry was translating her questions, how many ships and of what kinds, sailors from which lands, how many oars to each. As Neas told her what we had seen in Byblos, she gestured to the side. A heavy middle-aged man wearing nothing but a white skirt and gold bracelets came forward and sat on the steps to her chair, bringing forth papyrus and a stylus that he dipped in some dark liquid. Straightaway he began scratching on it, and I realized that he was recording the numbers Neas gave, the descriptions of ships and their men.
The princess asked many questions. Neas answered them all. I could see that he was impressed with her thoroughness, with her knowledge of war. She did not look at me after that initial glance, nor toward Jamarados and Xandros. We were not important. We were a part of Neas’ trappings, as the patient cat was part of hers.
It seemed long that she questioned him, and the papyrus was traded for a second piece before she ended.
Hry turned to us. “The Beloved of Amon, She Who Speaks with Pharaoh’s Voice in Memphis, bids you to return to your folk. You are all guests here, and you have Pharaoh’s gratitude for your good service. She will speak with you further in a few days. In the meantime, the Royal Guard shall provide you with fresh rations, and you have the freedom of the city. However, your ships must stay moored, as I am sure you understand.”
“I do,” Neas said. “And tell Her Majesty that I appreciate her benevolence.” He inclined his head, and I saw her brown eyes follow him. Then we left the hall with Hry. And thus we came to Egypt. But whether we were guests or prisoners remained to be seen.
THE BLACK LAND
That night I slept on land, or rather t
ried to sleep. It had been so long since Byblos, since I slept without Dolphin’s rolling beneath me, that when I laid down on my pallet in the barracks near Tia and her child I could not sleep. It seemed that the floor moved oddly beneath me. When I opened my eyes it stopped, but as soon as I closed them again it moved. I realized what else was missing—Xandros’ quiet breath, sleeping or not sleeping as he brooded on the curse. I had not dared to leave him alone with the humor that had been on him.
Perhaps I was wakeful because he was alone now. I sat up.
But surely he would do nothing foolish. And he was sharing a room with half a dozen men. It wasn’t as though he could cut his wrists with no one noticing.
Ah, but surely Xandros would not try such a thing in a room with his men, some other part of me said. If he got up and went out they would merely think he went to the privies. No one would follow him.
I got up and went out into the cool Egyptian night. I crossed the courtyard, the white stones still warm from the day’s sun, walking toward the dock. The moon was high, making a path across the river. And I was not surprised to see Xandros there.
He turned when he heard my steps and waited. There was no knife in his hand or anywhere else I could see. He simply waited, as though we had arranged to meet.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “It feels strange to sleep on land.”
“For me too,” he said.
Downriver a little ways the docks of the palace were bright with torches, and several painted boats sat ready, their oarsmen visible in the light of the lamps on their prows. They waited, dicing and eating, for the great nobles to come out and be rowed home from some royal banquet or other. A little farther on, a swift scout ship was being prepared. It pushed off from the dock and started off downriver, back toward Tamiat, toward the sea.