Black Ships

by Jo Graham

  Lide splashed in after me. She too looked odd. Lide gave me a sideways grin. “I can see how it would be cooler. You know, the maid says that some Egyptian women bathe twice a day? And they pluck their hair out so it will never grow back. Men too. They start plucking their beards as soon as they begin to grow.”

  “So that’s why all those smooth faces,” I said. A thought struck me. “How did you and the maid understand each other?”

  Lide snorted. “And me in the market every day? Trading those endless fava beans the princess sent us for a little variety? How long should it take to learn enough to chat? I picked up the tongue in Byblos while we were there too.”

  I smiled. “Amynter never picks up a word.”

  “Amynter never talks to a native.” Lide swam a couple of strokes in the pool, and I was reminded suddenly of the flax river. Lide had held me up in the water when I was a child just learning to swim. I had forgotten that. Suddenly I missed my mother.

  Lide must have seen it in my face, or perhaps she too was reminded of the river that had been our home. “Ah, child,” she said. “Your mother would be proud of you now, were she here to see you. I set your leg, you know, when the chariot hit you, but you would have died without her nursing. She was a stubborn woman. That’s where you get it.”

  Her arms floated out from her sides in the clear water, her eyes far beyond me. “She was on the ship with me from Wilusa, when we both fell to King Nestor’s lot. She was a pretty girl, and she’d had a lot of attention. They’d hurt her pretty badly. Some of us died. But not her. She had a spirit in her that wouldn’t break. By the time we got to Pylos it was clear she was with child. One of the other girls who was that way threw herself overboard in the night and drowned. After that I made sure to sit close by your mother at night.”

  She looked at me, raised one eyebrow. “She guessed what I was about. She looked at me with a gimlet eye, just like you do, and said, ‘Lide, I’m not going to kill myself. I’m going to raise a son who will cut their balls off!’”

  I laughed, and then stopped. “But I wasn’t a son,” I said.

  “No, you weren’t,” Lide said. “And you’ve done more than she could ever have imagined you’d do. You’ve gotten us all safe to our kinsmen, and led us to a safe port. Your mother would be very proud of you.”

  I burst into tears, standing waist deep in an Egyptian bathing pool.

  Lide came and put her arms around me. “There now, child. Never a word of complaint from you, strange and god-touched as you are. You’re a solitary creature, but even so you need some people of your own.”

  I didn’t say anything, just cried on her shoulder.

  “Come now,” she said. “Come and let the girls make you pretty. That’s something you’ve never done, I imagine.”

  “No,” I said, still sniffing a little. “It doesn’t matter if Death is pretty.”

  “Tonight you aren’t Death,” she said.

  I DRESSED in the twilight. Hry had told the maids that I should dress like their own senior priestesses, and the girls had taken that seriously. There was a gown of sheer white linen, so thin that I could see the outlines of my hairless limbs quite clearly beneath it. The skirt was crimped and stiffened into dozens of folds the width of my finger, and it fastened beneath my breasts with a girdle of gilded leather. Above, my breasts were rouged and each nipple painted dark and lovely. Over my shoulders went a short cape of thin linen, dipping to my waist in front and back, pleated in elaborate folds. Over that went a collar of gold and glass, set with hundreds of tiny pieces of red and blue. On my bare arms went bracelets of gold, and a pair of gold hoops hung from my ears.

  The maids were uncertain what to do with my hair, but at last they braided it in twelve sections, securing the ends of each one with gold wire. Then they painted my face.

  I had never had anyone do it for me. It is not proper to wear Pythia’s paint until you are Pythia, and I had not taken an acolyte. Kianna, I thought, would have this office someday, but it would be long years before her little hands would be steady enough to paint my eyes.

  They painted my eyelids lapis blue and outlined them in kohl. My cheeks were stained with rouge, and my lips tinted like my nipples. When at last they held a burnished mirror up for me to see I hardly recognized myself. Looking out of the mirror was a dark-eyed Egyptian girl, small and light, with curving breasts and eyes that flashed fire, and a long, secret smile.

  “You are beautiful,” one of the maids said. “This is what we call beauty in the Black Land.” Her hand traced my cheek lightly. “You have good bones. You will be beautiful in death.”

  “I am Death,” I said absently, turning the mirror. For a moment I almost saw another face there, crowned with the uraeus, the sacred serpent of Egypt.

  “Ah,” she said, “but in the Black Land, Death is beautiful. When you stand before Osiris’ throne you must be careful, for the beauty of Isis is blinding, like the beauty of the moon when you have been long underground.”

  And I felt Her, like a whisper at my side. This is My face too, She said.

  “This is my face too,” I said, touching my lips with wonder.

  Outside the room I heard Hry. “Come on, Daughter of Wilusa! Bring the women and come! The litters are waiting in the courtyard, and the hour is here!”

  We came out into the torchlit courtyard. Neas was waiting beside the first litter, where he would sit with Hry. He too had been shaved, and he wore a knee-length skirt of fine linen, pleated like mine and stiffened. On his arm shone the princess’ bracelet. Beside him was Xandros.

  His black hair was held back with a clasp of gold, and his linen skirt fastened with a belt of gilded leather. His limbs were shaved, and his smooth brown chest gleamed with scented oil, myrrh, and rose and something else besides. When he saw me his mouth dropped open. He dragged at Neas’ arm.

  Neas turned, and his mouth dropped open too. But he was a prince, and faster on the recovery than Xandros. “Sybil?”

  “Prince Aeneas,” I said with great dignity, coming and standing beside him. If I moved slowly my limp was hard to see.

  “You look different,” Xandros said.

  Neas smiled. “You look beautiful.” His eyes said that he meant it. I was not used to men looking at me that way, and somehow to have Neas look at me like that was oddly disconcerting.

  “Come, come!” Hry said. “We cannot be late. Everyone, please get in the litters!”

  He gestured Neas to the first one. I dropped back and got in the second with Xandros. I did not want to ride with the look of scorn I had seen on Anchises’ face, or the dismay on Amynter’s. I almost smiled as I saw Lide get in the litter beside Anchises. Let him try to lecture her!

  The litters were lifted by the temple bearers. Boys went ahead carrying torches. Xandros was silent. At last he ventured a sideways look. “You look nice,” he said. He kept his eyes carefully above my neck, but I saw when I turned my head how they glanced down to my breasts and stomach, half bared in the fine linen.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I think you look nice too.” And that was all we said until we reached the palace.

  ON ORDINARY DAYS the Egyptians dine on stools about a table, or perhaps just sitting on the floor. For banquets, however, cushions were spread about long, low tables, and guests sat or reclined as they wished. On a dais at the end of the hall were three tables facing outward, where Pharaoh and his highest officials would eat. The center one was for the king himself, and no one shared it with him. The one to his left was for the Princess Basetamon.

  She wore pure white tonight, but the great collar of lapis and gems she wore was so large that it reached almost to her waist. Her hair was dressed high and laden with jewels. Rings glittered on her fingers attached to pieces of gold mesh that fastened about her wrists, so her hands were covered in gold. Beside her, her brother watched out of dark Egyptian eyes, the double crown upon his head.

  We were escorted to cushions at the far end of the hall, with ships’ captain
s and lesser priests. We had barely begun to recline before the musicians struck up a song on harp and flute, and servants came around with the first of the meal.

  I was served stuffed duckling with tender hearts of palm, seared fish upon a bed of melokhia greens, olives from Achaia, and mussels from the deeps of the sea. There was wine as well, sweet and dark red, from Byblos and the lands that border it, cakes made with almond flour and iced with sesame paste.

  We were eating and talking, looking about, when a servant came to Neas. “Prince Aeneas,” he said respectfully, “the Princess Basetamon requires you to attend her.”

  Neas looked up. “Oh. Well. Then.” He got up and followed the servant. I watched him bow almost to the floor as he greeted her, then prostrated himself to Pharaoh.

  “He shouldn’t do that,” Anchises said sharply.

  “Be quiet,” I said.

  “It’s important,” Amynter said. “If Pharaoh thinks well of us, then perhaps we can stay in his service. We fought well enough.”

  I was surprised to find an ally in Amynter, and I looked at him. He shrugged. “I want to stay here. Good food, good king, good weather. And plenty of everything a man might need.” He picked up a duck wing and took a thoughtful bite. “I’ve had enough. My sons need somewhere to grow up where they won’t be slaves. If Neas can fix it with the Egyptian king, I’m in favor of that.”

  I watched.

  Pharaoh said something to him and he replied. Whatever it was seemed to please the princess. She patted the cushions beside her and then drew him down to sit, their shoulders almost touching. She laughed at something he said, and picked up a piece of almond cake and gave it to him.

  Neas took it with a faint courtly nod, his eyes never leaving her face.

  Amynter looked where I did and shrugged. “Whatever it takes.”

  Anchises was livid. “That painted whore!”

  “Are you trying to get us killed?” I hissed at him. “They are our hosts, and we owe them the very clothes on our backs.”

  “My son is not—”

  “I’ll take him out,” Lide said, rising. Maris rose too, and with an apologetic nod to his young wife, helped Lide take a still-sputtering Anchises from the hall. No one noticed. There were too many servants coming and going, and a dancing troupe began with youths tumbling down a polished strip in the middle of the table.

  Neas was laughing at something Basetamon had said, leaning near her, his arm almost touching her breasts.

  “He doesn’t seem to have a problem with her breasts,” I said under my breath.

  Xandros followed my gaze and grimaced. “He’s drowning in her eyes. You should have seen them in Tamiat. When they thought that we foreigners did not understand there were jokes and bets about how long it would take the princess to try out her new barbarian hunting cat.” He shrugged. “In Egypt women are as free as men to take lovers. And he’s something new, something different.”

  I looked down the table. Hunting cat indeed. Neas looked like a young lion. “Something splendid,” I said. It was true that I had never seen a man as beautiful as Neas. Dressed like a prince, how should any woman not turn toward him?

  Xandros nodded. There was something mocking in his tone, though he himself was the butt of the joke. “What do we have against that? Against the glories of Egypt?”

  “We are his friends,” I said.

  “I am his friend, while life and breath last. And I will not risk that for anything.” Xandros lifted the cup to his lips. His dark eyes were serious. “And it is enough.”

  “I am his friend too,” I said. “And his Sybil. That is all the gods have meant for me to be.” I knew this. I should not desire more. He was my prince, and I his oracle.

  Xandros looked at me sideways, as though he wanted to say more.

  I lifted one of the heavy cups and held it out to him. Neas might be entranced by Basetamon, and I could hardly complain if he were, but Xandros was not. No matter where we voyaged or what befell us, Xandros remained himself, curious and clever and true.

  With half a smile, Xandros held the cup to my lips, and I drank wine from his hand, as though we pledged. His eyes were dark and warm on mine, like to like. “Friends,” he said.

  “Always that,” I said, and knew I would mean it down the long fall of years.

  WE WERE a much smaller party coming back than we had been going to the palace. Anchises, Maris, and Lide had already left. Aeneas stayed. It was just Amynter, Idele, Xandros, and me returning. Amynter was drunk, and he staggered off the moment the litter set down at the barracks of the Division of the Ram. Idele hurried off to find out what had happened to Maris. I walked down beside the dock.

  The starched pleats had fallen out of my gown, and the earrings were heavy on my ears. My hands smelled like roasted meat, and it had been so very hot, the air thick with incense, perfume cones, lamp oil, food, and the scents of two hundred guests. Beside the river it was cool.

  I heard a step behind me and knew it was Xandros. He came and stood beside me and we watched the lights going out at the palace. After a moment, he sat down on the quay and took off his gilded sandals. I took mine off as well and sat beside him, dabbling my feet in the water. In the white moonlight my twisted ankle was grotesque, a parody of smooth flesh, blue veined in the light. Drops of water flashed on my skin.

  Our shoulders did not quite touch.

  One by one the lights winked out over the water. One of them was in the princess’ bedchamber, where she drew Neas down to her on sheets of scented linen. Or perhaps she kept one lamp lit, to see his golden skin above her.

  I wondered if Xandros was thinking the same thing. Probably. “I will return all we borrowed to Hry tomorrow,” I said.

  “That’s good,” Xandros said. We sat in silence for what seemed like a long time. Xandros splashed his foot back and forth in the water. “Are you learning a lot? From Hry, I mean,” he asked.

  “Yes. So much,” I said. “So many things I didn’t know I didn’t know, if that makes sense.”

  “It does,” he said. “You like it.”

  “Yes,” I said. How should I not? My hunger was not for banquets and rich foods, but for all the knowledge the Temple of Thoth had accumulated, all the knowledge in the world.

  Xandros sighed. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “Not without becoming like the rest, the Nubians and the Libyans in Pharaoh’s service.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They have no gods, no people of their own. They aren’t slaves, but they belong to Egypt. And Egypt will never let them go.” Xandros splashed his foot in the river. “I saw them in Tamiat. Barbarians. Foreigners. Stepchildren of the gods. People not fortunate enough to be born in Khemet.” His tone was sharp, and he glanced sideways at me. “People talk in front of me. I look like a dumb sailor, I suppose.”

  I smiled. “They don’t realize how fast with languages you are.” It was true that at first Xandros did not seem as clever as he was, because he was quiet and not quick to speak in company.

  “They’re happy enough to let us serve them. They’ll even break bread with us. But we’re not the same as them. We’re children of lesser nations, lesser gods. No one is really worthy except people born in Khemet. The worst of them despise our barbarian ways. The best of them feel so terribly sorry for us.”

  “Perhaps they have reason to,” I said. “Look at the land they have built. What do we have that can compare?”

  “Our honor,” Xandros said. “Our manhood. It’s not what the gods give you at birth that matters, but how you bear it.”

  “Sometimes what you’re given at birth matters a good deal,” I said, thinking of the children of slaves, born of rapes.

  “It’s the dreadful pity that gets to me,” Xandros said. “Pity us, not born in Khemet! But with a little work we might learn to be civilized!”

  “It’s not like that,” I said, thinking of Hry and the temple, the maidens who had taken such pains to make me beautiful, Hry who had listened to
my stories like a colleague, a fellow servant of the gods.

  “Isn’t it?” he asked. “Do you see them coming here, eating our food? Celebrating our festivals?”

  “Hry did,” I said. “He was the guest-friend of Priam.”

  “Maybe he did,” Xandros said. “But there are exceptions to everything. Most of them don’t care what happens outside Egypt. They don’t know where our lands are and they don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Anything that really matters happens here.”

  “Xandros,” I said, “who but Egypt could have stopped Neoptolemos and the great fleet? Who else has that power?”

  “Nobody. But it’s not going to make anything better for us, or for people in the islands. Neas is right about that.”

  “It would have made things much worse if Egypt had fallen,” I said. “Xandros, do you envy them their peace and prosperity so much?”

  “No, I resent their smugness,” he said. “I resent that they don’t have to worry as we do. That they can’t be bothered to work to keep their children safe, just rely on men who do nothing else but soldier and foreign mercenaries to do what they won’t dirty their hands doing! Do you think I like killing? Do you think I like doing this work?”

  His eyes were blazing and I searched his face. “All I ever wanted,” he said, “was to be a sailor. The rest of it...it’s better than death. And it’s what Neas needs from me. So I do it. But I’m not like him. I don’t want to kill. And I hate it every time.”

  “You do it so well,” I said, thinking of the young guard in the street in Byblos. That was not bloodlust, the heat of battle that takes one and leads one on, but horrible cold compassion.

  His mouth tightened. “Yes.”

  I searched for words. “Xandros, this is not forever. We will be done with this. There will be fields to plow and trees to plant, and yes, seas to fish. We will come to the end of this, and there will be peace.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I do,” I said. “I have foreseen it for Neas.”

  Xandros searched my face. “Then we must leave.”