Cleopatra's Promise

by Talbot Mundy

  “That puts another complexion on it.”

  “But not on my demands on you!” Tros answered. “You tried to trap me—”

  “For your own good, to take you to Boidion!”

  “That failing, you tried to have me murdered.”

  “Why not? I mistrusted you. How should I know you wouldn’t turn my name in to the queen’s police?”

  “You know now! You have told my man Conops the story of Boidion, and Conops has told me. Has our friend Alexis heard it? Tell him.”

  “Yes,” said Alexis, “he told me when you just now left us alone to digest that vulture’s food that you adorned with the magical title of supper.”

  “What did you think of it?” Tros asked.

  “Garbage! Army contract garbage! During the past year I have had all my meals at the royal table. Could anybody but a sailor ask me what I think of that stuff?”

  “Belly! I spoke of Boidion?”

  “Oh, her? Well, Boidion has the advantage, from our viewpoint, that she has never been Queen of Egypt, whereas Arsinoe has been. Arsinoe, it is true, didn’t last long. Caesar, to use his own phrase, readjusted her condition to comply with custom and the law of Egypt. Damned old humbug! What was he doing in Egypt? However, Arsinoe had time to learn more than a little. And when they know too much, they’re difficult.

  “Witness our present queen. It’s a mistake to try to win races with beaten horses—probably an even worse mistake to bet on a defeated queen to win a revolution. That is why, hitherto, I have set my face against Arsinoe and have continued to be what is known as loyal. But Boidion, who is said to resemble Arsinoe so closely that they look like each other’s reflection in a mirror, might be—I say might be—a shrewd man’s venture. Anyway, what choice have you or Aristobolus, with your names on the queen’s list?

  “You already know my mind,” Tros answered, and they nodded. They believed they understood him. “I propose that we three shall take oath, tonight, together, never again to speak of Boidion, but of Queen Arsinoe.”

  He filled the wine-cups, groping for them by the light of the dying embers.

  “Queen Arsinoe of Egypt!” said Aristobolus, drinking. “I swear to that. By Zeus, and by the Holy Sacrament, I swear to live or die by Queen Arsinoe of Egypt!”

  “Queen Arsinoe!” said Alexis, wry-faced because the wine was the stuff that Esias sold to deep-sea captains. “I am superstitious. I don’t like to take oaths about dying. Death is a damned unpleasant event that will occur too soon, no matter when.”

  It was Tros’ turn. “By my own good name, and for my soul’s sake, and for the sake of Egypt, I will do my best for Queen Arsinoe.”

  “You talk like a shaveling priest, you stormy war-horse!” said Alexis. “Soul? How much for it? If I could lay hands on my own, I would sell it for one night of joyous living.”

  “Aye,” added Aristobolus, “and you would sell it for the sake of your hair and hide! The queen’s torturers will attend to us three if we fail. It seems to me, we can trust one another. What now?”

  “Do you know where to find her?” Tros asked.

  Aristobolus perceived his value.

  “Do I? Is it likely I would go to all that trouble to persuade you, if I couldn’t go straight to her hiding place?”

  “Then you shall go!” said Tros. “And you shall take Alexis with you. You shall say I come with all possible haste with a hundred men.”

  “You astonish me even more than him!” remarked Alexis. “Do you always go in for astonishing people? I think we should stick together. Suppose I refuse?”

  “It would be pleasanter,” said Tros, “than being torn to pieces in the queen’s dungeon. But to die for disobedience has always seemed to me a miserable death.”

  Alexis sounded as if he swallowed something. He made no other comment.

  “We are to go on ahead of you?” Aristobolus asked. “How then will you find us? We are likely to be difficult to follow. There are no streets in the desert. And,” he added slowly, “we should not feel—shall I call it fortunate?— if you should turn aside, or retreat, and leave us trying to explain to desperate venturers why we have brought them false news. What guarantee do you offer? What pledge?”

  “Conops!”

  TROS’ quarterdeck voice startled the owls, awoke wild-fowl in the reeds and brought even a hermit peering at him over the edge of a broken cornice. Alexis threw a lump of broken masonry at the hermit and helped himself to the sour wine with a shrug of resignation. He rubbed his face with the stuff, to allay the irritation of fly-and mosquito-bites. Conops appeared; at a sign from Tros he squatted, his one eye as bright as a cat’s in the glow from the embers.

  “Choose the eight best rowers from the whole flotilla, Conops. You may also have two of the Jews —your own choice. Take these noblemen up-river, at the fastest speed you can make. You are to eat and sleep by watches. Speed is the main thing. Set both noblemen ashore, with a day’s provisions, wherever the Lord Aristobolus says is his destination. Wait there for me. Hide if you can, but keep a good lookout.”

  “Aye, aye, master.”

  “When?” asked Aristobolus.

  “Now! When you have reached your objective, you will send back somebody to guide me after I have picked up Conops.”

  Aristobolus objected:

  “Tros, there isn’t any need for all this strategy. If we should have the luck to get up-river without being intercepted by the queen’s patrol, there will be more than a guide waiting for us, I can faithfully assure you. Someone in Alexandria must have talked, and far too many of us have been caught in the queen’s net; but do you suppose we have been such clowns as not to arrange a good line of communication? Once we’re beyond the Delta, there isn’t a living human being who isn’t on our side. They wait for nothing but enough armed men to strike a quick blow at Memphis. Victory will lead to victory. The queen’s troops will all come over to our side if we win one battle.”

  “Very likely,” said Tros. “But you will do as I tell you. Go and choose your rowers, Conops.”

  “Tros,” said Alexis calmly, “you’re a vile commander of an expedition. You begin by offending all the prejudices of the men on whom you must depend.”

  “Do I depend on you—or you on me? Or do we all depend on obedience?” Tros retorted. “Criticize me later, when you know what I know, and when you see what I do.”

  “Criticize me now, Tros. I would like to hear you.”

  “No. The queen has done that. She instructed me to trust you. That is why I send you forward.”

  "I will go. I can’t refuse you,” said Alexis, but he sounded less unwilling than his words implied.

  Tros nodded. He went outside and had private word with Conops. He gave secret orders and then, presently, advice:

  “Mark my word, little man: the one to keep your eye on is Alexis. He pretends to be the queen’s man, but he is not. Aristobolus is a mere bungler, who can see no farther than his nose. Take a look in Alexis’ baggage while he sleeps.”

  “Aye, aye, master.”

  “It would do no harm if he should think me, as Aristobolus thinks I am, disgusted with the queen. Are the Northmen’s axes in my boat?”

  “Aye, aye. I have set them there in place of the Lord Alexis’ dunnage.” Fifteen minutes later, Conops started upstream—an oar-pulsed shadow on the star-lit bosom of the river.

  One hour later, the flotilla followed. In the stern of the leading boat Tros slept, at ease, unworried. He had laid his bet on the board. The outcome was for Destiny to unfold. And if Destiny should call upon him for some Odyssean wit and Herculean energy, he had it, and would use it to the limit.

  But he dreamed. It was not normal for Tros to dream of women. He dreamed of a girl in armor.

  CHAPTER VIII

  “BRACELET MAKER!”

  PURPLE Egyptian night. The rising full moon barely beginning to silver the eastern sky. Absolute darkness in among the reeds, and almost utter silence; the wind’s whisper out-soughed m
en’s breathing. The wide river a mirror of stars. An occasional clank of steel as some one’s weapon touched his neighbor’s armor— an occasional thump of boat against boat. A hum of insects. A mud smell from the caked bank.

  A hippopotamus blew, in mid-river; and somewhere over on the far bank half a mile away a lion roared, melancholy—lonely. The flotilla lay moored to the reeds, invisible, straining to catch Conops’ words.

  “Aye, master. I put ’em ashore about five miles south o’ here, at a temple. It looks mighty like a town. There’s a fleet o’ boats there— some of ’em good big ones. Five-and-thirty armed men— looked like Syrians to me, in scraps of old Roman uniform and what not— rushed to the pier the minute I hailed— and the priests not taking notice. Any number o’ priests. I’d say I saw, all told, about two hundred soldiers bivouacked alongside a high white wall that comes pretty near down to the river. Four men whipped the Lord Alexis’ luggage out of the boat. I’d looked; there wasn’t much more in it, master, than enough fine clothes to keep him looking ship-shape for a year, I’d say, maybe longer; and perhaps some money, in a big leather bag inside his bed-linen. He doesn’t believe you’re a rebel, but Aristobolus does. It’s my belief Alexis means to set an ambush for us. I and the crew were bidden welcome, but I backed away to save argument and came on down-stream, same as you said. That was yesterday morning, and the lad’s about all in; there’s a Gaul so blistered he’ll be no use for two or three days.”

  “We’ve enough blistered men to stand by the boats. Go ahead. What did you find out?”

  “I scouted all yesterday afternoon, and all today. Yonder, master—you can’t see ’em from here—four or five miles from here to there, across corn land, but the corn’s all been harvested— are the pyramids, and the Sphynx. Tombs, too— thousands of ’em, I’d say. There’s a school o’ mummies, all laid out like fish to dry; they’re stripping ’em, I guess for jewelry.

  “There are three sets of buildings set in a triangle, wide apart. There’s a mud-and-straw barrack, near a well in a hollow, with maybe three or four hundred laborers; but they’re nothing—needn’t reckon with ’em—they eat whip like donkeys. Near by them is a better built barrack, full o’ soldiers, queen’s men I reckon, as shabby as Rhakotis beggars, but well armed. They’re a mixed lot, with Greek officers—I’d say about two hundred men, with their officers horsed on little bits o' nags that eat date-straw. I saw ’em do it.”

  “Where are our Northmen?”

  “Master, I’m laying it out the way I conned it. Let me pay the rope out end-first, or I’ll get it snarled. I left the lads here. I went yonder and climbed a pyramid. There’s three big ones, and several smaller. The biggest’s as big as a mountain. You can’t climb that one, it’s all smooth white stone—steep as our shrouds, pretty near, and no foothold. But some of the casing of the next biggest is broken, so that one’s easy, but it’s hotter up there than a spitted kidney. It was too hot for flies. But there were scorpions.

  I was stung twice—found a Gypsy woman later, and she gave me breast-milk to put on the bites, so I wouldn’t bite myself to death the way I’ve heard happens. I had a good view from up near the top. Between the two biggest pyramids, corner to corner, there are two long mud-brick walls, and they’re patrolled at night by soldiers. Inside that space there’s a four-walled enclosure of mud-brick.

  “Inside that is the smallest o’ the three sets of buildings—a barrack o’ some sort, and it’s there I think they berth our Northmen, and I think they chain ’em nights, but I’m not dead sure o’ that either. It was after sunset when I counted, seemed to me, eight-and-thirty fellows, pretty well tuckered, being herded out of a hole in the ground— maybe a tomb—toward that place I just told you. By the time I was down off the pyramid—it’s a long run around from the rear, and me as thirsty as a salt fish—they were all inside the wall, and I couldn’t get by the soldiers. But I thought I heard chains. The wall’s about two o’ my height, and the gate’s a boat’s deck—takes a dozen men to shift it.”

  “What then?”

  “Came back here for food and sleep. After supper, rowed across the river. Camp o’ black tents in a hollow near the far bank, and a lot o’ camels. It’s all desert to eastward, but there’s reeds, and there were two boats in the reeds. Just on general principles I tried to steal the boats, but they’d a watch set, and one of our lads got a cut on the arm—the left arm—nothing serious. So I came back, and before sunrise I was off again, scouting. I tried listening at the soldier’s barracks, but I didn’t dare get caught or you’d ha’ lacked information. And besides, I thought I’d time enough —didn’t expect you until tomorrow night, master. You must ha’ come like holy Hermes.”

  “So what?”

  “Up-river, as I told you, there’s a temple and about a couple o’ hundred armed men—maybe more, with Aristobolus and Alexis and I don’t know who else. From the temple there’s a road that leads to Memphis. You can see the roofs of Memphis. It’s a big city. There’s another road between the pyramids and Memphis, but no traffic. All day long not a sign of a living man on both roads. But over yonder, by the pyramids, they’re digging out mummies by the dozen. If our Northmen are there, I couldn’t swear to it. I didn’t see ’em. They were down in a hole in the ground before I got there, and it was dark before they let ’em out. So I came back.”

  “And?”

  “Master, I’m not lying. I’m a dolphin’s uncle if I didn’t jump slap in the lap o’ that Princess Arsinoe—her that we left behind in Cyprus. She was sitting down here, talking free and easy to the boat’s crew, and them telling her who they are, and where they come from, and where you are. I jumped from the top of the bank, being scared o’ snakes, and fell right over her. I rolled off quick. I’d seen her dagger a man in the fight off Salamis. She knew me in a minute—called me by name.”

  “Was she alone?”

  “No. Two boat-loads o’ men; I counted ten in one boat; the other boat was down-stream a way, in the reeds, and I couldn’t see how many. The men I did see were some o’ the pirates we took prisoner and you gave to her in Salamis. The boats were the same we’d tried to make away with from the far bank.”

  “Men armed?”

  “To the teeth.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Two hours—maybe two hours and a half.”

  The moon rose, bathing the land in silver streaked with shadows. The river began to look like molten metal.

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. Barring telling me I stink worse than if I’d been buried a week, she said never a word. Seems I’d hurt her instep. She was spitting mad for a couple o’ minutes. Then she laughed. Then she up and went, walking, with a man behind her carrying that suit of armor we lent her and never got back.”

  “Which way?”

  “The way I’d come—toward the pyramids, across the belt of corn land. Her men followed—maybe twenty all told.”

  “And?”

  “I scuttled both her boats. They’d set no boat watch.”

  “No sign of the Lord Alexis?”

  “No. Nor of Aristobolus.”

  Tros cursed the moon. Then, presently, he blessed it. He climbed the bank and made his way to high ground. The whole landscape was bathed in pale white light, streaked with dark shadows of ridges that lay like watercourses, roughly south and north, but there was one wide shadow that curved northwestward until it reached the Great Pyramid and seemed to pour into a pool of ink beyond.

  One pyramid looked black, another gray, but the great one gleamed like marble. He could see the lights of Memphis-very few, scattered apart. There was a dark line that was likely a mud-brick wall, and he could count six watch-fires; probably there were others, down in the dunes, but all Egypt had to be thrifty of fuel. It looked like a long way to Memphis, and the land looked as dead as the bones of death itself, and deathly quiet.

  SUDDENLY he saw what made him bless the moon. There were men on the march —southward—away from the
pyramids—not along the road to Memphis, but toward what appeared to be low ground, with what might be the roof of a building barely visible, about midway between Memphis and the Nile. Even with a seaman’s eyes it was very difficult to judge direction or distance, and it was impossible to count the marching men because of the shadows they cast, but they might be a couple of hundred, a few more or a few less, with officers on little bits of horses. They appeared to have no baggage-train.

  Was Arsinoe with them? If so, what of Boidion? Was the Boidion story a mare’s nest? Or had Conops mistaken Boidion for Arsinoe? Tarquinius the Etruscan might easily have given Arsinoe’s armor to Boidion, and might easily have informed her well enough to call Conops by name. According to Conops the girl had said very little— perhaps from fear of self-betrayal. She had gone away in the direction of the pyramids. It might be—it looked like it—she probably was leading, or being led, to unite with the forces from the temple up-river for a march on Memphis. Four or five hundred men might easily take Memphis; there would only be police, and perhaps a few officers and a rabble of impressed, hurriedly armed citizens to be overwhelmed.

  Were the Northmen with her? Very likely. They would certainly prefer the prospect of plundering Memphis to the dreary, unpaid task of mining through the sand for the loot, for some one else, from ancient tombs. Surely they would rather fight any one, anywhere, than toil under the whips of Egyptian overseers.

  Tros made his decision.

  “Conops! Take your boat up-river, and set fire to their shipping. Scuttle and burn.”

  “Aye, aye, master. What then?”

  “Return down-stream and follow me. I’m going to march toward the pyramids and make a demonstration in the rear of those soldiers. I intend to burn their barracks. Get going. I’ll attend to the landing party.”

  “Aye, aye, master.”

  Conops vanished up-stream, with a boat-load of dry reeds and a very carefully tended earthen fire-pot. Tros ordered his men ashore, selected the badly blistered ones to stand by the boats, distributed the Northmen’s battle-axes and armor, and was on the march almost before the thump of Conops’ oars had died away around the bend of the river.