CHAPTER III
Ani woke around noon. He lay still for a minute or two, telling himself that it would be foolish to get up, that if he didn’t get enough sleep he’d feel the want later—but he knew that it was no use. The immense, joyful excitement inside him made it completely impossible to go back to sleep.
He sat up and looked out from under the awning. There, only twenty yards away, was the sea. The Red Sea! He, Ani, son of Petesuchos, was camped on the shore of the Red Sea—with his own caravan! He offered up an ardent prayer of thanks to Isis, his favorite divinity, who had allowed him to make a boyhood dream come true.
He crawled out into the blaze of sunlight and ran through a quick check. The pile of trade goods was undisturbed—as it should be, roped as it was so that the camp awnings would shake if anyone tampered with it. Good enough for now, but he’d have to do something about getting the goods warehoused; rent a tent to put up as well, or everybody in the city would think he was a nobody. The camels were all there, placidly chewing their cuds, and no thieving bugger had touched the donkey. Apart from his own small party, there was nobody in sight. Ani grinned to himself. Menches, who’d been here often, swore that this was the main camping place for caravans, that in July and in February it was like a fairground, and that he’d never seen it so empty. That was undoubtedly because of the war, and it was good, good, good! There’d be nobody else to bid for the cargo of that fine, richly laden ship, and the captain would have to take what he was offered. Not that Ani was offering a bad price—but it was less than the usual, and Greeks were always reluctant to give bargains to Egyptians. In the circumstances, though, the captain might even be willing to accept an Egyptian as an investor and partner—Fortune grant he was!
Ani went over the fountain, gloating over the fact that they were right next to it, in the prime location that would normally have gone to a great caravan, while small poor ones like his own were pushed out to the fringes of the ground. He had a drink, splashed some water over his head, and looked around. The red-and-white houses of Berenike were only yards away, and if he followed the sweep of shoreline, he could make out ships on the beach. One of those was undoubtedly the Prosperity, which he had come to meet. Prosperity. The very name was a good omen!
The sea shone enticingly in the sun. It was so big! He’d heard that you couldn’t see the edge of it, but it had been impossible to imagine such a thing, and nobody had mentioned the colors—the peacock-greens and -blues, the deep-indigo of sunset and fires of dawn. He had always thought it must be red—with mud, like the Nile when it was in flood—but it was the least muddy of any water he’d seen.
He glanced around again. He’d wanted to rush into the sea when they first arrived—to touch it, to prove to himself that he’d really arrived; to taste it, to see if it was as salty as everyone said; to swim in it, and wash the smell of twelve days’ travel from his parched skin. But he hadn’t dared to jump in, not in front of Menches and Imouthes. He was the caravan-owner who employed them. Sober and professional caravan-owners did not celebrate their arrivals in Berenike by rushing into the sea with all their clothes on; still less did they tear their clothes off. Menches had told him, too, that the Red Sea was full of poisonous creatures that stung like scorpions and that he himself would never venture into it. Ani could not imagine staying out of it, and he had decided that it would probably be safe enough if he was careful to touch nothing, but he didn’t want to offend Menches, who knew the caravan route and the city. Menches and Imouthes were asleep now, though. They were asleep, weren’t they? They hadn’t gone off into the city without telling him? He crunched around the pile of trade goods to check, and yes, father and son snored side by side under the largest awning. He looked at them with approval: decent, reliable men who were neighbors of his back in Coptos, who wouldn’t cheat him.
He went over to the third awning to check on the boy Arion before his swim—and found that Arion wasn’t there.
He gaped at the empty bedroll. He’d thought better of the boy; he’d thought the talk this morning had knocked some sense into that proud and stubborn head. Obviously not: Arion felt no obligation to a mere Egyptian, and Arion had run off without paying—and taken the cloak with him.
Then Ani noticed a glint of green and gold from the center of the coarse linen. He bent over, and found that the boy had left the pin.
Well, the gods destroy him! He’d told the young fool he wouldn’t take the god-hated thing, but here it was. He picked it up and turned it in his fingers. The stone on it was the size of his thumbnail. Worth more than twenty drachmae, the youth had said, with the ignorant assurance of a young man who’s rarely paid for anything himself. Ani hadn’t liked to admit that, until the other had set that value on the “stone,” he’d thought the pin was adorned with nothing more valuable than glass. It blazed now in the bright sunlight with a rich green fire no glass ever possessed. Sixty drachmae, he’d told the boy, but that had been just a guess: he had no idea how much an emerald this size would cost. It might well be more than that.
He wondered again just how rich and important your family had to be before a queen would trust you to escort fifty talents of gold to her son on his way into exile. Nobody from an obscure or questionable background would be picked for a job like that; probably no Egyptians would be chosen, either. Probably you had to be somebody the army officers of the royal court in Alexandria knew, and that meant purebred Greek, and wealthy. Arion’s arrogance proclaimed as much, as did his beautifully cultured voice. Ani himself was a peasant by birth, but he could recognize aristocracy when he met it. It still seemed a tragic waste, to have so much and to throw it all away to follow a nonentity of a king into poverty and exile. Loyalty was all very well, but probably the young king wouldn’t even want the burden of another mouth to feed, particularly one belonging to a man who was too ill to be any use to him.
He told himself that he’d refused the jewel and Arion had still given it to him: he ought to give up and keep it. He was not satisfied. The image of Arion’s face that morning rose before his eyes: sunburn peeling off the strong beak of a nose, the skin around the eyes ash-white, the whole pinched and drawn in an extremity of pain and exhaustion—but still determined. What did that passionate, brave, and completely impractical young man think he was going to do without money? He was going to need medicine and care; he was going to need food and clothing. Perhaps he expected his friends on this mysterious ship to provide for him, but he’d admitted that those same friends would sail off without waiting for him if they suspected they were in danger. Perhaps he relied on the young king Caesarion—which was even more foolish, for no king by the name of Ptolemy was going to spend money on a wounded follower who’d lost him fifty talents of gold.
Ani blew out his cheeks in disgust. There was nothing for it: he couldn’t leave an inexperienced youth penniless and injured in a harsh world. He would have to go after him and give him his pin back. If Arion responded with twenty drachmae, good; if he didn’t, well, an act of charity to a stranger in need ought to please the gods, and bring good luck—which, the gods knew, he was going to need over the next few days.
He pictured himself telling his wife and daughter about his act of charity, pictured his wife’s anxious pride and his sixteen-year-old-daughter’s wide-eyed admiration. Tiathres always worried that people were taking advantage of her husband’s generosity, but Melanthe was sure that her father was just as wise as he was kind. He smiled: it was worth twenty drachmae to be able to play hero to his household. He crunched back round to Menches and Imouthes, squatted down, and tugged the older man’s foot. Menches woke up with a grunt and picked himself up on an elbow.
“Arion’s gone off,” Ani informed him.
“Ill-fortune to him!” Menches replied at once. “I told you he would cheat you.”
“He left this,” Ani said, waggling the pin between thumb and forefinger. “I’m going to go after him and get him to give me my money instead. I should be back in a couple of hours
. Stay with the goods.”
Menches grunted and lay down again. “He’ll deny that he ever met you,” he warned gloomily. “No Greek will admit a debt to an Egyptian.”
“We’ll see,” said Ani, and started off toward the city.
When he had gone thirty paces, he glanced back, saw that Menches wasn’t watching, and diverted down to the sea. There was time for just a short swim first.
The water of the lagoon was warm as blood, salt as tears, and astonishingly clear. There were fish unlike any he had ever seen: bright yellow, iridescent blue, or striped like butterflies in black and white. Weeds waved vivid green in muddy patches on the bottom, and where the bottom was stony there grew trees of what appeared to be pale stone, and clumps of red-and-green flowers with long petals that swayed in the languid currents. O gods, he thought, in passionate delight, Melanthe would love it!
He trod water, trying to memorize everything, so that he could describe it to his daughter when he got home. A fish brushed one of the flowers, and—incredible sight!—the “flower” seized it in its long petals, and drew it, struggling, into a mouth which had appeared in its center. Isis and Serapis, Melanthe would love it! He wished she could see it: he could picture her dark, eager face with its eyes wide and shining with excitement.
His other children would like it, too, of course, and Tiathres, his wife, would exclaim in amazement—but Melanthe was the one who would feel as he did. The little ones were too young to appreciate it, and Tiathres was too … practical. Good thing to be, of course, but sometimes, sometimes … the world was so astonishing: one had simply to draw one’s breath and cry out at the wonder of it. Isis and Serapis, a flower that ate fish: who could have imagined such a thing?
He swam reluctantly back to shore, careful to touch nothing until he was over clean white sand. He waded out, pulled on his dirty clothes, and set out again for Berenike. His anger and exasperation with Arion had faded. He had seen a flower eat a fish: sweet Lady Isis, what a world!
He did not take the road into the marketplace, but walked instead along the beach until it ended in a ramp and a paved road along the harborfront. Arion was undoubtedly headed for his ship. Given that it had been despatched by the queen, that ship would probably not be a merchant vessel. It should be easy to find.
He identified it almost at once—the long shape of the galley stood out among the trading craft like a hound among sheep—and strode briskly along the Harbor Street toward it. He paused, however, when he saw the small crowd outside the inn—then stopped as he realized that what they’d clustered around was a body. Moved by a cold premonition, he crossed the street, joined the crowd, and saw that the body was indeed Arion’s. The young man was lying on his injured side, one leg folded under him at an awkward angle. His head was thrown back, and his chin was shiny with spittle. The cloak Ani had lent him was tangled around his neck and left arm. He did not appear to be breathing, and his face under the sunburn was still, stricken, and pitifully young.
“Holy Mother Isis!” Ani whispered in horror.
“He fell over in a fit and died about an hour ago,” a tall man in the crowd told him. “We need to remove the body, but we don’t know where to take it. Do you know who he is?”
“Yes.” Ani swallowed, unable to look away from the still face. “His name’s Arion. He’s an Alexandrian. He came into the city with me this morning.”
At that everyone stared. One of the men, a slight, cold-eyed Greek in a blue tunic, said, “Are you another friend of Didymos?”
“I don’t know any Didymos here in Berenike,” Ani replied. “I’m from Coptos.” He squatted down beside the boy and gingerly began trying to untangle the trapped arm. The flesh was warm—hot as the afternoon, in fact—but completely inert. A remote part of his mind registered that, by touching a corpse, he was involving himself in the rituals of death. He would, he realized resignedly, end up paying for the funeral. It would be costly, it was not by rights his burden—but he had been responsible for this lost child and simply could not leave his body to rot and his ghost to wander. At least it would be a Greek funeral, quick and hot, and not a mummification.
“I mean Didymos who was staying at my inn,” said the man in the blue tunic. “He was arrested day before yesterday. He owes me money.”
“Who?” Ani asked, not paying attention. “What?”
“Didymos,” said the man in the blue tunic, more loudly. “I said, he owes me money. This one came into my inn asking for Didymos, and you say he was with you. The Romans arrested Didymos. They’re on that ship there, the Nemesis. Shall I go tell them that you’re asking for Didymos, or do you want to pay the debt one of your friends owes me and go bury the other one quietly?”
Ani looked up into the cold eyes. Slowly, he got to his feet. There were three men besides the one in the blue tunic, and at least two of them looked to be Greeks. All four were citizens of Berenike while he was a stranger. It didn’t matter: he was too angry to be afraid of them. “I already told you: I don’t know this man Didymos,” he said evenly. “I’m a caravan-owner from Coptos. I met this young man on the road, and brought him with me because he was injured and needed help. But if I were an innkeeper, and I had just threatened a young man who came into my inn hurt and alone, looking for friends and help—threatened to turn him over to his enemies if he didn’t pay me money he didn’t have—and if I had then seen him die of grief and fear on my own doorstep—I would not be threatening the man who came to take away the body. I would be praying to Zeus the Guest to forgive me a great sin, and I would be afraid that my next guest would offend the laws of hospitality as greatly as I had done.”
The innkeeper flushed angrily. The tall Greek who’d spoken first—a well-dressed man of middle age—asked, “Is that what you did, Kerdon?”
“He said he was a friend of Didymos!” complained Kerdon. “Yes, I asked him to pay his friend’s debt, but when he said he didn’t have any money, I told him to get out. I didn’t go to the Romans!”
“If you had got money from him,” said the tall man, “it would have been accursed.” He looked out at the galley bleakly. “Our enemies have taken our country by the spear, and brought that ship here to trap the queen’s servants. You were going to betray a Greek youth to them?”
“I didn’t go to them!” protested Kerdon, sweating now. “Archedamos, times are hard, you know that. I need that money, and I asked for it. But I didn’t go to the Romans!”
“You threatened that you would,” said the tall man, his voice quiet but heavy with condemnation. “And the young man, who was ill, is now dead. I will remember this, Kerdon.” He turned to Ani. “Friend, my name is Archedamos, son of Archelaos; I am supervisor of the port of Berenike, and I was summoned here to deal with the body of this unfortunate young man. Are you truly willing to undertake the expense of the funeral? I must tell you that if you are not, I am at a loss. The city cannot pay for anything at the moment. The Romans on that ship have informed us that we are now their subjects, and the council has no idea whether we have any revenue or any authority to spend it.”
Ani swallowed. Port supervisor. This man’s goodwill could ease any business he had here; his enmity would doom it. With a mixture of resignation and resentment, he realized that he would never know now whether he was paying for the funeral out of kindness or because he wanted to win this man’s help. “I’ll cover the costs,” he agreed, “—though I’d be pleased if the citizens would help out. I’m an Egyptian, as you’ve probably realized: I don’t know much about Greek funerals.”
“May the gods reward you for your piety,” said Archedamos warmly. “Tell me where you want the body, and I will help you move it.”
It turned out that one of the other men was a municipal slave assigned to the port supervisor’s office, and that he’d brought a cart with which to move the body. Ani helped him to lift Arion’s limp form onto it, then paused to unwind the tangled cloak. Poor boy, he thought sadly. So young—he should have had a whole life ahead of hi
mself. Rich, too, and well born and well educated, or I’m no judge at all. Here he lies, thrown away—and I could have used him, even if he had no use for himself. Isis and Serapis, shelter and Heaven to all mankind, receive him kindly.
In the vaguest of hopes, expecting nothing, he checked for a pulse under the lax jaw. It beat under his thumb, slow, regular, and strong.
Ani gaped, then found himself grinning maniacally. “He’s alive!” he exclaimed to the others. “Great is the goddess! He’s still alive!”
“What!” cried Archedamos, and came to check for himself.
“Ha!” exclaimed Kerdon, both relieved and indignant. “You accused me, but the fellow simply had an epileptic seizure. He has the sacred disease!”
“He does not!” Ani replied at once—then suddenly suspected that he did. He remembered the young man’s response when the old whore at Hydreuma had told him he’d had a fit: no alarm, no surprise, just a sullen and resentful “I’m better now.” That was not a normal reaction to such disturbing news. He found himself startled and oddly touched by the notion that the arrogant young Greek might suffer such a despised illness, but he continued as though the suspicion had not occurred to him. “He’s wounded and feverish. He’s lost blood and gone short of water in the heat. He’s traveled two nights with a hole in his side, and you threatened him and took away his last hope. A man doesn’t have to have the sacred disease to fall down in a faint after all that. We need to get him out of the sun.”
“I’m not having him in my inn!” exclaimed Kerdon at once. “I don’t serve the diseased.” He stalked off into the building and slammed the door.
Archedamos looked at Ani. “I’ll help you bring him to your caravan,” he offered.
A house would be a better place for him, Ani thought—but he did not say it. The last thing he wanted was to offend the port supervisor.
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