Memnon

by Oden, Scott

  The Rhodian touched the thick linen wrappings that kept his injured shoulder immobile. He flexed that hand, making a fist several times; he moved his arm from the elbow down, hissing at the pain that knifed through his muscles. Memnon clenched his teeth as he swung his legs off the cot and levered himself first into a sitting position, then to his feet. His vision blurred; waves of nausea left him weak and sweating. He staggered the handful of steps to the pavilion’s center and sagged against the pole.

  “Zeus Savior,” he muttered, blinking, shaking his head to clear it. His tongue felt dry and coarse, like a hank of sand-scoured leather, and his shoulder throbbed in cadence with his heart. From his vantage, Memnon could see out the side flap and into the camp beyond. The pavilion lay in a grove of shady oaks, on a slight rise that afforded it better ventilation. Nearby, Boeotian soldiers drilled in full panoply, marching and wheeling in phalanx formation, as a troop of cavalry clattered by on their periphery. These caught Memnon’s attention as much for their Median trousers and scaled corselets as for the recollection that Pammenes’ force possessed no cavalry. They were Hyrkanians, he reckoned, descendants of the military settlers brought west to the Caicus Valley by the first Cyrus some two hundred years previous.

  Memnon’s eyes narrowed to slits. Whisper it to him, so the Persians won’t hear, the man who stabbed him had said. A name surfaced in his mind. Bardiya. A name spoken by Pammenes himself; a Persian name. Suddenly it made perfect sense. The Persians.

  “Pammenes,” he snarled, “you treacherous bastard!”

  Behind him, another flap in the pavilion rustled open. The surgeon, Heraclides, backed in, his hands full with a tray of bread, cheese, olives, and half a roasted fowl. His eyes fell on the empty cot. “What in the name of Hades?” Heraclides put the tray on his table and turned toward Memnon’s trembling form. “Dammit, boy! You shouldn’t be standing! You’ll open the stitches!”

  “I shouldn’t be alive, surgeon, yet here I am. Have you any wine?”

  Heraclides gestured to the cot. “Sit. I’ll fetch you a flagon. Is the pain bearable? I can mix you apharmakon, something to take with your wine.”

  “Just wine,” Memnon said. He heaved himself off the center pole and shuffled back to the cot, collapsing at its foot. Heraclides searched through the niches at his table until he found an empty clay cup. From the amphora, he dipped out a measure of wine.

  “You take it with water?”

  “Not today,” Memnon replied. Heraclides handed the cup to him. Memnon’s hands shook as he drained it. “Another.” Heraclides frowned, but dipped out another cup full. This one Memnon drank more slowly. “Where is Pammenes? I need to speak with him.”

  “The general will attend you when he can,” Heraclides said.

  “And when will that be?”

  “When he can! Great gods, Rhodian, but you’re an impatient one!”

  “Fetch him!” Memnon said through gritted teeth. “Now! Tell him I know what he’s done!”

  Heraclides scrubbed a hand across his jaw. Slowly, he nodded. “I’ll do it, so long as you lie still.” Memnon assented and the surgeon rushed out to find Pammenes.

  It did not take him long. A quarter of an hour later, Heraclides escorted the Theban general into the pavilion. Though less than five years Memnon’s senior, Pammenes could have passed for a man of two-score years. His curly black hair showed flecks of gray, as did his trimmed beard; wrinkles creased his blue eyes, furrowed his brow, mixing with the scars of a lifetime spent in the worship of Ares. Pammenes wore a black chiton edged in gold thread and sandals of stamped leather.

  The Theban smiled and gave a low whistle. “By all the gods, Heraclides. You were right. He looks strong enough to wrestle a bear. How are you feeling, Memnon? Thanks to you, my surgeon has become insufferable. He thinks he’s Asclepius reborn. What …”

  “I know what you’ve done, you son of a whore!” Memnon growled.

  Pammenes motioned to the surgeon. “Give us a moment.” Heraclides collected his tray and excused himself. The Theban’s smile vanished. “What is it you think I’ve done, Memnon?”

  “You’ve turned. Your guards had orders to kill any messenger coming from Artabazus; they were worried about calling you from a council with the Persians. When you left, you said you had to change clothes in order to attend a man called Bardiya, surely a Persian by his name. I’m no fool and you’re a poor liar, so do not try to dissemble with me. I know what you’re about. How much did they offer you to betray Artabazus?”

  Pammenes sighed. “I’m the fool, Memnon. I forgot how clever you are. Yes, my Boeotians and I have transferred our allegiance to Ochus, but not for gold.”

  “For what, then? Land? Station?”

  “Survival,” Pammenes replied. “Artabazus was kind to me, he took me in when I needed succor, but things have changed. Without the Athenians he’s no match for Ochus. Yes, I know of their recall. With a letter, the King of Kings demolished Artabazus’s army. A letter, Memnon! Now, he’s loosed his dogs on his western satraps with orders to return them to their proper place.”

  Memnon’s lips curled in distaste. “You’re faithless, Pammenes.”

  “Faith is a fine thing, Rhodian, but when an axe is aimed at my neck faith makes for a poor shield. These men are my family, my brothers, my children. I’m obligated to do what’s best for them. To continue our part in the resistance against Ochus was to invite folly. Surely you understand?”

  The logic of Pammenes’ argument lanced Memnon’s anger like a boil. “I understand your motives, but I do not agree with the manner in which you chose to carry them out. You should have thought out the consequences of your actions long before you gave Artabazus your word. It is a man who will stand by his convictions despite the odds; it is a dog who changes to accommodate the whims of the pack,” he said, hunching to his left in an effort to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. “What will you do now? Hand me over to the Persians? Sell me into slavery like a spoil of war? Kill me out of hand?”

  “Save your scorn.” Pammenes leaned against the surgeon’s table, his arms folded across his chest. “If I truly wished you dead, you’d be waking up in Tartarus now. No, I’m sending you back to Dascylium. Tithraustes would have your head if he knew you were here, mine if he knew what I planned. So, you see, I’m placing my life in your hands, as well. Return to Artabazus and convince him to flee. If he values his life, the lives of his children, he’ll quit Asia and not look back.”

  The Rhodian gave a short bark of laughter. “Little chance of that! Asia’s his home. He’ll not leave. He’ll go to ground someplace safe, like Assos, and hire more mercenaries to continue his fight. Yes, he’ll make for Assos. Those walls have resisted better men than Tithraustes.”

  “Assos is closed to him,” Pammenes said. “His man, Eubulus, is dead, slain in a coup by his pet philosopher-eunuch, that creature Hermeias. He—it!—has already sent tokens of submission to Tithraustes in gratitude for having been named governor.”

  “You lie!”

  “Do I?” Pammenes shrugged. “You yourself said I have no skill at it. No, Memnon, Assos belongs to the King again. You must convince Artabazus to leave Asia before it’s too late. Tithraustes is no Mithridates. He’ll not stop until he has Artabazus in chains—or his head on a pike—and he has the blessings of the King to use whatever means necessary. I beg of you, Memnon, persuade Artabazus to make for Greece, for Sicily, for Egypt—anywhere, but do not let him remain here, in Asia! I bear him no malice, nor you, but if I am ordered to move against him, I will have no choice.

  “I wish we had the luxury of time, so you would have a chance to recover some of your strength before I cut you loose, but time is our enemy. I will have a wagon prepared, with servants to accompany you. You must leave soon.”

  “Gladly,” Memnon said, “but keep your wagon and your men. My horse is all I require.”

  Pammenes grimaced. “While you are no spoil of war, I cannot say the same for your mare. I placed her in my co
rral for safekeeping. Unfortunately, Lord Bardiya caught sight of her. He demanded I make a gift of her to the King. It is unseemly, he said, for a mere soldier to possess such a fine specimen of the Nisaean breed. I had no choice …”

  Memnon’s eyes narrowed to slits; he snarled at the Theban general. “That’s your pat little excuse in all things, is it not, Pammenes? It would seem slaves have more freedom than you. Have a care, slave! When your new masters tire of you, you may have no choice but to fall on your sword!”

  “Watch your tongue, Rhodian!” Pammenes turned and walked to the pavilion’s entrance.

  “Or what? You’ll have no choice but to silence me? Go prepare my wagon. The sooner I am gone from your sight, the better. The very air here sickens me.”

  “Faugh! So be it. Tell Artabazus what I’ve said. If he remains in Asia, he will die. As will you.” With that, Pammenes swept aside the flap and marched out into the sunlight. Memnon watched him, a slow smile—humorless and cold—forming on his lips.

  “Do you not know, Pammenes?” he said softly. “Everyone dies.”

  A WAGON LEFT THE BOEOTIAN CAMP THE NEXT MORNING, AN UNREMARK-able four-wheeled wain drawn by a pair of oxen. It crossed the turbulent headwaters of the Macestus and descended the river’s broad and gently sloping right bank. One man, a squat fellow with a brushy black beard, sat atop the driver’s bench, snapping the harness traces and clicking his teeth at the plodding oxen; another man, younger than the first—tall and reed-thin—walked beside them, using the butt of his short spear as a goad. Both men wore the boots, woolen tunics and floppy caps of Phrygian highlanders.

  A canopy kept the sun off the bed of the wagon, off Memnon’s prostrate form. He lay on a straw mattress with a riot of cushions insulating him from the jarring ride. Despite this padding, he felt every rock and rut; the road’s imperfections translated into pain, from slight twinges to knives of blinding agony. Memnon fluttered on the edge of consciousness.

  A third man rode in the wagon with him, his stubbled brown hair graystreaked and his hawkish face worn with the cares of a lifetime. At first, Memnon assumed his beardless chin meant he was a eunuch. When he spoke, though, the Rhodian recognized his error.

  The man’s Greek bore the accent of Egypt.

  “I can give you something to ease your pain,” he said.

  “Later, perhaps.” Memnon winced as he scooted his body into a sitting position, leaning left to put his weight on that side. The effort brought beads of sweat to his brow.

  “Heraclides said you would be a stubborn man and unwilling to follow sensible advice,” the Egyptian said.

  “Such as lie down and keep still? What else did he say?”

  “That I should guard my impudent tongue and do as I am told.”

  “Wise man, that Heraclides,” Memnon said. “Do you have a name?”

  “I am called Khafre.” The Egyptian drew a goatskin bag and a copper mug from among his supplies; despite the rattle and sway of the wagon, Khafre poured Memnon a measure of wine without spilling a drop.

  “Thank you,” Memnon said, accepting the proffered cup and draining it. “Are you one of Heraclides’ servants, or are you a fellow physician?”

  “Neither,” Khafre said. He corked the skin and tucked it away. “I am a slave. Your slave, for the time being. The Theban wretch said if you asked to tell you I am remuneration for a horse. He said, too, that you would understand.”

  Memnon’s eyes clouded. “That son of a bitch.”

  “I echo your sentiment.” Khafre sniffed. “I am worth far more than a horse.”

  “Not this horse,” Memnon said. Carefully, he rolled flat again, his tongue thick, his head swimming. Khafre took the cup from him. “What … was the wine tainted?”

  “Yes. With something to ease your pain,” the Egyptian replied.

  “I told you—”

  “Yes, yes, yes. You Greeks prefer to suffer silently and without complaint. In the interest of healing, though, it behooves you to keep still and take your medicine. Flesh mends more quickly when the body sleeps. Did you not know that?”

  Memnon closed his eyes. “I see now why Pammenes rid himself of you,” he muttered.

  More than a willful slave, Khafre proved a voluble traveling companion, a stark contrast to the Phrygians, who rarely spoke save to one another. As the days progressed, Memnon spent his waking hours listening to the Egyptian recount the tale of his life—from his birth in Bubastis, the City of Cats, to his ventures at sea, to the storm that wrecked his ship on the Lycian coast and his enslavement by Chian pirates.

  “They assumed, as you did, that my Egyptian blood made me privy to the age-old wisdom of the priest-physicians and put me to work caring for their injured. I did not correct them, since their assumptions saved me from hard labor in the mines at Laurium or Pangaeus.”

  “How did you end up with Pammenes?”

  “It was the will of the Seven Hathors,” Khafre said. Seeing Memnon’s blank look, he continued. “They are akin to your Fates. When a child is born, the Seven Hathors decide the moment and manner of its death, and all things leading up to that death. Thus, it was the work of the Hathors that brought me to Ephesus, with the penurious Chians, at the exact instant Heraclides arrived seeking a new slave.”

  “The Fates make us who—and what—we are,” Memnon murmured, more to himself than to Khafre. He lapsed into silence, and his forehead creased in concentration as he brooded over the words of the stranger in Heraclides’ tent. Was it a hallucination born of his injury or had a servant of the gods truly visited him? He touched his bandaged shoulder. Mirage or no, something hauled him back from the brink, something mysterious and sacred, Homeric in its implications, akin to the visions and visitations spoken of in the Poet’s verse.

  That night, after a meal of beans and hard bread, the Phrygians rolled up in their cloaks and slept, their snores louder than the lowing of the hobbled oxen, leaving Khafre to clean up after them. Memnon moved some distance from the fire and sat with his back against a fallen log, staring up at the star-flecked sky. Orion rose from the eastern horizon and marched across the vault of heaven, in endless pursuit of the beautiful daughters of Atlas, the Pleiades.

  Khafre’s approach drew his eyes back to earth. The Egyptian carried a cup of warmed wine in his hands. “Are you well?” he said, crouching and offering the wine to Memnon. “You have been remarkably quiet most of the day. Are you in pain?”

  Memnon shook his head and looked askance at the cup. “What’s in it?” he said, sniffing the steaming brew. Heat brought the wine’s fragrance out, sharp and savory.

  “Just wine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Khafre sipped it himself before again offering it to Memnon. “Satisfied?”

  The Rhodian accepted it as though it were an asp. “Not really. You would drug yourself just to make your point.”

  Khafre placed his hand over his heart. “I swear to you, by the severed phallus of Osiris, I have added nothing to your wine.”

  Memnon eyed him carefully as he raised the cup to his lips. He drank and returned his attention to the jeweled sky. Khafre sat on the log and followed Memnon’s gaze.

  “Sopdu has risen,” he said, pointing to a bright star on the horizon, barely visible through the trees. “Your people call it Sirius, the Dog Star. In Egypt, it marks the beginning of Akhet, the season of inundation.”

  Memnon made no indication he heard Khafre; he sat in silence for a long time, watching the stars as though he were an oracle seeking a sign. Finally, he said, “In your land, Khafre, do the gods mingle with mortals?”

  Khafre hunched forward, his elbows on his knees. “It depends on what you mean by mingle. Is it not Amun-Ra who brings the sun back from the watery abyss each morning, or Hapi who governs the rise and fall of the Nile? Is it not Anubis who leads the dead through the vast realm of Osiris, or Ma’at who maintains the scales of Justice for all?”

  “But, do they walk the earth as men and women, talking with th
eir suppliants as I talk to you?”

  “Once, perhaps, but that was long ago, even as we Egyptians reckon time. Instead, they influence us through wisdom, through dreams, through omens.”

  “How do you know they’re not among you?”

  Khafre glanced at the young Rhodian and frowned. “Our priests tell us. They have kept immaculate records for three hundred forty-three generations, and by their reckoning no god has taken mortal guise since Horus, son of Osiris, handed his throne over to Pharaoh and joined his father in the West.”

  Memnon finished off his wine, feeling its warmth spread through his body. “I wonder how they know; the priests, I mean. Say your Horus chose to assume the form of a fisherman. Would the priests know Horus by sight if the god did not wish it? Among my people, the gods of Olympus often walk among mortals, unnoticed for what they are.”

  “Yes,” Khafre grunted, “and it is your Olympians who littered all of Hellas with their half-divine bastards. I have read much of what your people have written—Hecateus, Herodotus, Anaxagoras—and I must tell you, applying the names and attributes of Greece’s gods to those of Khem is misguided. Horu-Sema-Tawy is no more your Apollo than Asar-Wen-Nefer is Dionysus; they differ physically, morally, even spiritually. What you Greeks expect from your gods would be profane to an Egyptian. Our gods are not profligate; they simply do not debase themselves by mixing with mortals.”

  “Interesting,” Memnon said. “I wonder—”

  Khafre slipped off the log and prostrated himself under the stars. “Mother of Osiris! Spare me from the curiosity of the Hellene!”

  The Rhodian laughed. “Point taken. It’s getting late. We can take this up in greater depth tomorrow.”