Soldier of Sidon

He stood, yawned, and stretched. "Just smell this air! Isn't it wonderful?"

Myt-ser'eu made a face, but to be polite I said it was.

"The land is rising," Sahuset said. "We near my home. It can't be far to Abu."

The captain overheard him and joined us. He said, "It isn't. I'm hoping to make Abu tonight. It's a wild, foreign sort of place, from what I hear of it." He turned to me, smiling. "I know you don't remember me, Lewqys, but I'm Muslak, the oldest friend you've got."

He is older than I and far from handsome; but when I looked him in the eye, I knew what he had said was the truth. He and Myt-ser'eu are truly my friends. So too is the tall soldier from Kemet, I think. I do not think the young scribe is a friend to any of us, and although I would like to make a friend of the tall, lean healer, Sahuset, I do not feel I have done so. His cold eyes rest upon me without gladness, and dart away.

"Abu is on the southern frontier of Kemet now," he told our captain, "but Kemet extended a hundred days' travel to the south only a few centuries ago. Many families there are descended from settlers from Wast, just as I am."

Myt-ser'eu asked, "Have you cousins in Wast, Healer?"

He shook his head. "I have no family even in Miam, and certainly none in Wast."

"It's the same with me. My husband Latro's all the family I have these days, and that's only for the trip south and back. What about you, Captain?"

"A wife and three concubines, and seventeen children." He gri

Myt-ser'eu laughed; she has a pretty laugh, and seems to laugh often. "You could surely spare us a few relatives. Then we'd all have families."

"I might give you a concubine," he told her, "if I had her here."

I said, "But you've a wife here. She was speaking with us not long ago."

"Right. Two wives, seventeen children, and three concubines."

A thickset man as old as the captain joined us. He must have been listening, though I had not been aware of it. He speaks the tongue of Kemet worse even than I. "In that case, one concubine must go to this kind young lady, isn't that right? I'm sure she can make use of her."

"Indeed!" Myt-ser'eu laughed again. "I'll hire her out and live on her wages."

"Women enjoy themselves frequently with other women in my country," the stranger told her, "and Lesbos is famous for it. But, Captain, I wanted to tell you that this learned gentleman is right about the land south of the second cataract. It belonged to the pharaoh. So did the mines, though the king of Nubia claims everything now."

"What kind of mines?" I asked.

"Better not to talk about that," the stranger said.

Sahuset told me, "Gold."

The stranger was chagrined. "I didn't know you knew about it."

"I didn't," Sahuset told him, "but I grew up in Wawat. I know what sort of mines were there."

Myt-ser'eu's eyes were wide. "Is gold cheap there?"

"No," Sahuset said. "The mines are exhausted, and there is no place on all the broad earth where gold is cheap." WE SPENT THE night on this ship. Myt-ser'eu and I went ashore with the captain and his wife, ate a good di

With us on the ship was my slave. His name is Uraeus. He is of Kemet, a bent, long-necked man of middle years. He had been in the hold, but came up to greet us as soon as we returned. Myt-ser'eu fears him, as I saw, though she would not confess it. Humbly, he asked permission to return to the hold, promising to come at once if I called. I agreed. I suppose he has a bed there.

Later Sahuset the Healer came on board. He wanted to speak to me away from the others, so I sent Uro and Vayu to the stern, where they chatted with Azibaal and the steersman.

"Myt-ser'eu is unfaithful to you," Sahuset told me. "Did you know it?"

I shook my head.

"She lay with Agathocles the other night."

I asked who he was.

"The man of Hellas, the wine merchant."

"The one who speaks of mines?"

"Yes, he. You had gone and she was drunk. She offered herself, and he took her."

I said, "Will he fight me for her?"

Sahuset laughed softly. His laugh is not a good one to hear by night on board a dark ship. "He has not the stomach for it, I'm sure."

I shrugged. "Then she is mine. If he touches her and I see it, there will be trouble."

"I was going to make you an amulet that would guarantee her loyalty."

"She has an amulet already," I said. "It's a bull's head. She says she got it from you."

"How do you know that? You forget everything."

I told him I had seen it around her neck while we ate, and asked what it was for.

"She has not worn it for some days. Last night it would have protected her, but it would not keep her from Agathocles. That was not its purpose."

"Protected her from what?" I asked.

"From me," a

I turned to look at her. I had not known she was on the ship with us, and remarked that she had come very quietly.

"We always do."

Sahuset cleared his throat. "Latro, this is Sabra, my wife."

I told them that Myt-ser'eu said she was my wife, and asked if it were true.

"Only as long as you say it." Sabra sounded amused. Her voice makes it hard not to touch her.

"I am here," Sahuset told me, "in the hope that the Red God will visit you as he said. He did not come last night, though you waited for him. I hope that it was because I was not here. If so, he may come tonight."

Sabra said, "I am here for the same reason, though mine is less wordy. I am here because you are, Latro."

"Did I give you leave?" Sahuset sounded angry.

Sabra shook her head. "Not even leave to set foot outside my-compartment? Bedchamber? It gets terribly hot in there, bedchamber or no. I find it much more pleasant up here. With Latro."

"Someone listens," Sahuset told us.

My slave, stooped and smaller than most men, stepped from the darker darkness of a shadow. I saw the moonlight gleam on his bald head. "I was not spying upon you," he told Sahuset. "Only listening for my master's call."

I said, "This is Uraeus. Perhaps you both know him."

"They do, master. What is it you wish?"

I smiled at that. "To remember other men, as other men do."

"I ca

I promised I would try to remember that, and declared that he was welcome to remind me of lost memories whenever he thought it wise.

"Then I remind you that this woman is the one you watched Sahuset mold of wax."

I did not believe it, but Sabra laughed softly and said, "Found out so soon! Did you really think me flesh and blood, Latro?"

I said I had, and forbore adding that I still did.

"We lay figures can be animated by magic, as I have often been. Does that amaze you?"

"It surprises me at least," I said, and added that I should have realized she was too beautiful to be a mortal woman.

"Oh, I'm mortal enough. I would burn like a candle."

"As you soon will," Sahuset said, "if you go far on the path you have chosen tonight."