Soldier of Sidon

I shrugged. "Go on."

"She wears an amulet my husband gave her, a bull's head. Sahuset is the bull-it will draw her to him. That is the last coin in my hand. If it is of no value to you, you owe me no favor."

I was kneeling next to Myt-ser'eu before Sabra finished speaking. The cord that held her amulet snapped between my fingers and I threw both over the side. "You deserve whatever favor you ask," I told Sabra. "What is it you want?"

I could see the gleam of her teeth in the dark. "You have given the favor I intended to ask. May I have another?"

I rose again. "What is it?"

"A kiss."

When our lips met, it seemed I held a score of women in my arms. Myt-ser'eu was one, the queen another. The rest-and there were many more-I did not know.

When we parted, I whispered, "You are-are not as other women."

She laughed as before, chilling all my ardor. "I was a crocodile once. Perhaps you tasted it."

I watched her go toward the stern and vanish into the darkness. It may be that the panther went with her. I do not know. SOMEONE ATTACKED THE queen last night, cutting her thigh without waking her. Qanju-our leader, Myt-ser'eu says, and the oldest man on the ship-is trying to discover the culprit. The tall man Myt-ser'eu swears is a warlock was talking to the carpenter when I began writing this. He wanted the carpenter to lend him his hammer and give him seven nails. The carpenter would not lend his hammer, but offered to nail down the lid of the box the tall man wishes to close. They have gone into the hold, and I hear the blows of the carpenter's hammer.

The warlock told the king he knew the queen's attacker and would see that she was not troubled again. The king raged, wishing to kill the guilty man with his own hand; but the warlock said he could not speak the guilty name. The king would have broken his arm, and Qanju ordered me to prevent it, which I did.

This has made the king my enemy, though I know he was once my friend. I am to paint myself as his warriors do no longer. WE ARE AT Naqa, and thus in Nubia. So says my friend the captain. My men and I went through the market and the shops in search of the sword the river god tempered for me. Myt-ser'eu came too, but did not search on her own because she has forgotten my sword, to which she says she paid little heed when I had it. (She thought it large and heavy.) More signally, this is not a place in which women alone are safe.

We will sleep ashore tonight, and everyone is delighted. There is a big public building here in which travelers may stable their horses and store their goods. It has small rooms to which we must bring our own bedding. Nights on the ship were cold, I know, in spite of the day's heat; and with so many on board we slept in each other's armpits, as the captain says. Here each couple will have a room. The walls are thick mud brick, and there is a little fireplace in each. We will buy charcoal in the market, and be private, snug, and warm.

Myt-ser'eu says these people are barbarians, and that everyone not of Kemet is a barbarian. Thus I am a barbarian myself, which explains why I like the people here so much. Some are of Alala's tribe, some of another; but the men are as large as the king, and from their scars, brave. The women smile, laugh long, and flirt without shame. They seem a good people to me. *The narrator uses the word stola here, in place of his usual vestis. The stola was a woman's garment fastened at a shoulder that left the other shoulder bare.

34

NOTHING COULD BE more useless than continuing this scroll, though I have been reading it ever since the baboon untied its cords. I sprang for it, catching it as the baboon dropped it. Its cords were tied again, and I felt the baboon had been a dream. Untying them, I began to read and saw that I had seen him before, and learned much else.

The man with my sword was Sabra's husband. I feel sure of it after reading what I just did.

We did not find Falcata in Naqa. Myt-ser'eu and I ate fried fish at a cookshop (very good) and tried the local beer. I thought it too sweet. She said it was like that we got in the south. When she had drunk all she could hold, we returned to the room we had rented earlier, I built a fire while she dozed, and we made love. I lay awake long after she was asleep, thinking how miserable I would be if I remained behind to search when she went north with the others. I do not know how I knew she would leave me and go with them, but I did, and found it bitter. Perhaps some god had revealed it to me. I resolved to reclaim Falcata before we reached the first cataract. No excuses would do. Falcata was here, her new owner had no reason to hide her, and I would find her. At last I slept.

The ringing of her blade woke me. I rose and unbarred the door. A tall man, older than I, stood outside holding Falcata. I gaped at him. He rang her blade again, striking it with something in his hand, perhaps a coin. I tried to explain that I wished to buy her from him, speaking as Myt-ser'eu did. He vanished, but I caught sight of his head and shoulders over the stalled horses.

I ought to have followed him naked into the street, but I did not. I went back to get the burse I had been given on the ship, putting on the tunic I had bought earlier and taking up this case that holds my scroll, too, when the baboon signed that I must. I might have killed the baboon with my club, but it was easier and quicker to do as he wished.

Outside I searched the dark streets. Once, when I was about to give up, I saw him. I ran after him shouting and he vanished. I have not seen him since.

The sun rose. I set out for the place where Myt-ser'eu and I had stayed but became lost. I asked several people where it was. Perhaps they misdirected me or I misunderstood them. Certainly the streets were crooked, and I did not know what many of the places they spoke of were.

When I found the building in which we had slept at last, Myt-ser'eu was gone. I asked the old man who rented rooms, and he said she had left some time ago when another man came for her. I did not recognize this man from his description-a young foreigner, smaller than I.

The old man had my shield and spear, which he handed over readily to me. Myt-ser'eu had them, he said, and he had made her surrender them because he thought she might be stealing them. She had told him I was already on the ship, but he had said that I must come back and claim them myself if I wanted them. He told me all this at length, speaking in the tongue used here. How angry she was, and how eager to be gone the man with her seemed.

I went to the docks. There was no ship, and Myt-ser'eu was not there. I asked a man fishing from a pier, and he said that the big foreign ship had sailed not long after sunrise. It was the Gades, he said. I ca

It will stop for the night at some city or town, I think, as it did at Naqa. With luck it may be delayed, and I have seen that ships going downriver move but slowly-the current carries them, but the wind is against them. They may be rowed, but rowing tires the crew; they row only enough to give the steering oar bite. If our ship ties up at a place on the other side of the river, I can pay someone to row me across.

I have walked and even run today, but that was foolish. Tomorrow I will buy a small boat. Let it carry my spear and shield, and my club. I will row hard, and not tire. I FEEL WEAK and ill, hot at times and chilled at others, so that I huddle near this fire, which does not warm me. He makes me write this. IT IS NEARLY noon. I am stronger, but not strong. Last night I was terribly sick, shaking when I was not burning with fever. Perhaps I only dreamed of the woman who burned, yet I hope not. Is there any use in writing of such things? The baboon would say there was, I know. He would make his meaning clear by signs.