Soldier of Sidon

Which is what I do here with my slip of frayed reed.

I feel I may die. If I do, the rain will come, my scroll will fall to bits, and no one will ever read the record of so many days of my life, days of interest to no one but myself in any event. If I do not die, I will find a way to protect it from the weather and deposit it in a safe place. There is only a single sheet left. Then the stick. The Hellenes have a name for that final sheet, I know. I wish I could recall it.

My fire is dying amid greasy ashes, but I no longer require it. The sun is high and the land is warm. I will rise and walk until I find a place where they will feed me. Then I may write more. THESE PEOPLE FOUND me on the road. They had many questions, of which I could answer only a few. They are the Medjay, they say, the Lion People. We talked of horses, I thinking that I might buy a horse if the price was not too high. They asked whether I could ride. Feeling it to be true, I said I could, which surprised them. They think me a man of Kemet, and say few of us can ride. They invited me to their camp, where I am now, to see more horses. I agreed, and walked beside them as they rode. None had been to Kemet, but they talked of going there, where the satrap might hire them as he has others of their nation.

They warned me of the Nehasyu, the Men of Kush, with tales of their dishonesty and cruelty. Kush is the nation I call Nubia, it seems.

Here we looked at horses, and they shared their food with me. They had fresh beef and cheese. It has been a long time, I think, since I have eaten either. They measure their wealth in cattle and horses. THEIR CHIEF HAS come. He is older than my new friends, and has been to Kemet and many other places. He fought, he says, for the Great King. When I could not answer his questions, I explained that I forget and showed him this. He said I had been touched by a god, and that I am a holy man.

I said, "If I have been touched by a god, it was only to curse me."

He nodded. "All who are touched by gods are holy."

"I would rather remember, as other men do."

"There are many things it is better to forget." He laughed. "Women!"

"There is a woman I must write of here before I forget her," I told him.

"Tell me," he said, "if you forget I will tell you."

I agreed. "Last night I camped alone. I have no cloak to sleep in, but I made a little fire and lay down."

He nodded. "I have often done the same."

"A woman came to my fire, a lovely woman with bracelets, a fine necklace, many rings. She said she was my wife, that she loved me and would always care for me and serve me. I was cold and asked her to warm me, but she said she could not do that."

"She was a ghost," the Medjay chief declared. "I have met many, and there is no warmth in them."

I shrugged. "She begged me to accept her, to love and cherish her. I said I would, and we kissed. When we parted, there was a man behind her, tall and angry."

The chief laughed aloud. "Her husband. I have been caught like that too."

"I agree, but he did not say he was. He did not speak at all. He only advanced toward her, scowling. She argued with him, retreating step by step, and at last drew a crooked knife. By then she stood very near the fire, and I saw that her back was melting as ice does, ru

"This is a good story. Go on!"

"They spoke more, and he pushed her into the fire. For a moment nothing happened. I tried to stand, steadying myself with my spear. It was hard because I was so ill. As I stood, my little fire burst into a ball of flame that blinded me and singed my hair. When I could see again, both were gone."

The Medjay chief nodded. "Your face has been burned on one side, I see. Your hair is singed, as you say."

"I thought it was a dream," I told him. "Was it?"

He sighed. "You have been touched by a god."

"I looked in the ashes," I told him, "and found these." I showed him two of her bracelets. "Do you like them? I'll give both to you for a good horse. Not just any horse, a good one."

He returned them to me. "I will show you a wonderful horse tomorrow," he promised, "a horse you may have as my gift, if you can ride him." I HAVE NOT yet caught the stallion the Medjay chief showed me as the sun rose; but I have come to know the marks of his hooves, and will track him again in the morning. He is bigger than most, and as brown as a chestnut. There is a light in his eyes. If some god were to transform one of the Medjay warriors, he would be as this stallion is, I think.

He looks at me in fear, and I at him in desire. If he were to seek to master me, I would look at him as he does at me, and he at me as I do at him. Or so I believe. What is the life of a horse but slavery? I would treat him well-if I could. As I am, I ca

There is gold in the bag at my belt, but it buys no food here. He crops the fresh green grass. Which of us will tire first?

WHEN I UNROLLED this to read what I had written last night, there was a curved pin of bright gold in it. It melted as I held it in my hand, and was gone. Then I thought the sun had brought a waking dream. It seemed to me that a great lioness paced beside me, and afterward that a tree-tall woman walked there. When I turned to look, there was no one.

Now I write, though there is so little space left. She led me to her temple. There was an antelope there, dead upon her altar, a large one and very fine.

I drank from her spring, cut flesh from the antelope's flank, and cooked it over a fire of brown grass and dried dung. She is Mehit; she sat with me and shared my food. She laughed at me, and her laugh was forgotten gold shaken in a cup. "Can you who caught me not catch a stallion?" She told me that I would never catch him, but that he would catch me. I RODE TODAY, north because I did not know in which way to go and it seemed best. A lively boy driving cattle said that in the city men would fill my hands with gold for my horse. I told him about the lions, and how my horse Ater had come to me for protection.

"Does that name mean something?" he asked.

"Darkness, gloom, ill luck."

"He's not! He's beautiful!"

"He is," I said, "and I am his ill luck."

The city, the boy said, is on a river island. If my own luck is as bad as Ater's, the ship will have passed it already. But where there is a city there are many men, and one may have the blade the river god returned to me.

I WONDER WHERE I got the bridle I have taken from Ater? Did I write of that here? I tied him by the reins, but a moment ago I set him free. Beasts prowl the night-lions and worse. I would rather he escape me than that he fall to such a beast.

There are horses too bad to be ridden. It may be that there are horses too good to be ridden as well.

For a time I heard him not far off. I no longer do. I sit before my little fire, my own protection from the beasts we both fear, with only the baboon for company. He prompts me to write again and again-to write smaller and smaller. There is little fuel for the fire, and so small a fire ca