"Soldier of Sidon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

7

THE SCRIBE IS here. His master has sent him to assess the readiness of our ship. His master is Qanju. He did not tell me this, but I heard him say it. He himself is of Kemet, and a priest. We spoke of writing. He showed me their picture writing, and explained the way it is read. It may be written in either direction, but the man must face toward the end. The birds face the end also. It may also be written down, but not up. He wrote the satrap's name and enclosed it in a shield.

He said we should take a Nubian with us because such a one would know the country. I had not thought of that. He says there are many Nubians in the army of Kemet. "They are fine archers," he told me. "We have archers as good, but not many."

Neht-nefret whispered, "They are wonderful lovers, Latro. I had one once."

"Yes," Myt-ser'eu said, "foreigners always make the best lovers." She squeezed my hand when she spoke.

"They are good fighters," Thotmaktef declared.

I asked about their tactics.

He laughed and said, "You neglected to tell me that scribes and priests know nothing of war. You are more courteous than my own countrymen."

I said, "What can I know of what you know of war?"

"I know very little, just what I've picked up from Qanju and the other men of Parsa. But they know a great deal."

"Not more than we," Neht-nefret insisted.

"Not those tactics," Myt-ser'eu said, and everyone laughed.

I like this young scribe. He is eager to teach, yet very ready to learn. Not many men are like that. I cannot know whether he is brave or not, for Myt-ser'eu says we have not known him long and there has been no fighting. Yet his eyes say he is, and what is better yet, that he does not know it. I would rather have him at my side than most men. Surely his god must favor him! What god would not favor such a priest?

He will tell his master we are ready. Muslak says there will be no need to wait for tide or wind. I CAST US off and leaped on board. Men on the yard untied the sail. The wind is stronger in the middle of the river, but we keep to the bank where the current is less-though it seems to me that there is hardly any current at all. The river is very wide, so that little is lost to such current as there may be.

There are three archers of Parsa and five spearmen of Kemet with us. All obey me, and none like it. Two quarreled. I knocked both down. They drew daggers, which I took from them. When they got up again I gave them back and told them that if they did not sheath them I would kill them both. They sheathed them. I hurt Uro's spear arm, although I did not intend it.

I inspected them, and set them to work cleaning their gear and sharpening their weapons. Just now I inspected them again and dressed them down for their shortcomings, both individually and as a group. Just now I set them to cleaning and sharpening some more. The captain suggests that we have them sweep the ship and scrub its deck each day, saying that it will become dirty very quickly with so many men on board. I told him we would do that as well.

All the soldiers wish to be my friends, but I am not friendly with any. Myt-ser'eu says that is wise, and I know she is right. She is my river-wife, just as Neht-nefret is Muslak's. Neht-nefret is a pretty woman, taller than Myt-ser'eu and more graceful. But Myt-ser'eu is beautiful and loving. I would not exchange her.

Both are more clever, I think, than Muslak and I might wish; they are great friends, whispering and gossiping. I HAVE BEEN thinking of the things I must know when I read this again. We are on Muslak's ship. Its name is Gades. We are two women and twenty-seven men. Men: Qanju commands, Muslak is captain, Sahuset is a learned man of Kemet, Thotmaktef is a scribe, I command eight soldiers, and the rest are sailors. Women: Neht-nefret and Myt-ser'eu. The first is Muslak's, the second mine. She is four fingers shorter and I think a year or so the younger. Certainly she is younger than I. I think her afraid of all the other men, save perhaps for Qanju and Thotmaktef-very afraid of Sahuset. She stays so close to me when he is near that I am tempted to tell her to go away, but that would be cruel. It would be unwise as well; she remembers much that I forget. THERE ARE CROCODILES in the water. I saw a big one just now that must be very dangerous. Muslak says we will soon see river-horses. Myt-ser'eu has seen many pictures of them, but never seen them. Neht-nefret says the kings hunted them when this land ruled itself. They cannot really be bigger than this ship, but she says it.

We spoke of pigs. This is because Neht-nefret said they look like pigs on land, though they are so much larger and eat grass like other horses. Muslak said that pigs are good food, which is true, I know. The women were disgusted. No one in Kemet will eat a pig, they said. Sahuset smiled at that, so I knew otherwise.

Muslak also said that the river-horses are good eating, but very dangerous to hunt whether on land or water. I said that fat animals could not be dangerous, no matter how large they were. I said this because I wished to hear more.

"I have never hunted them," Muslak said, "but I know that they wreck big boats and trample men to death. Their jaws are immense, and their bite kills crocodiles. Their hides are thick and tough, and their fat keeps a spear from reaching their vitals."

"Not mine," one of my soldiers declared.

Laughing, Neht-nefret told him, "Tepu will kill you, Amamu." Tepu is the river-horse. I READ WHAT I had written about this ship to Myt-ser'eu. A sailor joined us to listen. When I stopped reading he said, "There's another woman."

Both of us said there was not.

He shrugged. "I slept on board last night. There was a woman with us. We offered her money, but she refused and went below, and we couldn't find her."

Myt-ser'eu asked, "Who was her protector?"

The sailor only rose and strode away. Myt-ser'eu says he is Azibaal. I asked Myt-ser'eu how she knew the woman had a protector.

"Because they would have forced her, of course. When we're back home in Sais, the priests protect us. That's why you have to go to the temple to get us. You don't remember the money you made Muslak give the priest, do you?"

I admitted I did not.

"I knew you didn't. It was a lot, and we don't get any of it. What you give us afterward is all we get-if you make a present of money to me when we part, or buy me jewels while we're together."

"I don't have much money," I said.

"You will have," Myt-ser'eu told me. THAT WAS EVERYTHING we said then, but I have been thinking about what Azibaal said. There cannot be a third woman on the ship this afternoon. Therefore, she was a woman of the place where we stopped last night. It was very large, so there must have been women there beyond counting. If she came on the ship but would not take money, she must have come to steal. If that is so-and it seems it must be-her protector was another thief. Since she went below, her protector was there stealing. Perhaps he told her to keep the sailors occupied while he stole. I have gone below and looked at everything, but if there is something missing, I do not know what it is.

Besides, Azibaal and the other sailors who stayed on board were there to guard against thieves, and would have seen the man and this woman when they left. Would not many men have taken everything? Would Azibaal and his sailors not have beaten one man or even two or three and driven them off? There is something here that I do not understand. I will stay on the ship myself tonight.

THE BRIGHT MOON we saw has slipped behind the western mountains, leaving the sky filled with innumerable stars; Qanju studies them even now, but I sit where he sat, writing swiftly by the twofold light of his lamps. Much has taken place tonight that I must record.

The village at which we stopped had no inn, only a beer shop. Qanju and Sahuset have tents; I had Aahmes and the other soldiers put them up for them as soon as we landed.

After we had eaten and drunk, I returned to the ship. Myt-ser'eu wished to come with me. I wanted her to stay behind, but she cried. We had drunk beer, and she fell asleep as soon as we sat down. I had persuaded Muslak to let my soldiers guard his ship, some of his men having guarded it the night before; and I had assigned the three from Parsa to do it. Now I questioned them. They had seen no one and heard nothing, so I told them they could go into the village and enjoy themselves. When they had gone, I laid Myt-ser'eu in a more comfortable place (earning a kiss, with sleepy murmurs) and covered her to keep off the insects. I sat up, swatting them from time to time and smearing myself with grease. To tell the truth, I did not expect to see or hear anyone; but I was reasonably sure that the sailor had not told Muslak, and I could not tell him myself without betraying the sailor. Guarding the ship seemed to be the only thing to do.

I had nearly fallen asleep when I heard her step. She emerged from the hold, her gems and gold bracelets gleaming in the clear light of a quarter moon, and walked with graceful, unhurried steps toward the bow.

Rising, I ordered her to stop. She turned her head very far to look back at me, but did not. It was only then that I felt certain she was not Neht-nefret.

I overtook her easily and caught her shoulder. "What are you doing on this ship?"

"I am a passenger," she said.

"I haven't seen you on deck. Were you below all day?"

"Yes."

I waited for her to say more. At last I said, "It must have been very hot and uncomfortable for you down there."

"No." Her voice is low, but quite distinct.

"Now you want to go ashore?"

"Yes." She smiled at me. "I've no quarrel with you, Latro. Stand aside."

By that time I had seen that she was carrying nothing and had no weapon. Also that she was tall, young, and very beautiful. "I can't leave the ship unguarded to take you to the village," I told her, "and if you go alone, you may be attacked."

"I do not fear it."

"That's courageous of you, but I can't let you risk yourself like that. You'll have to stay here with me until someone else comes."

"Someone else is already here," she told me.

As she spoke, I heard the spitting snarl of a cat behind me. I spun about, drawing Falcata.

The cat's eyes blazed brighter far than the moonlight, smoking braziers of cruel green fire. When I took a step toward it, it snarled again, and I saw the gleam of its teeth. I feared, at first, that it might attack Myt-ser'eu-then that it had already, tearing her throat swiftly and silently. I advanced, wishing with all my heart for a torch. It moved to its left. When I moved to counter it, to its right. It was as large as many dogs.

As a bubble bursts in the river, it was gone.

I looked everywhere for it, certain it could not have jumped from the ship without my seeing it. At last it seemed to me that it could only have darted down the hatch and into the hold. There may be men who would have pursued that cat into the pitch darkness of the hold, but I am not such a man. (This I learned only a short time ago.) I replaced the hatch cover and tied it down with the rope that had been coiled beside it.

Only then did I look around for the woman who had come out of the hold. She was already well along the path leading to the village. I called to her, but she did not stop or even turn her head. Perhaps I should have run after her, although Qanju says I was right to stay on the ship. In a moment or two the woman had vanished into the night.

He arrived, and his scribe with him, not long after. "I came to study the stars," he said. "Are they not beautiful? They are best seen when the moon is down."

He lay on his back on the deck so as to see them without craning his neck.

"The moon has not set," I said, wishing to tell him what had happened but not knowing how to begin.

"It will be down soon," he told me, "and I will be ready. Even now, one may learn much."

Thotmaktef had seated himself beside him and spread a scroll like this upon his knee, ready to write as his master directed.

"A woman has gone into the village," I told them.

"A village woman?" Qanju asked.

Recalling the way her jewels had gleamed in the moonlight, I said, "No."

"Not your woman-she would not leave you."

"Myt-ser'eu?" I knew she was mine, but I wanted time to think. "She's asleep in the stern."

"Not the captain's woman. We left her behind us, didn't we, Thotmaktef?"

Thotmaktef nodded. "We did, Most Noble Qanju."

"Another woman?"

"Yes," I said.

"You have forgotten her name."

It was not a question, but I said, "No doubt I have."

"Indeed." Qanju sat up, surprising me. "Tell me everything, Lucius."

I did, speaking worse than I write and using too many words.

"This is an important matter," Qanju said when I had finished. "Will you remember everything in the morning?"

"Perhaps I will." Although I know I forget, I cannot be sure how soon I forget, or how much.

"I did not intend to pain you. You appear sober enough to write. Are you?"

"Certainly," I said.

"Good. You speak our tongue badly, making it difficult to judge. Thotmaktef?"

"Yes," Thotmaktef said.

"You are to come with me, Lucius. There are two fine lamps in my tent. You are to write of this incident in your scroll before you forget it. Include every detail. When you have finished, you may return here, if you choose."

I protested, saying that Muslak would be very angry when he learned that his ship had been left unprotected. This I knew to be true.

"It will not be unprotected," Qanju explained. "Thotmaktef will take your place until you return. He is young, strong, and honest. I would trust him with my life."

I offered to lend him my sword, but he declined with thanks.

That is all, and now I will return to the ship and Myt-ser'eu.

No, one thing more. When Qanju and I had traveled some distance up the path from the river, I looked behind me to see whether Thotmaktef had uncovered Myt-ser'eu. He had not, but he was untying the rope with which I had fastened the cover over the hatch.