The Blood Star (34 page)

Senefru raised his arm to signal one of the
other boats to draw near. He seemed annoyed.

“We shall have to give over these two lines,”
he said. “We must be ready when it rises again, although the gods
alone know what will happen then. I pulled my throw, I think. My
point must have struck bone and gone shallow—probably the beast
will scrape it loose on the reeds and be little the worse for it,
except in a rage now.”

A perfect stillness settled over the pond.
Even the water birds were quiet, as if waiting. . .

It happened with such suddenness that I did
not at once grasp the extremity of the danger. At first I was only
aware of the shock, for there seemed to be no sound. This
impression lasted only an instant. Then I turned and saw what was
taking place—the hippopotamus had come up directly under the boat,
which was breaking in half as it was lifted out of the water.

The paddlers screamed in terror—I think we
all must have been screaming, but I only remember the high-pitched,
panicked cries of those two poor wretches. We seemed to be high
above the water, balanced on the creature’s great square head. Then
the boat snapped like a rotten twig and we fell, back into the
wild, swirling water.

The thing appeared poised above us. It was
bellowing with rage, like an ox with a voice of bronze. The huge
jaws opened—I could have reached out and touched its eyes; it
seemed to be looking straight at me—and then it crashed down,
shattering the surface of the pond as a hammer might a clay pot. I
thought my ears would burst with the sound. I thought. . .

I know not what I thought, for it seemed the
monster had killed me. I was sure I was dead.

The rest is empty turmoil—I have no memory,
not even the memory of a dream. Nothing.

I woke up, and I was lying on the muddy bank.
My arms and chest were covered in blood.

So it has killed me, I thought. My body
ached, as if every bone had been separately broken. I closed my
eyes again, despairing of life, almost indifferent to it. I felt
sure I would never open them again.

“Your gods must love you, my friend,” came
Senefru’s voice. “I do not know how otherwise you are alive.”

I looked in the direction of the sound and
there he was, sitting beside me, streaming with water. Almost at
our feet lay the corpse of one of the paddlers, looking half buried
in the muddy pond—his whole chest was torn open, and the expression
on his face, what I could see of it, suggested a death of
unspeakable agony.

“Where is the other?” I asked.

“Dead. The crocodiles got him—just as well,
for it kept them too occupied to trouble about us. You were
unconscious.”

“Did you pull me out?”

“Yes,” he said, grinning like a demon.

Fool, fool, fool that I was! Could I not see?
Could I not guess? What was my life to him?

I could not even ask. Something kept me
silent, yet I knew not what. The question formed on my lips, but I
could not bring myself to ask it.

Why?

XII

I do not think that I am naturally stupid, so
perhaps it was merely the self-absorption of youth that caused me
so to misunderstand the Lord Senefru—perhaps I can excuse myself as
easily as that. I was perhaps not blind, but I saw no more than I
wished to see. And he was not my only mistake.

There was a banquet in my house, a birthday
celebration in honor of Prince Nekau, which Kephalos had decided
would be a politic excuse for the distribution of certain expensive
presents—if Pharaoh had not been so far away in Tanis, doubtless
Kephalos would have found a means of bribing him as well, for
Kephalos bought rulers the way another man might buy a cloak, as a
protection against the weather.

In any case, to me it was merely another
banquet, another crowd of wealthy parasites who had to be fed and
entertained and provided with suitable pretexts for their various
indiscretions. The Lady Nodjmanefer was absent, having departed the
city three days before to accompany her husband on a trip to Saïs,
so even this last prospect of pleasure was denied to me.

Yet I performed my duties as host. I listened
to gossip that did not interest me and laughed at jests that were
not amusing and smiled at foolish women and spoke with their
husbands about the merits of various well-known courtesans and
whether slave girls were not, in the long run, a better
bargain.

By the second hour after midnight, with my
eyeballs as glazed as a pottery water jug, I decided to retreat to
my own quarters for a moment and wash my face in cold water until
it would unclench enough to allow me to stop grinning. I would be
safe for twenty minutes or so. No one would notice my absence or,
if they did, would regard it as any breach of manners. They would
merely assume I was busy consolidating a triumph over some one or
other of the ladies, such being considered among the principal
purposes of these gatherings.

On my way back, my shoulders squared and the
creases pressed out of my face, it occurred to me to say something
to my steward Semerkhet about the wine, which I noticed had grown
weaker as the evening wore on—guests who are never allowed to grow
properly drunk, I wished to point out to him, only piss against the
wall and return to their tables, never thinking of their own
sleeping mats at home.

Thus I skirted around the dining hall by a
back corridor that led to the kitchens. It was here that I found
Selana, near a half open door, watching the banquet from behind a
screen of empty water jugs.

“What do you mean by this?” I hissed, pulling
her up by the back of her tunic. “What are you doing here? You
should have been in your bed hours ago!”

Screeching like a peacock, she twisted around
and attempted to bite me on the wrist. I swung the door shut—this
was not a scene I wished my guests to witness—and dropped her,
giving her a kick in the backside that sent her sprawling.

Once was enough. When she regained her
balance she did not continue active hostilities but instead grew
quiet. She sat up, drawing her knees in under her chin and glaring
at me, leaving me to wonder why all our recent encounters seemed to
end in brawls.

“What are you doing here?” I repeated.

“What difference should it make to you?” she
answered—if a look could kill I would have died that instant. “You
made me a kitchen slave, remember? I should be beneath your notice.
You would not punish one of the household cats for stealing a peek
at your silly friends.”

I went back to the door, opened it a crack,
and looked out. She was perfectly right. They were silly.

“They are not my friends,” I said. “I hardly
know most of them.”

“Then why do you invite them to your house?
They drink your wine and eat your food—perhaps you have become a
tavern master.”

She stuck out her tongue at me.

“Why are you angry with me, Selana? You are a
child and should be in your bed. I repent that I struck you.”

“Oh—I don’t mind that.”

“Then what do you mind?”

Her only answer, after a long pause, as if
made under compulsion, was a curt gesture at the door to the dining
hall.

“You resent these people, Selana? Are you
jealous of them?”

“Jealous of them? Why should I be jealous of
them?” she asked hotly, straightening her legs with a snap. “I am a
Greek and better than that rabble of mud-colored Egyptians! Jealous
of them!”

“Go to bed, Selana—what am I to do with
you?”

“I know not, Lord. I know not.”

There were tears in her eyes. She got up from
the floor and went back to the kitchen.

What was I to do with her? Over the next few
days I considered the question from several different vantages and
could arrive at no conclusion. In another three or four years, when
she had grown to womanhood, what would become of her? Certainly she
had never been destined for life in my kitchen—if I kept her there
she would probably run off one night and end up in the brothels, or
in the gutter with her throat cut. Something else would have to be
found for her.

“What do you think, Enkidu? She should be
taught to read and to do sums. Then, when she is old enough, we can
give her a dowry and marry her off—in Naukratis, to some young man
with his way to make in the world. She can be a merchant’s wife.
She is no fool and would be a great help to him.”

The Macedonian, who was eating his breakfast
at the time, merely glanced at me for a moment, as if he thought I
had gone a little mad.

“Well—someone must have her. Sooner or later,
someone.”

He growled, exactly like a large,
bad-tempered dog that resents the interference.

“I suppose I shall have to do it myself—I
mean, teach her to read.”

But Enkidu had lost interest.

That evening I told my steward that I wished
the girl Selana to be taken from the kitchen and given her own
room. I did not explain why, so the gods alone know what the man
thought.

The Lord Senefru returned from Saïs, and with
him Nodjmanefer. I saw her again the night of a festival honoring
the god Set, and the next afternoon she lay in my arms.

It was soon generally understood in my
household that the master was involved in an intrigue and, since no
man can long hope to keep anything secret from his slaves,
doubtless many knew the identity of the high-born lady who had
become the Lord Tiglath’s mistress. Certainly Kephalos knew.

“Every man must take an interest in
something,” he said. “And, since now you may no longer pursue a
soldier’s glory, and have never displayed any appetite for wealth,
a fashionable woman, safely provided with a husband, is a harmless
enough pastime. This one is no Esharhamat and will not disturb the
tranquillity of your mind.”

“Kephalos, how can you know what she is?”

“I receive the confidences of your serving
women, Lord, and, since you continue to go into them with a healthy
and pleasing regularity, I can guess well enough what she is not—at
least, to you. Beyond that, the question concerns me but
little.”

I could not even make pretense of being
offended, since he was so delighted to have found me out.

Another matter, however, seemed to give him
much less satisfaction.

“I am informed, Lord, that you have removed
that wretched infant from the kitchen.”

“You refer to Selana?” I asked, secretly
gratified at being provided with the means of avenging myself upon
him. “Yes—she was not happy there and, besides, we must give some
thought to her future. I have decided to have her instructed in the
calculation of sums, and I myself will teach her to read and write
the Greek script.”

“Teach her to read! Have her instructed in
sums!”

Kephalos swept his hands back across his
shaven head as if this latest of my follies would be the end of
him. For a moment he seemed too vexed even to speak, but this could
not last.

“My Lord, think what you do,” he managed to
gasp out at last. “She is the daughter of a Doric pig farmer—read!
She was born, at best, to be the concubine of a drunken tavern
keeper and to have her backside rented out by the quarter hour.
Teach such a creature to read and you will make her the curse of
any man stupid enough to have her under his roof—and such men will
not be plentiful, since, for all her bronze-colored hair, she is a
repulsive little toad. Hearken to the wisdom of age, Master.
Practical knowledge may be one thing, but a woman who has learned
more letters than those which make up her own name is a burden upon
mankind and good for nothing but to promote the misery of the
world.”

Nevertheless, I went ahead with my plan. I
hired a scribe from the marketplace to come every second day and
open to her the mystery of numbers, and on the alternating mornings
I sat down with her after breakfast, a wax tablet across my knees,
and began to teach her the alphabet.

At first, at least where writing was
concerned, she seemed to be of Kephalos’ opinion.

“What would you have me read?” she asked,
with some asperity. “To do sums is of use, but I can tell the
difference between one coin and another without having to read
it.”

“And if you should receive a letter?”

“I know no one who can write except you and
Master Kephalos. He would sooner cut off his hand, and a letter
from you would only be full of lies. I think I would be foolish
indeed if I ever trusted you far enough away from me that we would
have occasion for letters.”

“I am not your property, Selana.”

“No—I am yours. Can the Lady Nodjmanefer
write?”

“I doubt it, as the Egyptians have as many
letters as words and she is not a scribe. What has she to do with
it?”

“With writing, if you speak the truth, not a
thing; but with you, much. Teach her to write, since she is often
gone from you. I am not so foolish as she.”

She snatched the wax tablet from my knee and
hurled it across the room, so that it hit the wall and
shattered.

“She is a great lady and I am only a slave,
but you will tire of her first!” she shouted. “Remember, love is a
punishment from the gods, but what is your property you have
forever.”

She then cursed me furiously and ran away. I
promised myself I would have her beaten, but I did not. I did
nothing. Two days later she returned, kissed my hand in submission,
and said she would learn letters if it was my will.

“Why have you changed your mind?” I
asked.

“I remembered that I am a slave in your house
and must learn obedience.”

“Do not mock me, Selana.”

“Very well then. I will learn to read for the
pleasure of annoying Master Kephalos.”

“And what grievance have you with him?”

“None. In fact, he has recently done me a
great service—he has set my mind at ease. You cannot guess how, can
you, Dread Lord.” She smiled in the manner of an accomplished
harlot, mocking me. “No, you cannot guess. For it is true what your
concubines say, that men are all great simpletons. Yet if Master
Kephalos is not jealous of the Lady Nodjmanefer, then I have
nothing to fear from her—and he still hates me. I am
comforted.”