The Wadjet Eye (2 page)

Damon knew what Artemas meant. He too had heard the rumors—murmurings about instructors and zealous students cutting open living humans to see the heart pump, the lungs inflate, the nerves twitch. He had seen the lamps glow in the middle of the night and wondered, but he had no proof. He shrugged.

Artemas curled his lip. "Battle, at least, has honor."

Damon did not feel like arguing about this again. Artemas would always have the same ridiculous, idealized notion about honor accompanying death in battle. When Artemas held a dying man in his arms, he'd feel differently, Damon was sure.

Artemas lifted the lid of a vase and peered inside. "So,
can
you do it?"

Damon nodded. He wanted to say "Of course," but his voice failed him. His friend would know he was bluffing, anyhow. They'd find out soon enough if he could do it.

Damon leaned over the corpse of his mother with the scalpel poised, the point inches above the navel. A linen shroud covered her face and all but the place he planned to incise.

He'd done dozens of examinations after death. He closed his eyes and visualized himself in anatomy class. This
is just a lesson,
he repeated.
Just another cadaver, like all the others.
He opened his eyes but still could not cut.

Her skin looked powder, as if ash had fallen from the sky and coated her body. This was the woman who had chased him with a broom when he had broken an amphora while practicing juggling—not some nameless body. The woman who had fought the director of the Museum to get him admitted when everyone else felt it should be honor enough for him to be a scribe.

He lifted the shroud at her shoulder. The scarab tattoo seemed to stand away from her skin, the ink dark against the paleness. The scarab appeared to struggle to free itself from her dead body. Damon remembered her as she was before the sickness, kneading bread dough on the marble slab in the kitchen, the scarab moving over the motion of her muscles. Moving in time to the songs she sang while she worked. When he was little, he used to pretend it was a live beetle she kept as a pet on her shoulder.

Damon lowered the linen. He closed his eyes again. He could not think of this body as some nameless corpse, but it was no longer his mother, either. The mother he had known was with Anubis. This was just a shell, left here for safekeeping until her ka could return. He must prepare it for her life in the afterworld.

He stood back, his weight on his heels, and breathed deep the smell of roses. He had scattered petals from her favorite roses over the floor, and as he prepared the work area around the table, his feet had crushed the delicate petals, releasing their scent. The four vases that would hold the cleansed organs stood on the floor. Damon had filled each one with dried herbs and placed them by the basins of palm wine. All was ready. It was time.

He whispered, "Thoth, give me the strength," and pressed the blade into the flesh. A thin red line followed his blade. The cut was made.

"Are you all right in there?" Artemas yelled through the door.

Damon spread the incision open and worked quickly now. He held his breath against the foul odor and tried to remember the rose petals' smell. Cupping both hands, he scooped the intestines and sloshed them over the side into a shallow dish of palm wine. He cut them free and set the dish aside.

"Damon?"

"I don't think we have enough natron," Damon called back. He took shallow breaths through his mouth, but even so, the stench of death, death from a long sickness, overpowered him. Artemas would topple like a column at the temple of Karnak if he came into the room now.

When they had prepared the sleeping chamber, Artemas had kept up a constant babble. They'd brought a table from the medical school and jars for draining the bodily fluids and scalpels for removing the organs. Artemas had talked rapidly about nothing while Damon sharpened the blades—anything to keep his mind off the task at hand. It had wearied Damon. He'd wanted quiet.

There was enough natron to dry two corpses, but Damon needed to keep Artemas busy until he removed the brain through the nostrils with the picks he had hidden from Artemas in the folds of his kilt. Artemas would have gone down for sure if he had known the purpose of those tools.

"Another sack, I think, and some powder of myrrh as well," Damon shouted at the closed door. His eyes stung and watered, and he fought the urge to gag.

"I'll be back shortly"

Not too shortly,
Damon thought. Powder of myrrh would be hard to come by this time of year. Ships were not traveling yet, though winter was nearly over.

"Damon?"

"Yes?" Damon struggled to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

"Are you all right?"

Would Artemas just leave? Damon didn't want to think about whether he was all right or not. "Just go. I'm going to be fine." He had no choice. He didn't want to be fine. But he had no choice.

"We didn't need the natron after all," Damon said.

Artemas swung the amphora from his shoulder and positioned it near Damon, who sat on the bench overlooking the garden.

"She's surrounded with it," Damon said. "Now we must wait—the drying will take time."

"Was it difficult?"

What did Artemas think? Of course it was difficult. He shrugged.

The two sat staring into the garden. The bust of Caesar, a gift from Damon's father, seemed to look down on them from the pedestal rising out of the roses.

Damon felt irritable; even the statues annoyed him. "This courtyard looks just like Alexandria—less and less Egyptian."

"Since when has Alexandria been anything like the rest of Egypt?"

Damon grunted. How could he argue? Alexandria and Rome had more in common than Alexandria and the rest of her country. He, like most Alexandrians, had never felt the heat of the desert, nor seen the Nile overflow its banks during the inundation. But he felt like arguing. "Alexandria attracts nothing but pirates."

Artemas fingered Damon's silk tunic. "It seems their trade goods aren't beneath you."

"It wasn't the debtors and criminals who wove this fabric. They're all in your blessed army." Damon knew it rankled Artemas that Alexandria took in any outlaw at its gate who would enlist. Maybe now Artemas would fight with him. He felt like shouting at someone.

"It's a challenge to lead men unaccustomed to following orders. Cleopatra's officers must be true leaders."

"What is it with you today?" Damon threw up his hands. "Have you no fight in you?"

"I know what you're trying to do." Artemas sniffed. "It's not me that angers you. Why don't we talk about what really bothers you?"

"I miss the old days." Damon wanted to say,
when my mother lived.
But it was more than that. He missed boyhood, when his cares were few. "I miss the old market."

"When it was safe for crawling babies to explore and, if the gods smiled, maybe even find a friend?"

Damon felt his anger dissolve. He could never stay angry with Artemas. With his bare foot he covered the design of the spider woven into the thick Persian carpet his father had sent from Zela. The battle there had been so swift and crushing that Caesar had announced to the world, "
Veni, vidi, via.
" Everyone knew what those words meant. Even Damon, who knew no Latin, could translate them:
I came, I saw, I conquered.
Damon had felt proud that his father had been there with Caesar, but he would not admit it to anyone. Not even to Artemas, who had carved the words into a crocodile hide and stretched it across a frame to hang his sleeping pallet.

Damon smoothed the fringed edge of the carpet. The pride had dwindled over time, like everything else—the anticipation of his father's return, even the love for his father. He felt nothing.

Pivoting on his heel, he brushed the carpet with the ball of his foot. The silk threads glittered in the sun. "I must send word to my father."

"You're going to tell him in a letter that your mother died?"

Damon shrugged. Why did Artemas make it sound so terrible? "What else can I do?"

"You can go to him. Tell him face to face."

"What for?"

"Because he's your father, and he deserves to hear it from you."

"He doesn't care about me."

"You don't know that."

"Do you see my father anywhere? If he cared, he'd be here. With us."

"I see your father everywhere." Artemas looked around the courtyard at the gifts Damon's father had sent.

"These ...
things,
" Damon said with disgust, "don't make up for his not being here. For his never being here."

"Your mother loved him."

"She was going to meet him in Italy after the sowing. He retires this year. He was to claim his legionnaire's pension, a farm."

"Then you'll go instead."

"I have my studies."

"When you get back, you can continue. It would be good for you to see him. Where is he now?"

"With Caesar, always with his Caesar." Damon picked a small stone from beneath the bench and pegged it at the bust.

Artemas grabbed his arm. "Would you show disrespect to your men of medicine? Would you toss a stone at Hippocrates? Don't dishonor a man I admire."

"I'm sorry," Damon said. "It's just..." He closed his eyes. "I've never even been out of Alexandria."

"It took great courage to do what you did for your mother. This trip will be nothing in comparison."

"It's a different kind of courage."
Your kind,
thought Damon.

"I'll go with you. Together we'll find your father."

"What about Cleopatra's navy? I thought you were going to enlist."

"The timbers are still not here from Byblos. It will be two years before her navy is seaworthy."

"You would go all the way across the sea with me?" Why was he surprised? Artemas would go anywhere for no reason at all.

"It will be an adventure, wait and see," Artemas said.

"That's what I am afraid of."

Artemas strode along the docks, hopping over thick hemp lines and dodging merchants who shouldered rolled-up carpets. Damon picked his way behind, tripping on nets and bumping into tall red clay amphoras that lined the boardwalks. The first ships of the season, anchored in the harbor, lay low at their water lines with full cargo holds.

Men bartered in Greek. Damon heard very few speaking Egyptian, fewer still Latin. He would have to learn some Latin on the voyage—enough to travel the countryside at least. Enough to greet his father.

Artemas pointed to a ship anchored near the lighthouse. "The sailors say she's headed toward Spain."

"Spain?"

"Caesar's forces are gathered there. That's where your father must be."

"But
Spain?
" Damon was sure that must be near the edge of civilization. Caesar would not go so far west. What could possibly be gained?

"She's a Roman galley for sure," Artemas went on. "Look how awkward her bow is."

It looked like all the other ships to Damon, except a bit shabbier.

Artemas shook his head. "Probably suffering rot-worm, too."

Why was Artemas sounding so cheerful? "If the boat is so horrible, why are we considering it?" Damon didn't like the sound of rot-worm. He pointed to a cluster of solid-looking vessels pulling on their anchor lines. "What about one of those?"

Artemas smiled. "You have a good eye. Those are Greek. Now we know how to build a ship. How to sail, too. Not like the Romans. No offense intended."

"None taken. I'm sure I have no sea legs—I'll blame that on my Roman half."
Along with all my other faults,
Damon thought. "Must we take that one?"

"I'm afraid the Roman dog is the only one going our way."

Artemas called to a boy unloading a dinghy. "You, are you from that Roman vessel?"

The boy looked to where Artemas pointed, and nodded.

"Is your captain on board?"

The boy looked puzzled for a moment, then he pointed. Artemas and Damon followed his outstretched finger to a group of men bent over charts spread open across a block of granite. They walked over to the men, who were sharing news of the trade winds.

"Be careful," one man was saying. "The shoal has shifted here. We saw the skeleton of a ship run aground. It will have broken up by now, and there'll be no marker for you."

The other captains marked their charts—all except one, who was biting off chunks of lamb from a bone he grasped in his right hand. His left held a cup of wine.

The man across from Artemas looked up at him. Despite his height, Artemas stood on tiptoe, craning his neck at their charts.

"Move along. There's nothing for you to see here," one of the men ordered gruffly.

Damon turned to go, but Artemas grabbed him by the elbow. "My friend and I are waiting to speak with the captain of the Roman ship."

The man with the lamb bone pointed it at him. Grease shone from his chin. "And what if he does not want to speak with you?"

"Then he'll be missing an opportunity to take a ship's physician aboard." Artemas gestured toward Damon. Damon straightened up the best he could, although he didn't know why. What did he care how these scruffy seamen saw him?

Artemas went on like a merchant selling from his booth, only it was Damon he was trying to market. "He studies under Cleopatra's own physician. I hear that your oarsmen are suffering from disease."

Damon looked at Artemas. Where had he heard that? Probably playing a hunch—oarsmen were always suffering from something. The confines of the hold and the demands of the rowing bred illness.

Artemas stepped in front of Damon. "And I can organize your men for battle in case of a pirate attack."

The captains laughed. "You are a bit young to have much experience in warfare, aren't you?" said the man who had spoken first.

Artemas bristled. "Old enough."

Not old enough,
Damon thought. He knew Artemas was sensitive about his inexperience. Many had served for years by the time they reached Artemas's age. But Egypt had been at peace all his and Artemas's lives. It was hard to gain experience in warfare without war.