The Wadjet Eye (3 page)

"In Alexandria's library I have studied Alexander the Great's every move, studied maps, strategies, even the words of his generals." Artemas jammed his fists onto his hips and puffed out his chest. "Experience isn't everything. But if it's experience you are looking for, you'll have it with Damon as your ship's physician."

Damon pulled Artemas by the arm. "Come on, Artemas. There'll be other ships heading to Caesar's legions."

Artemas stood rooted. Damon glanced from Artemas to the Roman captain. He could see the captain calculating how many dead oarsmen he had been forced to toss over the side on the journey here. The captain was thinking perhaps it would not be such a bad idea to take a physician aboard, protect his investment. What had Artemas gotten him into?

The captain's expressions changed as he thought this through. It was rather a slow process. Damon knew that Artemas was growing impatient. Before Artemas could say more, Damon turned to leave, hoping his friend would follow.

The captain shouted after him, "You'll not see another vessel this way for months. If it's to Caesar's forces you are headed, it's my ship or none." He pointed to Damon. Til take you, if you wish."

Damon yanked on the immobile Artemas. "It's both of us or none." They'd find some way to get to his father. He didn't like the looks of this captain or his rot-wormed ship.

"I suppose I could use someone to keep the latrines empty."

Damon was horrified. He pulled harder on Artemas. But Artemas broke into a grin.

"We're headed for Caesar." Artemas pinned Damon's arms to his sides in a hug and quickly added, "And to your father, too!"

"You can't be serious, Artemas."

"I'd wade barefoot in fouled bilge water if I had to. What's emptying a few buckets? Think of it, Damon. Caesar!"

Damon and Artemas sat in the courtyard ripping linen sheets into narrow lengths. Mounds of strips coiled at their feet.

"I sold the last of the Venetian glass this morning," Damon said. "It didn't bring what I had hoped, but with the money we had saved for her embalming, we will have enough to last a year." Damon slit the linen with his knife and ripped another strip from the fabric.

Artemas reached for the end of a strip and began to roll. "My father borrowed a trunk for us from the retired merchant who lives next door. He had to sit through an afternoon of sea tales he'd heard a dozen times before to get it. He'll be walking the long way to market for weeks to avoid the fellow." Artemas grinned.

"How is your father taking your leaving?" Damon asked.

"I think he wishes he could come with us. Sometimes it must feel as though the vineyards have him shackled to the land."

"It must be nice to have a father who will miss you."

Artemas nodded and changed the subject. "Have you rented your house?"

"Not yet. You're sure your father doesn't mind keeping watch over my house?" The word
my
felt strange on Damon's tongue. His mother's house was now his own. He should sell it, he knew. It was much too big for one person—and the memories ... But he wasn't ready to give it up. Perhaps when he returned.

"I think he fancies playing landlord," Artemas said. "Don't worry about my father; this suits him."

"What's left to do, then?" Damon looked down at the linen. "Besides her funeral, I mean."

"The ship sails in four days. Can you be ready? I mean, will she..."

"I'll be ready. Last night I finished copying the spells I think she would have chosen from the Book of the Dead. I've written all thirty-six denials on the scroll."

"Denials?"

"Before the judges she must deny having sinned. The judges have names like Breaker of Bones and Eater of Blood."

"They sound charming." Artemas reached behind a bolt of linen. "I brought these for her." He handed the small wooden statues of a man and a woman to Damon.

"Why, these are shabti. What's a Greek like you doing with these? I thought you didn't believe in this stuff."

Artemas shrugged. "
She
did. 1 thought she should have someone to help her out—you know, where she's going."

Damon turned the shabti over in his hands. The wood felt waxy, it was so smooth. Did he believe? Would these wooden people become the answerers to the gods' requests? Servants to his mother in the afterworld? Artemas was right. It didn't matter what he believed. "I'm glad you thought of it. I'd hate to think of my mother toiling in the fields for the gods because I had forgotten to provide her with servants."

Artemas stacked another linen roll into the papyrus basket. "She was good to me when my mother died. She was like a second mother. If the afterlife is what she said, soon our mothers will be gossiping together once again." He picked up another strip and rolled. "This seems like a lot of linen."

Damon looked around him, at the basket stacked with rolls and the mounds at his feet yet to be rolled. "It does, doesn't it? I had no idea how much I'd need. I guess I should get started."

Artemas was quiet while Damon tucked linen into the basket until he could fit in no more. Why couldn't he babble on now as he had before? Why was it when Damon needed quiet, Artemas went on and on, and now, when Damon could use something to distract him, Artemas was as silent as the Sphinx? "Will you thank your father for me?"

Artemas looked puzzled.

"For watching over my house while we're gone."

Artemas nodded.

There was nothing left to say. Damon looked one last time over his shoulder at Artemas and then entered his house, walking steadily toward the death chamber door.

Once inside, Damon put the basket beneath the table. He picked up the Book of the Dead papyrus and placed the scroll between his mother's ankles. It contained the spells to guide her and protect her on her journey through the underworld. Then he took a long strip of linen and began to wrap, binding her ankles, securing the scroll. When he came to the end of one linen roll, he took another from the basket.

He was surprised at how light she was. When the natron had dried her skin, he had removed the crystals from her body cavity and stuffed it with sawdust mixed with fragrant leaves, then sealed the incisions with beeswax. Over each cut he had stamped the Eye of Horus, the wadjet eye, in the beeswax to protect her. He thought of the stories she had told, remembered her voice, as he wrapped.

He felt the amulet that hung from his neck. It bore the image of Thoth, patron of the scribes. When all others were pushing him to begin work as a scribe, his mother had asked him why he wasn't happy. He had been chosen to practice the most noble of professions. He told her he wanted to study medicine instead. Wanted to study at the Museum. Would it anger the gods to want more when he had so much already? She had told him that it would anger the gods only if he failed to follow the path of his heart.

That night she gave him the amulet. A tiny figure of Thoth, the god of wisdom, who had given Egypt the gifts of medicine, writing, and mathematics. Damon wore it next to his heart always.

Now he lifted it over his head and placed it over her heart. "May he share your journey as he has mine, Mother."

Damon continued to wrap, round and round, until Thoth could no longer be seen.

When the body of his mother was completely covered with layers and layers of linen strips, he slid it into a linen bag, which he tied with the last few strips. In a bowl he mixed dirt from her garden with rainwater. When the mud was thick, he molded it into a ball and pressed it onto the last knot. He stamped the mud with the family seal.

"I hope this pleases you, Anubis. I have done my best. Watch over her on her journey."

Damon held one end of the trunk, Artemas the other, as they made their way carefully along the dock. The harbor was crowded with ships. But as the Roman captain had predicted, not one other was departing for Spain.

Artemas inhaled deeply. "Smell it, Damon, smell the sea. It's a powerful smell."

Damon sniffed the air, but all he smelled was decaying fish and rotting seaweed. He didn't want to spoil Artemas's excitement, so he smiled and nodded. It
was
a powerful smell. He'd give Artemas that. While Artemas shielded his eyes to observe the gleaming white marble of the Pharos lighthouse, Damon pretended to wipe his nose and breathed deep the oil of lotus blossom he had applied to the back of his hand.

"What have you put in this trunk—rocks?" Artemas adjusted his grip, his palm red and lined from the woven papyrus handle.

"Fruit. Sailors suffer from all sorts of maladies from lack of it."

"Damon, we won't be at sea more than a few weeks ... if the yearly winds don't blow against us."

Damon looked at the Roman galley in the harbor. Even a few days aboard would be a long time. Leave it to Artemas to pick the only merchant vessel built like a warship. Why couldn't they sail on the grain run to Rome and pick up passage to Spain from there? Look at that cargo ship! It would be like sailing on an island, it was so huge.

Damon sighed. Well, at least their small galley ship would have to follow the coastline and put ashore each night. Damon found comfort in the thought of never leaving sight of land. But still, the galley looked so small.

The same boy they had seen when they arranged passage was sitting on the dock by a line to the dory. When he saw Damon and Artemas approach, he jumped to his feet, rushed forward, and took Damon's end of the trunk. He tried to lift it himself, but it was too heavy, and he nearly fell over backward trying to balance it on his chest. Artemas shook his head and pointed to the painter. The boy understood, dropped the trunk, and ran to untie the line.

Damon cringed at the
thump
the trunk made on the dock. He had packed the cooking pots inside their clothing, but still he pictured them cracked and useless.

"Just wait until you get on board." Artemas dragged the trunk, oblivious to the
thump, thump
as it crossed each gap in the cedar planks. "You'll sleep like a baby with the sea's gentle rocking."

"Good," Damon said. "I didn't sleep at all last night. I don't know if it was worry about the voyage or the hooting of the owl in my mother's garden. I found myself lying there waiting for the next hoot. Then I counted between hoots to see if they were regular, like a heartbeat, or unpredictable, like the weather." Damon studied the sky. It was clear from horizon to horizon.

Artemas scowled at Damon and shook his finger. What now? Damon looked behind him to see what was distressing Artemas.

"Not a word of night birds," Artemas scolded him. "Especially owls. No sneezing either. Sailors are more superstitious than the priests at Karnak. If you want to sail, not a word."

"What's so bad about an owl?" Damon asked.

"To a sailor it means shipwreck."

Damon snorted and shook his head. But when he stepped into the rocking dory after the trunk had been loaded, he looked again at the grain ship and wished once more for the bulk of that ship under his feet.

When the dip of the oars brought them alongside the galley, Artemas tied their trunk to the line the sailors tossed out. The captain leaned over the rail, watching his men hoist the trunk to the deck. Damon and Artemas climbed the ladder alongside the rising trunk.

The captain nudged his gubernator, and said, "He's going to save us from pirates, that one."

The sailing master tilted his head back and laughed. When he opened his mouth wide to laugh, there was a black hole on the side where teeth once had been.

"I think we'll call him the admiral." The captain jerked his head to the men carrying buckets of bilge water from the hold. They tipped the buckets over the side, the filthy water cascading down onto Artemas and Damon, who clung to the ladder. The gubernator laughed harder still.

Damon and Artemas scrambled up the ladder. Damon had one leg over the side when he saw their trunk disappearing down a hatch. "Where are they taking our trunk?" he asked Artemas.

The captain answered. "Just inspecting the contents. I'll return it to you once I'm done with it."

Once he's taken everything of value,
Damon thought. "We packed fresh fruit, food for our passage. What will we eat?"

"Not to worry. No one starves on this ship."

The gubernator stopped laughing and eyed the rigging as if he had never seen it before.

Damon wanted to demand the trunk be brought to him, but he knew that the captain was not used to being questioned, and suddenly he was afraid to push the man any further. Was it too late to get off this ship?

Damon patted his side, thankful he'd kept at least one pouch of gold out of the trunk. He caught the captain watching him and pretended to be brushing away the oily black sediment that clung to his tunic. A few weeks, Artemas had said. Damon would be glad when they reached Spain.

The boy who had rowed them to the galley disappeared down the hatch after the trunk. He ducked quickly when the captain turned to see what Artemas and Damon were staring at. Seeing nothing but vacant deck, the captain turned to ready the ship for exit from the harbor, calling back over his shoulder, "If we need military advice, we'll be sure to shout. Oh, that's right, there's no library on this ship. What will we do?" He slapped both of his own cheeks in mock dismay.

The gubernator laughed again and saluted Artemas. "To the paper admiral!" He turned and followed the captain to the pilothouse, leaving Damon and Artemas alone on the deck.

Damon expected Artemas to be furious. He was surprised when Artemas clapped him on the shoulder. "Think of it, Damon, we'll be at sea by midday!"

"How can you be cheerful? He's got everything." Damon didn't dare even whisper, "Except the gold at my side."

Artemas shrugged. "We'll get by. The important thing is, we are heading for your father."

Caesar,
you mean,
Damon thought.
Were headed lo Caesar.
But his friend's excitement was catching ... at least a bit. Maybe the captain would return their clothes and cooking pots. They'd be of no use to him.

Damon felt a tug at his sleeve. The boy stood close behind him. How had he snuck up on him like that? The creaking of the ship masked all other sound, Damon realized.