Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile (16 page)

And yet, somehow, at some dark hour of the night, another person joined us in the room. I woke from a troubled dream, my forehead beaded with sweat, to see a hulking silhouette looming over me.

XIV

“Teti!” I whispered. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? Where is Djet?” I tried to sit up, but felt strangely lightheaded.

“I don’t know where the boy has gone,” she said. “But I saw him leave the room a few moments ago—and I took that to be my cue.”

“Your cue?”

“To join you, Marcus Pecunius. Or should I just call you Marcus? Is that not the Roman custom, to use the first name when two people become … close friends?”

As far as I was concerned, she had already come close enough. Again I tried to sit up, and again I was thwarted by an odd sensation in my head and a weakness in my limbs. Had I been drugged again, this time by Teti? Was it a standard practice for Egyptian innkeepers to sedate their guests so as to take advantage of them?

“Teti, I’m not feeling well.”

“Ah, you’re tired, that’s all. Some fresh air will revive you.” She walked to the small window, unlatched the shutters, and pulled them open. By the moonlight I saw her more clearly.

She was completely naked.

I swallowed. My throat felt dry and scratchy. “I closed that window to keep out the flies,” I said.

“Flies?” She laughed. “The flies are all asleep, silly man.”

“You’ll let in the damp night air.” I was used to sleeping in a city by the sea, refreshed by salubrious sea breezes. The air of the Delta was sultry and humid, especially at night, when oppressive vapors rose from the riverbanks and marshes. Was that why I felt so sluggish and out of sorts?

Despite my objections, Teti left the shutters open. She stepped away from the window and drew relentlessly closer.

To be honest, and to be fair, I was not entirely put off by her advances. The sight of her naked figure by moonlight had in fact stirred something in me—if not exactly lust, then at least a quiver of curiosity. Teti was no Venus, at least not as Greeks and Romans like to picture the goddess of love, with a slender waist and elegant breasts. She more closely resembled those archaic images I had seen in certain temples in my travels, goddesses of fertility who were all voluptuous hips and breasts and buttocks. Seeing Teti unclothed, no one could say she was not a robust specimen of womanhood. And if one liked that sort of thing, there was a great deal of her to like.

But what she had in mind was simply not possible. There were two reasons for this.

The first reason was Bethesda.

Like an actor in a play, I had an impulse to clutch the thin coverlet to my chin and cry out, “No, Teti! I cannot do it! My heart belongs to another!” While I did cover myself with the sheet, I kept my mouth shut. Staid Roman that I was, all my instincts cried out against making a public declaration of my feelings for a slave, even if the only person present to hear it was Teti.

From whence came this impulse to be faithful to Bethesda? To be chaste is hardly a Roman virtue, at least not for a man; to be faithful might be, if the woman is one’s wife, but Bethesda was not and surely never could be that. I was a man—a freeborn, unmarried citizen of Rome—so what was there to prevent me from indulging in a bit of harmless sport with an available female, if I desired to do so?

There was the problem: I did not desire it, and would not have done so even if Teti had looked like Helen of Troy. Indeed, the more beautiful the temptress, the more I would have shrunk from her. Such was the state of my manhood. Whatever stirrings I felt at the sight of a desirable female—I had seen quite a few in Canopus—became transmuted at once into thoughts of Bethesda, and those thoughts brought not pleasure but pain.

Was she remaining faithful to me during our separation? Even if that were her desire, had some brute forced himself on her? Had more than one brute done so? Had Bethesda forsaken me? Had she forgotten me? Was she making any effort to return to me? Would I ever see her again? Was she even still alive?

One tortured thought led to another—all beginning with the sight of an attractive woman. Thus did the faintest quiver of desire lead me not to lust but to misery. I could no longer even please myself. My natural instincts had become perverted, and all because of something the poets call “love.” Love had made me a eunuch.

There was no way I could explain all this to Teti as she stood there naked and grinning at me. So I simply said nothing.

There was a second reason why the union Teti desired could not possibly be consummated. At any moment, I was going to be violently sick.

More beads of sweat erupted across my forehead. The veins at my temples pounded, and a million flies buzzed inside my head. My hands felt clammy. My belly stiffened with cramps. My chest heaved. My throat began to spasm.

As waves of nausea surged through me, I knew that I must have been poisoned. Had Teti put a love potion in my food and mistaken the dose? Was she a cold-blooded murderer and a thief, like the Crocodile?

More likely, I thought, the chicken was to blame.

Never eat chicken from a stranger’s kitchen: so my father had told me. It seemed that the longer I was away from him, the less I heeded his wise counsel, and the more trouble I got myself into.

I threw back the linen sheet. Seeing me naked and covered with sweat, Teti mistook the gesture for an invitation. As she attempted to climb onto the bed, I struggled to slip past her, and our limbs became entangled. Any god who happened to be looking down at us must have had a good laugh at such a grotesque parody of the act of love, all flailing flesh and desperate grunts.

At last I extricated myself and ran to the window. I stuck my head outside just in time. My whole body heaved and convulsed.

From directly below me, I heard a wail of distress. It was Djet. He scampered out of the way on all fours. When he was clear, he looked up at me with a miserable expression. “You, too?” he said. And then, as if to mock me, he likewise began to vomit.

So that was why he had abandoned his post at the door—the malady must have struck him only moments before it struck me.

For quite some time the two of us were gripped by nausea. Djet stayed where he was, on all fours, while I leaned out the window. Gradually, the paroxysms subsided, then returned, then subsided again.

Wiping his mouth, Djet spoke in a weak voice. “Do you think it was…?”

“The chicken,” I said.

He nodded, then proceeded to convulse yet again. It seemed remarkable that such a small fellow could have so much inside him that needed to come out.

At last my nausea subsided, leaving me faint and exhausted. I turned around to see that Teti had vanished from the room. Had she been repulsed by my sickness, or had she too been afflicted?

Whatever the case, I was glad to be left in peace as I staggered across the room and fell back into bed. I grimaced as my head struck not a soft pillow, but the hard, bulging treasure sack. At least the problem of the ruby gave me something to think about other than my physical misery, and I found myself clutching the sack as I gradually, fitfully, returned to a realm of uneasy dreams.

*   *   *

I was up at dawn. Djet had returned to the room and had taken his place on the floor in front of the door. I nudged him awake and told him to go and prepare the camel so that we could set out at once.

“But I don’t know how to dress a camel,” he complained.

“You saw me put on the trappings yesterday, and you helped me take them off. You can at least fill the water skins.”

“What if the beast bites me?”

“I told you, camels never bite. Now run along.”

I headed for the kitchen, where a great many flies were already buzzing about. The serving girl was up, and asked if I wanted some dates or a bowl of farina with goat’s milk. My empty stomach was growling to be fed, but I dared to eat only a few crusts of stale bread and to sip some cool water.

Teti appeared, wearing a loose sleeping gown made of linen so sheer that I could see every voluptuous curve and recess of her body. To judge by her cheerful demeanor, she had not been sick after all. Nor did the serving girl appear to have been ill.

“Marcus Pecunius,” she said, opening her arms to give me a commiserating hug. “Are you feeling better this morning?”

“Weak, but well.”

“And will you be staying another night, so that I may have the chance to send you from Sais with a better estimation of my house?” The words were formal, but her fluttering eyes spoke a different language.

“Alas, Teti, I must leave at once. The pyramids call to me.”

“And how can I compare with those?” she sighed, placing a hand upon her heaving breasts.

“Don’t worry about last night,” I said. “I couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome.”

“Ah, you silver-tongued Roman! Perhaps, on your way back…?”

“Perhaps.”

“You will always be welcome here, Marcus Pecunius. Now, you and the boy will need food for your journey. There might be a bit of last night’s chicken still in the clay jar—”

My stomach gave a lurch. “No, no, Teti, I bought some simple provisions yesterday, and I’m sure we’ll find plenty to eat along the way.”

“As you wish, Marcus Pecunius.”

I settled my account with her, then went out back to help Djet. To my surprise, he had already fitted the camel with its trappings. I checked all the straps and other pieces of tack and saw that he had done an excellent job. He had also filled the water skins. I had only to tuck the treasure sack safely away, and we could be off.

From the place where we stood, behind the inn, I had a narrow view of the street that ran in front of the establishment. As we made ready, I saw a figure approaching the inn, but he did not see me. I had only a fleeting glimpse of the man, but there was something familiar about his long gray beard. I heard him knock on the front door.

“Teti!” he called. “Teti, are you up?”

I recognized his voice at once. It was Harkhebi, the leader of the city fathers of Sais with whom I had played Pharaoh’s Beard at the Inn of the Hungry Crocodile.

I turned to Djet. “Keep very quiet and stay where you are,” I whispered.

“What’s happening?”

“Never mind. Just stay here until I come back.”

I crept along the side of the inn and got as close to the entrance as I could, staying out of sight. Teti had stepped outside to greet her visitor. From the way they spoke, I realized that Harkhebi and Teti were neighbors and knew each other well.

“How was your trip to Alexandria?” said Teti.

Harkhebi made a rude noise. “The king gave us nothing! He’s useless—and if you believe the gossip, not long for the throne.”

“Ah, speaking of Alexandria—”

I drew a sharp breath, thinking she was about to mention me. But Harkhebi interrupted her.

“We returned to Sais late last night, after traveling all day.”

“But here you are, up bright and early.”

“Because there’s something I need to tell everyone, and I’ll start with you, Teti. On the trip back from the city, we stopped at a place called Canopus. What a disgusting sinkhole of vice that town is! Full of prostitutes and drinking establishments and gambling dens.”

What a hypocrite! When it came to guzzling beer and placing wagers, Harkhebi had matched me round for round. Now that he was back in Sais, he played the upright city father.

“It must be a terrible place,” said Teti, in a tone that indicated she would gladly hear more.

“More terrible than you can imagine—for when we woke, after spending the night in one of those places, what should we discover but that one of the other guests had been murdered.”

“Murdered? Holy Isis! Tell me more.”

“The victim was a wealthy trader from Nabataea. A boy traveling with him and two bodyguards also had their throats cut.”

Teti gasped. “But who would do such a thing? And why?”

“The killer was one of the other guests. He raced off on a stolen camel at dawn, taking with him all the money the Nabataean had been carrying, as well as the poor man’s rings. He also took a ruby necklace.”

“A ruby?”

“A fabulous gem, worth a fortune. The crime was so audacious that the city fathers of Canopus have put a bounty on this killer and promised a reward for the return of the ruby.”

“‘This killer,’ you say—was it only one man? How did one man overcome four victims?”

“He isn’t just any man. He’s a Roman! Truly, they must be the most bloodthirsty people on earth. I shall never stay under the same roof with a Roman again.”

“A Roman, you say?” Teti’s tone was suddenly flat.

“Yes, a young Roman who’d come from Alexandria, traveling with a boy.”

“With … a boy, you say? The two of them, traveling on a camel?”

“Yes. No one is sure which way they went, but there’s a chance they were headed here to Sais. I’m warning everyone in town, especially the innkeepers, to be on the lookout for this monster.”

“And if he should appear?”

“My advice would be to kill him on the spot, as you would a dangerous snake! Then send his head to Canopus and claim the bounty. There’s a very generous reward for the recovery of the ruby, as well.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Of course, he may never come to Sais; I don’t want to alarm you unduly, Teti. Even if he does come here, what are the chances he would stay at your inn?”

There was a long silence, during which I held my breath.

At last I heard Teti sigh. “Well, there’s been no such person here at my inn.”

“For your sake, I’m glad to hear it. But be on the lookout, Teti. This Roman has killed once and may kill again.”

“He sounds like quite a man.”

“A dangerous man, Teti!”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Well, I must be off, to warn everyone else in town. Farewell, Teti.”

“Farewell, Harkhebi.”

I quickly crept to the back of the building. I pulled the treasure sack from the camel’s trappings, reached inside, then put it back.

“What’s going on?” said Djet.

“I’ll tell you later. Now keep your mouth shut!”

Teti appeared at the back door.