Gospel (121 page)

Belshazzar had traveled farther up the Nile and that was all that was known of him, the marketmaster reported. In parting, he said to me, “My Judaean friend, you do not want to go as far as Meroe. Whence even the Romans do not return!”
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Herein you can see my bravery, Josephus!

5.
(Oh, my scribe is distressed again. It is a most horrible thing in Meroe to commit an insult or an unkind opinion of a person or place to paper, where it is said to have a life of its own. Tesmegan, stupid boy, I must record things as they are … yes, I am waiting for you to write down every word I say. Yes, include the word “stupid.” What little time we have left!)

6.
I confess to a brief, foolish flirtation with the adventures of my youth, my brother. I lay awake at night, in the camps of other travelers, looking at the desert night sky and imagining that I should go into the court of Meroe and perform miracles as Moses before Pharoah, that I should win over a kingdom where Matthew before me had failed. And that finally my gospel alone would touch another man's heart and that the world might change ever so slightly toward the good and that it be
my
words and faith that engendered this inclination. I see, alas, in looking back it was always myself at the center of these dreams. And he who would bring God to others must put the Most High before all else. How clear it seems now …

7.
O what wonders were those Nubian towns! (With another life before me I should write a
Nubiad.
)

In Sarras I saw as strange a slave market as ever I saw. Types of men were gathered from all races and colors and sizes and I beheld a man no higher than my waist, and many taller than [seven feet]. I was told the people called the Pygmies were used by Carmanians in powering their barges for the rich upon the Euphrates, for a larger man cannot be fit into their crafts. Aethiopians
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had been collected for their great height from Dongola, although they did not seem particularly strong. A Greek merchant wished to have them trained as lookouts for the army; an old Persian eccentric had demanded one of these men in order to reach the highest shelves of his papers and scrolls, being too arthritic to mount a step stool. As in all towns where slave-trading is the prime means of subsistence this village had an air of desperation.

Then I came to Napata, a town in which modesty has been abandoned completely. The women, stately and ebony black, walk around with their breasts exposed, and merely a thin belt of reeds disguises their sex! The men are near naked as well except for metal ornament, golden and highly polished against their black skin. What is unusual is that, in time, this affront of the exposed, shameful parts becomes as normal, and I could be persuaded that sexual sin was less in such a society. But deep into Africa, as everyone knows, the people are innocent and highly honorable, though naturally they are much misguided about religion and the need for chastity, which I, your brother, have always felt to be the engine of refinement for the soul.

8.
And so, getting on with my tale: with a month of much walking, two hired mules, and eventual good winds, I was allowed a relatively quick passage to the junction of the Astapus tributaries that confluent make up Nilus, O Greatest of rivers!
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O haughty river that the God of Moses did once turn red as the pomegranate!
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Flow to the sea as you will, O Nile, we evangelists shall brook your flow and ford your shallows, embracing your very source in our search for souls who thirst to hear of the God of the Nazirenes and His most holy prophet and Messiah, He Who Gives All Strength.

(That was a bit of just-invented verse, my brother—I hope you may delight in that even until the end of the poet within me knows no suppression!)

9.
The trading portion of the capital city of Meroe, which rivals perhaps all but Alexandria, is along the riverfront, stretching for miles. No scattered houses outlie this monument to commerce, leaving one with the impression that Meroe is nought but a trading post and all else desert.
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I acquainted myself with a Greek-speaking assessor of tariffs who declared that no tradesman was allowed in the capital city itself, set some miles beyond the riverbank. I said to him, “I am not come to sell wares, dear sir, I am here to bring the God of the Nazirenes to the good people of Meroe!”

This noble Nubian, a cubit taller than myself and quite an excellent choice to enforce tariffs with intimidation, broke into the smile of a young boy and said I was to accompany him. I was taken with great courtesy to a neatly swept little house where his wife—like all women of Meroe, tremendously fat and polished black with a charcoal dust to make their skin the color of deepest Indian jet—prepared a fine if simple repast of fruits and breads. A messenger was dispatched to the capital to tell of my arrival as if I were some ambassador or important personage.

(Only now does it occur, where Greek is so prevalent, that my
Hebraika
or even my
Cosmos Explained,
which despite their ignorance of theology might have been appreciated on a rhetorical level, had perhaps won a place in the poetic heart of this marvelous city. Ah, Tesmegan smiles as I say this, so it must be that.)

10.
A chariot was sent for me and presently I arrived at the most splendid stone gate I have ever seen! Meroe looked to be a square walled city of at least two miles a side. No windows looked out of this fearsome wall, indeed, I know now there are no windows to the outside world. A great staircase, bounded by stone lions and baboons and familiar Egyptian idols and a Sebastian from the age of the first emperor,
8
led to a gateway of three arches, all ornate and magnificently carved. Once reaching the top of this stairway, I discovered I was to wind my way through any of several doors that stretched for several yards, requiring the entrant to twist and crawl, at one point, down on my aged knees through a passageway. No advancing army could make a run through this gate.

11.
And Meroe itself! Well may it please my scribe that I declare a paradise opened before me! Lushly strewn with flowers and plants; every other street in this supremely organized city had a canal of still, clean water with ever so often a fountain erupting. All homes, identical in size and wealth, were draped with flowers and hanging plants. Tesmegan tells me that fifty miles away the [Astaborus] is diverted through a series of aqueducts until it flows through this city, providing canals and fountains, baths, and a subterranean sewer system not unlike the
cloacae
of Rome.

And if I am not mistaken, no wonder of the world was not itself there imitated or bettered. Meroe's central palace is the Athenian Akropolis as if done by an Egyptian with a hypostyle court before the main chambers. It sits atop three concentric plateaus, each which afford verdure, hanging plants trailing over the railings and balconies as in Babylon. Nowhere does one see filth or ordure as one must wade through in other city streets; everywhere is the smell of flowers and perfumes! How Jerusalem is put to shame! Ah, but again I have forgotten—poor Jerusalem is no more.

12.
I knew that Meroe was a matriarchy and consequently I expected the worst: a squalid court of castrated eunuchs and men retained for libidinous purposes; one usually finds the queen has raised herself up as a deity and presents herself as an incarnation of fertility, or some such debased thing. But Meroe is unique.
9

Tesmegan has explained to me that women rule as a safeguard against tyranny. Nor can any woman rule in Meroe unless she has several grown children, which in principle should lessen her desire to send them to wars; also she must be past bearing children to prevent her scheming to engender heirs and coregencies. Tesmegan, with childlike clarity, explained that no man could sit upon the throne following the Century of Debacles
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in which men ruled this nation, made ridiculous expenditures, caused countless wars, and fell among fighting within their ministers for unrivaled powers.

What is more unusual, and takes its source from the Ptolemies, is that the office of Candace is an elected office that lasts five years, or until her death. There is no Assembly or Sanhedrin or Senate that might counsel the Candace, so it is the election of a beneficent autocrat. I asked my young scribe why no deliberative body existed, and he replied that no such senate ever accomplished anything but rancorous argument and fell easily to corruption. Better a single all-powerful queen who would rule as she would, for good or bad, but in any event, merely five years. There is an army but only used for defensive purposes, repelling intruders or punishing crimes, including usurpation.

13.
Just as remarkable in this extraordinary kingdom—or queendom, rather—is a total lack of orthodoxy concerning religion. Of course, in Alexandria and Ephesus one finds all faiths being practiced by various devoted enthusiasts. But nowhere have I seen a more eclectic society, which takes from any faith what pleases them. Every seven days there is a festival of someone or other—Isis, Aphrodite, Jupiter, whomever. Consequently each sabbath is a riot of food, color, dance, and, often, carnality, though there seem to be inscrutable rules concerning this sort of behavior as well.

14.
Upon being fed and then shown to an isolated bath by a pale Germanic slave
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—who was kept inside to cultivate his pallor, which was a novelty here—I was told that I was free to leave Meroe now, but were I to stay and meet the court it is unlikely I should ever leave easily. Indeed, in the indecipherable written language of these people (who also speak Greek as we all do in public) there was a motto above the city gate that the guard was kind enough to translate:
No trouble has ever befallen the city who welcomes all guests; only misery will befall the city who lets a false friend depart.

At the time, I was sure bribery would be efficacious here, should I want to escape, but I was to discover that the Meroitians direct all bribes to the Candace, who must decide all things. And truthfully, after what I did, there was no way I should be allowed to leave.

15.
But now, I shall speak of the court and the Candace. I had been instructed it was Meroitian custom to change the form of honorific in each address to their queen, and contests were held late into the evening to see which of the competitors could greater fabricate panegyric. This presented no ordeal for a poet of my rank, you can appreciate.

The Candace Shanakdekhete VII
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was a tremendous creature, made all the more fearsome by a robe that extended over her throne and several steps of her dais. I had believed no woman could be so fat, and I believe, though Tesmegan refuses to comment, that pillows and cushions surround her under this raiment to support her titanic appearance. No shortage either of fine gems and jewelry was noted, though I suspected some of the gems for their improbable size of being glass.
13
Nothing in her manner gave one a hint of malice; indeed, her court seemed—and I shall speak as I please without your whining and sniveling, Tesmegan—ridiculous.

16.
As I stood before this throne, I saw that two exotic feathers protruded from her nostrils. These feathers, dyed blue, went about a cubit and turned upward, as if giant tusks on an elephant beast. She and her court of about twenty retainers fought to remain unlaughing and it seemed there was no business but this joke.

She asked of me, “Kneel before the Candace of Meroe and introduce yourself. Do you not find me beautiful?”

I said to her that she was most lovely, a radiant flower of the Nile.

She said to me, “Beautiful, even with these feathers up my nose?” She then removed them, shaking with laughter, transfixed entirely by the entertaining of her court. At last she said to me, “You bring a religion of some sort?”

17.
I began to speak of Our Master and his many excellencies, when she turned to a miniature statue of Caesar and asked if the man I spoke of was he.

I said to her, “No great Candace, Insuperable One, that is merely a ruler of Rome, Sebastian, who is long since dead.”

She said to me with some horror, “I thought he was a God!”

I said to her, “Indeed, Your Glory, he declared himself such but he was merely a ruler upon a throne. No greater, indeed, than Your Majesty.”

The queen joined her hands and seemed to moan, rocking back and forth. She said to the court, “Ah, what a lovely god he was, but if he is dead, then we shall have to do without him. Bring you, gentleman of Judea, a god to replace the one you take away?” Then she gasped as if in a sudden revelation: “Oh, of course, you are of Judea and the God of Abraham! The jealous God who will not have any of the others! I'll thank you not to pray to Him while you're with us thereby giving Him our location, bringing His wrath upon us. I would be an easy target for brimstone from the heavens, not able to leave my palace.”

18.
I saw by this that like the Sabaean [Sheban] queens of old, she was prisoner of her court.
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Indeed, I was to learn that the tale of the Queen of Sheba in the court of King Solomon was as popular here as in Jerusalem, though it had been extensively added to and embellished. Thanks be to the Most High that I was not subjected, balm in hand, to make Solomon's ministrations upon this Candace!
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19.
I said to her, “Yes, O Beneficence, but I have new information concerning Our Lord. The God of Abraham has sent us in addition to His Law a great prophet and teacher, Who speaks of peace, of love, of sacrifice but also of redemption.”

The Candace considered this and said to me, “How much sacrifice?”

I said to her, “Our Master, He Who Redeemed Us, sacrificed His life for us, Your Splendor.”