Men of Bronze (30 page)

“I understand guilt, Callisthenes. Better than most men, I understand it, but there comes a time when we must rise above guilt and do what is expected of us. We must prove ourselves worthy.”

Callisthenes frowned. “How can we say we are worthy of survival and the Persians are not? Is that not the purview of the gods? When I killed those soldiers in Memphis, I also widowed wives and orphaned children. I ended the bloodline of their fathers and inflicted soul-searing grief on their mothers. Where is the glory in that?”

Barca said nothing for a long time. When he finally spoke the words came quietly, without bravado or embroidery. “It is not a question of worth or glory. The fabric of your life is woven at birth, Callisthenes. Those soldiers wished you dead; they wished your wife to be widowed and your children to be orphaned. Why? Because you stood in the way of their survival. Did you live because the gods thought you more worthy? I don’t think so. I think you lived because it was not yet your time. When it does come, all of the worth and glory in the world will not spare you from that killing blow.”

“Then why are we here? Why do we fight? Every oracle from Siwa to Delphi has foreseen Egypt’s fall. What difference will it make if we meet them in Gaza or await them in Pelusium?” The Greek’s shoulders slumped. An air of defeat hung about him like a well-worn cloak.

Barca smiled. “Because the gods hate a quitter. Look, my friend, I agree with you, in spirit at least. But going belly-up and awaiting death has a foul stench to it, does it not? By nature, men are violent; we are fighters. We fight our way from the womb, and we fight against going to the grave. I don’t know why the gods made Fate our master then gave us a fighting spirit, perhaps only for their own amusement, perhaps to give us a thirst for life. All I know is I have a duty to perform, and in the course of that duty, men will die. To perform my task to the best of my ability, I need you. That’s why
you
are here. We won’t stop Cambyses at Gaza, Callisthenes. We are here to slow their advance, to scout out their numbers. We are here to be a thorn in the bastard’s side.” Barca chuckled at that thought. He straightened and clapped the Greek on the shoulder. “A nugget of advice, my friend: don’t dwell too long on the word of priests and oracles. They have been known to spread falsehoods. Ready yourself. We’ll make landfall soon.”

Jauharah watched the exchange between Phoenician and Greek from her perch in the stern of the
Atum
. An awning and partition of linen kept the glare off — both from the sun and the lecherous sailors. Since boarding she had overheard snatches of jokes and rude comments as she went about the daily chores she set for herself of fetching water and cooking Barca’s meals — though he ordered her to stop serving him as a slave would a master. Most of the crew thought the Phoenician had brought his concubine with him. Others simply stared at her with a possessive hunger that made her skin crawl.

Barca kept telling her she was free. Pharaoh’s gift. Free to choose where to go, where to stay. She had been a slave for so long, though, that the idea of freedom terrified her. Every night, she prayed she would wake in Memphis, in the villa of master Idu, rested and ready for a day of baking bread, making beer, and serving the needs of the family. Every morning, she woke to find her prayers unanswered.

Barca twitched the partition aside. “We’ll make landfall soon,” he said, moving to where Jauharah had laid out his
panoplia
. He glanced sidewise at her. She sat cross-legged on the deck polishing his bronze breastplate. With a soft cloth she applied a thin coating of oil to the ridges of sculpted muscle, to the lapis, ivory and gold
uadjet
inlaid in the chest. The oil would stave off the caustic effects of the salt air. Barca exhaled. “You are the most stubborn woman I have ever known. A thousand times have I told you to stop that, and I’ll hazard a guess that it will take a thousand times more before it penetrates that thick skull of yours.”

“If that’s your way of thanking me for making sure you don’t leave this ship looking like a tousle-headed rube in corroded armor, you’re welcome.”

“The gods have mercy on the man who takes you to wife,” Barca said, grinning.

“Your Greek friend does not care for me, I think.”

“Callisthenes? Oh, he’s a good man, for a Greek.” Barca knelt and fitted bronze greaves over his ox-hide sandals. The natural flex of the metal kept the greaves snug about his calf. Next he drew on a linen corselet, padded to absorb the weight of his cuirass. Barca stopped in mid-gesture and laughed. Jauharah stared at him, questioning.

“I used to hate his people,” he said, “hate them with a passion known only to madmen. If someone had told me then that I would come to call a Hellene friend, to defend him to another, I would have cursed him as a lying wretch and split his skull to the teeth. Strange, these little ironies of life.”

“Not all Greeks are like Polydices,” Jauharah said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Barca’s head snapped up, a frown knitting his brow. An unreasoning wave of anger washed over him, a need to strike out and destroy something. Pharaoh’s command rushed back into his mind:
Banish your rage
. He said nothing, but forced his trembling hands to tie the leather thongs holding his corselet in place. Finally, he spoke. “I had almost forgotten his name. How did you …?”

“I heard you speak it in Memphis. Later, while you were on the mend, I asked around among Pharaoh’s slaves. The tale is out there, if you know who to ask,” she said. “I was curious, though, why the Greek’s commander never pursued you, and why Pharaoh never charged you with murder.”

“What does it matter?” The Phoenician’s jaw tightened. Jauharah sensed his discomfort. It was like probing a raw, unhealed wound. She knew she should drop the matter, but her intuition told her to press forward.

“It matters a great deal, Hasdrabal. It matters because it is the difference between guilt and innocence. The law …”

“I know the law!”

“Then you know you’re innocent,” Jauharah said.

Barca turned to the railing, his back to Jauharah as he stared out over the choppy sea, his shoulders quivering in barely suppressed fury. The similarities the Phoenician bore to the mythical Herakles struck Jauharah, then. Both hounded unto death for the misfortunes of their youth, both prone to fits of black rage and blacker melancholy.

“Innocent under the law?” Barca said. “Yes. But the law does not judge a man, only the gods are granted that right. In the eyes of God, my God, I am guilty and nothing I do can ever change that. In a way, Ujahorresnet spoke true. Neferu was a woman of passions and appetites. What choice did she have when her husband ignored her?”

“You can’t blame yourself for her indiscretions,” Jauharah said.

Barca spun, bristling. “Who should I blame? Polydices for doing what any hot-blooded man would do? Her father for raising her improperly? I am to blame. Myself, and none other.”

“What about Neferu?” Jauharah said. “Does she not deserve a lion’s share of this blame you cherish so? Life is organic, Hasdrabal, ever growing, ever evolving. A person’s actions are like vines on the arbor, free to take whatever path they choose but influenced by the paths of others. Neferu did not have to fall prey to the lure of the flesh. Polydices could have refused her advances …”

“And I could have stayed my hand,” Barca snarled.

“Yes,” she said. “You could have stayed your hand. But you did not, Hasdrabal. In a rage you killed your wife and her lover. You reacted the only way you knew how. It was wrong. But, in its own way, it was necessary. If the events of your youth had not unfolded as they did, you would not be the man you are today.”

“Do not mock me,” Barca said, turning away.

Jauharah caught his arm. “On that night, years ago, you became a man obsessed with honor and fairness. Your anger at yourself drove you to become a better man, a man who neither minces words nor hides behind them. My past has taught me that most men are dull-witted animals whose only concerns are their loins and their bellies. You have taught me otherwise. You are a man I respect.”

A long silence passed between them. For a brief moment the façade cracked and Jauharah saw the grief and anguish that had haunted him for twenty years. Slowly, he forced the mask back into place. “We make landfall soon,” he said through clenched teeth.

“You have not yet explained what my duties will be. Truly, I cannot understand of what use I will be to you on the field.”

“You will be my ears in places I can’t go. In camp, I want you to maintain the House of Life. I will make sure you have whatever you need.” He took his cuirass from her and stared at his reflection in the polished metal.

“They’ll be loath to take orders from a slave woman.”

“They will take their orders from whomever I tell them to! And you are no slave, Jauharah. Do you understand that?”

Jauharah sighed. She rose to her feet and helped Barca don his breastplate, buckling it into place as he held it. “All I have ever known is how to serve. How master Idu took his morning meal; how his children …” her voice caught in her throat. “How Meryt and Tuya liked to make clay animals for their mother; how mistress Tetisheri enjoyed accompanying me to the markets. The life of a slave is all I’ve ever known, Hasdrabal. And it was a good life. A g-good life …” Jauharah turned away and sat, hiding her tears.

Barca heard a discreet cough coming from beyond the linen awning. “General? We are near.”

“Thank you, captain,” Barca said. He crouched next to Jauharah and clasped her hands in his. Her eyes were red and moist; she looked away, but he gently lifted her chin and made her look at him. She saw
something
flickering in his eyes. “You are free now, Jauharah,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “and you have an opportunity most people will never understand — the opportunity to remake your life. You can right the wrongs done to you as a child, decide your own fate. That is freedom. We are all slaves in some way or another: to destiny, to class, to blood, to gods, to fear. For this brief moment in time, you are a slave to nothing, to no one. I envy you your freedom, your future, for you have been given something I will never have: a second chance. Use it to make the life you want.” Barca stood and, with a ghost of a smile, caught up his sword.

Jauharah watched him go. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, the tears spilling down her cheeks were not born of grief.

Feluccas crested the waves, their triangular sails tacking in the breeze. Inquisitive faces studied the carved prow of the
Atum
, with its hieroglyphic symbols and mysterious figures, as the galley slipped past the mole and into the calmer waters of the harbor. They approached the wharfs with a slow sweep of the oars, angling for an empty slip where a crowd had gathered. Barca stood alone at the bow.

Jauharah had stirred an emotion deep within him, something he had thought long since dead. Twenty years dead. Many times in those long years, he had been moved to pity; moved by some dark deed, some painful secret. At Habu last year he had felt an overwhelming sadness for the children slain by Ghazi’s wolves. Sadness and pity he knew well, but this … this emotion toward Jauharah was something wholly alien to him. He wanted to sweep her up in a crushing embrace and keep the world at bay. He wanted to fight her battles and allay her fears. He … Barca shook his head, thrusting those emotions aside. This was not the time. Not now. With titanic effort Hasdrabal Barca brought his mind to bear on the task at hand.

For all its cosmetic differences, the port of Maiumas evoked powerful memories for Barca, memories of his home in Tyre. White-washed buildings of stone and brick ascended the dune ridges, rising from the beaches and quays that were the heart of the harbor. Mercantile houses, like armed camps, occupied the waterfront. Here, bales and bundles of goods awaited the caravans that would carry them to the corners of the known world. Incense bound for the new temple at Jerusalem sat beside tusks of ivory destined for the markets of Byblos; ingots of gold, favored by the kings of distant Scythia, were shrouded by bolts of silk soon to grace the shoulders of a Babylonian noblewoman. The wealth of the world poured into Gaza’s coffers and, like Tyre, only a select few profited from it.