At nightfall I slipped out and went down to the riverside. I saw immediately that the Breath ofHorus was at her moorings. She had obviously been in action since last I had seen her, and had suffered battle damage. Her bows were shattered and her timbers amidships had been scorched and charred.
I noted with a stir of proprietary pride that Tanus had made the modifications to her hull that I had designed. The gilded metal horn protruded from her bows, just above the water-line. From its battered condition I surmised that it fiad done fierce execution amongst the fleets of the red pretender.
However, I could see that neither Tanus nor Kratas was on deck. A junior officer whom I recognized had the watch, but I discarded the idea of hailing him, and instead set out to tour the sailors' haunts around the area of the docks.
It says a great deal for the morals and the sanctity of the priests of Osiris that I was welcomed in the dives and whorehouses like an habitue. In one of the more respectable taverns I recognized the impressive figure of Kratas. He was drinking and playing at dice with a group of his brother officers. I made no move to approach him, but I watched him across the crowded room. Meanwhile I fended off the advances of a succession of pleasure-birds of both sexes who were progressively lowering their tariffs in their efforts to tempt me out into the dark alleyway to sample their well-displayed charms. None of them were in the least deterred by my priestly collar of blue glass beads.
When "Kratas at last gave his companions a hearty goodnight and made his way out into the alley, I followed his tall figure with relief.
'What is it you want from me now, beloved of the gods?' he growled at me with scorn when I hurried up beside 'him. 'Is it my gold or my bum-splitter you crave?' Many of the priests had taken enthusiastically to this modern vogue for pederasty.
Til take the gold,' I told him. 'You have more of that than the other, Kratas.' He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me suspiciously. His bluff and handsome features were only a little flushed and befuddled by liquor.
'How do you know my name?' He seized me by the shoulder and dragged me into a lighted doorway, and studied my face. At last he snatched the wig from off my head.
'By the piles between Seth's buttocks, it's you, Taita!' he roared.
'I'd be obliged if you would refrain from shouting out my name to all the world,' I told him, and he turned serious at once.
'Come! We'll go to my rooms.'
Once we were alone, he poured two mugs of beer. 'Haven't you had enough of that?' I asked, and he grinned at me.
'We'll only know the answer to that in the morning. How now, Taita! Don't be too strict with me. We have been down-river raiding the red usurper's fleet for the past three weeks. Sweet Hapi, but that bow-horn of yours works wonders. We cut up nearly twenty of his galleys and we chopped the heads off a couple of hundred of his rascals. Although it was thirsty work, not a drop of anything stronger than water has passed my lips in all that time. Don't begrudge me a mouthful of beer now. Drink with me!' He raised his mug, and I was also thirsty. I saluted him in return, but as I put the mug down again, I asked, 'Where is Tanus?'
He sobered instantly v 'Tanus has disappeared,' he said, and I stared at him.
'Disappeared? What do you mean, disappeared? Did he not lead the raid down-river?'
Kratas shook his head. 'No. He's gone. Vanished. I have had my men scour every street and every house in all of Thebes. There is no sign of him. I tell you, Taita, I am worried, really worried.'
'When did you last see him?'
'Two days after the royal wedding, after the Lady Lostris married the king, on the evening of the day that you sailed with the royal flotilla for Elephantine. I tried to talk some sense into his thick head, but he would not listen.'-
'What did he say?'
'He handed over the command of the Breath of Horus and the entire squadron to me.'
'He could not do that, surely?'
'Yes, he could. He used the authority of Pharaoh's hawk
I nodded. 'And then? What did he do?' 'I have just told you. He disappeared.'
I sipped at the mug of beer as I tried to think it out. Meanwhile Kratas went to the window and urinated through it It splashed noisily into the street below and I heard a startled passer-by shout up at him, 'Careful where you spray, you filthy pig.?
Kratas leaned out and quite cheerfully offered to crack his skull for him, and the man's grumblings receded rapidly. Chortling with this small victory, Kratas came back to me and I asked, 'What mood was Tanus in when he left you?'
Kratas turned serious again. "The blackest and most ugly temper I have ever witnessed. He cursed the gods and Pharaoh. He even cursed the Lady Lostris and called her a royal whore.'
I winced to hear it. Yet I knew that this was not my Tanus speaking. It was the voice of despairing and hopeless love.
'He said that Pharaoh could carry out his threat to have him strangled for sedition and he would welcome the release. No, he was in terrible straits and there was nothing that I could do or say to comfort him.'
'That was all? He gave you no hint as to what he intended?' Kratas shook his head and refilled his beer mug.
'What happened to the hawk seal?' I asked.
'He left it with me. He said he had no further use for it. I have it safe aboard the Breath of Horus.'
'What of the other arrangements that I discussed with you? Have you done what I asked?'
He looked into his mug guiltily and muttered, 'I began to make the arrangements, but after Tanus was gone, there seemed no point to it. Besides, I have been busy down-river since then.'
'It is not like you, Kratas, to be so unreliable.' I had found that with Kratas hurt disappointment was more effective man anger. 'My Lady Lostris was relying on you. She told me that she trusted you completely. Kratas is a great rock of strength?those were her exact words.'
I could see that it was working yet again, for Kratas is also one of my mistress's ardent admirers. Even a hint of her displeasure would move him.
'Damn you, Taita, you make me sound like a weak-kneed idiot?' I kept silent, but silent can be more irksome than words. 'What in the name of Horus does the Lady Lostris want me to do?'
'Nothing more than I asked you to do before I left for Elephantine,' I told him, and he slammed down his mug.
'I am a soldier. I cannot leave my duties and take half the squadron to go off on some mad adventure. It was one thing when Tanus had the hawk seal?'
'You have the hawk seal now,' I told him softly.
He stared at me. 'I cannot use it without Tanus?'
'You are his lieutenant. Tanus gave you the hawk seal to use. You know what to do with it. Do it! I will find Tanus and bring him back, but you must be ready by then. There is desperate and bloody work ahead, and Tanus needs you. Don't let him down, not again.'
He flushed with anger at the jibe. Til make you swallow those words.' he promised.
'And that will be the finest meal you could set for me,' I told him. I love brave and honest men, they are so easily manipulated.
I WAS UNCERTAIN AS TO HOW I WOULD make good my promise to find Tanus, but I left Kratas to sleep off his debauch, and I went out into the town again to try. Once more I made the rounds of every one of his old haunts and questioned anyone who could possibly have seen him. I had no illusions as to the risk I was taking in pursuing my enquiries about Tanus, or as to just how flimsy was my disguise if I should run into anybody who knew me well, but I' had to find him. I kept going through the night, until even the shebeens and whorehouses along the waterfront had thrown out the last drunken customers and doused their lamps.