“You had a visitor last night,” Demetrius had said neutrally, evidently recognizing it, too. The captain of the guard did not seem overly surprised by it, and his deportment was one of acceptance.
“Aye,” answered Lucius. “I am uncertain about what hap-“
“Say no more, Centurion,” the captain interrupted, appearing not to be interested.
But Lucius was curious, and so pressed the issue. “Your queen must have known that you would see this today.” He said holding the veil before him.
“She certainly did,” Demetrius said, looking out at the still lake. “You are very observant.”
“So, there has been something between you?”
“I have served her since I was a boy, and she a mere girl. I am the son of court nobles, so I was often called to the palace to serve as a playmate to the king’s children.”
“But to Arsinoe, you were more than just a playmate?”
Demetrius’s face saddened. “Yes, much more. As children, we were inseparable, or at least I could never get enough of her. As we grew older, she was distracted by the dozens of suitors and temptations placed before all princesses. Her interests changed. She took on the voracious desires that consume all royal youth – survival and power. But my love for her only matured. It only grew stronger.” Demetrius then chuckled. “My success in the guards was driven purely by the longing to impress her, to please her, to be worthy of her. I even had it in my head that I could be the one to marry her someday. I followed her around like a pet.”
“And now, you still do,” Lucius said.
Demetrius shot him a look of ire. “I am the captain of the royal guard, Centurion. I live to serve the rulers of Egypt. No matter who is on the throne.” Then he smiled. “But, you are right. The queen knows how much I yearn for her, how much I love her. She sees it merely as the misguided cravings of a naive school boy, and she treats our childhood memories as toys to torment me with. And whenever a new lover, like you, comes along, she torments me by overtly exhibiting her passion for him. She knows what it does to me, and she seems to take great pleasure in it.”
“Perhaps you should move on,” offered Lucius.
Demetrius shook his head, “Have you ever been enchanted by a woman? Have you ever been willingly enslaved such that you can do nothing, think nothing, without her coming to the forefront of your thoughts? I love her, Centurion. I have always loved her. I cannot explain what force drives me to such folly, except maybe the need to protect her.”
“From what?”
“From her siblings. From her people. From herself. And from them.” He gestured to the eunuch and the priest sitting on the other end of the skiff, well out of earshot. Ganymedes took far too many sips from his waterskin and patted his perspiring forehead. Khay no longer wore the falcon mask. A black turban now covered his head and face, leaving only a small slit for those intense, judging eyes that all priests seemed to have.
“Those vultures will tear her apart someday,” Demetrius said. “Someday, when she is secure in her throne. I think she knows this, but I cannot be certain. She indulges them so much.”
The road above the marsh was not perfect, and from time to time it dipped into the shallow water forcing the camels to wade through the stagnant putrid liquid, stirring up a swarm of mosquitoes with every step. The priest led the way, evidently the only one who had been to this long lost shrine. Scanning the hazy horizon as far as his eyes would allow, Lucius could see nothing but swamp and low brush. It surprised him, then, when Khay steered his own camel away from the road and down into the marsh. He beckoned for the others to follow.
“Down there? Are you sure?” Ganymedes asked skeptically, his face now swollen red from insect bites. “How can you be certain?”
“This is the way,” Khay said simply, and then coaxed his mount on into the shallow muddy water. His voice was not nearly as imposing without the amplification of the mask. He still turned from time to time to stare at Lucius, as if he was uncomfortable with the idea of the Roman riding behind him.
When they had reached a point well away from the road, such that the road could scarcely be seen beyond the long path of churning mud left by their mounts, Khay began to steer toward a clump of brush much larger than the others. As they drew closer, a bright structure with a rounded dome could be seen rising out of the reeds. From a distance it would have been dismissed as a mound of dry land, and Lucius now understood why the structure had remained a secret for so long. Pushing the tall reeds aside, they rode onto a wide stone staircase that was half-submerged in the murky water. At the top of the staircase they came to an open gate in a rundown stone wall. There they dismounted, and Lucius got his first good look at the structure within.
The shrine was immense, at least two stories high, and standing inside a partially flooded courtyard that was surrounded by a wall as high as two men, though the wall had crumbled in several places where the erosion of the ages had taken its toll. A century of ebbs and floods of the Nile had not left the shrine untouched either. At one time, the structure must have been a small wonder to those who frequented it, but now it sat tilted on its foundation. It was slowly sliding into the mud and would someday be lost forever, like so many other constructions of the ancients.
Demetrius took a step toward the open gate that led into the courtyard, but Khay outstretched a bony hand to stop him.
“No!” snapped the priest. “Only the Roman and I go on from here. No one else may come.”
“But why are you to go, Khay?” asked Demetrius. “The curse says no Egyptian can go inside the shrine.”
“I do not intend to go inside,” Khay said irritably. “I will wait just outside the threshold. In the event that this Roman finds some inscriptions he cannot read, he can call them out to me.”
Demetrius seemed to accept this answer. Ganymedes appeared to care little, and was already sitting in the shade of a crumbling column, fanning his face and slapping at mosquitoes.
Lucius checked the pouch they had given him containing the papyrus and ink that he would use to reproduce the map, should he find it. He also checked his torch and finally his gladius to make sure it was there. He had no idea what he might face inside – anything from crocodiles to evil curses. Either way, he was only steps away from earning the promised gold, and that spurred him onward.
“Lead on, priest,” he said.
Khay looked back at him briefly, and then entered the courtyard, with Lucius close behind. The courtyard was not the kind that one might play ball in. It was covered with large stone monuments and steles bearing inscriptions of all kinds. Lucius could only guess what might be buried beneath them, but he had to keep up with the suddenly nimble priest who jumped from one dry patch of land to another, like a frog crossing a pond. They finally reached the tilted, entrance to the shrine. Inscriptions, now weathered and fading, had been carved into the stone periphery of the doorway. Lucius could not read them, but he assumed they portended doom to all who entered the off-kilter structure. A few paces beyond the doorway there was nothing but blackness, a dark void with flies buzzing in and out of the unseen space.
“In there?” Lucius asked the priest.
“Yes. You must go in there.”
Striking a flint against one of the stone walls, Lucius puffed his torch to life, and then unsheathed his sword. He looked again at the foreboding entrance. There was no way of knowing how far he would have to go. The map could be anywhere.
“Any words of counsel?” he asked.
Khay looked somewhat surprised at the question, but then surprised Lucius back with his brimming answer.