He cast his sticks as before, nodding and humming over them, then cast them again. When he looked up he said, "You must not fear your dream, Latro. Ap-uat favors you. I want you to buy a lamb and take it to his temple. A black lamb, if you can find one."
I objected that the Crimson Man had told me we would not stop for the night where Ap-uat's temple was.
"If we do," the healer asked, "will you do as I have instructed you?"
"Yes," I said. "I will surely do it if I have enough money."
He nodded, as if to himself. "Myt-ser'eu will not have left you much, I imagine. Qanju has a great deal and may give you something if you ask. Wait."
He cast the sticks as before, whistled softly, and cast again. When he swept them up, he put them into his robe. "Anubis favors you also, as he has long favored me. Now he speaks to you through me. You are to go to the city of the dead. There he will give you more than enough to buy the lamb. You are not afraid of ghosts?"
"Of course I'm afraid of ghosts," I said, "what sane man isn't? But to what city of the dead am I to go? Doesn't every city have a place to inter its dead?"
"He did not say, nor did he say on which night you are to go there. When I spoke of ghosts, I meant only that many men are afraid to enter any city of the dead by night. Will you, knowing that the god commands you?"
"Certainly."
"Is your sword sharp?"
"You handled it," I said.
"I did not examine the edge. Is it?"
"Yes."
"That is well. Anubis wishes you to bring a sharp sword."
I write this while I remember. I have told Uraeus, who says he will go with me. Myt-ser'eu overheard us. She says she will come with me as well.
She says also that this god Anubis who favors me is a very great one, the messenger sent from the Lands of the Dead to the gods, and the messenger whom the gods send to the Lands of the Dead. He oversees the preparation of the body for burial, guards the tomb, and is invoked by everyone. I asked why he should favor me. She could not say, saying only that no one can tell why a god favors one person over another. Perhaps it is because his brother favors me.
Uraeus says we met, this Anubis and I-that he held the scales in which my heart was weighed. I protested that the heart cannot be weighed without killing the man whose heart it is. He conceded it was true, and vanished when I looked away. I wish to ask him more about the weighing of my heart, a thing I have forgotten. A WARSHIP OF many oars has stopped us. Qanju and Muslak have gone to speak with its commander. I feel sure that we will tie up at Asyut after all. I have told the men.
14
ANUBIS LED THE grand procession in honor of his brother. Urged by Myt-ser'eu, I had read much in this scroll before we ate this morning. Thus I knew him at once.
We slept on the ship last night, having tried (Myt-ser'eu says) to find an inn without success. The city is thronged with those who have come for the festival. I know now that I ought to have gone to the city of the dead, but by the time Muslak and I faced up to a night on shipboard even I was tired and both women were ready to drop.
"We will have to stay here at Asyut tonight and tomorrow at least," Muslak told me. "My crew is off sightseeing, drinking, dancing, and looking for women now, and it will be that long-if not longer-before we'll be ready to sail again."
Neither Myt-ser'eu nor I had any objection, though I wished we had been able to find an inn so I might enjoy her with decency. As it was, we slept on board, went into the city this morning to watch the bullfighting, and returned to this ship (where we sit now) for a splendid view of the grand procession.
I cannot say whether I have seen bullfighting before; but I think not, for it seemed novel to me. It is a rowdy sport, and for that reason I did not think at first that Myt-ser'eu and Neht-nefret would enjoy it. Soon I learned that they liked it as least as well as I.
It would have been better, I thought, to have had a special place set aside for it, in which the spectators might watch in safety. (I mentioned this to Uraeus, but he would not agree.) As it is, spectators have no protection save the ropes about the horns of the bulls by which their handlers slowed their charges when they tried to toss us.
They were led to the field with ropes through their noses; these were cast aside once the bulls had seen each other and were prepared to fight. Both were large and strong, very fine. Loosed, they charged and charged again, circled, feinted, and indeed made me think of swordsmen who held two swords, something I feel sure I must have seen.
At last the black bull threw down the red and white, and gored him terribly before he could rise. Like bees, the black bull's handlers swarmed over him, and put their rope through his nose once more. Then he was washed and decked with garlands. I am told that he will be kept at the temple until his death, then buried as befits the herald of Ptah.
Besides this, there were races and games of all the kinds befitting soldiers. Muslak and others wished me to wrestle; but Neht-nefret warned me that the crowd would be displeased if a foreigner won, and might well mob me. This was wise, I think. I declined to take part.
This procession is well worth seeing. Richly robed, the images of every god in the city pass us on boats, rowed by their worshippers and attended by their priests. There is great pageantry. Jeweled fans of bright feathers cool these images. Dancers whirl about them. The riverbank is lined with spectators as far as the eye can see, and there are thousands more on boats and ships like ours.
Perhaps I should not write this, but I can expunge it later if I think that best. The image of Anubis was only an image, I would judge of carved and painted wood. So it was with the images of the other gods, until Ap-uat came. He seemed to me no image at all, but a wolf-headed man larger than any man. He looked at me as he passed, and cocked his head as if to ask, "Are you coming?" Had he shown his teeth, I think I might have run like any coward and hidden in the hold. ANUBIS WISHED ME to meet him in the city of the dead. I had not forgotten that when we tied up here this morning, and indeed have not forgotten it now, though I never saw him. When we were at the quay, I left off whetting my sword and gave Uraeus the long dagger I had borrowed for him from Tybi, telling him where I had gotten it and that it must be returned. It was a fine dagger, double-edged and very sharp. He refused it, saying he did not need it, and gave it to Myt-ser'eu. She thanked him but returned it to Tybi, saying that she would surely lose it.
So it was, with an omen that could scarcely be worse, that we set out. We went to the market to ask the way to the city of the dead. The market was practically empty, though Myt-ser'eu says it was crowded yesterday after the procession.
She looked at jewelry and daggers among the many booths that sold such things; I bought her a small one in what seems to be the style of Kemet-a dagger like a needle, with an eye in its grip.*
She asked whether we were to go to the city of the dead by day. I had not considered this, but I reclaimed this scroll from Uraeus and read aloud to her all the healer had said and done, and she said we were surely to go by night, since he had asked whether I would be afraid to. Little children, she says, visit the dead by day; but by night all the cities of the dead can be evil places.
"Is it then," I asked, "that the Eater of Blood comes forth from the tomb?" For it seemed to me that I had heard of such a one.
She laughed and said only infants believe such things, but she was frightened, I know. "If I must face the Eater of Blood for you, I want to do it on a full stomach," she told me. "Have you enough left to buy us a good meal?"