Qanju murmured, "Continue."
"The arrow symbolizes his death. Fated to die, he perishes."
Uraeus whispered, "No one sees her shield or her arrow, master."
"I understand," I said.
"If a man meets her," Thotmaktef continued, "and looks at her shield, he sees his entire life reflected there. Or so it's said." He coughed again. "None of this about Hemuset is in the scroll, it's just background. The scroll says Ra will guide you-guide the hero-to the temple beyond the last temple. Whatever that means."
Qanju sighed. "What it actually says is that a scarab will lead you to it. The scarab is a beetle found in this region. It is one of the signs of their sun god."
Now I wonder whether my scarab is meant. I cannot see how it could lead me to anything. But perhaps it will. The gods must know I do not see everything.
"I have said that we require your help," Qanju continued, "and we do. I must ask the obvious question first, however. Do you know yourself to be the hero mentioned in the prophecy?"
"I doubt that I am," I said. "I do not think myself a hero at all."
Behind me, Uraeus whispered, "You have been dead, master. Surely that is meant."
"If I have been dead," I told Qanju, "I have forgotten it."
"You were," Thotmaktef told me.
Qanju smiled. "If not dead, you were near enough to death to deceive me. Sahuset restored you-perhaps only to consciousness. Do you feel gratitude to him?"
"Certainly," I said, "if he saved me from death."
Thotmaktef said, "You should not have told him, Noble Qanju."
"I disagree. Suppose that we had kept it from him. Would he not have reason to distrust us after that?"
"He would forget it."
"He would write it in his scroll, as he writes so much. If he did not, his slave would tell him. What is gained by a lie is only a loss in disguise, Thotmaktef."
"I beg pardon," Thotmaktef said.
"Granted. Lucius, you have a woman with you. Do you know it?"
"Myt-ser'eu? Certainly. She went to the temple of the wolf-god with us."
"That is well. There are three women on this ship. Will you name them, please?"
I shook my head. "I have seen a woman taller than Myt-ser'eu but not as beautiful. She wears much jewelry, but less than Myt-ser'eu. Her right hand bleeds. I don't know her name."
"She cannot be yours," Qanju said.
"I don't want her. I have Myt-ser'eu. We shared a bed in an inn last night. You may have her if you wish."
"That is well." Qanju smiled. "All matters involving women are fraught with difficulty, and when the women are young and handsome, with great difficulty. Thotmaktef, I ask a favor. Will you bring Neht-nefret here?"
16
THOTMAKTEF ROSE. "WE'LL have to get him before long, I think."
Behind me, Uraeus whispered, "I will go, if my master wishes."
Qanju shook his head. When Thotmaktef had left us, Qanju stared across the gunwale and fingered his beard. "He is a good young man, Lucius; but he has learned a great deal already and is learning more. Learning often turns good to evil."
I said, "In that case, learning itself must be evil."
"It is not. Everything depends upon what one learns, and the great thing-the thing to learn best-is that learning must serve us. If it does, we continue to serve Ahura Mazda, assuming that we served him when we began to learn. But if we serve learning, we learn too late that the dark god has donned it like a mask. Ah! Here is the beautiful Neht-nefret already. Well done, Thotmaktef. Have you a cushion to offer her?"
"I can sit on the deck like everybody else," the young woman called Neht-nefret said, and seated herself swiftly and gracefully. She has fine eyes, made finer still with kohl, a hard mouth, and a bandaged hand. "Is this about what I think it's about, Noble Qanju?"
He nodded. "Are you and Myt-ser'eu friends, Neht-nefret?"
"You know we are. I'd do anything for her. We're like sisters."
"Would Myt-ser'eu say the same?"
"I'm sure she would."
Qanju spoke to me. "If you would like to speak with Myt-ser'eu privately concerning this, Lucius, you may do so now. We will await your return."
I shook my head.
"Then we may begin. It might be well if Neht-nefret first told you how the three of you met."
Neht-nefret said, "I know you forget, Latro, but you're too smart to believe that women always tell the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth now, just the same. This is all true, and when you leave here you can ask Myt-ser'eu or Muslak, and they'll tell you the same exact thing. Myt-ser'eu and I are singing girls-it means good-looking young women of no family you can hire to entertain at parties. We'll sing or dance, serve drinks, or whatever you want, and we're under the protection of Hathor."
"A great goddess here," Qanju murmured.
I nodded. "She was wet nurse to Osiris." Thotmaktef's eyes flew wide when I said that, although he had told me himself a few minutes before.
"That's right," Neht-nefret said. "Girls like us need her protection more than you might think, so you have to go to the temple of Hathor to hire us, and the priests look after us as much as they can, refuse the money of men of bad character and so on. Try to get us out of trouble when we get into some."
I said, "I think I understand."
"That's good. I hope so. I need protection now, Latro. I think I need it pretty bad, and Noble Qanju agrees. Hathor's priests aren't here and I'm hoping to get it from you and Muslak."
I said that I would certainly protect her if I could.
"Thanks. I was supposed to tell you how we met, and this is how it was. You and Muslak came to Hathor's temple in Sais. That's where we're from, Myt-ser'eu and me."
I nodded.
"He wanted a river-wife and picked me. You said you didn't want one. Then you saw Myt-ser'eu and wanted her. Back then, Muslak was the only friend you had."
"Our captain," Qanju murmured.
"He's still the best friend you've got here, Latro. You may not know it, but he is, and he likes me just like you like Myt-ser'eu. Last night we slept in an inn. Not the one you and her slept in, another one."
I recalled awakening in the inn and nodded.
"It was late and we were both asleep. We'd had quite a bit of beer, and you know afterward. Well, I woke up. I think Hathor must've done it, because there wasn't any reason. I woke up, and a woman with a crooked knife was bending over me. I could see her in the moonlight that got past the shutter, and I saw the shine along the edge and grabbed the blade. Look."
She unwound her bandage. There was a long, fresh cut, not very deep, across her palm; it had been smeared with yellow salve.
"I screamed and Muslak woke up, and the door slammed. He'd barred that door before we went to bed. We talked about it after my hand stopped bleeding. I said I thought he'd barred it, but I'd been sort of-of elevated, you know, so I wasn't sure. He said he most certainly had, he'd had a few bowls but he could drink a lot more than that without getting so drunk he'd go to sleep in a place like that without barring the door. Well, the bar was lying on the floor. We found it and put it back up."