A strange thing happened just before midday. A beetle struck my chest and clung there. I could not brush it away. She said it was a sacred beetle and should not be touched or harmed. I promised not to pluck it off, believing it would soon fly again. It did not, but seized the string around my neck and held on to it, swinging and tapping my chest as I walked. I examined it quite carefully a moment ago, and it is enameled gold. She says it is another I wore before we were taken, a seal. I must surely have hidden it in the case in which we keep this scroll. If I had hidden it, there or anywhere, would I not remember finding it today?
The young priest rides a fine white mule. His name is Holy Kashta. My wife rides a donkey. She says she walked at first, as I do, but could not keep pace with us all day in this heat. My wife's donkey also carries a little food and other things. My wife keeps this scroll case for me when we travel, so that I do not have to carry it. I hang my club in the loops on the back of my shield and sling my shield behind me. When the sun is high I carry it on my head for shade.
Here the road leaves the river, which roars over rocks. The people of this village say a ship was taken apart here and carried south over the road, then launched again, which seems to me nearly as strange as the sacred beetle that has become my necklace. They were well paid to help carry the ship, and gave us food freely. My Myt-ser'eu says we had to threaten the people at the place where we stopped last night. I do not recall it. Fresh fish and flat barley cakes are our food, with the dates and raisins her donkey carries. Holy Kashta has blessed this place.
He tells us of his god, Seth, whom he says is very great. All gods are very great, I think, when their priests speak of them. Four temples remain in his city, that of Seth to which we belong, that of Isis, that of Apedemak, and that of the Sun. That of Seth is the southernmost, the last temple in his city and in all the world. My wife fears this god greatly. "THE ROAD GOES south, always south." Myt-ser'eu says this, and weeps. Her home, she says, lies far to the north, near the Great Sea-each step carries her farther from it. Mine too lies on a shore of that sea, she says. She does not know where. I said I would bind the priest, beat him, and steal a boat. In it we could follow the river north to her home. She said we would be pursued and retaken long before we reached Kemet, and that its southern border was still whole months of travel from her home. Our best chance, she said, was to follow the ship we had left, on which are many strong friends. Or else to win our freedom from the temple.
"The last temple," I said.
She agreed that it was the last-the priest says this-but wanted to know why I thought it important.
I did not know, nor do I know now. The answer may be in this scroll, as she says. But I could not find it tonight. WE ARE IN Meroe, housed in the temple of Seth, the Great God of the South. Meroe is built on an island in the Great River. Our temple is at the southern end of this island, as is proper for Great Seth. Its door beholds the sun in winter-Holy Kashta says this.
There are three priests; Holy Alara is another, Most Holy Tobarqo the chief priest. He is old and forgetful, and wears a leopard skin. When Kashta presented us to him, he did not remember sending forth Kashta to buy us. We smiled much at him, bowed low, and promised to obey in all things, to do our work willingly, and not to steal. He smiled on us and gave us the blessing of his god. In truth, I would not wish to harm so old a man-it would be like fighting a child.
The priests have houses and families near the temple, but Myt-ser'eu and I live in it, she to sweep and scrub, cook, wash clothes, and gather flowers in season. I to guard it by night. There is much gold here, and the priests say thieves have robbed the city of the dead until there is nothing left.
"You must sleep by day so you will be awake by night," Kashta told me. "Do not unbar the doors unless one of us tells you to. They will throw a hook through the windows and climb a rope to enter, using the same rope to descend. Kill them."
I said I would. I will forget, I know, but I have told Myt-ser'eu, who will tell me each evening when I wake. WE WENT TO the market today. Kashta wished to send Myt-ser'eu; but it is dangerous, he says, for a woman to go to the market alone. They woke me for this. I left my shield here, but took my club. Half the houses are in ruins, though men and women still live in many and their children play in the ruins. "This is too interesting not to look at," Myt-ser'eu declared. "Let's walk around the whole place and see everything we can. It's not large, and we can tell Holy Kashta we got lost."
I agreed and we set out, seeing many houses half fallen, and the broken doors of the houses of the dead. Voices called to me from the rifled tombs, but after the second I did not reply. "The ghosts are thirsty here," I told Myt-ser'eu; she told me of a woman of wax who thirsted for her blood and the blood of another woman. This woman fought for us in a terrible battle in which cobras and lions fought for us as well. I recall a great golden lioness, and told Myt-ser'eu of her. She said I could remember nothing, and so could not recall this lioness. Yet I do.
The palace that was the king's lies in ruins. We walked through parts of it, and saw the tank in which the king bathed. There is still a king, Myt-ser'eu says, but he rules from Napata and cares nothing for this ruinous city of Meroe. We were at Napata for a month or more, she says, but I was very ill. She had my scroll and could not return it to me because I was too ill to hide it.
The market seemed small, and there were more sellers than buyers. I saw the teeth of a great boar, curving tusks longer than a spear. This boar must have been very great. The meat was beef, pork, antelope, and river-horse. Myt-ser'eu says the priests eat pork, but it is an unclean meat. They will give her no meat at all. Of that she is glad, not wishing to eat pork.
Strange men from the south had come to the market to trade, tall scarred men who paint their bodies red and white. They have bows, spears, big shields, and long knives. One stall sold arrows and bows much like theirs. The bows seemed good, long and strong, but the arrows had heads of sharp stone. I inquired, and the one who kept the stall said iron is costly here. I must have seen arrows like his before, for something stirred in me when I examined them.
I wished to buy a little dish, but Myt-ser'eu would not buy it for me. There are many such small dishes in Kashta's house, she said, and when she brought my food she gave me one. I wished milk as well, and there was milk left from the dinner she made for his family. She went back to the priest's house and got it for me.
Thus I have filled my little dish, and set it near the crack from which the snake comes. He is my only company when I guard the temple by night, and I wish him to understand that I am his friend. Snakes like milk, I know.
Now I write by the light of my lamp, and read, too. The moon looks in at a window, a fair young woman with a round, pale face. The windows are high. From time to time I hear the god stir in his holiest place, but when I look in on him he has not moved. He is a god. I AM AWAKE! I held my hand over the flame until the pain was too great. It was not yet gone. No man could sleep knowing such pain.
The god spoke to me. He came out, and his face was no longer the face of a wild dog but the face of a man as red as desert sand. He is taller than I, and stronger, too. "You have forgotten me," he said, and his voice was the wind among dry stones. "We are old comrades, you and I, and I thought you would never sleep."