"One-third of the sum paid to the thieves."
"So the higher the price, the better for you?"
"Aye, unless the price be set so high that the whole deal fall through. In that case I lose my time and risk my person for nought."
"Perhaps if you enabled us to locate and recover the robe by force of arms, we could pay you good round sum, which you would not have to divide with anybody. Either the thieves would all be dead, or we should be."
"By Bakchos, you horrify me, young sir, with such bloodthirsty talk! I know not how the lonians can consider themselves cultured, so long as they take so readily to throat-cutting." (Egyptians have a habit of calling all Hellenes "lonians," whether they be such or not.) "Aside from that, what about it?"
"Nay, Master Chares, you misjudge me. I have a position and a reputation, which I hope will continue to serve me long after you have departed from the land of Chem. I will not risk all of that for a single quick gain. However, perhaps I could send a trusted agent to Tamiathis with you to negotiate.
"In any case," continued Tis, yawning, "this is all bootless speculation. I know not where your robe is, or in whose hands. It may have passed on into the south—to Kene or Koptos or Neth-Ammon—and thus be out of my jurisdiction. However, if you will make yourselves at home here, I will put out inquiries and consult certain occult sources of knowledge. Within a few days we should know better where we stand."
We retired. Manethôs , being a priest, and I, as the commander of the expedition, had rooms to ourselves. The others shared a large guest room. I slept ill, although I was tired from hiking about Memphis, and the bed of ivory and ebony was the most luxurious that I had ever occupied.
When I read over the foregoing account of my talk with Tis, I am struck by the impression I have given of my own brisk competence. This is false. While I spoke those words —or at least words much like them—to Tis, my speech was mechanical. Half my mind was on the dialogue while the other half whirled in confusion about one thought: the thought of Tis's wife, Amenardis.
That night I cared not a copper half-farthing about Demetrios' robe, or my art, or even the fate of beautiful Rhodes. All that really concerned me was to see this fascinating woman again and to speak to her.
Perhaps, even, to touch her.
BOOK VII — TIS
I was eating my morning sop when Manethôs and Phiôps, the workman from his temple, came into the courtyard. The latter bore a pick and shovel, which he gave to Tis's head gardener.
"We have dug a grave for my poor little Satenbastis," said Manethôs . (This meant that Phiôps had dug while Manethôs directed, for the youthful priest was not the sort of man to lay hand to tool if he could help it.) "This afternoon I shall fetch a fellow priest to assist me with the sacred rites."
"Who is for town with me?" said Tis, dipping his sop. "This morning will be given to buying Thoueris' necklace; this afternoon to the bullfight. You, Onas, must come with us this morning, as I trust your judgment in jewelry beyond my own."
"I shall be glad to help," said Onas. "But I wonder why you buy not a piece for your wife at wholesale in the course of your business."
Tis spread his hands helplessly. "You know women. She has set her heart upon a collar displayed by Men the goldsmith, made of amethysts in a golden setting. It is up to me to chaffer Men down without letting him know that I simply must have this bauble. Your duty, my dear Onas, will be chiefly to sneer at Men's goods and find fault with them."
I said: "Sir, you won't forget to pursue our special inquiry?"
"Patience, patience, my dear young man! With patience is the baboon taught to gather coconuts. Come you with us?"
"I thank you, but what I really need is to meet some Egyptian sculptor who can tell me about the techniques employed on those colossi in Memphis."
"I can help you there," said Manethôs . "This morning go I to the shop of Harmaïs the tombstone maker, to order a stone for Satenbastis. If you take not too long, I can interpret for you."
Berosos announced his intention of going with Tis, while Dikaiarchos said: "Thank you, but I have had my fill of sight-seeing for the nonce. Besides, yesterday's tramp made me realize my age. May I lurk in your library? Some of the titles there I have not read."
And so it was arranged. After a delay (caused, as usual, by Onas' tardiness) we climbed into a large four-wheeled carriage of the Persian type, drawn by a pair of whites with ostrich-plume crowns affixed to their crownpieces. Tis's coachman drove us across the canal, through the groves and gardens of the suburbs, through the Great White Wall, and into Memphis. Here the traffic slowed us to a crawl.
"It waxes worse every year," said Tis, mopping his broad face. "Ever harder it is to find a place to leave one's carriage. The police and soldiery harry one to move on, lest traffic be blocked." He spoke in Egyptian to the coachman, then said: "Psammos will drop us here, as we can walk the rest of the way faster than ride. He will leave the car at a public stable and wait upon me at Men's shop. If we get our errands done in time, let us all meet at Zer's inn for lunch, eh? It is a respectable place."
While the rest followed Tis towards his goldsmithery, I accompanied Manethôs to his stonecutter. Harmaïs was a burly man, blind in one eye, with whom Manethôs held a long conference on the monument to Manethôs ' lamented pussycat.
Then, with the priest interpreting, I tried to learn something of Egyptian methods of sculpture. I will not repeat this labored and halting conversation. Manethôs , for all his fluency in Greek, had never learnt the technical terms of sculpture either in my tongue or his own and was at his wits' end to convey Harmaïs' and my meanings, one to the other.
Although the Egyptians are marvelous draftsmen and excellent masons, I soon discovered that there was little for me to learn, professionally, in this ancient land. For one thing, the Egyptians have a rigid and absurdly detailed set of canons of proportion, arrived at thousands of years ago and never changed since.
They also employ a limited set of inflexible, formal stances to which all statues conform. These poses are like those one sees in very old Greek statues, such as are kept as holy relics in some temples. This is natural, as we Hellenes first learnt the arts from the Egyptians. But we have gone far beyond them. An Egyptian sculptor would deem it shocking to portray a subject in a lifelike pose or to make a statue look like the individual depicted.
"Look!" said Harmaïs, proudly unrolling a sheet of papyrus. "This is a sketch of the new relief of King Ptolemaios, which I shall execute on a wall of the temple of Phtha."
I should have laughed had not good manners forbidden. Here stood this Macedonian adventurer—in real life a short, stout man—in the guise of a conventional Egyptian king: a slender, delicate-looking person, wearing only a linen loincloth, a towering crown, and a broad Egyptian necklace, raising his hands in the Egyptian gesture of homage to the gods. Over his head and beneath his feet crawled those little processions of men, beasts, birds, and flowers wherewith the Egyptians write their language.
I thanked Harmaïs and took my leave. For a time we lingered about the colossi at the temenos of Phtha, brushing off the guides who swarmed about us like flies about offal. Then we joined our friends at Zer's.
"The polluted necklace is not yet bought," said Tis. "Though fleered and sneered we for hours, Men has not yet met my price. Onas' fault is that he is too honest and open. When he likes a piece, it is hard for him not to show his true feeling. Howsoever, we will have another try this afternoon, after the bullfight. Are you with us, Master Chares?"
"Thank you," I said, "but if you don't mind, I will return to your house. I'm still stiff and sore from being thrown as from a heavy catapult yesterday."