Raiders of the Nile

IX

After collecting every debt owed to me, and accepting a surprisingly generous loan from Berynus and Kettel, I set out the next day with Djet for the southern gate of Alexandria.

To the north, Alexandria faces the sea, but to the south it faces a large body of water called Lake Mareotis. A canal connects this lake with the distant Nile, allowing river barges to travel directly to the capital without venturing out to sea. Much of the grain grown along the floodplain of the Nile arrives on the southern wharves of Alexandria via the canal and Lake Mareotis.

Travelers also use the canal, which can be faster and cheaper than taking a camel or horse, especially since the roads in Egypt are notoriously bad. To be sure, the barges can be crowded-so crowded that sometimes they overturn. I found myself thinking about this as Djet and I were ushered, along with many others, from a pier on Lake Mareotis onto a long, narrow vessel manned not by rowers but by four men with long poles, two standing fore and two aft. The few places to sit were given to the oldest and most infirm among us, and the rest had to stand.

When the barge could hold no more passengers, the boatmen raised their poles and pushed against the mud on the lake bottom. The vessel left the dock, rocking from side to side so abruptly that Djet grabbed hold of my leg to steady himself, and more than a few of our fellow travelers uttered what I took to be prayers, some in Greek but most in the language of the native Egyptians.

I gazed back at the crowded shipyards and docks of the city, then I slowly turned, taking in the many-colored sails of the fishing vessels that dotted the lake. Towering palm trees ringed the shoreline. We headed steadily toward a break in the trees to the east; this was the mouth of the canal, marked by ornamental pylons on either side. The canal was wider than I expected. Even as I watched, two barges passed one another going in opposite directions, one entering the canal and the other leaving. As this second barge, heading for the pier, passed us, I saw that the deck was as crowded as ours, and the passengers looked even more miserable. Some of them had probably been standing all the way from Canopus.

Canopus! What stories I had heard about the place. As if opportunities for amusement were not great enough in Alexandria, the wealthy of the city (and those who could gather enough money to pretend they were wealthy, if only for a day) regularly flocked to the town of Canopus, only a day’s journey away, where their every whim could be indulged. Rich foods and fine wines, shops offering exquisite merchandise, venues for gambling, entertainments staged by exotic dancers and acrobats, and every imaginable pleasure of the flesh-all could be had in Canopus, for a price. The town had become a watchword not just for diversion and debauchery, but also for discretion. Thus the saying: things that happen in Canopus never leave Canopus.

In all my months in Alexandria, I had never ventured to Canopus, seeing no point; to enjoy Canopus, a man needed money, and for me that was always in short supply. Now I finally had a reason to take the trip, but I might as well have been venturing to some sleepy village in the middle of nowhere, for all that I would be able to enjoy the sights and sounds. True, my purse was not empty; in fact, it was fatter than it had been in quite some time, thanks to the loan from the two eunuchs. But I intended to hold fast to every coin in my possession, giving them up only under dire necessity. Who could say what expenses I might incur on my journey, or how much I might have to pay to buy back Bethesda from the kidnappers?

Once we entered the canal, mules on the road alongside were harnessed to the boat and were made to pull us forward. The boatmen continued to use their poles to avoid the banks and oncoming boats. For a while I took some interest in watching them work, and in looking at the barges passing by. But the work of the boatmen was repetitious, and so were the boats; over and over we passed a mirror image of our own craft, loaded with nondescript passengers or with nondescript cargoes-stacks of brown amphorae likely to be packed with dates or dried figs, or bundled sheaves of papyrus, or mats made of woven reeds.

Occasionally, an ornately decorated pleasure barge sailed by. Elegantly dressed passengers sat in chairs with awnings to shade them and slaves to provide an artificial breeze by wafting fans of peacock feathers. The men and women on these vessels looked either bored or sleepy, and paid no attention whatsoever to our barge as we passed them. In their wake, breathing the warm air stirred by those peacock-feather fans, I caught whiffs of various perfumes-jasmine and spikenard, myrrh and frankincense. These indolent, perfumed Egyptians were the jaded rich of Alexandria, returning to the city after spending a few days and nights sating themselves with the pleasures of Canopus.

Meanwhile, Djet and I stood exposed to the bright sunlight. I had forgotten to bring a hat, but at some point a vendor appeared on the canal bank, walking alongside the mules. To any passenger who tossed him a coin he would toss a broad-brimmed hat made of woven reeds. I took him up on the offer. When Djet complained that he had no hat, I advised him to stand in my shadow.

The hat shaded my eyes and provided some relief from the merciless sun, but the smell of mule dung from the shore was inescapable, as was the smell of my fellow passengers. After a couple of hours in the hot sun, we could all have used some of that perfume that wafted from the pleasure barges. Flies and gnats harassed my eyelids and tickled my lips; as soon as one was brushed away, another appeared to resume the torment.

I had thought the barge might make a stop to allow the passengers to eat, but this was not the case. Instead, food was offered by vendors on the bank, just as the hats had been offered; it paid to be a good catch, unless one had no objection to eating food that had landed on the deck. In this way I bought a bit of flatbread stuffed with goat cheese. After I gobbled it up, Djet complained that he was hungry, too. I bought another flatbread, and watched begrudgingly as he ate the whole thing. I was still not convinced that his services would compensate for the bother of taking him along.

Nor were there stops for the passengers to relieve themselves. This necessity could be tended to behind a small screen at the back of the barge, using a hole in the deck. When I grumbled about the awkwardness of this arrangement, a fellow passenger told me that it was a great improvement over the last barge he had taken, which had no such hole; men and women alike had to do their business over the side, holding fast to the railing while at the same time hitching up their garments and hoping not to fall off.

The journey seemed interminable, but at last, as the day began to wane, the canal opened into the small harbor of Canopus situated on the northern bank of the canal.

No sooner had we disembarked than a group of boys swarmed around us, each extolling the virtues of a particular tavern or gambling den and insisting that we follow. Though I told them I had no money to spend, the boys were as persistent as the gnats that had tormented me on the barge. It was Djet who at last got rid of them. He was only a little older and bigger than most of the boys, but he seemed to know just what pose to strike or what threat to utter to dissuade them. At last they dispersed and moved on to badger some other poor passenger. I decided Djet might be worth the cost of his passage after all.

Though I had done nothing but stand all day, I felt exhausted and was ready to find lodgings for the night, the cheaper the better. The least expensive accommodations, so Tafhapy had told me, would be the farthest from the center of town, out on the road that led to the westernmost branch of the Nile. To get there, we would have to walk through the very heart of Canopus, with its crowded streets, tightly packed shops, and pleasure establishments.

I set out, feeling a bit intoxicated by the sheer vibrancy of the place. Beautiful dancing girls beckoned from doorways. In other doorways, men wearing more jewelry than was seemly rattled dice in their fists and promised that a fortune was waiting to be made inside. I passed perfume shops and purveyors of exquisite bronze ware, bakeries and wine merchants, sellers of fine furniture and plush fabrics, and even a small and very expensive-looking slave market where the man in charge announced that any sort of slave could be rented for an hour or a day, from a humble body slave to a highly trained scribe, “in case you left yours at home in Alexandria and can’t do without.” Curio shops sold amulets to ward off the Evil Eye, along with souvenir images of the Great Pyramid and the Pharos Lighthouse.

Simply getting through Canopus proved to be a challenge. Instead of running straight, the crowded streets meandered and doubled back on themselves, mazelike. Again and again we passed the same curio shop, the same dancing girls in doorways, the same slave market. So many lamps were lit that twilight seemed to linger indefinitely, forestalling the coming of night. Thus the saying: Canopus never sleeps. As my stomach growled, and my weariness increased, and my feet grew tired, this endless circular progress took on the character of a nightmare. I seemed to be trapped in a place where everything imaginable was for sale, yet I had no money to spend; where the sun never set, yet I longed only for a bed where I might sleep.

At last I came to a standstill, not knowing whether to go forward or back, since either direction led to the same place. It was Djet who took the matter in hand.

“Give me three copper coins,” he said.

“What?”

“Do you want to get out of this place or not? Give me the coins.”

After a bit of hesitation, I did so, and Djet vanished into the milling throng.

He was gone for a long time. I began to think he had abandoned me, but how far could he go with three copper coins? At last he came back, and with him was one of the boys who had pestered us at the dock.

“Who’s this?” I said.

“The most honest of the bunch, if I’m any judge.”

“What is he good for?”

“Leading us out of here!”

The newcomer put his hands on his hips and looked up at me. I had the uneasy feeling that I was outnumbered by precocious and willful boys, but I nodded and made a gesture that he should show the way.

Just past the curio shop, the boy took a turn that I had repeatedly missed. What I had assumed to be a recessed doorway was in fact a narrow passage between two buildings. As the way twisted and turned, we left the glow of the lamps behind. The sudden darkness made me uneasy, but I was relieved to be away from the crowds and the endless, maddening circuit of Canopus.

The way grew less narrow. On either side, taller buildings gave way to shorter ones. The space between buildings grew larger. We passed sheds and goat pens. Vague moonlight showed the outskirts of what could have been any quiet little village anywhere in Egypt.

We set out on a road that ran eastward, toward the Nile. The village ended. The open land around us was sandy and dry, peaceful and quiet, with only a scattered palm tree here and there. Then we came to a stretch of road with large estates on either side, most of them surrounded by high walls, from behind which I could hear the faint sounds of conversation and laughter, and occasionally the splashing of water. These must have been vacation estates where the Alexandrian upper classes took refuge from the hurly-burly of Canopus. The estates grew farther apart, and at last we seemed to leave civilization altogether.

I was exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open, but Djet looked wide awake, as did our guide.

“This is all very lovely,” I said. “But I’m not sure why you’ve led us here. Unless I’m to sleep on the ground. Or…”

Unless you intend to hand us over to bandits who’ll take my purse, cut our throats, and leave our bodies for the vultures, I thought. So much for Djet’s abilities as a judge of character!

“It’s just ahead,” said the boy.

“What?”

“The inn.”

“I don’t see any inn.” I squinted at the darkness before us.

“It’s just up there, where you see those palm trees.”

The outline of the palm trees I was barely able to discern, but I saw no lights or any sign of a structure.

“Are you sure?”

“The inn that’s farthest from the town-that’s what your boy told me you wanted.”

“The cheapest inn, more to the point.”

“Oh? I see.” The boy sounded slightly chagrinned. He turned to Djet. “But you said-”

“Never mind what I said. You’re the local guide!”

“And you’re the customer, you little fool!”

“Stop squabbling,” I said. “Now, young man, if I were to tell you I wanted the cheapest possible accommodations-”

“I understand. Well, that would be the Inn of the Red Sunset, all the way back through town, on the side toward Alexandria-”

“No, no, no. After hiking all this way, I’m not going back through town. What is this place up ahead? What sort of establishment is it?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll love it!”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Well … it’s not the cheapest inn outside Canopus, that’s for sure. But it is the farthest east, and you’re heading for the Nile, aren’t you? When you wake up in the morning, the river will practically be right outside your door! Come on. Follow me. Come and see!”

Reluctantly, I trudged after him.

The palm trees loomed larger. There were so many of them, with such masses of foliage clustered beneath, that I took the location to be a small oasis. At last I glimpsed two points of light, which turned out to be lamps set on either side of the door of an inn, just where the boy had said it would be.

“This is it,” said the boy.

The place seemed to have no windows. Above our heads, the fronds of a palm tree rustled in the faint evening breeze. “I’m not sure I like the look of this place. What is it called?”

“The Inn of the Hungry Crocodile.”

I frowned. “I don’t care for the name. But I suppose, having come all this way…”

As we approached the door, I reached for the knocker, then pulled my hand back with a start. The bronze knocker appeared to be a crocodile’s head, though a small one, with the snout pointing down, so lifelike that it might have been cast from an actual crocodile. It was in two parts connected by a hinge, with the bottom of the jaw fixed to the door and the top serving as the knocker. The nostrils provided finger holds. When I raised the knocker, rows of sharp bronze teeth glinted in the lamplight.

I let the knocker drop. The noise reverberated in the stillness. There was no response. I raised the knocker again, but before I could let it drop, from within I heard the sound of a bolt thrown back.

The door opened, and I stood face to face with the strangest mortal I had ever seen.