The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

XII – The Courts of Kush

Under a blinding sun, blazing high overhead in a brassy sky, the city of Meroê shimmered in merciless heat. Within its wall of sun-dried mud stretched a jumble of mud-brick houses. Little motion was visible, for in the heat of the day most Kushites disappeared within their walls. Here and there one might be seen, curled up asleep in a patch of shade. Somewhere a blacksmith's hammer clanged.

Outside the wall, the ground stretched away westward in a barren plain towards the Nile, invisible below its bluffs in the middle distance. To the east the country rose in a range of small, stony hills. On the south side, in the precarious shade of a giant sacred sycamore, huddled the tents of Bessas' company. They were camped outside the walls because Meroê had no inn.

Past these tents ran the road to Soba and the south. This road was merely a track in the sand, beaten by the feet of slave hunters and their victims, which ended at the Soba Gate, a large wooden door in the mud wall.

A pair of Kushite soldiers guarded this gate. The pair sat on the ground against the wall, with lean black arms encircling their legs and bushy black heads pillowed on their knees, sound asleep. Their iron-headed spears and cowhide shields, painted in gaudy patterns of red, white, and black, leaned against the wall. A bowshot away, down the road, a score of huge brown vultures tore at the carcass of an ass.

Bessas' remaining horses and mules stood under the trees in-pairs, head to tail, flicking flies. The camels, their long legs folded beneath them, chewed their cuds.

Within the encampment, hardly more motion was seen than in the sleeping city. Zayd's Arabs slept or stared blankly into the distance, not bothering to brush away the flies. Shimri, having just returned from a visit to the local smiths, hummed tunelessly while he mended a harness strap. Myron searched his garments for fleas and lice.

Bessas and Kothar emerged from the gate and strode towards the camp. "Myron!" called Bessas. Then, placing his face close to Zayd's tent, he cried: "Ya Shaykh!"

Zayd appeared blinking and yawning. "'Ahlan wa sahlan," he muttered. After the shaykh came his daughter. Bessas snarled:

"Know you what that little son of Ahriman, Barga, has been doing these ten days past?"

"What?" said Myron.

"He has been playing us like fish on a line, taking our bribes every day for promises to get us an audience on the morrow. But it turns out that Barga has no authority to arrange an audience with the king at all! This king does not give audiences. He is far too sacred for such defiling intercourse with mortals. By the Sleepless One, if Kothar had not restrained me, I had torn the rascal to pieces, as boys pull insects apart!"

"Isn't he the Royal Usher?" said Myron.

"He is, but the person with whom he should arrange audiences is the minister, General Puerma."

"Who is on campaign," said Myron.

"But who is due back today or tomorrow. He sent a runner ahead. Now Barga assures us that we shall have an audience with Puerma tomorrow."

"Let's hope it be not another chicane," said Myron.

"It had better not be," said Bessas, glowering, "or I'll lure the scoundrel outside—"

"He'll only protest that it is all a misunderstanding; that he did not fully comprehend Kothar's Egyptian," said Myron.

"I suppose so," said Bessas. "Where's Skhâ? It is time that he and Shimri took the beasts to graze."

Shimri looked up. "In this g-god-forsaken land, the grass is so sparse that the animals have to gallop from one tuft to the next."

"Skhâ went into the town," said Myron. "Here he comes now."

The short Karian trotted out the gate. "Ho, comrades! Guess what! I have found us a willing woman! Or rather," he amended, "one whose owner is willing."

Myron smiled. "At my age, my boy," said the Greek, "I find that black skins and flapping breasts fail to arouse what little lust I still have."

"Oh, but this one is young and well-formed."

"Then she will have that female circumcision that they practice here and in Egypt, which closes up their—"

"Nay; she comes of the Megabarri, who live up the Astabara and do not—"

Bessas cleared his throat, and the Karian fell silent. Bessas said: "Methinks this conversation is unfit for the ears of the young lady." He nodded toward Salimat.

"Oh, but she understands not—"

"I think she understands more Aramaic than she admits. Eh, my lady?"

A peal of laughter came from behind the blue veil. Salimat replied in broken Aramaic: "I go back in tent; leave men to talk as like."

Salimat returned to the tent, followed by Bessas' burning gaze. Bessas murmured in Greek:

"Do you know, O Myron, that next to a good horse, a good woman is the most precious possession one can have?"

Then the Bactrian shook himself, like a man coming out of a dream. His deep voice boomed out harshly in guttural Aramaic:

"The damnedest thing is that I cannot find anybody in Meroê to talk about the road to die south and the sources of the Nile. They call the Upper Nile the Astasobas, meaning 'River of Darkness,' and feign that they never heard of the course of this fell flume."

Shaykh Zayd, using Kothar as interpreter, said: "I know the reason, father of a sword. The established traders and slave hunters fear lest you invade their territories and compete with them. So they have spread the word that you are not to be helped. Count yourselves lucky if they stir not up the mob against you, saying you are foul foreign fiends and witches who would steal their children to devour. We have encountered much of that in Egypt."

Bessas slapped his thigh. "As I feel now, I should welcome a battle with the whole of Meroê. When—"

He wheeled, staring down the road. Along the track came faintly the sound of drums. "Puerma!" he exclaimed.

Meroê came to languid life. The sleeping soldiers awoke, yawned, and picked up their spears and shields. Others joined them. People issued from the gate, first in a trickle and then in a stream.

The guardsmen cleared the road for the approaching army. They ran up and down the sandy track, screaming at the citizens and beating them back with the shafts of their spears. Once the quick tempers of the Kushites erupted into a brawl. There was an instant of yelling. Spearheads flashed in the glare, and a dead man was dragged out of the press for his family to wail over.

The other Kushites lined up on both sides of the road. There were mop-headed men and women with tribal scars on cheeks and the kilt of Kush about their loins. There were swarms of naked black children. Bessas and his party elbowed their way to the front, ignoring the scowls of the Kushites and the movement of the men's hands towards the daggers strapped to their upper arms.

The drumming became louder. A cloud of dust appeared down the road. Out of it issued a group of whifflers with staves to clear the way. Then came a squad of drummers, madly beating complex rhythms on deep, narrow drums. The vultures flew up from their feast and flapped in circles, croaking indignantly.

After the drummers ambled General Puerma on an ass. Although the ass was one of the big white Egyptian breed, it was hardly large enough to carry the general, whose bare feet scarcely cleared the road. For Puerma was a large man, tall and rather fat, so that he must have come close to Bessas' weight. He wore a towering headdress made of a lion's mane, a cuirass of silver scales, and a kilt embroidered with gold thread. One man led the ass while another trotted alongside, holding a parasol over the general's head.

The Meroites screamed "Puerma! Puerma!" The general smiled blandly, but his smile vanished as he stared hard at Bessas and his companions before riding on.

After the general came men carrying loot. There were bags of gold dust. There were tusks, hides, horns, and plumes. A man carried a basket full of dubious brown objects.

Then came captives. Each bore a forked wooden pole about four feet long. The captive's neck was clasped in the fork of the pole and held in place by rawhide lashings, while his wrists were lashed to the long end of the fork. To avoid exhaustion, each prisoner rested the end of his pole on the shoulder of the captive in front of him.

The captives were mostly men, although there were some women and children. They were of many types. There were slender, bearded, hook-nosed, light-brown highlanders; there were squat, thick-thewed, inky-black men with full lips and slanting eyes. Some were as tall as Bessas, but thin as storks; others were equally tall but mightily muscled. Some had the lower middle front teeth missing, while some bore tribal cicatrice patterns on shoulders or buttocks. Most were completely naked, and many bore partly healed wounds. Kushites with whips and bludgeons hustled them along.

After several hundred captives had passed, the soldiers appeared. These were a column of lean, raisin-colored men, wearing the skins of lions, leopards, and other beasts, with bunches of ostrich plumes nodding from their topknots. Many had their bodies painted with vermilion and chalk. In some, the right half of the body bore one pigment and the left the other; others flaunted gaudier patterns.

Each bore a spear—sometimes with an iron head and sometimes with a head of sharpened antelope horn—and a shield of elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus hide. In addition, most carried additional weapons, such as a longbow made of a palm rib, a knobbed wooden club, or a bundle of javelins. There was no uniformity in their equipment.

Gold abounded among them. It gleamed from rings, earrings, armlets, torques, and anklets. It jingled in chains and in strings of amulets. Myron remembered Yehosha's remark about the gold mines of Kush.

Puerma's soldiers did not march. They straggled, shaking their weapons and uttering boastful shouts. Whenever one sighted a woman he knew, he shouted a few words and made sexual motions, raising raucous laughs.

Sweat ran down the soldiers' bare chests. Choking clouds of dust arose. Myron, though not finicky, found the massed odor overpowering.

Following several thousand soldiers came slaves bearing food and equipment, though this was scanty by the standards of more northerly lands. Beside Myron, Bessas remarked:

"Do not make the mistake of thinking these fellows, even if they look primitive and disorderly, are not warlike. Many times they have held their own in battle with the Persians. Some of my military friends who have faced their screaming charges are not eager to do so again."

In the main square of Meroê, officers strove to beat and kick their men into some semblance of a hollow square, while outside the mass of soldiers others rushed about beating back the common people, trying to keep them from mingling with the warriors. But their struggle was hopeless. As soon as the officials had passed, the masses began to stir, chatter, and mingle like any crowds. Every soldier had a tale of deeds of dought that he wanted to tell.

Myron, standing on tiptoe, could barely see over the mop heads before him. Bessas and Zayd, towering over the throng, watched impassively, while the stumpy Skhâ danced and wriggled about, seeking a view. Kothar, unconcerned with these earthly events, gazed at the distant sky.

A trumpet sounded. Suddenly even Skhâ could see, for thousands of Kushites around the square were throwing themselves prone. The king had come out of his palace.

"You had better get down, too, if you are fain to keep your heads," said the low but penetrating voice of Kothar. Myron folded up on the ground, but not before he had obtained a good look at the king, who stood less than fifty paces away.

Saas-herqa, King of the Two Lands, was a slight, ineffectual-looking man. Myron would have guessed that he was in his thirties. His skin was lighter than that of most Kushites. On each of the king's brown cheeks was cut a pair of zigzag tribal scars, like twin serpents.

The king's personal presence, however, was dwarfed by the magnificence of his attire. For his regalia was copied after that of the Egyptian kings of the great days of the Egyptian Empire. From his head rose a great golden tiara, fronted with the head of the lion god Apizemek, of whom the king was the incarnation. Golden horns rose from the sides, and golden wings covered the monarch's ears. Round his neck spread a golden gorget agleam with jewels. A jeweled baldric supported a sword with a jeweled hilt. The king's kilt and the high-crossed lacings of his tasseled sandals glistened with golden thread. He made a gesture with a small golden battle-ax, and the prostrate thousands rose.

Behind King Saas-herqa stood his fat queen, wearing art ornate crown of golden horns, wings, and a rearing cobra. Like the king, she was nude above the waist save for ornaments. Instead of a kilt she wore about her massive hips an ankle-length skirt, embroidered with golden wings and flowers.

Beside the queen stood an elderly man in plain white linen and a tall hat like the Persian cidaris. Though as dark as most Kushites, he was taller, with strongly aquiline features. These, together with his bald head and wattles, gave him a vulturine appearance. In response to Myron's whispered question, Kothar replied:

"That is Osorkon, high priest of Amon of Meroê. He and Puerma are the mightiest men in the kingdom."

Other Kushites crowded the doorway behind the king. All were clad like Egyptian nobles of three hundred years before.

Having dismounted, General Puerma strode up the steps to the portico of the palace and prostrated himself before the king. Rising, he turned so that he faced partly towards the king and partly towards the throng and began a speech.

Puerma spoke in Egyptian, as it was the affectation of the Kushite Court always to use that language in public. Puerma, however, paused between sentences for little Barga, the usher, to translate his words into Kushite for the benefit of the crowd. As Barga did this, Kothar likewise translated into Aramaic for his companions:

"... he has collected tribute from the Sembritae ... crushed the Critensi ... raided the Dochi for slaves ..."

At a signal from Puerma, the loot and captives were paraded past the king. As a crowning touch, the man with the basket of brown objects poured his load in a heap before the king. The multitude screamed its cheers. Myron asked:

"O Kothar, what are those things that look like large brown slugs?"

"Phalli," said the Syrian. "The Kushites cut them off slain foes to keep count of the number of dead." Seeing Myron wince, he shrugged. "It is more practical than collecting heads, which are much heavier. Anyway, what do you expect of such crass barbarians, lacking spiritual enlightenment?"

Bessas and his companions had barely returned to their tents when a messenger from the palace announced that General Puerma commanded their presence forthwith.

When they had made what feeble toilet they could, the messenger guided Bessas, Myron, and Kothar back to the palace. On the way, Bessas growled:

"Enough of this crawling on our bellies! I care not what the local custom may be; I will give the general but one good bow."

General Puerma sat on a leopard skin spread on a low throne, while a page boy fanned him with a long-handled ostrich-plume fan. He beamed at Bessas' bow, his black eyes dancing in his round brown face. The Bactrian, with Kothar translating into Egyptian, began the polite formulas:

"May the gods give Your Highness long life and wealth! Your slave brings a letter of greeting from the Great King to the King of the Two Lands ..."

The general waited until Bessas ran out of breath or compliments, then said in passable Aramaic:

"Thank you for the good words; the gods prosper you also." At Bessas' startled expression, a broad smile creased the general's full-jowled face. "You surprise I speak the Syrian tongue? Many years ago I serve in the Persian army. I march all through Egypt, Syria, Cappadocia, and Thrace to Greece. I march with King Xerxes. Of course, my speech is out of practice now. What is this about you going up the River of Darkness?"

Bessas told of his mission. Puerma drummed on the arm of his chair, then said:

"I do not know about this dragon. Is said that in the mountains east of the River of Darkness, in country of the Asachae, race of serpent kings rules the people. But your animal is something else, eh? Let me think." After a long silence, the general said: "You plan do anything else? Like catch slaves or hunt treasure?"

"Nay, my lord." Bessas grinned. "Though of course if I stumbled across a treasure I would not turn my back upon it."

The general smiled back. Myron felt that Puerma was an intelligent and forceful man who could be helpful if he chose. But it still behooved them to tread warily. Puerma said:

"You ever hear of the treasure of Takarta?"

"Aye." Bessas repeated what he had heard from Yehosha in Yeb. "But, as you see, sir, your servant cannot take time to search Africa for this box of baubles—even supposing that it exists—with my mother's life in the balance."

Puerma, his fat face suddenly grim, leaned forward. "You know, without permission from me, you not get up the river. Even if you get up, you never get through Kush on way back. You understand?"

"I understand. But what are you coming to?"

"This. If you want go up the river, you make pledge with me to bring back treasure of Takarta—"

"But General! We cannot spend years hunting the length and breadth of Africa—"

"You not hunt far. I make it easy for you to find this hoard."

"Know you where it is?"

"More or less. I tell you some things that make it easy to find. Otherwise, go back to Persia!"

"Why ask you me to fetch your treasure? Why not one of your own folk?"

Puerma twiddled his fingers. "I think you have better chance of getting to source of the river. We Kushites have raid the savage tribes of the south for slaves until now these dirty dogs attack us on sight. With your pale skins, they maybe take you for gods and let you pass. Besides, you find it harder to run away with treasure than one of my own people. Everybody notice foreigners and talk about them."

"If you have known where the stuff is, why have you waited until now to seek it?"

"Have been busy fighting Persians and wild tribes. Also, you are the first foreigner I see in Meroê who I think is strong enough to get treasure and honest enough not to try to cheat me afterwards."

"I thank Your Excellency." Bessas stroked his beard. "Of course, my lord, you mean for us to share the treasure equally, do you not?"

Puerma raised his eyebrows. "I not mean that at all. But I suppose you deserve some pay for work. You take one quarter, me three quarter."

"Nay, sir; half or nought ..."

After a haggle, Puerma said: "Tell you what. Is one valuable gem in the treasure: big red stone, call—how you say—"

"The True Anthrax?" asked Kothar.

"That is it. You give me the True Anthrax; then we divide rest of the treasure half and half."

"Agreed," said Bessas. Puerma clapped his hands and said: "Fetch Akinazaz the rain maker."

Akinazaz was a skinny old Kushite, naked but for a loin-cloth and a leopard skin hung around his neck. His body was covered with powdered ash, giving him a ghostly look.

"Now," said Puerma, "we swear great oaths, by my gods and your gods ..."

As there was no written contract, Myron suspected that Puerma could not read. When the oaths had been sworn and the rain maker had uttered hideous curses on him who should break them, Puerma said:

"Now I tell you how to find this treasure. Listen well. The kings of Kush rule from Napata from time of the great Kashta down to the reign of King Karkamon, in days of your King Darius.

"The royal line of King Kashta had two branches. The old branch rule in Napata, and the young branch rule the southern provinces as viceroys from Meroê. King Karkamon had son, Takarta. At that time, the senior member of the younger family, in Meroê, was Astabarqamon. When King Karkamon die, his son, Takarta, become king. But then he get message from King Darius, saying bow down to the king of the world and send him earth and water, for the god Auramazda choose him king over you and all other men. King Takarta say, ha-ha! And he cut off the messengers' hands and send these men back to say to King Darius: that is what happen to you if you come to my country. We beat King Cambyses, so we can beat you, too.

"So the Persians come and defeat King Takarta in one great battle. They seize Napata. King Takarta escape with treasure. But then he hear that his cousin Astabarqamon, in Meroê, has declare himself king, because now he has army and Takarta does not. Takarta know that if he go to Meroê as he is, his cousin kill him. So he and few faithful friends dress like poor peasants, all cover with lice and dirt. They walk right through Meroê, with treasure on back of ass, and nobody stop them.

"Then Takarta and his men go up the River of Darkness—far, far—three months' journey—"

"Mithra!" burst out Bessas. "Do you mean that after all our striving, we are only halfway to our goal?"

Puerma laughed and spread his hands. "I not know the exact distance. Maybe is only-half as far as to Persia; but is much harder going, with no roads and many wild men. Besides, your animals die of nagana, and then you have to walk."

Bessas growled: "I know not if my agreement with you was well-advised."

"Ah, but your Aryan sense of honor make you carry it out any way!" Puerma chuckled. "Anyway, Takarta and friends go on up this river. Some die, but some live. After three months they find one lake, which the River of Darkness flow out of. There they build castle and take wives from the local tribes."

Myron asked: "If Takarta went to this unknown country to live, how did news of his fate get back to Kush?"

"Some of the followers quarrel with Takarta, who say he is still king and make everyone prostrate himself before speaking to him. When one friend forget, Takarta kill him. Or maybe some of them are just homesick. Anyway, four of the followers run away and come back down the River of Darkness. One by one they die of hardship and sickness, but one of them get to Meroê and tell his story, and that story come down to me."

Bessas: "Will this exiled king and his followers still be in their castle when we arrive?"

"I think not. All these things happen maybe forty year ago, and Takarta was not young man then. The man who came back to Meroê say there were only a few followers left in castle, and what of sickness and lions and wild hunters and quarrels he not think those live long. If these old men still live and try to stop you from taking the treasure, kill them."

Myron said: "But Napata is in Kushite hands now, is it not?"

"Aye; King Astabarqamon drive out the Persians. Napata is holy place. All our kings are bury there. There you can see pyramids, like those in Egypt, that kings are bury under. But Persians still rule the Nile as far south as Third Cataract, so Astabarqamon keep his capital at Meroê. Napata is too near the enemy.

"Well, that is the story. Follow the river for three months to one big lake and look for castle on small hill near this lake.

"Now we go to the victory banquet. You are my guests. Will be in pavilion outside. Some people"—he spat—"not like jolly parties, Kushite style."

Puerma clapped his hands and rose. An escort of soldiers in horned helmets, armed with broad-bladed spears and long-hafted axes like those of Pharaonic Egypt, came running. Surrounded by these warriors and followed by his guests, he swaggered out of the palace and through the streets of Meroê towards his pavilion outside the city walls.

"O Zayd!" said Bessas. "It seems a shame that your lovely daughter should miss this feast. Shall I run over to the camp and fetch the lass? Methinks Puerma would not mind—"

"Nay, nay, my son," said Zayd with a chuckle. "From all I hear, a Kushite party is no place for a virtuous Arab maiden. Besides, you seek to spoil the baggage. She is too haughty now, with every man in the clan dangling after her and beseeching me to give her to him to wife."

On the grass mats that floored the general's pavilion, Myron and his companions sat cross-legged in a semicircle, with Puerma and a score of Kushite officers. A woman sat between each man and the next.

Not knowing Kushite, Myron could not converse with either of his dinner companions. This fact did not stop them from talking to him and to each other about him. Seemingly they were cracking broad jokes, for they laughed uproariously and rubbed their bare breasts against him. Myron tried to learn a few words of their speech but found it hard going.

He downed a mug of beer, belched, and said: "Beshrew me if I am not coming to like the stuff, O Bessas!"

" 'Tis weaker than Egyptian beer," said Bessas. "By the wheels of the sun chariot, they're bringing in a live ox! Are we supposed to rend it asunder with nails and teeth?" He turned to General Puerma and changed from Greek to Aramaic. "My lord, is this beast our dinner?"

Puerma, who had discarded most of his regalia, grinned and scratched his paunch. "You see soon."

"Poor Kothar looks sick," said Myron.

Bessas: "What said you? I cannot hear over this din."

"I said, poor Kothar looks sick!"

"He probably fears that those wenches on his flanks will rape him."

"By Herakles, that were an interesting problem—" began Myron, but a bellow from the ox and an outburst of shouts from the Kushites cut him off.

The beast had been tripped and thrown at the entrance of the pavilion. Despite its thrashing, servitors swarmed around it and held it down with ropes. A pair with knives began to cut into the haunch of the living animal. The ox bellowed frantically; the Kushites shouted encouragement.

"Papai!" said Myron. "This is new to me, and I do not know that I like it."

Bessas grunted. "I have eaten raw meat ere this, when I was caught without food or fire on the Sakan steppes."

"Well, let's hold back and watch the others when we are served, so as to comply with their code of table manners."

"If you can call it that," said Bessas.

A swarm of slaves now crowded round the ox, which continued to moan and bawl as it was flayed and cut up. Blood spread around the entrance of the pavilion in a widening puddle; flies gathered in humming swarms. Nevertheless, the carvers skillfully avoided cutting any major blood vessel, so that the animal's agony went on without cease. The Kushites whooped and cheered at each bellow.

The slaves began to stream into the pavilion with heaped platters. Each platter bore a stack of thin flat disks of leathery bread, half a foot in diameter, and chunks of raw meat, still bleeding and warm. Each slave put his platter down in front of a woman.

As she received her platter, each woman attacked the meat with a small knife. When she had cut the meat into cubes the size of dice, she piled a number of these on a disk of bread, rolled the bread into a cylinder, and thrust the end of the cylinder into the mouth of the man on her left. It was, it seemed, a point of Kushite honor for a man to be fed with his arms hanging limply at his sides, not using his own hands at all. It was also good manners to chew with one's mouth open, making loud smacking and slobbering sounds. Myron murmured:

"Somehow my appetite is not what it was—"

A cylinder of bread and meat, jammed into Myron's open mouth, ended his speech. He almost gagged, but Bessas said:

"If-you throw up, I'll break your neck. The stuff is not bad."

The slaves kept coming, refilling the platters as fast as they were emptied. The women fed the men until the latter signified that they had had enough. When the men were finished, each of them fed his woman partner in the same manner. Myron clumsily dropped his meat the first time he tried to roll a cartridge of bread, but the woman took it as a joke. With a final groan, the ox expired.

The noise subsided as the platters were cleared away. Now the slaves came round with huge pitchers of beer. The sun set; rushlights glimmered. The drinking went on and on. The noise of speech and laughter rose until Myron gave up trying to talk.

The Kushites drank incredible quantities. As the sky darkened, pairs of dining partners became more and more familiar. They shouted, screamed, slapped backs, and burst into hysterical howls. The men nuzzled and fondled the women. Myron's woman seemed to expect the same; but Myron, fearing to pick up another load of vermin and disliking the whole procedure, held aloof.

A little muzzy with beer, he blinked and shook his ringing head. All over the floor of the pavilion, men and women were throwing off their few garments. The scene became one of unbridled satyrism. The chorus of grunts, snorts, belches, gasps, and giggles gave the impression of a vast and agitated farmyard. The mixture of smells was indescribable.

Although Myron sometimes scorned Kothar for the latter's prudishness, he now found that his own most compelling desire was to escape. Looking about for his comrades, he was taken aback to see that Bessas, Kothar, and General Puerma had all disappeared. The thought of being alone in the midst of a barbarous orgy, unable even to speak to those about him, terrified Myron. To the woman, who now lay expectantly beside him, he shouted:

"General Puerma? Where Puerma?"

At first she shouted back uncomprehendingly, making coitary gestures. At last she rose with a muttered execration and pointed to the rear of the room.

Myron got unsteadily to his feet. He picked his way carefully among the pairs of horizontal bodies to the curtains at the rear of the room. A last glance back showed him that many Kushites had fallen into sottish slumber, though here and there a pair of shiny black buttocks still rhythmically rose and fell in the wan, flickering rushlight. He stumbled through the curtains.

A dimly lit corridor ran back into the private parts of the pavilion. Myron followed this until familiar voices and the rattle of a dice box brought his attention to one of the compartments opening on the corridor.

Myron peeked through the crack in the door curtain. Seeing Puerma, Bessas, and Kothar within, he entered with a greeting. Bessas and the general were throwing dice.

There was another person in the room, a serving maid. She was a rather tall, large girl with a white skin, blue eyes, and light-brown hair. Like an Egyptian maidservant, she wore nothing but a string of beads about her hips. She bore a tray on which sat mugs of beer.

Myron stared. He had not seen a person of such coloring since leaving Palestine. He knew that such hair and eyes sometimes occurred, albeit not very often, among Greeks and Syrians. He wondered if the young woman were of more northerly origin—a Thracian, say, or a Getes. In any case, while he realized that her features were not extraordinary, it was so long since he had seen a woman of more or less his own racial type that she looked as radiant as Aphrodite. At hazard he spoke:

"El Hellênis?"

"Malista," she replied. "Eimai Makedonikê. Onomazomai Phyllis."

"All, ah, no fair!" said General Puerma, wagging a fat forefinger. "If you must flirt with my slaves, do it in language I understand. You enjoy the party?"

Myron repressed a grimace of disgust. "It is different from anything I have ever seen, my lord. I shall always remember it. How is it that you people left early?"

Puerma said: "Your gallant captain"—he nodded at Bessas—"explain that he is in love and does not lust after any other woman. As for me, I can futter any time, but I do not have many chances to massacre one foreigner at gaming."

As Myron looked more closely at the low table on which the game was in progress, his eyes widened with horror. On each end of the table was piled the wealth of the player. On Puerma's side lay a heap of golden rings, chains, brooches, and other gauds. In the middle of the table stood a delicate balance for weighing out this gold. Two darics and a bracelet, the current stake, reposed beside the balance.

On Bessas' side lay the darics of King Xerxes—or rather they had lain there. Most of them had now moved over to Puerma's side. As Myron watched, Puerma rattled the three dice in the box and threw.

"Isis!" cried the general, for three sixes showed. He swept up the stake.

"Bessas!" cried Myron. "Your mother—"

"Let me alone," grumbled Bessas. "I am so far down now that I must needs go on."

"But we shall be destitute!"

"That matters not; Takarta's treasure will make it up to us."

"If we obtain it! You must be mad, to—"

"Fear not, Master Myron," said Puerma soothingly. "His luck surely turn. Not fair, not to give him chance to win back his wealth."

After several more throws, during which the stake grew again, Puerma threw a six. He picked up the other two dice and threw again, getting another six; a throw with the remaining die brought forth a third six, making another Isis. Bessas glared as his money departed.

"The Corpse Fiend take these dice!" he growled. "All I can throw tonight are dogs!"

"In the name of Zeus the king!" cried Myron. "Use some sense, man. Another of those and we shall be beggars!"

Bessas' bloodshot eyes flamed dangerously. "I told you to leave me alone!"

"Well, I won't! If you're a fool, I am not! Drop that nonsense, come back to camp, and sober up!"

"Curse you, I suffer no man to speak to me thus!" shouted Bessas, beginning to lurch drunkenly to his feet.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" cried Puerma.

"Excuse your slave," said Kothar.

As if by magic, the sound of the growing quarrel died away. All three men turned to stare at the Syrian, who had been sitting cross-legged, silent, and immobile throughout the altercation. But his voice possessed its strange authority.

"I made a small study of the stars and other omens this evening after I left the rout," he said. "Know that the mystical cosmic forces have combined against Master Bessas. He had no chance of winning this night."

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" groaned Bessas.

"You would not have believed me without a demonstration, and such a claim would only have caused discord. However, if you like, I will take your place; for I believe that my chances are fair."

"Very well. But your winnings shall belong to the expedition, not to you."

"I understand, sir. Let us play, General."

For a few throws the relative positions of the two players did not change. Each made small winnings and sustained small losses.

Then Kothar began to win consistently. Piece by piece, the archers flowed back across the table. The general's pile of winnings melted like the snows of Mount Libanos in spring.

Phyllis brought more beer. Puerma drank in great gulps. But Kothar, Myron suspected, only pretended to sip.

Kothar's winnings continued. Although he sustained an occasional setback, these losses were small and were followed by heavy winnings. Soon Puerma had, besides his golden ornaments, only a few darics left. He yawned and said:

"I wax too sleepy to continue. Besides, you will soon have wrested the treasury of Kush from me."

Kothar looked up with raised eyebrows. "Indeed, sir? Then I believe I am entitled to claim a forfeit from you, as I am ready and willing to continue the game until sunrise."

"Oh? That is right." Puerma gazed at the Syrian with a bleary and wavering stare. Then he shouted: "Phyllis!"

"Yes, master?" said the girl, appearing through the curtain.

"I give you to this man, whatever his cursed foreign name be, as forfeit for breaking off the game. You are his. Obey him in all things. And now good night, my friends. Let us go out the back, so as not to stumble over those who sleep on floor of the dining room."

In parting, Puerma spoke to Myron in a conspiratorial whisper. "Truth to tell, I give away Phyllis because I cannot abide her pale skin. It seem unhealthy; remind me of corpses and leprosy. But you northrons are used to such. Fare you well!"

Outside Myron said: "The gods keep us from another such coil! Verily, fortune rules men, not men fortune. Tell me, Kothar, did you not substitute, at suitable times, a set of your trained dice?"

Kothar smiled faintly in the moonlight. "I owe you thanks for the suggestion you made in Tahapanes, to bore holes in the sides of dice and install therein small leaden weights. I had a set made up for me in Opet. In sooth, the material betimes must serve the spiritual. My only regret is that I did not recover all our leader's losings."

"You really owe thanks to a suggestion of my friend Uni, an Egyptian priest, which started me to thinking."

Bessas mumbled something about a stain on his Aryan honor, to win by such trickery. Then he burst into sobs. Tears gleamed like pearls in the moonlight on his rugged, scarred face.

"I—I am nought but a stupid, drunken boor! I thought I could drink Puerma down, but he must be the champion toper of Kush; or else the demon Aeshma possessed me. I should never have gone so far from my mother!" He bent over. "O Myron, give me, I pray, a good hard kick in the arse!"

Myron, knowing his friend's strange moods, complied. His boot thudded home. Bessas straightened up, saying: "Now I feel better. But to whom belongs the lass?" He indicated Phyllis who, now decently clad, followed them.

"To me," said Kothar.

"Nay! We agreed that your winnings should belong to the expedition, and she is part of your winnings."

"Your slave begs to differ. The maiden was given to me as,a forfeit, that is to say as a gift to compensate me for the breaking off of the game. She is not exactly what I should have chosen—I am not a lustful man—but the general gave me no choice. In any case, she is a gift, not a winning."

They argued some more, until Bessas appealed to Myron. "Why should the beauty of this woman be wasted on Kothar, who cares for nought but his spirits and spells, when others in the group would enjoy her far more?"

Myron thought. "I can see arguments either way. Why not ask the young lady what she prefers?"

"Ask a slave?" snorted Bessas. "Well, go ahead. I care not what become of her, for my heart is elsewhere."

Myron explained the situation to Phyllis, who said: "It is bad enough to be a slave to one man, Master Myron, but to be the common property of several were little better than being sent to the mines."

When Myron had translated Phyllis' Greek, Kothar said: "Very well, as I- have no use for such property, I give her to you, Myron. To possess her would distract me from my quest for cosmic wisdom."

Bessas burst into a guffaw. Phyllis looked bewildered.

"Thank you," said Myron, "but now that I own her, what shall I do with her?"

"You ask?" said Bessas.

"No, seriously! If the journey southward prove as difficult as Puerma warned us, she is likely to perish. On the other hand, it goes against my grain to sell her to another Kushite, because these folk are not what one would call tenderhearted."

"By Ghu's bronzen bottom!" said Bessas, "you might as well pile a Pelion of folly on an Ossa of impulse and free her."

"Would you care to be free, my dear?" said Myron.

Phyllis burst into tears. "You m-mock me! After the pirates plucked me from the beach at Aineia, I would have given aught in my power to be freed whilst I still had some chance of regaining my home. But how could I ever return to Macedonia from here, hundreds of leagues from the Inner Sea? As I have no family or protector here, the first slaver who saw me could seize me. Or else I should starve. My only hope would be to become a public woman, or give myself as a concubine to some rich Kushite in hope that he would not use me too cruelly. Abandon me not in this savage country!"

"There, there, my dear girl," said Myron. "You shall remain with me as long as you like, though I warn you that the way ahead is hard and perilous." He put his arm around her, finding her as tall as he was.

As they walked towards their camp, Kothar said: "Whilst Captain Bessas was seeking to gamble away our substance and Master Myron was watching the mating time of the menagerie, I learnt some facts of interest."

"Speak!" said Bessas.

"I found an old Kushite officer who spoke Egyptian and was too rich in years to enjoy that mass rut. From him I learnt the state of affairs in Meroê.

"Two groups contest fiercely for power: one headed by General Puerma, the other by High Priest Osorkon. Now, Puerma is a man who loves the old. He worships the old Kushite gods: Apizemek, Anuqet, Tua, and the rest. To Amon-Ra he pays no heed. Also, he maintains the ancient custom of banquets of raw meat.

"Osorkon hates the old Kushite ways, deeming them unclean and barbarous. Fain would he make cultured Egyptians of the folk of Kush. He would subordinate all other gods to Amon-Ra, and he holds the eating of raw meat in particular horror. That is why tonight's feast was held outside the city instead of in Puerma's quarters in the palace."

"We Bactrians have had the same trouble with Persian rulers who follow the cult of Zoroaster," said Bessas. "Go on."

"You know the custom whereby the priests of Amon of Meroê, when a king ages or does badly, send him an embroidered napkin, called the Cloth of Death. When the king receives this grim gift, he calls in his guards and commands them to strangle him, and they do." . Bessas burst out: "By Anahita's womb, if any priest told me to slay myself, I'd hew his head from his shoulders ere his tongue had completed its clack!"

"No doubt you, not being a slave of custom as are most men, would do just that. But in all the centuries since Kashta founded the Kushite kingdom, no king has ever defied the priests' command. To be sure, only a few kings have ended their days thus, because most of them died in battle, or were murdered, or fell sick, or otherwise perished before the priests got around to them.

"Howsomever, here we have King Saas-herqa, a well-meaning wight of no great force or wisdom. He dotes on General Puerma, because Puerma is brave, loyal, and a splendid general. On the other hand, he fears to offend Osorkon, lest he receive the Cloth of Death. And Osorkon had been urging the king, more and more openly, to rid himself of Puerma, quickly and for good, so that the true religion shall prevail and the vile customs of raw-meat eating and promiscuous fornication shall be extirpated.

"Now Puerma, through his spies, knows about this. Being no more eager than the next man to be stabbed, poisoned, or otherwise disposed of, he casts about for the best course to follow. One possibility is to bribe the lesser priests, not all of whom are so fanatically pious as the holy Osorkon, to throw their weight against the high priest or even to slay him. Another is to raise the banner of revolt.

"Both of these courses, however, require wealth. As you have seen, Puerma is a gambling man, who has al-ways let gold slip out the bottom of his scrip as fast as he puts it in the top. That is why he has lately acquired a burning interest in the treasure of Takarta."

Bessas said: "Suppose we did fetch this treasure back. Would Puerma keep his bargain, or would he slay us to possess himself of the whole?"

"Who knows what secrets the heart of a man can hold? Men make promises according to their hopes and keep them according to their fears. But from all I can learn, the Kushites are an honest folk, and Puerma is deemed a man of integrity even amongst the Kushites."

Bessas pondered. "That may be, but I still would not trust him to the point of playing odds-and-evens with him in the dark. However, tomorrow we'll try again for information and guides to the River of Darkness. Me-thinks the word will have gone out that we be hindered no more."

When they got back to the camp, Myron said: "O Bessas,—ah—I wonder—"

"Say no more, teacher. I shall move in with the boys."

In the tent that Bessas had vacated, Phyllis submitted, without resistance but without enthusiasm, to Myron's caresses.

"I know my duties, master," she said. "But, slave though I be, I am no wanton who pants with lust at the sight of every man. So take your pleasure and do not wait upon me."

Afterwards she told him her story. "I am the daughter "of Philippos, a small landowner of Aineia. Being of pure Corinthian descent, my family deems itself a cut above the folk of those parts."

"I wondered why you spoke pure Doric without the Macedonian accent," said Myron. "Go on."

"Three years ago, celebrating our local Mysteries, I went with other maidens of Aineia to the seashore near the town. Whilst we bathed, a crew of pirates rushed upon us from behind the rocks of a headland.

Some of us escaped, but one other girl and I were caught. They dragged us to where a forty-oared craft was beached. There a host of hairy pirates set upon us and raped us, one after the other, until we could scarcely move. Then they put to sea with us.

"The pirates, who were Karians, had been raiding the coast and had sacked the town of Skapsa. So they had many other captives. As there is little room aboard such a craft, we were dreadfully crowded, huddled between the rowers' benches in the after part of the ship. Then the pirates decided to sail for home across the Aegean.

"We had been sailing but a short while when an outcry arose, for a ship was coming up astern. From other captives I learnt that this was a Macedonian trireme. No doubt someone had ridden to Therma to give the alarm.

"So the crew put out the oars and bent their backs. We flew over the waves, but ever that black-hulled trireme came closer. Men took the places of rowers whose strength failed, while others readied the pirates' weapons.

"Whilst this was happening, the captain pushed into the crowd of captives and spoke to me in broken Greek. 'Girl,' he said, 'I have been watching you, and I think I could like you. How say you?'

"I was tempted to spit in his face, but fear won the day. My tears had ceased and I managed a smile and a murmured assent.

" 'It is well for you,' he said, 'because we are about to lighten the ship. I shall have to hide you because, if they knew, the crew would throw you overboard with the rest.'

"Then the captain rushed about, moving the captives hither and yon on the pretext of getting them out of the way of the rowers. In the confusion thus created he pushed me into his cabin. This was a mere kennel at the after end of the ship, but it was the only place for sleeping.

"Then I heard a frightful cry amongst the captives. Shrieks and splashes told of their fate. Between one splash and the next, I heard my poor friend Klea scream: 'I lay the evil eye upon you, Captain! I come from a line of Thessalian witches! I curse you in the name of the triple Hekate! Never shall you see your home again—' and then another splash cut short her voice.

"After a while the outcries ceased, though the splashes continued as the pirates threw over their bulkier loot. Huddled in the cabin, I expected to see the beak of the pursuing warship come tearing through the walls. But hours later, the captain came in again.

" 'We have shaken them off,' said he. 'Now hold your tongue and make yourself invisible until we reach our home port.'

"Throughout the rest of the day and the following night, the captain, whose name was Mavaen, spent much time with me. I found him not unkindly; for, though he had a strong lust for me, he reined himself back when I told him how sore I was from my treatment by his crew.

" 'A day or two to recover, lass,' said he, 'and then you shall learn what real loving is.'

"During the following day the ship gave a lurch and came to rest at a slant. I guessed that we had run ashore. Then sounds of altercation came through the cabin door. The door flew open and two pirates pounced upon me and dragged me forth.

"We were beached on a rocky island to rest the crew and pick up water. Captain Mavaen was quarreling with the boatswain. Although I could not understand their speech, I gathered that this officer had seen Mavaen thrust me into his cabin and now taxed the captain with perfidy towards his crew. To a sea thief it is a dreadful offense to secrete a part of the loot for one's own benefit, instead of throwing it into the common store to be divided at the share-out. Captain Mavaen had not only done this; he had also risked the freebooters' lives by keeping a bulky, heavy piece of loot—meaning me—aboard when the rest was abandoned.

"The boatswain, therefore, challenged Mavaen to fight him to the death. So the pirates climbed down over the bow, hustling me with them. They marked out a place for the fight, and Mavaen and the boatswain went at it with swords and bucklers.

"For a time they circled, leaping, slashing, thrusting, and parrying, without either's gaining the advantage. Then Mavaen lightly wounded the boatswain on the leg. The boatswain could no longer leap so swiftly, and soon Mavaen wounded him again, on the left shoulder.

"Now the boatswain had much ado to defend himself, as he could no longer move his buckler swiftly enough to guard his vitals. But he fought on, limping and gasping. The crew began to cheer Captain Mavaen and urge him to finish the fellow off, though methinks they would have cheered as loudly for the boatswain if he had held the vantage.

"Mavaen began a mighty attack, slashing and thrusting and striking at his antagonist with his shield. He drove the boatswain around the circle like a dog driving sheep. I hoped to see the boatswain soon fall; for, while both were bloody ruffians, at least Mavaen had tried to save my life.

"But then a gull, flying overhead, let fall a bit of offal, which struck Mavaen in the face. As the disconcerted captain gave back, the other plunged his sword into Mavaen's breast. The captain fell to the sand and soon gasped out his life.

"The pirates chose the boatswain to be their new captain. But then another dispute arose. For some who knew Greek had understood the curse which Klea had hurled at the captain; and it was plain to the veriest dunce, from the act of the gull, that the gods had taken a hand in the fight. Fearing lest the curse should damn them all, they were troubled as to what to do with me. One faction was for cutting my throat then and there; another for returning me to my home, at whatever risk; and a third for speedily selling me.

"Whilst the argument raged, another ship drew up offshore and anchored. The pirates flew to arms, but the new vessel neither attacked nor showed fear. She was a Phoenician trader, of the kind sometimes called a mussel boat, with more oars than a regular merchantman but fewer than a war galley. We could see from the shore that her people were well-armed. After some shouting across the water, her captain came ashore in the ship's boat.

"This captain, a big ox of a man in a shirt of lizard mail, said he was Baalram of Arvad. Seeing the pirates beached, he had bethought him that they might have some lately acquired merchandise to sell. Lest they get any clever ideas, he was not in the least afraid of them, because his ship had a beak like that of a warship and could smash the stern of the beached pirate craft as easily as a man crumples a sheet of papyrus.

"Since their cruise had not proved very profitable, the pirates were glad to dispose of their remaining loot so quickly. They sold me to Baalram, who took me back to Phoenicia. I was sold again, and taken to Egypt, where I was bought by a Persian colonel on his way to command the frontier fortress of Buhen on the Upper Nile.

"I had been a few months in Buhen, working as lady's maid to the colonel's wife, when the Kushites captured the fortress by a sudden attack at dawn. The colonel died sword in hand before the spears of a hundred foes, and the women—those not butchered in the excitement—were dragged away across the desert. General Puerma, who commanded the raid, set his eye on me; and that is how I came to Meroê."

"How did you find Puerma?"

"Not bad; certainly preferable to the cruel Baalram or the peevish Persian colonel. He summoned me to his bed but once. I do not think he liked me much that way, preferring his dark beauties. When he dismissed me, he said: 'You are a good girl, Phyllis, though I do not think that armies will march and thrones will topple on your account. You are too sweet and placid. Some day I shall find you a husband, of a good steady type like yourself.' " She began to weep. "And now, I fear, such hope is forever beyond me. I was betrothed to a rich youth of Aineia, but even if with the help of the gods I regained my home, his family would no longer even look at me after my shameful fate. I shall never have a home of my own."

Myron, too, wiped away a tear. For a wild instant he thought of offering her marriage himself; but prudence prevailed. No sensible, rational, temperate Hellene, he told himself, ever married for love alone, and certainly not for pity. Marriage was a serious matter, involving property and family, not to be entered into on a mere gust of emotion.

"Don't give up hope, my dear girl," he said. "Some day I may be able to do for you what Puerma said he would."