Shadows on the Aegean (39 page)

When the wound had stopped bleeding Cheftu carefully pulled away the cloths and studied it. The aperture of the wound would
almost fit his hand; fortunately Posidios’ blood clotted quickly. More wine splashed inside the wound made Posidios come around
and then pass out. After it was clean, Cheftu applied a paste of honey and fat, then drew the edges of the wound together.
With chewed
mastic
paste from the lentisk tree, he affixed linen strips over the wound. Dismissing the Kela-Tenata priestesses, he said he would
stay and watch his patient. He was left in peace.

Posidios was breathing shallowly. Cheftu wrapped new, cold-water sheets around him. He looked out the window; dawn was just
a decan or two away. The
ka
of man was most likely to flee the body in these darkest hours. Out of rote, Cheftu recited prayers against the
khaibits
of the night, and in his heart he asked for the protection and assistance of the One God. Then he waited.

Decans later, someone entered the room and Cheftu sat up abruptly, his heart pounding. Standing before him was a wraith of
a man. Extremely tall, and slender with wiry strength. His features were bold—a large nose, shapely lips, a pointed chin,
eyebrows that rose into sharp angles. His hair was dark, cut short, and he wore a goatee. … His eyes were black as night and
his skin parchment white.

He looks the very image of a devil in a painting, Cheftu thought. The tall man didn’t spare a glance for Cheftu but went to
the patient’s side. With narrow white hands he touched the man’s brow, then his wound. “How does he fare?” The man’s voice
was as dark toned as his appearance. He didn’t even wear the bright colors of Aztlan, but instead a solid blue kilt and shirt
that reminded Cheftu uncomfortably of the blue mourning worn in Egypt.

“Not well.”

“What more can be done?”

Cheftu sniffed at his patient’s wound, for though the man was no longer burning with fever, he was hot. Dry.
Ukhedu
was being battled. “I am preparing a physic,” Cheftu said, gesturing to his arrangement in the corner. “My master, who are
you?”

The tall man opened the throat of his shirt. A heavy gold seal lay there, incomprehensible characters inscribed on it. “I
am Nekros, clan chieftain of the Stone and priest of the dead. Posidios is my brother.” He walked to Cheftu’s makeshift lab.
“Tell me what you are doing, Egyptian.”

Cheftu showed him the prepared medicine. During the night he’d hung a piece of copper over a vial of vinegar and covered the
whole thing with a linen. Now, the metal was tinted with a faint turquoise growth, with hints of rust. Nekros looked skeptical
but watched as Cheftu took the tape off the wound and scraped in the growth.

The chieftain watched over his shoulder and chewed without question when Cheftu needed more
mastic
to attach the linen. “What will that do?”

“It will purify the blood,” he said. “If in a day’s time the wound is not red, clear blood, the patient will die.” As he spoke,
he mixed cinnamon and olive oil, then capped it and set it aside. “First, we observe what happens with the medication.”

“I wish you could have been with us in Naxos,” Nekros said. “So much death, so many bodies, so many lost. I will send a lustral
bath in. My brother must be bathed next.” His head bowed, Nekros left, and Cheftu leaned against the wall, breathing deeply.

“You did a splendid job.”

He turned and saw the envoy Nestor. “Are you a physician?”

“Nay, though I have studied doctoring.”

Without warning, the floor moved. Cheftu staggered toward his patient, shielding his wound from the falling ceiling. A low
roar was the counterpoint to the sound of shattering pottery and screaming people. Cheftu felt pieces of plaster hit his back.
With Nestor’s help they maneuvered Posidios into the doorway, leaning over him protectively. It was a brief shock, but it
had opened Posidios’ wound.

The room was uncommonly still, absent even of the labored breathing of the patient. Panicked, Cheftu felt for the man’s pulse,
the voice of his heart. Avoiding the gaze of Nestor, he waited for the faint throb that would signify the man lived.

He waited in vain.

“His bath,” Nestor said. “He needs his bath!”

With a jerk of his head, he and Nestor carried the man to a stone tub, immersing him and covering his face with linen. Nestor
summoned a serf to return with Nekros, then Nestor joined Cheftu at the window and clasped Cheftu’s shoulder. “You did all
you could. It was in the hands of the gods. We will trust Kela that he got to the bath in time.”

“If only we could have stopped the bleeding,” Cheftu said, anguished.

Nestor dropped his hand. “You are merely a mortal, a man. You cannot know the minds of the gods.” He was silent for a moment.
“It is not a good omen for your chieftainship, however.”

As if Cheftu cared.

Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Nekros and his minions. They removed the body from the bath and laid
it back on the bed. The chieftain sat down and placed a piece of gold over Posidios’ face. Tears streaming down his cheeks,
his hands faintly trembling, he conformed the gold to the dead man’s features.

“It is our custom,” Nestor explained. “A mask to identify him in later generations.” The gold was frail, fine stuff, and Nekros
pinched and pressed it, imprinting it with the image of Posidios’ nose and chin, his deep-set eyes, and even his ears. Then
carefully Nekros lifted it away, a rough imitation of the man. “The workers will give him more distinct features,” Nestor
said. “This, however, will capture the essence of his
psyche
.”

The priest of the dead rose, and his minions wrapped the body in lengths of cloth. “We bury our dead in the ground,” Nestor
explained. “They stay there until they become desiccated. Then they are moved to a burial sarcophagus and filed in the
tholoi
beneath the Clan of the Stone.”

“You do not preserve your dead?” Cheftu asked with the horror of an Egyptian.

“The soil here is enough embalming. Indeed, for moons the bodies appear to still be alive. If they are bathed before death,
they will reach the Isles of the Blessed, so no more need be done.”

Cheftu shuddered.

Nekros was sobbing openly now, and Cheftu felt guilt weighing on him. He turned to the window; what should he have done? How
could he have saved this man’s life? Finally the corpse of Posidios was carried away.

“Come, Egyptian, I will walk you to your apartments,” Nestor said.

Wearily Cheftu followed the golden man out into a corridor. “I sometimes doubt I will ever learn my way around here,” he said.
“I keep finding myself in the storerooms.”

Nestor chuckled. “It is good to know where the olive oil is.”

Cheftu smiled wryly. It was the only area he’d found repeatedly. This maze confused him the rest of the time. Once he’d found
the ominous archway leading into the Labyrinth; another time he’d found a long tunnel with dozens of doors leading away, through
the bowels of the mountain. It was an amazing place, an architectural feat. If only he could see a map of the building.

Cheftu cheered as he began to recognize the hallways.

They climbed several flights of stairs and through another long, wider corridor. Periodically the wall was interrupted by
alcoves, painted and fitted with horned altars. Cheftu watched as Nestor walked from altar to altar, turning the axes. What
a strange custom! They walked on until Nestor stopped before a brightly painted door. He snapped his fingers, and it was opened.

Cheftu stepped in and stared. In less than twenty-four decans from his landing here, he had changed from being a guest—a prisoner—of
the empire to being a chieftain of a clan. In title, at least. He was not used to the idea yet, or to the chambers. Already
his personal belongings, gifts from Pharaoh that Nestor had brought, cluttered the room. Kohl pots, tweezers, a small statue
of the god Thoth. A few pure white linen kilts were pressed and laid on the end of his couch.

Through a doorway he could see the scroll room. Tablets, scrolls, and papyri filled the cubbyholes in the wall. A chair and
desk, both carved from gypsum, sat in the path of the sun. Fresh flower garlands hung over the window, filling the room with
the scent of hyacinths.

The exact fragrance the green-eyed priestess wore. He was suddenly, pleasantly aroused.

Then all thoughts ceased as he halted in total shock before the object on the edge of the desk. His lungs felt squeezed as
he approached it warily. It was not possible! This was the wrong time! Such things did not exist until the Renaissance!

Layers of disks were connected by a shaft, surmounted by two spheres on metal arms for movement, and controlled by a crank
handle to one side: an astrolabe? Cheftu stepped closer. The two spheres were differing sizes, one made of gold, one silver.
He inhaled sharply, gazing at the first of the disks. It was painted in a distinct pattern with green and blue, and he recognized
the shapes. Continents. “What is this?”

Nestor’s steps seemed uncommonly loud, the room very close and hot. “Unlike you Egyptians, we think the world is a sphere
and thus have sent our ships every conceivable direction to give us the truth of the matter. This device tells the motions
of the sun and moon, past and future, determines the altitude of stars and constellations. Useful when one is at sea,
eee?”

“The gears,” he choked out. What ancient culture had gears? Even the Egyptians, as sophisticated as they were, had no knowledge
of this. He picked it up.

“See this,” Nestor said, turning the crank. Cheftu watched as the disks realigned themselves, then stopped. Nestor, smiling,
took the back off it and cranked it again. They watched the gears, operating at different speeds, catch and release. Involuntarily
Cheftu stepped back, stunned. Who were these people?

Cheftu picked it up, scrutinizing the little shapes of blue and green. He walked to the window, his back to the foreigner.
Breath rasping, he searched for his homeland, France. It was there! The details of the coastline were indistinct, but the
shape of it, and Spain, were unmistakable.

He looked back at France.

Memories of his childhood hit him like a physical blow, and he leaned against the window frame, staring blankly. Figeac with
its green parks and nearby river, the crowded marketplace, and the squalor, had been his world. Memories of his home, his
family … his brother Jean-Jacques, who so patiently taught him alphabet after alphabet, giving him the foundation to learn
so many languages.

How France had reeked! How infrequently they had bathed! How bitterly cold the winters were and how ill prepared France was
to feed and clothe all her children. He turned; the man Nestor had been speaking.

“You are well, my master?”

“What? Aye, of course.”

“You are pale. Please, sit. I will have a serf prepare you a bath and some food.”

Cheftu sat obediently, the astrolabe still clutched in his hand. “How do you know about these, uh, places?” he asked, indicating
the astrolabe.

Nestor leaned against the wall, narrowing his eyes. “The Golden came from there. Still our cousins come and bring us news
from beyond the Great Green. They travel rivers from here to their white lands.”

“The Golden?”

“The Clan Olimpi. My family.” Nestor laughed at Cheftu’s startled expression.

“So are you a clan chieftain?”

“I am inheritor to the Rising Golden,” Nestor explained. “Apis forbid, should Phoebus die, I would rule until another Golden
was born from the mother-goddess.”

Cheftu turned the astrolabe over again and again, dizzy with information. Nestor excused himself so Cheftu could rest.