The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate, page 23
"Who are you, anyway?" said the satrap.
Kothar introduced himself and his fellow travelers.
"Oh," said Astes, satrap of Kushia. "You should not have come in unannounced. But my usher had to leave his post to help out with this devil's dance. So My Excellency will pardon the affront. Ask this old sand thief what became of the young man who spoke some civilized languages."
Kothar repeated the question. After Shaykh Zayd had spoken, the Syrian explained:
"He says the clan held an all-night dance the night before last to celebrate the fullness of the moon. And this youth became so overwrought with the joy of the dance that he sought to lay lustful hands upon the shaykh's daughter—"
"This hussy here?"
"Aye, my lord. So, says the shaykh, there was nought to do but cut his throat."
"Ha!" snarled Astes. "Nought to do but cut his throat, eh? Who does he think he is, to go cutting people's throats? The satrap? But let us get on. with the current case. Say unto him: These Nubians, from the Fifty-League Oasis west of the Second Cataract, aver that, two moons ago, the Banu Khalaf rode out of the desert and fell upon the Nubians who dwelt in the oasis. Many they slew, for the Nubians were taken unawares and adread at the sight of the camels, which they had never seen before. Hence they could not fight so stoutly as is their wont. Of those who failed to escape, the Arabs put all the men to the sword and made slaves of the women and children. How answers he?"
There ensued a long dialogue between Kothar and Shaykh Zayd. At last the Syrian said:
"Shaykh Zayd replies as follows: O great governor, protector of the poor, lion of righteousness, camel of the province—"
"Yes, yes, omit all that. Get to the answer."
"Well, sir, he says that he did but carry out Your Highness' commands."
"What! By the beams of Mah, is he mad? I never commanded him to go about enslaving and murdering the Great King's subjects."
"The shaykh explains thus: Last year he was driven out of his grazing grounds in the land of Midian by a band of treacherous, murderous, bloodthirsty villains called Lihy-anites. So, finding no other neighbors weak enough to overcome and despoil of their lands, he led the Banu Khalaf into Egypt.
"In Midian the tribe had eked out its living by hiring out to merchants, to carry their goods on its camels. Since he found that the camel was almost unknown in Egypt, the shaykh has sought for some part of the land of Khem where he could use his beasts to advantage. His gods, he says, revealed to him that the trade routes running south from Swenet offered die best possibilities, as they pass through difficult desert country and are now plied only by a few hardy farers on asses or afoot.
"During his travels he learnt that, ere he began to ply these routes, he must needs get leave from the satrap. Wherefore he waited upon Your Excellency."
"All true," said Astes. "But what has it to do with his seizure of the Fifty-League Oasis?"
"We are coming to that, sir. Receiving Your Highness' gracious permission, he sought out oases along the routes in question. As a successful caravan business depends upon control of the oases, he says that you must have meant him to seize these oases, else why would you have sent him forth? To perish in the desert?"
Astes again turned dangerously red but merely said: "Continue."
"Discovering that the Fifty-League Oasis was inhabited by a handful of wretched, stinking, cowardly Nubian peasants—"
"Liar! Thief! Murderer!" howled the Nubians until quieted by shouts from the satrap.
"—the Banu Khalaf naturally took control of the oasis, as the gods plainly meant such a natural feature to be under the rule of those best fitted to use it. As for enslaving the surviving Nubae, that is but just, as they lost the battle; whereas, had they been as good men as the Banu Khalaf, they would either have defeated them or died fighting. And now, says Shaykh Zayd, how can Your Excellency eat bread and salt with a man, and entice him to this isle with promises of rewards, and then treacherously seize him and try him, as if he were a mere slave or peasant?"
"He accuses me?" screamed Astes. "To the House of the Lie with him! Throw the insolent scoundrel into a cell, and his daughter, too! I will dispose of this case later, when I have thought up a fitting punishment for their villainy." Still fuming, he turned to Bessas' company. "Now, you other people. What do you want, you great lout?"
"Did you speak to me, sir?" said Bessas, raising his bushy brows.
"Certes! Whom thought you that I spoke to?"
Bessas bit his lips with anger but, calmly enough, told of his mission. "I have here a letter from the Great King, signed by Artabanus, asking the help of all satraps. I also have a letter to Your Highness from the lord Achaemenes, asking that we be sped on our way to Meroê—"
"Bugger Achaemenes'" cried Astes. "You may not go."
"Not go to Meroê, my lord?"
"No, not go to Meroê. You would have to reach the Kushite outpost of Napata, and there have been raids and forays all along the bend of the Nile around Napata. It is a virtual undeclared war. If you go blundering about there, you will be slain either by mistake by our own troops or as Persian spies by the wild Kushites, and I shall be blamed."
"But, sir, the Great King commanded me—"
"The Great King knows not how things are in Kushia. You may either settle down here until order is restored, or return whence you came."
"But, my lord, I have another letter from the Great King to the king of Kush—"
"It is I who decide here, and I have decided that you shall not go. Dare you to question my decision, sirrah?"
"Nay, but—"
"No buts or ifs, you hairy barbarian! What My Lordship asserts, so shall it be! The audience is ended; you may go."
Astes swept out, leaving Bessas and his fellow travelers gaping.
-
Myron was sitting with Kothar in the tavern of Yeb, sipping a cup of heavy wine sweetened with date sirup and playing tjau. Bessas came in with one of the Judaean soldiers, whom he presented to the players:
"This is my friend, Deputy Captain Yehosha, whom I asked to have a drink with us."
The Judaean was a man of Bessas' age, shorter by half a head but fully as broad and brawny, with a large hooked nose and a flowing black beard. Both he and Bessas had evidently been drinking for some time already. Yehosha clapped Myron heavily on the back, saying:
"Who wins? Oh, I see, you do. You will have no chance, Master Kothar, so long as you leave your dogs scattered about the board in irregular groups, whilst your foe gathers his into a solid phalanx." He spoke fluent Aramaic, though with an odd accent.
"I resign," said Kothar glumly. "The spiritual forces fight against me today."
Myron drank. "I merely apply the lesson I learnt when I was trained as a hoplites in Miletos, long ago, namely: that a force of well-armored spearmen can repel any other troops in the world while they keep their formation—as the Athenians proved at Marathon."
"You Hellenes never cease boasting of that little border skirmish," said Bessas. "At that, the Athenians would have been smashed like a plover's egg beneath a horse's hoof if Darius' silly generals had not misused the world's best cavalry by making them fight on foot."
Myron said: "Why not tell Xerxes to challenge the Athenians to a return match, with everybody mounted this time? I can just hear the clatter of armored Athenians falling off their nags." He turned to Yehosha. "Didn't I see you at the palace this morning?"
"Aye; your servant had charge of the Nubae." The Judaean grinned. "How like you our little wasp of a satrap?"
"My dear sir, I have encountered many governors and other officials, but never one like this. Is he always in such a rage?"
"Usually." Yehosha lowered his voice. "Astes has three reasons for being wroth just now. One: he is fain to be a hero, so he tried to lead a squadron in person on the Kushite frontier, a fortnight ago; got ambushed and lost half his force. Two: he especially hates all large, tall men like Master Bessas. And three: he is exasperated by the case of the Fifty-League Oasis, because neither plaintiff nor defendant has any wealth that the satrap can extort in return for a favorable judgment. These poor Nubians-own nought but a few iron hoes, while the Arabs have only a few hundred mangy camels, which have no value here because the Egyptians fear the beasts."
With a faraway look, Bessas muttered: "On the northern frontiers, if a man spoke to me as has this unmannerly little knave, I'd break his neck."
"Many feel as you do." The Judaean smote his broad chest, so that the bronzen scales jangled. "Hoy! The great Yahveh must be wroth with us, to send us such governors. The one before this was drunk all the time, and the one before him slept all the time. This one is not only arrogant and ill-tempered, but also has his hand in everybody's purse. Truly we get the dregs of the Persian Court."
Bessas said: "I suppose the king cannot find good men who will take such an out-of-the-way post. This rascal is doubtless the brother-in-law of some member of the Council of Seven, who must be taken care of somehow—preferably far from Persepolis."
"Tell me," said Myron, "how came a garrison of Judaeans to be stationed here, so far from their native land?"
Yehosha replied: "It started long ago, when a king named Psamatik ruled Egypt. Some say he invaded Judaea, seized thousands of our folk, and settled them here as a shield against the Kushites. But we have been here for generations, so that the Isle of the Elephant is home to us."
"Is that what Yeb means?"
"Aye; though whether because the beast once roamed hereabouts, or because the Kushites fetch ivory hither to trade, I know not."
Myron asked about the sirrush, showing his sketches. Yehosha stroked his beard and said:
"I cannot aver that such a beast has come within our ken. True, many strange creatures are said to dwell in the south. There is the man-eating bull, whose eyes flash fire and whose horns move like the ears of a dog. There are serpents so vast that they coil about elephants, crush them to death, and swallow them whole. One must approach hills warily, lest a hill turn out to be one of these reptiles coiled up and sleeping off its last repast of elephants and hippopotami.
"To the southwest, in the land of the Eaters, live men with dogs' heads—"
"The land of whom?" interrupted Bessas.
"The Eaters, they call them; cannibals. Along the shores of the Red Sea, at certain times of year, swarms of winged serpents fly up the dry river valleys and would overrun Egypt, were it not for the ibises that gather there to devour these vermin. But I cannot truthfully say that I know your Babylonian cat-lizard."
"We must go on, natheless," said Bessas. "The Great King has so commanded. If Astes gainsays us, we shall have to evade him."
"Easier said than done," said Yehosha. "Astes, for all the paint on his face, is a shrewd and energetic man. His patrols scour the roads, inquiring into everything. The satrap ofttimes rides out with them to keep them up to the mark."
Myron said: "When will these border disturbances subside?"
"Not soon, if ever. No fixed border has ever been drawn. The region of the Nile bend forms a zone of raiding and counterraiding, to the ruin and destruction of the folk who dwell there. We raid as far as the Napatan reach of the Nile, whilst their war parties have pierced as far north as Buhen. Two years ago they overran that fortress and slew or carried off every mortal therein."
"Why don't the Persians and Kushites draw up a boundary, marked by monuments as in Hellas?"
"Because the Kushites will not admit our—that is, the Persians'—right to rule Egypt, let alone the satrapy of Kushia. Because their kings once ruled the land of Khem, they "assert they still should righteously do so. Even less will they acknowledge Persian rule over northern Kush, which their kings ruled until Darius' soldiers drove them out—or the gold mines of Kush, after which the Persians lust as a sailor home from the sea lusts after a wench.
"So, you see, you are not likely to get to Napata now, especially as you are not after booty of the sort that the satrap could get his claws into. Your chances were better if you were outfitting a slave-catching foray, or seeking the treasure of Takarta."
"What treasure?" asked Myron.
"Takarta, the last king to rule Kush from Napata. When the Persians captured his palace, their general was furious—my father, who fought in that campaign, told me how he raved—at failing to find the private hoard of the king. So the tale has grown up that Takarta, for all the haste of his flight, bore off his nest egg. It is fabled to have included the True Anthrax."
"Eh? What is that?" said Kothar suddenly, coming out of his meditations.
"You know, the gem that darkens when danger—"
"Yes, yes, I know the jewel's mystic properties. But how came the Kushite kings to possess it?"
"It is said that the Anthrax belonged to Egyptian kings who reigned before the Kushites conquered Khem. The Kushite kings seized it and, when driven out by the Assyrians, took it with them. But I think these are all mere fables. Belike some Persian rankers got to Takarta's treasure chest first, stuffed the baubles into their pantaloons, and held their tongues."
Kothar said: "Could we now go to the satrap and change our story, saying that we were really in pursuit of slaves or treasure?"
"Not with Astes! Being a very suspicious man, he would probably sentence the lot of you to the granite quarries."
Myron unfolded the sheet of parchment on which he had drawn a map of Egypt, saying: "If this be the disturbed frontier zone, why could we not go around it, to east or west? Neither Kush nor Kushia extends indefinitely into the desert."
Yehosha frowned at the sketch. "He'akh! There is, forsooth, the western route that passes through the Fifty-League Oasis, over which the Banu Khalaf and the Nubae quarrel. But that route is a horse killer, so widely spaced are the water holes. And if you miss one well, you are dead."
Myron burst out: "I have it! We'll hire Zayd to get us to Meroê with his camels. The money we pay him will enable him in turn to pay off Astes and the Nubae, so they should not object, and we shall avoid the fighting zone."
Bessas: "The very thing! See, Yehosha, what a wise lieutenant I have?"
Yehosha said: "A clever scheme. Be sure to take with you not only the shaykh but also his daughter Salimat."
"What's this? On such a hurried enterprise as ours, women are an encumbrance. They cause strife amongst the men, who vie for their favor. Why should we be burdened with one?"
"Because she is the real head of the clan, having wit for two. Zayd is a fine old fellow in his way, aside from the fact that he has never learnt that it is wrong to rob and murder. He has good friends amongst the Judaeans of Yeb, for we children of Shem must stick together in far lands. But the daughter is the real force of the twain."
Bessas shook his head. "I still like not that plan. But let's have a song. Know you The Lousy King of Lydia?"
"Aye, though I cannot remember all the words. How goes it?" The two deep bass voices rolled out:
Have you ever heard of the Lydian king who reigned in the days of yore?
He lost his taste for his concubines and found his wives a bore, . , ,
The next day, they persuaded Astes to let them see the prisoners. The old shaykh listened with grave courtesy to Bessas' proposal and looked at his daughter. "What think you, my dear?"
Salimat was a rather small, slight girl, quick as a cat and lithe as an eel. Although nearly as swart as a Nubian, she had delicately aquiline features that would have graced a Greek vase. In the courtroom, these features had been hidden by a blue veil, but one end of this veil had now been unfastened so that it hung down to one side.
Besides the veil, Salimat wore a robe consisting of two long strips of cloth, fastened at shoulders and ankles but otherwise loose. Thus, whereas Salimat appeared fully clad from the front or the back, she was virtually nude from the side.
"How many men and beasts now comprise your company, Captain Bessas?" she asked. When Kothar had translated the question and the reply, she thought briefly and said: "A score of camels should carry fodder and water enough to get you all to Meroê. For that, we shall need five or six of our men."
Shaykh Zayd said: "Let us take Zuhayr and Amr and Shaddad—"
"Not Zuhayr!" cried Salimat. "He is a trouble-making loafer."
"Very well, my dear. You may choose the men. But someone must also go to command them. Naamil—"
"Uncle Naamil is too fat and sleepy, and you are too easy-going. I shall have to go, as I am the only one they really fear."
"Salimat! I am shocked by such an unladylike suggestion!"
"It is the only way, Father, and well you know it. No one else in the clan could do it."
