The Singer from Memphis Read online

  Barzanes looked from one to the other of us as we spoke. “This defies belief,” he said. “The premier agents of Athens and Sparta both descend upon Memphis, a place where I happen to be, a hot spot in the war between the Persians and the Egyptians, and you expect me to believe that this is a coincidence?”

  I knew why Markos was here. Markos had come to Memphis to kill Herodotus. The situation was getting more dire with every moment.

  “Who’s your friend, Nico?” Markos asked.

  I said, “Markos, meet Barzanes. He’s the Eyes and Ears of the Great King. I wish you joy of each other’s company.”

  If I hurried I could round up Herodotus, Diotima and Max, and get out of town fast. I rose to go. Both Markos and Barzanes put a hand on me and pushed me back into my seat.

  “Do you persist in this ridiculous story that you are a tour guide?” Barzanes said.

  “Actually, he’s telling the truth about that,” Markos said. “A fellow named Herodotus. He’s a writer.”

  “I have never heard of this man,” Barzanes said. “And I have read every book ever written.”

  “He hasn’t finished the book yet. He says he has to do some research first,” I said.

  “A likely story,” Barzanes said coldly. “And a fine excuse to go snooping. How do I know he is not a spy?”

  That was what I’d been asking myself.

  “How come you’re still alive?” I asked Markos for the second time in days.

  “Is there a reason why he should not be?” Barzanes asked.

  I said, “The last time I saw Markos, he was on a pirate ship, being pursued by an Athenian trireme with orders to sink him.”

  Barzanes raised an eyebrow at Markos.

  Markos shrugged. “The trireme caught up with us just off the African coastline—when a trireme’s after you, you make for the nearest land, right? The trireme hit us hard. The pirate sank. I managed to swim for shore.” Markos looked to me. “I’ll point out that the trireme was trying to kill me on Nico’s orders.”

  Barzanes turned the raised eyebrow my way.

  “Because you were trying to kill my client!” I protested.

  “I seem to recall Diotima took a few shots at me,” Markos retorted. “A couple of those arrows came close to gutting me.”

  “She wouldn’t have been shooting if you weren’t trying to sink us in the first place.”

  “Well, back in that tavern you hit me first!”

  He had me there.

  Barzanes’s head had swiveled back and forth as the argument went on. “I could end this now by killing you both,” he said. “You’re surrounded by Persian soldiers.”

  “We’d take a lot of them with us,” Markos said at once. “And we’ll make sure you’re the first to die, Barzanes. Do you think you could hold off both me and Nicolaos?”

  “There’s no need for such talk, Markos,” I said smoothly. “We might be surrounded by Persians, but the Persians are surrounded by Egyptians.”

  “Where?” Markos peered around the room.

  “They’re ringing the city,” I told him. “Barzanes said so himself.”

  Barzanes scowled at me. “Are you saying the rebels will attack the city merely to avenge you?”

  “Do you want to find out?” I challenged him. We both knew the Persians needed to delay a siege for as long as possible, to give reinforcements time to arrive.

  “It’s an impasse then,” Markos chuckled. “This could get messy.”

  “Gentlemen, I have a proposition,” I said.

  Barzanes and Markos looked at me expectantly.

  “As it stands, there is every chance that only one of us will leave this city alive.”

  Barzanes and Markos glanced at each other. They nodded.

  “Nothing is to be gained by us killing one another,” Markos agreed.

  That wasn’t strictly true, but this wasn’t the moment to get picky about details.

  I said, “What I propose is this: that we declare a truce.”

  They both looked dubious.

  “What kind of truce?”

  “The kind where we don’t kill one another. We are all here on missions. None of us is willing to admit what they are, but we all know it’s true. The fact is, if we spend all our time trying to kill each other, we’ll never get any work done,” I said. “I propose we agree not to get in each other’s way.”

  I prayed to whatever gods would listen that they would agree.

  “What if our mission requires us to interfere with one of the others?” Markos asked.

  “Are you saying your mission does?” I asked.

  “Er . . . no.”

  “I give you my word of honor that I am not here to harm either of you. I didn’t even know Barzanes was here! As for you, Markos, much as I would enjoy dancing on your grave, I didn’t come here to do it. I thought you were drowned, dead for the second time.”

  “This cannot work,” Barzanes said. “I do not know about the Spartan, but you, Athenian, I am sure are here to act against Persia. I must act to protect the empire.”

  “Barzanes, I swear by my gods that I am hired by Herodotus to protect him. You can check that any time you like. You probably already have.”

  Barzanes said, “Of course I have.”

  “Then you know it’s true. Herodotus will see the sights. We’ll pick up a few souvenirs.” Such as the crook and flail, but I wasn’t going to mention that. “And then we’ll depart.”

  “If I discover you have lied to me, Athenian, your death will make impalement seem like a happy option.”

  “We all reserve the right to defend our interests,” I agreed. “I’m merely pointing out that they don’t intersect.”

  “You believe the Spartan when he says he’s not here to attack you?” Barzanes asked, clearly bemused.

  “Well, he says he’s not. If he breaks his word, I’m free to kill him, am I not?”

  “I will not object,” Barzanes said.

  I appeared to consider his words, though I had already planned out the next part when I made my proposal.

  “Why don’t we make this more certain?” I said. “If one of us attacks another, then the third man is obliged to assist the wronged party. After all, crime and disorder is hateful to the Great King, is it not?”

  “This is true.” Barzanes nodded.

  “Here now!” Markos objected.

  I smiled. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you Markos? After all, you’re just an innocent tourist. You didn’t lie about that, did you?”

  “Well, when you put it that way . . .”

  “Good.”

  I silently exulted. It would be very much harder for Markos to attack my party if he had to worry about Barzanes joining in the fight.

  “An agreement requires that we drink to it,” Barzanes said. That was a Persian custom, one that I could well understand.

  Markos nodded, very reluctantly.

  Fortunately we were in a tavern. Markos went over to the bar, where he had a lengthy conversation with the serving girl. He returned with a mug in hand, along with the girl, who carried a mug each for Barzanes and me.

  “It’s agreed then. We’ll refrain from attacking each other.”

  Heads nodded all round.

  “Let’s drink to it,” Markos said.

  I stared down at my mug of beer, and was assaulted by a sudden fear. I knew I hadn’t tampered with the drinks, but I couldn’t guarantee one of the other two hadn’t. It would be so easy for an agent with a small flask of poison and a deft hand to eliminate his rivals.

  Barzanes and Markos were the best around. Both of them had the skill and the knowledge to slip poison into my cup.

  “We’ll all drink on the count of three,” Markos said. “One, two, three!”

  Three cups remained
sitting on the table.

  “There is a difficulty,” Barzanes said, as we sat there staring at the beer. He was thinking what I was thinking.

  “All right, I’ve got it,” I said. “What say we switch drinks randomly? So that no one knows who has what cup?”

  I shoved my cup at Markos. He in turn pushed his to Barzanes, who pushed his original cup in front of me, and then swapped Markos’s and my cups. Markos in turn moved Barzanes’s cup to me, then took mine. Not to be outdone, I pushed mine at Barzanes, took Barzanes’s cup, gave it to Markos and grabbed Markos’s cup just as he was about to make his own move. Barzanes was already grabbing my cup, joined it with his, and shuffled them back and forth at blinding speed until I couldn’t tell which was which. Markos snatched one of these and performed his own shuffle, while I randomly took the cup in the middle and snatched one from Markos to swap their positions.

  Our hands became blurs of motion as we shoved cups back and forth. After we finished, there was a beer in front of each of us.

  I had lost track of which cup was which, but could I be sure Markos and Barzanes had? What if one of them had tracked the cup he knew to be untainted?

  “Are we ready now?” Barzanes asked. “One, two, three!”

  Three cups remained on the table.

  We all looked at each other.

  “What say we get the serving girl to randomly place the cups?” Markos suggested.

  I snorted. “That’s no good. She could be acting for you. You’ve probably seduced her already.”

  “Not yet,” Markos said. “But we have a date for tonight. What do you think we were talking about at the bar? International politics?”

  “I would suggest one of the soldiers place the cups,” Barzanes said. “But of course you could not trust me to be honest.”

  In the background, Djanet had been changing not only songs, but also languages. When Barzanes entered she had switched to a Persian love song. I spoke some Persian and her accent sounded perfect to me. Now she was singing in Greek—very good Greek—something about suspicious minds.

  “Who’s your girlfriend, Nico?” Markos asked.

  “What do you mean?” I said, confused. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m married.”

  “Then explain this,” Markos said. He held up the pottery shard on which I had written the message for Djanet. When I had pushed it out of sight of Barzanes, I had put it where Markos later sat. “You ask the singer for a meeting. Tsk, tsk, Nico. What would Diotima say? But then, you also called yourself an agent. Is this business or pleasure?”

  Barzanes’s eyes narrowed. He looked at me, then at the singer, and back to me again.

  The singing abruptly stopped. All three of us looked over to the stage. Djanet had disappeared, leaving an empty spot where she had been standing, and a confused-looking flute player. Barzanes signaled to the guards at the door. They hurried out back, but soon returned, shaking their heads.

  “Who is the woman, Athenian?” Barzanes said.

  “A good singer?” I suggested. “I don’t know.” I made a sudden decision. “I’m going to trust you two. I’m going to drink this beer in front of me. Join me or not, as you will.”

  I took hold of the mug, closed my eyes, and knocked back the beer, all of it, one big gulp after another, until the mug was empty.

  I slammed the mug down on the table, my eyes watering, to see that Barzanes and Markos had drunk too. They both slammed down their mugs at the same time I did.

  We stared at each other for an instant, then Markos began to choke.

  He coughed and spluttered, but he didn’t turn blue.

  “Sorry,” he wheezed. “Some went down the wrong way.”

  I was sure it was an act.

  The Tjaty

  I emerged from the dark tavern and blinked at the bright light outside. There was no point trying to search for Djanet. If she had any sense she was long gone. I couldn’t understand how Markos had divined my interest in her. Perhaps I’d looked in her direction once too often.

  Diotima’s party would soon be back at the inn. I set off to meet them there, thinking that after the deal I’d just made, I was safe at last.

  As I turned the corner, a hand with a cudgel emerged from a nearby doorway. I saw it coming out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t move in time. The anonymous arm brought the cudgel down hard. My last thought as I fell unconscious to the dusty street was that I should have been more careful.

  I opened my eyes to stare into the eyes of a cat. Its fur was pure white. The cat stared back at me with dark eyes that didn’t blink.

  How long had I been out for? I knew I was somewhere strange. I lay upon a stone floor that was perfectly polished. But it was also very cold.

  The cat jumped away to reveal the view behind. I saw a massive chair carved from solid marble. A man sat upon the chair. Behind the man, and towering above him, was the statue of a god. The god held a strange-looking staff in front of him. I couldn’t guess what it meant. Beside the god was a goddess. She was well proportioned with wide hips and large breasts. But above her shoulders she had the head of a cat. She stared at me with a stony expression.

  Something jumped over me. Another cat. I saw now that the room was filled with cats, a whole clowder of them, more than I could count, all of them sleek and well-fed.

  The man who sat before me was fat. So fat that his belly didn’t just protrude, it flowed across his lap, almost reaching his knees. The man’s jowls were enormous. The wide folds of skin at his neck made his brow look narrow and his scalp had been shaven clean, so that his head resembled nothing so much as a turnip.

  Set within all this flesh were dark eyes that stared at me.

  “So. You are awake.” His voice was deep.

  I had the sort of headache that normally only comes from three days of solid drinking. I pushed myself off the cold stone floor, rubbed my head and asked, “Who are you?”

  “I am the Tjaty.”

  He said it as if I should recognize the name. I didn’t. I hoped the next question would clear things up.

  “Where am I?”

  “You are in a secret chamber that lies deep beneath the Temple of Bast.”

  Well, that explained all the cats. Bast was the cat goddess.

  The plump, white cat jumped into the lap of the Tjaty. The Tjaty tenderly stroked the feline as he spoke. I noticed he had rings on every finger, expensive ones if the jewels were any indication. The cat purred loudly over the sound of his bass.

  “You are privileged to be here,” the Tjaty said. “Access to this chamber is normally reserved only for the most elite of our organization.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “What organization?”

  “We are the senior bureaucrats of the Black Land, the public service of Egypt. I am the Tjaty, the prime minister, what our friends the Persians call a vizier. I am the head of the Public Service.”

  The Tjaty gestured to something at my rear. I turned, to see a semicircle of men at my back. Every one of them glowered at me.

  “I present to you the Heads of Department,” the Tjaty said.

  These were the men whom Inaros had talked about, the ones who had enriched themselves with the taxes reaped from peasants. I had suggested feeding these men to the crocodiles. Now having met them, I found the idea even more pleasant.

  The Tjaty continued speaking.

  “In addition to being the goddess of the well-fed feline, Bast is also patroness of public servants. Do you know why?”

  “Let me guess.”

  “Don’t bother. I will tell you. The Lady Bast is consort to the Lord Ptah. You see them behind me, standing side-by-side. As Ptah is patron deity of Memphis, so Bast is patroness to the Public Service who serve Memphis and the Black Land. Ptah and Bast abide in perfect union, as do Memphis and the Public Serv
ice.”

  The Heads of Department chanted something in reply to this, in words I did not understand. It felt almost like a religious rite.

  “Bast is an exquisite goddess,” the Tjaty said. “She is anointed in perfumes, she is served by slaves, she takes as her due only the finest in all things—”

  “This is pretty much in line with my guess.”

  “But within that precious exterior she has the heart of a vicious, sadistic predator,” the Tjaty finished. He brought down one massive fist onto the arm of his chair, and the whole room seemed to shake. He thundered, “Yet you, Nicolaos . . . you seek to trifle with men such as us!”

  “I do no such thing,” I protested. “I’m just a tour guide—”

  “Don’t lie. You are on a mission to recover the crook and flail of the last Pharaoh. You do this for Inaros,” the Tjaty said.

  This was becoming ridiculous. I was supposed to be a secret agent, but everywhere I went I was recognized by someone. Sworn enemies ran into me at nondescript taverns. Complete strangers hailed me by name after they’d captured me. At least in the case of these men I knew the source of half their knowledge. These were the men to whom Inaros had promised to display the crook and flail, as proof of his royal descent.

  “Well you should know,” I said. “You have a deal with Inaros.”

  “That is true.”

  “Then I don’t see why you have a problem with me.”

  “Because we want him to fail,” the Tjaty said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Can you imagine men such as us bowing to a man of no pedigree? Do you expect us to work for a mere . . .” He shuddered. “. . . For a mere member of the general public?”

  There were groans, and exclamations of horror from the men at my back.

  I could imagine these men bowing to anyone who maintained their privileges.

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. “Have you met Inaros? I’ve rarely met a more competent leader.”

  “This is the Public Service. We never take competence into consideration.”

  “Would you rather work for the Persians?” I asked.

  I thought I was posing a rhetorical question, but to my surprise the Tjaty considered his words while he stroked the white cat. The cat snarled at me. The Tjaty said, “We prefer rulers who leave us to run things. Such is the case with the Great King. The Persian court is far away. The Great King does not bother us with minor administrative details. As long as Egypt remains stable and the tax money flows, he is happy.”