The Blood Star by Nicholas Guild Page B

and yet he had heard nothing to suggest violence, not
even the sound of raised voices. And he knew all about men like
Hiram of Latakia. The Lord Hugieia of Naxos and his slave were
taking the evening air to be out of the way of a troublesome
drunkard—what could have seemed more natural? Besides, Kephalos had
been wise enough to pay our reckoning for three days in
advance.
    We walked calmly into the street. Babylon,
like all the great cities of the east, never sleeps, so even at
that hour of the night crowds engulfed us. We had not gone a
hundred steps before we were lost in that multitude beyond any
chance of discovery. We had made good our escape.
    “But did you kill him?” I asked.
    “Who?”
    “You know perfectly well who.”
    Kephalos slowed his pace a little and glanced
at me, his face puckering with annoyance.
    “My foolish young master, I am a Greek,” he
replied, almost as if he expected this to be sufficient answer.
“The farther we travel from Nineveh, the more forcefully I remember
that I am, indeed, a Greek—a man born in the lands of clear
sunshine, within hearing of the wine-dark sea. A Greek prizes his
intelligence, he prefers cunning to violence, and he walks in fear
of the gods. With each day of our journey I think more and more of
my own gods, and of their horror at the deeds of men. No, I would
not kill a guest at my own table, no matter how much he may have
deserved it. Hiram of Latakia will recover to cause more trouble in
the world.”
    “I am delighted to hear it.”
    “A man such as yourself, who has been a
soldier, should be less dainty about the spilling of blood.”
    East and west, Babylon is divided by the
width of the Euphrates River. Near the great bridge that spans it,
famous for its stone pillars, like the legs of storks, we found a
barge loading bales of oxhides. It was some forty cubits long and
had a crew of five men. I saw Kephalos’ medicine box sitting on the
pier, as if waiting for him.
    “I made all the arrangements through a
leather merchant whose shop I noticed across the street from a
brothel I happened to be patronizing—he robbed me, but I could
hardly come down to the docks myself to buy passage. I was quite
certain Hiram was having me followed.”
    “We will travel thus to Ur, which is as far
south as your brother’s hand can reach after us. How we shall
proceed from there I know not.”
    Neither did I, but, like Kephalos, I was
content for the moment simply to be at liberty and thus willing
enough to let the future look after itself.
    Kephalos introduced himself to the scribe who
sat on the pier, making marks upon a clay tablet as each bale was
loaded on board, and it seemed we were expected. The scribe, a
eunuch with thin arms and the manners of a woman, sent his servant
for beer, and we refreshed ourselves as the work progressed. It was
nearly morning before the barge, resting low in the water, was
ready to depart.
    So near its end, the Euphrates runs wide and
deep, and its coils are as many as a serpent’s. There is hardly any
current—one simply drifts—but the boatmen are not afraid to travel
at night because they have only to keep to the great central
channel to avoid running aground. Thus we were six days between
Babylon and Ur, never once setting our feet on the dry land.
    Yet it was a pleasant journey. The wrath of
kings seemed far away. It was as tranquil a six days as I have
spent in my life.
    Ur is a famous city, but I remember hardly
anything of it. We were there only a few hours—long enough to drink
more wine than was good for us and then steam it out in the sweat
baths. Long enough to hire another boatman who undertook to carry
us to our destination, our only hope of safety, the last place on
earth.
    This time it was my task to strike the
bargain, for the fellow understood only the thick, tortured
Akkadian of the southern lands, a dialect to which Kephalos’ ears
could not seem to grow atuned.
    “You want to go to the Great Water,