After my foolish behavior at the inn, and with Bethesda still gone, I judged myself the most wretched of men, not the most fortunate. “Why do you say such a thing, Djet?”
“Think about it. If you had won that final round, and with it all the coins and the ruby necklace, then the Crocodile and his sons would have come to kill you in the night-and me as well, since I would have been in the room with you. Instead, the Nabataean is dead, and you’re alive, and here we are, happily on our way, with more treasure than you could dream of. Had you won, you’d have lost everything. By losing, you won.”
I nodded, then gave a start.
“What did you just say about the treasure?”
“More than you could dream of!”
I peered across the river, scanning the distant bank. I walked up to the road and looked in all directions. There was no one in sight. I retrieved the sack from the camel’s trappings, then hurried back to our secluded spot by the water’s edge. I untied the rope and looked inside the sack.
I drew a sharp breath, then groaned with dismay.
In my addled state, and in our desperate rush to escape from the inn, I had failed to understand exactly what the sack contained. For some reason, I had thought there were only coins inside. Indeed, there were a great many coins-but that was not all.
With trembling fingers, I reached inside and pulled out the ruby necklace. It had been dazzling by lamplight; it was even more so by daylight. The crimson stone glittered in the dappled sunlight, so brightly that it seemed to contain a dancing flame within.
I peered inside the sack and saw more jewels-lapis and turquoise, carnelian and sapphire-mounted in the rings that the Crocodile and his sons had pulled from the dead man’s fingers.
I sat down on the riverbank, shaking my head. “Disaster!” I whispered. “Doom and disaster!”
“What’s wrong?” said Djet. “Why are you not happy? You’re a rich man!”
“A dead man, more likely.”
Djet frowned.
“Don’t you see, Djet? If I had taken only the coins, that would be one thing. Any man might have a bag full of coins, even me. But a ruby? And all these rings? They mark me as a thief, as surely as if I had a brand on my forehead. Men have their hands cut off, or worse, for stealing nothing more than bread. What will become of me if an agent of the king or of some local magistrate should stop us and find the jewels?”
“You didn’t worry about that when you wagered me for the ruby.”
“Because I wasn’t thinking straight. These treasures are a curse, not a blessing!”
I drew back my hand to cast the ruby necklace into the river, but Djet grabbed my forearm with both of his small hands.
“Give it to me, then, if you don’t want it!” he cried.
“And pass the curse to a child?”
“Why do you say that it brings bad fortune?”
“What sort of luck did it bring the Nabataean?”
Djet slowly released my arm and stepped back. From the look on his face I knew he was thinking of Obodas as we had last seen him, lying naked with his throat cut beside the grave being dug for him.
“But why should any agent of the king stop and question you?”
“The Crocodile may set them on our trail. With the money and jewels gone, what’s to stop him from reporting the theft to the authorities, showing them the dead bodies and blaming me for the murders?”
“But … he doesn’t know where you’re headed.”
“Yes, that’s true. But…” I felt a prickle of dread. “He knows my name! Don’t you remember? I introduced myself to him at the front door.”
Djet frowned. “Yes, I wondered about that at the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in all the legends and fables, a traveler at an inn always gives a made-up name and a false account of himself. Even a child and a slave such as I knows that. Don’t ask me why, since I myself have never told an untruth, but that’s how it always goes in the stories. So when I heard you say, ‘My name is Gordianus, and I come from Alexandria,’ I thought: That is very strange. I wonder if this Roman has any idea what he’s doing? But of course, I didn’t say anything. Who am I? Only Djet, a child and a slave, as you keep reminding me.”
Not for the first time on our journey, I felt an impulse to strangle him.
For a long moment I sat on the riverbank and stared at the ruby, fascinated by the dancing of the red fire inside as I turned the stone this way and that to capture the glittering sunlight on the water.
I narrowed my eyes until I saw only the fiery scintillation of the ruby, and suddenly I had a vision of Bethesda wearing the necklace, a fantasy so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes, and so compelling that I wondered if it might be a premonition of the future.
I made up my mind. I would bring the ruby to Bethesda-or let the ruby bring me to her.
I put the necklace in the sack, tied the rope, and returned the treasure to its hiding place amid the camel’s trappings.
Thus did we arrive, a short while later, in the sleepy town of Sais. Did we look like two desperate outlaws in flight, carrying jewels stolen from a dead man? Or simply like two weary travelers, a slightly bemused young Roman and an even younger slave boy? I had nothing to feel guilty about, I kept telling myself, and I tried to compose my features accordingly while we shopped for food and provisions in the market.
When it came time to find lodgings for the night, I chose the most unfrequented-looking inn I could find, at the far end of town. It was a modest structure made of clay bricks daubed with mud. To my relief, the woman who answered the door more closely resembled a friendly hippopotamus than a hungry crocodile. The widow Teti was a woman of middle years with a toothy smile. Since the day was drawing to a close, and it appeared we would be her only guests for the night, she invited us to make ourselves at home. The only other person in the inn was a young serving girl as slender and silent as her mistress was plump and talkative.
Mindful of Djet’s observation, I introduced myself not as Gordianus but as Marcus Pecunius, youngest son of a Roman businessman in Alexandria, and I told her I was on a pleasure trip, traveling upriver to see the pyramids. If you must pass yourself off as something you are not, my father once told me, make your story simple, plausible, and easy to remember.
“Why ‘Pecunius’?” whispered Djet, as we led the camel to its sleeping place for the night amid the pens for sheep and goats and a small chicken coop behind the inn. Flies were everywhere.
“It’s a name I just invented, from a Latin word for wealthy.”
“You made it up?”
“If you must give a false name, my father once told me, make sure it doesn’t already belong to someone who might be in even more trouble than yourself. What could be safer than a name that doesn’t exist? No Egyptian will know the difference, I should think. And Pecunius makes a good name for the bearer of that ruby. Which raises a question: what should I do with this sack tonight? It might look suspicious if I carry it with me at all times. I suppose it can stay in our room while the widow feeds us, and when I go to bed I’ll use it for a pillow, though I usually prefer something softer.”
“I should think such a pillow will give you beautiful dreams of the goddess Fortuna,” said Djet. “You must tell me more about her, and how I should go about worshiping her.”
“You, Djet?”
“Did she not save us both from the Crocodile, and me from the clutches of-”
I raised my finger to shush him, for the widow was coming toward us. Her ample breasts swayed in one direction while her hips swayed in the other. Dangling from one of her fists was a dead chicken. Teti came to a halt in front of us and proudly displayed the carcass. Flies swarmed around her.