Soldier of Sidon (l-3) by Gene Wolfe

Author:Gene Wolfe [Wolfe, Gene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy

20

SABRA

THE WOMAN OF WAX Sahuset has been shaping in the hold is complete. Thotmaktef and I marveled at his skill. Such figures, he explained, are useful in healing; a woman who hesitates to show a healer the site of her pain may indicate it on the wax figure without shame.

"No doubt you have had such figures before," Thotmaktef remarked, "since you speak confidently of their use."

"I have a fine one at home," Sahuset told him, "and I am sorry now that I left it behind. When I agreed to come, I did not envision treating women on the trip. Now I find that Myt-ser'eu and Neht-nefret occupy me more than all these men."

"Magicians are said to animate figures of wax and wood. I have never seen it done, I confess."

The healer smiled. "Nor will you ever see me do it."

"But could you? If you wished?"

"Am I a magician, Holy Thotmaktef?"

"You are, or so I've been informed."

The healer shrugged. "So are you. That's what the sailors say. You're forever poring over old scrolls-or so I've been informed. I don't doubt that you and Qanju know more magic than anyone else on this ship. Would you like to try to animate her? When I've finished her?"

While they spoke, I was looking at the wax woman whose arm the healer had been shaping. She blinked and looked at me, and smiled, I believe, ever so slightly. I do not know what this may mean. I HAVE SLEPT through most of the day, the woman who attends me says. Her name is Myt-ser'eu-I just asked her. She is young, hardly more than a girl. I thought her a friend at first, then my slave. She says she is no slave but my wife. I do not believe that I would take as wife a woman of a nation not my own. I cannot recall the name of my own. (Myt-ser'eu says I forget, and that this is to be expected.) Yet I know that I have a nation. It speaks the tongue in which I write, and not the tongue in which she and I speak.

The captain's wife came. She sat and asked whether Myt-ser'eu could sit down. Myt-ser'eu said she preferred to stand, as she was doing at the time. The captain's wife introduced herself with the manner of one who jests, saying her name was Tall Sycamore. When she had gone, I asked Myt-ser'eu what her own name meant. She laughed and teased me until I recalled that it is kitten. I find that it is not at all unpleasant to be laughed at by Myt-ser'eu. Or to be teased by her.

Two men of her nation came. The older, a tall, stooped man with a tame monkey, is Sahuset. The younger, as young as any of the soldiers Myt-ser'eu says are mine, Thotmaktef. He told me I had slept long and asked whether I had been awake last night. I said I had been, because I could remember the boat that brought the sun.

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