Black Ships by Jo Graham

Author:Jo Graham [Graham, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Speculative Fiction, FIC009030
ISBN: 9780316029148
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2008-03-10T04:00:00+00:00

DESIRES

The next morning I went to the Temple of Thoth. When I returned, Neas was waiting for me.

“A messenger has come,” he said, “bidding us to a feast in six days’ time. Pharaoh is holding a great banquet to celebrate the victory. I am to go, as well as four men of my choosing and as many as five women. One should be you, but I do not think that there are others who should go. Egyptians are not as we are, and do not understand that we do not display our women in public.”

I glared at him. “In Pylos,” I said, “women attended public festivals, if not private dinners.”

Neas colored. “Have you...em...seen what Egyptian women wear...at feasts...? I mean, I did in Tamiat and...”

I almost laughed. “I have seen what they wear in the temple, and what they wear in the markets. Honestly, Neas! Have you not seen breasts before?”

His face was scarlet. “Not rouged,” he said. “And they...er...paint their nipples.”

“You must have been looking rather closely, then,” I said.

He ducked his head, and I thought with a pang that perhaps he had been.

“I will certainly go,” I said, tossing my hair back. “I see no reason why I should not attend as the Egyptian priestesses do. And I will see if there are any other women of the company who would care to make up the number. Who are the men to be?”

“Xandros,” he said promptly, “and Maris, Pearl’s captain. Amynter, though he’s not likely to enjoy it.”

I thought not. Amynter was rather conservative and set in his ways, for all that he was an excellent sailor. He had a suspicion of foreigners, and had never learned a word of any other tongue, something of a trick for a man who must trade. Jamarados would have been better, but Jamarados was dead.

“The last should be my father,” Neas said. “Of course.”

“Of course,” I said, thinking that Anchises and Amynter could keep each other company. Maris had a young wife, Idele, one of the women recovered in Millawanda, so she should come if she wished. I thought that she was clever and curious, despite her slavery. She had miscarried right after we had come to Egypt, but with her husband home safe she seemed to have brightened.

In the end, there were only three women, not five. Many of them did not want to go, whether afraid of mixing with the Egyptians or careful of their good names. Tia could not go, because she must nurse the child. Idele did want to come, and so, to my surprise, did Lide.

“It’s not often I’ll have the chance to see a royal Egyptian banquet,” she said. “If I have to go stark naked I will!”

“I don’t think we’re actually to be naked,” I said, but I had no idea what was proper to wear.

So I asked Hry.

His eyes crinkled and he smiled. “Oh, you will look well,” he said. “All of you. You should all come to the temple and dress. I will find suitable clothes for each of you.

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