Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 06

 The slave girl lit a wick, floating in a jar of oil. It cast a dim yellow light, and made Kleon's soft face look like bubbles of wax. His bald, round head was beaded with sweat, and his filmy brown eyes gleamed; one eye wandered, and Nikias felt his skin crawl when he saw it roll and stare into the shadows. Kleon lay on a wooden couch, propped up with stuffed blue cushions, an old scroll in his lap. He wore a white Athenian style robe that looked clean and fresh. Underneath, however, Nikias saw a thick roll of bandages, bound around his chest, reddish brown with blood. As he watched, he saw blood seep through the bandages, and stain the new clean robe.

"Nikias," said Kleon, his voice slow and gasping. "You look worse than I do."

"That would be quite an achievement." He sniffed. Kleon had made his slaves hang a brass incense burner from the ceiling, and sweet smoke roiled down from it, but even the perfume of rose and jasmine couldn't hide the tang of blood and stale sweat. He caught another scent, as well, something strange and yet familiar. It teased his memory, but he couldn't place it.

A bald old Egyptian came in and fussed over Kleon's bandages, muttering away in a voice like rustling leaves. He gave off a powerful stink of vinegar and herbs, and he carried a little leather bag, pinched in his fingers like an old woman with a purse. He fumbled inside, and took out a copper phial. When he popped out the stopper, Nikias caught the acrid stink of wormwood. The doctor pushed the phial at Kleon's face, but the high minister shoved his hand aside. The old doctor spoke in old Egyptian, too fast for Nikias to catch his words, but he didn't need to speak Egyptian to understand.

"I tell you, I've had enough of that, for all the good it's done," said Kleon. He pushed the doctor away, although the effort tired him, and he sagged back against the cushions, panting like an old dog. The doctor shot him a scathing look, and then bustled past Nikias, and out of the door.

Kleon waved at a chair. "Sit down."

"I'm afraid if I make myself comfortable, you'll be carried away to your funeral."

Kleon gave a hoarse laugh. "Sit, sit." His broad oak table dominated the office. Heaped with scrolls, letters and parchments, it left little space for comfort. Kleon had rooms at the palace, but he preferred to work in a private chamber in the grand library, because, as he said, the presence of concentrated wisdom prodded and quickened his aging mind.

Nikias took the seat. The wooden frame dug into his back and legs, and he felt as it had been made for a smaller man. He told Kleon what had happened at the arena and the palace. "Counting you, we've had four attacks today."

"And now two kills."

He stiffened, and half-rose from the chair, before Kleon held up his hand.

"No, there have been no new attacks."

"You're tucked away in a corner of the library-"

"But my eyes see everything that takes place between the Sun gate and the Moon gate. If a bird sings, I hear it. If a rat pisses on a cobble stone, I smell it. What kind of high minister would I be, what good could I do Ptolemaios, if I didn't know more than the king?" Kleon slumped back against the couch, wheezing. His skin looked paler than before.

"I still count one kill, and unlike you, I saw it with the eyes of my body."

"Poison," said Kleon. "The knife that stabbed me was smeared with foul venom."

Nikias leapt out of his chair, cold thrills running through his chest. "The king's doctors-"

"Can do nothing. Sit. Sit down! I didn't call you here to waste my last breath moaning like a senile dotard. I summoned you because you're the only man I can trust, the only man I can rely on."