Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 14

 He walked along a pristine white beach with a view of the sparkling blue sea clear to the horizon. Here, the body of the island rose between him and the city, shielding him from the noise and the bustle. He saw a few fishing smacks dotted on the waters, and, in the distance, a galley sailed out for distant ports. Otherwise, he caught no sign that any other people lived nearby. The air smelled cool and fresh, with the salt tang of the sea, different from the open sewer stink of the city. The worst problem he had right then was the sand that kept getting into his sandals, and rubbing the soft skin between his toes. Another man might have basked in the sun, taken his ease in the peace, but not Nikias. He carried the city's cares in his heart.

Ptolemaios faced threats on all sides; the curfew, the patrols and arrests had not diminished, but increased the ill feeling towards him. Added to the talk of curses and the cries for recompense for the bad harvests and the sailors lost to freak storms, was the uproar of the tradesmen, who blamed every day of slack business on the king.

Rathea was digging her claws in, too. She'd demanded a wedding proclamation within the week, and had declared that as queen, she would finish off Black Salt herself. Nikias feared the methods she would use. A slave girl had once nipped her ear while cutting her hair. Rathea had snipped off the girl's ears with her shears, had them dried and tanned, and then had them sewn back into the girl's flesh. He had still had his wife at the time, and Leaina had been little. He'd had nightmares about them for weeks.

"No," he shook his head. "I won't work for Rathea. I won't be her agent, nor her victim."

But the sons of Soter always married their sisters.

He rounded a bend in the shore, and saw the light keeper's house. It followed the Babylonian pattern, a baked brick exterior, concealing a central courtyard. It had once been whitewashed, but time and the sea wind had left it a dusty brown. In the city, he could understand the need for security, but on the island, he questioned it. Did the keeper fear robbery? He saw a small, Egyptian type sailing boat, made from bundles of reeds bound together, with a high prow and a single, square sail. It had been dragged up from the shore, to lean against the sea wall of the house. As he came closer, he saw it had been well cared for, and the eye of Ra on the prow shone with fresh red and black paint.

He came to the door, and put his ear against it. Hearing nothing within, he tried the door. It turned aside, and he came into a short hall that led into a courtyard, bright and open to the sun. The contrast surprised him; outside lay a sandy strip of beach, with the sea on one side, and low sandstone cliffs on the other. Within, he found green grass, tall palm trees, and myriads of purple and yellow flowers. The keeper's garden was worthy of a noble.

"You're welcome to carry away my treasure," said a man from behind him, his voice cracked and gritty. "But it seems like such an effort when you could just grow your own flowers."

He turned. He'd expected the light house keeper to be an old man, a retired sailor with a bushy white beard and eyes crazed from gazing at the sea all day and night. He'd thought wrong. Sapog, as he called himself, was a tall young man with brown skin and a tremendous paunch. He wore Greek style robes, but his leather skull cap looked like the work of some northern barbarian. He wore a band of faded red silk wound around his neck, rather expensive for a sweat rag. In spite of his belly, which he used as a rest for his hands, his face looked starved, and his eyes, which were blue, bulged out as if they belonged to a mud fish.

"Blame my father, whoever he was," said Sapog, after he'd told Nikias much the same story as Nobias. "Some raider from the north, I think. Took my mother in a raid, got her pregnant, and sold her here. She'd work off her slavery, bought our freedom, and then she was murdered the next day. Sons of pigs left me this to remember her." He pulled down the red silk scarf, and showed Nikias an old, jagged scar across his throat.