The moment left me feeling uneasy; it seemed to me yet another symptom of her malady that Bethesda should submit so readily to the babblings of a pompous busybody.
Indeed, it seemed to me that Bethesda became more subdued with each passing mile, so that I regretted putting any extra strain upon her by making her deal with the locals. As our journey continued, an unnatural stillness settled upon her. She stared vacantly at the marshes and the muddy fields. I tried to draw her out with reminiscences, as I had on the sea journey, but she seemed disinterested and distant.
Even about her intentions, she had little to say. We had reached the Nile, the object of our journey, and I asked her where she intended to bathe and what was needed for the ritual of purification she had in mind.
'Not here,' she told me. 'Not yet. I'll know the place when we come to it. Osiris will show me where to step into the river. The river will show me what to do.'
The farther we traveled, the more uneasy I found the villagers. Word of Pompey's death invariably preceded us and formed the chief topic of conversation. It seemed that the Nile had failed to rise as high as in previous years. A year of low inundation meant fewer crops, with hunger and hardship to follow. To cause such a poor inundation, something must have displeased the god (for in Egypt, the Nile itself is a god). The civil strife between Ptolemy and his sister Cleopatra had previously been blamed, for they, too, were divine, and strife between a god and goddess caused repercussions throughout both the natural and the supernatural worlds. But now it was perceived that the Nile had been withholding its floods in anticipation of an even more cataclysmic event, the murder of the Great One, the only man to claim such a title since Alexander himself. The discord of civil war was everywhere upon the earth, bringing one disaster after another, and the people feared that some even more terrible event was yet to come.
So we passed from Pelusium to Tanis, and thence to Thmuis, and thence to Busiris, at the very center of the Delta. Each day the summer sun grew hotter and the air more stifling and humid. The rank smell of the muddy Nile seeped into my pores. Along the way, following Bethesda's dictates, we made numerous excursions upriver and down-river, which came to nothing; she would arrive at a spot and declare it suitable, saying she would bathe there the next day, only to change her mind when the next day came. Beyond Busiris, we came to the particularly squalid little village of Sais; saying the sun had grown too bright, Bethesda remained in our private room at the town's shabby little inn, refusing to come out. Rupa, Androcles, Mopsus, and I found little to do in Sais, and I passed several idle days drinking Egyptian beer, stifled by heat, boredom, and a growing sense of foreboding.
At last we pressed on from Sais and came to Naucratis, a village on the westernmost branch of the Nile. We had traversed the entire Delta, and still Bethesda had found no location suitable for the ritual of purification.
Each day, as our journey continued, Bethesda had given me greater cause for concern. She ate almost nothing. When I questioned her about this, she said that fasting was a part of the purification ritual. She sat motionless in the wagon for long hours, and when pressed to move, did so only very slowly and deliberately. She seemed less and less to fully occupy a place in this world, and more and more to reside in some other realm invisible to the rest of us. There were times when I glanced at her and for a startling instant thought I was looking right through her, as if she had become transparent. Then I would blink, and the illusion would pass, and I would tell myself it was merely a trick of the heat and the moisture-heavy air.
CHAPTER VI
Beyond Naucratis, the road turned north. The Nile and its Delta were to our right. The road ran parallel to the river, but eventually it would turn to the west and leave the Delta behind.
'Soon?' I asked Bethesda.
She stared at the river, the gleam on the surface lighting her face, her features so impassive that I thought she must not have heard me. But eventually she answered. 'Soon,' she said, and shut her eyes, as if the simple utterance exhausted her.
At midmorning we came to a stretch of the river where palm trees and date trees grew in great profusion. The river narrowed and ran swiftly between its muddy banks, their exact demarcations obscured by tall reeds. Underground springs fed into the river, making the vegetation especially luxuriant. Low trees grew close together, strewn with vines in great profusion. Reeds encircled miniature lagoons where lotuses and lily pads spread like carpets across the water. Dragonflies flitted, and swarms of midges hovered above the water. The spot teemed with life; it seemed somehow timeless and ancient, a place set apart from the rest of the world.
'Here,' said Bethesda, sounding neither happy nor sad.
I stopped the mules. Mopsus and Androcles jumped from the wagon, eager to stretch their limbs. 'You're the Cyclops and I'm Ulysses! Catch me if you can!' shouted Androcles, slapping his brother's forehead and racing off. Mopsus gave a yelp and raced after him. Rupa jumped out next, circled to the front of the wagon, and reached up to offer his hand to Bethesda. With my assistance from above and his from below, she alighted from the wagon.
From nearby, Androcles gave a shriek as his brother caught up with him and tackled him on a moss-covered stretch of riverbank. I would have shouted at them to behave, but my eyes were on Bethesda, who strode slowly, but steadily, downriver toward a particularly dense patch of reeds, low trees, and vines. I moved to jump from the wagon and follow her, but Rupa seized my ankle. I tried to shake his grip, but he tightened it. He pointed at the trunk in the wagon. From the plaintive look on his face, I knew what he wanted.
The key hung on a chain around my neck. I slipped the chain over my head and moved to unlock the trunk, but my fingers slipped. I tried to open the lock again, but fumbled. The key seemed determined to thwart me. At last I opened the lock and threw back the lid. It took some digging to reach the urn, which had worked its way to the very bottom of the trunk.
The bronze seemed cool to the touch. I had not held it since packing it away. I had forgotten how heavy it was. All that remained of Cassandra was inside it, the ashes and bits of bone and teeth salvaged from her funeral pyre. I gazed at the urn for a long moment, distracted by memories, then realized Rupa had circled the wagon and was standing just under me, reaching up with both hands. Reluctantly, I leaned over and handed him the urn, then jumped from the wagon.
'This is the place, then?' I asked him.
He nodded.
'Shall I come with you?'
He frowned. It was not unreasonable that he should wish to be alone with his sister's remains while he scattered them in the Nile. From birth they had seldom been parted, and they had loved one another above all else in the world. However strong my passion for her, I had known Cassandra for only a few months before she died; the actual time I had spent with her, however special, had amounted to mere hours. It was right that Rupa, not I, should send her ashes on their final journey to the sea, and if he wished to do so in privacy, I had no right to object.
I put my hand on his shoulder to show him that I understood. He held the bronze urn to his chest and bowed his head over it, tears in his eyes, then turned and began to walk upriver. Afraid they might run after him and disturb him, I called to Androcles and Mopsus to come join me.
Bethesda, meanwhile, had reached the overgrown copse of trees downriver and had been searching for a means of entry. While I watched, she finally located a pathway. Not bothering to look back, she stepped into the foliage and disappeared from sight.
'Come along, boys!' I said, and followed after her.
I reached the copse, and stood baffled before the spot where I had last seen her. Was it possible a pathway had opened and then closed up behind her? Wherever I looked, reeds grew out of the muddy ground, and a tangle of vines hung down to meet them, without any perceptible break.
I called her name. She made no answer.
I searched the soft ground for her footprints. I finally found them, taken aback at how light were the tread marks she left, compared not merely with my footsteps, but also with those of the boys. Truly, in the last few days she had dwindled and faded, so that now she walked upon the earth as lightly as a child.
'She must have gone this way,' said Mopsus, staring at the ground.
'No, this way!' insisted Androcles.
'Both of you, step back, before you confuse the track any further,' I said, and then I followed her steps back
