The old man was bald except for white remnants of beard, toothless, half deaf, gnarled and crippled by arthritis, eyes turned milky by cataracts. (His chronological age must be about sixty. So much for the back-to-nature crowd in twentieth-century America.) He hunched on a stool, hands weakly clasped around a stick. His mind worked, though – reached forth out of the ruin where it was trapped like a plant reaching for sunlight.
“Aye, aye, they come and stand before me as I speak, as if ’twere yesterday. Could I but remember that well what happened in the real yesterday. Well, nothing did, nothing ever does any more…. “Seven, they were, who said they had come on a ship from the Hittite coast. Now young Matinbaal got curious, he did, and went down and asked around, and never found a skipper who’d carried any such passengers. Well, maybe ’twas a ship that went right onward, toward Philistia or Egypt…. Sinim they called themselves, and told of faring thousands upon thousands of leagues from the Sunrise Lands, that they might bring home an account of the world to their king. They spoke fair Punic, albeit with an accent like none else I ever heard…. Taller than most, well-built; they walked like wildcats, and were as mannerly and, I guessed, as dangerous if aroused. No beards; ’twasn’t that they shaved, their faces were hairless, like women’s. Not eunuchs, however, no, the wenches lent ’em were soon sitting down careful, heh, heh. Their eyes were light, their skins whiter even than a yellow-haired Achaean’s, but their straight locks were raven-black…. Ever there was an air of wizardry about them, and I heard tales of eldritch things they’d shown the king. Be that as it may, they did no harm, they were only curious, oh, how curious about every least thing in Usu, and about the plans that were then being drawn up for Tyre. They won the king’s heart; he commanded they see and hear whatever they liked, though it be the deepest secrets of a sanctuary or a merchant house…. I did often wonder, afterward, if this was what provoked the gods against them.”
Judas priest! slashed through Everard. That’s almost got to be my enemies. Yes, them, Exalta-tionists, Varagan’s gang. “Sinim”- Chinese? A red herring, in case the Patrol stumbled onto their trail? No, I suspect not, I think probably they just used that alias so as to have a readymade story to hand Abibaal and his court. For they didn’t bother to disguise their appearance. As in South America, Varagan must have felt sure his cleverness would be too much for the plodding Patrol. Which it might well have been, except for Sarai.
Not that I’m very far along on the trail yet.
“What became of them?” he demanded..
“Ah, that was a pity, unless it was punishment for something wrong they did, like maybe poking into a Holy of Holies.” Bomilcar clicked his tongue and wagged his head. “After several weeks, they asked leave to go. Twas late in the season, most ships were already put away for the winter, but against advice they offered a rich payment for passage to Cyprus, and got a daring skipper to agree. I went down to the wharf myself to watch them depart, I did. A cold, blustery day, ’twas. I watched that ship dwindle away under the racing clouds till she vanished in the brume, and something made me stop by the temple of Tanith on my way back and put oil in a lamp – not for them, understand, but for all poor mariners, on whom rests the well-being of Tyre.”
Everard restrained himself from shaking that withered frame. “And then? Anything?”
“Aye, my feeling was right. My feelings have always been right, haven’t they, Jantin-hamu? Always. I should’ve been a priest, but too many boys were trying for what few acolytes’ berths there were…. Ah, yes. That day a gale sprang up. The ship foundered. Everybody lost. I heard about that, I did, because we naturally wanted to know what’d happened to those strangers. Her figurehead and some other bits and pieces drifted onto the rocks where this city now is.”