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STORY COMP

Writers’FORUM #222

Writers FORUM

iction competition

FIRST PRIZE £300

Tritos of Penthene

Asks his Question

of the God Amunoun

in the Camel-boat

Malcolm Todd

I

am Tritos of the Penthene Nome, farmer, beholden to my Lord

Apothegna of the Upper Third Fork, holding sixty mandays of

land in the ifth District of the West Side below the Third Cataract.

I am faithful, honest and hard working, and I come before the

gods with a pure heart and honest intentions. I am circumcised

and washed in the Holy River and I have never blasphemed. I

am twenty-seven years old according to the priest-recorder of the

ifth District. I beg audience with the gods of the Land and the

River. I beg guidance from their Wisdoms in a matter close to my

heart, important to my family and to the interests of my liege-lord

Apogthegna. By the Camel-boat of the gods, I beg answer from the

Lord Amunoun to my question.

Should I plant wheat this year in my best ield when the waters recede?

Amaris mocks me for asking the same question every year when

the Camel-boat comes to the City of Tombs.

‘Ask the god something new,’ she cries. ‘Ask Him something you

don’t know the answer to – ‘Should I plant wheat or barley?’’ – she

pretends to mimic my voice, which she makes sound reedy and

afraid – ‘Truthfully, husband, has the god ever told you to plant

barley? Would you believe Him if He did? Why not ask Him where

your father hid his silver coins before he fell into the canal and

drowned? Ask Him how to repair your crooked crocodile of a

shaduf so it doesn’t spill everything it draws before you can pull

it over the bank. Ask him why you got your father’s land but your

brother got all his brains, huh?’

She does not understand, or pretends she doesn’t, how one

asks questions of the gods in the Camel-boat procession – I tell her

I don’t say, ‘Wheat or barley?’ I say, ‘Shall I plant wheat?’ because

the god can only answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but he knows that in my case

the answer ‘no’ will mean ‘plant barley’. It is not my fault that he

has always said ‘yes’.

Should I plant wheat this year when the waters recede?

You must know what you are going to ask when your chance

comes, for if the question is not clear in your own heart, how can

the god know what to answer? How are you to understand the

answer if you cannot be sure what you are asking?

‘Practise it,’ my father told me, the irst time he took me to Tomb

City with him, ‘Practise what you are going to ask, all the way.

Make sure you know the words you will use when you see the head

of the great beast appear: then ask the god what you want to know,

the question that is closest to your heart. Ask him silently, in the

words of your heart, not aloud, and he will hear you; but only if

your question is clear will you understand the answer.’

And so I practised all the way, for three days travelling down-

river to the city, muttering under my breath in time to the slap of

our paddles in the water as we pushed downstream in our coracle.

Over and over in my head, I asked the question that was closest to

my heart: ‘Am I my father’s favourite son, or is it Xeno?’ When we

arrived at the port of the city and set of up the path to the proces -

sional road, I chanted it silently to myself in time to our dusty

footsteps: ‘Am I my father’s favourite son, or is it Xeno?’ This was

the question that burned in my breast when I was barely out of

Congratulations to this month’s winners, Malcolm Todd, Dora Bona and Russell Day.

Do you have a short story that could impress our head judge Lorraine Mace?

Any subject, any style is welcome. Turn to the rules and entry form on page 41.

Continued overleaf