STORY COMP
childhood – did my father love me, his eldest son, as he should? For
I was an ill-favoured child, squint-eyed and with a sagging cheek
where the pox had marked me young, and people said I was slow
and clumsy and sullen – but Xeno, two years younger, was a boy
so fair of face, so bright, with a smile both loving and ever ready,
that everyone must love him: even I. How could our father not love
him more?
Should I plant wheat in my ield when the waters recede?
And after we had witnessed the passing of the Camel-boat,
my father asked me gravely: ‘Did the god answer your question,
Tritos?’
‘I–I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I watched Him – watched the boat
- like you said, I watched when it passed the place where you
pointed, but – I don’t know...’
My father was impatient. ‘Did he weave left, or right?’ he asked,
sharply. ‘I explained this to you before. When you saw the Camel’s
head pass directly before you, when he next nodded his head, was
it to the left of his path or to the right?’
He had explained it, but I had not understood. ‘He – I th – I think
–’ I tried to stop my stammering, knowing it often made my father
angry. ‘He nodded left – it was left.’
Father gripped my shoulder. ‘Then the answer was ‘No’,’ he said.
‘It is very simple.’ He seemed satisied with that; and he did not ask
what my question had been.
He had explained it, but I had not understood. ‘Am I my father’s
favourite son, or is it Xeno?’ – ‘No.’ It was an answer, but to which
half of the question I could not tell. I did not go with my father the
following year; he took Xeno instead, and I thought that a clearer
answer than any the god could give me. I did not go again until
after I was married to Amaris, and my father had died, drowned in
a ditch during a great lood, and left the holding of his ields in the
ifth district to me.
Should I plant wheat this year when the waters recede?
Some have travelled many days upriver – a few have come further
than I, in the opposite direction. There are even some who have
travelled overland to the City of Tombs, desertmen, all eyes and
teeth behind their strange head-wrappings, their bodies swathed
in cloths against the anger of the desert sun and half-concealing
the curved blades that they all carry at their sides. Some arrive on
camels; but their profane beasts are not permitted within the city’s
precincts when the gods’ Camel-boat is in procession.
All must arrive before the sun rises on the day of the procession,
when the gates are closed until the passing of the boat at noon, and
many have been there for several days. But I arrive, as I always do,
in the dark of the last night before.
Xeno urged me to leave a day or two earlier – ‘What if the winds
are against you?’ he asks, foolishly. ‘What if you have a hole in your
boat that takes half a day to repair?’ He is laughing when he says
it, for Xeno is always laughing; but his urging was serious. But I do
not like to leave my family for longer than I must; and I am uneasy
in the city, in the company of so many strangers. No one would do
violence in the city when the gods’ boat is passing, Xeno says; but
I think men are less holy than they claim to be and less mindful
of gods’ laws than they should be. And I have never trusted the
desertmen in particular.
My family is safe, of course. Xeno, who has no family because
he has no land, will watch over them for the half-month I am
gone – three days downriver, a day in the city, and ten days for
the hard journey of return. Amaris is content, and our son, named
Xenophilen for my father, is always happy to see his uncle. They will
not miss their misshapen, slow-witted husband, father, brother. It is
a cruel trick of fate that they look a better family with golden Xeno
than they do with me.
Should I plant wheat...?
When I arrive at the place of watching I no longer strain to see
over the heads of taller men as I did when I irst came, staring for a
glimpse of the great boat carried by the priests of the Desert-gods
and the River-gods. The men around me are still taller than I; but I
am no boy, to stand on tiptoes, and I know I will be able to see the
Camel-head of the boat rising above the crowd.
But my mind is distracted, as it has not been before. Suddenly,
I am plagued by the vision of my brother on the morning of my
departure, standing in the door of my house, holding my son in
his arms as he raises one hand in farewell, my wife standing close
behind him below the lintel of the door. I remember how he urged
me to leave sooner, to be away longer. I think how Amaris mocks
me, but has nothing but good to say of my brother. I think even of
my son, my beautiful son, already in his third year, who looks so
little like his ill-favoured father but is blessed with the clear eyes
and ready smile of his golden uncle.
Should I plant wheat in my ields, or barley – No. Should I plant what in
my ields this year, as I have always done? Or should I –?
This will not do. I hear a murmur from the crowd downriver,
from those who can see further up the processional road. Young
boys start to chatter excitedly and their fathers hush them, some
angrily, some with tolerant smiles. Which will I do, when I bring
my son Xenophilen to see the boat? What kind of father will I be? I
could ask the gods: Am I a good father to my son? ... I try to school
myself, to calm my mind. I seek out the Pillar of Amunoun at the
road’s edge and focus my attention there. It is when the camel-head
passes the pillar from my point of view that he answers my ques-
tion. So it is that all men watch the same boat pass each pillar and
yet not all receive the same answer, even those who are asking the
same god, for the head nods now left and now right and we all see
it pass at a diferent moment in its course. I have always stood in
the same place to ask my question, in the ive years since my father
died and I have sought the guidance of the god. I have always asked
the same question, and He has always answered Yes. I try to banish
unworthy thoughts from my mind and focus on my question:
Should I plant wheat in my best ield this year when the waters recede?
The noise of the crowd is growing, and I catch glimpses of the
Camel-head already, for it rises twelve feet above the men who
carry the boat. Some men cry out their questions, for the customs
of gods and districts difer: though my father taught me that Lord
Amunoun will refuse to answer a question when it is spoken to be
heard by mortal men, other gods will listen only to those who cry
out their business to the world in their loudest voice. The boat has
passed already the Pillar of Ptamos and the Pillar of Haren and
the excitement of the many thousand men can be tasted as much
as heard in the crackling air. As it passes the Pillar of Wanax I
catch a sudden view through the shifting crowd of the body of the
boat and the yellow-grey robes of the priests carrying it: young,
strong men all, and yet they struggle with the weight of the great
boat after so many miles, and sometimes it not only weaves but
lurches as the bearers slip and stagger. The gap in the crowd closes
again but I can see the camel-head clearly now, seeming to swim
over the surface of a great sea of men before me. It approaches the
Pillar of Amunoun and I gather my thoughts. As the Camel-head
disappears behind the pillar, I focus my will and ask the god that
protects my house:
Is Xenophilen truly my son?
Oh no.
Oh no.
What have I done?
That is not what I meant to ask! I almost cry it aloud, I try to recall
the words I had prepared, but it is too late – the Camel-head emergesTritos of Penthene continued