The blood star nicholas guild - extracts

The blood star nicholas guild - extracts

• 1.
  "... For thecommon people those were hard years. The Nile flooded less and the barley withered in the fields. The ground cracked and turned to dust and in the countryside menand womenslaughteredtheiroxenandthen their girl babies because there was nothing for anyof themto eat.The citiesbecame crowdedwiththosewho fled the land, but the price of food had risen until ordinary working people could hardly afford to buy it- once I saw pressed dates being sold for equal weights of silver- and those without employment could afford nothing, not the poorest broken millet. Sometimesriotsbroke out,andthese were trulydreadful.Theybegin withsometrivial disturbance when,forinstance,apeddler,selling vegetables beneath a canvas awning, at last is made impatient by the heat and worry and weariness, and perhaps by a pity he cannot afford to indulge, and too roughly turns away a beggar, of which were are always too many. The beggar objects and onlookers take sides. Some say the beggar is a thief, but most the peddler,whoisresented for being rich enough to have something to sell. Soon a mob forms. The peddler's stall is torn down and looted. Perhaps the peddler is even killed- surely he is killed. All at once people who for as long as they can recall have known nothing but misery now know power and the thirst for revenge and blind rage. The mob is like a mad animal- it plundersanddestroys.Tobe outside istoinvite death. No one's life is safe. There is blood on the cobblestones and the white sand in the streets drinks it up. Then, suddenly, things have gone too far. The rich, behind the stone walls of their houses,feel threatened-someone might presume to plunder not a vegetable peddler's stall, but them. The soldiers are called out. There is a massacre as innocent and guilty alike fall before the swords and the chariot wheels. Screams rend the air into tatters. By sundown the riverisfilledwithbloatedcorpsesandthe crocodiles gorge themselves. For days the vultures walk along the muddy banks, too heavy with carrion even to fly. Thus was Egypt in the time I lived there, and each year it grew worse..." NicholasGuild, “The Blood Star”
• 2.
  "...We stayed therefor six months. I have difficulty in describing Athens, for by comparison with the other great cities I have seen it is hardly more than a tawdry little waterfrontsettlement,andyetitmade a considerable impressiononme.For one thing, it was a Greek city, and that separated it at once from the rest of the world. I was struckimmediately by the fact that there were no grand palaces or temples, for the Greeks seem to think that buildings are only for sleeping in - they live in their marketplaces, for they are the most sociable of races. A Greek is always talking, either debating the significance of some piece of news or complaining to anyone who will listen about prices or the general unworthiness of human nature. It is for this reason, I think, that the Greek tongue is so powerful and supple an instrument, for it is in constant use. There are alsono kings,the Athenians having expelled them at least a hundred years before.The government and most of the wealth are controlled by an aristocracy, but this is a very fluid body into which a man may rise if he has gathered enough silver to himself. In the councilsof war, a commonsoldiermayargue strategywitha general,and if he carries opinion withhimcan succeedto the command.AnAthenian,like everyotherGreek,regardshimself as being at least as good as any man alive, so they do not tolerate much insolence from their leaders. Yet, although the kings are gone, one can still see the remains of their citadel. Like many Greek cities, Athens is built around a huge outcropping of rock, the site of an arcopolis surrounded with fortresslike walls. The Atheniansuse theirsasa temple districtandforritual enactments of the stories of theirgodsduringthe Festival of Dionysos,whichisa rather frenzied affair. They worship their gods as they do everything else, in public, and they seem to have no priestly caste. Piety is a duty of the citizen and therefore incumbent on all..." NicholasGuild, “The Blood Star”
• 3.
  "...Their writing isimpossible, yet a man may learn to speak the Egyptian tongue quickly enough. Within a month I had some few hundred words, although I hardly needed them. I rarelymetanyone whocouldnotstumble through a little Greek, and this, so Prodikos ledme to understand, would be the case everywhere except the dustiest village-"Here they are used to doing business with us, but even in the great cities upriver, Greek is quite the fashion. Poor simple souls, it makes them feel part of the world." Yet menmaydwell togetherinsomethingsmallerthanaworldand not know it for the same place.Eventhislittle town, builtuponanislandin one of the lesserchannelsof the River Nile, the Egyptians knew by a different name, calling it Piemro, and there they lived as separate an existence as if they had raised their houses beyond the dome of heaven. At first I imagined I must have come among a race of women, for the men are slight and smooth-limbedandshave theirfacesandeventheirheads,preferring to wear wigs rather than their own hair. A beard, prized by all other races as the symbol of manly authority, is regardedwithdisgust, asbothuncleaninitself and a disfigurement to the beauty of the face. As a mark of rank sometimesahighofficial will wear a false beard, a few strands of hair glued to the chin, or perhaps only a lacquered wooden box to represent one, but even this very unwillingly, And all, men and women alike, paint around their eyes-this not only from vanity but as a sovereign protection against infections, which are common among them; yet it surprised me, since in the lands between the rivers it is a thing practiced only by harlots. Although the weather in Naukratis was not as warm as it would have been even in Nineveh, the Egyptiansof the upper classes covered themselves with few garments, for both sexesare mightilyproudof theirdaintybodies.The menusually wear only a short skirt of thin pleatedlinen, andthe womenfrequentlygoaboutwiththeirbreastsuncovered,paintingtheir nipples a vivid red. They decorate their arms with gold and sometimes silver braceIets -the silver, which is more highly prized, is brought in by the Greeks from Thrace and Macedonia - and their wigs, which they trim with gold, are often dyed bright blue. Only the priests, it seemed, covered themselves from shoulder to foot, which was perhapswell done since manyof themwere astonishinglyfat. The priestsof all nations, I have observed,tendtocorpulence,butnowhere more so than in Egypt. They are also arrogant and greatly hated for this and also for their greed, which is insatiable, the gods in Egypt being richereventhanPharaoh.The priestsdonot wearwigs,but theirshavenheadsglistenwithoil. Yet the priests, though hated, are powerful, and this because no people are more in awe of their gods than the Egyptians. The gods own Egypt, Pharaoh being but one among them,andno mastereverheldhisslave in suchbondage thantheydo the people of that land. No farmer opens his irrigation sluices without first offering sacrifice to obtain the water god Sobk's approval. The harlot prays to Mut, consort of Amun, before she visits her first customer, and the warrior promises to sprinkle the altar of Hathor with blood -unless his grandfatherwasa Libyan,inwhichcase he ismore likelytofavor Neit. In the land of my birth, and even among the Greeks, the gods are imagined as having the shapes of men, but the Egyptiansrepresenttheirswiththe headsof jackals,hawksandcrocodiles, making them seem fearful andrevoltingcreatures,which,farfrom being an insult, is taken as the special mark of theirholiness. Yet for all this, the Egyptians seem to live on the best of terms with their gods and take a childishdelightinhonoringthem.Everymonthhasalmostas manyfestivalsasdays, whenshrinesare carried through the streets of every city and village and their way is strewn
• 4.
  withflowers.The godsdwellamongmen, makinga paradise of the Land of Egypt, and for this reason the Egyptians regard themselves as blessed above all other peoples, both in this life and the next.Andthe reasonforthisfoolishconfidence isnotdifficulttodiscover, forthe chief of theirgodsisthe great riveritself, which has nourished the Egyptians and framed the terms of their lives since the foundations of the world. The Nile isnothinglike the Tigris,to whose rushing waters I had listened all my life. A man whogrowsup by the Tigrisunderstandsthe tenuousnessof hisholdon existence, for the floods may come suddenly and sweep him and all he cares for into oblivion-or they may not come at all,thathe diesof want.These are the facts whichgovernhis tenure on the earth and shape his understanding of what it means to be alive. Thus in the east the river-dwelling people trust neither to the future nor to the mercy of their gods. But the Nile is a sluggish, predictable, good-hearted river, and as a consequence the Egyptians are more cheerful and weaker than the men of Ashur. They believe that all is for their good because their river is kind to them, and thus they commit the folly of believing in the benevolence andwisdomof theirgodsandevenof their king. Their language has no word for "fate," as does the Akkadian of the east, and they do not understand its blind and capriciouspower.Theyare like childrenina worldtheybelieve filled with their own toys. It is possible to pity them, but not very much, for the gods seem to smile on their folly and have blessed them with an empty history. Egypt is a land famous for its magicians, many of whom practice their art for the entertainmentof anywhomightstopin the streettowatch them.Once I saw an oldNumidian whocould cause what looked like an ordinary river reed to turn into a serpent and then back into a reed again; I tried to buy the reed from him that I might discover how the trick was done, but he would not sell it, explaining that such reeds were only to be found in the place where he hadbeenborn,whichwasmany months' journeytothe south, by a great lake which is the Nile's mother. Thus might a man spend many hours filling his eyes with wonders and delightinghissenses.Duringthe daythere wasthe bazaar and at night there were the brothels where every taste could be satisfied, for the harlots of that city, both in the Greek and the Egyptian quarters, are noted for their beauty no less than for their skill. The country people of the Deltaare usuallywilling enough to sell their daughters into slaveryfora few pieces of silver, enough to pay their taxes to Pharaoh that year and perhaps leave themwithalittle withwhichtocelebrate the Feast of Osiris, but the Greek brothels are forced to import their women. In every city in Egypt, yet nowhere more than in Naukratis, there is a brisk traffic in girls between the ages of perhaps eight or nine and fifteen years of age -aharlot hasa shortcareer,and a good one, like an acrobat or a musician, must begin her trainingearlyif hermaster is to have his profit out of her. Thus it was that Selana entered my life,while she wasyetachild,before love anda woman's beauty had awakened within her..." NicholasGuild, “The Blood Star”