exactly how he
felt on both of these accounts and could feel sorry for him.
“I will do what I can for you,” I answered,
in Aramaic. It was the language used by many of the soldiers and
probably half the city of Nineveh, and one always assumed any
foreigner would speak it. “What would you have of me?”
My back was bothering me as we stood there in
the cold wind. I would have liked to finish this business so I
could go indoors to bathe and change, but the slave merely stared
at me with a look of what had become helpless appeal. It was not
very long before I grasped that he had understood not a single
word.
I peered into his face, with its light eyes
and its sharp, almost delicate features, so different from the
faces I saw around me each day, and suddenly I understood.
“What would you have of me?” I repeated, but
this time in my mother’s language. The change in him was immediate
and unmistakable.
“Gentle master!” Before I could stop him he
had thrown himself to the ground and was embracing my feet. “Little
did I expect, in this place. . .”
And thus it was that Kephalos attached
himself to my destiny.
. . . . .
“I was not born a slave, master,” he said as,
in the dim coolness of my barrack room, using a basin of water and
a soft cloth, he washed the dirt out of the scratches in my back.
His touch was as gentle as a woman’s. “I am a prisoner of war.”
He said it with great pride, but I had
already gathered as much from the notch which had been cut in his
left ear—a runaway slave who is recaptured and found to bear that
mark is put to death at once. This is the law.
Most prisoners of war, however, are forced to
labor digging in the canals or carrying stone for one of the king’s
building projects. They are worked without mercy and quickly die,
and this slave did not have the hands of one who had endured hard
toil or even the rigors of parade drill. It was difficult to credit
that my new possession had ever been a soldier.
“What war?” I asked him. I was frankly
curious and I wanted to hear what lies he would concoct to make
himself a hero. “How did you happen to be taken?”
But the Greek merely shrugged his shoulders,
as it in regret over some lost opportunity. It was perhaps a
quarter of a minute before he could bring himself to answer.
“Five years, ago I was on my way home from
Aleppo and had the misfortune to be in Tyre when the Assyrians
came. Only two days before I had been set upon and robbed outside a
tavern and thus, unfortunately, in the ensuing panic was without
means of purchasing my escape by sea. The Tyrians impressed me into
their army, so I spent the siege on top of the walls playing dice
while we waited for the city elders to negotiate a surrender. I won
a great deal of money and perhaps this caused some resentment—a
foreigner in a city under attack, master, is always in an awkward
position. In any case, when the moment came to deliver up
prisoners, I found myself in chains, prodded along with the point
of a spear toward the Assyrian encampment. And that is the whole
history of my military career.”
He sighed and opened a small wooden box that
rested beside him on my pallet, taking out a tiny clay pot filled
with a gray ointment which, as soon as it touched the raw skin,
took the sting from my back and made me feel much better.
I discovered that my bad temper had left me,
that I was disarmed of my amused contempt for this man, and that I
would have liked to do him some service before parting, since it
seemed unlikely I would be allowed to keep him.
“What are you trained to do?” I asked him,
glancing down at the wooden box as he helped me back on with my
tunic. “How have you thus far avoided the labor gangs?”
A sly smile flickered for just an instant at
the corners of the slave’s mouth, disappearing almost at once.
“Ah, master,” he exclaimed, casting his eyes
toward the ceiling, “always beware to waste your youth in
profitless follies. Had
felt on both of these accounts and could feel sorry for him.
“I will do what I can for you,” I answered,
in Aramaic. It was the language used by many of the soldiers and
probably half the city of Nineveh, and one always assumed any
foreigner would speak it. “What would you have of me?”
My back was bothering me as we stood there in
the cold wind. I would have liked to finish this business so I
could go indoors to bathe and change, but the slave merely stared
at me with a look of what had become helpless appeal. It was not
very long before I grasped that he had understood not a single
word.
I peered into his face, with its light eyes
and its sharp, almost delicate features, so different from the
faces I saw around me each day, and suddenly I understood.
“What would you have of me?” I repeated, but
this time in my mother’s language. The change in him was immediate
and unmistakable.
“Gentle master!” Before I could stop him he
had thrown himself to the ground and was embracing my feet. “Little
did I expect, in this place. . .”
And thus it was that Kephalos attached
himself to my destiny.
. . . . .
“I was not born a slave, master,” he said as,
in the dim coolness of my barrack room, using a basin of water and
a soft cloth, he washed the dirt out of the scratches in my back.
His touch was as gentle as a woman’s. “I am a prisoner of war.”
He said it with great pride, but I had
already gathered as much from the notch which had been cut in his
left ear—a runaway slave who is recaptured and found to bear that
mark is put to death at once. This is the law.
Most prisoners of war, however, are forced to
labor digging in the canals or carrying stone for one of the king’s
building projects. They are worked without mercy and quickly die,
and this slave did not have the hands of one who had endured hard
toil or even the rigors of parade drill. It was difficult to credit
that my new possession had ever been a soldier.
“What war?” I asked him. I was frankly
curious and I wanted to hear what lies he would concoct to make
himself a hero. “How did you happen to be taken?”
But the Greek merely shrugged his shoulders,
as it in regret over some lost opportunity. It was perhaps a
quarter of a minute before he could bring himself to answer.
“Five years, ago I was on my way home from
Aleppo and had the misfortune to be in Tyre when the Assyrians
came. Only two days before I had been set upon and robbed outside a
tavern and thus, unfortunately, in the ensuing panic was without
means of purchasing my escape by sea. The Tyrians impressed me into
their army, so I spent the siege on top of the walls playing dice
while we waited for the city elders to negotiate a surrender. I won
a great deal of money and perhaps this caused some resentment—a
foreigner in a city under attack, master, is always in an awkward
position. In any case, when the moment came to deliver up
prisoners, I found myself in chains, prodded along with the point
of a spear toward the Assyrian encampment. And that is the whole
history of my military career.”
He sighed and opened a small wooden box that
rested beside him on my pallet, taking out a tiny clay pot filled
with a gray ointment which, as soon as it touched the raw skin,
took the sting from my back and made me feel much better.
I discovered that my bad temper had left me,
that I was disarmed of my amused contempt for this man, and that I
would have liked to do him some service before parting, since it
seemed unlikely I would be allowed to keep him.
“What are you trained to do?” I asked him,
glancing down at the wooden box as he helped me back on with my
tunic. “How have you thus far avoided the labor gangs?”
A sly smile flickered for just an instant at
the corners of the slave’s mouth, disappearing almost at once.
“Ah, master,” he exclaimed, casting his eyes
toward the ceiling, “always beware to waste your youth in
profitless follies. Had
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