A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow - By Levkoff, Andrew Page 0,118

convinced, how then can those sounds be heard by those they are meant to soothe? My wife’s stories were suddenly making me very much afraid. Not for the ordeal she had been forced to endure, but for those yet to come. This was no place for us.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’ve seen my share of bloated corpses floating down the Nile.”

I knew she hadn’t, for Egyptians were scrupulously hygienic about such matters, but I let her go on. Each of us has their own way of declining comfort. “I climbed up on the wreckage,” she said, “without turning it upside-down. There must have been something heavy underneath acting as a keel. I was still catching my breath from the effort, thinking how lucky I was when a grizzled old legionary came swimming toward me with a great deal of shouting and cursing and splashing. He’d shoved two oars through his belt and was swimming as fast as this awkward arrangement would let him. In the swell beyond him, between him and the wrecks, I saw first one, then another sea lion raised its sleek, black head to watch for awhile, but when I turned to look back again, they were gone.

‘“Sorry, dear,’ he said, grabbing the far end of the planking, ‘this one’s taken. Whew! I’m exhausted! Ever try to stay balanced on two of these things? No, I don’t suppose you have.’ His head was as square as one of domina’s pretty amber earrings, though ‘pretty’ was the last thing anyone would ever think to call him, including his mother. He had a big dent in his forehead on one side and that eye was blind, the cornea gone completely white.

“I knew what he was about and I wasn’t going to argue with him so I told him, ‘Fair enough, take it, but let me have the oars.’ He shook his head while wrestling to get them free of his belt. I was astonished. ‘One, then.’

‘“Afraid not,’ he says.

‘“Look,’ I said, and by now I’m glancing frantically about for something I can pry loose for a weapon, ‘you can’t have the decking and the oars. It makes no sense.’

‘“Makes perfect sense,’ he said. ‘I’m stealing your deck. I give you an oar, you’ll bash my head in, take it back, and with my last breath I’d be the first to congratulate you.’

‘“Soldier, I’m a doctor. I don’t hurt people. We can help each other, get through this together.’

‘“No, don’t think so,’ he says. ‘These are difficult times, dear, difficult times.’

‘“I’ll give you the raft, I swear, just give me a chance. One oar. I’ll float away with the current, and you’ll never see me again.’

‘“If you’re asking, ask for two. How do you know I won’t give you a swift crack across your back with the one left behind while you’re making your escape?’

‘“Escape?! Man, pull yourself together! We are trying to survive a tragedy. Look about you. Do you not see what is happening here?’

“Then he tells me this. ‘Oh, I see right well enough. I’ve survived worse. And I’ll survive this. But you’re right about one thing. We need to take care of what my centurion likes to call ‘variables.’ I don’t know what that means exactly, but it’s got something to do with whittling down the number of things that can go wrong.’ He checked to see which way the current was flowing, hefted one of the oars like a spear and hurled it as far in that direction as he could, which was right over my head. He did the same with the second oar while I watched in disbelief. He was mad, and I told him so.

“A big wave washed over us from behind. It hit the back of his close-cropped hair and sprayed over him like a green, hooded cloak, then hit me full in the face. I held on to the rail with one hand and with the other frantically wiped my hair and salt water from my eyes. He hadn’t moved. But the sea lions had popped up again, this time closer, about thirty feet away.

“‘You’re the one who’s fogged over,’ the soldier said, ‘and you’ve got twice the sight as me. You poor dear, can’t you see I’ve been talking to a corpse ever since I showed up?’

“What?! You don’t need to kill me.’ I scrambled to the farthest end of the decking and held on to the vertical piece of railing, and while I was doing this he