One

A goat that is loose does not listen to the voice of the shepherd.
—Kenyan proverb

THE BOY SIDLED through the door and took in the bar with a practiced, mercenary glance. Hard lines of light leaking in through the cracks of the straw window shades and snaking across the dusty floor. A scattering of cheap tables and rickety chairs, most of them empty at this time of day. The few customers staring into half-empty glasses. Flies hovering on still, hot air.

The boy's gaze passed over a young woman who nursed an infant in the corner and came to rest on a white man. The man's head was down, and his hat covered most of his face. The boy smiled and readjusted the battered bag flung over his shoulder. Inside it, wooden joints clattered like broken teeth. As the boy headed across the bar, he noticed half a dozen empty glasses on the white man's table next to a haphazard pile of coins. The boy's footsteps suddenly grew quieter and he handled the bag more carefully so it wouldn't rattle. Silver gleamed in the dusty light. The boy reached the table and edged a hand out.

The white man slapped his own hand hard over the coins. He didn't bring his head up. The boy's only reaction was to smile with crooked teeth and raise his bag. It rattled woodenly again.

"Puppet, sir?" he asked, his English accented but clear enough. "Only ten piastres."

At this Lankester Merrin raised his head. He wore two days' growth of beard and a wrinkled khaki shirt with food stains dribbled down the front. His blue eyes were dull with drink, though his square face was impassive.

"Do I look like I play with puppets, son?" he replied.

Undaunted, the boy fished an articulated wooden figurine out of the bag and laid it with a clatter on the table. It was about a foot high, man-shaped, with the head of a jackal. The maker had painted it in crude, bright colors.

"Anubis?" Merrin asked. "Why would I want to buy a marionette done up as a death god?"

"I give you one for five piastres, then," the boy said. "It's handmade. Please. My sister—she's very sick."

"Your sister," Merrin said nastily, "is peddling in the next bar over." He grabbed one of the glasses in front of him, raised it, and saw it was empty. The boy hadn't moved. "You're not going to leave me alone, are you?"

"No, sir," the boy replied, grinning again. "Or you can see my sister. She charges twenty."

Merrin glanced down at the marionette. The jackal-headed god's dull eyes stared back at him. One of the strings was looped around the puppet's hand, making it look like Anubis was carrying a noose—or a garrote. The boy stood on the other side of the table with his shabby sack and ragged clothes, looking earnest as only a street urchin can. What the hell. Ten piastres would probably buy this kid's family two or three decent meals. Merrin sighed and flicked a coin across the table. The boy snatched it up and fled without another word, leaving Anubis behind.

Merrin pushed the puppet aside and reached for a different glass, one that still had a slosh of scotch at the bottom. He lifted it to drink.

"That's a bad idea, you know," said a new voice. "It's like feeding pigeons."

Merrin looked up at a tall man—white, older, and dressed in a well-cut linen suit and white hat. His beard was short and silver, his fingers long and elegant. He carried a silver-topped cane tucked under one arm.

"Feeding pigeons?" Merrin echoed, the glass at his lips.

The man gestured at the door where the boy had exited. "Feed one and a hundred more will beg for food—just before they shit on you."

"Do I know you?" Merrin said, in no mood for company. He was never in the mood for company these days.

The man sat down across from him. The rickety chair creaked alarmingly but didn't break. "My name is Semelier. I work for a… private collector of rare antiquities. I cabled you last week."

"Ah yes." Merrin drained the glass and raised it to the bartender. "I didn't answer."

"There's been a discovery in East Africa," Semelier said. He had an accent Merrin couldn't place. "A Christian church circa five hundred A.D."

The bartender, a slender, elderly man in a filthy apron, brought Merrin a fresh glass of scotch, took Merrin's money, and flittered back to the bar like a bat fleeing to its cave. The bar was hot, the air was dry, and Merrin sucked down a mouthful of scotch. It burned his tongue, and his stomach begged him not to swallow. He did anyway. He was at the best part of drunk—pleasantly mellow and not too far gone to enjoy it. The smell of scotch was almost enough to overpower the usual Cairo smells of rotten food, animal manure, dust, and body odor.

The Anubis puppet's pointed jackal nose reminded Merrin of a dog he had owned when he was a boy. What was its name? Shambler? Ambler? Rambler, that was it. He'd been trampled by a coach. Merrin remembered finding the crushed, bloody body near the ditch and not quite understanding what he was seeing. It had been days before he could get the image of scattered brains, blood, and bits of bone out of his head. What a world.

"… hear me? It's a fifth-century Byzantine church."

Slowly realizing that Semelier was still speaking, Merrin turned bleary eyes on the man. The archaeologist part of his brain stirred beneath its alcoholic blanket and dredged up a response. "That's not possible. The Byzantine empire adopted Christianity, but it never got that far south."

"Nevertheless," Semelier returned, "there it sits." He rested both hands on the top of his cane. "The British have financed a dig to uncover this church. We believe a rare object waits inside, a relic the British are happily unaware of. We want you to find it and bring it back to us."

Merrin roused himself at this. "You think I'm a thief?"

Semelier's response was to slide a thick brown envelope across the tabletop. "For your trouble."

"So now I'm a thief and a whore."

"No. Simply a man who's lost faith in everything but himself. An interesting position, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask." Merrin slugged down more scotch. It was definitely time to bypass mellow and head straight for dead drunk. "You know nothing about me."

Copyright © 2004 by Morgan Creek