Page 38 of The Hymn to Dionysus

One, they think they’re the best educated people in the world, so they ignore most things told to them by people who are not Egyptians, on the reasoning that you must be a moron who lives in a pigsty.

Two, they lisp. It’s their bread. There’s a lot of sand in Egypt and therefore a lot of sand in their bread, and so the better they eat, the more worn down their teeth tend to be. Noblemen train themselves to speak like that even if their teeth are perfect, because to them it sounds wealthy. To the rest of the world, it sounds like they’re all trying to impersonate a five-year-old girl, and it is therefore difficult to not hit them with a rock.

“Married,” I said.

“To her . . . brother?” He said it like he thought I must have got the Egyptian word wrong. As though all long-distance shipping doesn’t happen in Egyptian; as though you could know how to say “I know it’s fourteen per cent port tax but call it twelve between friends and I won’t show you your own spleen,” but not “married.”

“Yes,” I said gradually, starting to suspect he might have been so cloistered as to be inept at life beyond Memphis.

The Queen, I couldn’t help noticing, looked suspiciously like a person who was just settling down to watch an especially bloody wrestling match.

“Can I ask what the function of a marriage is, if not . . . children?” he asked, still sounding certain that I’d got the word wrong.

I’d forgotten how much translation you really needed, talking to Egyptians; even if you could speak fluent Egyptian. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t had enough sleep for this. Maybe I could still find a rock. “To hold the front lines of heavy infantry units in combat.”

“Ah—I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

“The line doesn’t break,” I said, “if no one wants to run away. There’s nothing to run to if your family is on the line.”

He laughed. “How unique.” He thought I was joking. He’d said it in the tone of piss off.

“Unique for who?”

“Humans?”

I nearly asked how many humans he had met. Probably it was only about eight. Probably seven of them were slaves, one was his wife, and probably he didn’t like any of them because humans are grubby and annoying. Probably his favourite person was a pet hippopotamus called Moses. It seemed better not to take him up on it. Once people are rich enough, they lose their grip on the rest of the world. “If you say so.”

“I do,” he said, more firmly than he’d said anything else. “In fact, what you’re talking about would be quite forbidden in Memphis.”

I thought he was joking, then realized he was smiling because he thought I was joking. “Seems militarily counterproductive?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Egypt commands the finest fighting force in the world.”

I waited. Egyptian humour is a bit different to Achaean humour. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“It’s true!” he said indignantly.

He wasn’t laughing. But he couldn’t really think so. “A hundred and fifty years ago it was, but you were fucking abysmal at Troy. We used to send our youngest units to fight your infantry for practise. We thought your soldiers must all be slaves or something. It might be time to consider a system that doesn’t encourage them to scatter if someone sneezes at them.”

“I’ve offended you.”

“No?” I said, confused.

“Oh.” He looked confused too. “Er . . . indeed.” A pause. “Indeed,” he said again.

I hoped he was having some kind of serendipitous haemorrhage and I wouldn’t have to explain anything else.

“He isn’t being rude, he’s being Theban,” the Queen explained, looking unpromisingly happy about the whole thing. I couldn’t tell if I was the victim here or if Apophis was, or what either one of us had done to deserve the other. “Our knights vow to tell the truth.”

“Oh, goodness. Do you, indeed? That sounds—awful. Um. Indeed,” he said again, which he seemed to say when other people would say “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what’s happening any more,” and went away.

I watched him go. “Did you introduce us to annoy him?” I asked. Maybe if he was completely at sea then he wouldn’t be so strict with his grain, or something.

The Queen smiled, a controlled marvel-smile, but still a smile. “No, to see what you would say.” She didn’t explain any more, though I had an odd feeling I’d passed some kind of test. She was studying me. “What are you here to report?”

“I came to say we need to search the whole city without raising too many questions. I think the best way to do that is to call a census.”

“A census,” the Queen repeated.