We ate and drank and the Prince talked to me of my business as a scribe and of the making of tales, which seemed to interest him very much.  Indeed one might have thought that he was a pupil in the schools and I the teacher, so humbly and with such care did he weigh everything that I said about my art.  Of matters of state or of the dreadful scene of blood through which we had just passed he spoke no word.  At the end, however, after a little pause during which he held up a cup of alabaster as thin as an eggshell, studying the light playing through it on the rich red wine within, he said to me: 

“Friend Ana, we have passed a stirring hour together, the first perhaps of many, or mayhap the last.  Also we were born upon the same day and therefore, unless the astrologers lie, as do other men—­and women—­beneath the same star.  Lastly, if I may say it, I like you well, though I know not how you like me, and when you are in the room with me I feel at ease, which is strange, for I know of no other with whom it is so.

“Now by a chance only this morning I found in some old records which I was studying, that the heir to the throne of Egypt a thousand years ago, had, and therefore, as nothing ever changes in Egypt, still has, a right to a private librarian for which the State, that is, the toilers of the land, must pay as in the end they pay for all.  Some dynasties have gone by, it seems, since there was such a librarian, I think because most of the heirs to the throne could not, or did not, read.  Also by chance I mentioned the matter to the Vizier Nehesi who grudges me every ounce of gold I spend, as though it were one taken out of his own pouch, which perhaps it is.  He answered with that crooked smile of his: 

“’Since I know well, Prince, that there is no scribe in Egypt whom you would suffer about you for a single month, I will set the cost of a librarian at the figure at which it stood in the Eleventh Dynasty upon the roll of your Highness’s household and defray it from the Royal Treasury until he is discharged.’

“Therefore, Scribe Ana, I offer you this post for one month; that is all for which I can promise you will be paid whatever it may be, for I forget the sum.”

“I thank you, O Prince,” I exclaimed.

“Do not thank me.  Indeed if you are wise you will refuse.  You have met Pambasa.  Well, Nehesi is Pambasa multiplied by ten, a rogue, a thief, a bully, and one who has Pharaoh’s ear.  He will make your life a torment to you and clip every ring of gold that at length you wring out of his grip.  Moreover the place is wearisome, and I am fanciful and often ill-humoured.  Do not thank me, I say.  Refuse; return to Memphis and write stories.  Shun courts and their plottings.  Pharaoh himself is but a face and a puppet through which other voices talk and other eyes shine, and the sceptre which he wields is pulled by strings.  And if this is so with Pharaoh, what is the case with his son?  Then there are the women, Ana.  They will make love to you, Ana, they even do so to me, and I think you told me that you know something of women.  Do not accept, go back to Memphis.  I will send you some old manuscripts to copy and pay you whatever it is Nehesi allows for the librarian.”