Priest of Sin

Each year a ship used to come to this shore, loaded with pretty girls of every race and color. Like all the men in the town, I would go to that ship to drink and dance and indulge myself in the many pleasures of the flesh. The ship was not for the Manetho people only. It was a great sailboat that cast its anchor at every shore of the huge sea. It spent a month in each city. The girls on board never knew dry land. They lived and died without ever setting a foot off the ship. As for the children born of unknown fathers, at the age of eighteen they would be given to one of the dominant port masters. With its distinctive red sail and mast topped by a fluttering red flag, the ship was immediately recognized by all. “The women of Maneth hated that ship and its girls, but for the men it was as a sacred ritual from which nothing could distract them. “Like the other men of Maneth, I religiously rushed to the ship every time it approached the shore. Many nights of that special month would I spend with its delicate girls, unwinding and letting go after a year’s hard work. Until one night I met her. “A girl with strong gestures and long, dark hair down to her feet, a nose as small as the Greek women’s, and her torso was burnished like bronze. “At very first sight, her devil possessed me. It was never to leave. We spent the remaining nights of that month together, sleeping, eating, and drinking away the days on the deck. It was not only that I loved her, but I had to prevent any other man from ordering her. “I didn’t know her tongue, nor she mine, but somehow we communicated in the language of silence. “The remaining nights passed so fast, like the flash of lightning. And when it was time for the ship to go, I asked her to flee with me to the town. But she was terrified of the tyrant captain and would promise only to meet me again the next year. That whole next year I waited in an agony of desire. I spent the time sleeplessly, unable to get her out of my thoughts. Like the boat maker, I fell madly in love with that daughter of devils. And like him I also started to neglect my work and the career inherited from my forefathers. I could do nothing but count the days till the next big day. This was the pattern of my life for four years. My whole year lived in one month. The month of the red ship. “With the perpetual insomnia, I became skeletal and white-haired. I even became unable even to raise food to my mouth. Then did I start to think about how to prevent the ship from landing at the port or even of approaching it. “In the fifth year, when the ship came to Maneth, I stood at the entrance of the ship and shouted to all there, ‘Hey, you men of Maneth, I give you this advice, for your own good, before you come to your death. I have reliable news from the port of Canopus that on board this very ship is a woman with a chronic fatal disease. Anyone who comes close to her will catch it and die.’ “One man shouted, ‘What does she look like?’ “There was only one woman in my heart—and it was only her I could describe. I found myself saying, ‘A brunette woman with long hair down to her feet, a nose small as a Greek woman’s, and a blonde beauty spot on her cheek.’ “I convinced many not to frequent the ship, assuring them that the disease was incurable and would lead to a horrible death. Although some paid little heed and rushed on driven by their lust, many others held back and decided to avoid this evil. “The ship stayed for four days with only a handful of people boarding it, after it had always been visited by all the men of Maneth without exception. “Throughout the four days, I was waiting for someone to come in haste and tell me that the red ship had lifted its anchor and left, but what I wished never happened. The Cretan captain called all the people of Maneth to a meeting by the ship. I was the first to come, watching inquisitively, more nervous than eager to know. “The captain came close to the edge of the ship, drawing my brunette sweetheart behind, and, without uttering a word, he drew her hair down until it touched the deck. Then with his knife he slowly and deliberately drew a circle of blood around her beauty spot on her cheek. With a sudden stroke of the knife, he slit her throat and threw her writhing body into the sea. From the spreading mass of her raven hair rose a devil. With one sudden lunge it flung itself on me.” Tor began sobbing uncontrollably. This infected me so I too found myself wailing and trying to suppress a sharp scream that was struggling to free itself from my chest. It was the scream of a wounded animal whose female was lost in a hunt. So overwhelmed was I with the ardor of love that I found myself burying my head into his arms, saying, “Tor, I tell you her devil still visits me. One month every year. Every time the red ship drops its anchor in the port of Maneth.”