The funeral was yesterday; that of Octavius Julius, of the Roman legions and administrator in Egypt, my dearest and truest friend.  The priests were all there, from all the religions; a priest of Jupiter, Egyptian priests to Osiris and Anpu, A Greek priest of some form, even a Jew.
        The priests spoke before the body, mummified in the Egyptian tradition, speaking low words in eulogy to the dead man.  I nearly slept during the Greek's low and long mumbled ceremony, but the Jew cried out in a rage halfway through it:  "How dare you speak so quietly.  News of the death of such a man should be screamed from the mountaintops.  Octavius was a great man, who dealt with all equally, who gained the trust of all those here."  Here I turned and looked at the assembled throng.  "And who was finally brought to death by fortune."  I had not heard that before and wondered greatly at its meaning.  "This is a death that should be called forth so that those beyond will know what sort of man comes."
        There was a roar of approval from the crowd, and I have no doubt that 'those beyond' - although I have always wanted to know 'beyond what?'  (perhaps why I was never able to become a priest myself) - knew exactly what sort of man was coming.
        The body was interred, and this is worth noting as well, not in the after death home of the Roman agents, but in an area where many Egyptian nobles sleep for eternity.  There was weeping, and shrieking to the sky after the Jew's suggestion, and off to one side there were a few silent people in hooded robes.  Curious - as I have been told, I am too curious by half - I approached them.  There were five, and as I approached I saw that two were Roman men of similar age to the deceased, one was an Egyptian woman, one was a child, perhaps a teenager, and though I could not see him well he seemed to be of mixed blood. The last was younger and a bit away from the others; a woman, and Egyptian, and beyond that all I could tell was that she was the most beauteous woman I had ever seen.
        I neared and four of them turned.  The more distant woman's gaze never left the place of the body.  Bowing neatly to the Romans as was proper, I greeted them.
        "I am a mourner and I wished to mourn with those who seemed to need it most," I told them.  Very neat explanation, and it's times like this I understand why my father thought to make me a priest.  The gods must have some contact with me to fabricate a line like that.
        The woman smiled as the men dismissed me.  Closer now, I could see into the hoods although the bright sun cast shadows as dark as the eyes of my beloved.  The woman I recognized as Octavius' consort from the single time I had met her; the only time I saw Octavius after leaving Alexandria the summer after I was told I would never be a priest.  That would mean that the child was his son, and twelve.  I had not seen the boy since his babyhood; I had been told his age was three at the time.  Had it really been ten years since I had seen Octavius?  I do not feel as a man nearing forty, but I suppose I must be.
        The Romans, then. Who were they?  I recalled briefly young friends that Octavius had in his legion; one of them I had seen that day ten years ago, glaring at this lady consort.  So I greeted him, "Caius, governor from Alexandria, I bid you greeting."
        The man looked at me, and I saw recognition dawn.  "The young priest.  You've hair now, I didn't recognize you."
        "Alas, I never finished my training and was unable to honour my line by becoming a priest.  I would join you in mourning a lost friend.  Though I knew him less time than you did, I grieve for him greatly."
        The three adults consulted through looks.  "We are heading to Octavius' estate now that his body is gone," the woman, Eshe I remembered her name to be, answered me.  "Five makes a more fitting number to remember him than four.  You knew him in youth, I knew him as a woman, Caius and Antony knew him throughout life and as men, and Nuru knew him as a son knows a father.  It is fitting."
        I felt my face reflect my confusion.  "But you have five already, do you not?" I asked, looking up and pointing to where the other woman had been.  She was no longer there, nor was there sign that she had stood there watching the burial.  I followed the four to a carriage and we all sat lost in our own thoughts.  Mine at least revolved around the dead man and the two times I had had occasion to see him.
        The first time I met Octavius Julius we were both young.  I was in Alexandria to learn to be a priest.  He had just arrived as a legionary.  One day he had asked for an escort around the city.  I had been giving the teachers trouble, so they put the task on me.
        It was the first time I had seen a man with fire coloured hair and eyes that looked like my sea.  He seemed so far from his home, but he gave me a crooked smile and said hello in my language.  I returned the greeting with some frippery about gods shining on him.
        His smile grew to a laugh and he said in Latin that I shouldn't assume he knew more Egyptian than that.  I smiled and said I'd teach him.  My learning should be worth something, I said in his language that I knew the man behind me who had thought to punish me didn't know.  He laughed again, and the foreign face became familiar to me in that gesture.
        We left and I showed him the city.  I showed him much in the months before I was sent away.  He loved it all, and told me so; first in his language and then, increasingly, in mine.  We spoke of his home and mine, of his work and mine.  He said that he had joined the army just for this, to see other places.
        "If I were to be sent from my land I would die," I told him, not understanding that wish.  "How could you leave all that you know for a stranger's shore?"
        "Because," he answered in my tongue with his crooked smile, "That stranger could be the best friend I could have."
         His words warmed me.
        After a time he grew curious about what I learned.  He wanted to know about our gods.  I laughed at him, but he didn't know how long he would be among us and wanted to know our gods so they could be his. I heard later that he spoke with the Greeks and the Jews and any he could find.  Perhaps he was looking for his goddess.
        He laughed at me and at my father when he learned who my god was.  "How can any wonder why you seem favored by the gods when you're named for one?" he asked amid laughs.  "Romans don't call their children gods.  Themselves, or their fathers, but not their sons."
        I watched him until he controlled his laughter and then continued.  Somehow, Octavius' interest and laughter were the only things that made my training worthwhile to me.  Perhaps I loved him.  He was what made the sun rise and set in my life, rather than Ra, or any of my gods.  He was the one who made sense of the world to me, and not my teachers.  It is possible that I loved him.  But I never thought he was mine.

        "I knew he never loved me," Eshe spoke first of us all, and I wondered at how her thoughts so perfectly mirrored my own.  "Perhaps now that he is dead one of you will tell me of the woman he mourned?"
        "I would, lady," Antony told her, "But we were never privileged to learn her name."
        She sat back with a sad laugh.  "And I had thought you all conspired to keep me from her.  All I ever heard from he who was my love were words of a goddess."
        "So he kept his promise," I said to myself, louder than I should have.  They all turned to me.
        "Please, sir, enlighten us if you know anything of the matter," Antony more ordered than requested.
        I sighed, sharing one of my hoarded and treasured memories of my truest friend.

        "Have you ever loved a god?" Octavius asked me one evening when we were meeting after dinner.
        "I love all the gods," I answered as a good initiate should.
        He smiled at me.  "No, my friend, have you loved a god.  As you love a woman."
        I shrugged, a graceless gesture that Octavius made charming somehow.  I suffered by comparison.  "I have never loved a woman," I said to him frankly.
        His face froze and he looked at me.  "Do you love men?" he asked.
        I blinked a few times and cursed my sheltered life that it took me moments to guess his meaning.  My face flushed when I realized.  "No!" I protested.  "I was marked by my father to lead a celibate life dedicated to the gods."
        Octavius nodded understanding and favored me with a pitying look.  He then threw himself on the ground, rolling a few times.  "I have loved a god.  A wondrous creature, more beautiful than any I have seen on this earth, male or female."  He smiled at me, face radiant.  "I have loved both, my friend, but I will never love another but my sad-eyed goddess."
        I had thought little of his vow at the time, but after, when I thought of the moment, I realized he held a kite's feather in his hand.

        Eshe nodded her understanding, though the men still looked confused.
        "Perhaps a priest may be taken in by that explanation," Caius said, and I recalled how deeply his hate of me went, "But I have known Octavius his whole life.  He never was favored of Roman gods, why should foreign ones care about him?"
        His bitterness, even now that my friend was dead, saddened me.  "How can you know Octavius and not see that he was favored by every god?  How can you have been to that funeral and not see that any god would love him?" I asked.  "One such as Octavius breathes life into the dead eyed, comfort to the heartsick.  He had no enemies save one, and that is rare for a person who lives life as fully as he lived.  He radiated energy, kindness, acceptance.  He forgave where no others would and had the best the world could offer anyone.  How can you say he was not favored by gods?"
        Antony laughed, a deep, rich sound, while Caius glared at me.  I bowed my head, remembering a long ago conversation I should not have heard.  "I see now why you should have been a priest," Antony said.  "But not why you were refused as one."
        With a smile to the friend of my friend, the only one of the trio still in the army, I told him "They wished for those who sought not for answers but for traditions.  I asked them why and they could not answer.  I have sought my gods all my life in ways they would not approve, but perhaps in ways Octavius would have."
        We were all silent for a few moments, thinking of Octavius' lifelong search through every religion he could find for answers.  As Nuru began speaking of his father I lapsed back into my own thoughts, of the conversation I should not have heard between two men.

        "I have told you, Caius," Octavius said in the tired voice I had come to associate with our second meeting.  "I cannot love you now."
        "You did," Caius said, voice strident.  "Why is now different than our youth?  That Egyptian whore you bed?"
        "You know my feelings for her.  Because I have loved you I can't now.  It would do you disservice to love you when my heart is another's."
        "Your goddess," Caius said bitterly.
        "Yes," Octavius answered.  He sighed.  "And only one understands that."
        "That priest?" Caius asked.  "Have you bedded him?"
        After a pause Octavius spoke again, voice startled.  "Amon?  Never!  I could not.  My love for him grew before I loved her and I would not defile it by the comparison that must come.  It is why I can no longer love you, my Caius.  I would ask your forgiveness, but you don't seem inclined to give it."
        "Octavius, you were my only love!  Why must you do this?"
        I could hear the proud man nearing tears.  At the time I rejoiced, but now I thought of him only with pity.

        Nuru had finished and Eshe took over and told the story of their meeting; a story I had heard before, and one made more poignant by recent revelations.  I had thought, the last time it was told to me, that it had ended with her winning his love, but as she herself admitted it was untrue.  All were silent as she began, speaking of the day she had met him, when he was mourning a lost love.
        I saw Caius look at me and knew he thought I was that love, as she had appeared in Alexandria only a few days after my departure.  I smiled at him, knowing the truth.

        "She's gone, Amon," he said, despair in his voice.
        "Who is gone?" I asked him.
        "My goddess, my sad-eyed goddess.  The only one I can ever love again.  She hasn't been there for days now."  He threw himself on the ground, his face, always alive with motion, still.
        "Perhaps she has been busy," I suggested.  "Goddesses have work as all others have work."
        He looked up at me, eyes coming back from the great distance they had been looking at me from.  "Don't you have work, Amon?  It's midday.  I didn't think priest initiates had days off."
        "They don't," I answered.  "I-- have been relieved of my training.  They decided I would not make a proper priest."
        "That's wonderful!" he said, with a smile that almost matched his usual one.  "Now you'll have more time."
        "Yes," I said slowly, "But I will have more time away from here.  I'm to return to Memphis this afternoon.  After I talk to you, actually."
        His smile faded, despair further clouding his face.  "You're leaving as well?  Do all Egyptians I love leave me?"
        I knelt next to him, reaching a hand down to take his.  "If given the choice, none would leave you," I answered honestly.  "But I must."
        He nodded, gripping my hand hard.  As I rose, he pressed something to my palm.  "May she gift you with a love like I have known.  May any gods you believe in walk with you, my friend."
        I smiled, then walked away without looking back.  It wasn't until I boarded the boat to take me home that I even opened my hand.
        He had given me the kite feather.

        Eshe finished her story with a slight laugh.  "He asked me to marry him when Nuru came, but I said I'd only marry him when his heart was mine."  Her smile faded.  "I always thought the day would come someday."
        "I judged him wrongly," I muttered in wonder into the silent room.  All eyes turned toward me and I was forced to give up another memory; more painful but no less treasured.  One that showed the depth of our trust.

        After leaving Alexandria I lived life as well as I could.  I had a love for a time, and I felt that I loved as strongly as he had.  When she chose another, I felt I despaired as greatly as he had.  My love - my only love! - had chosen a Roman over me.  I wept bitter tears, screamed to the heavens for retribution, tore my hair.  I could neither eat nor sleep for days, and I worried both my family and the few friends I had made.  Friends I ultimately lost after I recovered.
        My recovery was sped by a group.  At the time I thought that the gods had sent them to aid me.  I still think that, though for other reasons.  Either way, they turned my life around.  They gave me a purpose.
        Free Egypt.  Kill the invaders.
        After they were done with me, I blamed the Romans for every sorrow that had entered my life.  In my own mind I thought of Octavius and added him to the army of darkness that Romans were.  He had had an Egyptian lover.  He now had another, who had given him a child and who he still hadn't married.  That brought dishonour to all of us and showed what he thought of us.
        When the leader of my local unit discovered our friendship he decided I could finally be useful and he sent me back to Alexandria for the first time in almost ten years to kill the man who used to be my closest friend.
        She opened the door to the house and my breath was taken away.  Then Octavius appeared behind her and my purpose was almost forgotten.  How could this man be what I was taught to hate?  This man who seemed to have all the cares of the world on him and whose laughing mouth and eyes had been twisted by a lifetime of doubt and despair was my enemy?
        His face lit up as he saw me.  "Amon!  My friend!  Come in and meet a Jew," he said, ushering me inside.  He was studying with the Jew, learning the man's religion as he had learned mine.
        "Tell him about my goddess," he practically ordered me.
        "I did not know your goddess, Octavius," I said, some of my anger returning.
        He waved a hand as though it weren't important.  "Just tell him about her.  Tell him about Nephthys.  I want to know if she's in the Jew's life too.  If I have any chance at finding her."
        My eyes widened and I didn't know if I should pity him or hate him.  Did he really think he had loved a goddess or was he - as my comrades would have insisted - giving himself false ties to my home to ingratiate himself with the people.  I complied with his request, telling the Jew about the mourning goddess who cares for the dead.
        Once the man had left, Octavius rested back in his seat looking discouraged.  Eshe, whose name I learned, came in with her child and entertained us with stories.  When she was distracted from speaking by the need to tend her son, I told stories for all of them.
        Caius came in at some point and drew the conversation to himself.  Eshe left soon after.  I could see the animosity between them.  Glancing at Octavius I knew he saw it too and was pained.  Shortly after, Caius drew Octavius aside for a private conversation.  When Octavius reentered the room he was alone.
He smiled at me tiredly, and drew me to my feet.  "Join me in a drink, my friend, and tell me how you have been."
        The opportunity could not have been better.  When his back was turned, I would drop the poison I had been given into his drink.  His hand caught mine before the tablet could leave my fingers.  I looked up at the man standing at my side with the sad, betrayed eyes, and wished that I could reverse time and not do it.
        "I could have you killed, Amon," he said quietly.  "Or exiled."
        In the silence that lowered between us, youthful words rang out. "If I were to be sent from my land I would die."
        He sighed.  "This is not the first attempt," he said, releasing my hand, and dropping into a seat.  He looked back up at me with searing gaze.  "Was it your attempt alone?"  I paused for too long, deciding if it would be better to betray the group.  "I see," he said finally.  "I will not exile you, Amon.  We are the only ones here.  I won't let others know."
        I bowed to him in gratitude and turned to leave.
        "Amon," he called.  I turned back and he was staring at the floor.  "I still consider you my truest friend."
        "And you are mine, Octavius," I answered.
        He nodded and I left, never to see him again.

        "I am telling you this," I finished my tale calmly, "Because I feel that you will all honor his decision in the matter."
        Antony cleared his throat.  "As a general, I cannot condone my friend's choice.  We have, however, all seen and admired your histories of Rome and Egypt."  He smiled slightly at me.  "He used to brag that you were his friend."
        I smiled back, silently thanking him for that.
        "You are safe," Eshe said.  "And welcome here, as an honoured friend of my love."
        I rose to bow to her.  I stayed and listened to Antony and Caius speak, smiling at the Octavius they painted with their words, thinking about my friend and his Nephthys, and fingering an old kite feather in my pocket.
        Caius spoke first, recalling their youth together in Rome and my head was filled with images of a childish Octavius, one mothers would preen over and fathers would brag about.  Caius' story filled the room with laughter.
        After he finished, Antony cleared his throat.  In his strong, soldier's voice he declared, "Octavius knew he would die."  At the aghast looks from the others he continued.  "He did not kill himself, nor was his sickness more than the passing of a day to heal from, but he knew he would die.  I saw him last week and he was jubilant.  He said to me 'Antony, she has returned.  And when next I see her, I will go with her.'  He was dead two days later."
        I straightened in my seat, mind turning over with information.  Ten years ago he had told the Jew he would go with his goddess if given the choice.
        His goddess!
        He had made me recite information on Nephthys to the Jew.  A goddess who dealt with the dead.  And the kite feather I caressed....  Nephthys often appeared as a kite.  It was in that form that she was depicted on sarcophagi.  His goddess returned; a goddess of death, taking him from this life to the next.  Or perhaps taking him somewhere else to be with her.  Didn't the mourning goddess, mother of Anpu who ruled the dead, deserve that happiness?
        I rested back in my seat to find Antony looking at me with a question in his eyes.  I shook my head.  He would not understand.  He continued to look at me closely through Nuru's next remembrance, and then he rose.
        "I will drink to the dead," he announced.  "Any who would drink come with me."  We all rose and followed him.  As Caius spoke with Eshe, Antony approached me.  "What do you know that we don't?" he asked.
        "Nothing, sir," I answered in all honesty.  "Nuru," I addressed the boy, "I will leave early tomorrow.  I would speak with you then."
        The adults tried to decide what I was hiding as they watched me.  I smiled, knowing that none of them would guess, and raised my glass to toast he who had been a friend to us all.  They echoed my salute, added their own, and before long we were remembering Octavius over dinner, and long into the night.

        I awoke earlier than the others, glad I had kept my head somewhat clear in the midst of the toasting.  I had a long journey ahead of me, and much to think of as I made my way once more from Alexandria to Memphis.
        Eshe had gifted me with the remains of dinner and I wrapped these in a clean cloth for the journey home.  Perhaps if any completed the journey my beloved would wish to taste Alexandrian food.  She had never come this far.  I remained quiet to save them trouble, but hoped that the boy would remember my request and wake.  I had little idea if it was likely or not, but wished to speak with him in private if I could.  Somehow, I thought, Octavius' son would be most likely to understand him.
        As I reached the outside door, Nuru caught up to me.  He looked at me almost expectantly, as if he knew what I wanted.  At this close range I could see his father in him, and thought that perhaps someday a goddess would come for him.
        I pulled out the kite feather.  "This was a gift from your father to me."  I paused, trying to remember his words to me from that day.  "May you be granted a love as strong as his.  And may your gods walk ever with you."
        I paused a moment, trying to decide what to tell him.  "I was honoured last night with a wondrous dream.  There was a beautiful woman in it watching as Octavius had his heart weighed against Maat's feather.  The scales dipped deeply with his heart on the lower scale.  She took a step toward him and he looked up to see her.  Light entered his eyes, joy to his body, and his heart was weighed equal to and no more than the feather."
I smiled at the confusion on the boy's face.  "He is happy.  He is with his goddess."  I rested my hand on his head.  "There is much of your father in you.  I hope your path brings you as much joy and less sorrow."
        Without waiting for an answer I bowed and left the estate.  My feet took me back to the place of his burial and I placed the remains of my meal on the altar for him.  There was a sound and I looked up in trepidation.  A long, dark cloak rested over the head of the sarcophagus.  A kite sat atop it, looking at me.
        I held her eyes for a moment, then she gave a shriek and lifted into the air, sailing straight for the sun, it seemed.  I quickly lost sight of her.  But when I looked back at the sarcophagus, there was a single feather waiting for me.  I picked it up reverently, thanking the goddess and my friend for their gift.  After running my fingers down it, I placed it in my pocket where the last one had ridden all these years and turned to make my way home.