by Brad Geagley
Semerket raised his head from the bowl and looked about the small house. “I never expected to come back here,” he said, almost in wonder.
“Why not?”
“Wasn’t that obvious? I meant to die.”
Nenry remained unmoved. “You mean you’d tired of pounding on Naia’s gate at all hours, heaping shame on yourself and the family?” He expected his brother to fly into one of his dark rages, and waited apprehensively for the explosion.
But Semerket said simply, “No. I’ve done with that, now.”
Nenry grunted sarcastically. “To what miracle does Egypt owe this change?”
Semerket inhaled slowly, and the words came out in a long sigh. “She’s pregnant with Nakht’s child. Did you know?”
Nenry turned a shocked face on his brother. His hostility was forgotten, and he became instantly contrite. “Oh, Ketty!” He drew nearer to his brother, his face inches from Semerket’s. “How did you find out? Who told you?”
“She told me herself.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember. During the Osiris Festival, I think. She took my hand—I felt it stirring…”
“When is it due?”
“I don’t know. Three months? Four?”
“Ketty, I’m so sorry. Truly I am.”
Semerket turned his face to the wall. “Don’t pity me. Not you.”
“Receive it from one, then, who knows what it’s like to lose a son.”
It was as near a confession as Semerket had ever gotten from his brother. Semerket’s eyes began to smart with tears, and he blinked them away, harshly wiping his face with the back of his hand. “Why did you come today of all days?” he groaned. “Why couldn’t you just let me die?”
Nenry raised his head. “I came because I’ve found you work. We thought, my wife and I, that if you had something to occupy your time, you would forget all this.”
Semerket sighed dismally. “ ‘All this.’ ”
Nenry pressed on, his voice becoming excited. “In fact, I’ll wager that when you’ve heard what it is, you’ll give up this terrible idea of drinking yourself into an early tomb. And the best part—you’re the only man right for the job.”
The valet brought them a second jar of wine. Whether it was this second jar, or the fact that Semerket had reached the lowest point in his life and had nothing more to lose, he listened to his brother’s tale without complaint.
Nenry told Semerket of the murder of the priestess, of how the case by chance fell within the jurisdiction of the two mayors, and how the vizier himself had chosen Semerket above all others to lead the investigation—thanks to Nenry’s intervention, of course. What was best, Nenry assured him, was that Vizier Toh had chosen Semerket because of his contrariness and allegiance to none. He was the only one who could do it because he despised everyone.
When Nenry stopped speaking, Semerket was so still that Nenry had to stifle the fearful impulse that his brother had died while he spoke. But he saw his brother blink at last, and Semerket’s next words gave Nenry the answer he needed.
“And you say the priestess was found on the city side of the river…?”
“NO!” MERYTRA SHOUTED at her head man. “The whole effect is in the balance of the reeds with the lotus. Are you too stupid to see that?”
The head man stood up to his waist in the lotus pool, clutching a dripping bunch of papyrus. During the past few days the pool had been painstakingly cleaned of urine and refilled. Merytra had spent a great deal of copper in the bazaars, buying plants imported from the Nile Delta, and new fish. Inching forward with the reeds in his hand, the man hesitated and looked at her for confirmation.
“Yes—there! Exactly so. Plant it.”
Two nights had passed since her husband had last been home. He had told her only that his mission had something to do with his drunken brother, Semerket. There had been no word from him since then. That suited her: she was indifferent to where her husband was, or when he would return.
Her maid, Keeya, stood with her in the courtyard. She was a plain girl (Merytra would tolerate no pretty ones) who sighed and yawned sleepily, holding the pot of expensive, gem-colored river fish far out in front of her. Because she hailed from a town that proscribed the eating of fish for religious reasons, she was in truth appalled by the gulping, gasping creatures.
Merytra noticed that despite the early hour the girl had managed to rouge her cheeks, outline her eyes with kohl, and attach long shimmering earrings of blue faience beads to her ears. Though Keeya knew herself to be plain, she did her best to brighten her appearance with careful attention to her make-up and jewels, cheap as they were.
But the glimmer of Keeya’s beads in the dancing light was a constant, irritating distraction. Gritting her teeth, Merytra forced herself to ignore the blue flashes at the corner of her vision. The head man bent down to plant another bunch of green shoots. Unfortunately his backside caught the lip of the pool’s stone edge, and he plunged forward. The resulting wave of water completely engulfed Keeya.
The girl dropped the jar on the stone floor of the courtyard, where it shattered. The fish slid across the tiles, writhing and flopping, quickly expiring right at the feet of Nenry’s wife. It was the second time that week her fish had been massacred by her servants. “I am surrounded by imbeciles,” Merytra said between clenched teeth.
Her observation was interrupted by a shrill scream from Keeya. “Look at my dress!” she shrieked. “It’s ruined!”
“Your dress?” Merytra fumed. “What about my fish, you little slut? You’ve killed them all!”
“It wasn’t my fault. You saw what he did.”
“I swear you’ll pay for them. I’ll take their cost out of your wages.”
“You can’t blame me.”
Merytra strode quickly over to the girl and slapped her hard across the face. The girl wailed even louder.
“I won’t pay for them! I won’t!” Keeya obstinately shouted between slaps, shaking her head adamantly, blue beads shimmering like beetles’ wings in the sun.
She meant to pull only the girl’s hair, truly, but when Merytra reached out, she felt something cold and metallic between her fingers. Then she heard the satisfying crunch of torn flesh.
Keeya abruptly stopped screaming, looking dully at her mistress’s hand, now clutching the crumpled blue beads. Hesitantly she touched her earlobe and found her hand bathed in blood. Her dress was saturated in red as well.
The neighborhood was ripped apart by Keeya’s shrieks. People stopped their labors to listen. Neighbors climbed to their flat roofs to stare down into the courtyard. They clucked their tongues to witness their neighbor Merytra torturing yet another servant.
It was then that the gate was pushed open by Nenry’s dull-witted valet. Keeya fell abruptly silent and she and Merytra turned to stare. Nenry stood beside a large litter.
Nenry blinked, trying to take in the scene. Blood on the tiles, the serving girl weeping, fish flopping all about… What could have happened?
Merytra strode to the gate and bowed her arms low in exaggerated homage. “Blessed be the day that brings my lord back to his house!”
Nenry, leery of his wife’s sarcastic tone, attempted to speak. “My love—” he began.
But he was interrupted by the invective now pouring from her lips. “So you’re safe. What a fool I was to worry that you were dead or wounded by hoodlums! Why couldn’t you send your man with a message for me?”
“I needed him to help me. My brother was, is, very ill—as you can see.”
At this he turned and indicated the man in the litter. The woolen shawl that covered Semerket barely moved with his breathing.
“In a chair with four bearers, I see—better than any I’ve ever sat in. How much did it cost you?”
“Thirty copper—”
“Thirty? God of thieves and wayfarers, hear him! What—does the chair fly?” She hurled an accusing look at the hired bearers. The men instinctively stepped back into the
alley.
“It was the only chair I could find, my love. I told you, he is ill. Veryill.”
His wife snatched the coverlet from Semerket. “Hungover, you mean!”
There was a slight stirring from the chair. Semerket’s bruised lids were fluttering. Slowly he opened his eyes and the lights of jet in them glittered to see the unfamiliar scene before him. He registered the overly decorated courtyard, his brother’s cringing expression, the bleeding serving woman—and knew precisely where he was. With a slight moan he closed his eyes again, only half-listening to Merytra’s continued diatribe.
“…good money thrown away!”
“My love, please, he is our guest—he’ll hear you.”
“Guest?!”
“I thought it right to bring him here, to tend him more easily.”
“Without asking me?”
“What was I to do? He’s my brother.”
“I am your wife.”
“You said to do something about him!”
“Did I say to bring him here, then, to our home? No doubt he’ll just get drunk again and shame us all. Yelling like a rabid baboon into the night for that whore of a wife he was married to, for everyone to hear.”
Her torrent of reproach ended in an abrupt yelp. Semerket’s hand had reached out from the litter to seize her wrist. She gasped at the pain, tears spouting from her eyes.
Semerket forced Merytra slowly down to her knees so that her face was directly across from his. His voice was low and implacable. “Do you feel this hand,” Semerket asked, “its strength?”
“Let go of me,” she whispered, eyes wide.
“Another word against Naia and I’ll snap your neck like a reed.”
She stared into his black eyes and knew him to be a man of Set, generating chaos and disarray—and violence—wherever he went. She could not rule him by her temper or her quicksilver moods as she could her frightened, malleable husband.
“Say what you want about me,” Semerket continued in the same level tone. “But nothing about Naia, understand?”
She nodded.
He let go of her wrist so suddenly that she fell to the pavement in an ungraceful heap. She looked from her husband’s face, embarrassed and silent, to her servants. Keeya had forgotten her torn ear and gaped at her mistress, sprawled on the courtyard tiles. The head man in the pool stared from behind the grassy reeds. Suddenly, from all the houses that surrounded them, a great cheering erupted. Serving women shrilly ululated and men hooted their approval.
Merytra rose to her feet. Refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, she began to walk swiftly into the house. As she reached the doorway, she broke into a run. From the courtyard, they heard her muffled wails.
Nenry, after a moment, turned to his brother. “You really shouldn’t have done that, Ketty. She isn’t such a bad woman.”
Semerket merely closed his eyes and lay back down in the chair, and so did not see the tiny smile that played briefly on Nenry’s lips.
IT TOOK SEVERAL DAYS before the wine leached from Semerket’s body sufficiently so he could stand without dizziness. During that time he slept on a pallet in a storeroom off his brother’s courtyard. Merytra kept to her room, declaring that she wouldn’t come out “until that madman is gone from my house.” All in all it was a happy arrangement for everyone, and the servants whispered among themselves how they wished their lord’s brother would visit more often.
But Nenry’s wife was forced to break her vow when Lord Mayor Paser came calling, wanting to pay his respects to the new Clerk of Investigations and Secrets. It was in the morning and Paser arrived with his usual army of admiring citizenry. Nenry met him at the gate, bowing low before him, arms outstretched. Merytra remained in the background, tight-lipped with fury that Paser had not sent word that he was coming.
“No, no,” Paser protested, “I only came to see your brother, and will be gone in a trice. But if there should happen to be a haunch of beef about…? Some river fowl might be tasty as well. Fried dates if you’re going to the trouble, for I am feeling peckish this morning. Nothing fancy, mind you—please don’t go out of your way.”
With that Paser strode into the reception hall, while Nenry’s wife and servants flew about preparing the light meal for their honored guest. He seated himself on the biggest chair in the room, and Merytra bit her lip to see its thin ebony legs creak in protest beneath the mayor’s bulk. Semerket, hastily clad in Nenry’s best kilt and collar, soon joined the mayor.
“Well, well, so the man of the hour is here at last, the one whom we all await. Semerket, isn’t it?”
Semerket bent at the waist, holding out his hands at knee level.
The rotund Paser smiled. “Nenry here has bragged of your talents to everyone. We’re expecting great things from you in this sad business.”
Semerket peered at his brother, a doubtful look on his face.
Paser caught the look and laughed. “It’s true. You wouldn’t be here today but for your brother’s having had the courage to speak for you. And let me tell you, when the Old Horror’s anywhere about, even I have difficulty speaking up!” He gave a fond look toward his scribe, who stood diffidently at the rear of the room.
“The Old Horror?” Semerket asked.
“Just my private name for my colleague on the west bank. Pawero.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I’m told you apparently share my opinion of him. What was it Nenry said you called him? A ‘pea-brained old pettifogger,’ wasn’t it? Wonderful!”
Semerket was appalled. “My brother shouldn’t have said it.”
“And why not? It’s only what everyone thinks. In fact, your words were what convinced me the vizier was correct to give you the case.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially, leaning in close to Semerket. “Between you and me, I suspect that Pawero knows more about this business than he lets on. Ah, here’s the food!” Keeya, her ear bandaged, brought in a platter of meat and bread, while Nenry’s valet poured wine into silver bowls. Though Paser’s face was always smiling, his eyes never left Semerket. “Please,” he said, offering a bowl of wine to him, “have some. I insist.”
In the shadows Nenry’s face twisted into a mask of alarm.
Semerket disregarded his brother’s expression and accepted a bowl of fragrant Mareotic white from the mayor’s hands. Nenry was offered none; he could only watch helplessly as Semerket drank, thinking it might undo all his brother’s healing.
“Why does the Lord Mayor suspect his colleague?” Semerket asked.
Paser brought a beef rib to his mouth and thoughtfully gnawed on it before answering. Seeing that Semerket’s bowl was now empty, he poured again. “It’s just my old distrust of the nobility. They’re not like us, Semerket, you and me. We’ve had to play by the rules all our lives while they’ve had a free ride.”
At the back of the room, Nenry coughed. The mayor was mistaken to think that Semerket had ever played by any rules other than his own. Still, Nenry did not rush to correct him and neither, he noticed, did his brother.
“These southern families are the worst,” Paser went on. “They’re just arrogance and privilege! Can you pass the duck? Excellent. And I’ll tell you something else—now that the empire’s almost gone, these families have had to endure shortages for the first time in generations. All the wealth’s in the north now, not here in Thebes. And they don’t like it. I suspect them, Semerket—Pawero most of all.”
“Of what?” Semerket accepted a third bowl of wine from Paser.
“Of everything… of nothing. It’s just an instinct I have, that’s all. Nothing more but nothing less, either. And I’m absolutely convinced that Pawero is hiding something sinister. Now”—here Paser’s gleaming face became sly and importuning, as he sucked the marrow from the rib bone—“if you were to find anything, anything at all that might justify my suspicions, I could be in a position to… well, we don’t have to say it, do we?” He let the promise dangle in the air, unspoken.
Semerket’s face r
emained a mask. “I understand,” he said, ensuring that his words slurred a little.
Paser, absently wiping his fingers on the ebony chair’s cushion, untied a leather bag from his belt and tossed it to Semerket. The bag was full of silver. “I knew you were a perceptive man,” said Paser.
With that the Eastern Mayor rose, bringing the interview to a close with a loud belch. “Count on me, Semerket,” he said. “I am your friend in all things.”
“I will remember, Lord Mayor.”
Semerket did not accompany his brother and sister-in-law to the gate to bid farewell to Paser. Instead Nenry found him a few minutes later at the privy, vomiting out the wine he had imbibed.
THE NEXT DAY Nenry made arrangements to present his brother to the vizier. But shortly before dawn a sandstorm began to blow across the desert and into Thebes. Sand drove itself into the wrinkles of old people and dried on the cheeks of crying children. It swirled in eddies and surged into the huts of the poor, into temples and palaces, and ran in streaming rivulets from unsealed cracks in mud-brick walls.
Shrouded in fine-mesh tunics kept for such days, Semerket and Nenry linked arms and made their way through the deserted avenues to the Temple of Ma’at. They did not speak, the better to keep the grit from their mouths. Though it was mid-morning, it was almost as dark as night in the southern capital. When they reached the temple, they were admitted at once into the vizier’s presence.
“I’ve asked around about you,” Vizier Toh said to Semerket, gazing at him from his small, raised throne. “You are well remembered here.”
Semerket inclined his head.
“But not with fondness.”
Semerket, arms crossed at his chest, merely continued to stare at the vizier from his own low backless chair, placed below the old man’s dais.
It was Nenry who spoke instead. “Great Lord,” he said, his face wreathed in tics, “I informed you that my brother was a plainspoken man, not given to flattery or sweet words.”
“Plainspoken?” the vizier interrupted. “They told me he was rude. Insubordinate to his superiors. Bad-mannered and bad-tempered. Some even call him vulgar.”
