by Brad Geagley
“Good. I didn’t want to see them anyway. It’s that truth-teller I want to talk to. What’s his name…?”
Tiya’s rich voice suddenly broke through the din in the audience hall. “Do you mean the clerk Semerket, my lord? Have you not spoken with him yet, then?” It seemed an innocent question to all around her. Only Nenry, cringing at the back of the hall, heard the edge in it; Tiya was unsure whether Semerket was alive or dead, whether he had reached Pharaoh in secret.
The queen had possessed the foresight that morning to take with her a cape infused with beeswax. She now stepped from its folds to emerge as dry and composed as always. Other than a little dew on her wig, no other traces of the rain were to be seen on her. Prince Pentwere skulked behind his mother, also wrapped in a slicker, his eyes swollen from weeping.
As Pharaoh was stripped of his hunting habit, he turned on his wife. “It’s a sad day, isn’t it, when one finds out the gods don’t exist?”
“Whatever can you possibly mean, Ramses?”
“I prayed the waters of the Nile would swallow you up, but you’re not even wet.”
Nenry saw the flash of cool hatred that sparked in Tiya’s eye then, but in front of he courtiers she became all consideration and comfort. Taking a towel from a servant she began to rub Pharaoh vigorously. “You talk such nonsense at times,” she said lightly.
Pharaoh’s eye lighted on Pentwere. “A fine day you picked for a hunt, sir,” he called over to his son. The prince said nothing, staring at his father with strangely burning eyes. Momentarily astonished, Ramses turned to Tiya and asked, “What’s the matter with him? Has he been bitten by a rabid ape?”
“Assai is missing. He fell overboard.”
“Missing? Assai? Are they searching for him?”
“Of course.”
“Well,” said Ramses grudgingly, “they’ll find him.” An unholy light shone in his eye, and the old man could not resist a final jab. “But if they don’t, perhaps your son might bed with a woman now and again. Millions recommend it, you know.”
There were small gasps from the courtiers. Pentwere cast off his slicker and his fists tightened. Tiya shook her head at him, so slightly that she might not have done it. Pentwere reluctantly dropped his red gaze, muttering, “Yes, Father.”
Tiya finished toweling Ramses. “There. You’re dry. Go to your rooms now for a warm bath. I shall send my masseuse to you.”
“I have my own masseuse!”
Tiya took a breath before she continued. “Well then, afterward, come to the harem and your wives will beguile you. We’ll make sure all your cares slip from your shoulders. You’ll see.”
No one but Nenry, out of all those assembled, seemed to think her words betokened anything other than the queen’s usual forbearance toward her irascible husband.
“Well,” said Ramses, somewhat mollified. “Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps. Send Semerket to me, first, when he’s found. A rare fellow of good sense, he is.”
“Really?” sniffed Tiya. “Rather too fond of wine for my taste. But when he comes here again—if he does—I will know what to do.”
Satisfied, Pharaoh indicated to Pawero that he should assist him to his apartments.
“Your Majesty!” Nenry found his tongue and called desperately after the king. “Please! I must see you! A matter of state!”
Tiya furiously overrode him, chastising Nenry before the courtiers. “Later, you idiot! Who was that?” She glared at him. Nenry cast down his eyes, not wishing to be recognized as Semerket’s brother. He crouched in the shadows. “Can’t you see how tired and ill he is? He has no time for business tonight! Come back tomorrow.” She called out to a chamberlain, “I want no one to disturb you. Do you understand? No one. Pharaoh must have his rest.” The man inclined his head, and fell in line behind Pawero, accompanying Pharaoh into his rooms.
Tiya, surrounded by her ladies, ascended the stairs that led to the harem. Halfway up, the courtiers heard the queen suddenly chuckle to herself, the tinkling sound of little bells, enjoying a joke that only she heard. Moving with her usual feline grace, she went to prepare herself for Pharaoh’s arrival.
Nenry stared after her in panic. He had failed to intercede with Pharaoh. Moving numbly through the throng of milling courtiers, he wore a dazed expression. Having been so sharply rebuked by the queen, he was given a wide berth by the others. Disfavor at court, apparently, was contagious. He moved swiftly down the hall and out the temple gates to rejoin Yousef.
“I wasn’t permitted to speak to him,” Nenry almost wailed. “And she’s inveigled him into the harem!”
“That’s not our only problem,” said Yousef. He nodded in the direction of the Nile. Barely seen at the end of the canal was a large warship. It had arrived only a few moments before, Yousef said, while Nenry was inside the temple. Armed soldiers were streaming down its gangplank. Nenry gasped, for he recognized their uniforms: it was the garrison from Sekhmet’s temple.
Mayor Paser and High Priest Iroy stood at the rear of the ship. Iroy was the first to disembark, leading a gang of slaves who carried his supplies into the rear of the temple. Paser was next off, following the soldiers as they marched in formation to the Great Pylons.
At the gates, one of the guards challenged their right to enter. Paser gave orders to his captain. There was an abrupt shout from one of the temple sentries, a flash of copper, and the sentry fell to the ground clutching his side. When he was dragged away, a stain of red melted into the wet paving stones.
The sentry’s commander came running to where Paser stood, profusely apologizing for the man’s stupid behavior. The commander gave the order to the rest of his men to withdraw from this and every succeeding gate within the temple. They were to be replaced by the men from Sekhmet, he said. This was such an odd command that the men at first seemed hesitant to leave.
“Go to your barracks,” commanded the guard captain. “And wait there for me. New orders have come in.” Soon every guard had been replaced by a man from Sekhmet.
Paser stood at the outer pylons, congratulating himself on the smoothness of the guards’ transition—an entire temple complex had been delivered into his hands with only a single death. “Perhaps I should have been a general,” he thought. As he was preening, he heard a member of the Sekhmet garrison mutter in disgust.
“Horus’s balls!” the soldier said. “I thought the beggars were bad across the river. But here—look at them—just like rats from the sewer!”
Paser looked about the glistening temple square for the first time that night, and beggars indeed lurked in every niche, behind every statue, under every tree. The mayor’s lip curled. When he was vizier, as the queen had promised, he would throw every last one of them to the crocodiles. What a relief never to rely again on the favor of the poor and humble. Those days were over at last. He would be a different man when he was vizier—for then he would be a noble, something else Queen Tiya had promised. Paser sniffed, preening again, glad to be beneath the pylons and out of the rain.
Lightning scalded the courtyard. In its lingering flash something struck the fat mayor as odd. The man that huddled in a distant crowd of beggars looked so ridiculously like his simple-minded scribe, Nenry. A certain cast of feature, a vaguely reminiscent tilt of the head…
The Eastern Mayor looked again, but it was now too dark to see across the courtyard.
“Ridiculous!” Paser said, chuckling to himself. Nenry was of course safely on the other side of the river with that awful wife of his.
ONE OF THE BEGGARS who had crossed the Nile into Djamet did not accompany the rest of them to the temple. Instead, when his skiff touched the western side of the Nile, he slipped quickly away, alone, throwing off his beggar’s rags and climbing the pathway that led into the Great Place. Following Qar’s precise instructions, Semerket found the Medjay headquarters without becoming too lost even though the rain had begun to fall and no stars served to light his way.
The headquarters were located in an abandoned t
omb bordering the Place of Beauty. The command post was no more than three rooms in length, arranged in a descending row of square stone boxes. Generations before, Qar had told Semerket, tomb-makers had painstakingly carved out the rooms before discovering a deep rift of quartz that cut diagonally through the mountain. Deemed unsuitable for further digging, the unfinished tomb made an excellent, if rough-hewn, headquarters and prison for Captain Mentmose and his gang of Medjays.
Medjays surrounded Semerket now in the first room, where arms and armor were stored in niches carved into the walls. He had gathered the soldiers together as soon as he arrived, soberly telling them of the plot against Pharaoh’s life, and of the stolen treasure he had found hidden in the tomb under the tomb. Before he could even ask for their assistance, however, one of the Medjays spoke against him.
“What hope is there against an army?” asked the Medjay in disgust. “They are thousands and we are not even twenty. We’d be throwing our lives away, and for nothing!”
“He’s right,” agreed another. “I say that we join up with Queen Tiya. Who wants a northerner as Pharaoh anymore? Good riddance, I say. Let Pentwere rule.”
The Medjays had always regarded him as an interloper, Semerket knew. Despite his friendship with Qar, the other Medjays had shunned him. To them, he was a man of Eastern Thebes, appointed by the vizier, sent to do a job rightfully theirs. The fact that he had discovered such a terrifying plot against the state did nothing to endear him to them. Semerket intuitively knew that some of them, no doubt, had thrown in their lot with the tomb-makers long before.
“Queen Tiya and her men have perpetrated the most terrible crime in the history of Egypt,” Semerket said, “and it was done under your watch.”
He saw fear and shame rise in some of their faces, defiance in others. If the stolen treasure indeed left the Great Place, and should the theft be discovered and prosecuted, the most lenient sentence the Medjays could look forward to was a term in a Sinai copper mine. The Nubian policemen were foreigners, hired mercenaries, and harshly treated when they failed in their duties.
“Tonight they mean to move the treasure to the north,” continued Semerket, “again under your noses. It may be that Tiya will succeed, I don’t know. But I mean to stop them, whatever the cost to me—with or without your help.”
Semerket began to fasten a breastplate to himself. For a moment none of the Medjays moved. Finally, Captain Mentmose reached for his own armor, and began fastening the straps. One by one, the others prepared themselves for battle as well.
“We’ll hide behind the crags, across from Pharaoh’s tomb,” said Mentmose. “When they come out, loaded down with treasure, we’ll attack.”
“I’m sure they won’t venture into the valley until they think you Medjays are sleeping,” said Semerket. “We must go into the village, in the meantime, to free Hunro.”
A silence fell on the room. Suddenly the Medjays were busying themselves with adjustments to their swords and rebuckling their armor. Foreboding crept up Semerket’s spine.
“What…?” he said.
“Did not your brother tell you?” Captain Mentmose whispered. The Medjay regarded him for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, he spoke. “Hunro is dead, Semerket. She was stoned to death earlier today by the villagers, in the field behind their temple that they use for such things. We arrived too late to stop it.”
Semerket looked up and out the door at the black rain falling in the Great Place.
“Tell him the rest,” said Thoth loudly. He was the Medjay who had wanted to join up with Tiya.
“Quiet!” commanded Mentmose.
“What?” Semerket asked, so faintly that it might have been a sigh. His eyes were blacker than the Medjays had ever seen them.
Glancing defiantly at his captain, Thoth took a step toward Semerket. “They told me she called your name at the end. Even at the last she was convinced you’d save her.”
THE RAIN BECAME HEAVIER as Semerket and the Medjays made for Pharaoh’s tomb. Thunder echoed in the Great Place, loosening rocks and pebbles so that they cascaded onto the pathway from cliffs above.
“Listen for any rushing water,” Mentmose warned them. “Keep to the high paths.”
A sudden flash of silent pink lit up the valley. The pungent smell of scorched air permeated the pathway where they walked. They trudged in blackness, slowly, on the limestone paths, careful to keep away from the slick edges. Mentmose led the way.
Semerket followed in a slough of misery, barely noticing the oozing mud that sucked at his sandals and made him stumble. He was thinking of Hunro, and how he had failed her so utterly. She had been the only villager who had been friendly to him, the only woman to have engendered a spark of feeling in him since Naia. Because he had urged her to betray her neighbors, she had been killed, and horribly.
Semerket groaned aloud, sinking into further agony. I’ve failed every woman I’ve ever known, he thought. No one is safe around me…
He had driven away his life’s love, Naia, being unable to give her a baby, the one thing she wanted most. The dullest of sewer dredgers could father a child, he moaned to himself—but even that was beyond him.
His heart sank further as he considered the task ahead of him that night. If he stayed, disaster would no doubt be the outcome of the evening’s venture. Crowding upon that thought, he suddenly heard again the mocking voice of Queen Tiya in his mind. “You told me he was a drunk, unable to find his own backside…” Her exact words were lost to him, but he realized now that he had been given the investigation into Hetephras’s murder only because he was not expected to solve it.
A terrible thirst suddenly seized him, a fever on his tongue. He looked furtively over his shoulder to see how many Medjays followed him. Gradually, Semerket let them pass him until he was at their rear. He would leave, he decided, go back into the city. He had only to hang back a little more, slip down one of the trails, and make his way into Thebes. He craved an inn with a friendly serving maid and a jar of red that never emptied. A few jars of wine, and then he would be able to deal with the memories of the entire stupid panoply of his stupid wasted life—
“We’re here,” Mentmose said.
Semerket was caught short. They were on the other side of the wadi, across from Pharaoh’s tomb.
Though the rain was far from torrential, already small rills of water were beginning to snake down the cliffs of the Great Place, to form fast-flowing brooks on the desert floor. Mentmose and the Medjays took up their positions, hiding in the outcroppings of the cliff, melting into the mountainside. Even when another flash of pink lightning brightened the canyon, Semerket could not see them.
Sodden and miserable, Semerket settled down beneath a rocky out-cropping. He was grateful that it afforded some minuscule protection from the wet. A few seconds later another heart-stopping peal of thunder resounded through the Great Place. He pulled his mantle up, soggy as it was, and settled in to wait.
He could not discern whether hours passed or only moments. The steady drip of water and the endless pervasive dark were always the same. It was too late to decamp for Thebes, he knew. At any rate, it was better to die on the sands of the Great Place, he thought, in the service of something bigger than himself, than on some tavern floor. As he waited for what the night would bring, a leaden torpor enveloped him.
Semerket awakened with a start. Something had disturbed him— the sound of a wooden key being inserted into the tomb’s door. He stared across the wadi and saw distant figures disappearing into the cliff-face… or imagined that he did. Then he heard the distinct thud of the door as it shut behind them. Yes. The beggars were there. He wondered if the other Medjays had seen them. A few minutes went by, and then the door of the tomb opened once again—
Torchlight flooded into the valley, shining from inside the tomb. Semerket crept forward to observe, amazed by their boldness. Beggars clustered at the tomb’s entrance, baskets of treasure already strapped to their shoulders. The scribe Neferhotep dir
ected their endeavor. Semerket could hear the whining tones of his voice, though in the patter of the rain his words remained indistinct. The beggars began to move into the wadi, trudging to the north.
They were already leaving! He looked about wildly, searching for the Medjays. Now was the time to attack! Why were they hanging back?
Across the wadi, emerging from the rear of the tomb, quite distinguishable in the firelight, a group of Medjays appeared—carrying baskets of treasure. Semerket’s heart sank; as he had suspected, some of the Medjays were indeed in league with the conspirators.
Semerket groped his way to where he had last seen Mentmose. Heedless of the stones that he dislodged, he climbed a crag leading to an upper ledge of rock. A streak of distant lightning scarred the sky and allowed him to see Mentmose sitting quietly on a ledge above, asleep.
Semerket’s veins were infused with sudden fury. Damn him! The captain was allowing the beggars to get away, accompanied by his own men! He climbed the last few cubits to the ledge, scrambling to where the man dozed. “Mentmose—!” he hissed. He reached forward, touching his shoulder. Even at his touch Mentmose did not wake. Semerket nudged him again, and the captain merely slumped to his side, as though he might tumble from the cliff. Semerket reached out to grab him. When he brought his hand back, it was covered in something slick. The ferrous smell of it told Semerket the rest of the story—the captain was dead, struck from behind.
Before he could register the enormity of what had happened, a clipped, aristocratic voice cut through the dark from behind him. “I don’t believe it,” Nakht said. “Are you some kind of god or devil that doesn’t—ever—die?”
Semerket immediately attempted to leap down the cliffside, but he was checked by Nakht’s sword at his throat. “Not quite so fast, Ketty. I’m afraid the treasure must leave as scheduled, and we can’t have you spoiling the party yet again.” Semerket glanced down; even in the dark he could see that the blade was covered in blood. It was Nakht who had killed Mentmose.
