by Brad Geagley
“Yes,” Semerket said bitterly. “Sent to make a hash of everything. I was a drunk, who couldn’t even find his own backside. ‘A vagrant or a foreigner did it,’ you all said.”
Paneb nodded. “If everyone told you the same story, we thought, you’d go away to look for a make-believe stranger. It was Neferhotep’s idea.”
“Did they get to him first? Was it Nef who brought up the idea of robbing the tombs?”
Paneb’s face became flushed with anger, and he nodded. “Yes. He said we could help build a new era in Egypt, get our empire back. We’d all be made into nobles, he promised, with estates. The queen had promised him—and we believed it.”
“But you two fell out. I heard you fighting that day in Hetephras’s tomb. You almost killed him then, didn’t you?”
Paneb again nodded. “Because he kept pushing. Every tomb was to be the last one, he said, but it never was. Nef told us that Queen Tiya was protecting us through her spells and enchantments. But when Hetephras died, it changed everything. I didn’t believe him anymore. I began to hate him, for what he’d brought upon our village, for what I was forced to do. We were artists—we didn’t need titles or riches. That was his dream, not ours.”
Semerket looked at Rami then. “Did you take your mother’s jewels, as Amenhoteb’s oracle said?”
Rami nodded unwillingly.
“Why?”
“Because Neferhotep and Khepura came to me the night before. They said my mother was a… that she was a bad woman, and that everyone would know she was one because you had convinced her to tell the authorities how she got the jewels. I knew where they were hidden.”
Semerket sighed, once again sorry for the role he had played in Hunro’s sad life. “Where are the jewels now?”
The boy shook his head. “I don’t know. I gave them to my fa— to Neferhotep.”
That was all Semerket asked. At his gesture, Qar took them once again to the Medjay jail. Semerket was left alone in the kitchens to consider what they had said.
It was all a terrible family tragedy, he thought—two of them, in fact. One lone murder of a minor priestess in the desert had destroyed a family of artists, and another family living in a palace. In the end, family was the center of everything that was both good and bad in this world, he thought.
Before he left the village, Semerket went a final time to Hetephras’s home to retrieve the body of her cat, Sukis. He had promised the old lady’s spirit—promised himself, really—that the animal would be mummified and laid beside the old priestess in her tomb. But when he searched the house, the cat’s body was missing. He found the cloth that he had wrapped Sukis in after she died—but no corpse. Puzzled, he sat upon the stone bench and wadded the cloth in his hands. From its folds a small metallic object of bright silver clattered to the ground.
It was a small figure of a god. He stared at it. The thing was so small it fit in the palm of his hand, an image of a boy—a prince. On the side of his head was a braided side lock, while his lips were twisted into a mischievous smile. The cartouche at his feet bore the single name of “Khons.”
Semerket remembered how the nieces of the weaver Yunet had told him that the moon god Khons was Hetephras’s special patron, the god whom she most adored. In addition to the moon, Khons was also the god of time—and of games. And he looked remarkably like the prince whom Semerket had met in the desert, on his very first foray into the Great Place. “God-skin,” he had told Semerket, “is made there.” It had been the first indication of what the solution to the priestess’s murder might be. He was the lad who had pointed out Hetephras’s battered wig to the Medjays… and the one who had pulled him to safety from the raging torrent.
Semerket fled quickly from Hetephras’s house. All the way back to Eastern Thebes he said nothing, nor did he speak a word to anyone at his brother’s home that entire evening. He simply kept looking at the tiny silver figure, shaking his head and shivering.
“HAVE YOU CONSIDERED what your reward will be, Truth-Teller?”
Keeping his word to Toh, Semerket had returned to Djamet to meet with Pharaoh Ramses III. They met on a palace terrace overlooking the Nile. Ramses reclined on a couch, his midsection tightly bandaged. On one side of him stood the crown prince; on the other was Vizier Toh. The usual throng of courtiers and servants was kept far away that day.
Since the rains, spring had appeared quickly in Egypt. The hills and cliffs around Djamet were brushed with the bright tints of wildflowers, while the fields next to the river were hazed with a faint fringe of green, emmer wheat thrusting up in the good black earth. Though it was the season for life renewed, on that terrace in Djamet Temple it was death that made a home. Pharaoh’s bandages were soaked with his blood, and his breathing was labored.
“I have considered it, Majesty.”
“Then you will allow me to reward you?”
“Your Majesty, I will.”
“Name it then.”
Semerket took a breath and began. “There are three prisoners, family members of the conspirators, that I beg you to pardon—the wife and child of Nakht, the steward of your harem, and the boy Rami, son of the tomb-maker Paneb.”
“Never.” The word cut like a knife. Semerket instantly sensed the old man’s righteous, unquenchable wrath against those who had betrayed him. “I will never forgive them. Never.”
Semerket dropped his head. “You said to name what I want, and I have.”
A terrible silence reigned.
“Is he always so pig-headed?” muttered Pharaoh at last, looking askance at his vizier.
“I’ve found it’s easier to ask the Nile to flow backward, Your Majesty,” Toh sighed, “than to ask such a man as this to change his mind.”
The crown prince stepped forward hurriedly and knelt before his father. “May I remind my father that I am alive because of this man’s intervention. I would ask Pharaoh to at least know the reasons for his request.”
“Well?” growled the king, sitting back down on his couch. “Speak them.”
Semerket took a breath and began, silently asking the gods to free his tongue. “In exchange for his confession,” he said, “I promised Foreman Paneb that I would save his son.”
“This Paneb,” said Pharaoh, slowly. “Not only was he the killer of the priestess, but he was also the foreman of the team that rifled so many tombs. A strange candidate for such a favor.”
Semerket raised his head. “It is in memory of the boy’s mother that I also ask. Hunro was my only friend among the tomb-makers. She, too, died at the hands of the conspirators, Your Majesty, because she helped me.”
“Hmmph. What about this other woman, then—this wife of Nakht? Why do you plead for her?”
“I was once married to her, Great King.”
The pharaoh snorted. “And she left you for that traitor? Then she is guilty of the crime of bad taste, deserving nothing less than death!”
“She wanted children, Pharaoh. I could give her none. The fault was mine.”
He saw Pharaoh’s eye begin to harden.
“I still love her, Your Majesty,” he added, “more than my life. Even when she went to live in another man’s house, I could not stop loving her.”
There was a terrible silence. Semerket’s head ached from the strain of speaking so many words, and he fell again into obeisance, resting his forehead on the cool tiles. The pharaoh stared at him, like an eagle stares at a hare.
“This is my judgment,” Pharaoh said at last.
Instantly a nearby scribe took up a stylus and wax tablet.
“Naia, the wife of the traitor Nakht, and Rami, the son of the traitor Paneb, are spared execution.”
Semerket’s breath gusted from him in relief. “Thank you, Great King!”
“Do not thank me so soon, Semerket. I am not yet finished.” He turned again to the scribe, directing him to continue writing. “They will be exiled, never again to step foot in Egypt or drink from the waters of the Nile. They will be sent as indentured
servants to Babylon, and there live out their days.”
“Pharaoh—!” protested Semerket.
“Do not ask any more for them, Semerket. My gratitude has limits.”
“What—what, then, of Naia’s child?”
“Let her take the child with her if she wants, or let her give it away. I care nothing for infants. Now go and bid your farewells to this Naia of yours, and the lad, too; a ship carrying our new ambassador leaves for Babylon this very day.”
A spasm of pain gripped Pharaoh, and he grimaced, clutching his side. The crown prince called sharply for a physician, and courtiers began to scramble about like alarmed ants. During the fracas, Semerket slunk away.
Once Semerket had departed the terrace, the crown prince hurried to him. They stood at the top of the stairs that led into the main room of the palace. “Don’t blame my father overmuch, Semerket.”
Semerket shook his head. He was still in shock, unable to speak.
“Though he doesn’t say it,” the prince continued, “this business has truly shaken him. He had convinced himself he was beloved, you see. Then to find out that everything he believed in was a lie—well, that is why he needs you in his last days. You risked your life to save his, and it comforts him to have you near. Please come back. You remind my father that he counts for something in at least one person’s heart.”
“But Pharaoh is loved…”
“A pharaoh is feared. He is worshipped. Adored. But loved? Semerket, I am under no illusions; the red and white crowns are far more wonderful things to see than to wear.” Prince Ramses laid his hand upon Semerket’s shoulder. “You and I will talk together in the days ahead; I do not forget my friends.”
Semerket bowed until the crown prince had returned to his father, then went downstairs into the main room of the palace. To his surprise, he spied the immensely tall Yousef, lieutenant to the King of the Beggars, standing amid a group of his fellows at a far wall. They all were clad in their best, most outlandish garments, cadged undoubtedly from many a Theban noble’s waste heap. The beggars waited in front of a niche that held a silver vase filled with glorious new lilies. Almost hidden in the beggars’ midst was a miniature chariot drawn by a ram.
The Beggar King was clean, for once. Semerket was forced to admit that legless as he was, the king exuded a regal air that many blood-born nobles might envy. When he saw Semerket approaching, he hailed his ally gleefully, flicking the reins against his ram’s backside and driving to where Semerket stood.
“Semerket, savior of the kingdom! Man of the hour! Friend of kings!”
Semerket scowled at his compliments. “I can’t believe you’re here, Majesty. Have you become respectable at last?”
“My brother the pharaoh himself commands me to attend him. At one time or another,” he smirked nonchalantly, “everyone wishes to meet me in person. They say he will even request a favor of me.”
“What sort of favor?”
The Beggar King shrugged.
“Pharaoh and his advisors are being very mysterious,” said Yousef.
“But of course I shall grant it, whatever Pharaoh asks,” said the Beggar King. “We are brother sovereigns, after all.”
At that moment the palace chamberlain came to murmur to the king that he and his company were awaited on the terrace. With their joyful farewells ringing in his ears, Semerket headed again for the temple pylons. From the corner of his eye he noticed that the vase of silver in the niche was missing.
Ah well, Semerket thought—it’s none of my concern. He had sadder things to think about; he was going to the prison at Amun’s Great Temple, to tell Naia that Egypt was no longer her home.
SEMERKET STOOD AT the docks. It was noon. Rami, hands bound behind him, stood at his side. A fast river transport in the royal harbor made ready to depart for the north, and last-minute crates and bales were being stowed on its decks. It was a new ship of shallow draft but wide beam, constructed in the manner of Phoenician vessels, with a keel and ribs. This meant that the ship was capable of voyaging not only upon the river, but also out on the salt seas beyond—something most Egyptians in their keelless boats dreaded.
The new ambassador to Babylon had already gone aboard, along with his gifts for Babylon’s king. As they waited for Naia to be delivered to them, Semerket looked over at Rami. Though he affected an adolescent’s disdain, Semerket could tell he was terrified, and that he probably blamed Semerket for his misery. The lad had lost everything because of the man beside him—his home, his parents, even the girl he was to have married.
“Rami,” Semerket said, “I’m sorry how everything turned out. I wanted you to live in my brother’s house with me, in Thebes.”
“You?” the lad spat. “I’d rather live with hyenas.”
For a while you did, thought Semerket, but he did not say it. Firmly he placed his hand on Rami’s shoulder, looking deeply into his eyes. “Anyway, I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly.”
The boy said nothing, dropping his gold eyes sullenly, and went quickly aboard the ship. He would not stand any longer beside Semerket.
In despair, Semerket gazed down the wide avenue that bordered the wharves. In the distance he saw Naia walking in the company of temple guards. The baby squirmed in her arms, made fretful by the noises and sharp smells of the docks. He embraced them both when she arrived, without speaking, and they stood together for endless moments, saying nothing, oblivious to all and everything around them.
All too soon the impatient captain yelled to them from the deck that Naia was to come aboard instantly. Semerket snarled an epithet in his direction.
“We can’t put it off any longer, my love,” Naia said. She was robed in a simple sheath of mourning gray, and wore a head scarf of the same plain material. She should have been dressed as a queen, thought Semerket bitterly, not a servant.
“I will come for you,” he said to her, taking her free hand.
“You cannot.”
“I will. You know I’ll do it.”
“Oh, Ketty, why do you always make things harder than they need to be? Let us say goodbye here in Thebes, and forever. Put me out of your mind.”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
She was suddenly very angry. “You are a cruel man!” she said in a wail.
The child began to wail too, and Semerket stood looking helplessly at them both. “How can you say that, when you know I love you so?”
Naia looked at Semerket, and there was a strange light in her eye. She kissed the child desperately then, as if she would crush the baby to her. “What I need to take with me now,” she told him, “is the knowledge that you are not suffering. You don’t know how much I need it. It will be the only thing to give me strength to endure—the next thing I must do.”
He did not like her strange tone, nor the odd, determined glint in her eyes. Before he could speak his fears, however, she abruptly thrust the child into his arms.
“Take him,” she said.
When Semerket could only stare, she cried again, harshly, “Take him!”
Semerket was shocked into taking the now-squalling Huni, and held him to his chest. He could not speak, for again his tongue was lifeless in his mouth.
“I want him raised as an Egyptian, by the best man I have ever known and ever will. He is our son, Semerket—remember that. Though Nakht fathered him, the gods gave us a child in the only way they could. It doesn’t matter how we got him—he is ours. I bore him, and now you must rear him.”
“Naia!” He was aghast.
“That’s why you must be happy here in Egypt for me. For if you are not—if you mope and pine for me, and drink yourself sodden—I will know our son cannot be happy. Can you do that for me?”
He forced himself to nod.
The captain yelled at them again, threatening to send down guards to forcibly drag Naia aboard. Reluctantly, Semerket and Naia moved to the gangplank.
Semerket looked at her helplessly. “Naia… the only thing I can think of now is that flower you
saw, after we were first married, in the eastern deserts. Do you remember it?”
“The strange purple flower, high on that cliff. Yes, I remember. I joked that I wanted it for my garden.”
He was weeping now, unabashedly. People on the docks stared. “I could have climbed that cliff. Why didn’t I?”
“Oh, Ketty—it doesn’t matter.”
“Every day since I met you, I’ve looked for your face in all the women I see. None of them is alive to me—only you are alive. But I know now I’ll never see your face again, anywhere.”
With a cry she turned away and hurried on board, not once looking back at her husband and child. The crew was quick to drag the dripping anchor stone to the ship’s deck, and the rowers thrust their oars into the Nile. The ship turned, bow heading to the north, and the river god caught the vessel in his arms and gently pushed it forward. The rowers changed positions, and dipped their oars again. The ship increased its speed, and sailed swiftly past the docks and into the center of the river.
Semerket, with his child in his arms, watched as it disappeared in the bend of the river. But even when he could no longer see the tip of its mast, he did not move. He was thinking, instead, how perverse the gods were. Where once he had despaired of ever having a son, he now had Naia’s.
And he was the unhappiest man in Egypt.
QUEEN TIYA OPENED her eyes and saw the old man at the cell’s door.
“Toh!” she said in surprise.
“Greetings, lady,” the vizier said. “The pharaoh in his mercy has decreed that you are to live.”
“I don’t believe it.” She had no modesty. “Why should he show me mercy now when all my life he has humiliated and bedeviled me?”
“Who knows? Perhaps he grows sentimental in his old age, lady. He has sent this wine to you as a gesture of his goodwill. Will you drink some?”
