The Singer from Memphis

by Gary Corby

  Diotima laughed.

  “That’s it?” I said.

  “I’m afraid so.” The High Priest rummaged again. “Oh, a moment. Amun repeated his response, but this time instead of great Tjaty, he said Tjaty of Tjaties. Of course, in the Egyptian tongue, it comes to the same thing.”

  “Thank you,” I said politely, trying hard to hide my annoyance.

  “The final question, for the Athenian lady. Who is the rightful Pharaoh of Egypt.”

  This was the moment all our work would come undone. Barzanes and Markos would learn Djanet’s true identity.

  The High Priest peered at the response.

  “Amun the Wise says this: Siwa awaits the Macedonian.”

  “Who?” Diotima said. It wasn’t the reply she expected. “Is anyone here Macedonian, by any chance?” She glanced at Djanet.

  We all shook our heads, including Djanet, which was no surprise since I had never seen anyone who looked less Macedonian.

  “It’s obvious nonsense,” I said. “Macedonians can barely rule themselves. They’re far too busy killing each other.”

  Markos nodded.

  “Nicolaos is correct,” Barzanes said. “If Persia rules Egypt, as the God predicts, then the Great King is Pharaoh, and the Great King is certainly not Macedonian.”

  “I’m afraid Amun got that one wrong,” Herodotus agreed.

  Luckily, the High Priest was not offended by our words. “The God says these things. We generally find that they turn out to be true.”

  We thanked him for his courtesy. Herodotus offered a substantial donation to the temple, “For the backs of those poor carriers.” Barzanes, too, in the pleasure of knowing that Persia would rule Egypt, promised great reward to the oracle. “A camel train will bring riches,” he said.

  Barzanes and Markos were both quite happy with the outcome. From their viewpoint, failing to find the crook and flail was as good as winning it for themselves. I noticed that it had been some time since Markos had attacked anyone. I pulled him aside and asked about this.

  “Barzanes and I have come to an accommodation,” Markos admitted candidly.

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Honestly, there’s no point fighting until there’s something worth fighting over,” Markos added.

  “How about that contract?”

  “As it happens, I’ve been offered another contract, a quite different one.”

  “Oh?” Things had been happening while I wasn’t watching. That made me nervous.

  “I’m not at liberty to talk about it,” Markos said.

  “I see.”

  We rejoined the group, who were making the long walk down the steps of the temple.

  Djanet said, “Well that didn’t work, did it? I’m in a depression.”

  “The Qattara Depression?” I said helpfully.

  “No, you idiot, a real depression. Could the crook and flail truly lie with the Tjaty, as the God says?”

  “If so, the Tjaty’s fooled everyone,” I said. “I could have sworn he wanted it as much as everyone else.”

  I mulled over this question as we walked. It made absolutely no sense that the Tjaty had the crook and flail. He had killed Max because of it! The Public Service might be a bunch of sadistic bureaucrats, but not even they would kill a man for something they already had.

  I thought through every word that the Tjaty had ever said to me. Was there some clue in there?

  Suddenly I said, “Wait!”

  Everyone stopped in mid-step and looked at me. We were halfway down the hill, or halfway up, depending on how you looked at it. I said, “Herodotus, you told me you wanted to inspect the boat. For your book.”

  “Did I?” He sounded confused.

  “You did,” I said firmly. “Come along now, so we don’t have to climb these steps twice.”

  I grabbed him by the arm and practically dragged him back uphill. None of the others offered to join us. They were all tired of Herodotus’s interminable questions.

  “Nico, do you mind if we head back down?” Diotima called up to us.

  “Go ahead, we’ll join you at the inn later,” I called back. The party went on without us.

  “Where are we really going?” Herodotus asked as we walked.

  “To see the High Priest,” I told him. “There’s one last question we should have asked, and I don’t want Markos or Barzanes to hear it. I think you’re going to enjoy this.”

  The High Priest sat at the desk in his office. He looked up as we entered, showed no surprise, and said, “Yes?”

  I got straight to the point. “Sir, is the tomb of Imhotep around here, by any chance?”

  “I thought you would never ask,” said the High Priest.

  •

  I told Herodotus he wasn’t allowed to make notes. We didn’t dare risk Barzanes or Markos reading them.

  “We all thought Great Tjaty must mean the current man,” I said by way of explanation to Herodotus. “It’s normal to place ‘Great’ in front of the title of an important man, as the High Priest mentioned.”

  The High Priest acknowledged that with a nod.

  “Then on the steps down I remembered that the current Tjaty had called Imhotep Greatest of the Tjaties. He said it when I first met him, in the secret chamber under the temple of Bast. The Public Service venerate Imhotep as if he were a god. They even keep a statue of him in their chamber. Suggestive, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” said Herodotus. “That’s all very well, Nico, but what made you think the tomb would be here?”

  “Because we know the body of Psamtik was shipped to Siwa! If he lies with the Greatest of the Tjaties, then Imhotep must be here too. Though I don’t understand why.”

  The High Priest looked pleased with me. “Imhotep created the first pyramid, as you probably know,” he said.

  “Yes, we know that,” Herodotus said. “It was the largest stone structure ever built by man in its day. A marvelous achievement.”

  “Well, you don’t think he got it perfect on the first try, do you?”

  “You mean—”

  “Imhotep came here to practice, out of sight of the Egyptian public, where if the first few attempts at a House of Eternity fell into rubble, it wouldn’t be quite so embarrassing.”

  Herodotus laughed. “And when he finally got one that stood up, he decided to use it for himself.”

  “Correct.”

  “I understand quite a few men have searched for Imhotep’s tomb at Saqqara,” said Herodotus.

  “They’re grave robbers, all of them, one way or another. There’s no need to tell them. The great man deserves his peace.”

  “I agree with you entirely.”

  “As to that, I must have your word that nothing in the tomb that is Imhotep’s will be touched.”

  “Definitely not. We will swear it,” said Herodotus.

  “Sir, what of Psamtik and his grave goods?” I asked. “I must warn you we intend to—”

  “Take it. Yes, I know. You are welcome to all of it.” He shrugged. “There are some jewels, some gold. Baubles that enrich a man in life but do nothing for his soul. Certainly nothing that anyone alive has any right to.”

  He was wrong about that, but I wasn’t about to enlighten him.

  “In fact, I’d be pleased if he was removed. The man did himself no credit in life and his presence in the same tomb as Imhotep is an insult.”

  Herodotus and I swore by Zeus, by Athena and by Amun that Imhotep would not be disturbed in his rest.

  Herodotus hesitated, then said, “High Priest, may I ask a question?”

  “Please.”

  “It seems to me that you may have told a slight fib this morning, when you said that you didn’t know where to find the sarcophagus.”

  The priest smiled, ever so sl
ightly. “Your Persian and Spartan friends were with you.”

  “So you did lie.”

  The High Priest said crossly, “Every word from the oracle was truth. It came from the god Amun, via our diviners. It is against our religion to alter the God’s words, and I would be upset if anyone suggested otherwise.”

  “Oh. My apologies.” Herodotus was contrite.

  “As to what was said before that . . . I am a Libyan. The Egyptians are our brothers. Sometimes a priest’s words will be phrased for a greater good,” the priest said with a straight face.

  “Ah.” Herodotus smiled.

  “It so happens that I have a map of the Siwa locale, showing places of interest for the casual tourist, including the location of any tombs of note.” The High Priest pulled out a sheet of papyrus. “Would you like a copy?”

  The Imhotep Incident

  “We will need bearers,” Djanet said.

  “Why?” Herodotus asked.

  “Well we can’t come back here after we’ve collected the crook and flail, can we? Not if you want to avoid Barzanes and Markos. We’ll have to visit the tomb, then keep on going. All the way across the desert. So this is it. We collect the crook and flail, take the treasure we find, and we leave. We’ll need men to carry the treasure. We’ll need supplies, we’ll need water.”

  I was impressed. “You’ve thought this through ahead of time,” I said.

  “Very carefully, believe me,” Djanet said. “I’ve thought about nothing else for a long time now.”

  “When do we do it?” Herodotus asked.

  “It can’t be at night,” Diotima said. “We’d never find anything in the desert, even with torches and a map.”

  “Nor can we leave in daylight,” I said. “It would be obvious.”

  “Therefore we must leave before dawn, timed so that it is first light as we arrive at the tomb,” Djanet said.

  This was such perfect planning that we all nodded in agreement.

  “I go now to arrange men and supplies,” Djanet said.

  Not for the first time I mourned the passing of Max. Not only because he was a fine man, but because he too could have talked with the locals in their own language. As it was, Djanet would have to make all the arrangements.

  The remainder of the day was spent in rest. Barzanes interpreted our inaction as depression, due to what he thought was the failure of our mission.

  “I cannot say I am sorry,” Barzanes said to me, as we sat in the cool shade of the inn, drinking the local beer. “Had you found the crook and flail, I would have been forced to intervene. We would both have regretted that.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Barzanes ordered more beer for us both and sat back in what passed for him as a state of relaxation, which meant that his back was a little less straight than usual.

  “You serve your country and I serve mine, Athenian. It means we are often at odds, but when we are not there is no reason why we cannot converse.”

  That took me aback. It was the closest thing to a friendly overture that I had ever heard from the Persian.

  “Listen, let me give you some advice,” I said. “When you’re back in Egypt, look out for Markos.”

  Barzanes nodded. “Megabazos hired the Spartan to kill me. Of this I am aware. Know that one of my men has watched him continuously since we joined forces.”

  “Why don’t you simply kill him outright?”

  “Unfortunately the Great King wishes to make a friend of the Spartans. They would not take it well if one of their agents was killed by one of ours. Not without proof of ill-doing, at any rate.”

  He was more sanguine than I would have been.

  Barzanes drank more beer. Then he said quietly, “There is another reason I keep the Spartan alive. When he finally makes his move—and I am sure that he will—I intend to capture him alive. I will then cart him to Susa, where he will stand before the Great King and confess, under torture if necessary, that it was Megabazos who hired a Spartan to murder me. This the King will not be able to ignore, and I will finally have eliminated a corrupt official of my people.”

  “Dear Gods, Barzanes, you’re using yourself as your own stalking horse!”

  “Yes.”

  Barzanes was the coldest man I had ever met, but I admired him as a most competent enemy.

  I wanted to see Markos before we left. I found him by the edge of the lake, the beautiful lake that gave life in the middle of this desert. He sat in the shallows with a couple of the local men. They all held cups.

  “I’m learning the language,” he said, when I joined them. He held up an amphora. “Would you like some beer?”

  “I’ve had enough,” I said. “I was drinking back at the inn.”

  “Nothing else to do, now that your mission’s failed,” he said. “I’m glad the treasure wasn’t here, Nico. If it had been, we would have had to fight over it.”

  “Would we?”

  “You don’t think I could go back to Sparta and admit I let an Athenian get away with such a big advantage, do you?”

  “Well, it’s not a problem now,” I replied, and tried to sound sad. “Diotima and I will have to return to Athens and admit failure.”

  “Will you get into trouble?”

  I thought about it. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Egypt is far away. Siwa is even further away. Everyone knows these things are chancy. Pericles will shout at me. It’s not like I haven’t heard that before.”

  “Give my fondest regards to your boss.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that. It’ll make him shout even louder.”

  I sat in the water beside them while Markos continued his conversation with the local men. The Siwans were much amused. At first I thought they were laughing at Markos’s attempts. After a while I realized they were laughing with him. Markos had picked up the tongue very quickly and, inevitably for Markos, he was using it to tell jokes.

  I complimented him on his fitting in so well.

  “I rather like it here.”

  “Why don’t you stay?” I said abruptly.

  He looked at me with an odd expression. “What makes you say that?”

  “In your heart, you’re no more a Spartan than I am. You can do better elsewhere. You’d certainly be happier elsewhere. You said to me, back in Memphis, that you could have been a comic. Well, disappear on this continent and no one will ever know. Be a comic!”

  “Now you’re giving me career advice?” he said. “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing, except I wish you well, strange as that may seem. I admired you from the day we first met, back at the Olympics.”

  “We talked about this before. I can’t do it. I need to be at the center of things.”

  “All right then, at least do me this favor: when you go back to Egypt, don’t continue the contract on Barzanes. Go back to Megabazos and say you failed.”

  “Why are you saying this?”

  “I don’t want to see friends fight each other.”

  “Friends?”

  “Colleagues then,” I said impatiently. “You’re making this difficult.”

  Markos drank his beer and watched the water for a long time. Then he said, “I’ll think about it.”

  “Thanks, Markos.”

  As I left, I passed by one of the Persians, who lounged against a whitewashed wall on the opposite side of the street. I realized he was the man that Barzanes had set to watching Markos. He was good at his job, because Markos obviously hadn’t noticed. I gave the man a nod as I passed by, and he nodded back

  We crept out of Siwa in the early morning—so early that the stars were bright in the sky. The logistics had been a major exercise, worked out by Djanet, Diotima and Herodotus while I’d kept Barzanes and Markos busy. The bearers waited outside the city, along with some horses that Djanet had acquired for heavy
lifting.

  To leave the inn without waking the Persians or the Spartan had been a tense exercise. In the cold morning we had crept downstairs on tiptoe, like lodgers skipping out on the rent. To avoid that being a real issue, Djanet had paid the landlord the entire rent the night before, plus a substantial bonus not to say anything to Barzanes or Markos.

  Despite tripping over each other, the scheme had worked. We made it out onto the street with no one inside the wiser. We stood there, shivering for a moment, before we made our way silently to the back of the inn, where were kept the camels. These we loaded with everything we owned, including the pack camels. Once we had what we’d come for, we intended to carry on home. We untethered the beasts and led them up the street.

  We arrived at the prearranged place outside the town. The men were already there, waiting for us.

  So was Barzanes.

  We stood there, slack-jawed.

  Barzanes said, “Good morning. Unfortunately I don’t know where we are going. I presume you have that planned?”

  I stammered, “How did you—”

  “I told you I set a man to watch the Spartan. Did it not occur to you that I might also have set a man to watch you?”

  It hadn’t. I kicked myself.

  “Do you mean we didn’t have to get up so early?” Herodotus said, aggrieved. He seemed to be more upset about that than that we might be about to lose the Pharaoh’s treasure.

  “At least we don’t have to contend with Markos,” I said.

  “That’s not entirely true,” called a voice from beyond the hill. Markos appeared. “Didn’t it occur to you that since I was learning the language, I could overhear the local men talking about being hired to dig out a tomb?”

  Djanet cursed, loudly. Barzanes looked distinctly unhappy.

  “The only party who knows where we’re going is yours, Nico,” Markos said. “You’d better lead the way.”

  The Tomb

  The pyramid tomb of Imhotep had been covered in dirt, dust, and sand. It took us half the morning to find it. In fact, we discovered we’d walked over it twice before we noticed. The tomb looked like every other hill in this accursed desert.

  “How long has he been dead?” I asked Djanet.