Day of the False King

by Brad Geagley

  “Hurry!” Nidaba hissed at him. She had lifted up the grate, something no ordinary woman could have done so effortlessly. “Get in!”

  Semerket did not ask questions, just crawled under the opening. He braced his back against the grille so that Nidaba could join him. When they were both inside, she led him forward into the dark. They went about twenty paces before they found a curving stairway leading to a lower level.

  Nidaba seized a torch from the wall, knowing just where to find it. She took a flint from her gilded leather sash and quickly lighted it. The torch threw the staircase into bright relief, allowing them to descend in safety. When they reached the lower level, a long tunnel loomed before them, beside which an underground canal gabbled softly.

  “What is this place?” Semerket asked in wonder. “A sewer?” It certainly did not smell like one, for though the air was dank, it was not foul.

  Nidaba began to lead him forward. “It’s a sort of underground highway,” she whispered. “Babylon’s laced with them. A queen built these tunnels hundreds of years ago. She wanted to be able to rush her troops to any place in the city in case of riot.”

  “Amazing,” Semerket said, awestruck by the engineering effort it must have taken to build them. Expensive glazed brick sheathed the tunnel’s surface. Over the centuries, however, a mare’s nest of spidery roots had grown down from the street above, snaking into the canal. It made their going very tricky, for the roots clutched at their feet as they passed.

  “Why don’t the Elamites use these tunnels?”

  “As I said, they’re very old. Not many people even know they exist.”

  “But the Isins do,” he said, realizing just how their troops were able to come and go so quickly. It was magic, yes, but not the kind the Elamites believed in.

  He and Nidaba reached a well of light that fell from a vertical shaft leading up to the street. They heard an Elamite captain distantly shouting orders to his men. Nidaba flashed a warning look at Semerket, putting her finger to her lips, and they continued forward in silence.

  Semerket reflected how much easier it would have been for the Elamites to control Babylon had they known about these cisterns. But they had marched into the city with all the arrogance and conceit with which conquerors possessing superior forces are usually imbued, no doubt believing they could easily subdue such a corrupt and vitiated people as the Babylonians. If only the Elamites had taken a little time to do some reconnaissance, Semerket thought—or at least some cursory investigation into the city’s history—they might not now be fighting for their lives.

  Such an odd people, these Babylonians, he thought. And the woman—man—walking beside him had turned out to be the oddest of them all. At that moment, Nidaba happened to glance over at him. “Why do you look at me like that?”

  “I’d never have taken you for a freedom fighter.”

  “Well, why should you? An Ishtaritu is only ever expected to be amusing, never brave or daring—or even patriotic.” There was bitterness in her lovely voice.

  They had reached another cistern opening, and Nidaba cautioned Semerket again to be quiet. As the minutes passed and the dark grew even more stygian, he began to feel almost buried alive. He suddenly remembered the time when he had been locked inside a pharaoh’s tomb in the Great Place. A trickle of sweat snaked down his spine as the long-repressed panic came flooding back. Before it completely engulfed him, however, Nidaba stopped abruptly.

  “We’re here,” she said.

  They stood in front of another metal grille, chained and locked. They could go no further.

  “Where are we?” he whispered.

  “Beneath the Royal Quarter.”

  He almost smiled. “You mean the Heir of Isin can be found only a few cubits below Kutir himself?” He marveled at both the irony and the daring.

  “That’s right.”

  Nidaba bent to run her fingertips near the base of the wall. She stood a moment later, holding a short copper spike in her hand. Nidaba tapped out a code on the grille. From deep inside the dark tunnel, Semerket heard the answering tones. Then a torchlight appeared from far away, carried in the hand of a tall, bearded man.

  Semerket resisted the urge to flee, for in the gloom the man resembled nothing so much as one of hell’s demons coming to claim him. Dimly, he heard Nidaba introducing him as Pharaoh Ramses’ friend.

  “No need to tell me who it is,” the man chortled. “We’ve already met!”

  Shocked, Semerket recognized the man as one of those Isins he had met in Mari—the man who had first told him that Isins had never attacked the Elamite plantation. At that time, the man had not been particularly amiable. Now he smiled broadly in the torchlight and clamped his arm around Semerket’s shoulders as though he were an old friend.

  “So you want to see the Heir? Well, it’s been a few days since you’ve had chance to talk together, eh? I imagine there’s a lot to catch up on.”

  “Pardon?” Semerket asked. Had they confused him with someone else?

  But the man was already heading down the tunnel with Nidaba at his side, and Semerket had to hurry after them. They came to the place where four of the cisterns, along with their attendant canals, emptied into one enormous arched cavern. Several levels deep, the place echoed from the roaring of water. He became gradually aware that hundreds of Isin soldiers camped there. As he looked down on them from above, they shot him suspicious glances.

  Another abrupt twist in the tunnel, and he was shown into a small chamber lit by a number of oil lamps. After all the darkness, the lamplight temporarily dazzled him. All he could see were the silhouettes of several persons milling in the room.

  Then he heard his guide’s gruff voice saying, “Here’s your Egyptian friend, lord.”

  A silhouette advanced toward him, arms outstretched. Semerket felt himself embraced.

  “So you found me at last, Semerket!” the figure said in perfect Egyptian, albeit in a flat, northern accent.

  Semerket realized that, of course, he had indeed met this Heir of Isin before, the princeling raised in the court of Ramses III. His eyes adjusted to the glittering light at last.

  Standing before him was his one-time slave, Marduk.

  HIS FIRST REACTION WAS RAGE—more at himself for having been the stooge once again of duplicity perpetrated by his former servant.

  “You abandoned me,” he snarled coldly at Marduk.

  Marduk’s smile vanished.

  “What did you expect?” he snarled back. “That I would lead you by the hand through the city, point out the sights? I had to meet up with my men, you fool!”

  “How was I supposed to know that? You never told me who you were, what you were doing here—”

  “I couldn’t tell you! If you had known I was the Heir, your own life would have been in danger.”

  “A little help in finding my wife and friend, that’s all I wanted. And I had saved your life!”

  “Haven’t I looked out for you? Didn’t I send those messages to you, warning you away from the garrison and the harbor?”

  “How was I supposed to know who they came from?”

  “I thought if anyone could figure it out, it’d be the great investigator from Egypt. Apparently, it was beyond your limited capabilities.”

  “What hurts most is that you never trusted me enough to tell me who you really were.”

  “I did trust you.”

  “Oh, yes,” scoffed Semerket, “when you needed to sneak into the city, acting like some moron, drooling—”

  “I had to get past the Elamites, Semerket. Surely, even you must realize that. They’d been alerted I might attempt to enter Babylon. And you have to admit, no one ever willingly looks at the simpleminded.”

  Semerket regarded Marduk with exasperation. “I suppose that kind old master of yours back in Egypt was Ramses III?”

  Marduk nodded. “He took me into his court to raise me out of harm’s way, as a favor to my father. When the Kassite kings were set to fall, he sent m
e back to claim my throne. Unfortunately, that’s also when the Elamites chose to invade.”

  They stared at one another for a moment. Now that he had voiced all his resentments, Semerket had nothing else to say. “Well, anyway,” Semerket admitted grudgingly, “it’s good to see you again, Marduk. The truth is, I missed you.”

  The tension in the small underground chamber evaporated. Marduk’s soldiers, who had retreated to watch the fracas from the outer tunnel, suddenly crowded back inside the room, relieved and laughing.

  “Ah, Semerket, Semerket,” said Marduk, sitting down on a brick bench. “Tell me how you are, and how your investigation proceeds.”

  Semerket winced to hear Marduk’s question, for there were painful things he had to ask his friend. He sat beside Marduk to tell his story. It never occurred to him that Marduk could become the next king of Babylon and that it might be better to stand in his presence; to Semerket, Marduk would always be the prisoner he had saved from the Elamites, his one-time slave. Marduk himself did not take offense, and listened intently while Semerket related the events of the previous week.

  Semerket told Marduk how he had learned that Naia and Rami had been at the plantation where the Elamite prince and princess were attacked. Marduk was not unfamiliar with this; he only nodded, asking how it was that Kutir had seen fit to retain Semerket in locating his missing sister.

  At this, Semerket spoke in Egyptian, informing his friend of Ramses’ urgent need for Bel-Marduk’s idol. Marduk had not known of Pharaoh’s sickness, and was shocked. He looked upon the fourth Ramses as his elder brother, Marduk insisted.

  Semerket also told him of Queen Narunte’s hatred for her sister-in-law, Princess Pinikir, and how he himself had been attacked by someone he believed might have had some connection to her. This, also, was not a surprise to Marduk; it seemed that the Heir of Isin had a host of informants throughout the city who kept him aware of all that transpired, particularly if it concerned his Egyptian “master.”

  Semerket fell silent now and bit his lip. His growing uneasiness was plain to see. Marduk laid his hand on Semerket’s arm, forcing him to look into his face. “What do you need to ask me, Semerket?”

  Semerket had always been incapable of dissimulation, and decided to ask the dreaded question. “Marduk, did you order the massacre at the Egyptian temple? If you did, then you’re responsible for the deaths of three people I considered friends.”

  Marduk gave a start. There was an angry stirring in the room. “Isins don’t attack civilian targets, Semerket,” he said in a cold voice, “particularly the houses of gods.”

  “A rogue band, perhaps drunk—?”

  “Impossible.”

  Semerket reasoned that Marduk had nothing to gain by lying to him, and nodded. “I do believe you. But since your Isins didn’t do it, you must know that someone—some group—wants everyone to think you did. Just as they want everyone to believe that you attacked the plantation, as well.”

  Before Marduk could react, the tall Isin from Mari stepped forward, bringing his face close to Semerket’s.

  “I told you back in Mari we didn’t attack that damned farm! What is it with Egyptians, anyway? The other one tried to accuse us of the same thing!”

  Perhaps it was the omnipresent sound of rushing water from the nearby canal that prevented Semerket from hearing clearly, for it was a moment before he comprehended what the man had said.

  “What other one?”

  Marduk turned to nod to a soldier waiting in the doorway. The man walked swiftly down the outer hallway, the echoes of his boots receding with him.

  “Now,” said Marduk, when they heard footsteps again approaching the chamber, “you’ll see how I take care of you, Semerket. When you told me the story of how the plantation was attacked by Isins, I put some men on it back in Mari. We were able to discover a few things, one of which should interest you exceedingly—”

  A small commotion at the door interrupted Marduk. The soldier had returned, and the milling Isin warriors moved clumsily aside to allow him into the room. Semerket noticed that a second person followed the soldier.

  Semerket blinked. He rose to his feet slowly, staring.

  He’s no longer a boy, Semerket thought. He’s lost his adolescent reediness, and his shoulders are broader.

  “Rami?” he said at last, so quietly that he might have mouthed the name.

  The boy stared at him, his expression unreadable. Semerket had been largely responsible for Rami’s banishment from Egypt, having uncovered his parents’ complicity in rifling the tombs within the Great Place. Though he had managed to save Rami from the executioner, getting him exiled instead, the lad had blamed him for having destroyed the life he had known. Semerket was therefore unsure what kind of welcome he would receive from the young man.

  Perhaps Rami had not altogether grown up, for his face suddenly crumpled like any child’s when he recognized Semerket, and he flung himself into Semerket’s arms. “I knew you’d come,” he said in Egyptian. “Naia told me you would.”

  At the sound of his wife’s name, Semerket’s chest thudded. Rami alone knew the truth of what had happened that night. But the boy was clearly in too vulnerable a state to answer any questions about it; and perhaps, too, for the first time in his life, Semerket did not want to know the answers.

  “Of course I came,” Semerket said. “I’m the one who got you into this, didn’t I?” He extracted himself from Rami’s grasp, gazing at him at arm’s length. The lad was emaciated, pale, with dark circles ringing his eyes. Semerket saw the boy stagger slightly; clearly, Rami had not recovered and would need the services of a good physician quickly.

  “Rami, I know an Egyptian doctor here in Babylon,” Semerket said. “I’m going to have him brought here.”

  Before he could finish, Rami grew even paler, and put his hand up to his ear. “I’m sorry…sometimes when I stand for too long—”

  Rami’s eyes began to quiver, then rolled upward into their sockets. Without another sound, he fell to the floor.

  “I MUST OPEN YOUR SKULL,” Kem-weset said to Rami.

  At Semerket’s request, Marduk had sent a man through the tunnels to fetch the physician. When he arrived, Kem-weset evinced no surprise to find Semerket surrounded by Isin rebels, as well as a male Ishtaritu, for he had long before accepted that Semerket was a Follower of Set, allied to danger, chaos, and trouble. Rami, meanwhile, had regained consciousness in the interval between his collapse and the physician’s appearance, and resisted Kem-weset’s first attempts to examine him. He was well, the boy insisted. All he needed was sleep. Rami tried to shake off the physician’s hands that continued to press gently on his skull, but then he cried out sharply.

  Kem-weset withdrew a razor from his medicine chest and carefully shaved away the hair over the boy’s left ear. Even Semerket could see that though the skin had healed, the skull was no longer rounded at the area, but indented. Kem-weset said that he must perform the surgery immediately.

  “No!” was Rami’s instant response.

  Kem-weset spoke calmly. “Then you won’t get well. Your attacks will become more frequent, until finally you will die from them.”

  “I’ll die from the operation!”

  “Quite possibly,” Kem-weset agreed. “But you also have one chance in three of surviving. If I do nothing, you have no chance at all.”

  “It’ll hurt!”

  “I have drugs to calm the pain. You’ll feel very little.”

  In the end, Rami had to agree to the treatment. Kem-weset then shaved his head entirely and applied a numbing salve to the area where he would cut. The physician called for wine.

  “Is that wise?” asked Semerket, alarmed. “Surely your hands will be steadier without it?”

  “It’s for Rami, you idiot,” answered Kem-weset shortly. “I’ll mix the poppy paste into it.”

  The wine was brought, and Kem-weset spooned a thick, viscous brown substance into it, stirring until it was completely dissolved. Foll
owing the custom of centuries, just as he had done for Semerket, Kem-weset wrote out a prayer of supplication on a strip of papyrus and ran it through the liquid. The glyphs melted, the inks bled away, and Kem-weset brought the bowl to Rami’s lips.

  “Drink it all down,” he commanded.

  Kem-weset beckoned Semerket to join him at the corner of the room, and spoke to him in a low tone. “If you have anything to ask him, Semerket, you’d best ask now.”