by Mike Ashley
The king, it was evident, also thought highly of Antef. One bit of conversation she overheard at Buhen fortress was especially revealing. The pair had discussed the skill of Kushite archers, and Antef had endorsed their famous reputation.
“None knows better than you!” The king had spoken with vehemence. “As Khonsu expels demons, my heart turned cold when I heard you had been laid low by a savage’s arrow. I would have come. But I could not. And from Memphis to Semna is so far that I knew you would either recover or join the blessed before I could arrive.”
“The doctor you sent south with me saved my life, Senusert.”
“He’s worth a thousand,” Senusert agreed. “I would not have sent you into danger without him. Still, I’d far rather he had never been needed.”
“He was needed often enough when the desert patrols came in, and for worse injuries,” Antef said bluntly. “Mine was nothing much in itself – but the dog must have steeped his arrowhead in filth.”
“Nothing much!” Dahi repeated derisively. “A hand’s width over and a hand’s length down, Lord Antef, and the king had needed a new engineer. It pleases us both to have you returning to Egypt. It surely pleases Amenemhat.”
The prince nodded, tongue-tied. But his heart could be seen in his eyes.
They came to the First Cataract, the southern gate of Egypt, after a few heavy portages. This had always been the first great obstacle to pass on any voyage to Kush. It could be navigated with ease now. Senusert had ordered it cleared and dredged before his first expedition south. One passage, spear-straight, ten paces wide and more than eighty long, had been cut through the sun-darkened granite in a deep-water channel.
Tamaket had learned how to approach those of the king’s entourage for instruction. Montumes, Keeper of State Records, the one who looked like a hoopoe, never gossiped with his inferiors and viewed Kushites as barely human savages. Nevertheless, if one asked him humbly and flattered his high concept of his own wisdom, he would grow informative.
“O wise Montumes, who did this work for the king?”
Montumes lifted his round little head with its ill-shaped wig and responded.
“The same who raised the Semna dam. He whom you serve, woman. In the seventh year of mighty Khakaure’s reign he accomplished it, by the king’s command.”
Tamaket widened her glossy eyes. “Truly, he must be a great builder. I saw him plan and raise the dam, but I did not know what else he had done. And he is not thirty yet.”
“He was making canals and irrigation layouts at twenty, a noted surveyor. The king appointed him Supervisor of Quarries soon afterwards.”
Tamaket could have reeled off all Antef’s titles, past and present. Besides King’s Friend and Child of the Royal Nursery, they included Master of Irrigation and Canals, Chief Builder of the Two Lands, and – replacing his earlier position as Supervisor of Quarries – Master of the Mines and Quarries. She knew Antef had led a couple of expeditions into Sinai after copper and turquoise, an enterprise less than safe considering the nature of the nomads.
She did not tell Montumes she knew all this. Parading one’s knowledge before the little man was no way to gain his cooperation. Tamaket needed friends. Above all she needed her master Antef. Frowning, she asked herself if someone might have been trying to poison him, and might try again. A troubling thought.
III
Increase your subjects with new people, See, your city is full of new growth.
– Instruction of Merikare
Each subsequent day of the voyage downstream brought new matters for awe. Tamaket had never seen the Two Lands before. Oh, Kermah, with its great palace and temple and thousands of folk, had been a respectable city even by Egypt’s standards, but not beside Thebes. Looking upon its huge stone wharves, its mansions, the colossal Temple of Amun and avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, Tamaket felt a pang of despair for Kush. How could it resist this?
Well, she could not stop it. Her fate and her family’s lay in Egypt now. Her two brothers, brave and loyal but scarcely brilliant, needed her nearly as much as her children. Other Nubians and Kushites had settled in Egypt down the ages – as forced labour, artisans, prisoners of war, honoured hostages, bowmen in the army, and the famed Medjai desert police. Some had risen high.
Antef, she noticed, though cheerful most of the time, appeared downcast in Thebes. She wondered why. She chose the captain of his household spears to ask, feeding the man a magnificent meal to sweeten him.
“The Lord Antef doesn’t seem to enjoy his food since we arrived here,” she remarked. “Or much of anything else.”
That was all it took. “You don’t know,” the spearman said. “The Lord Antef lost his wife in Thebes. He married young, they had two children, and then she died in a boating accident. The children followed. An outbreak of sickness.”
“Ah,” Tamaket breathed. “Sad. I knew he had been married, but not that she died in Thebes.”
“He’s shut-mouthed on the subject, for it pains him yet. Nor should you chatter of it.”
“I surely will not, brave captain. Thanks.” Tamaket sighed deeply. “My husband died young also. He displeased the King of Kush and was buried in an anthill.”
“I’ve heard that. Here even the king may not violate ma’at on a whim. No, not though he is a god. Your husband was a good man?”
“I always found him so. At least our children still live. The twins were born after his death. There were those who wished to slay them at birth. Twins are held unlucky in Kush.”
This appeared to be more knowledge than the spearman wished for, but Tamaket was his master’s major-domo; he displayed polite interest.
“They could not be more alive, so you would have none of that plan, clearly. You must be glad to be out of Kush!”
Tamaket shrugged her ample shoulders. “It was my home, but now my life is here. Yes, I am glad, and also to be serving the Lord Antef. He’s been kind. More than kind.”
“And to others. It’s his way.”
But had plotters wished to kill him nevertheless? Or, perhaps, him and all the other important servants of the king they could poison at one sitting? Or just the king and his chief wife? If Senusert were to die and Dahi survive him, the new ruler of Egypt would have to marry her for valid kingship. Tamaket did not like his chances unless Dahi found him attractive! To impose on that one against her will would be a mighty feat.
She observed that Senusert and Dahi had both been much freer, more like natural human beings, beyond the cataracts. Each mile they travelled into Egypt, their royal roles seemed to settle more heavily upon them, and their manner became more remote and high, in accordance with their divine status. Senusert had a dull time in Thebes, rising daily at dawn to read endless reports, records and petitions. Montumes gave him brisk, methodical aid in those duties.
They embarked again. The next important stopping place proved to be Abdu, burial place of Osiris and pilgrimage shrine for all Egypt. Here, as everywhere, the king must examine the administration of temples, their huge estates, the probity and competence of his officials, and perhaps most ominously doubtful of all, the loyalty of nobles.
Tamaket knew something of that situation, too. Egypt’s present king ruled over a land which had descended into chaos, the most feared of all conditions to Egypt’s people. Only during this dynasty had the precious principles of ma’at been restored. The king embodied these. The nobles, particularly the great nomarchs, had enjoyed autocratic feudal power in the bad times and felt other than comfortable without it.
A motive for poison, and an obvious one.
Tamaket discussed it with her brothers. This far into Egypt, the rulers no longer troubled to keep them apart. Besides, Antef considered them honest; they were archers of his own bow company, nearly as good as the king himself, and like him tall and leanly muscular. Conversing with their sister they resembled a couple of upright sticks beside a ball.
“The nobles are having their wings clipped and their talons cut,” she sa
id. “They may not raise war-hosts unless the Living Horus gives the word. They have been forbidden to build, as they used to, tombs and mortuary temples fine as a king’s. Khakaure’s father took a number of nomarch’s sons into the Residence and had them raised with the princes, to be as their foster-brothers. Our lord Antef was one of these.”
“We know that, sister,” Oruno told her. “We have served him too! His father rules the Heron Nome two day’s journey away. The king means to stop there to awe the man.”
“Rumour says he’s among the most fiercely jealous of his power and rights,” Zebei added. “Or was when young.”
“All of which may affect us. Listen, my brothers. I will not be with Lord Antef when he visits his father. You and the king will. Observe for me; see how his sire welcomes him! How his family regards him. Tell me how they welcome the king. Certainly they’ll be humble before him, but look for what lies beneath.”
They would do their best, she knew. They would bring her their observations without holding back. The king’s taster would observe more sharply, and be closely present throughout the banquet, as her brothers would not. However, Ipi had no reason to open his mouth to her, as yet. She must cultivate him and place him under obligation.
“Well?” she said when her brothers returned. “Tell me of Lord Antef’s father, this hereditary Nomarch of the Heron? What sort of man do you think him, and how did he greet his son?”
Zebei grimaced. “From what we saw? Cold as deep water, my sister. His welcome to his son was like his welcome to the king. Formal and stony.”
“We didn’t go within,” Oruno added, “but we saw the Lord Antef come out with a sombre look, and he is brooding yet, if you notice.”
“Indeed I notice,” Tamaket said. “Did the nomarch’s servants say anything that can explain it?”
Her brothers shook their heads in unison.
“Not in our hearing,” Oruno told her. “They are as close-mouthed as Kermah palace guards. All that household. Their discipline must require it.”
This was interesting. Seemingly, Antef had a hard man for a father. Formal and stony? When Antef had been long absent from Egypt, a success at difficult tasks, and once almost died from an arrow! Belike he was furious at Antef’s being close as a brother to the king, and yearned for the power his forebears had held in the time of chaos.
Nor was he the only one. Gossip, flying like cranes, said there were at least twenty in Middle Egypt. And more elsewhere. Tamaket saw the number of folk who might be guilty multiplying before her eyes.
IV
I swear by my life that when I gained mastery over men it was very pleasing to my heart.
– The Destruction of Mankind
“A lioness, a man-eater!” Zebei repeated, his voice excited. “Egyptians call her the Drunkard. She appeared here while Khakaure was in the south. Eight deaths she has caused, sister – eight.”
“Eight,” Tamaket said sardonically. “How many would she slay sober? You talk as though this is cheerful news.”
“It is,” Oruno told her. “The king goes to hunt her! He wishes Lord Antef to be there, and Lord Antef is taking us.”
Well, it made sense that Senusert would do so. The king had a duty to protect his people. Besides, he revelled in lion-hunting.
“Why is she called the Drunkard?”
“She’s lame, and runs like one.”
Zebei gave that answer. He had always been the more down-to-earth and succinct of the pair. Oruno snorted, and added his own version, that of a man with a flair for storytelling which made him welcome at any camp fire.
“Bah! She’s called the Drunkard after the lion-goddess Sekhmet, dull one, that Ra sent to punish a disobedient folk. She slaughtered and tore and would stay for nothing, even when Ra commanded her, fearing mankind would be utterly destroyed. To halt her the other gods had to make a vast flood of red-coloured beer. She took it for blood and drank it all. When she slept, stupefied, the race of men was saved.”
Zebei chuckled. “So? Well, and now I know. A pleasant story, brother, but we will not stop this lioness with beer! It’ll take spearmen, bowmen and a thousand beaters.”
“The king will bring them. Sister, the Drunkard may be a demon! Cunning past belief, as the people tell. Why has she appeared here, alone, as one might say out of nowhere? Lions are uncommon so near Memphis and the capital.”
Tamaket’s heart chilled at the word demon. They were real to her, real as stars after sunset, real as food, the dark powers that hunger and lust and gibber in the night. Yes. A man-eating lioness of exceptional craft might be one.
But probably not.
“The desert wastes are close enough,” she said. “Maybe this – Drunkard – drifted in from yonder. Maybe the Waters of Shedet. The lake silted up long ago and the fields around it are going back to waste.”
“Wherever she came from,” Zebei said confidently, “she will soon go to the abodes of the west.”
Stringing his tough longbow with a movement that looked easy, he fired three arrows swiftly at a copper target one hundred paces off. They crowded each other in the centre. Oruno cocked an eyebrow, sent four to join them just as swiftly, spaced just as closely, and smirked at his brother.
They left with Antef on the lion hunt a few days later. Tamaket remained, if not in charge of the estate – its steward managed that – at least of the great house, its servants, and all that belonged thereto. The place had betrayed the lack of a woman’s touch. Antef absolutely ought to marry again, Tamaket thought. As should she, no doubt. It would be madness to do that before she dispelled the cloud of suspicion hanging over her, though.
Tamaket worked hard while her brothers were gone. Then they returned, and her screams of anguish rang over the immense estate. Zebei came on a bier, ripped and dead, Oruno on a bloody litter, one arm in rags, face grey and wet. She abandoned her duties and tended him only. Antef, who was unhurt, not only allowed it but spent much time with Oruno himself. Her brothers had saved his life, it appeared.
“Sister, she is a demon, that lioness!” Oruno raved. “A demon! Two of the beaters died driving her before we ever saw her! The others stayed resolute, else she had escaped.”
Tamaket wished fiercely that the Drunkard had. So they had successfully killed her. What of it?
The beaters had moved forwards bravely, it seemed, swinging their torches and great wooden rattles. They advanced at a run in a long crescent three deep. Three groups of hunters waited. Senusert led one, Antef the second, and the king’s half-brother Rhamsin, an army commander, the third. Each leader, and two picked men with him, carried bows. The rest had spears and oblong shields.
“We did as planned,” Oruno croaked. “We zigzagged, to catch her in a crossfire. It should have worked! But it all went wrong, sister, all! Rhamsin had a clear shot at her flank while she charged the king – and then she turned and charged Rhamsin. She sprang over the men with shields and came down on him. Tore away the top of his head. Then she turned on the others, and sister, she picked out the bowmen! Slew them both, then a spearman, and rushed the king’s group again afterwards.
“The king shot twice. Hit her once. Behind the neck . . . Lord Antef ran from the midst of us into the open, arrow on string, to draw her attention from the king.
“He did. She charged him next.” Oruno’s unmaimed hand closed on his sister’s. “It wasn’t because he shouted or stood alone in the open, but because he held a bow. I swear it! She knew!” He half rose, gasping. “We went to his aid. The king may not trust us, but he does. He knows we are true men.”
Tamaket did not have to ask what had happened next. The evidence lay here in front of her – and silent in the house of the embalmers, where Zebei’s body had gone by now. The doctors shook their heads gravely over Oruno’s mangled arm and, when the first touches of gangrene appeared, they tried to save him by amputation. Antef held him down with all his granite strength while it was done, and Tamaket cauterized the stump herself, fast and deftly.
/> It proved too late. Oruno died two days later.
The brothers were embalmed and buried by Egyptian practice. These rites took seventy days. Long before they ended, Tamaket knew all that had happened on that dreadful lion-hunt, the secret of the Drunkard’s preternatural cunning, and the very reason she had become a man-eater. It defied belief. At first.
“Someone split her forepaw lengthwise, when she was a cub, with care, most deliberately,” Antef said harshly. “Lame for life, she could not take her true prey. Nor is that all. We found, when she was dead, that her neck was chafed under the fur by frequent use of a choke-chain. She had been a captive for long.”
“My great lord!” Tamaket’s grief had dulled the sharp edges of her mind temporarily, but this was not difficult to grasp, merely hard to accept. “Did someone cripple that lioness? To make her a man-eater?”
“They must have done more.” Antef’s broad face was rigid with disgust. “She knew how to avoid hunters, how to pick archers from a group and destroy them. Surely she was trained for years in secret, then brought to this region by men who knew the king would act himself. This was another plot to murder him, begun years ago and set in motion if the poison at Semna should fail.”
With slow mounting fury of her own, Tamaket said, “This attempt on the king took my brothers’ lives!”
“Truly. They were brave men. I would not be standing here but for them. It’s why I tell you this.” Antef added with what seemed real sorrow, “I regret taking Zebei and Oruno on the hunt, now. I might still have come away alive without them.”
“No, lord! They would have been hurt in their honour – held that you did not trust them!”
“There is no man who can say they were not trustworthy now. I’ll build a fine tomb for them. Offerings shall be made and prayers said while a man of my line survives.”
