by Marilyn Todd
'I'm sorry, Junius.' Claudia's mind had been wandering, as
minds tend to do with relief. 'What did you say?' Her knees were knocking like castanets. She could not believe it. He was alive! Junius was alive! Reprieved and well and in no danger of being fed to the bears!
'I was merely thanking you for bribing the jailers.'
Me? 'Oh, Junius!' She patted his arm reassuringly. 'Good heavens, it was the least I could do!'
'When I returned home, Leonides brought me up to date with events,' the young Gaul said. 'How Flavia staged her own kidnap to join the Brothers of Horus and that, with us lot languishing in the cells, you'd hired yourself another bodyguard, but he was worried, he said, because he had no idea where you were.'
That's because I didn't know myself the location of Mentu's funny farm.
'Security.' She winked, tapping the side of her nose.
Strange. He'd made no mention of Flavia shopping him, suggesting that either Leonides had drawn a veil over the issue or . . . or Junius was here on a mission of personal revenge! Indeed, what else would lure him so far from Rome, where no one would blame him for staying home and nursing his rather nasty-looking wounds? His mistress was perfectly safe. He'd said himself, he knew about the hired henchmen, so what plan, she wondered, fermented inside that bruised and swollen head? What form would his retaliation take?
And how the hell had he walked free from Death Row?
'How the hell did you find me?' she asked.
'Leonides told me you'd gone to see the patrician.' Around them, the dancing continued to a haunting mix of sistrum and drum, harp and pipes which carried on the breeze down the valley. 'I paid a visit to his house.'
'Orbilio told you I was here?'
'Him!' Junius executed a uniquely Gallic gesture then unceremoniously spat on the damp earth. 'He was in no position to speak, that one, much less give directions!'
'You do know he's under house arrest?'
'He was under a pile of half-naked, slobbering Amazons!'
Junius somehow managed to convey that Junoesque wasn't the word to describe these slappers, while also leaving Claudia in no doubt as to his feelings on finding the one person she had looked to for assistance helplessly drunk. 'The guards said he'd been partying since—'
'So how did you find me?' Claudia had no desire to hear about Orbilio's indulgences. He was single, free, could do what he liked. And the pain round her heart was indigestion, because she'd eaten no breakfast this morning and very little dinner last night.
'His steward put me on to the Brothers of Horus, where some bald bloke in a squalid apartment told me where I could join. I spun him some yarn about being the son of a Gaulish horse trader who'd been to university in Alexandria and had "found" Ra while I was there, and since the patrician's steward lent me this expensive tunic, a jewelled dagger and a few of the patrician's baubles, the priest accepted my story.'
'He'll accept any story,' Claudia replied tartly, 'so long as you have a suitable donation.' A jewelled dagger wouldn't buy him beyond a job in the fields, although he might be promoted to the back-breaking threshing floor, depending on the quality of Orbilio's 'baubles'.
'I'm down to help out in the brewery,' Junius said, with a suspiciously innocent air, and Claudia grinned.
Junius had availed himself of a few extras while Tingi's back happened to be turned . . . 'Your education with me isn't entirely wasted, then!' Hadn't she always said the boy had shown promise?
'These people.' He frowned. 'They're not what I envisaged.'
Me neither. Claudia followed his eyes to a couple in their sixties who had apparently lived such dull and blameless lives that they felt more than eligible for resurrection in the Afterlife, especially since, for one or the other of them, that gentle tap on the shoulder might not be far away.
'Only the young ones make the headlines,' she explained.
In her few short hours here, Claudia had assimilated pretty much all there was to know about the Pyramidiot way of life.
'And because there's no direct contact with the outside world -' scribes pen any letters to families on Central Store papyrus and arrange their despatch - 'no one hears about couples who simply calf off from society, or the likes of middle-aged women' (e.g. Mercy) 'who walk out on violent husbands. What's particularly worrying, though, is that seemingly rational adults' (e.g. Mercy) 'swallow so many dubious tales.'
'Such as?' Junius prompted.
'How about not one, but three men coming a cropper when they try to leave? One gored by a rutting boar, another mistaken by the guards for an assassin creeping in, and an unlucky third tripped backwards and impaled himself on the protective stakes.'
'Wouldn't the assassin have been creeping the wrong way?'
'And how can one impale oneself on an outward, downward facing spike? But that's not the half of it,' she said, licking her finger and wiping away the thick runnels of kohl from her cheek. 'Where three burly fellows failed, no less than six of the weaker sex have succeeded in sneaking through unseen and unchallenged, yet nobody questions the official explanation. I find that extremely odd.'
What tactic do you employ, Mentu? How do you control their very reasoning?
'That bald priest in Rome,' Junius said, 'fed me some crap about Rome wanting to wipe out the Brothers of Horus, but that was tosh, surely. I mean, who'd buy that rubbish?'
'Look around,' Claudia said dryly.
Apart from those involved in running the scam, the only two members who weren't taken in were Claudia and the Gaul! Yet surely, at some stage, others must have smelled fish in the air. What became of them? And what had happened to the young man who'd found himself surrounded by the animal deities on the platform last night, and had then been spirited away? The only place they could have taken him was into the body of the temple.
'Luck of the gods, boy!' A coarse grey bun thrust itself
between Claudia and her bodyguard, its own wig stuffed into an accommodating dress strap so that Mercy appeared as though some black, hairy succubus was hitching a lift on her shoulder. 'What in blazes happened to you?'
Claudia performed the introductions, adding that it was a long story, but it seemed the new recruit's family were none too enamoured with him joining the Brothers and had sent four of his cousins to dissuade him.
'Ach, men! Won't use Latin when they can use fists.' She turned to Claudia, her eyes narrowing. 'You two know each other, then?'
'Not at all,' Junius said quickly. 'As you can see from my clothes, I've only just arrived and the good sister here befriended me.'
Mercy's face relaxed. 'We'll get you cleaned up and into some proper clothes later, but the sacrifice is about to begin, you won't want to miss that.' To Claudia she lowered her voice. 'You've scored there, me lovely! That boy fancies you rotten.'
Claudia couldn't help smiling back. Junius? Attracted to a woman four or five years older than himself? Poor old Mersyankh! No judge of character.
'You really think so?' she simpered.
'I know so!' A stout elbow nudged her in the ribs, accompanied by a coarse chuckle. 'And they might be the size of rabbit hutches, our rooms, but that don't stop the rabbits from breeding! Wigs on, then.' Wrestling the succubus, Mercy steered the two young 'lovers' towards the front, butting them up against each other with a wink, and Claudia raised no objection to the matchmaking. This way she and Junius could confer without arousing suspicion.
After just two ceremonies, Claudia was already familiar with the routine. The sinister brow ridge of the High Priest no longer made her shudder. The explosion, the smoke, the eerie drumbeat on the giant bronze tortoise, the silver bells of the sistrum no longer made her scalp tingle.
'Different animals are sacrificed for different occasions,'
Mercy explained, pulling Claudia's dreadlocks into line. 'A hog for the Feast of Osiris, a heifer for Isis, Anubis the jackal gets geese and for the crocodile, a black ram.'
Thoth, it seemed, in order to reflect his status as the
God of Wisdom from whom no secret may be hid, warranted a bull so utterly enormous, the poor beast had to be brought to the sacrificial knife on wheels, and whilst this suggested force feeding on a scale that verged on cruelty, Claudia had to admit the flesh was absolutely delicious. Only she and Junius, though, seemed to find the ceremony unduly protracted.
First Penno, old Rabbitface himself, came up to inspect the bull from nose to tail. Apparently the presence of just one single black hair on an otherwise pure white hide would deem the beast impure. But no, after much zealous searching, the fat bull passed the test, its eyes no doubt still watering from where Penno's studious tweezers had plucked out any offending black hairs earlier. No matter. The fact that six hundred gullible souls were happy with his pronouncement was sufficient, and Penno's twig-like fingers twisted a band of papyrus round the animal's horns to show that it was ready.
The High Priest moved in next, taking great pains to light the sacrificial fire himself and pour libations of wine to both Ra and to Thoth, the ibis god to whom this month was sacred.
Unfortunately, unlike Rome where sacrifice was both gentle and reverential, there was nothing subtle about the decapitation of a bull or the flaying of its carcass. And who the hell wanted to watch the creature being disembowelled and the cavity stuffed with honey, raisins, figs and myrrh? Thank god, the middle section was cast upon the flames to be consumed by sacrificial fire, but the leg and shoulder meat which was passed round was juicy, rich and tasty.
Somehow, Penno and his shaven-headed master managed to spin this out for an incredible two hours, during which time only Claudia's feet shuffled in impatience. But those boys weren't finished yet!
'The first day of the month is for purification,' Mercy explained, reminding Claudia of what Penno told her last
night: that the temple was the house of Ra, not accessible to common oiks and that communication with the sun god could only be through his servants, in other words, through any one of the Ten True Gods (hence the terracotta ears) or, when the temple compound was open to the public, through the High Priest or his long-eared Chief Petitioner.
As though a flood gate had been opened, people surged forward to Penno and the High Priest, kneeling so that the waters of purification could be poured over their heads to wash their sins away.
'Come, brothers. Step forward, sisters of Ra.' The High Priest's voice rang out across the courtyard and Penno's twiggy fingers beckoned more forward. 'Come up and seek forgiveness from Ra.'
He added something about how each of us should strive to become a better person, blah-blah-blah, and Claudia wondered if there was a bowl to be sick in. Even Mercy went forward, to join Penno's queue.
And above them, on the temple platform, Mentu with his blue face, gold mask and rich Osiris garb watched with singular impassivity over the proceedings, flanked by his inanimate animal gods. Were they in on it, the cat, the jackal, the cobra, standing stationary as statues? Or had he suckered them, too, this Egyptian strutting in his built-up shoes? According to Mercy, Mentu overruled even his brother, Min, the Grand Vizier (are these people for real?), if the occasion so demanded, and he initiated all matters of policy. Therefore, Claudia reasoned, Mentu must manipulate the priestly functions.
Now, she couldn't be certain, not being an expert, but this didn't seem to bear much resemblance to the Egypt over which Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony had fought each other to the death. Too few gods, a suspect calendar, a suspiciously Roman-looking temple upon which a few hieroglyphs had been hacked out and dodgy religious observances which bore little affinity to that exotic culture reliant on the inundations of the River Nile.
No, no, no. This was theme-park Egypt, a human zoo, sold
to credulous Romans on the premise of what they imagined Egypt to be like, with just sufficient difference about the place for them to feel they'd set foot on foreign soil without feeling in any way alien.
Which made Mentu crafty, as well as clever.
He'd sold them Ra, he'd sold them resurrection, he'd sold them Roman ways repackaged as Egyptian, and he'd also sold them this business of doing everything in tens, including changing the names of the days of the week and the months of the year to disorientate them, the months being named after the gods, weekdays being named after plants. In addition, Mentu had sold them Thoth, from whom no secret can be hid, and you can bet your bottom denarius that any secrets whispered into the terracotta ears were repeated back to the whisperer as proof of Thoth's omnipotence!
What devious machine did Mentu employ to keep these sheep believing? Somehow he contrived to hold their absolute trust - how else could they swallow that guff about the enemy massing outside? By default, therefore, Mentu must also be behind the strength of the security. Did he order the deaths of the three men caught escaping?
Did he know about the six missing girls? Did he, sweet Janus, arrange it?
Anything seemed possible in this hidden valley of Ra. Anything at all.
'You'll need a hyssop poultice on those bruises.' The accent was neither female nor from Brindisi. 'Plus an opobalsam salve on that eye.' A professional thumb lifted Junius's battered eyelid, indifferent to the wincing it induced.
'Shabak.' Claudia nodded. 'He's our doctor, dentist - and what's the other thing?'
'Apothecary,' Shabak said, without turning a hair of his slicked-down blue-black head. 'And should that gash to your knee prove as stubborn as I suspect, you might consider a light treatment of herb paris.'
Claudia fluttered her eyelashes. 'Oh, but surely that's poisonous?'
The shiny blue jaw swung round, the cruel eyes piercing. 'Not with the correct dosage, sister.'
'Is that what happened to Berenice, you do think?' In for a quadran, in for one of the Emperor's shiny gold pieces. 'That she intended to slip her baby a mild dose to calm him down and soothe his pain, and miscalculated?'
It was equally possible, of course, that the poor misguided woman mistook hemlock leaves for parsley in the dark. Or the roots for a parsnip? Or believed the seeds were aniseed? No mother, surely, would deliberately poison her baby, especially since there was no suggestion Berenice was anything other than a careful and attentive parent. There had to be some other explanation.
'Berenice fed her son enough hemlock to fell a horse,' Shabak said bluntly, and there was no mistaking the hostility in his voice.
Damn.
He'd recognised Claudia from last night, when he'd been bandaging Geb's burn near the kitchens. Now here she was, poking around again, muddying waters which ought by rights to be left placid, asking questions where none should be asked.
Claudia flashed Junius a quick catch-up-with-you-later look. Her priority now was to rootle out Flavia, Flea and the puppy, then get the hell out of here.
This whole place gave her the creeps.
No one missed her, because this was a public holiday, the first day of Ibis, and everyone was entitled to join the festivities, however lowly one's role.
A cold collation had been laid out in the dining hall the previous night, and the kitchens were eerily still. No steam, no clattering pans, no spillages, no fingers nicked from sharp knives.
No bodies getting in each other's way.
No one to notice that several bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling had gone missing.
Tomorrow, when normal service would resume, Mentu's great agricultural machine would crank back into action, along with the kitchens, the scribes, the brewhouse, the charcoal burners in the woods, the small squad of healers who mixed potions for Shabak. No one worked in the laundry today. The large, flat scrubbing stones lay piled in neat heaps, airing lines hung limp and bare after last night's deluge.
It would be tomorrow before anyone noted the absence of a moody girl who had never mixed with the crowd.
It would be much later before anyone cared.
Chapter Twenty-four
Whether you liked to call this public holiday by its Mentu-name of Lotus or simply preferred the idea of it being a good,
old-fashioned Saturday, there was no disputing the jollity of the occasion. After the sacrifice and the ensuing penances, the band struck up again and off the cult members twirled, in their wigs and kilts and diamond-patterned shifts, dancing and clapping and singing at the tops of their voices like . . . well, like proper Pyramidiots!
But they were happy. For all his faults, Mentu made these people happy, by giving them, Claudia supposed, exactly what they wanted. A refuge from real life, with prayers and work to control and discipline their minds, interspersed with festivals like today when they could let off steam. Supply and demand, it kept the world turning; Claudia had no real objection to that.
'I simply don't wish to be part of it!' she told a small toddler, picking her up and swirling her round so her legs fanned high in the air.
The toddler chortled and gargled and made giggly noises and Claudia's arms were aching badly by the time she set the girl down, but as she turned away, tears of disappointment welled up in the huge, doe-like eyes, forcing her to pull off the tot's nose at least seventeen times before hunger pangs took over from fun and little fat legs waddled off to scavenge the last of the bull meat from the sacrificial platters. Watching her, Claudia felt a pang for this beautiful, happy creature for whom outsiders would always be enemies, who would never experience the cut and thrust of bartering in a street market redolent with spices and liniments and vellum, never even see
