“Save my freedom?” Although he knew the answer, Cheftu perversely wanted confirmation.
Ipiankhu smiled, a politician’s smile that stretched his lips and narrowed his eyes. “I would wish for this famine to end at dawn, yet my wish is also impossible.”
Cheftu nodded and followed a wraith of a slave through the sunlit chambers of banquet hall and baths, up several flights of narrow steps to a doorway. She opened it, and Cheftu stepped into the Egypt he’d once known.
Walls painted with flowering vines and multitudes of birds provided a brilliant backdrop to a footed couch and trunk. Cheftu pushed aside a curtain and found the bathing alcove. No plumbing, he noted. He stepped to the balcony door, halting when he saw the guard. The man saluted politely enough, yet his gaze never moved from Cheftu.
Weary and head aching, Cheftu sank onto the couch. The woven mattress creaked beneath his weight. Three days to wait. Would Pharaoh see? Would Cheftu live?
Did he care?
Three days.
CAPHTOR
“IN THREE HOURS, THE MOON WILL BE IN POSITION,” observed the Daedaledai, a student of the Daedaledion. Chloe looked up at the sky. The ancients were obsessed with astronomy and astrology. Chloe had occasionally checked her horoscope in TV Guide or read her “animal” off the Zodiac in a Chinese restaurant, but these people ordered their lives around the stars.
What did they do on a cloudy day?
“I wish you luck,” said the scrawny, cloaked boy. With a gentle push Chloe found herself standing inside an alcove. “Sibylla,” she called inside, “is this ritual?”
“Aye,” Sibylla answered tersely. “It is, but I am too tired to do it.” Hanging a mental “Do Not Disturb” sign, Sibylla left Chloe alone.
Alone had grown to have many meanings for Chloe. But this “alone,” away from Sibylla’s controlling consciousness, was really eerie. Where was she? What was she supposed to do? Sibylla’s door cracked open. “It’s the Daedaledion Pavement. It’s a training ground for your race with Ileana.” She shut the door firmly, and Chloe was certain that if mental door chains existed, Sibylla had used one.
Chloe stepped farther into the darkness. Three hours until the moon was in position. Just so. Position for what, she had no idea, but obviously getting to the other side was the point. Walls ran on both sides, and she followed them, walking determinedly until she walked into a dead end.
Cursing, Chloe turned around. Where had she missed a turn? Retracing her steps, she discovered she was farther than she thought. She ran into another dead end.
Clenching her fists against unreasonable, growing panic, Chloe fought not to scream. She was in a maze of some kind. She’d been to Kew Gardens, those playful twists of yew; it couldn’t be more complex than that. Where’s the cheese? she wondered.
Okay. Mazes are often motifs. Patterns employed by the Aztlantu flickered through her mind. Spirals, Greek keys, stars … a dozen others that didn’t have easy names. She turned around, looking at the walls. Long, straight, built at angles. Chloe narrowed her eyes, intent on the opposite wall. She crossed to it, running her hands over it carefully.
A passageway. Narrow, but deliberate. Was this a pattern within a pattern? How could she find her way out? “Where is a skein of yarn when you need one?” she murmured. With a last backward glance, she stepped into the adjoining pathway. She walked straight, crossing two intersections that ran at near right angles. The path turned sharply left, and she walked straight for what seemed like an even longer time.
Moonlight painted the maze with shadow and silver. It was a waning moon, the goddess was in her blood, her phase as midwife, before she died as hag. Another sharp turn, also left. Chloe raced down the straight passage, turning sharply left again. She was trapped in the same pattern.
Somewhere, in one of these lengths, there must be a doorway to the other path. Looking left, then right—there was no discernible difference, so she opted for the right. I’ve been going left all night, she thought. Her breath was loud as she ran her hands over the wall. There!
Chloe stepped back into the other section of the maze. Had she been here before? I’m going to carry chalk from now on, Chloe announced in her mind. Sibylla was silent.
The paths were longer, the turns not so extreme. Chloe kept turning left, the distances growing shorter and shorter. It’s a Greek key, she thought with relief. Running the last few passages, pushing herself off the walls into the next turn, she arrived at the center just as the small clearing was flooded in moonlight.
Sweat clung to her, more from fear and nerves than exertion. She looked over her shoulders. She was alone. Stepping up to the pavement, she saw the formula of the maze written in colored stone in the pavement. A Greek key around a five-pointed star, the end of the key between the legs of the star.
That’s fitting, Chloe thought. The key is between the legs. Kela was definitely a fertility goddess. With a low laugh she sank onto the cool grass.
She didn’t have to get back out, did she?
CHEFTU SCHOOLED HIS FEATURES TO BETRAY NOTHING. The court would be watching as he pulled away Senwosret’s bandages. This time he could not banish the observers. Everyone would see. Or not, as the case may be. Swallowing carefully, he pulled back a layer of linen, thankful for the heavy shadow. Reaching for a small lamp, its flame no bigger than his thumbnail, Cheftu waved the light before Pharaoh. Several swathes of linen were still in place.
“Tell me what you see.”
“Brightness… flickers before me,” Praise Thoth, at least the surgery had not blinded him further! But had it healed him?
Cheftu held the light still. “Now, My Majesty?”
“It is before me. Standing.”
Cheftu knew the scales that had grown in Pharaoh’s eyes had thickened until his vision had narrowed into one small tunnel of clarity. Finally the tunnel had closed, and Pharaoh had seen nothing. The tunnel was the vital part; the surgery should have cleared and widened it, gods willing.
Ignoring the cold sweat trickling down his temples, Cheftu removed several more layers of linen. He tested again. The final bandage dropped to the floor, and the light was extinguished. The court waited in breathless silence. “My Majesty, open your eyes very slowly, very carefully.” He watched as the caked eyelids rose, revealing dark eyes.
Senwosret’s gaze was unfocused, his pupils dilated. Cheftu felt sweat run down his back. By the gods! What could he do?
“You are a young man, mage.”
Pharaoh could see!
The court erupted in sound. “Silence!” Cheftu shouted. “My Majesty, it will be several more days before your sight is clear enough to stand Ra’s full power. You must keep in the shadows. You must not bend, or move your head rapidly.”
Senwosret smiled, his sagging jowls lifted slightly by the action. “So I live as a kheft for a few days! No matter. You have given me sight, mage!”
Cheftu allowed himself a relieved smile.
“In this court you have a new title, an honor and responsibility.” Senwosret lifted his hands, and the chamberlain handed him the symbols of Egypt, the crook and flail. “From henceforth, this mage will be known as Necht-mer, Protector of Sight! I vow, on the sacred head of Apis, that any desire of Necht-mer, up to a third of my kingdom, is his for the asking.”
Cheftu bowed, then thanked Pharaoh.
Senwosret took his hands, blinking back tears. “To see the faces of my grandchildren, this is a gift beyond understanding! The gods’ blessings on you.”
Speared by the humility of the monarch, Cheftu could only nod as he turned and was greeted by the hordes of shaven and perfumed courtiers.
Tonight Pharaoh was hosting a feast for the mage who had returned his sight. Cheftu, Necht-mer, had been awarded palace apartments and given his choice of maidens. Even the perfumed limbs of a dozen different women couldn’t raise his attention. He had smiled and thanked and sought blessed solitude. Imhotep came to see him, but Cheftu claimed to be resting. Ipiankhu invited him
for a stroll through the menagerie, but Cheftu declined.
Another time, another court. Cheftu sighed as he fingered the marks on his shoulder. The wound was not healing, and it hurt. He drank another cup of wine. “Why” seemed so pointless to ask. Why here? Why trampled? Why apart from Chloe?
Why did he feel so ill at ease?
In disgust he threw his cup at the wall, watching the fragile alabaster shatter, staining the whitewash. The one moment of gratification melted into a deep sense of regret, shame that he would treat his good fortune so callously. After tying on his sandals, he left the palace, refusing guards, slaves, and bearers.
His steps took him through the rank gardens, past mosquito breeding pools and rotting flower beds. The gates from the palace to the city were open, two young sentries on duty. They saluted him, and he felt a pang; even the Egyptian salute was different.
The road branched. He could walk toward the noblemen’s houses on the waterfront, or to the market clustered in the poorer sections of town, with its sales of slaves and animals, fruits, vegetables, and goods, or toward the harbor. Cheftu set off for the harbor, watching as the Egyptians haggled for fish, prostitutes flashed their wares with black-toothed smiles, and children begged. His leg ached, yet his heart ached more. This was not Egypt.
Chaos ruled the waterfront. Men, cats, and children all raised their voices to Ra as they bargained and bartered and cheated. Pulling his cloak over his head, Cheftu leaned against a wall, watching.
Papyrus boats bobbed in the water next to the riverboats with towering masts and center cabins. A nobleman’s barge, identifiable by its gold-plated oars—what a ridiculous waste of gold—pulled in to dock. It was immediately surrounded with hawkers selling overpriced food and pleasure, and children whose long black eyes camouflaged their plans to steal. Dockhands lowered a ramp, and the party began to disembark.
The women came first, surely this generation’s flowers of Egypt, Cheftu thought. Their linen was finely woven, their faces protected by the sunshades and fans of their trailing slaves. Though they were beautiful, they were cold, aloof, and Cheftu had no desire to see beyond their painted masks. A group of men followed; the famine had scarcely touched their toned, brown, hairless bodies.
The owner of the ship, Cheftu guessed from the deference shown him, debarked last. He was a beautiful boy, a man, really, but he walked with the hope of untried youth. Cheftu wondered if he’d ever been that young, that hopeful. Though he was only thirty-two, he felt a thousand.
Only thirty-two in three time periods, he reminded himself; France, Hatshepsut’s Egypt, and now Senwosret’s Egypt.
Cheftu was sitting in a tavern, cringing at the bad beer, when the Aztlantu ships sailed in. The docks filled with silent watchers as the huge, purple-sailed vessels dropped anchor and the Mariners came on shore.
Cheftu stared in astonishment at the ship. It was obviously not Egyptian design, nor did it resemble paintings he’d seen of Greek triremes. Twenty oarsmen covered each side, and from the towering mast a square purple sail was now being lowered. The prow and bow rose high out of the water at almost a ninety-degree angle. Along the waterline an artist had painted a wave rippled with red and gold. Tritons of gold rose from the prow and stern. Shields rimmed the edge of the ship, the fronts now turned inward as a sign of peace. Still, there was something familiar about the shields. Two circles atop each other, covered in cow’s hide. Tall enough to cover a man even six feet in height.
Accustomed to being one of the tallest men in any time, Cheftu was surprised to see the Mariners were his height and taller. Meat: they eat a lot of meat, Cheftu thought. They were built differently from the Egyptians, too: wasp-waisted and broad shouldered with much larger bones. Next to them, the Egyptians looked like dainty children.
The Mariners marched in an orderly fashion. Their uniform seemed to be long braided hair, brief, brightly patterned kilts, and codpieces. They wore strange boots that laced up to their knees.
Four of the black-haired Mariners carried a litter down the ramp. Cheftu swallowed hard when he saw the passenger. He was white. Not just in skin color, but Anglo-Saxon in features, with a large bumpy nose and receding chin. Blond hair flowed over the back of his chair, and his eyes were so intensely blue that Cheftu could see them from this distance. He was young, his mostly bared body firm and golden skinned. He scanned the crowd coolly.
Cheftu had seen blonds in Egypt. Usually they were highly priced concubines from Hattai. But this man, with his sharp features and prominent nose, he looked savagely English. “Who is that?” Cheftu asked the fishmonger standing next to him.
“Nestor, envoy from the empire,” the man said. “He was here a few weeks ago, and Isis knows why he’s back.”
“There is no famine in the empire?”
The fishmonger honked, a sound Cheftu took to be a laugh. “Nay. Aztlan’s streets are covered in gold, and they have a pyramid that reaches the sky and blinds a man with its beauty.”
“Egypt too has gold,” Cheftu murmured. “It is not nutritious, however.”
“Aye, my lord. But in Aztlan they have fields that stretch for henti, as far as a man can see, waving with grain twice a year. They have orchards heavy with fruit, and the state gives every man a concubine for a year.”
Cheftu grinned. Food and women, quite the fantastical empire. “If they have all of that, why is Nestor here?”
The man’s face grew solemn. “Pharaoh, living forever! alone knows.” He looked at Cheftu, noticing for the first time his fine linen and muscled body. “Long may Senwosret live!” the fishmonger said, then scampered away.
Cheftu returned to the tavern and drank a few more cups of beer, his tongue numb to the taste now. In payment for his beer he checked one of the children’s sores, rebandaged it, and bade the tavernkeeper’s family farewell. Walking through the courtyard, he was surprised to see that stars were out. Another day and night alone in Egypt, he thought, and began making his way back to the palace.
He needed to talk to Ipiankhu tomorrow.
Cheftu was ushered into the vizier’s chamber. Ipiankhu sat by a small table washed in sunshine from the clerestory windows. Cheftu took the proffered seat and accepted a cup of beer.
The light glinted off the vizier’s chin and eyelashes. The man had auburn hair, Cheftu thought with astonishment. He had never seen him without his full court attire, and now, sitting here with the barest of cosmetics, Cheftu could tell he wasn’t a native Egyptian. “You asked to see me, my lord?” the vizier said.
Cheftu placed the ring on the man’s table. Ipiankhu frowned slightly, then picked it up. It was a two-sided swirl of pearl and obsidian, inscribed in characters Cheftu had never seen. It had been in the parcel Chloe had received in Hatshepsut’s Egypt, and he’d taken it from her … her corpse, he forced himself to think.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was a gift,” or a curse, he thought. “My wife, the woman found with me, received it before we arrived here.” Some crazed witch in the market of Noph placed it in Chloe’s hands, he thought. She never even had time to open it. Perhaps that was an omen?
Ipiankhu looked at him through narrowed eyes. He rose and walked to a tiny balcony overlooking Avaris’s harbor. Cheftu followed him.
“Behold the purple-sailed ships.” Ipiankhu said, pointing to the enormous vessels Cheftu had seen sail in yesterday. “They are Aztlantu.” Ipiankhu returned to his chair.
“What has that to do with my ring?”
“Your ring is Aztlantu,” Ipiankhu said. “Now would you care to tell me how you came to have it?”
Was this a sign? Cheftu wondered. “Does Egypt trade with Aztlan?”
Ipiankhu’s gaze grew more intent. “We supply their Apis bulls for rituals. Now they are demanding more from us.”
“Demanding what?”
“Political prisoners. ‘Guests of the empire,’ the envoy calls them. But in this time of hardship I find it even harder to ask an Egyptian to forsake family a
nd friends and go to live in a strange culture.”
Cheftu’s stomach tightened, and he felt a tinge of excitement. Was this his destiny? The reason for his being in this time and place? “I will go.”
The vizier said nothing, watching. Cheftu picked up the ring—it slid perfectly on his finger. “I have no wife,” he said coolly. “I have no position, no fields, no home. There is nothing for me on these shores.” He glanced into Ipiankhu’s hazel eyes. “Indeed, it is an agony to see Egypt this way and know I cannot heal her.” He shifted his hand, watching as the strange symbols took fire when the sun hit them. “You need Egyptians, you said.”
Ipiankhu templed his fingers. “You are loyal to Egypt, are you not?”
“I have given my life in her service,” he said. In more ways than you can know.
“How is your shoulder?”
Cheftu touched his left shoulder. He could move his arm with no difficulty, merely the occasional twinge. His left hand concerned him most. It would take practice for him to fully regain his dexterity. “It is well enough.”
The vizier opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. “I will inform Pharaoh, living forever! and Imhotep that this is your wish.”
Cheftu rose at the dismissal and walked back to his apartments. Feeling disoriented, he lay down on the couch, enjoying the warm sunlight falling across his legs.
“My lord?” A slave shook him awake. “The vizier asks for you.”
Hurriedly Cheftu donned kilt and collar, repaired his kohl, and tucked his stubby hair beneath a headcloth.
Imhotep and Ipiankhu were seated on a back balcony. Mosquitoes clambered along the edge, but slaves with fans and switches kept them away. Cheftu hadn’t seen Imhotep since Pharaoh’s surgery. A slave brought a chair, and Cheftu sat opposite them.
“Do you know the Aztlantu?” Imhotep asked.
Cheftu shook his head.
“Well, that is one of the most annoying things about them,” Imhotep said.
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