by Diana Wilder
“I have told you all I am permitted to tell you.”
“You know it isn't enough, Your Grace,” Khonsu said. “We want to help you.!”
“I don't need your help, Commander.”
Seti stepped forward. “No? Look at yourself: I think it's obvious that you do!”
Nebamun looked down at himself with raised eyebrows, then lifted his head again. “Dishevelment is not the same as distress, General.”
“I'm not speaking of Your Grace's appearance!”
“You puzzle me, General,” Nebamun said, the hint of the carefully restrained smile growing stronger. “What else is there of me that's visible other than my appearance?”
“I'm speaking of Your Grace's situation!”
Nebamun folded his arms and sat back. “I'm sorry to have upset you, General, but you can console yourself with the reflection that my situation doesn't appear as desperate to me as it does to you.”
Seti's frown increased. “How can Your Grace expect us to help you if you don't cooperate with us?”
“I told you I need no help,” Nebamun pointed out. “Didn't you hear me?”
“Your Grace is leaving me no choice but to press on with the charges!”
“Things appear to have changed since I surrendered, General,” Nebamun said mildly. “I thought it was for Commander Khonsu, as head of the forces here, to decide whether to prosecute me. If this is still the case,” his gaze grew direct, “I'm sure the Commander objects to having his authority usurped in this fashion.”
The full, frontal attack took Seti by surprise. “I beg your pardon, Commander,” he said, turning to Khonsu. “That wasn't my intent. I'm only interested in clearing His Grace's name.”
Nebamun nodded at this retreat in good order. “It can't be done,” he reminded them. “I have confessed to killing Paser. Were you planning to beat me into signing a document saying that my confession was a joke?”
“Your Grace knows better!” Khonsu said. He added, “And Your Grace knows this is a serious matter!”
“Is it?. I have heard everyone say over and over how Paser's killer should be rewarded. For that matter, General Seti said as much only two days ago. A necklace of honor, no less. I have admitted to the killing. And am I given that necklace? No! I am flung into prison, badgered and browbeaten!”
“Your Grace!” Khonsu exclaimed. “We never—”
Seti folded his arms with a frown. “This is no time for joking,” he said. “We need answers.”
The sense of Nebamun's amusement had completely vanished. “You aren't going to get them, General. I have said all that I am permitted to say.”
Seti traded stares with Nebamun. He finally turned away with an exclamation of annoyance. “Your Grace has no notion of how we're trying to help you!”.
“And I keep telling you, as clearly as I am able, that I don't need your help.”
Seti's exasperation was growing. “You're going to fly away from this self-chosen prison, then?”
“That's quite possible,” Nebamun said calmly. “You may be surprised. But in the mean time I must insist that you stop wearying me with your impertinent speculations and suggestions!”
The snub made Seti blink and then flush with anger. “I'll do that! Do I have Your Grace's leave to depart?”
“It isn't for the prisoner to dismiss his jailers,” Nebamun replied with relentless sweetness.
Seti bowed low, turned and strode briskly to the steps. A moment later they heard his footsteps on the walkway outside.
Nebamun watched him go, his mouth tipped oddly, before looking over at Khonsu. “How interesting to see him lose his temper,” he mused. “I'd wondered if it was as hot as his father's, and I see I am right. The touch of Hyksos blood in them, maybe?” He dropped the line of thought without waiting for a response from Khonsu. “But aren't you going to follow him out, Commander? The part of my comments addressed to you was pointed, as well.”
“No, Your Grace,” Khonsu replied. “We have some things to discuss, and I'm not so easy to divert.”
Lord Nebamun sat back with a sigh. “Am I to be subjected to another spell of argument, then?”
“No, Your Grace,” Khonsu said. “You're going to listen to a plea. This is all so unnecessary! I know Your Grace is a man of honor. No one who has ever dealt with you would ever believe that you could be a murderer.”
“I denied the charge, if you remember,” Nebamun countered.
“But that is how you'll be judged if you don't defend yourself!”
“I may not be. Wait and see.”
“I don't have the luxury of time!”
Nebamun shook his head. “Wait and see,” he repeated.
“There's this to consider, as well, if your own plight won't move you. You have put me in a terrible position. I will be the one who must prefer charges, since I' conducted the investigation into Paser's death and it was to me that Your Grace surrendered.”
“No one would ever fault you for doing your duty. Least of all me. Surely you know this.”
Khonsu turned away from him and walked to the end of the portico. He was silent for a long time before he turned and back. “Why must you take this line, Your Grace? If only you could...”
Nebamun interrupted him without ceremony. “Show some sense, Commander. This can only lead to your advancement. You will be under His Majesty's eye, and he admires courage and resourcefulness. I have mentioned you in many of my reports already.”
“I don't want wealth, power or His Majesty's approval if I have to hurt Your Grace to get them!” Khonsu said. “How can you think that it would be anything other than a personal disaster for me to see you brought low through my actions? I know you are no murderer! But don't you see that that is how you will be judged if you keep your silence? And I am powerless to help you!”
The amusement faded from Nebamun's expression. He shook his head at Khonsu with an affectionate smile. “You're fretting to no purpose, Commander,” he said. “There are so many more sensible things to worry about. This will resolve itself shortly, I swear it to you upon my honor. Just have faith and patience. Do you think I am eager to embrace my own ruin? No, all will be most well. I promise it.”
XXXIX
Ptahemhat shot a quick glance over his shoulder and then hurried along the street, taking care to keep on the shadowed side even in the moonless night. He should be back in his own bed but he would not be able to rest until he had spoken with Lord Nebamun and heard from the Second Prophet's own lips that all was well.
He was at a break in the wall; he could see the dry, twisted shapes of dead trees beyond it bordering an arcaded walkway in what must once have been a beautiful garden.
He heard the measured beat of feet approaching along the packed ground; he flattened himself against the broken, irregular stones of the wall until the patrol passed, then leaned forward to frown after them. They were Royal Army: some of Seti's boys. Ptahemhat compared them with his own command and shook his head with disgust. Swaggering baboons!
He crossed the garden, passed through the arcade to the core of the house itself, and then stopped to raise his head into the faint night wind and gaze around. The house was silent and dark. No lamplight warmed the walls or spilled across the broken pavement.
“Your Grace?” His voice was almost breathless in the night.
No answer. Ptahemhat went into the house and moved through empty, graciously large rooms bare of furniture or hangings. Dark doorways yawned before him; he passed them with pounding heart and quickened footsteps. A stairway opened to the right and he could see the faint shimmer of starlight filtering down from the rooftop. Light and air after the close darkness of the house.
He began to climb the steps.
The stairway opened to a wide balcony that overlooked the rooftops of the city and, to the north, channeled the eye to the towering lines of the Northern Sentinels. Ptahemhat looked around the starlit expanse of terrace, suddenly caught by the feeling that he was not alone. He m
oved away from the doorway and out under the stars.
He looked along the terrace. A lidded basket sat beside a chair, at the edge, facing the towering lines of the Northern Sentinels touched with silver by the high-riding moon. He looked away from the cliffs. Threads of silver seemed to outline the form of a man, richly robed, his hands clasping a cup that glinted in the starlight. His face was raised toward the cliffs, the strengthening moonlight limning his features - familiar and yet not so. Tears traced the lines of his cheekbones; as Ptahemhat watched he raised the cup to his lips. Ah, my son…
The words were barely above the sigh of the wind.
The man raised his eyes to Ptahemhat…
Like and yet unlike -Ptahehmat thought, confused. …and so terribly sad–
The threads of starlight raveled, faded as he watched, leaving the faint outline of the basket, real in the night.
Ptahemhat gasped and took a step backward. “Your Grace?” he said again. His voice sounded small, shaken and lonely in the vast silence of the night.
Had someone spoken? He strained his ears but caught no lingering echoes, though his mind brought up, all unbidden, his memories of his father's tomb, that he had seen during his funeral. He could remember the impassive statues gazing into blackness, the wide-eyed coffins nested each within the next, and all shut away from the light of day within a womb of rock. And he remembered how Lord Nebamun had held and comforted the eight year old child that he had been. It seemed so distant, so faint, as though His Grace himself were now dead.
Ptahemhat wrenched himself away from the thought. “Your Grace!” he cried. “Your Grace! M-my Father–? Are you here?”
He heard no immediate answer, but he felt another behind him as clearly as though he had heard someone speak,. He turned, his heart pounding, to face the man who gazed at him, as still and calm in the starlight as the man he had seemed to see. Like and yet unlike… All that Ptahemhat could make out was shadow and silver and the glint of light upon a carved jewel that hung at the man's breast. He took a hesitant step backward, his mouth dry—
“Ptahemhat.” The name was spoken quietly, as though the speaker were naming an item to be remembered.”
“Your Grace?” he gasped.
“Yes,” the other said after the slightest of wondering pauses. “That is my title now.” The calm, detached voice warmed a little. “Come sit down beside me, Ptahu, and tell me why you're here.” he said. “It is late and you look sleepy and a little furtive. I was caught in the past. It will be good to speak with the living again.” He added with a smile, “I see they released you.”
“Yes, My Father,” Ptahemhat said, lowering himself to the ground beside Lord Nebamun's chair. He leaned back and said, “I spoke to Commander Khonsu and then to Father Perineb. They told me I couldn't talk to you.”
Nebamun's frown flashed for a moment. “And you disobeyed them both and came to see me anyway. Shame on you! I thought you were a better soldier than that! You obey your superiors unless there's a compelling reason not to! Don't do it again!”
Ptahemhat lowered his head. “I'm sorry. I'll apologize tomorrow.”
“Do so.”
“Yes, sir.” Ptahemhat paused. “Y-you look well.”
“I am perfectly well, as you can see,” Nebamun said with the glint of a smile.
“But Master Sennefer said that you were in seclusion,” Ptahemhat pursued with the feeling that he was making a pest of himself.
“I suppose there's some truth to that,” Nebamun said. “But the proper wording is that I am being kept in seclusion.”
The Second Prophet's voice was quiet and amused, but Ptahemhat sensed a hint of danger in the even tones. It made him afraid for reasons he could not understand. He shivered suddenly.
Nebamun's expression softened. “Sit back and tell me about yourself, Ptahu. I am sure you're glad to be out of prison.”
“Yes,” Ptahemhat said fervently. “I don't like being thought a criminal.”
“It isn't comfortable,” Nebamun agreed. “And in your case it was unnecessary. Tell me, Ptahu, between ourselves: what were you doing the night Paser was killed?” He smiled as Ptahemhat stiffened. “It was the girl, wasn't it? You were with her that night.”
“That— Oh hell, I might have known you'd guess! Do you ever miss anything? Yes, it was her. I saw her that night. We didn't do anything wrong. I want to marry her, but who'd believe me with her so lovely?”
Nebamun rumpled Ptahemhat's hair. “I would.”
Ptahemhat looked up at him with a wide smile and took the Second Prophet's hand between his own. “Yes, you would. But not everyone's so understanding. Anyhow, it would be the end of her good name. She comes from a priestly family. Don't lift your eyebrows at me like that! They're proud and they're proper! Sebnit agreed to marry me, but she can't do anything until I offer for her, and I want my mother's permission first.”
“That's why you wanted to go to Memphis,” Nebamun mused. “You might have told me: I am your guardian, after all, and I think her family would have accepted my authority.”
“Mother would have been hurt if I hadn't told her. And Sebnit made me promise to speak with Mother first.”
“Did she, now?” Nebamun said. “She sounds like a delightful girl.”
Ptahemhat's smile gentled. “Oh, she is, Your Grace! Good and sweet-tempered, with a sense of humor that reminds me of Aunt Mayet!”
“If she's like my wife, Ptahu, you have found a treasure,” Nebamun said. “See you hold on to her.” He smiled down at the young man and said, “Well, your troubles are all over now, aren't they?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Ptahemhat said dubiously.
“You seem a little doubtful.”
“They said they released me because they had no proof against me. They act as though I really killed Paser, but I didn't! No one will believe me!”
Nebamun stretched his legs out before him and crossed them. “Of course you didn't kill Paser. And they know you didn't because I told them that I am the one who killed him.”
Ptahemhat stared, his increasing sleepiness forgotten in his astonishment. “You killed him?” he repeated.
“Yes,” said Nebamun. “Me. I'd do it again with the best will in the world if the opportunity presented itself, but I think I might use a bow and arrow the next time.” He looked up at Ptahemhat and lifted his eyebrows at the young man's dumbfounded expression. “Well?” he said.
“I can't believe that it was Your Grace of all people who killed Paser!”
“The others had the same problem,” said Nebamun. “It is sobering to think that I appear as feeble as all that. Maybe I should shave my head and hobble about with a stick.”
“Will they send you to trial?” Ptahemhat demanded. “No, never say so! I'll go to them and confess—”
Nebamun sat back and crossed his ankles. “Don't be a fool, he advised. “I won't go to trial. All will be well.”
“All will—” Ptahemhat began, astonished. “No! This time it won't! They were going to press charges against me! And I denied everything! But you admitted— Your Grace, this is terrible! If I could tell Prince Thutmose, or Father Perineb—”
“We'll leave my father-in-law and His Reverence out of this,” Nebamun said crisply, but with the hint of a smile. “It would worry them to no purpose. Matters have been taken care of. I won't be tried, wait and see.”
“But how—”
“Don't ask questions I can't answer.”
“You always say that.” Ptahemhat was happier now. He sat back with a sigh. “Why did you kill him?”
“He left me no other choice.”
Ptahemhat considered the answer and judged it sufficient. “But you aren't sick?”
“No, not sick,” Nebamun replied.
“But the house is dark!”
Nebamun had turned his eyes northeast. “I'm waiting for the sun. It comes through those cliffs… Magnificent.”
Ptahemhat hesitated and then gazed northeast as well, toward
the Northern Sentinels. His eyes were growing heavier; he leaned his head against Nebamun's knee after a moment. “I'm sorry I made such an ass of myself,” he said at last through a yawn. “I never meant to cause you any trouble.”
“It is hard to suffer slander with a smile. I know that as well as anyone. Paser brought out the worst in you. But you caused me no trouble. It was merely a question of deciding whether to tell the truth, and that never takes long. Never mind, Ptahu, all will be well.”
Ptahemhat closed his eyes and felt sleep washing over him in slow, dark waves. “I don't understand why I'm so tired,” he yawned.
Nebamun smiled down at him for a moment and then looked toward the Northern Sentinels once more. “There's nothing to understand,” he said. “You have been under a strain; you're a healthy young man, and nature has caught up with you. Be glad you can sleep: age tends to steal that gift away.”
Ptahemhat opened blurred eyes and tried to raise his head. He relaxed after a moment and closed his eyes once more with a sigh.
Nebamun folded his hands in his lap and watched the strengthening glint of sun just emerging through the opening in the Northern Sentinels. “How young you are, Ptahu,” he mused with the hint of a smile, “though I'd never be unkind enough to say it while you were awake to hear me. I remember when I was as young as you, how it seemed that the world lay waiting for my touch to rouse it to glory.”
He fell silent, gazing straight into the sun. “I learned to ignore my dreams And yet sometimes I still feel the longing, and I wonder if I have the resolve and courage to follow them.”
Ptahemhat stirred and murmured. Nebamun eased him down to the pavement and settled his light cloak over him. “Your mother would never forgive me if I let you freeze out here,” he said wryly. “Nor would the spirit of your father, who entrusted you to my care as he died. Now sleep; you have little enough to worry you, and there's no need for you to know the terrible matters that are worrying me.”
XL
“I should have guessed you'd disobey as soon as my back was turned! You went straight off to worry His Grace after you were specifically ordered not to, and you have heard things that were supposed to be kept secret.” Khonsu said the next morning. He had been speaking with Sennefer when Ptahemhat reported to him.
