House of Scorpion

by Mark Gajewski

  Every line of her body proclaimed anger. Her face was red with fury. She pivoted on her heel just outside the entrance. “You’re a blood-sucking monster!” she screamed at someone inside.

  Hemu appeared in the doorway, gripping his new stick so tightly his knuckles were white. He pointed it at her. “Watch your tongue, Girl, or I’ll rip it out of your mouth!”

  The girl turned, clenched her fists. Then she spotted me. Without hesitating she made a beeline for me. She halted a step away. Her chest was heaving, eyes flashing. She was trembling, enraged. She shook her fist at me. “And you’re an entitled monster!” She spat at my feet, then angrily strode in the direction of the workshops. Everyone in the lane hurriedly got out of her way. She shoved aside those too slow to vacate her path.

  Hemu, still in the doorway, shrugged and went back inside the warehouse.

  I watched the crowd close behind the girl. Why was she angry at me? Yesterday she’d been a pest. Today exceptionally hostile and belligerent. And rude. What next? I shook my head. No matter. What were the odds of encountering her again? I sighted Isu a few paces away. He’d come up behind me during my brief encounter. He was with another man.

  “What an outrageously unpleasant girl,” I said.

  “Tamit? Not sure what you did to get on her bad side, Majesty.” Isu chuckled. “We all do our best to stay on her good side.”

  “Why?”

  “Every unattached man in this settlement wants her, Majesty. Even some of the attached. So fierce! So strong-willed! Such compelling eyes!”

  “Such a temper.”

  Isu laughed. “That glorious golden hair… She’ll be a beauty one day, Majesty. Feed her up, put her in a proper skirt, drape her with jewels… The man who wins her will be very lucky.” He shook his head. “Assuming he can tame her.”

  Isu saw something in Tamit I didn’t. But I was used to refined king’s daughters, not rude abrasive lapwings. “I’ll take your word for it, Isu. Now, about my walls. Have you ever built one?”

  “No, Majesty. But this man has. Meru.”

  Meru stepped forward. “Majesty.”

  “You have experience?”

  “Majesty, I come from the North, from a land called Setjet. Many villages in Setjet are surrounded by walls to keep raiders out. I helped my father build several when I was a boy.”

  “How long have you lived in Ptah’s Settlement, Meru?”

  “About ten years. I was an oarsman on a boat. I got tired of rowing.”

  “So tell me, Meru, what’s the process for building walls around my warehouses? Not just the existing ones, but those I’ll erect in the future?”

  “First, Majesty, we’ll need to mark the enclosure’s four corners and the location of the gate that’ll allow access. Then we’ll have to level the ground between the markers – say, fifteen feet wide. That’s how thick each wall will need to be. I assume you’ll want them to be at least twenty feet high?”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “While men are leveling the ground, and while construction proceeds, women and girls and boys will make mud bricks.”

  “How?”

  “They’ll tread a mixture of mud and straw and water in shallow pits. When the mud’s the right consistency they’ll fill rectangular wooden forms. Those forms will dry in the sun for a couple of days. Then the bricks will be pushed out so we can reuse the forms. The brickmakers will work continuously from now until the day we place the top layer of the wall.”

  “We’ll need carpenters to make the forms. The more brickmakers the better, I assume.”

  “Yes, Majesty. Now, as far as actually constructing the walls… Men will lay bricks one layer at a time, taking care that each brick overlaps the two below it. The wall will be widest at the bottom and narrowest at the top.”

  “How will you get bricks twenty feet off the ground, Meru?”

  “Once the wall reaches chest height we’ll build a platform of dirt beside the wall, both inside and out. Men will stand atop the dirt to lay the higher levels of bricks in place. Less skilled men will haul the bricks to them. We’ll continue to add dirt to the platform to make it ever higher and match the walls’ progress.”

  “So we’ll need porters, and bricklayers, and men to haul dirt and maintain the platform.”

  “Correct, Majesty.”

  “Will you erect all four walls at the same time?”

  “Yes. Until we reach chest height. Then we’ll work on one wall at a time. That way we’ll be able to use the same dirt four times to make our platforms. Once the first wall reaches twenty feet, we’ll start removing the platform dirt from the top layer and use it to construct the bottom layer of the next wall’s platform.”

  “So you’ll have to excavate and haul less dirt to the work site.”

  “Correct, Majesty. The corners will be a little tricky, since they’ll have to be built up in two directions at the same time, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I want you to plaster the outside of the walls, Meru. I want them to gleam in the sunlight so they’ll be visible for miles. I want those walls to be a symbol of my father’s power to everyone who sees them.”

  “Easy enough, Majesty. As we lower the dirt platform we can plaster the wall from the top down. When the last platform is gone your walls will be fully plastered.”

  “How soon can we start, Meru?”

  “We can lay out the footprint of the enclosure today, Majesty. Then I’ll start rounding up women and children in the settlement to get a start on the bricks, assuming I can get carpenters to put forms together.”

  “I’ll see to that,” Isu promised.

  “Isu, get word to Sety on his estate,” I ordered. “Tell him that as soon as the inundation idles his workers he should send them here to work on the wall. Tell him to send his cargo boats to all the settlements in the delta to transport their idled workers here too. Meru – we’ll set up a camp for them inside the enclosure, in the area where my future warehouses will be built. Have Hemu assemble tents. Have him arrange food and drink and necessities. Isu, tell the settlement’s brewers and bakers and butchers they’ll need to produce more.”

  “Yes, Majesty,” Isu and Meru echoed.

  “We’ll be more organized when next year’s inundation comes, but we’ll have to do the best we can this season,” I said. “I’m not willing to let a year go by without making a start.”

  “We’ll learn from this year, Majesty,” Meru promised.

  “Now, let’s establish the footprint.”

  Isu hurried off to send the message to Sety and deal with the carpenters and Hemu. Meru and I laid out an immense rectangular enclosure, large enough to protect twice as many warehouses and granaries as currently existed. We marked the corners with piles of stone, then traced lines in the dirt between them, he the outer, me the inner, fifteen feet apart. By the time we finished the sun was nearing the rim of the western plateau and I was thirsty and famished and sweating. I flung the stick I’d been using to trace the ground aside and surveyed our work. I pictured the future walls. There wouldn’t be another structure like it in the entire valley. Father would be pleased.

  A reed-and-mud structure standing behind one of the warehouses and in front of the granaries caught my eye, twice the size of a worker’s hut. Two poles flanked its entrance, each fifteen feet tall, each flying a red linen banner moving fitfully in the breeze.

  “What’s that?” I asked Meru.

  “Ptah’s shrine,” Meru replied. “He’s the god of craftsmen and the patron of this settlement. Or so I understand. He’s not a god known in my country.”

  So this was the equivalent of Nekhen’s and Tjeni’s sacred courts. Far less imposing. “We don’t know Ptah in the South either,” I said. “Wepwawet is the god of my settlement, Tjeni. We also honor Horus, the falcon god.”

  “I’ve heard porters at the harbor invoke his name,” Meru laughed. “Usually when a container smashes a finger or toe. Boatmen too.”

  “I
suppose I should erect a similar shrine to Horus here since he’s known valley-wide,” I mused. “Many from Tjeni will settle here in the next few years, so I should probably create one for Wepwawet as well.”

  “And the gods can fight among themselves to decide who’s most important,” Meru said.

  ***

  Two weeks later I watched one of Sety’s boats tie up at a quay near the small patch of shade alongside the harbor where I was sitting. This particular vessel was hauling cargo; his others had been regularly delivering workers to erect my walls ever since the inundation swept with a rush over this section of the valley and covered all the low ground between the eastern and western plateaus. A series of dikes was keeping the harbor area and the workshops and the lane that led to the warehouses dry. Meru had already leveled the foundations of the walls and the first layer of the first wall was partly laid. Piles of bricks were growing larger as the workforce grew. I’d been haunting the harbor and warehouse district from dawn until dusk every hour I hadn’t been observing wall construction these past weeks, trying to figure out how receiving and storing and moving trade goods and commodities fit together and pondering ways to get the process under better control. The moment Sety’s boat was secure porters immediately swarmed to it to unload his goods. Sety was a friend of Hori’s and so his boats apparently had priority. To me, despite Didia’s continued assurances to the contrary, the harbor seemed like a vast unorganized mess. A plethora of men were hauling goods back and forth, like ants pouring into and out of an anthill. I saw some containers moved multiple times, from one pile on the flats to another. Porters and overseers were constantly opening and reopening containers to see what was inside. Overseers were bellowing and cursing at porters and each other. Porters were cursing back. Captains were striding the quays, irritated because their cargoes were ignored for hours at a time, yelling at porters and Hori and Didia. Add in heat and dust and several languages and it was easy to see why tempers were always frayed and voices constantly at a fever pitch.

  I spotted the girl with the golden hair passing a dozen strides from my patch of shade, again lugging a large jar. The girl who’d practically cursed me and spat at me several weeks ago. An unexpected and perfect opportunity for me to hold her to account for her actions. Too many workers had heard her scream at me for me to ignore what she’d done. “Tamit,” I called harshly.

  She noticed me, stopped. She stared in momentary surprise. “How do you know my name?”

  “Isu told me. Come here. Right now.”

  She almost said something, but she didn’t. She squared her shoulders and moved towards me.

  I stood up. I didn’t want her looking down at me, in a position of power.

  Her skirt was just as filthy as the previous two times I’d encountered her. Sweat had turned dust to mud all over her body. Her hair was unbraided today, matted, plastered to her glistening brow and shoulders and back and chest. “What do you want?” As an afterthought. “Majesty.” She said it distastefully.

  “You called me an entitled monster.”

  “I did.” She wasn’t at all apologetic.

  “Why?”

  “Do you really need to ask?”

  Her cavalier attitude was making me angry. “I wouldn’t ask if I knew.”

  “Very well.” Tamit set down her jar and rolled her shoulders to loosen them. She wiped sweat from her brow with her forearm, leaving behind a streak of mud. “I took carved ivory to the warehouse. Hemu bartered me far less grain in exchange than usual. Mind you – he took way too much before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before what? Before you!” Tamit practically exploded. “Bad enough the elites skim off more of what we produce in the ivory workshop for themselves than they deserve. But now we have to support you too – a new house, servants, food and drink and necessities for them, fine clothes and jewels for you.”

  There was clearly deep-seated resentment between at least one worker and the settlement’s elites.

  “Who told you about my house and servants?”

  “Hemu. Did you think you could keep them secret? Do you think we’re all so blind we wouldn’t notice a new house? Why are you here anyway?”

  “I’m getting Ptah’s Settlement under control and making it loyal to King Scorpion.”

  “Why? What right does a king who lives hundreds of miles away have to interfere with us?”

  “Reasons and rights you can’t possibly understand.”

  Tamit scowled. “I understand far more than you give me credit for.” She bent to pick up her jar. “Good luck getting this mess under control.”

  “I suppose you know why it’s a mess?”

  Tamit straightened. She left her jar on the ground. “Of course I do,” she said as if I was a child.

  She was infuriating. “Tell me.”

  “You just said I was too stupid to understand anything. Now you want my help?”

  Contrary and infuriating. “Tell me what you know. Maybe I’ll change my opinion of you.”

  “I don’t care about your opinion of me. Majesty.” She glared at me. “I’ll help if you promise to make Hemu treat us in the ivory workshop fairly.”

  “You’re bargaining with me?” I was used to people answering when I asked questions, not angling to get something for themselves.

  “Isn’t that what happens when one person wants something another has?” Tamit asked sweetly.

  I’d spent a lot of time studying the harbor and warehouse these past weeks and not getting anywhere. If Tamit knew something that might help me understand… I gritted my teeth. “I’ll speak to Hemu.”

  “I’ll hold you to your word, Majesty.”

  I wondered how she thought she would.

  “As you know, Didia oversees the harbor and Hemu oversees the warehouses and Hori oversees the porters who move everything. Hori has three crews – one to unload boats, one to load them, and one to move containers between the harbor and the warehouses in both directions.” Tamit indicated masses of containers. “Goods pile up because Hori doesn’t coordinate their movement between his crews, much less with Didia and Hemu. One crew has too many men, the other two not enough. Instead of working together to make things run smoothly, Hemu and Hori and Didia spend most of every day looking through newly-arrived containers so they can skim off the best items for themselves and the elites. They store those items in a special warehouse. Everything’s out of control because they don’t pay attention to the right things. They’re more concerned with taking care of themselves than doing their jobs. If I ran the ivory workshop the way those men run Ptah’s Settlement very little ivory would ever get carved.”

  “You run the ivory workshop?” That strained credulity. “You deliver jars, Tamit. I’ve seen you doing it three times now. You’re not an overseer.”

  “Not titled as such. I do the work, but no man in this settlement would have the courage to admit it. The master craftsman, Thay, has the title. But Thay’s lazy and old and spends all his time carving ivory and paying attention to nothing else. I make sure the carvers produce everything they’re supposed to. I make sure there’s enough ivory and other materials to keep them busy. I take our copper tools to the smelter to sharpen the edges. I assign work to the proper craftsman or apprentice based on his experience. I deliver what we make to Hemu and dicker with him over the necessities the ivory carvers need to survive.”

  “Did Thay ask you to do all this?”

  “Why would I wait to be asked? I saw what needed to be done and I took over. I’ve run that workshop since I was seven years old and I suppose I’ll do it until I die.”

  I recalled Isu’s claim that every man in the settlement wanted Tamit. “Or until you marry and your husband takes you away.”

  “There’s that.” She didn’t seem very excited by the prospect.

  I couldn’t imagine a man being excited to marry her either, with her sour and hostile disposition.

  Tamit picked up her jar. “I have to get to wor
k. I don’t have the luxury of sitting in the shade doing nothing all day. Especially now, when we have to produce more carved ivory just to earn the same amount of goods we earned before you came.”

  “I’m not doing nothing,” I said defensively.

  Tamit’s dark eyes flashed. “That’s what it looks like to me.”

  I didn’t have to justify myself to her. But I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her in front of porters and boatmen. That was no way to maintain my dignity, and being dignified was important if I wanted to effectively lead Ptah’s Settlement. She’d shouted at me once in public; I wasn’t going to let her again. At any rate, despite her demeanor, Tamit had provided me with useful information – more useful than she knew – and I’d made a promise to her. “You can expect that from now on Hemu will treat you fairly. I’ll speak to him today and tell him I’ll be watching. And just so you know – the house and servants and everything that comes with them? Hemu made them up.” I had a good idea why. “I have no intention of being a drain on the settlement’s resources. I’ll be speaking with Hemu about that too.”

  “I’m grateful, Majesty,” Tamit said, not sounding at all grateful. “The ivory carvers are grateful.” Then she hurried off without bowing.

  I watched her go. Tamit was a truly maddening girl. Complex and difficult. Once again, she’d gotten the last word. That left a sour taste in my mouth. All the qualities Isu had claimed for her the other day? I’d glimpsed a few. Plus, she was more intelligent than I’d guessed. And unashamedly willing to stand up for what she believed. Unfortunately, her good qualities were far outweighed by bad. I shook my head. So much for Tamit. Now to confront Hemu.

  ***

  The following morning I made my way to the west end of the harbor. Workers were making minor repairs to boats that had delivered cargo to Ptah’s Settlement. On the flats lining the water some men were heating what I took to be resin in a massive jar resting atop coals. Others were shaping wood with copper adzes or cutting it with flint saws. Tree trunks were piled at the edge of the water – some with bark still attached, some stripped. Close by were completed planks. There were more bundles of reeds than I could count. Two boats were tied on either side of a wooden quay. Workmen were tending to both.