House of Scorpion

by Mark Gajewski

  “More than two hundred fifty,” Tamit said. “I personally supervised the men who applied them. They put wet clay atop the opening of each jar, then rolled an ivory bracelet etched with a geometric design across the clay. Then they stamped the center section of the geometric design with a flat ivory label. My favorite contains several oryx and boats and snakes and a heron.”

  Father studied a label containing a plant and an elephant. “From the delta estate of my predecessor’s predecessor,” he said.

  “You’re getting good at reading labels, Father,” Tamit said.

  “What’s in all the wavy-handled jars without labels that have symbols inscribed in black ink?” Father asked.

  “Either fat or oil.”

  “All with a bull and a plant. From my wife’s father’s estate?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “What about the fish and shell, Tamit? I don’t know of rulers with those names.”

  “They denote what those particular estates are known for, and are thus named after. They’re both estates founded in your name by settlers Minnefer relocated to the delta.”

  “So many scorpion labels.”

  “Next to Sety’s, yours is the largest estate in the delta,” I said. “And everything grown or made there is sent directly here.”

  “What about this crescent above a jagged line?”

  “The line is a bolt of lightning. It represents ‘mountains of darkness,’ the lands west of the valley. The crested ibis on that label over there denotes ‘mountains of sunshine,’ or the east.”

  “So those goods came from lands on the east and west banks.”

  “Yes.” Tamit pointed out a label with a stork and chair. “We’ve started to get a bit more sophisticated with some labels, Father. These particular signs actually sound like the place where the goods in the jar came from – Per Bast, home of the cat goddess Bastet. It’s one of the hamlets founded on the route between Maadi and the North that brought that settlement to its knees.”

  “And the cobra?”

  “The goddess Wadjet, representing Pe and Dep.”

  “I’m going to be buried with goods produced by my enemy?”

  “You will, Father.”

  “Ny-Hor would be furious if he knew he was going to make my Afterlife easier. A very nice touch, Tamit.”

  “Speaking of Ny-Hor, Sety’s spies claim he rarely stirs from his bed anymore,” I said. “Antef’s busy making his enemies quietly disappear so he’ll have a clear path to the throne. He won’t be moving against us any time soon.”

  “I doubt if Sabu will either, Iry. He’s been busy consolidating power ever since Pentu murdered his father six months ago. To tell the truth, I’m surprised Sabu let Matia live. I’m sure she was involved in the attempt on his life. She hated him. She offered to kill him for me.”

  At the mention of Matia, Tamit glanced at me. We’d had a long discussion about her after we received news of the assassination. Matia’s hatred for her brother had run deep and festered and apparently driven her to an extreme act.

  “When Matia and Pentu tried to negotiate a lifting of the blockade, Matia made it clear she’d do anything to see Sabu dead,” Father said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Matia egged Pentu on. Her father was just collateral damage. I guess it’s kind of fitting that Sabu’s making her taste his food and drink so no one will try to poison him.”

  “Matia believed she should rule Nubt when we first met,” I noted. “With her father and brother out of the way Pentu would’ve taken the throne. She’d probably have pulled his strings.”

  “Do you think Sabu’s really concerned about being poisoned?” Tamit asked. “Or is he rubbing Matia’s nose in the fact that he now sits the throne she vowed to keep him from?”

  “Probably a little bit of both,” Father replied.

  I glanced around the interior of the building. “It’s clear from this warehouse why controlling the flow of goods is so important, Father.”

  “And why I need to support so many scribes to track and manage everything,” Father said.

  “And one woman,” I added, wrapping my arm around Tamit’s waist.

  “And one woman. No other king ever had to deal with such complexity.”

  “No other king ever ruled so much of the world,” Tamit said. “Or commanded the resources to construct a grave as large as yours, Father.”

  “It puts to shame the ones that have come down to us in legend from the rulers’ cemetery at Nekhen,” I said.

  “Yet there’s so much more of the world to rule,” Father sighed.

  “I have one last item to show you, Father,” Tamit said. “Something I commissioned for you.” She went to a corner and returned cradling in her arms a three-foot-long black siltstone cosmetic palette. “This’ll go in the burial chamber. It commemorates the settlements you’ve founded in the delta in order to take control of the North and – I’ve taken the liberty – a particular one you’ll conquer in the future.”

  On one side of the palette Father strode briskly, wearing his crown and grasping his scepter. Below his feet were three rows of animals – oxen, donkeys, rams. Below the animals was an orchard of olive trees.

  Tamit pointed to a symbol among the trees. “This represents Tjehenu, the western delta.” She turned the palette over. “Here you stride with your mace, Father. Below your feet are seven fortified settlements with their names inside their walls. An animal grasps each wall, holding a hoe.”

  “Indicating that you founded the settlement, Father,” I said.

  “The lion?”

  “Ineb-hedj, Father – the settlement of the king.”

  “Several falcons. A plant. An owl. A stork. Two hands. A scorpion. All settlements you founded to eradicate Maadi,” I said.

  “What about the two fighting men?” Father asked.

  “A symbol of Pe and Dep,” Tamit said. “Representing the expanded settlement you’ll found on its ruins after you capture it, Father.”

  “Capture it I will,” Father promised. He took one last look around. “You’ve done well, Tamit. You too, Iry. You’ve both far exceeded my expectations.”

  We went outside. Guards closed the warehouse doors. One tied the door handles together with rope. Another wrapped clay around the rope. Tamit pressed her ring into the clay, leaving the image of a scorpion. The guards resumed their stations. We moved to a stack of mud bricks and perched atop them. The waiting servants hurried to us and poured cups of wine and offered honeyed cakes.

  “I can’t tell you both how pleased I am with this grave, though I’m not in a hurry to use it,” Father said after he took a long drink.

  “Keep accumulating grave goods, Father,” Tamit said. “Iry and I can always make your grave larger.”

  3252 BC: 14th regnal year of Scorpion, King of Tjeni

  Akhet (Flood)

  Matia

  “Taste my wine, Matia,” King Sabu commanded.

  Mechanically, I moved from my assigned station along the wall of the audience hall to the seat at the small table where Sabu was sitting, facing similar tables arranged in a semicircle. I caught sight of my face reflected in the copper sheets that made up my half-brother’s crown. Drawn and pale and grim, as always since the murder of my son and husband and father by Sabu fifteen months ago. Nofret, Father’s widow, handed me the solid gold cup she’d just filled. Like me, she was in service to Sabu now. Though her services were of a much more intimate and disgusting nature than mine, or so I supposed. Sabu kept us separated except here in the audience hall, and in the hall we weren’t allowed to talk to each other. I sipped a mouthful of wine, swallowed, then gave the cup to Sabu.

  Everyone in the room was staring at me, rulers and kings from throughout the valley who’d been summoned to this council by Sabu to discuss forming an alliance against King Scorpion. King Khab of Nekhen. Antef, son of King Ny-Hor of Pe and Dep; the king was supposedly too infirm to travel such a distance. Petiese, ruler of Gebtu, Nubt’s twin settlement on the east ban
k of the river. Abedu, chieftain of the Tjehenu, a barbarian tribe from the desert west of the delta, bearded and fair-haired and blue-eyed. Ani, my brother’s uncle and commander of his army. Maya. Others from minor settlements and hamlets that I was unfamiliar with. I didn’t know any of their names. I didn’t care to.

  A suitable amount of time having passed to prove I hadn’t been poisoned, Sabu drank deeply.

  He motioned me back beside the wall.

  So much had changed since those I loved had been murdered at Sabu’s instigation and by his hand. Those few elites who’d had the courage to oppose him had all disappeared, victims of “hunting accidents.” The rest, cowed, had fallen into line. A few opponents still lurked in the shadows, led by my cousin Bebi. But the opposition was far too weak to confront Sabu and so was uneasily biding its time. Confined in the per’aa, I hadn’t been allowed to talk to any of my relatives since the day of Sabu’s ascension, but I’d heard whispers of a planned marriage between me and one of Nubt’s elites to produce a son who could eventually challenge either Sabu or his heir. An heir Sabu had not yet officially produced despite his swarm of children, for he remained unmarried. The idea was impractical and desperate and I knew it’d never come to fruition.

  At least dealing with internal dissent had kept Sabu from immediately attacking Tjeni as he’d promised the day he’d stolen the throne. Not that he could have. Eight low inundations in a row meant everyone in our region was scrambling simply to survive. Sabu couldn’t have raised and equipped an effective army. Plus, eight years of Scorpion’s blockade with no end in sight had elites on edge. Sabu had deluded himself into believing he’d have unwavering support once he stole the throne. Except for Ani’s family, he didn’t. Maya’s publicly supported him but was wary privately.

  Sabu wasn’t humiliating Nebetah the way he was Nofret and me. She’d actually been relieved to be rid of Baki as husband and so considered Sabu her savior. There was no question he’d arrange a political marriage for her someday, but for now she went about Nubt freely. Sabu hadn’t murdered her son Ika as he had mine either; I suspected Sabu was keeping Ika alive to use as leverage to force Nebetah when he decided it was time for her to marry. I rarely saw Ika with her; he was being raised by wetnurses in the per’aa. As for me, I couldn’t close my eyes at night without seeing men die violently amid pools of blood, and Pabasa’s innocent face. I’d never stop mourning Pabasa and Pentu.

  Every time I was called to serve Sabu in the audience hall I was reminded that I’d failed to keep him from the throne. What drove me now was a burning desire to kill him. Though that seemed impossible, in the position I was in, without a single powerful ally, and him constantly surrounded by bodyguards. That desire was all that made me drag myself out of bed every morning. That, and the guards who roughly escorted me to Sabu’s room to ensure his morning meal was safe.

  Sabu set down his cup. “None of my half-brother’s or Father’s loyalists will poison me as long as my half-sister tastes my wine and food,” he explained to his guests. “For some unknown reason they value her life.”

  “Is it true you killed him?” Abedu asked.

  “Which one?” Sabu laughed. “Father or Hetshet?” He sipped his wine. “Of course not.”

  A double lie now.

  “It’d be a shame if anything happened to Matia,” Abedu said. He’d been boldly eyeing me ever since he’d entered the room. “Serving girls are expendable. A woman like her…”

  “Is far more devious and dangerous,” Sabu said.

  “Ah! But doesn’t risk make a woman more exciting, Majesty?”

  Sabu shrugged and raised his cup and immediately forgot about me. “Welcome to Nubt, Majesties. You’ve responded to my call because like me you know the settlements we rule are threatened by a common enemy – Scorpion of Tjeni. Thanks to my father’s refusal to deal with him, he’s grown very much stronger since some of us first discussed allying ourselves against him eight years ago. Unchecked, Scorpion will soon cut everyone in the South off from the goods of the North and everyone in the delta from the goods of the valley. It’s my fervent prayer that when you leave Nubt and return to your homes we’ll all be part of a grand alliance that will finally and forever destroy Scorpion.”

  “As you and I tried once before,” Antef said.

  Antef was nearly thirty now and supposedly had been in charge at Pe and Dep for several years as his father declined. By all accounts he was a vicious and domineering man who instilled fear in his father’s subjects and ruled the twin settlements brutally. His enemies had disappeared the same way Sabu’s had. Just looking at him gave me the shivers. He’d been eyeing me constantly since he’d taken his seat. He’d asked Sabu to give me to him years ago. He still wanted me.

  Sabu nodded. “Many of you attended the coronation of our comrade, King Khab, when he took Nekhen’s throne.” He tilted his head in Khab’s direction. “Antef and I agreed then to an alliance against Scorpion. But my father, Pentu’s puppet, approved an alliance between Tjeni and Nubt instead. That alliance would’ve led to the subjugation of you all.”

  “I never heard about that alliance,” Petiese interrupted.

  “I single-handedly stopped it the day it was arranged,” Sabu said proudly. “One of Scorpion’s bodyguards, a man loyal to me, attacked Scorpion’s daughter Heria while she was bathing in the river. So much for that alliance.”

  “Masterful!” Khab enthused.

  I still recalled the crumbling of the alliance vividly – the bodyguard attacking Heria, a battered and bloodied Iry saving her, Sabu accusing Iry of arranging the attack, Scorpion demanding that Father hand Sabu over, Father refusing, Scorpion smiting the bodyguard with his mace and hanging his body upside down from the bow of his boat. That night Pentu had taken me to his tent at my request; at the time he’d been the only man in Nubt with enough power to stop Sabu from taking the throne and so I’d married him to secure him as an ally. In the end our marriage had cost him his life and left me alone in the world. I couldn’t help wonder how differently my life would be right now if the alliance had held. I’d be married to Iry and probably waiting for Father to die so Iry and I could jointly rule Nubt in fealty to Scorpion. By now I’d probably have given birth to a son who’d eventually succeed Scorpion. I hadn’t thought about Iry since my failed mission with Pentu to Tjeni to try to convince Scorpion to lift his blockade. I knew he lived now in Tjeni as commander of Scorpion’s army. I assumed he was long since married with a troop of children.

  “I attempted time after time to convince my father to create an alliance to stop Scorpion, from that night right up until the day fifteen months ago when Pentu, Father’s closest advisor, murdered him in this very hall. As Father lay dying, Pentu ordered his son Baki to kill me too so he could seize the throne for himself. But I killed Baki and then executed Pentu.”

  The lie supported by Ani that had spread throughout Nubt. A lie no one challenged, for only I knew the truth.

  “A good thing for all of us,” Petiese said.

  The ruler of Gebtu was a fawning man. He’d been the first ruler in the valley to recognize Sabu as king. Gebtu was right across the river from Nubt and weak. Petiese could scarcely have done otherwise and expected to live.

  “In the years I was trying to convince Father, Tjeni grew ever stronger,” Sabu reiterated.

  He motioned Nofret to refill his cup. Dutifully, I came forward and sipped his wine, then melted back into the shadows. But not until he formally dismissed me. I’d only made the mistake of not waiting once.

  “Scorpion sent settlers from Tjeni to the delta and established settlements on the trade routes that led to Maadi. As we’re all aware, Maadi no longer exists. Scorpion’s settlement Ineb-hedj now controls the foot of the delta and thus the entire river. His settlement in the Far North, Sakan, now receives and distributes goods from Setjet and Retenu and the valley.”

  “Sakan’s restricting the luxuries I used to freely receive from the Far North,” Antef groused. “Scorp
ion’s trying to do to my settlement what he did to Maadi.”

  “Given time, he’ll succeed,” Sabu averred. “I don’t have to remind you that Scorpion’s cut off all trade south of Tjeni’s border, greatly impacting Nubt and Nekhen.” Sabu leaned forward. “The inundation is low this year. Again. That means our yield of emmer and barley next harvest will be diminished – even though we’ve increased the size of our cultivation in Nubt by a third these past years by digging irrigation ditches. Scorpion’s spies will make the calculation. He’ll know we’re vulnerable. It’s imperative we attack him soon, while we have grain enough to feed our soldiers.”

  “Won’t a campaign exhaust your reserves?” Petiese asked.

  “We’ll replenish our grain by seizing Tjeni’s,” Sabu promised. “My spies tell me his granaries are overflowing.” He scanned the faces of the kings and rulers. “We must conquer Tjeni. Once we do, between us we’ll control Scorpion’s trade networks and the entire valley. But we must strike now, before Scorpion grows any stronger. We must strike from both north and south at the same time.”

  “What do you expect from each of us?” King Khab asked.

  “I know you want to restore Nekhen to its place of prominence,” Sabu said. “From you I need grain, and fighters, and the blessing of Horus, god of Nekhen and protector of kings.”

  “And Pe and Dep?” Antef asked.

  “I need you to pin down the settlements in the eastern delta and keep them from coming to Scorpion’s aid. I need you to besiege Ineb-hedj so that settlement cannot send men or, more importantly, supplies south. And I need the support of your goddess, Wadjet.”

  “And Gebtu?” Petiese asked.

  “Men. Grain. The support of Min.”

  “And you need my fighters,” Abedu guessed.

  “To aid both Antef and me,” Sabu confirmed.

  “You add men and grain and your god, Seth, to our cause, Sabu – is that right?” Khab asked.

  “Plus, I’m prepared to use my gold to hire desert mercenaries to fight alongside my men,” Sabu replied. “Men like Abedu’s.”