I reacted in time to ward it off and the jar shattered on my forearm, pain numbing my arm, making me cry out. At the same time a knife had appeared in his other hand and he came towards me.
Those hours spent with Aya practising our swordplay, our wooden swords clacking, rehearsing the same moves over and over again. We’d laughed and kissed and played, just as we always did in Siwa, but we never stopped training, never stopped working.
And the strange thing was that we’d talked about Tuta’s father all the time. The invisible unseen opponent we trained to fight, the man we had in mind when we practised our steps and rehearsed our moves was him. All that time – since I’d first encountered him in Zawty – he’d haunted my thoughts.
And now here he was, leaping at me, not with a wooden sword but a real knife, and instead of the fear I’d felt in Zawty when I battled for my life, I fought with the knowledge that I was capable of beating him, and the fear I felt wasn’t a desire to take flight so much as it was awareness of possible consequences. I had trained. I was ready. It was a rudimentary, self-taught training, but all the same it worked, and it made parrying his attack second nature, my knife hand slamming down on his wrist so hard that his own blade span away with a clink to the stone.
It was all the advantage I needed. I stepped towards him and thrust home, surging forward and at the same time wrenching the knife from just below his rib cage up into his heart, cutting off his one cry of pain.
His mouth formed a circle. His eyes went wide and fixed on mine, fingers rising to try and claw at my face, the dying man’s final act before the gods claimed him. And as the feeling in his body flooded away and his feet slipped from beneath him, he fell backwards, pulling me with him to the ground.
I leaned over him, still holding the knife that remained embedded in his chest.
‘This is for Tuta,’ I hissed, and I twisted it once. His body jerked and he gave a final grunt and that was it. I had killed him.
Later I would think long and hard about that, how I’d killed a man. I’d think about how I watched the light of life die in Paneb’s eyes, and how I took the feather that was already dark with Tuta’s blood and dipped it in the blood of his father, whispering that the oath had been served.
Many nights I would be wrenched from sleep, and once I even awoke holding my hands in front of me as though they could never be responsible for something so ghastly.
Aya would help me, of course. We talked it through. I knew I had kept a promise. I knew I had protected a family. She supported me, and when one night I woke up with images of light fading in a dying man’s eyes, she asked me, ‘Was it him? Were you thinking of Paneb?’
‘No,’ I told her. ‘It was Tuta. I was thinking of my friend and brother, Tuta.’
41
We delayed our trip, it seemed only right to stay with Tuta’s mother and Kiya and help them deal with his death. But there was nothing we could do apart from mourn, and I think his mother knew that.
In the end, she came to Aya. ‘You and Bayek should leave, you’ve got work to do, it’s what Tuta would have wanted, you know that.’
And, of course, she was right, and so we did as she said, travelling across the river to the necropolis where we joined Khensa and Neka, bidding goodbye to Seti who was to stay with his pregnant wife. Once they were done, we began what we expected to be five- or six-day journey to Aswan and then the island of Elephantine.
I didn’t forget Tuta. I never would. At nights by the fire, I took a feather from my pack in order to remember him. Even so, and though he always stayed with me and always would, the more we put Thebes at our backs the more focused on the oncoming mission I became.
What had Neka been able to tell us about the Medjay prisoner in Elephantine? Nothing much. The island’s government was invoking ancient laws that had once been used to persecute the Medjay in that region, when they were deemed by their corrupt administration to pose a real, tangible threat to society.
They probably thought my father was a pretender just like the rest of the false Medjay that had sprung up of late, a man to be punished even for invoking the name of Medjay and possibly encouraging others to follow its doctrine.
I wondered, how would they have felt to know that they had in their clutches one of the last remaining true protectors of Egypt?
We travelled downriver to the village of Aswan. There we moved past the canopies and washing lines, and across the square in the centre of the village to the docks, from where we could see Elephantine. We took a boat across the river to the island and then, in order not to draw too much attention to ourselves, made a fireless camp in a well hidden hollow not far inland.
The Temple of Khnum was on the southern shore, and it was there Neka had said my father was kept, in a makeshift pit in the gatehouse.
On the first day, Neka left to explore our surroundings. He returned that afternoon and we sat in a small circle to make plans. As feluccas passed by, their sails fluttering in the breeze, boatmen calling to one another, he used a stick to draw in the dirt, sketching out a picture of the great Temple of Khnum that dominated the southern area of the island.
‘Here,’ he said, pointing to where he’d sketched out the gatehouse. ‘In there is the pit in which they keep the prisoners. Your father is the only one in there.’
‘Is he suffering?’ I asked.
‘He won’t have been treated well, no,’ said Neka, shrugging. ‘But he’s a Medjay. He’ll manage.’
I felt a hand on my arm. ‘But how?’ said Aya. ‘How was he captured?’
Of us both, Aya knew most about the Medjay. She’d shared what she knew during our travels, and she was aware that they were likely to face various forms of persecution up and down the country. She had never been close to my father, but I sensed her opinion of him had shifted since the discovery that he was a Medjay. While I wouldn’t say she’d taken to liking him, now at least she respected him.
What she couldn’t understand now, though, was why my father had allowed himself to be captured.
‘Medjay are the great warriors of Egypt,’ she argued, ‘protectors of the people, highly skilled fighters, the elite. I can’t see him being captured by officials more used to dealing with the self-proclaimed Medjay, who are little more than glorified protesters who don’t even understand the implications of the title they claim. Even if they had managed to get the better of him, how did they discover his secret? Bayek, you lived with him for fifteen years and you didn’t know. Now, we’re supposed to accept that he accidentally gave himself away while travelling in hostile territory? It just doesn’t make sense. Isn’t the purpose of the rightful Medjay that they remain hidden and out of sight, influencing from the shadows?’
Khensa shrugged. ‘Perhaps he was careless or …’
‘Do the Medjay get careless?’ said Aya doubtfully.
‘… Or unlucky. Even a Medjay can be unlucky.’
‘But what does this have to do with him leaving Siwa?’ asked Aya.
‘Maybe nothing,’ I said. But even I knew that was unlikely.
She shook her head and returned to studying Neka’s drawing in the sand.
As it turned out, I should have listened to her. We all should.
42
That same night the dream came to me again. It wasn’t one where I watched myself plunge a blade into Tuta’s killer, only to realize at the last moment that it was Tuta himself I was killing. No. Another, much older one. The one with the rats in the cave, scrabbling to get me.
We were in our shelters: I was with Aya in one, Khensa and Neka in the other. By silent agreement Khensa and Neka had built both shelters while Aya and I made a fire, then caught a hare to cook on it. Funny, I thought, as we watched them labour. I learned shelter-building from Khensa, and I in turn had passed that knowledge on to Aya. But watching the two Nubians at work we were both made aware that, like stone overgrown by ivy, our skills had become obscured so that while they retained their shape and form they were not quite as vivid
as they had once been. Watching how they fashioned tent poles from branches they found, cutting and whittling them quickly and precisely, fitting them together, was like being given the lesson again.
They had worked quickly, muttering about oncoming weather and how they wanted to ensure our shelter was as sturdy as possible. Every now and then they’d stop and bicker before continuing to build, sometimes doing it Khensa’s way, other times Neka’s, and in a short time the shelters were built, and we ate hare and agreed that we needed another day in which to gather information. We then settled down for the night, with the moon throwing silver on to the river at one side of us, the island’s foliage spreading out on the other, the air crackling with the threat of a storm to come.
And, yes, I dreamt. The dream of rats. Only this time I found myself turning in order to run in the opposite direction, desperate to escape the cave full of writhing vermin and thumping over uneven ground slowly – so very, painfully slowly – until I realized that what I thought was an earthquake was in fact Aya shaking me, kneeling over me, whispering, ‘Bayek, Bayek, wake up.’
I sat up suddenly, jerking awake with a force that sent Aya rocking back on her heels. At the same time I heard it, the storm outside, and saw the frame buffeted by a fierce wind, sand scraping on the shelter like the claws of some monster trying to gain entry.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said, looking at me strangely.
I pushed a hand through my hair, registering that it was long and felt dirty beneath my fingers, scratching at my chest, trying to bring myself into the present. ‘Oh, nothing. Dream.’
‘About Tuta’s father?’
‘No. The rats. Look, why are you waking me up?’
‘Because there’s a storm,’ she said simply.
I looked at her, mouth trying to find words that wouldn’t come, and then gave up. ‘It’ll pass,’ I groaned, dropping back to my sleeping mat and pulling the cover to my chin. ‘Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep.’
She huffed in quiet laughter, eyes bright in the gloom.
‘I had an idea.’
I woke up at her words, alertness seeping through clear to my bones.
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s the direction of the wind …’
A moment or so later we were shaking the Nubians awake and I saw them do the same groggy, trying-to-make-sense-of-things that I had just done.
‘There’s a sandstorm,’ said Aya.
Khensa focused and smiled slowly. ‘You have an idea. Tell us,’ she said.
As Aya began to speak, Khensa’s smile widened.
43
Bion had stood in the empty house with the bodies of Hemon and Sabestet lying by the front door.
He’d found The Elder’s Medjay medallion concealed beneath a leather band on his upper arm. Then he’d strangled the rat before carrying the basket, the rat trap, the belt and the bowl to where his horse stood waiting for him.
There he’d made a fire, cooked the rat and eaten it. On the fire he’d burned the cage. He’d buried the copper bowl and the belt.
From the home of Hemon and Sabestet he had taken two jars of wine and a bowl from which to drink. As he had sat drinking the pale wine, he had replayed the old man’s confession in his mind.
He had names. The mission could continue.
The Elder had told Bion that Sabu and his son were in Elephantine, and so that is where he set his course.
Coming into this part of the country he had noted that he was in an area famed for its hatred and persecution of the Medjay. History was not on the side of the old protectorship in this part of the world. That in itself made it an unusual choice of hiding place.
Accordingly, after a day in the village of Aswan, Bion learned that a Medjay by the name of Sabu was imprisoned at the Temple of Khnum, across the water on the island of Elephantine. Of Bayek there was no word. It occurred to him how peculiar it was that people knew of a Medjay imprisoned in the temple but looked blankly at him when he asked after the son. That was interesting.
‘So, old man,’ he said to himself, ‘what was your game?’
44
‘What are we doing?’ said Neka. All four of us were crouched in an abandoned and otherwise empty outhouse set some distance from the main entrance of the grand Temple of Khnum and separated from it by a stretch of barren ground. In any normal circumstances we would have been able to throw a stone and hit the temple frontage, but these were not normal circumstances: we couldn’t even see the temple, and if we had thrown a stone, well, then it would have been taken by the shrieking wind.
Sure enough, we had been lacerated by sand as we made the trip from our camp to the temple. A trip that no sane person would attempt, alternately scoured and blasted every step of the way. We had swaddled ourselves from foot to head against the onslaught, using thickly covered hands to shield our eyes and keeping our backs to the maelstrom, until at last we reached the shelter that Neka had revealed was waiting for us.
The severity of the storm had prevented any chatter on our journey, which meant that Neka hadn’t been able to voice his reservations. Of those he had plenty, and he was making them known now.
Khensa grinned at me. ‘Don’t worry about him, he’s a scout, he’s cautious. It’s in their blood.’
‘This is madness,’ he railed. ‘Madness to be out in such conditions, attempting something like this.’
Khensa’s eyes shone through the slit of the blue scarf she had wrapped around her head. I thought back to the Khensa of a few weeks ago, laid low after the battle at Menna’s base, and although she’d never have admitted it, she’d been reinvigorated since embarking on the journey to Elephantine. She’d embraced Aya’s idea with enthusiasm: let’s use the storm as cover and go in now, while chaos reigned. The direction of the wind was right. The gods were smiling upon us. She’d snatched up her spear while Neka was still rubbing sleep from his eyes. Moments later, as though to truly symbolize her rebirth, she was wearing her white face chalk.
And as if to mark his own resistance to the plan, Neka had not applied his own.
‘Every guard in the place will be awake,’ he argued now, trying to shake sand out of his clothes.
Khensa screwed up her nose. ‘Will they? We weren’t – not until these two woke us. And besides, everybody in there will be far too busy with the storm. Look, let me tell you something, Neka. Back at Menna’s base when we saw you’d been taken captive, it was I who wanted to wait and Seti who persuaded me otherwise. And if we had waited – what then? Can you imagine the tortures you would have had to endure? You have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to making impetuous decisions. Make your choice, Neka. Accompany us on our mad mission and share in the glory, or go home alone and watch from afar. What’s it to be?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You forgot the third option.’
‘Which is?’ Khensa’s voice was wry, but she was smiling, as though she knew exactly what he’d say.
‘To die here with you,’ he grumbled, determined to stay in a bad mood.
‘Don’t you want to do that?’ She grinned. For a moment he resisted and then on his face appeared the beginnings of a smile, and seeing him begin to relent, she took white chalk from her own face and applied it to his.
‘There’s nothing I’d like more,’ he sighed, a touch over-dramatically, reaching for his bow.
We did not know much. Nothing, in fact, other than that my father was being kept in a pit in the gatehouse, and even that, as Neka was quick to remind us, was old information, just the sort of thing we should have checked on the day we made our move.
The plan, then, was simply to storm the gatehouse as two Nubians, two Siwan and a sandstorm.
What could possibly go wrong?
We left the outhouse. There was at least no need to creep. Stepping out into the storm, we were hailed by sheets of sand that swept across our vision. Any lookouts at the temple would have seen nothing. Even if they had been able to make out shapes coming towards them it would
have been impossible to say whether they were human or animal. As Aya had pointed out, our true advantage was the element of surprise. After all, who would be stupid enough to venture out in weather like this?
Sure enough, the wind howled. Sand seemed to pelt us in relentless, merciless waves.
As we approached the temple we were acutely aware of a guard on the gatehouse ramparts. A bowman was posted there day and night, according to Neka. With gusts of wind throwing sand at the temple frontage, any sentry with a sense of self-preservation would be taking cover behind the ramparts, and if he did pluck up the courage and risk a look he’d see nothing.
But what if the wind dropped? What if it stopped for long enough that the sand settled and the vision cleared and the lookout remembered to do his job and do some looking out?
That thought was uppermost in our minds as we made our way to the temple, feeling exposed and vulnerable, cursing the wind that whipped at us but needing it to hide us. And when at last we came to the foot of the gatehouse we took a moment to savour the relief.
We looked at one another. Our faces stung beneath the cloth that we wore, battered by the storm. Neka was focused, all reservations aside; Khensa radiated intensity and focus; Aya had never looked more resolute.
We edged our way to the gatehouse entrance. A huge wooden affair with double doors that would open to admit carts and chariots, it was inset with a smaller wicket door. The noise of the storm was different here, the sand rattling off the wood. Khensa looked at us, gauging our readiness. We were nothing but four sets of eyes, but those eyes said yes; those eyes gave her permission to do what she did next.
Which was to see whether anyone was home.
Khensa raised her fist, knocked. We waited. Would they even hear the summons above the storm’s din?
But hear it they did, and from inside came an answer. ‘Identify yourselves.’
The voice was muffled, indistinct.
‘For pity’s sake, open up, or have the blood of a mere child on your hands,’ replied Khensa pitifully.
Desert Oath: The Official Prequel to Assassin’s Creed Origins Page 16
