by Marc Graham
“How far did you get?” The reedy voice ruptured Yetzer’s memory, and he nearly spat out his gruel.
“What?” he demanded.
“In the temple. How far?” The old man wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin upon knobby knees. “I’ve heard of men stuck in that cave for days. Seen them scarred from the fire chamber. Me? They’d probably have had to fish my body out of the water tunnel. How far?”
“I’m not permitted to speak of it,” Yetzer said. “I took a vow.”
The old man scoffed. “A vow? Much good that did you. What of their vows? Put a man through unspeakable tortures, and for what? To become a slave? To be beaten by a creature not fit to lace your sandals? What obligation can you still have to men like that?”
Yetzer considered that. It had been a cruel test. But for a few slim chances, he might have left the temple a corpse rather than a slave. To use Ameniye to snare him, however—that had been cruelest of all. Still, hadn’t Huy warned him of the trials? Hadn’t he said Yetzer would leave enlightened, enslaved, or embalmed? Fair or not, Yetzer had failed the greatest trial and received his due. The priest had kept his word, and Yetzer would do no less. He shrugged.
“As you will,” the old man said. “It’s not my concern. Never let it be said that Sinuhe pried where he wasn’t welcome. That’s me, by the way. Sinuhe the wise. Sinuhe the physician.”
“Sinuhe the old woman.”
Yetzer turned toward the deep voice that sounded behind him. His back screamed in protest as the movement tore at wounds that had begun to close, and a whimper escaped his lips.
“Yamu the ox,” Sinuhe said, by way of introduction.
The epithet fit. The newcomer stood half a cubit taller than Yetzer, with shoulders twice as broad as most men’s. Yetzer wondered how such a stature could be sustained on so meager a diet as dinner had proven to be.
“Your bread is cold,” Yamu observed, and took Sinuhe’s last scrap. “Can’t abide to see food gone to waste,” he said around the mouthful.
Yetzer drained his cup of gruel and shoved the remainder of his bread in his mouth, lest the giant offer to keep his meal from spoiling, too.
“Since you’re finished,” the big man said to Sinuhe, “why don’t you see if you can find something for our friend’s wounds? Let’s see if you can heal as well as you meddle.”
The old man said nothing, but rose with a scowl.
“And see if there’s any more bread,” Yamu added as he settled to the ground, still chewing. A cracking sound split the air and interrupted the movement of the ox’s jaws. Yetzer winced as the big man probed with his tongue and spat. In the waning light, Yetzer couldn’t say whether the debris was limestone or tooth, but he redoubled his caution and slowly chewed the wad of bread in his mouth.
“Old man will talk you deaf,” Yamu said, “but he’s right good to have around. Keep those little scratches of yours from festering.”
“He’s a real physician?” Yetzer asked after swallowing the last of his bread—stones, weevils, and all.
“Near enough,” Yamu grunted. He slowly looked around, then leaned toward Yetzer, and spoke more softly. “They say he was the one to tend young Pharaoh Tutankhamun, that it was him let the boy die. Oh, old Aya didn’t mind so much when he took up the crook and flail. Never mind he was the only one with the king when he fell. Never mind Horemheb was the boy’s acknowledged heir. No, first thing Pharaoh Aya does is clap the boy’s doctor in bronze and send him to the priests of Amun. Get rid of him that really knows what happened, see?”
“Why didn’t Horemheb free Sinuhe when he took back the throne?” Yetzer said. “Tutankhamun was like a son to him. Surely he’d want to reward the man who tried to save him.”
Yamu fixed him with a patronizing stare and shook his head. “Sutah’s bollocks,” he swore. “You’re Pharaoh of Kemet, Brother of the Gods, Master of the Two Lands. Are you going to give a thought to a mere slave rotting in your quarries?”
The words hit Yetzer like a cudgel. Part of him had hoped for salvation, hoped that after a few days Horemheb might proclaim his freedom. But Yamu’s words rang true. Yetzer had earned his fate. He was a slave, a nameless one, blotted from the remembrance of man or god. He shook his head.
“No,” Yamu said. “So here he sits. Here we all sit, ’til Ammut has mercy and drags us down to Duat.” He picked up Sinuhe’s bowl and dipped the last bit of stolen bread into stolen gruel. “From Retenu?” he asked, lips smacking around the moistened bread.
It took Yetzer a moment to realize the man was asking about him. “From Kenahn, yes.”
“Retenu, Kenahn—it’s all the same.”
“My parents called their land Kenahn, so will I.” Yetzer shrugged. “Not that it matters to me. I was born there, but almost all my memories are of Kemet.”
“A man should know where he’s from,” Sinuhe said behind them, his reedy voice like lute-song on the cooling night air. “Even if his path ahead is less certain.”
Yamu looked up at him expectantly.
“No more bread,” the old man told him. “But I did manage some ointment, if you’d like to help me tend our singing friend.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in your way.” Yamu rose to his feet and dusted his hands against the seat of his loincloth. “I’ll just see if any of the others need looking after.”
The big man stalked away. Yetzer watched men shove bread into their mouths or tuck it into the folds of their breechcloths as Yamu neared them.
“On your stomach, then,” Sinuhe ordered.
Yetzer looked up at the old man, who presented a clay jar and a bundle of linen.
“‘Easier to apply if the patient is prone.’ Added that bit to the physicians’ scrolls myself. Insightful lot, from Immutef right down, but sometimes lacking in common sense. On your belly, now.”
Yetzer did as instructed. The dirt was warm from the day, and reasonably clear of stones. Heat seeped into weary muscles, and Yetzer sank quickly into somnolence until lightning strikes of pain shot through his stupor.
“This might sting a bit,” Sinuhe belatedly warned him.
“What is that?” Yetzer asked through gritted teeth, his fingers clawing into the baked earth.
“A bit of beer,” Sinuhe said as he daubed at Yetzer’s wounds. “Some willow bark. Oh, and cow’s urine. Lie still.”
Yetzer fought the urge to roll away from the mad physician and his filthy ointment. He called to memory a lesson from one of the priests of Hawt-Hor. Often portrayed with a cow’s head, the goddess had imbued that animal with a host of attributes for the benefit of its human masters. Who was to say the goddess hadn’t blessed the beast’s urine as much as its milk? Yetzer kept his peace, braced himself against the sting, breathed through his mouth.
“These aren’t so bad,” Sinuhe said as he scrubbed away dried blood and reopened the wounds. “Inteb must be losing his skill.”
“Inteb,” Yetzer wheezed through the pain. “The overseer?”
Sinuhe grunted.
“Seemed to do just fine from where I was standing.”
“And just how many lashings have you seen or received before today?”
“None,” Yetzer said after a pause.
“No? Ah, yes, because your father practiced free masonry, none of this slavery business.”
Yetzer looked over his shoulder. “How do you know of my father?”
“What’s that?” Sinuhe asked, his eyes fixed on Yetzer’s wounds. “Oh, you told Yamu your father was from Tsur. Seeing the way you handled yourself in the quarry, I assumed he was a mason.”
“He was,” Yetzer said, trying to remember if he’d mentioned his father’s home city.
“There you are, then,” Sinuhe said, moving to the stripes on Yetzer’s thighs. “You’ll find the slavers’ quarries not so welcoming as the free. No songs, no ranks, no pay. Just dust and sweat and men with flails.”
Yetzer shook his head.
“Men work better when they’re
treated with dignity, when they’re justly compensated, when they believe they’re part of something greater than themselves.”
He hadn’t meant to sound like his father. Huram had once made that same argument before Pharaoh, when competing against the priests of Amun for work on Horemheb’s House of Eternity. He’d made his case well. He won the work and lost his life.
Sinuhe’s cackling laughter pulled Yetzer from his gloomy thoughts.
“You think the priests care how well a man works? Whether he’s satisfied with his labor? Men are cattle, boy, to be herded and harnessed and bred as their masters see fit. Give them enough food and water and leather, and they’ll work ’til you’re done with them—or until they can’t work anymore, which amounts to the same thing.”
“I’m no beast for the drover.” Yetzer’s voice cut with a ragged edge.
“Nor I,” Sinuhe admitted. “There are a great few who raise their heads, who can see beyond the next scrap of pasturage. Gods have mercy on us. Better we were cast into Duat than suffer a common man’s lot. But look at Yamu.”
Yetzer glanced to where the big man scavenged bread and gruel from a group of old men.
“There is mankind writ small,” Sinuhe continued. “He’ll rut and root ’til he can’t do either anymore. Then it’s back to the bosom of the earth whence he came, where not god nor man nor beast remembers he was here.”
Yetzer bristled at the words, unwilling to believe them. “When they’re led well, they can become more. Better.”
The words fell lame even as Yetzer spoke them. The old man laughed again.
“Are you such a one to lead them, Yetzer abi-Huram?”
Yetzer held his tongue as he looked around the slaves’ paddock, at the ill-fed rabble. Criminals, debtors, oath-breakers. Not even Yetzer’s father had dared such a challenge, limiting his crew to freemen of good character. Then again, Yetzer reminded himself, his father had never been a nameless one.
“I am,” Yetzer said, almost to himself.
“Hmm?” the old man said. “What’s that?”
“We may be forgotten,” Yetzer said, “forsaken by men, unnamed before the gods. But if only we know, if only we remember we are more than beasts, we will truly have been men and our ka will speak for us before the scales of Mayat.”
Sinuhe laughed again and slapped Yetzer on the buttocks—the only part of his backside not scarred and drenched in the foul-smelling ointment.
“If you truly intend to lead this rabble,” he said, his voice light with mirth, “you may want to choose a different song.”
17
Bilkis
The palace of Tsion was a sandstorm of activity. Servants scrambled to restore some order from the chaos left by the fleeing court. Rahab screamed at the serving women such that Bilkis could not understand her. Despite the similarities between the Sabaean and Habiru tongues, the flurry of the girl’s words was impossible to follow.
“Just have them bring water,” Bilkis told Rahab. “I don’t care about the mess. I only want a bath.”
The servants had led them to the set of rooms formerly occupied by Tadua’s chief wife Mikhel. Linens sprawled like sand dunes across the floor. Pots and bowls lay in pieces, their contents spilled and scattered.
None of it mattered. For a year Bilkis had lived with blowing grit. She had slapped at flies and fleas, scratched at their bites until her skin was raw. She was now a queen in her own palace, in her own rooms. She had windows covered with waxed linen that kept out the dirt and flies, but admitted light and breeze. Should the natural breeze fail, fans of palm leaves stood ready. Thick rugs covered the polished wood floors. The monstrous frame of Bilkis’s bed held a thick, soft mattress. She had Rahab to tend her, plus a dozen servants to tidy the rooms, fluff the pillows, wave the fans and fill her cup, but all she wanted was a Shams-forsaken bath.
The room fell silent. Judging from the quiver in Rahab’s chin and the wide-eyed expressions of the serving women, not all of her thoughts had been confined within her heart. She dowsed the fire in her eyes and forced a sweet smile. “Please?”
“You heard the queen,” Rahab said, first to recover her wits. “Go. Draw water.”
Bilkis made a satisfied purr. “And I will bathe on the roof.”
Refreshed and dressed in a silken robe, Bilkis descended to Auriyah’s audience hall. She kept a neutral expression on her face, but her heart raced as she passed through the corridors.
Her own rooms were larger than Maryaba’s tower house. The palace dwarfed her chambers, the whole constructed of dressed stone and lined with more timber than had ever been seen in all of Saba. Though the sun baked the earth outside, within the thick walls the air was cool and invigorating. Her husband had brought her to a true land of marvels.
The sound of men’s arguments reached Bilkis as she neared the audience hall. A pair of guards bowed their heads and pulled open heavy wooden doors. Voices faded as Bilkis crossed the threshold, and the men who flanked the throne turned to follow Auriyah’s gaze.
“My wife.” The king stood and gestured to a small chair beside him. “Come, sit.”
Auriyah’s throne was of heavy timber carved with lions and rams and harps, inlaid with gold. The seat was covered with animal skins, suggesting this was the throne of a warrior. The queen’s, by contrast, was a thing of sublime grace, fashioned of lighter wood with silver rosettes, six-pointed stars, and trimmed in pure white fleece. Bilkis climbed the dais steps amid the bows and greetings of the king’s council. Most were among those who had accompanied Auriyah to Urusalim. Two of the men, however, were strangers.
One had a warrior’s ruddy complexion and sharp features. The other was a pallid, narrow-eyed creature in bejewelled robes, leaning upon a gilt staff. Auriyah kissed Bilkis’s hand as she sat, but dispensed with introductions.
“You were saying, venerable priest?” The king motioned to Abdi-Havah, who had anointed him at Ebiren.
“My Lord, Lady,” he began. “You sit upon the throne of Urusalim as moshiach, the anointed one of Yisrael. Your father lost favor with Yah and Havah. It is fitting he should have fled from their wrath.” The priest gestured with a mangled, age-spotted hand although his voice was that of a much younger man, clear and strong. “Only let my king remember the precepts of the gods,” he continued. “That is, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before them. As it is written, be generous to the widow and drive her not from your land.”
“Bah!”
All eyes turned toward the squint-eyed priest.
“You disagree, Abiattar?” Auriyah said with thinly veiled humor.
“May Yah preserve the king,” the man said in a voice as bitter as sulfur water. “Abdi-Havah is as shrewd as he is aged, but he speaks with two mouths. Even as he anointed the new king, he seeks favor with the old. By urging you to show mercy to the wives of Tadua, he ingratiates himself with your father.”
Bilkis looked to where the man gestured. To one side of the hall, nearly lost in shadows, huddled a group of women clinging to one another. They ranged from young women of Bilkis’s age to wrinkled crones.
“The goddess has withdrawn her blessing from Tadua,” Abdi-Havah insisted. “In the eyes of Havah he is as one already dead. Let his wives be counted among the widows of Yisrael. Let them be treated with due consideration.”
“Or let them be free to wed,” Abiattar sneered, “that Abdi-Havah might take them into his own household and claim the alliances forged by Tadua. Hatti, Alassiya, and Edom. The rulers of those lands care not who sits upon the throne of Yisrael, but in whose bed their daughters and sisters lie. Free these women and it will not be long before Abdi-Havah seeks to reclaim what once he lost.”
Auriyah made a fist. His veins stood out as color rose in his cheeks.
“This is madness,” Abdi-Havah protested. “It is true your father took this city from me.”
Bilkis’s eyes shot to the old man. He had been king in Urusalim before Tadua?
“I was foolish then
,” he went on, “full of pride, and it was Havah’s will that I be brought low. Yet she saw fit to spare my daughter, to send her into the victor’s house and, through her, to give Yisrael her new king. If I was old when I lost this city, I am ancient now. I have no desire for the throne. I am content that my seed sits upon the throne of my fathers and seek only to see the king established in peace.”
Some of the fury drained from Auriyah’s face as the old man spoke. “My grandfather offers words of silk,” the king allowed. “How does Abiattar say?”
“May the king live forever,” the other man said. “If the priest of Havah speaks with silk, then let the voice of Yah speak with sackcloth. Peace is a luxury, but it is the child of strength. Let the king first secure his throne, then he may be gracious.”
“And what you suggest—”
“Is the surest way,” Abiattar boldly interrupted Auriyah. “You must take to bed the wives of your father.”
Claws scratched at Bilkis’s heart with those words. She clenched her teeth to hold back a cry of fury. Auriyah had only just become a husband of worth. Must she now share him with these huddled geese?
“Not in secret, as a lover in the night,” the priest continued, “but as a conqueror. Erect a pavilion atop the palace and there show your kingdom and all the world that the time of Tadua is past, that the son has possessed all the father acquired.”
“It is an abomination,” Abdi-Havah cried.
The council erupted into shouting but Bilkis heard only a low drone beneath the pounding in her ears. Her gaze drifted again to the cluster of women. One with silver-streaked hair locked eyes with her. The new queen shifted on the throne that must once have belonged to the elder.
Was that Mikhel? And which was Auriyah’s mother, Maacah, daughter of Abdi-Havah? Would he take her, too, or spare her and allow her to take her own life? And what of the younger ones, princesses of the most powerful nations on earth, girls with red-and gold-and wheat-colored hair, with painted eyes and painted lips? How could she compete with their foreign manners and courtly airs?
