The Gardener and the Assassin

by Mark Gajewski

  Neby looked startled. “I never said we were going to use the boy to challenge Pharaoh.”

  “I’m not stupid, Neby. Why else would you need him? It’s why you need me. Getting the boy in your hands sooner rather than later strengthens your conspiracy. So does me staying with him afterwards.”

  “You want to join us?” Neby was taken aback.

  “You’ll need me to testify the boy is Pentawere’s son and that I delivered him to you. Otherwise, Pharaoh will simply claim he’s a pretender and you won’t be able to refute him. Who do you think powerful men will believe without me at the boy’s side? Pharaoh, or your superiors? For your plan to succeed you need me.”

  “Perhaps,” Neby said non–committally. “Or perhaps not.” He seemed surprised I’d figured out the priests’ plan.

  I’d gained the advantage over Neby. Time to use it. I started to rise, as he had. “Without me to substantiate the boy’s parentage your coup won’t work. It’s an enormous flaw in your plan. If you and your superiors can’t see it you’re doomed to fail, just like the others. I have no intention of risking my life for fools.”

  “Wait,” Neby said hurriedly. “Suppose I convey your concerns to my superiors. What do you want?”

  I had him. “First, your protection. I must accompany the boy until the day you bring him forward. That’s the only way I can be sure I’ll be safe from Pharaoh. After the boy takes the throne? Power. Position. Authority. I want command of the army when you put Pentawere’s son on the throne.”

  “Assuming that’s the plan,” Neby said weakly. “Frankly, you’re going to have to earn my superiors’ trust, Kairy. How do they know you aren’t trying to set a trap for us on Pharaoh’s behalf?”

  “You don’t, any more than I don’t know that you’re Pharaoh’s man trying to trap me.” I left it at that. Trying to argue my trustworthiness too strenuously would only increase Neby’s suspicion.

  “I’ll relay your demands to my superiors,” Neby said. “Return to the brothel a week from today. Tebes will have a message for you.” He shook his head. “But don’t expect they’ll promise you command of Pharaoh’s army. That’s a reach for a man like you.”

  An hour later I was back on the west bank. Everything was falling into place. Pharaoh’s enemies had reached out. They’d requested I deliver Pentawere’s son to them. I had no doubt they’d accede to my demand to stay with the boy, for unless they did I’d refuse to take part in their conspiracy. Without an heir they couldn’t proceed. Now all I needed was an as yet unborn boy of the right age to play the role of pretender, someone I could kill in order to save Aya. I had a pretty good idea where I might find one.

  While we were dumping the body of Alara, the guard who’d turned traitor, into a hole beside Bunakhtef and the other kidnappers on the desert beyond the edge of Neset’s estate, I’d heard someone mention his wife was pregnant. Assuming she was going to give birth to a boy close to the time Neset was going to give birth, her son would be the perfect candidate. I wouldn’t have to ask her to give him up – I could demand him. How could she refuse after Alara had betrayed Pharaoh? I could threaten her with execution because of Alara’s sins if I had to. Yes, she’d accede to my request. I could only imagine the kind of woman she was if she’d married him – duplicitous, lazy, greedy, probably the mother of three or four squalling brats already. She wouldn’t miss having one more to support. Whatever bribe the conspirators had paid to Alara to betray Pharaoh, no matter how substantial, would run out eventually. I’d probably be doing her a favor. Assuming she was going to have a boy. In the right timeframe.

  Alara had been a farmer. He’d served as one of Pharaoh’s guards for many years during the inundation season, offsetting some of the emmer he annually owed Pharaoh from his fields. His modest farm was a quarter mile from Neset’s estate, still silvered with shallow pools of water surrounded by rich dark mud. I spotted a ragged lean–to of mud plastered over reeds at the edge of the desert just beyond the far west end of the farm. Alara’s wife, probably no older than seventeen, obviously pregnant, was sitting in the shade of the lean–to, wearily plucking feathers from a duck newly snared. She was much younger than I’d expected – he’d been at least a decade older. Her skirt was clean but very worn, the hem tattered. She wore a Bes amulet on a string around her neck, to protect her unborn child. She might have been pretty once but it was hard to tell – her ribs showed plainly, and there were hollows in her cheeks. She looked exhausted and emaciated. I supposed she’d been operating the farm by herself since her husband had been assigned to my troop of guards. She looked up at my approach, startled, fearful the instant she recognized me. She awkwardly scrambled to her feet.

  “Commander Kairy.” She bowed low.

  “Are you Maia, widow of the guard Alara who turned traitor?” I asked harshly.

  She kept her eyes focused on the ground. Her face flamed red. “Yes, Commander,” she said softly. Her chin began to quiver, tears to form at the corners of her eyes. “Have you come to make me pay for my husband’s sin?”

  The very words I’d intended to use to force her to give me her son. I could guess by the way she was shrinking from me exactly how she expected me to make her pay. She was wrong about that, at least. She started shaking. Tears spilled down her cheeks. I couldn’t help pity her. What was wrong with me? Maia hadn’t betrayed Pharaoh. She was an innocent girl unfortunate enough to be married to a man who’d turned traitor. She’d done nothing wrong. She was no more responsible for Alara’s actions than Neset had been when her husband robbed Ramesses the Great’s tomb. I needed her son, but why make it any harder on her than I had to? I softened my tone. “Not pay for, Maia. But perhaps you can make right what Alara did. Sit, please.”

  She did. She rested her hand on her stomach. She was very frightened of me.

  “How many months?” I asked, looking at her fingers.

  “Six.”

  The same as Neset. Now, an important question. “A girl or a boy?”

  “A boy, Commander.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “I’ve done the test.”

  There was no way to soften my demand. “As soon as you give birth, Maia, you must give me your son.”

  She gasped. She was stricken. “No! Please!” She clutched her belly with both hands, protectively.

  I felt worse making my demand than I’d thought I would. Telling a nameless woman I was going to take her child was easy in the abstract; it was harder looking into Maia’s eyes, seeing the abject loss and horror. I was behaving like a god, choosing her son to be sacrificed in order to save Aya. But I wasn’t a god. Just a flawed and desperate man. Staring at a helpless and hopeless woman.

  “Are you going to kill him?” she asked.

  “No, Maia.” At least, not for several years.

  “Then why must you take him?” Tears were dripping from her chin onto her chest.

  “I can’t tell you. All I can say is you’ll be doing the will of Pharaoh.” A lie. Yes, Pharaoh expected me to deliver a boy to the priests, but he expected the boy to be Neset’s, not an imposter. “I’m going to take him to some men. They’ll raise him. I promise he’ll have a good life. I’ll be with him to make sure.”

  Maia covered her face with her hands, anguished. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve told you everything I can.”

  She dropped her hands. “You haven’t told me anything!” she cried.

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to seem unfeeling. Though I was.

  Maia’s chin was quivering again. “I don’t have a choice, do I, because of Alara.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Childless as well as a widow,” Maia said softly, almost to herself. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her wet eyes met mine. “Everyone shuns me now because of Alara’s treason, Commander. My family’s abandoned me. The men who helped work this farm have run away. No man in the valley will ever take me to wife. I’m sure Pharaoh’s officials will assign my farm to someone e
lse after the water recedes. How will I live?”

  Maia’s despair was palpable. My heart went out to her. Her life had been turned upside down by Alara. I recalled Neset telling me how she’d been driven from Ta Set Maat after Mesedptah’s execution. She’d had her grandfather to save her from an uncertain fate. Tebes suddenly came to mind. Maia had no safe harbor to flee to as Neset had. She’d likely end up just like Tebes, though not in a brothel patronized by wealthy officials. She’d roam the streets of Waset, a desperate woman driven to do whatever she had to in order to survive. I was going to be the cause of it. I hated myself for that. But I was still going to do it.

  Maia wiped her eyes. “Who’s going to feed my son after you take him from me?” she asked practically.

  I hadn’t even considered that. I should have. Not just after I delivered him, but in the years that followed. Children in the valley fed at their mother’s breast for at least three years to shield them from the effects of poor water. I had no idea where Neby would take the boy and me. It might be the desert. Wells there were often brackish and occasionally dry. If Maia’s son died on the way to wherever Neby was taking him the plan to stop Pharaoh’s enemies would fail. Fortunately, the solution to the problem was sitting right in front of me. A solution with the potential to ease a little of Maia’s distress.

  “How about you, Maia? Would you like to serve as your son’s wetnurse?”

  Maia’s face took on the aspect of a drowning woman thrown a line.

  “When I deliver your son to the man who’ll be caring for him I’ll bring you with me. I’ll tell him you just lost a child and have plenty of milk.”

  “Why can’t you tell him he’s my son? Wouldn’t that be simpler?”

  “He’s supposed to be the son of another woman.”

  “You’re pretending my son is another woman’s son?” she asked indignantly. “That’s why you want him?”

  “Yes. And I can’t tell you why, Maia. You really shouldn’t even know that much. If the men we’ll be living among ever learn your son is an imposter they’ll kill him and you and me. Those are the stakes if you speak out of turn.”

  She considered for a moment. “At least I’ll be with my son. That’s all that matters to me now.”

  “You can’t ever tell him you’re his real mother, Maia. He must believe you’re just his wetnurse. Always.”

  More tears ran down her cheeks. “I’ll keep the truth to myself,” she promised solemnly. “You have my word, Commander.”

  An immediate problem solved. I suddenly felt very guilty. I wasn’t just sentencing the unborn boy to die; I was sentencing Maia too. The day I discovered the names of the highest–ranking traitors I’d kill him and head straight to Djeme to report to Pharaoh. I’d have to leave Maia behind. She wouldn’t want to come with the man who’d executed her son, and dragging her along would lessen my chances of escaping the traitors. They’d surely figure out what I’d been up to. They’d assume Maia had been part of my plan. They’d kill her – eventually.

  Unless it took me more than three years to identify all the traitors. After three years the boy would have no more need of her. I could send her back to the valley then, away from the traitors, to safety. She wouldn’t suffer at their hands. Plus, it would be a kindness for her to be separated from her son. She’d never learn I’d executed him. It would be better for her to live out her life assuming her son was still alive. And better for me, not having to tell her to her face that I’d murdered him. Right now I was feeling like a herdsman who’d just selected several calves from his herd to slaughter. I reminded myself I was doing it to save Aya from certain death. The daughter of a woman I owed a debt to in exchange for the son of one I didn’t.

  “I’ll look in on you regularly from now on, Maia, make sure you have food and clothing and supplies until your son is born. And I’ll make sure Pharaoh doesn’t let anyone take your farm, and that you’ll have men to work it until we go away, and a girl to help you with chores and cooking.”

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  “Kairy from now on, Maia. Our lives are in each others’ hands now.”

  ***

  Akhet (Flood)

  Neset

  ***

  A week to the day after the attack on my estate, still unsettled but none the worse for wear, we ate together on the veranda one last time. Ani was going to depart in the morning. He’d delayed his return to Nekhen at Kairy’s request – Kairy had been tied up in Djeme on Pharaoh’s business ever since the kidnapping and he’d wanted Ani on the estate to watch over me. Kairy’s absence had been fine with me. The less I saw of him the better, after the danger he’d put us all in. A warm breeze was blowing. Palm trees were slightly swaying, and the few flowers peeking above the weeds in the garden were rippling. I could just make out Ani’s fully–loaded boat through the line of palm trees at the east end of my estate, bobbing in the current. His crewmen’s campfire twinkled on the riverbank.

  Kairy, just arrived, was drawn and haggard. The hours he’d spent interrogating Bunakhtef after the attack had been fruitful – Kairy had delivered a papyrus with names to Pharaoh at first light the next morning. Bunakhtef had identified a dozen more conspirators, a few residing in Djeme’s per’aa. I assumed if Kairy had returned to the estate they were dead. It had taken him awhile to round them up. As for Bunakhtef, he’d bled to death shortly after Kairy finished questioning him. He lay somewhere in the desert sand. Good riddance.

  A new set of guards now patrolled my estate, twice as many as before.

  Beketaten and Ani had been inseparable the past week, sitting beneath a cluster of palm trees in the garden by day, talking, heads close together, holding hands. Watching them, I’d thanked the falcon god over and over that Beketaten and Ani and Iput hadn’t been hurt because of me. Or, rather, because of Kairy. My anger towards him had not cooled during his absence.

  “Neset, what’s going to happen to Aya after…” Beketaten asked hesitantly when dinner was done.

  I’d never told anyone about Duatentopet’s promise. “Her Majesty is going to care for her.” I glanced at Kairy. “Though she’s expecting her to be a boy.”

  “She’ll be brought up in Pharaoh’s harem?” Beketaten asked. “Raised by a wetnurse? No one to truly love her? No parents? Looked down on by everyone because of her father?”

  “What choice to do I have, Beketaten?” I asked hopelessly.

  “None,” Kairy interjected. “Aya has royal blood. She’ll spend her life with the royal family.”

  Spoken like a man with blind allegiance to Pharaoh. “Will you make sure Duatentopet gets my papyri, at least?” I asked Kairy.

  “Of course.” He appeared chastened. He knew I despised him. I wished I had someone else with a connection to the royal family to rely on after I was dead. But I didn’t.

  “There’s no guarantee she’ll make sure Aya memorizes the stories so she can pass them on to her own child,” Beketaten pointed out.

  My fear, expressed out loud.

  “I’ll make sure,” Kairy promised.

  “You?” I was skeptical. “You’re going to be a commander in His Majesty’s army and spend the rest of your life far from the valley.”

  “No I’m not.” Kairy’s eyes swept our group. “You’ll probably hear a rumor or two from the guards in the next few weeks about a disagreement between Pharaoh and me.”

  “Disagreement?” Ani asked.

  “It’ll probably get exaggerated in the retelling,” Kairy said. “The other day, after I dealt with the kidnappers, I demanded that His Majesty give me command of the army after… after this is over. In his audience hall. In front of his officials. He told me my demand was absurd. We argued. Strenuously. He gave me command of his stables at Djeme instead. I stormed out of the audience hall and went to Waset and got very drunk in one of the brothels. I said many things I shouldn’t have. Things I don’t remember saying, actually. I’m pretty embarrassed by what men are reporting. I was so exhausted from rounding u
p Pharaoh’s enemies I lost control of myself.”

  Kairy’s true colors revealed at last. He was completely devoted to Pharaoh when it came to seeing me executed. But when his own self–interest was involved he’d put himself first. That he’d made a beeline for a brothel told me all I need to know about his character. He wasn’t at all the man he’d portrayed himself to be. Just one more in a long line who’d betrayed me without a second thought.

  A man who was going to betray Pharaoh too. The falcon god had sent me a dream. In it, Kairy was trying to place a challenger on the throne. That he’d publicly broken with Pharaoh a few days ago was all the proof I needed that my dream was going to come true. I now knew what Kairy was going to say when the priest asked him if the boy was Pentawere’s and my son. I had no idea how I was going to stop Kairy. But I had to. Before I was executed.

  “Will Pharaoh punish you, when he hears these rumors?” Iput asked, equal parts disgusted and concerned.

  “Hopefully not. I plan to lay low and avoid Djeme for the foreseeable future.”

  And, hopefully, avoid me here on the estate. I couldn’t stand him. I tried to put Kairy out of my mind. “How about you, Ani?” I asked. “How long are you going to remain at Nekhen?”

  “I’ll be back before you give birth,” Ani replied. “After, I’ll take Iput and my bride back home.”

  “Bride?” Iput asked.

  Beketaten grasped Ani’s arm. “We’re going to marry.”

  “I knew it!” I exclaimed.

  Kairy clapped Ani on the back. “Congratulations, Brother!”

  Iput hugged him.

  I hugged Beketaten.

  “As a wedding gift, I’m granting you the estate Pharaoh gave me, Ani and Beketaten. You too, Iput,” Kairy said.

  They seemed to think it generous. I thought it atonement.

  “You’re sure, Brother?” Ani asked.