But more than all that, Tuta had our horses. And he was a thief.
True, I’d saved his life and he’d saved mine. But he was still a thief.
The third day – well, the third day I sat watching Aya worry, part of me thinking she had no grounds for concern, part of me sharing it. Then, on the fourth day, Tuta returned.
22
Much time had passed since Bion’s blade had tasted blood. He had travelled along the river to Alexandria, needing to speak to his employer but wishing it were not so, thinking that he’d rather be anywhere than back in the nest of snakes that was Alexandria. He hated politics.
There was, however, one thing to be said for returning to Alexandria, and that was the look of discomfort on the face of his old commander, who had expressly told him to contact him by messenger, and not to visit him at home.
‘What are you doing here?’ Raia had snapped.
Bion looked over his shoulder. He saw a large room, ivy along a far wall, a table set with food and fire in braziers. A woman, Raia’s wife perhaps, stood with a silver tray of bread and fruit, two little girls on chairs sat with their legs swinging, all looking his way. He thought how disquieting he must appear to them – the scars, the kohl-smeared eyes, the dirt from the trail – and was not surprised when they made themselves scarce with barely any prompting from Raia. Or perhaps he had just stared too long.
Recovering his composure, Raia invited Bion inside, ushering him to a place at the table, offering him bread. In return, Bion offered something to Raia. He took out the medallion he had taken from Emsaf and let it fall to the tabletop. Raia’s eyes gleamed as he pounced, picking up the metal, turning it over in his hand, inspecting it as though hoping to see bloodstains. A second later his brow clouded. ‘Just one?’ he said, and let the medallion drop, a glare at Bion indicating that he didn’t consider one trophy worth the break in protocol.
‘So far.’
‘And yet you’re here?’ said Raia. ‘Wasn’t the plan that you were to use Emsaf’s family in order to get the information we needed? This is why I sent you, Bion. This is easy work for you. Or should be.’
‘He had been warned of my coming.’
‘Perhaps you are out of practice.’
Bion looked at Raia patiently. ‘These men are dangerous. They’re different from men we’ve fought in the past, Commander. They’re not indentured servants who want a better deal, workers campaigning for a better treatment from their landowners.’ Though to some it might look as though the kill had been easy, Bion had had to work to track down Emsaf. Use trickery to get close enough for the kill. It had gone well because Bion was very good at what he did. Not because the quarry was incompetent – far from it.
Raia shrugged. ‘They’re men of conviction, nothing you haven’t faced before.’
‘They are men of conviction who are also highly trained, highly skilled. They have everything we have up here,’ Bion tapped his temple, ‘and probably more of what we have here,’ he tapped at his chest.
Raia chuckled. ‘You do yourself a disservice, my friend,’ he said, reaching forward to give Bion a friendly punch to the shoulder, failing to notice Bion tense in response. ‘If anybody can do it, you can.’
‘Would it not be more prudent to make this a two-man mission? Three, even?’
Raia shook his head definitively, the smile slipping from his face. ‘Absolutely not.’
Of course not. Raia knew Bion would not talk. He had no such certainty about anyone else. Bion tucked the information away. It could be useful some day.
‘But if these men are as dangerous to The Order as you fear …’
He pressed, curious above all to see Raia’s reaction.
‘Dangerous to The Order they may be,’ replied Raia, ‘but to men like you and I,’ he waved his hands, bringing them both into his theoretical world, ‘they merely represent the old ways given human form. You’re quite right, old friend, we must not make the mistake of underestimating our foe, but neither should we fall into the trap of giving them too much respect. This is a job we can handle, you and I, I have no doubt about that. Either way, I haven’t forgotten that your natural preference is to work alone, even if you have. Now, come on, how can we root out the last of these vermin?’
Bion looked at him. Wasn’t it obvious? ‘You have a leak. Find the leak, you can find the last of the Medjay.’
‘Are you sure we have a leak?’ asked Raia. His eyes hardened, both of them knowing full well that it was Raia who had impressed on Bion the need for secrecy. And yet, if there was a leak then ultimately it was his responsibility. Bion would not talk. They both knew that.
‘You said Theotimos was unable to continue his translation. Who was to do it instead?’
‘A translator. I used a student from the library.’
Fool. Bion rested his hand at his side, fingers lingering on the pommel of his knife.
‘Then I think I had better speak to this translator.’
23
Bion had let himself into the home, made his way up to the roof and found the historian Rashidi and his wife asleep on rush mattresses beneath the stars.
Bion watched them for a moment, considering his options. The usual would do well enough here. They were mere civilians, scared into his bidding easily enough. He flicked the shawl he wore back over one shoulder and drew a dagger that he placed to Rashidi’s throat, put his other hand over his mouth and shook him awake.
Moments later they were back inside, where Bion bid Rashidi take a seat on a pile of cushions and then sat down himself. The uneven lighting in the room served only to make him look more sinister, his shadowed features doing the work of a thousand threats.
Rashidi was rigid with terror, his mind empty of all reason, his mouth dry. All he could focus on was the knife in Bion’s hand. At last he found his tongue, ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to know about the Medjay.’
‘Well, there is no such thing as the Medjay,’ blurted Rashidi. ‘Not any more. They don’t exist, and haven’t existed for hundreds of years. The Phylakes now stand where the Medjay once did.’
‘But you do know of the Medjay?’ asked Bion evenly. ‘Your specialist subject is the Medjay, these …’ Bion shrugged, ‘protectors, scouts, soldiers of the Old Kingdom. Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you seen documents recently?’
Rashidi’s eyes flickered. He swallowed. There was a pause in the room, a silence broken only by the sound of a candle guttering.
‘I see documents all of the time in my line of work.’
Bion leaned forward. ‘I think you know what I’m talking about. Have you seen documents recently? Something new? Something interesting, perhaps? You see, I spoke to a translator last night. He told me that he was having difficulty with some work and sought your advice. Is that right?’
‘No,’ said Rashidi.
It was a lie, of course. The translator had been very clear as to what had transpired. Still, he took another angle, for the moment. ‘The Medjay are supposed to have died out, centuries ago,’ he said. ‘But they haven’t, have they?’
‘There are those who still proclaim a loyalty to the Medjay.’
Bion held up a hand to stop him. ‘I’m not talking about them, I’m talking about the real ones. I’m talking about the ones to whom you sent a message not long ago.’
Rashidi shrunk back, as though he could disappear to a safer place, a small keen of terror and knowing his only answer.
When Rashidi had given Bion the information he needed, Bion held him against the wall, flipped his dagger into an overhand grip, rammed it through his left eye into the brain and let the body slide to the floor before wiping the blade clean on Rashidi’s hair.
He checked the cesspit, thinking he might use it to dispose of the bodies, but it was too small for his needs. At the rear of the house he found a walled courtyard area used for cooking, as well as olive oil stored in tall vases, and decided that would do instead.
Next he took the steps up to where Rashidi’s wife slept on the roof beneath the stars. His promise to Rashidi had been empty, of course, but the relief the man had found in thinking his wife safe had granted information he’d otherwise perhaps have withheld. People trusted stupidly, Bion knew, when they thought loved ones might be saved.
He bent to her and she awoke instantly, alerted by the feel of his hand over her mouth, and her eyes widened as his dagger blade plunged deep, her good eye fluttering as she died.
Bion pulled her body to the side of the roof, heaved it over the side and down to the courtyard, and then descended the steps. He then dragged her corpse and that of Rashidi outside to the cooking area, doused their bodies in olive oil, set fire to them and everything around them. He waited a moment, to make sure everything was burning nicely, then slipped away into the shadows, returning to his own lodgings.
Back in his room, he took stock. He packed his things neatly, readying himself to leave at first light the next day.
When he went up to his roof and looked across the city, he saw the smoke in the distance. Across the rooftops came the sound of commotion as the fire alarm was raised. He settled down to a restful sleep. He knew where to go next.
24
Looking back, and I feel guilty admitting this, but when Tuta had returned and said ‘I’ve found her’, my first thought was that he’d found Khensa.
He hadn’t. But he had found us somewhere to stay and that somewhere was with his mother and his sister. The family had been reunited.
As we headed into town and through the markets, I found myself assaulted once more by the sights and sounds of the city. The sun above our heads shone just as brightly, uncaring of the difference between prosperous Zawty and a Thebes that felt as if it would forever bear the scars of war, but was it my imagination or were the people somehow grubbier and less cheerful than they’d been in Zawty? One thing was for sure, we stood out less, the three of us, ragged and dirty from travelling.
Into the slums we went, where houses butted up against each other and there was a permanent stench, perhaps from the river but just as likely a result of sewage that ran in the streets.
‘These are the people I told you about, mouty,’ said Tuta to his mother when we arrived at his home. From the outside it had looked just like any other house in the slums, but inside it was pristine and filled with a love that was so tangible it hit you the second you walked through the door, as though the sun were shining inside the house.
Tuta’s mother was a large, redoubtable woman with an open smile, eyes alive with the same mischievous light I saw in Tuta. She stood with a little girl whom I guessed to be about five summers old – too old to be seeking refuge in her mother’s skirts, unless one knew what she must have seen when her father was still there. She regarded us with wary curiosity, but without fear. Tuta had gone to stand beside them. Looking at them together, it was difficult to believe they’d ever had anything to do with that drunken brute back in Zawty; they looked like a normal enough family, though after a moment of careful watching I could see the signs that they were people who had left a darkness behind, exchanging their ill fortunes for better ones.
‘I am Bayek, son of Sabu of Siwa,’ I told them, reacting to Tuta’s silent prompting.
‘And I am Aya, of Alexandria and Siwa.’
Tuta’s mother acknowledged us gravely, and introduced herself as Imi, and the girl as her daughter, Kiya. ‘I have you to thank for my son’s life. You saved him from that horrible man,’ she said.
I smiled at Aya, and quickly clarified that I had not done all the saving single-handed. When it came to the story of how Aya had rendered Tuta’s father – his name was Paneb, we discovered – unconscious, Tuta’s mother’s eyes went to Aya, appraising her carefully in a way I couldn’t quite decipher.
The moment passed, and I said, ‘Wepwawet, the protector god of Zawty, brought us together, and now I hope that the gods of Thebes will be just as kind and aid us in our mission.’
‘You’re looking for an old friend from Siwa, I hear. A tribeswoman who lives here in the city with members of her people, is that right?’
‘It is,’ we said in unison, and she nodded decisively.
‘Then you shall be our guests here until such time as you may find them. And if anybody can find them, Tuta can. No doubt his skill in making contacts among the city’s undesirables will be most useful.’
She threw a playfully admonishing look at Tuta, who pulled a face that was somewhere between a blush and a smile.
‘However,’ continued Imi, ‘you might also consider making your way to the Temple of Karnak. There you will find the priestess. I have every faith that she will be able to help you. Whether you’ll be able to even speak to her is another matter.’
I raised my eyebrows and Imi took a deep breath, expression serious and a touch concerned. ‘As you might have noticed from the look of our city, Thebes is in a somewhat depressed state. The Greeks have been harsh towards us – they continue to be so – and there is much resentment and jealousy among the local people. Bear this in mind as you travel through the city.’
The next day Tuta bade us farewell, evidently looking forward to acquainting himself with the underbelly of Thebes, pointing us in the direction of the temple before he went. ‘The priestess is as intelligent as she is mystical, so I’ve heard it said. I’m sure that if anyone can convince her to help, then you can.’ With that he flashed us a grin and was off, leaving us to explore Thebes together.
We set off, in no hurry, wanting to get a feel for this strange, dilapidated city and the people who lived in it. Just as we had been on the approach, we were struck by its washed-out appearance. It was clear that Thebes had once boasted vibrant colours. We saw vestiges of it on painted columns and pillars and walls. Now, though, time, sun and general neglect had taken their toll. The fading and peeling paint adorning the carved figures and the bases of the columns was a sad reminder of another, more prosperous time.
Only nature was undaunted. In Thebes, colour was provided only by foliage and the occasional glimpse of the glittering water. Its denizens, meanwhile, appeared as worn down as its buildings.
‘Do you notice anything?’ said Aya, as we trod its streets.
‘Like what?’
‘Imi is right.’ She lowered her voice. ‘There is a certain tension about the place.’
‘You mean the state of it?’ I indicated some daubings in Latin and Greek that we passed. Crude statements of discontent that served only to underline the shabby look of the place.
‘Not just the look of it, but …’ she rubbed her fingers together as though testing the quality of herbs, ‘… a certain feel. As though the whole city is on edge.’
Sure enough, we passed Greeks with indentured Egyptian servants trailing in their wake, and then a high-born Greek with a coterie of Egyptian bodyguards, either oblivious to the townsfolk who watched him with such dislike, or uncaring of it.
We finally reached the Alley of Sphinxes, baked by the sun as we walked between the huge black cats that lined the way to the Temple of Karnak. Before we neared the sprawling, vast temple complex, we stood for a moment, entranced by it. Like everywhere else this expanse of buildings, precincts and quadrangles had seen better days, but even so, it was a feast for the eyes. The columns were twice as tall as anything we’d seen in Thebes so far and three times as wide, the carvings even more intricate and ornate.
We climbed steps and made our way inside, asking after the whereabouts of the priestess from temple workers who looked at us with mild curiosity and then waved us on, further into the complex, into the inner sanctum.
Passing among the tall pillars and the washed-out marble we came to a worker dressed more finely than others.
‘We’d like to see the priestess, if we may,’ asked Aya sweetly. I stood by her side, not needing to adopt a look of godly devotion. The temple had that effect on me anyway.
The man eyed us up and down, his he
ad arriving at a position in which it was perfectly inclined to look down his nose at us. We’d cleaned ourselves up since our travels, but even so he judged us inappropriate to see the priestess and was shaking his head, about to tell us no, when there came another voice. ‘Wait,’ it said, and we looked up to see its owner materialize from the shadows at the far end of the auditorium.
25
At first I saw the silk and gold and beauty and was rendered almost speechless by it, thinking that she was truly resplendent, sumptuous with riches and colour. But then she came closer and I saw that her linen was frayed and the gold leaf on her staff and the tall headpiece she wore was flaking. As she approached I realized that she was in many ways the embodiment of the decaying temple and thus of Thebes itself. I found myself wondering what effect she had on the city. For even though her clothes were down-at-heel there was a presence about her. There was nothing at all stricken about the way she carried herself, nor was there any hint of defeat in the slow, measured manner in which she turned her gaze on us. Her command to wait had been clearly intended not just for us, but for her servant as well.
‘I am Nitokris, God’s Wife of Amun, High Priestess of Thebes and guardian of the Temple of Karnak. Tell me, what brings you here?’ she asked.
I bowed my head in return. ‘I am Bayek of Siwa,’ I said, ‘and this is my companion, Aya of Alexandria.’
Aya and I looked at one another. Aya nodded, even as I shifted slightly, deferring in this conversation to her. Considering she’d been at the temples in Alexandria, Aya was obviously best placed to reply. ‘We come to Thebes from Siwa,’ she said, and then stopped at the knowledgeable way the priestess nodded, as if already in possession of that information.
‘We come in search of Siwa’s protector, a man named Sabu.’ Aya indicated me. ‘This is Bayek, son of Sabu. I am Aya. Sabu may not be in Thebes, but we hope to find a Nubian named Khensa who may be here with her tribe. She might know where he is.’
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