Year of the Hyenas

by Brad Geagley

  At the inner temple doors Semerket approached a guard. “The vizier’s quarters—where are they?” he asked, knowing that Toh had abandoned his offices at the Temple of Ma’at to be near Pharaoh when he was in Thebes. Again Semerket held his badge for the soldier to view.

  The guard told him. “But if you’re looking for Toh,” he added, “he left before dawn for Erment, with his garrison.”

  Semerket’s expression was such that the guard quickly added, “But he’ll be back in a week or so! He went to inspect the new Buchis bull!”

  Semerket had been aware of the prior Buchis bull’s early death, a horrifying omen of catastrophe. The bull was considered the earthly manifestation of Pharaoh Ramses III’s power, and his replacement was a task entrusted only to the highest official, which explained Toh’s unexpected departure.

  “Perhaps his scribe, Kenamun, can help you if it’s so urgent,” the guard said.

  Kenamun… yes. He would know how to get in touch with Toh by the quickest method. Semerket nodded his thanks and stalked through the dark halls, the polished basalt tiles gleaming beneath his rough sandals. But some time had passed since he had last been inside the temple, and he grew confused. He recognized the wall of blue faience tiles… but did he take the left or right hallway?

  A familiar voice caught his ear, and across the courtyard he glimpsed the lean figure of Mayor Pawero. The mayor did not exhibit his usual hauteur, instead amiably chatting with some other person, even laughing uproariously. Semerket was intrigued; never before had he seen the Mayor of the West so relaxed and approachable. He moved down the hallway to better see who the other person could be.

  It was Mayor Paser.

  Semerket could not have been more surprised. What had become of their famed distaste for one another, their ill-concealed enmity? Had the stoat and the cobra become lovers?

  Semerket approached them stealthily, hoping to overhear their conversation. Unfortunately Pawero shifted his weight at that moment, and spied Semerket. The Western Mayor flinched when he realized who it was, and the color drained from his face. Seeing his colleague so undone, Paser turned to see what disturbed him.

  They leapt apart like guilty children, Semerket thought.

  “You!” Pawero said, barely able to speak. “But you’re supposed to be…” He swallowed, unable to go on.

  Paser shot an alarmed glance at the tall mayor. Instantaneously he took up the Eastern Mayor’s words. “…supposed to be at the tombmakers’ village, we thought.” The tall mayor nodded dumbly in agreement, his face still pale.

  “Why are you here, Semerket?” Paser asked.

  “The vizier—I’ve come to see him.”

  He saw the quick glance between the mayors. “Have you solved the murder of the priestess, then?” Pawero asked faintly.

  Semerket studied the pair of them through narrowed, critical eyes. Something about them was not authentic. He shook his head gravely. “I merely came to get my pay from Kenamun, lords.”

  Instantly, the two mayors’ spirits lifted. Paser even smiled. “Do you mean you’ve already gone through all that silver I gave you?”

  Semerket smiled. “Wine costs dearly these days, Mayor,” he said, winking.

  Paser guffawed, but his eyes remained coldly appraising. Pawero, on the other hand, had become once again his rigid former self. Without another word he fled, rushing to his chambers, occasionally looking back at Semerket and shuddering.

  “He’s heard of the disturbances in the tomb-makers’ village,” Paser explained. “You can’t blame him for believing you to be the cause, Semerket.”

  “They caused it themselves,” Semerket answered shortly, then added, in a tone less harsh, “Excuse me, lord, but I must find Kenamun. Can you tell me where the scribe might be found?” Paser pointed down a hallway. Semerket stretched his hands at knee level, and left the mayor there.

  Kenamun was at a table, writing upon a scroll. When he saw Semerket enter the room, his eyes widened, and Semerket noted how he turned the papyrus over. Semerket fancied for a moment that the vizier’s scribe, too, was not happy to see him.

  Quickly he told Kenamun of finding the gold in the forgotten tomb in the Great Place, of how the tomb-makers had attempted to kill him, and that somehow he felt it was all connected to the murder of Hetephras. He asserted that Hunro’s arrest and the theft of her jewels had effectively stymied his inquiry. “I want her freed,” Semerket demanded, “and placed under the vizier’s protection. And tonight, a squadron of men must be dispatched to capture the beggars who plan to remove the treasure.”

  Kenamun’s face paled. He paced back and forth in shock. “Oh, my…” he said raggedly, thinking quickly. “I could certainly order the woman’s release—that’s no problem—but I’ve no authority to obtain a military escort for you.”

  “Who has that authority?”

  “In the absence of Vizier Toh, only Pharaoh, I’m afraid.” Kenamun shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  “Then we must go to him,” Semerket declared.

  Kenamun appeared horrified by the suggestion. “One simply can’t demand an audience with Pharaoh, Semerket. There are intricate ceremonies, a thousand rules—”

  “Surely, such a treasure as I’ve seen piled in that tomb should be enough reason to go around them!”

  “You don’t understand—it’s not that simple. No, we need someone who has immediate access to him.” Kenamun thought for a moment and then nodded to himself, as though coming to a decision. “Wait here,” he said. As he hurried off into a hallway, he warned over his shoulder: “Do not speak of this to anyone, do you understand?”

  Semerket nodded his head, albeit reluctantly.

  The scribe returned a few moments later. “We’re very lucky,” he said breathlessly. “Tiya, the Queen Mother, has consented to see us. Once you tell her your story, I’m sure she’ll prevail upon Pharaoh to send some men.”

  Semerket followed Kenamun through hallways leading to the southern part of the temple. Only then did he realize that he was actually being taken into Pharaoh’s private residence. An unornamented cedar door served as the only entrance, unmarked and modestly sized. The single pair of guards did not challenge their entry; Kenamun seemed well known to them.

  The palace was vast by Egyptian standards, but not so huge as those Semerket had glimpsed in Babylonia and Syria. The residence was built of stone, unlike most homes in Egypt, which were constructed from mud bricks. Kenamun led Semerket up a staircase to the second floor, entering a narrow passageway pierced by thin slits. Gazing through them, trying to regain his bearings, Semerket focused on the view of the temple gardens below and the sacred lake beyond. Only then did he realize where Kenamun led him.

  Semerket stopped. “But this is the bridge into the harem!”

  “Where else would you expect to find the great wife of the king?” asked the scribe.

  Semerket dutifully followed him over the bridge and through the doors of the women’s apartments. They entered a small, airy chamber. No one rushed to greet the two men, nor were any of Pharaoh’s wives in evidence. Semerket felt a momentary pang of disappointment.

  He contented himself to examine the room. The walls were decorated in bright murals; on closer inspection, Semerket was disconcerted to find these depicted scenes of embarrassing intimacy. On one wall Pharaoh played a game of senet with a naked girl. The wall opposite showed Ramses with his arm draped about a concubine’s slim form, his fingertips casually grazing her breast, while she extolled his erotic prowess with an upraised fist.

  The soft noise of a footstep caught him by surprise and Semerket turned in its direction, every nerve taut. Tiya was there. She was not clad in the same severe garments as she wore the first time he had met her. Instead, her robe’s sheerness caused him to blush.

  “Semerket!” Her splendid voice was at once low and tender and warm, and her skin was the color of the golden jasper beads around his neck. “You have been much on our minds since that day we met in the
vizier’s chambers.”

  Semerket fell to his knees. She came forward then and lifted him by the hands. Her perfume rose in his nostrils and to his shame he found himself staring at her dark, hennaed nipples beneath the fine lawn of her bodice. She looked at him sharply. “But where are the amulets and charms I sent you?” she asked. “Didn’t you receive them? Pentwere said he’d placed them around your neck himself. If he lied—!”

  He interrupted her pretty distress. “Your son did indeed give them to me, lady, but I removed them because of… of strange dreams they sent me.”

  Tiya wagged a finger at him. “That’s because of the powerful prayers and incantations I said over them. You should never have taken them off. No wonder Kenamun here says you’re in trouble now. It explains much to me.”

  Queen Tiya’s clucking tone was so oddly reminiscent of his own mother’s that he felt absurdly comfortable in her presence. But then he found himself staring again at her heavy breasts beneath the sheer muslin bodice, and he hastily dropped his eyes.

  “You have the good sense to be ashamed, I see,” she said, stroking his face. “You’re all such naughty little boys, aren’t you, never doing as you’re told. But thank goodness for that! Where would I be today if my own sons didn’t need me as much as they do?”

  Tiya grazed his cheek with her nails, and when she smiled at him he saw the tips of her even, white teeth. Her fingers continued to travel upward, lingering for a moment at the spot in his scalp where his hair had been so mysteriously shorn. “Come,” she beckoned to him, “sit beside me at the window, and you will tell me everything that has happened in the tomb-makers’ village. Kenamun says it’s very serious. We will listen, and then decide together what’s best.”

  He allowed himself to be led onto an enclosed balcony above the gardens of Djamet. The queen indicated that he should sit next to her on a couch by the grated window. Kenamun was given a small foot-stool to sit upon, somewhat farther away. The scribe, reticent to join their discussion, seemed content to merely listen.

  As he spoke, Semerket became aware of the Queen’s sinuous move-ments—how she absently traced a finger across the line of her brow, or played with the tassel on her golden belt. And even when she stretched her shoulders indolently, he was aware of how closely she listened. She frowned and made soft moans of horror at the thought of her ancestors’ tombs being plundered, at how close he had come to death at an assassin’s hands. When he paused in his narrative, she put sharp questions to him that demonstrated her keen insight and understanding of the situation. Kenamun must have briefed her well, he thought. He then told the lady of how Hunro now languished in the tomb-makers’ jail, accused of adultery, because she had helped him.

  “That’s also why I’ve come,” he concluded, “so that she can be rescued from prison to testify against her neighbors.”

  The queen smiled at him. “Are you in love with her?”

  “She is another man’s wife, lady,” Semerket said, dropping his eyes.

  Tiya put her hand under his chin and raised his face to hers. “Semerket, you should know that it’s useless to try to hide anything from me.”

  Semerket was suddenly ashamed, though he did not know why.

  “She is the first woman since my wife to make me… feel something,” he answered her tentatively. “If that is love—”

  She laughed delightedly. “Spoken like a man. Why can your sex never be truthful about its feelings?”

  “Does it matter what I feel?” he asked with some urgency. “She’s in danger. And the beggars come tonight to remove the treasure from the Great Place! There is no time to lose, Great Lady!”

  The sound of faraway rams’ horns pierced the little room. Tiya’s face changed, becoming for a moment hard and set. A maid—or perhaps one of the lesser wives—crept to whisper something in her ear. She shook her head, saying nothing.

  “I’m told that Pharaoh has concluded his conferences,” Tiya announced to Kenamun and Semerket. “This morning my son Pentwere has organized a duck hunt in the southern marshes. I will make arrangements for you to join us, Semerket.”

  Semerket was appalled. There was no time for such frivolity. “Your Majesty—”

  She held up a hennaed palm, her voice low. “There’s a reason I ask you along. These days the red and white crowns are heavy on his brow. Another blow like this and… well…” She sighed tragically, implying that Pharaoh was too frail a man to burden with such news.

  Semerket spoke without thinking. “Once the crown prince is named co-ruler, I’m sure it will be easier—”

  Tiya visibly started, her tawny eyes grew wide, and her mouth stretched into a sudden grimace that exposed her sharp teeth. She seized Semerket’s arm, her nails making red crescents in his flesh. “Who told you that? Where have you heard such a lie? Spit it out, stupid! No one has yet been named a co-ruler. Least of all that—”

  Kenamun rose from his stool and cleared his throat loudly. Tiya looked at the scribe then, and instantly shut her mouth. She lay again on the couch, breathing deeply. When she had calmed herself she looked resentfully into Semerket’s eyes. “Pharaoh has no need for a co-ruler. He is a mighty bull, a soaring falcon.”

  The traditional words sounded flat and lifeless in her mouth. Semerket said nothing. The crescents she had left on his arm began to ooze thick blood. Tiya pretended a fascination with the weave of her robe.

  “I’m just an old woman,” she said, “too protective of her husband, I suppose. But I’ll help you, Semerket, despite your cruel words.”

  Tiya was suddenly full of plans and details for the proposed duck hunt, as if nothing had happened. He would share her pleasure barque, she told him, and Pharaoh’s mood would surely improve after a few successful kills. “Then I will ask him for an escort to accompany you to the village. I must find the perfect moment to put the question to him. But you must remain silent, for now, for I am the only one who knows how to handle him.”

  Suddenly, as if a spell had been lifted, the harem was full of activity. The lesser wives appeared from their rooms, yawning, and eunuch guards were everywhere about.

  Swiftly Tiya gave Semerket instructions about when he was to appear at the temple wharves. Kenamun would stay by him, allowing none to approach. He was not to leave Semerket’s side, she emphasized. Who knew what dangers lurked, or where? Hadn’t they already tried to kill Semerket once?

  Bowing low, Semerket left the queen at the grated window. As he went through the doors that led to the stone bridge, Kenamun hurried after him, saying, “An extraordinary woman, the great wife, is she not?”

  Semerket merely stared at him. All the way over the stone bridge he felt the sting where her nails had dug into his arm.

  AT THE SAME MOMENT, many furlongs away, the servant Keeya stood at the outside fire pit, carrying a basket of trash. It was filled with the usual detritus of Theban living—bones from the week’s meals, fish heads, rags too worn for further service. She searched about for the flint and the palm-fiber kindling.

  It was midmorning and her mistress had gone to Sekhmet’s temple to visit her uncle, the high priest. Merytra was often at her uncle’s temple these days, Keeya thought. And when the woman returned, she was invariably moody and withdrawn. At such times, Merytra often locked the servants in the small cellar where the three of them slept at night. In the dark, next to the sacks of musty-smelling grain and jars of fermenting beer, they heard her walking on the floor above, sometimes treading in circles. Often they heard her softly chanting to herself. Keeya suspected their mistress had become possessed by a demon.

  The flint was in a small niche within the mud-brick wall. As she stretched for it, she felt a paving tile move unsteadily beneath her feet. It was slightly raised above the others.

  She thought little about it, and bent to shift the tile back into its place. But still it was loose, as if it pressed on something beneath. Keeya lifted the tile, and beheld what was tucked into the hole beneath. She only just managed to stop the sc
ream that threatened to escape her.

  Swiftly she replaced the tile. When her mistress returned home, she said nothing, waiting for Nenry to return for his noon meal. As soon as the scribe, loaded down with papers and scrolls, wearily pushed open the gate, Keeya approached him.

  “Master,” she said. “Will you take a moment to look at something?”

  Nenry was about to put her off, for Paser had left him alone with the morning’s work that day—surveyor reports, taxation schedules. For some reason the mayor had rushed off at the last moment to attend a duck-hunting party with Queen Tiya, of all things. But the maid’s expression was so serious that whatever protests Nenry harbored were stilled. Nenry followed her to the fire pit.

  Keeya lifted the tile. In the hole were the remains of an infant, a female. It was painted red and glyphs were drawn upon its tiny palms, on its feet and forehead. They were not ordinary glyphs, but primitive symbols from an ancient time. Various amulets and charms were placed all about the little corpse. The infant’s stomach had been slit open, and within it, among its dried and desiccated viscera, was a waxen doll. A knife protruded from the baby’s chest, and around its eyes a small bandage was tied.

  “Gather the others,” Nenry said, his voice terrible.

  Merytra was lying atop her bed, for it was her custom to nap while her husband ate his noon meal—an arrangement that suited them both, for it kept their daily interactions to a minimum. She was therefore surprised to see her husband suddenly appear in her doorway, the servants close behind him.

  “Why do idiots disturb my rest?” she asked resignedly, as if she addressed the gods to fathom their purposeless ways.

  Nenry swiftly crossed the room, grabbing her by her hair. He threw her, screaming, against the wall.