by Brad Geagley
All the gods and goddesses have manifested their oracles (Semerket read from another ball of crumpled papyrus) and have pronounced their judgment: Get the people together! Incite hostilities in order to provoke rebellion against their lord! Proclaim the new dawn in Egypt!
The final pieces of paper revealed a list of some fifty names, which Paser had methodically annotated. Semerket had no way of knowing if they comprised a list of conspirators, but it was likely. The names ranged from those of well-known generals to the overseer of the treasury, from the royal magician to the keeper of the king’s cattle. Even the names of the two librarians in the House of Life, Messui and the crook-backed little Maadje, appeared on the list. Apparently, from the notations next to their titles, they were responsible for retrieving the forbidden volumes of magic that were hidden in the House of Life. Semerket, perhaps more than anyone, could well imagine the kind of harm the queen intended with the spells found inside the books.
Most of the names, however, were minor ones—butlers and cooks and scribes who labored in the Djamet workshops. At first glance he might have omitted them from his consideration, but then he realized that though they were not illustrious or powerful folk, these men were probably the most dangerous conspirators on the list. They were the “mice,” the little ones who possessed the attribute of invisibility, able to come and go from the palace at any hour without being noticed. In all likelihood they were the ones who smuggled such letters as these to their intended recipients.
After reading through the list a second time, Semerket began to notice another phenomenon he had not at first apprehended. In the annotations beside the names, Pawero had systematically marked that such-and-such a person was the “brother of Pharaoh’s wife of the second class, Hathor,” or that someone else was the father or uncle of “Pharaoh’s wife of the fourth class, Ipet,” and so forth. In fact the term “Pharaoh’s wife” occurred so frequently on the list that Semerket suddenly comprehended that if these were indeed the names of the conspirators, then the plot must have been hatched in Pharaoh’s harem itself!
It was apparent, then, that not just Tiya but all of Pharaoh’s southern wives were behind the conspiracy. He suddenly felt the chill lagoon waters on his skin, remembering what Tiya had said as he lurked beneath her skiff… what was it? “I shall await Pharaoh’s pleasure in the harem…”
The truth smote him like an axe: Pharaoh’s murder would be attempted in the last possible place anyone would think to look— where not even the king’s personal guards dared follow. It was clear to him, as well, that Tiya meant to accomplish the deed herself. The lioness was ready to spring once again. This time, however, an eagle was her prey.
He shook his head in dismay. He knew that he should not be surprised—there had been a precedent, after all. Tiya’s grandmother Twos-re had slain her own husband, and for the same reason.
Carefully Semerket folded the bits of paper and hid them in his sash. He slipped from the chapel, silently retracing his steps to the curtained doorway that led into the outer hall. His next task, he knew, was to find the crown prince and remove him to safety. Above all, the proper succession in Egypt must be guaranteed. Pentwere would never be proclaimed king as long as the crown prince was alive. More than even the safety of Pharaoh himself, the survival of his heir was paramount.
Semerket sped along the black tiles of Djamet, rushing through the many-columned halls whose blue roofs were spangled with golden stars. Though the winds had become calmer, Semerket glimpsed through the open courtyards the dank gray ridge of clouds that had moved in over the Nile valley. Servants were still at work, cleaning up the debris left from the winds. Occasionally, they gave him a stricken glance as he sped by, shocked by his blood-stained forehead and muddy kilt. Fortunately, none challenged him. Semerket noticed for the first time that his vizier’s badge was missing—probably at the bottom of the lagoon, he assumed glumly, lost during his watery struggle with Assai. He prayed that no one would stop him.
Where to find the crown prince? The acres of the temple complex were a warren of offices and workshops, storage bins and grain silos. So huge was it that it was boasted that the entire population of Western Thebes could crowd within it in times of war. The prince might be anywhere in such a place. Semerket emerged from a side door into the temple grounds, uncertain where to turn. He had gone no more than a furlong before he heard a cry.
“Semerket!”
At the far end of the courtyard he saw two men furiously waving to him. Semerket goggled at them, amazed.
“Nenry,” he said faintly. “Qar!”
His brother and the Medjay ran to him. “Semerket—thank the gods you’re alive,” Nenry said. But then he stared aghast at his brother, at his slashed forehead and fouled appearance. “You are alive, aren’t you…?”
“You knew I was in danger?”
Nenry nodded. “When I discovered that the queen planned your death today,” Nenry said, “I rushed across the river to save you.”
“Save me?” Semerket looked at his brother with an odd expression.
Nenry nodded again.
“Well, why not?” Semerket said after a moment. “It’s the second time you’ve done it.”
The brothers stood for a moment, tongue-tied and awkward, unable to speak. Semerket glanced over his brother’s shoulder at the Medjay.
“There are many things you both should know,” he said.
THEY WALKED SWIFTLY through Djamet Temple’s compound. Above, the slate-colored clouds lent a frail piquancy to the remaining sunlight. Nenry, flashing his emblem of office, asked one of the temple guards where they might find Prince Ramses. They were directed to a small rear building where two soldiers stood guard. Nenry, suddenly quaking, asked if he and his associates might be announced to the crown prince “on a matter of some urgency.” A moment later they were ushered inside.
The prince was making notes upon a papyrus at a wooden table. Scrolls were piled high around him, while models of temples and civic buildings crowded the small room still further. The brawny Libyan bodyguard stood behind the prince, just as he had in the House of Life, arms folded.
As before, Prince Ramses wore no wig or insignia, and his garments were ink-stained. He coughed slightly, bringing a kerchief to his lips. As they entered, he squinted shortsightedly at them and rose to his feet.
“Majesty,” began Semerket, kneeling, “I doubt if you remember me—”
“I do. You’re Semerket, the one who sought to know more about Queen Twos-re. Have you found what you needed?”
“More than I cared to,” said Semerket grimly.
The crown prince did not question the meaning of his words, looking instead at Semerket’s companions. “Who are these friends of yours?”
His brother and the Medjay had also knelt. “This is Qar, a Medjay who guards the Great Place—and this is my brother, who is… was Mayor Paser’s chief scribe.”
“They are welcome. But what is so urgent, Semerket, that you must see me immediately?”
Semerket crept forward. “Highness, there is a plot against you and your father. You are in much danger.”
The crown prince sat back down at the table, astonished, and began to unconsciously roll up a scroll. The Libyan bodyguard seized his armor and without comment began strapping it to himself.
“Queen Tiya,” Semerket continued, “has used black magic and treasure stolen from the tombs in the Great Place to make your half-brother Pentwere the new pharaoh. It is not a small plot, Majesty. I’ve come across this list made by Mayor Pawero—there are more than fifty names on it.”
Semerket fished the folded papyri from his sash and handed them to the prince. Ramses brought them close to his eyes as he read the documents, slowly, one after another. When he was finished, his face was paler than before.
“But… but am I still the crown prince?” Prince Ramses asked in a small voice.
“We pledge our lives,” Qar said.
The prince put a hand to his forehead,
the full import of the plot becoming clear to him. “My father!” he said abruptly. “I must go to him! If he’s in danger—”
“No, Majesty, you must not,” Semerket said firmly. “It’s not safe in Djamet. We believe that some members of the army have gone over to the traitors. You must go into hiding until we know who’s loyal to you.”
“That is cowardly.”
“But sensible.” Qar said adamantly. “Others must fight for you now, Highness. And you must stay alive so they have something to fight for.”
The crown prince rose and paced to the doorway. “But if it’s true, all of this, where in Thebes will I be safe? I’d rather take my chances here, with my father.”
Ramses had asked the one question for which they had prepared no answer.
“There is one place I know,” Semerket said reluctantly, “and an army for us, too… if we dare use it.”
They stared at him.
Semerket looked at the prince. “Your majesty,” he asked, “can you make this sign with your hand?”
Semerket held up his fingers and formed the secret sign of the Beggar Kingdom.
THE BEGGAR KING spoke privately with Semerket. Nenry, Qar, the crown prince, and his Libyan guard waited at the rear of the room. Nenry cast his eyes over the place, examining its crumbling walls and bizarre ornaments. Strange as the old Hyksos temple was, however, stranger still was the legless man in his miniature chariot, with his stained robes and battered crown of acanthus leaves, the one who now spoke to his brother.
Semerket never ceased to amaze him. How did he even know such ruffians? Nenry cast a surreptitious glance at Prince Ramses, who seemed unperturbed to be in such bizarre surroundings, amid such odd people. But then, reasoned Nenry to himself, the prince must be inured to meeting strange personages, everyone from foreign ambassadors to professional assassins. A lifetime at court prepared one to be fazed by nothing. Unconsciously, Nenry straightened his shoulders and made his features as blandly unassuming as the prince’s.
But Nenry flinched when the Beggar King muttered a surprised “Hmmph!” at something Semerket whispered to him. From his chariot, the king peered closely at the crown prince, running his redrimmed eyes over Ramses in cold appraisal. Then the Beggar King inclined his head to him, one potentate to another. The crown prince nodded as well.
“Yousef!” the Beggar King shouted suddenly.
The tallest man Nenry had ever seen entered the room. The giant and the prince’s Libyan bodyguard eyed one another uneasily.
“Bring a chair for His Majesty—the crown prince!” The Beggar King raised his eyebrows at Yousef significantly. Prince Ramses sat gratefully in the proffered chair, taking out his kerchief to wipe his face.
The Beggar King drove his chariot to where the crown prince sat. “Semerket was prudent to bring the son of Pharaoh to us. You will be well protected here.”
“Thank you,” said the prince, remembering to add “Your Majesty.” All the way from Djamet, Semerket had attempted to prepare his companions for the surreal spectacle that now confronted them; in particular, he had stressed the Beggar King’s wish to be addressed as a fellow monarch.
The Beggar King laid his whip again on the ram, and moved his chariot to where the Libyan stood. “Is this Your Majesty’s bodyguard?”
“He is.”
“His weapons will be restored to him. We want you to know that you are in no danger from us.” The king’s face became abruptly and utterly filled with rage and he banged a fist down upon the chariot’s frame. “To live in such times!” he said in a scandalized voice. “When a Pharaoh can be murdered by his own wife and son—what infamy!” He waited until he was calm again. “Yousef.”
“Lord?”
“I want two hundred strong men and women, dressed in beggar’s rags, and armed. Assemble them in the forecourt in twenty minutes’ time. Be ready to ferry them to Djamet.”
“Yes, lord.”
When the giant had departed, the Beggar King’s countenance was grave. “I fear, gentlemen, that even two hundred of my beggars will not be enough if the army has gone over to those traitors.”
Semerket spoke up. “Then we must bring Vizier Toh and his troops back from Erment.”
Quickly, paper and ink were brought to the crown prince so that he could compose a letter to Toh informing him of the conspiracy and pleading for his quick return. With any luck, the prince told them, Toh was camped in the vicinity of Thebes, for he had been gone only a single day.
It was decided that Medjay Qar would take the letter personally to Toh. The Beggar King volunteered a horse to ensure the speediest of deliveries. Despite the gravity of the situation, Semerket smiled to himself—from what stable, he wondered, would the beast be filched?
They agreed that Nenry would accompany Yousef into Djamet, there to await the arrival of Toh. Semerket knew that if he himself were seen by any of the conspirators, he would be instantly dispatched. Nenry was somewhat known among the temple acolytes, and he could excuse his presence by saying that he waited for Paser. If the opportunity presented itself, he must force himself into Pharaoh’s presence to warn him of the danger.
“In the meantime, I will go into the Great Place,” Semerket continued, “to prevent the treasure from being moved to the north.”
“No,” insisted Nenry. “I know you, Ketty. You’re only doing it so that you can arrest Nakht. You’re too weak from loss of blood. You’d not survive it.”
“There’s no one else, Nenry,” answered Semerket. “I’m the only one who knows where the tomb is, and how to enter it. I’ll go to the Medjays first for their help.”
Qar, Nenry, and Semerket stared soberly at one another. “That’s it, then,” Qar spoke crisply.
When they were gone, the Beggar King spoke soothingly to the suddenly trembling crown prince. “Don’t fret, Your Majesty. My beggars will rescue your father. For if they don’t, they know the Cripple Maker will be waiting for them.”
THE THUNDERHEADS, which had earlier confined themselves to the edges of the desert, now flattened and stretched wide across the horizon, obliterating the setting sun. In the darkness a series of thatched reed boats and other small craft crowded with beggars were secretly launched from the poor quarter of Eastern Thebes. The boats were sent across the Nile in ones and twos, to avoid detection by the river sentries.
When the beggars were safely across the Nile, Yousef dispersed them to various locations around the pylons of Djamet-—alongside the canal, at the base of the twin colossal statues of Pharaoh, and some, the brawniest of them, clustered near the massive gates. Yousef positioned his army so casually that the gradual infusion of beggars into Djamet’s outer courtyard went unnoticed even by the temple guards.
At Yousef’s signal, the beggars settled down to take up their usual evening activities. They threw bones with one another, shared songs, or laughed at jokes. Some lit fires in small braziers and roasted a bit of game. To the inhabitants of Djamet, the beggars seemed as indolent and indifferent as on any other night of the year.
Nenry noticed the smell of rain from the southwestern deserts that permeated the courtyard. A moment later a cataclysmic shock of thunder shook the ground so profoundly that even the massive stanchions bearing the blue and crimson pennants quaked. Intermittent raindrops began to bounce on the granite pavement. Rain was such an infrequent visitor to Thebes that many of the younger beggars had never before seen it. They raised their heads, and held out their hands. The sky was suddenly lit from horizon to horizon by a silent flash of lighting. Nenry, saying nothing, gripped Yousef’s arm, for in that burst of light he had seen Pharaoh’s hunting fleet turning from the river into the temple canal.
Yousef made a signal to the beggars. Heads turned. The beggars were treated to the sight of the boats struggling up the canal in the increasing rain. Their sails hung sodden on their masts, and the flowers that had been strung in their rigging were withered and dripping.
Panic ensued at the docks. Boats thumped into o
ne another in their haste to moor nearest the temple. A few were swamped in the mêlée, and their listing hulls became impassible barriers so that even Pharaoh’s yacht was forced to moor a distance away. Dripping courtiers swore at each other, and small fights broke out. Armies of servants came running from the temple to hurriedly divest their masters’ vessels of dead ducks and hunting sticks. Pharaoh was left to fend for himself as his courtiers went running for cover. Even his bearers could not penetrate the chaos at the wharf, and the king was forced to walk the long avenue into Djamet, his mood darkening with every step.
As Pharaoh passed some distance away, muttering, Nenry turned to Yousef. “I must try to reach him,” he said. Yousef nodded. Nenry hurried inside Djamet, and crept to the audience hall where his sovereign stood glowering.
Ramses hurled his sopping wig to the floor; it scurried across the shiny black tiles like a water rat. He stood dripping, fuming at the commotion around him, as servants ran to fetch towels. As Nenry pushed his way through the throng of hovering courtiers, Ramses spied Pawero in the crowd. The pharaoh pointed a condemning finger at him.
“You!” Ramses said loudly. “Is this how you manage my estate? No fresh clothes—no braziers to warm me! I count for so little, it seems, to you proud southerners!”
Pawero was caught short. “I humbly apologize, Great King. The servants are indeed lax. I will see that they are beaten—”
“I will see you beaten, sir. Being my wife’s brother won’t save you. Where is that woman, anyway?” The pharaoh turned in irritation to scan the courtiers.
“She and your son have not yet returned, Your Majesty.” Pawero’s tone was obsequious and mollifying.