by Brad Geagley
Nenry told how he had slipped through the mêlée to run through the temple crying that there was a riot in the courtyard. All the Sekhmet guards deserted the palace doors, and came streaming to the temple’s entrance.
“It was a scene out of hell,” said Nenry, “the rains streaming down, blood on the tiles everywhere. But then, from out of the dark, another army appeared from the south. We all stopped fighting then, even the Sekhmet guards. We just looked at each other—we didn’t know who these men were. But then we saw old Vizier Toh borne in his chair, with Qar riding beside him. We knew that the old man had come to save us. The moment he had received the crown prince’s message he had embarked with his men to Djamet, Qar told me later. From then on, it was a fight from room to room throughout the temple.”
As they suspected, Prince Pentwere and a couple of his warriors had gone looking for the crown prince, swords drawn, fighting their way to where his offices were. What they did not expect to find was the giant Yousef and his brawniest warriors waiting for them. A scuffle ensued in which a disbelieving Pentwere and his men were taken prisoner. Pent-were’s showy swordsmanship may have dazzled the crowds on festival days, but it was no match for the underhanded tactics of Yousef’s men.
Nenry himself stormed up to the harem with his own contingent of beggars. “It was just as I’d seen in the barracks,” Semerket’s brother said. “All the guards were bewitched, frozen stock-still at their posts, not even aware that we had come into the hall. We broke open the doors—not one of them moved to stop us. Tiya had bewitched them all so that they would not come to Pharaoh’s aid.”
The physician at this point emitted a gentle cough. “If I may continue from here, Lord Mayor?” he asked. “Pharaoh himself told me what had happened prior to being rescued. Perhaps you care to hear his story?”
“Please,” said Nenry in such a regal tone that Semerket rolled his eyes.
The physician was making a poultice of honey and herbs for the new dressing, and continued to work while he spoke. “His Majesty was taking his ease in the harem, as was his habit in the evenings,” he said. “I believe he was listening to one of his wives playing a harp. At some point, the commotion of the battle came to him from below. He rose from his couch then, to speak with his guards—but was surprised when his wives clung to him, preventing him from leaving. They were afraid for their lives, they said, and he must protect them. It dawned on him—gradually, he said, not suddenly—that his wives were actually forcibly holding him there. They clung to his arms so he couldn’t move, and encircled his legs with their bodies to prevent him from walking. He wasn’t so much fearful, he said, as irritable—which, if you know him, is His Majesty’s usual reaction to anything unpleasant.
“It wasn’t until Tiya approached him that he realized something was very wrong indeed. She was carrying the books of forbidden magic that she’d taken from the House of Life, and was chanting a spell from its scroll. She showed him a waxen doll and Pharaoh, horrified, saw that it was of himself. Tiya told him that it contained fingernail clippings and hairs from his body, and even his seed that his wives collected after he had coupled with him—”
The brothers stared at the physician, aghast.
“Yes,” the physician nodded. “Tiya had compelled every one of his southern wives to join the conspiracy—not that they needed much urging. They had planned his demise for months, they informed him. They had written secret letters to their brothers and fathers, who were the army generals and captains of the south, saying to rise against Pharaoh. Oh, gentlemen, the women were very well organized! But by then your brother and his men were at the door, causing some of the wives to panic. Pharaoh managed to wrench himself free and stagger to the door just as it fell open. But even when Tiya saw that all was lost, she was determined to kill her husband. She took out a knife and stabbed Pharaoh along his abdomen…”
“Yes! I saw it happen,” agreed Nenry. “Thank the gods it was only a scratch. After all her planning and evil-doing, she failed in the end.”
The physician wrapped Semerket’s head tightly with a fresh bandage. He coughed in a rather embarrassed fashion, dropping his voice so that his servants could not hear him. “Forgive me, Lord Mayor, but I’m afraid that Queen Tiya accomplished exactly what she sought to do.”
The brothers looked at the doctor then as if they had not heard him correctly. “Beg pardon?” said Nenry.
The royal physician barked a command to his attendants; they withdrew from the room to wait in the courtyard. “What I tell you, gentlemen,” the physician whispered, “is a state secret—though it can’t remain one for very long.”
Semerket, feeling chill, spoke harshly. “Well?”
It was a moment before the physician spoke again. “What you must know is this: When I examined Pharaoh’s wound that night, it seemed nothing very severe. I bandaged it as I would any other superficial cut. But when I changed the bandage again yesterday, the wound had enlarged and was even putrefying. Nothing seemed to stanch the flow of blood at the site. Suspecting the worst, I demanded at once to see Queen Tiya, who by then was in Djamet’s prison. She admitted her final evil to me—the knife’s blade had been coated with venom from the pyramid adder, Egypt’s most toxic serpent. No one has ever survived its bite. It may take weeks for the victim to die, but die he will and so will Pharaoh.”
The men found it difficult to look at one another after such devastating news. Semerket swallowed, asking in a small voice, “Does he know?”
The physician nodded. “And that is why you must get well, Semerket—why you must tell me the truth about your condition. Ramses calls for you daily. Your name is his only comfort, he says, for you are the only one among all his subjects who truly loved him. You saved his throne, and his heir is safe because of you. He wants to thank you in person, before…”
“Thank me?” Semerket asked, stunned. “But he’s lost his life because of me. If I had only discovered the truth a single day earlier…!”
“But Pharaoh certainly doesn’t believe that,” the physician said incredulously. “He’ll make you a rich man, exalt you above all others— you have only to name your reward.”
But Semerket shook his head. “No,” he said. “I want nothing. I deserve nothing. I’ve failed.”
“YOU CANNOT REFUSE Pharaoh’s gifts.”
Two days had passed and Semerket still could not stand without dizziness. Now he was bowing his head before Vizier Toh, who had come to see him in his sickbed.
“Pharaoh is generous,” Semerket said, “but I cannot accept his gifts. I have done nothing to deserve them.”
A look of exasperation crossed the vizier’s rubbery features. “I will not argue with you,” he said testily. “I will keep the gold he has sent you at my estate, against the time when you will want it—as you inevitably will.”
“Great Lord!” protested Semerket. “I have no need for such riches. I would feel a hypocrite to accept them.”
“It is not your needs I am thinking of,” Toh lashed out at him. Seizing his staff of office, he rose from his chair to stand over Semerket. Semerket felt the old man’s rheumy gaze boring into his neck.
“You must understand, Semerket,” he said firmly, though his voice was softer, “that it is Pharaoh’s needs I am considering, not yours. My friend—the companion of my youth—is dying. He needs to demonstrate his gratitude to you in any way you will let him. You cannot be so cruel as to refuse him.”
Toh’s words moved Semerket to shame. “If the king truly wishes to reward me—”
“He does.”
“Then wait until I have at last completed the task that you set me so long ago—to find the murderer of the priestess named Hetephras.”
Silence fell in the room.
“You have two days, you stubborn man,” Toh said, sighing.
“I will need only one.”
“And then, by the little brass balls of Horus, you will appear before Pharaoh—and you will be grateful for whatever he gives you
—or I myself will cast you into prison alongside the conspirators. I don’t care if you’re a hero or not. Pharaoh will not be disappointed—not anymore.”
SEMERKET STOOD WITH Qar in the cellar of the house that had belonged to Paneb. The two men watched, silent, while a squad of Medjays cleared away the sacks of grain, the fetid jars of beer, and all the other trash that Paneb had so determinedly heaped against the cellar’s mud-brick wall.
Semerket had known, always, that some terrible thing would be found behind the tangle of hurled belongings and moldy foodstuffs. He had sensed it when he explored the cellar that night so long before, together with the cat Sukis. At the thought of the little beast, he felt his skin prickle—he suddenly remembered that it had been she who had led him to the cellar, where she had stood atop the pile of trash, mewing. Semerket put his hand to the bandage on his forehead. Sukis… why should he feel so despondent over the death of a cat, when so many people had died?
“Semerket—are you all right?” Qar asked, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady him. “Do you need to sit?”
Semerket shook his head.
Only a few of the original Medjays who had guarded the Great Place were still on duty. All the others had perished in the flood. Qar was now promoted to captain, a reward for his loyalty to Pharaoh. The new Medjays who labored in the cellar had been hastily conscripted from units throughout Thebes. But their duties would no longer include the policing of the tomb-makers; Vizier Toh had permanently assigned an army regiment to the Great Place. From that time forward, the tomb-makers would be forever overseen by them, never again left unguarded.
A day before, the bodies of Neferhotep and Hunro had been recovered. Qar had ordered the corpses, which were damaged almost beyond recognition, taken to the House of Purification. Though he could have prevented it, he allowed Neferhotep to be mummified. As Qar told Semerket—he did his duty, but was no lion. As for Hunro, Semerket himself had volunteered to provide a tomb for her afterlife. He had no wish to see her buried next to a man whom she had so detested and who had engineered her terrible death.
Another division of soldiers labored in the Great Place, attempting to recover as much of the stolen treasure as possible. But the wild river that had washed through the canyons of the Great Place like a gigantic purge had scattered the gold far through the ravines and gullies. Even the furtive tomb of the accursed Amen-meses had been flooded, being built so low into the mountain. What desecrators from other times had overlooked, the sands, rock, and grit that had broken through its weakened doors destroyed. The gesso coating on the limestone had peeled away to mix with the churning waters, congealing like rock around the treasure that remained. Months would be needed to recover it all.
But for now, the Medjays had finally removed the last bit of trash from Paneb’s cellar. Qar and Semerket stared at the brick wall that had been revealed.
Semerket began tapping at the bricks, pushing on them to see if any of them could be dislodged. Qar did the same, and for many minutes they worked in silence.
“Here, Semerket!” said Qar. He had found a loose brick at the wall’s farthest corner. Carefully he drew it out. Semerket brought a candle near. The flame’s light revealed a large niche that extended almost a cubit into the earth beyond.
And there it was, just as he had known it would be: a long object wrapped in a cloth. Qar gingerly removed it from its hiding place and handed it over to Semerket.
It was a moment before Semerket could find the strength to uncover it. Because his legs and hands were shaking, Semerket was forced to sit down on the nearby stairs. The gash in his forehead throbbed. Breathing deeply, summoning his resolve, he at last unwrapped the object.
He stared for a moment.
Semerket abruptly laid the thing down, and thrust himself into the room’s corner, bringing up bile. Qar went upstairs, returning with a jug of water, and Semerket rinsed his mouth.
He looked at Qar sideways, and nodded. “I’ll see them now,” he said.
Paneb and Rami, tired but wary, faced Semerket and Qar in the village kitchens. They had been brought at Qar’s command from the Medjays’ jail, where all the village elders were crowded together. He had brought the two of them, father and son, to these kitchens because he could not endure Khepura’s continuous weeping and wailing in the jail cell.
Semerket spoke to the point, without greeting. “Who first came to Neferhotep with the idea of robbing the tombs? Was it Pentwere, Paser? Who?”
Despite the fact that he had lost everything, Paneb was still all dissimulation. “You make no sense, Semerket, as always,” he said, eyes indignant.
“What had they promised the tomb-makers? Gold, treasure? Freedom to leave the village—what?” His voice became harsh. “It must have been something worthwhile, Paneb, to have killed Hetephras over it.”
Paneb’s head snapped up, startled. “She was my beloved aunt!” he said automatically. “How can you accuse me of… A foreigner or vagrant—”
Semerket reached for the object he had found in Paneb’s cellar, and unwrapped it. It was an axe from the Hittite nation. Into its haft of carved citrus wood was fitted a blade of rarest blue metal, the hardest known on earth. Yet the blade was nevertheless damaged, for a chip was missing from its lethally sharp edge.
“Do you want to tell us about this weapon, Master Foreman?” Semerket asked softly.
At the sight of it, Paneb buried his face in his arms, shaking his head.
“What about you, Rami?”
The boy looked in horror at the axe, and then turned pleading eyes on the foreman. “Paneb—?”
“Leave him alone!” Paneb shouted, rising to his feet, his chains ringing. His face was ravaged by anguish. “He and I know nothing—nothing!”
Paneb fell silent when Semerket brought out a tiny wedge of blue-black metal from his sash. Holding the Hittite axe’s blade so that Paneb could see, he fitted the two pieces together so that not even the faintest trace of light shone between them.
Paneb stared. “Where…?”
“A gift from Hetephras,” Semerket explained. “From the House of Purification. The Ripper Up found it when he pulled her brain from her skull with a hook.”
Paneb’s eyes rolled into his forehead and he began to teeter on his feet, as though he would faint. His breath came in large gulps.
Semerket and Qar caught him, staggering beneath his weight, and placed him in a heap against the wall.
“Get him some wine,” said Semerket.
Qar brought a jug from the storeroom and held it to Paneb’s lips. It was a moment before the vapors hit him. He recoiled a bit, stiffening, but then drank gratefully.
“Do you want to know what I think happened?” Semerket asked gently. Paneb only looked away.
“She was murdered on the first morning of the Osiris Festival, correct? At dawn, she had to make the offerings at the shrine. It’s a hard walk from here—I know; I’ve walked it. Rami was supposed to accompany her. Isn’t that true?”
“Y-yes,” the boy muttered. “But I overslept that morning. She left without me.”
“She left without you, yes, but you hadn’t overslept. In fact, you were somewhere else entirely. Would you like to tell me where?”
His low voice and genuine compassion seemed to confound the boy. The resentment in Rami’s eyes slowly dissipated. He only shook his head and stared at the ground.
Sighing, Semerket began to speak once again. “There was no moon the night before—I checked the records. Earlier that evening you had robbed a tomb, one that was located near the path that Hetephras would take. You must have been late in leaving it, if I’m guessing correctly? But you never expected her to actually show up—not with Rami in the tomb beside you.”
Semerket saw that Paneb’s face was growing ruddier by the moment, and that tears were welling in his eyes.
“Say that I’m wrong!” challenged Semerket harshly.
But father and son remained silent, heads bowed in shame
.
“Hetephras discovered you. It’s as simple as that. And you killed her. Your ‘beloved aunt’ got in your way, and you cut her down. She was murdered by the man she had taken in as a child. You had no more thought for her than for a dog. With a couple of blows from your axe it was done, over.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Paneb said harshly. Rami cradled his head in his hands. Qar and Semerket stared at one another. Qar looked suddenly old, thought Semerket. His own head throbbed and he could only imagine what kind of ancient mummy he himself resembled.
“Tell me what it was like…”
Paneb shook his head.
“If you won’t save yourself,” Semerket said, staring straight into the foreman’s gold eyes, “will you not save your son here?”
Their eyes met. Semerket nodded, a promise. With a great sigh, Paneb regarded Semerket with both loathing and respect. “All right,” he said.
Semerket leaned forward. “Tell me first, Paneb—what could the old lady have seen that morning?” he asked. “Why did you have to kill her? She was blind.”
“I—I was in a panic. We’d just come out of the tomb, to find her there. She just kept saying, over and over again, ‘I see you! I know who you are!’ Who could tell what she really saw, what she meant? All the men were looking to me to do something.” He swallowed tightly. “I had a Horus mask in my hands, I remember, from the tomb. I went to her and raised my axe. It was the only thing I could think of doing to silence her. But when I raised it, she looked up at me as if it were the happiest moment of her life. I almost couldn’t do it then. But…” Paneb wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“And then you cast her body into the Nile,” Semerket prompted.
Paneb nodded his head, breathing heavily to fight back more tears. “We thought if the crocodiles would take her, she’d go directly to heaven. That’s what the priests say, anyway.” He wiped at his nose. “Then we heard that her body had been found on the eastern side of the river. Even that was a blessing, we told each other, because then Paser would find a way to cover it up.” He raised his head and stared at Semerket. “But then you came to the village.”