by Brad Geagley
“No doubt it is poisoned.”
“If you think so, then I will drink some with you.” He poured a bowlful.
“You drink first, old man!” she commanded.
Toh raised the bowl to his lips and took a sip.
“All the way down!”
The vizier of Egypt continued to drink until there was no more. He poured out a second bowl.
Tiya seized the bowl and drank greedily. “That’s fine stuff,” she said. “I’ve only had water since they put me in here, and brackish at that. Not even beer.”
Toh smiled and took his leave, telling her that she should be prepared to move from her cell. When he had returned to his chambers, he put a feather down his throat to vomit up the wine, along with the oil he had swallowed earlier to prevent the powerful sleeping herb from taking effect.
When she awoke, Tiya was no longer in the chilly cell in Djamet’s dungeon. She gazed around the unfamiliar room, at its barbarous friezes and strange colors. The queen lay on a flat, hard table, with no pallet beneath her. When she tried to rise, she found that she was quite naked, and that her arms and legs were strapped tightly to the table.
A strange animal sound came to her through the gloom. Twisting her head, she saw that a ram had made the bleating noise. Strangely, it was reined to a miniature chariot. Craning her neck to see, she found herself staring into what appeared to be the red eyes of a man—a horrible legless creature with a crown of battered acanthus leaves on his head. Tiya uttered a small cry.
“We are honored, madam,” the legless thing said, “to entertain you today in my kingdom!”
With a snap of his fingers, four other men drew forward, dressed only in scant loincloths. At that moment Tiya saw the braziers of charcoal that were placed nearby, each containing a set of hooks and knives, all glowing a bright orange.
“May I now introduce you, madam, to the finest surgeon in Thebes?” asked the king gallantly. “Cripple Maker, meet Lady Tiya.”
“A pleasure, great lady.” The man’s sickly syrupy voice made her recoil more than the cruel instruments he held in his hands.
“She was a queen of Egypt once,” the Beggar King said. “But that was not enough for her. So today she is given a new kingdom to rule— mine. Make of her your finest creation, for the queen of the beggars deserves the very best. But mind that you do not kill her in your zeal, for the pharaoh has promised that she may live. And he is a man who keeps his word.”
Tiya’s famed voice of many strings rose up in a crescendo of short, sharp screams.
PHARAOH GRIMACED as he rose from his couch and clutched his side. Irritably he waved away the slave who would have assisted him. He pulled aside his hand, and revealed that his freshly changed bandages were again soaked in blood.
Already he wears his mummy wrappings, Semerket thought to himself. As the crown prince had requested, he had returned again to Pharaoh’s side, leaving Huni in his brother’s house in the care of Keeya. Semerket shuddered to see the blood, and dropped his eyes to prevent Pharaoh from reading his mind. But it was too late; the king had seen him staring.
“Yes,” Pharaoh said. “My wife has won her battle.”
“A hundred years,” Semerket muttered the ritual phrase automatically.
“A hundred!” The old ruler’s laugh was sharp. “I would give all I have for one.”
With difficulty he walked the length of the terrace to gaze at Eastern Thebes across the river. Semerket followed at a discreet distance, avoiding the drops of blood that trailed Ramses. The fires in the city’s hearths gleamed like facets in a thousand rubies. The entire horizon was aglow with them.
“Do you remember the Egypt of my father, Semerket?” The old man’s hand shook as he reached out, as if to clasp the rubies to him. They shimmered just outside his touch, and the hand fell slowly back. Still, the fingers clenched and unclenched, unused to not holding what they sought.
Semerket kept his silence. In his mind Pharaoh was addressing a contemporary. What good would it do to remind an old man of his age? Ramses was not much interested in Semerket’s reply, in any case. The words poured from him in pained gasps, a confession. A valedictory.
“Egypt was cast adrift. Every man was a law to himself. Anyone could murder whomever they chose, high and low. So many years of misrule and discord before him… generations of civil wars. My father took up the red and white crowns that had fallen in the dust. But he was an old man when he became Pharaoh. The gods gave him only two years. Then it was my turn.” He pointed to the black mass of the distant temples. “I found the gates of Karnak stripped of their plate and jewels. Amun’s barque had even sunk in the Sacred Lake, it was so rotten. This was my inheritance.”
Pharaoh stared into the night, the hard, bitter line of his profile limned by torchlight.
“My father had given Egypt back its government. I vowed to give it back its place among nations. And I was young, and strong as the Buchis bull. It was sunrise in Egypt, I told the people.”
Ramses pulled a kerchief from his pectoral and wiped at the flecks of spittle at his mouth. In the flame’s light, Semerket saw the tinge of pink. Pharaoh saw it, too, and quickly closed his hand around the cloth. “And for a while I thought I had succeeded. Yet I was forced to marry Tiya, to assuage the pride of these ludicrous, arrogant southerners. I had to promise to make her firstborn my heir. It seemed that only I saw the evil in them both. I should have had her quietly killed, but I felt sorry for Pentwere. He was so attached to her. And what real harm could she do, I thought. She was only a woman, after all. And then the other children came.” He looked at Semerket with bitter irony. “Though I am worshipped as a god, Semerket, I am Egypt’s biggest fool.”
For the only time in his life Semerket wished that fulsome words of flattery and praise could bubble spontaneously to his lips, words of reassurance and hope, empty though they might be; for the only time in his life Semerket wished he was his own brother.
But his tongue was a block of wood in his head as always. So unused to saying any words but those of the stark truth, his throat actually hurt from the effort to find sweet and temperate ones, full of comfort and lies. In the end, Semerket could only reach out to the old man in a gesture of fleeting spontaneity. He wished to draw him near, so that Pharaoh’s pain might be eased. But the majesty of Pharaoh overwhelmed him. How to comfort a living god? Semerket’s hand stopped, only to fall uselessly to his side.
Ramses regarded Semerket with grim amusement. But then he was seized with another abrupt spasm of pain. He dropped to one knee. Semerket caught him, and led him to a bench where he could regain his breath, holding him as the spasm slowly subsided. Pharaoh’s bandages were now soaked completely in red.
It was Pharaoh who moved away first, sitting up straight and dignified on the bench beside Semerket. After a time, the king spoke again. His voice seemed strengthened.
“For a while it seemed I had succeeded in my dreams for Egypt. I planted the entire land with trees and greenery and I let the people sit in their shade. A woman of Egypt could travel freely wherever she wanted, and no one molested her, not even foreigners. I sent to Lebanon for cedar to repair the sacred barque. I replated the temple doors. I built new… or so I thought.”
Then Pharaoh turned and regarded Semerket with an expression of absolute bitterness.
“And then in this Year of the Hyenas you came into our lives. You were the one, Semerket—the terrible truth-teller—who opened all our eyes at last. Until you came, everyone thought the rams’ horns blew paeans of praise for me. But you told us it was a dirge they played instead. Thanks to you, I realize now it was not a triumph I led—but a funeral procession.” His breath came in gasps at the end.
Pharaoh and Semerket watched through the long evening together, saying nothing, as one by one the fires of Egypt’s hearths went out.
“I wish…” Semerket began, and stopped.
Irritation again lit Pharaoh’s eye. “Yes? What is it you wish for? Everyone wants s
omething from me in the end. Well, gold chains I have offered you in plenty. These you have all refused. What could you possibly want, I wonder?”
Semerket dropped his head. “I wish that it had not been me.”
The living god of Egypt was startled, and for an instant his face became a shattered mask of woe. He collected himself swiftly.
“Nonsense. It was the fate the gods gave you… and me.” Though he spoke crisply, Pharaoh reached out tentatively and draped an old, sinewy arm across Semerket’s shoulders. It was an arm unaccustomed to such familiarity and it lay there stiff and immobile.
Feeling Pharaoh lean on him, a great dullness fell upon Semerket’s heart. As he gazed out into the blackness of Thebes it seemed to him that Egypt had been plunged into an eternal night.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brad Geagley has worked for many years in the entertainment industry, mainly as a producer. All of his assignments—from documentary television shows to virtual reality attractions—heavily emphasized his writing abilities. History was Geagley’s first love, however, particularly that of ancient Egypt. He became a full-time writer in 2001 and is currently at work on his second Semerket novel and on stage plays. He lives in Palm Springs, California.