Bird in a Snare

by N. L. Holmes

  Hani noticed again how haggard Ptah-mes looked, despite his impeccable turnout. “These are times when there are many unknowns, I think, my lord,” he said in consolation.

  Ptah-mes sniffed, an eyebrow raised, as if to say, That’s an understatement.

  “I’m keen to find out if the king will want me to continue my investigations. I’ve heard nothing since I got home about what’s going on in Kharu, but I suppose the Hall of Royal Correspondence has been in turmoil.”

  “You can’t imagine.” Then suddenly, Ptah-mes proclaimed, “I want a drink. I need one.” He gestured toward a young servant who’d appeared at the inner door. “Boy! Bring us a jug of wine and two cups.”

  Hani’s eyebrows arched. As much as he and Lord Ptah-mes seemed to appreciate one another, they’d never socialized. Ptah-mes was very much the grandee and Hani’s superior besides.

  The servant returned shortly with a splendid bronze ewer, its sides beaded with condensation. He filled the two goblets and bowed in retreat. Ptah-mes stared at the cup in his hand then sighed and raised it. “Life, prosperity, and health to the new lord of the Two Lands, Nefer-khepru-ra Wa-en-ra Amen-hotep.”

  Hani lifted his own cup, and the two men buried their respective noses in the vessels. Hani wasn’t sure exactly what his own mental toast would be. Wisdom, honesty, and benevolence figured as high on his list of wishes for the king as life, prosperity, and health.

  When they had drunk, Ptah-mes set down his cup and stared at Hani. “Forgive me my distraction, friend. I have much news about our common concern, Kharu, to share with you. But all I can think about”—he dropped his voice—“is what’s happening at home.” His chest rose and fell heavily as if he had trouble breathing.

  Hani’s own chest constricted in empathy but also in fear. Ptah-mes’s anxieties were likely to be better founded in reality than Nub-nefer’s vague premonitions.

  “Hani, our king is going to build a new capital,” said Ptah-mes, struggling to master himself. “We’re already packing up the Hall of Royal Correspondence to be ready for the transfer. The new city will be known as Akhet-aten, the Horizon of the Aten.” He stared into his cup, his shoulders bowed. “The king has announced a vision from the Lord of the Horizon. The Aten wants a new city built downriver in a place where there’s nothing. Some virgin patch that belongs to no god. In the desert.”

  Hani thought that nothing could have unnerved him more than seeing this man, always cool and self-possessed, in such emotional disarray. “The... symbolism of this change is eloquent,” he murmured, fighting down the chill that raised the hair on his arms. Nothing would stay the same.

  Ptah-mes shook his head. “Other things are going on, too. Isn’t your wife a priestess of the Hidden One?”

  “Yes, my lord. A chantress.” Hani was impressed that the high commissioner even knew who his wife was.

  “Tell her to be careful.” Ptah-mes shot Hani a penetrating gaze that seemed to read him to the soul. Hani could almost hear Amen-em-hut’s voice saying the same words. It was more than rumor, then.

  “Yes, my lord,” he whispered.

  They sat there for a long space of time, cups in hand, staring at one another. Finally, Ptah-mes raised his goblet to his lips and said, with an effort at a conversational tone, “Regarding the north, Simurru is threatened with siege again.”

  Hani felt as if he were awakening from a spell. He had to struggle to drag his thoughts back to the practicalities of the moment. He asked, suspecting he knew the answer, “Aziru?”

  “Yes. Our friend Rib-addi”—Ptah-mes’s lips spread in a thin smile—“has begged Commissioner Yanakh-amu to come with troops. He has requested you, too. The king will tell you this when he sees you, I’m sure.”

  Hani’s heart sank, although he supposed it was officially good news. “I guess I haven’t been decommissioned.”

  “No. Sent into the maw of the beast, rather. I’m sorry.” Ptah-mes’s tired eyes looked genuinely regretful, his elegant black brows arcing downward at the outside. “It seems the old fox of Kebni has been singing your praises to the king and crying that no one else will make him feel safe.”

  Hani snorted. “I’d like to think he meant it as a compliment, but I find it hard to see Rib-addi as a very sympathetic character after what Aper-el said the other day.”

  Ptah-mes said wearily, “Oh, there are two sides to every story.” Then he bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “That sounds like something you would say rather than me.” He drained his cup in one draft and rose to his feet. His pleated caftan with its overlying kilt hung unwrinkled, against every law of nature. “We can talk again after your audience with the king, if it would be helpful.”

  “My lord is too kind,” Hani said with heartfelt emotion. He wasn’t used to feeling pity for the high commissioner. But even more, Hani wondered what information important to his mission he had been denied.

  ⸎

  Hani and Maya crossed the River and headed toward the House of Rejoicing, where the young king had summoned Hani into his presence. Maya had begged to accompany his employer, even though they both knew he couldn’t enter the audience chamber without a specific invitation. He assured Hani he would be perfectly happy awaiting him in the road outside the palace walls.

  Hani was moved by the young man’s loyalty, although he knew it was slightly tainted with self-interest—Maya asked every day about Sat-hut-haru. “Be sure to keep a list of all the birds you see along the river while waiting,” Hani charged him with mock seriousness. “I’ll quiz you on them afterward.”

  Hani left Maya at the outer gate of the palace compound and presented his credentials to the gatekeeper. Nubian soldiers in leopard skins and plumes stood at either side, as impassive as ebony statues. But their weapons were very real.

  A servant led Hani through the garden court planted with trees, their fronds rustling dryly in the breeze. This time, instead of proceeding straight into the vestibule of the private audience hall, they turned right and approached the great entryway of the House of Rejoicing. The king would receive him in the throne room. More soldiers were stationed before every door.

  The formal parts of the Per-hay were designed to glorify the living Haru and crush visitors to the ground with pangs of inferiority. The vestibule was like a jewel box—or perhaps a jewel. Every surface was covered with painted decorations, a riot of intense colors and luscious patterns. On the walls, images of foreign dignitaries offered the Lord of the Two Lands tribute and abased themselves before him. Flowers and birds swagged the cornices. Walking across the painted gypsum floor was like stepping into the primal marsh, rich with vegetation and wildlife and polished to a shimmer that rivaled real water. The column capitals were inlaid with faience and precious stones, forming sumptuous water lilies and lifelike palm fronds outlined with gold—the flora of some magical kingdom of unimaginable beauty, the garden of the gods.

  But when the porters heaved open the immensely tall gilded doors and Hani stepped into his sovereign’s throne room, even the beauty of the vestibule paled in comparison. Hani had presented himself in many an audience hall throughout the world, from small Urusalim to mighty Naharin, and he could honestly say that there was nothing anywhere remotely like the splendor of his own homeland. The ceiling was so high that although it was lit by clerestories, no eye could make out all the detailed paintings that ornamented it. Streaks of pale sunlight filtered through the golden haze left by smoking braziers of incense. At one point, a real swallow flittered past and disappeared, disoriented by this artificial heaven. Overhead, the columns rose as tall as natural trees but more gorgeous. A path of tapestry led from the doors to the foot of the dais, where the king and queen sat enthroned in towering chairs of electrum, their feet resting on stools with images of the Nine Bows, Kemet’s enemies, lying bound and trampled.

  Hani knew himself to be very small before such power. Indeed, the luxury and enormity of the palace was designed to make visitors like Hani feel that way. He flattened his
thick body facedown upon the ground in a full formal prostration and remained unmoving and nearly unbreathing until the majordomo signaled him to rise.

  Around the foot of the royal dais stood scores of courtiers, a cloud of white against the brilliance of the decoration, several of them holding the golden-handled ostrich plumes that marked them as the king’s special friends. The two viziers flanked the dais, with many men of a younger generation than Hani was accustomed to seeing at such occasions. A pair of fan-bearing servants stood at their posts of honor, their tall ostrich-plume flabella—like fantastic creatures, half-bird, half-tree—erect in their hands.

  Hani dared not raise his eyes to the king except in sneaking glances. He saw at Nefer-khepru-ra’s side the coolly beautiful queen in a crown that resembled nothing so much as the flat crown of the goddess Tefnut. She was as unmoving and unsmiling as a cult figure, perhaps not daring to budge lest her tall headgear should slip. Nefer-khepru-ra himself had on the striped nemes, a comfortable wig cover, whose lappets fell down over the jeweled weshket collar around his slim neck. Upon the golden diadem, its double serpents, the protectors of Upper and Lower Kemet, watched with fiery eyes. The king’s pointed face was not bent over Hani, but he seemed to gaze out someplace higher, perhaps at the door—or perhaps at the sky beyond.

  “You are retained, Hani, our servant,” he said in his silky voice. “We have decided to change your assignment, though. Set aside the investigation of Abdi-ashirta. He is basking in the presence of the Aten by now, and it is the younger generation who rules. Is it not?”

  “Yes, My Sun,” Hani said, inclining. He suspected it was not only Aziru the king had in mind. And Hani wondered why Nefer-khepru-ra made a point of referring to his new policies and the regime in A'amu with such insistence.

  “Our droll old friend Rib-addi has requested your presence along with that of Yanakh-amu. And soldiers, of course. We may send him a few impressively decorated ones. But he needs to be aware that he must solve his own problems. And right now, that problem is Aziru, who has threatened to take Simurru yet again. Perhaps you have heard.”

  Hani bowed assent. Nefer-khepru-ra’s voice was so smooth and languid that Hani was beginning to feel lulled toward sleep despite the crackling tension in his limbs and the knowledge that the slight young man—the god—on the throne before him would happily snap him in half like a crocodile if Hani displeased him. This must be the way a small bird feels, confronted by the hypnotic stare of the cobra, he told himself. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but he knew that death lay at the end of it if he didn’t walk wary.

  The king looked at Hani for the first time. “We want you to make whatever passes for peace among those people up there, Hani. Aziru wants to be a vassal. Tell him you’ll work something out if he will relinquish his claim on Simurru. The commissioner at Simurru is young and inexperienced. We would like you to guide Aziru’s actions quietly into ways more pleasing to us... in spite of the commissioner, if necessary.”

  “Yes, My Sun.”

  The king was silent for a moment, and Hani felt Nefer-khepru-ra’s eyes boring into him. “They like you up there.” The king’s cold smile curled the ends of his mouth, and his eyes narrowed, glittering black in the half-light. “Everybody’s happy when Hani comes.”

  Those words should have filled Hani with pride, but a wave of shivers spread across his skin. Was the king sincere? It was hard not to hear something snide in the words said with such a smile. Hani deepened his bow and murmured, “You do me too much honor, My Sun.”

  Then the king looked away again into space. It was as if a shutter had fallen closed. The majordomo took Hani by the arm and guided him as he backed away, bowing.

  ⸎

  In the garden pavilion, Hani and his father were seated with Maya, profiting from the increasingly warm weather of late spring. Nub-nefer was within, supervising the preparation of dinner—one of the last for Hani and Maya before they packed up and set out for Kharu once more.

  “I spoke to Ptah-mes again,” Hani said Mery-ra. “He’s a nervous wreck. I could never have imagined he’d fall apart like this. He always seems so preternaturally composed. But I suspect he’s under some kind of pressure.” He paused, his heart torn for his friend the high commissioner. “He said... he said they’re moving the capital.”

  “What?” cried Mery-ra and Maya simultaneously. Maya dropped his cup, which fell with a clang upon the paving stones.

  “Who are ‘they’?” Mery-ra demanded. “The king? Moving where? Back to Men-nefer?”

  Hani shook his head. He told them all that Ptah-mes had revealed about the king’s vision—the new desert city to be constructed and the transfer of the entire government and all its archives. He looked up at his father, who caught his eye and understood the message. Everything is about to change. “Construction will begin immediately.”

  “So much for getting our tomb finished,” grumbled Mery-ra. “Every artist in the country will be drafted to get this new place set up.” He stared down into his cup while Maya scrambled on his knees to pick his up.

  Voices at the gate drew their attention. A moment later, Amen-em-hut came hurtling toward them out of the greenery. Mery-ra mumbled, “Speaking of nervous wrecks.”

  Hani saw his brother-in-law’s blanched face and rose to take his hands. “Brother, why such a hurry? Is something wrong?” Amen-em-hut always reminded Hani of a small, anxiously twittering bird with perfect plumage. At the moment, he awakened in Hani a feeling of protectiveness.

  “Is something wrong, you ask!” the priest cried in a strangled voice. “Have none of you heard?”

  “About the new capital?”

  Amen-em-hut was so upset he could only nod. He sank to a stool and covered his face with his hands. “That this should happen during my lifetime.”

  “You know,” said Hani, laying a hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder in an effort at consolation, “Waset hasn’t been the capital for all that long. This needn’t mean anything sinister.”

  Amen-em-hut looked up at Hani with a nearly accusing glare. “Don’t give me a history lesson now, Hani. This is all about castrating the priesthood of Amen-Ra, and every man here knows it.”

  “Can I pour you some wine, brother?” Hani offered helplessly.

  The priest shook his head. “Thank you, but I’m having trouble with my stomach.” He laid a miserable hand on the offending body part.

  “Nub-nefer said so. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s caused by worry.”

  Amen-em-hut was high-strung and tended to get anxious or excited over things that Hani could encounter calmly. But Hani had to admit there was growing cause for anxiety. Every day, some new directive came out from the House of Rejoicing—little things nibbling away at a shape of life that had grown comfortable over a thousand years. It occurred to him that he should listen to the priest. Far from being alarmist, Amen-em-hut had been right from the beginning.

  To change the subject, he asked his brother-in-law, “Who exactly is the Aten? We’ve known the Sun Disk forever as that object in the sky, but it was really Ra-har-akhty who was lord of the horizons.”

  “The Aten is Neb-ma’at-ra,” said Amen-em-hut. “He became the Dazzling Sun Disk at his first jubilee, remember?”

  Then I was right, thought Hani. “But how can the king think his father, who was so devoted to the King of the Gods, would want to wage war against him, as you seem to envisage?”

  Amen-em-hut laughed harshly. “You’re asking me to interpret his mind? He’s a heretic, man. He and all his lackeys—damnable heretics, smashing the traditions of our forefathers. He wants us to worship no god but the Aten. And guess who the sole intermediary with the Aten is? The other cults had better watch out. We’ll be the first to go, but they’re not safe either. It’s all about consolidating his power. He’ll end up as the one and only priest.”

  Mery-ra exchanged an uneasy look with his son. Hani’s scalp prickled with alarm. He laid a hand on his brother-in-law’s arm a
nd said gently, “Easy, my friend. It might be better not to say things like that aloud. Even if we all think them.”

  Amen-em-hut blew a fierce breath from his nostrils. “You’re always wanting to keep the peace, Hani, but sometimes a man has to speak his mind.”

  Hani said firmly, “I’m the king’s servant, brother. There’s never a time when I have to speak my mind against my master. Nor do I want anyone else to in my house.”

  The priest looked down. The gesture might have been mistaken for shame, but Hani suspected it was a strategic retreat. “Where’s my sister?”

  “Inside, preparing dinner. Do you want to join us?”

  “No.” Amen-em-hut jumped to his feet. He was on his way toward the house as he called over his shoulder, “My family is waiting. Thank you, though.”

  “Don’t upset her,” Hani cried out, but the priest’s rapid steps were already disappearing into silence.

  Hani, Mery-ra, and Maya sat for a moment, digesting Amen-em-hut’s words.

  “Little Shu has gone to seek comfort in Tefnut’s arms,” Mery-ra murmured under his breath.

  “Don’t mock him, Father. He may be quick to get excited, but the fact is, he’s been predicting something like this for over a year.”

  Maya stammered a little, as if he weren’t sure how to start, then managed to say, “Does the change of administration alter our mission, Lord Hani?”

  “Yes. We’re no longer investigating the murder of Abdi-ashirta. We’re supposed to keep the peace, whatever that means. Make Rib-addi happy. Try to distract Aziru from his plans for world conquest by dangling before him a prize we don’t intend him to have.”

  “Now who’s mocking, son?” Mery-ra pursed his lips in suppressed laughter.

  Hani’s face grew hot, and he grinned, feeling rather like the little gap-toothed boy caught in the act he had often been. “You’re too smart for me, Father.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Hani was waiting in the reception room of the Hall of Royal Correspondence when he saw his son Aha enter, deep in conversation with another young man. They were both dressed to the height of fashion, with elaborately layered sheer caftans and kilts, earrings, and little jeweled daggers at their waists. The pleated layers were bulky and unflattering on someone with Aha’s square build, but Hani forced himself to withhold judgment. He smiled and waved a friendly hand. Aha shot his companion a glance then said a few words to him. The man departed, and Aha turned his steps toward his father. There was something of the grand entrance in his approach.