by Gary Corby
The Tjaty stroked the white cat. The feline purred loudly. “I have offered a large fee for this service.”
“I refuse.”
The Tjaty sighed sadly. “Then we must revert to the night’s other option. The one in which you die impaled upon a stake set by the riverside, where the crocodiles will feast upon your rotting carcass.”
“Let me revise that last answer,” I said quickly. “How about I accept your proposal?”
“I applaud your decision. I leave you then to your tasks. Bring me the crook and flail, and kill your Spartan opponent. May the Lord Ptah and his Lady Bast watch over you.”
The cat snarled.
The Pharaoh’s Child
I saw no point in hiding what had happened from the others. I could hardly tell them that the Tjaty and I had enjoyed a pleasant evening of idle chit-chat.
Herodotus merely nodded.
Djanet said, “No.” She fingered the dagger at her belt. “If you deliver the crook and flail to the Tjaty, Nicolaos, it’s over between us.”
“What’s to stop us from delivering the crook and flail to Inaros?” Diotima asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “But keep in mind that the last time I refused the Tjaty, Maxyates ended up dead.”
We argued into the night about what to do, came to no conclusion and went to bed exhausted.
Next morning, Herodotus went about his survey with determined, deliberate coldness. Up until now he’d been in good spirits about what we’d put him through. No longer. I had a feeling the novelty of being an agent was starting to wear off.
Djanet went with him to explain which pyramid was which, and also I suspected to distance herself from me. The singer from Memphis was enraged that I would even contemplate giving the crook and flail to the enemy.
That left Diotima and me to pack camp and talk disconsolately about the whole mess.
“I’ve never known a job where I had more conflicting missions,” I groaned. “Pericles wants me to help Inaros. Inaros wants the crook and flail. The Public Service wants it too. I’ve agreed to give it to both of them. Pericles wants me to eliminate Herodotus if he proves to be an agent for Persia, which it turns out he isn’t, but his family is. Herodotus is a good man, and we need him to find the crook and flail that everyone wants, not to mention that Herodotus hired me to keep him safe. If Pericles knew that Markos was the Hellene agent working for Persia, he would certainly want me to kill the Spartan instead. Which the Tjaty also wants me to do, but so that he can keep good relations with Persia, which is not to Athens’s advantage. Thus I should both kill and not kill Markos. Meanwhile I’ve agreed an oath of non-aggression with the other agents. Markos will break his oath at any moment, and I’ve agreed not to interfere, because Barzanes’s death can only be good for Athens. Yet we swore that oath, and if Markos is an oath-breaker, I am not. Thus I should both abandon and save Barzanes. Barzanes wants back the crossbow that Markos got from a corrupt Persian official. I stole it from Markos, but am not inclined to return it to Barzanes. We are now about to cross a trackless desert to reach a famous oracle where we hope to ransack a Pharaoh’s grave. Which incidentally has been cursed so that whoever opens it will have their life destroyed. Have I missed anything?”
“Only the detail that it would be nice if we got out of this alive.”
“What should I do, Diotima?”
“If we give up and return to Athens, men will call you a coward.”
I recalled something that Admiral Charitimides had said to me before we left Naukratis for Memphis. You’ll probably get killed, but that’s the way it goes when you serve your country.
I repeated the Admiral’s words to Diotima.
“What do you think of Charitimides?” Diotima asked.
“He’s a fine man. I admire him very much,” I said.
“There’s your answer then. We go on.”
“If I die out in that desert, you probably will too,” I warned her.
“I’m your wife, Nico. We do things together.”
“That’s not exactly the sort of togetherness activity I had in mind when I asked you to marry me.”
Diotima hesitated, then said, “Nico, have you wondered what Djanet is doing involved in all this?”
“I did wonder,” I admitted.
“Djanet’s a special case,” Diotima said. “Max’s family owes Inaros allegiance. You and I are professional agents. Inaros’s army is made of soldiers and patriots for Egypt. What is Djanet? A singer? How does that fit in?”
“She’s a patriot then.”
“Did you notice when she said that she once, years ago, tried to determine Psamtik’s final resting place?”
“Yes, it struck me as strange at the time.”
“Not strange if she was searching for her grandfather’s grave.”
“That’s about the most tenuous link I’ve ever heard!”
“Yes, I know,” she said glumly. “But Nico, if the last child of the Pharaohs is involved in this, then it can only be Djanet. Nobody else fits all the requirements.”
“And if the last child is not involved, then he’s probably a cobbler in some run-down street and has no idea any of this excitement is going on.”
“Then how would the Blind General have known about him, or her?” Diotima challenged.
“Then why didn’t he acknowledge Djanet when we spoke to him? She was standing there beside us!”
“Because the General didn’t want us to know.”
Diotima had an answer for everything. But there wasn’t enough proof to convince a court in Athens. Still, I had to agree that if Inaros wasn’t the true heir, then Djanet was the next best choice.
Herodotus and Djanet returned from their tour of the pyramids late in the day. They were both tired. Herodotus had insisted on climbing the tallest one, and Djanet had been foolish enough to go with him. They both complained.
“I feel like my legs are about to fall off,” Herodotus moaned.
“If they fell off, they’d hurt less,” Djanet replied while she massaged her calf muscles.
The two were friendly with each other, and polite to Diotima, but they remained cold and distant with me. My enforced deal with the Tjaty had destroyed their trust.
Nevertheless, Diotima had deputized me to be the one who broached the subject.
I said, nervously, “Djanet, I have a question for you.”
“What is it?” She sounded distracted. “If you want me to cook, you can forget about it.”
“We were wondering . . . umm . . . you’re going to laugh yourself silly when you hear this . . . but Diotima and I were wondering if you might be the last true descendant of the Pharaohs?”
Djanet did laugh, loudly.
“What makes you think that?” she asked.
Diotima covered the same ground as she had with me. She concluded by saying, “What it comes down to, Djanet, is that your presence makes no sense. Everyone involved in this mess has a reason for being here. Inaros, Barzanes, Markos, Nico and me, even Herodotus, we all have good reasons for being here. But not you. Tavern entertainers don’t mix themselves up in deadly politics unless they have a very good reason.”
“I have my own reasons,” Djanet said.
“It was you, wasn’t it,” Diotima went on, “who suggested to Inaros that the crook and flail would persuade the Public Service. I’ll bet it was. It was you who negotiated the deal at both ends. You orchestrated this whole thing.”
There was a brief silence after Diotima finished. We all waited for Djanet to speak.
“I need to cover my tracks more carefully,” she said, half to herself.
“You mean you are?” I said, astounded. I hadn’t thought it could be true until that moment.
“You’re not very good detectives, are you? It took you all this time to realize. It’s all true. My father
was the son of Psamtik. My father’s mother was the daughter of a nobleman. She escaped enslavement by pretending to be a palace servant. Not a much better fate, I’m afraid. Psamtik never knew he sired another son. He died before my grandmother even knew she was pregnant.”
“Unfortunate.”
“Not as unfortunate as what happened next. Grandmother knew she was doomed if the Persians found out she carried an heir to Egypt. She escaped into the streets, where she was forced to beg. There she met—”
“Not the Blind General!”
“The very same. It was after he had recovered from his own downfall, and established himself as the premier beggar in the city. Grandmother didn’t stay a beggar for long. The General saw to that. By the time my father was a small child she had a business sewing and a stall in the marketplace. Father lived long enough to marry and have me. When I was very young, my parents were taken by disease. One of those plagues that sweep through this country in the winter and kill the poor people—it happens all too often.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Grandmother raised me. She died last year.”
“Oh.” Diotima had tears in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you reveal yourself earlier?” I asked.
“In this environment? Do I look suicidal?” Djanet shrugged. “I’m not a complete cipher. My grandmother and my father stayed in touch with the royal families in Aethiopia and Libya. I did too, when I came of age. Secret messages, that sort of thing. The kings of our three lands have intermarried their daughters since time immemorial. It helps keep the peace. I was able to keep the Aethiopeans and Libyans up to date on what’s happening in Memphis. It’s how I got into agent work.”
“Libya? Then Inaros knows who you really are!”
“He knows.”
“This is outrageous,” Diotima fumed. She was genuinely angry. “Inaros should be fighting to restore your throne, not to put himself on it.”
“I accepted long ago that a singer from Memphis could never be the king. Inaros has an army. I don’t. If he can free Egypt, then good luck to him.”
“This changes things,” Herodotus said.
“Does it?” Djanet replied. “I don’t see why.”
“What do we do then?” I asked.
“We go on, Nicolaos,” Djanet said. “We go on to find the crook and flail.”
The Last Camel Died
at Noon
Sand. Sand and dust and rock and salt and heat.
The wind did nothing to cool us. Its only effect was to blow grit and salt into our mouths and eyes. We tied cloths about our heads in the Egyptian manner. It helped a little, but not much.
“Where are we?” I asked Djanet as our camels plodded along.
“We’re in a depression.”
“Can you blame us?” I said, spitting salt and grit from my mouth. For the first two days we had trekked over dunes that had rolled on like a sandy sea, but then had given way to the rock, stony grit and salty dust that surrounded us now. On the whole, I had preferred the sand.
“Not that sort of depression, you idiot. This is the Qattara Depression. The land here is lower than it is at the sea coast. The soil is as salty as the sea. That’s why nothing grows.”
Nothing did grow. This barren disaster area was how I imagined Tartarus to be, far below Hades, where those who had been evil in life were punished.
“I thought deserts were supposed to be always sandy,” I complained.
“Some bits are. Be glad you’re no longer in one of them. The going would be even slower. If it’s any compensation, we’re almost there. Only another day or two.”
“A day? Or two?” We’d already been traveling for seven days. Or was it eight? I’d lost count. I guessed we’d crossed the Egyptian border long ago, but there’d been nothing to mark it.
“So this depression full of salt, rock, heat and no water is Libya?” I asked.
“Part of it.”
“Then I understand why Inaros wants to conquer Egypt. I’d be desperate to get out of here too.”
“Just shut up and ride,” Djanet suggested. “The more you keep your mouth shut, the less sand gets in.”
I followed her subtle hint.
The revelation that Djanet was the true Pharaoh had done little to ease the tension in the group. Herodotus and Djanet still blamed me for having done a deal with the Tjaty. The only other choice had been death, but apparently that was no excuse.
I rubbed my eyes, which were red, raw and sore. That was a mistake; it served only to put in more salt and grit. I’d made the same mistake at least ten times now, but each time I forgot.
My appreciation for camels had increased with every day. These creatures were remorseless machines when it came to crossing deserts. Djanet had insisted we stop, rest and feed our beasts for two days at a small town on the border of the desert before we commenced the crossing. For a high charge she had even had a camel handler check them over for disease, sores or wounds.
The camel handler had spat on the ground as often as the beasts he tended. He smelled like them too, but the man knew his business. The camels had held up. I understood now why Djanet had insisted on such care. The equation was simple: if the camels died, then we died.
My camel—which, incidentally, I had named Pericles—was more than capable of plodding along without my steering. I nevertheless steered him a little sideways, to join Diotima, who rode to our right flank.
“How are you doing?” I asked her.
“I’m thirsty.”
“I know. So am I. But there’s not much water left. Wait till tonight, when it’s cooler.”
She peered at me closely, through the folds of her own head wrap.
“Your eyes are blood red, Nico. You look like one of those daevas out of that religion Barzanes belongs to.”
Barzanes was a devout Zoroastrian. His people believed in evil spirits called daevas.
I said, “Speaking of Barzanes and evil spirits, what’s happening with that other caravan?”
“Still following us.”
We both looked over our right shoulders.
This was why Diotima held the right flank.
Three days before, another caravan had appeared at our rear, far off into the distance. On each subsequent day it had become larger in our sight, turning from a small dot on the horizon to a size where we could discern individual camels, and a clear camel train of supplies. Whoever they were, they had clearly been traveling faster than us. But when they reached us, they had slowed down. For the last day they had kept station, just distant enough that we couldn’t discern the individual riders. Distant enough that we didn’t know who was following us.
Opinion was divided on the identity of this train.
Djanet had looked at them and shrugged. “Caravans come this way all the time,” she’d said.
That might well be true, but the coincidence was nevertheless worrying. Diotima thought it must be Markos. He was coming after us for the crossbow. My own theory was that it was one of the treasure hunting expeditions that the Tjaty had referred to.
I had suggested that someone should ride over to them, to see who they were. “I’ll do it,” I said.
“That’s a good idea,” Djanet said in her most sarcastic voice. “You can learn Egyptian on the way so you can speak to them.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that.”
“But I do speak the language. So I’ll go,” Djanet said.
“No you won’t,” I replied quickly. “It would be beyond embarrassing if I allowed the last descendant of the Pharaohs to be killed.”
“Then we’ll both go,” Djanet said.
“Splitting the party in half would not be a good idea,” Herodotus warned.
“We’ll all go,” Diotima said.
“Then we may as well wait for them to approach us!”
Djanet said angrily.
So in the end, nobody went, and the other caravan continued to trail us.
Djanet had been short on patience the entire journey across the desert. I didn’t know if it was because of the terrible conditions, or because she was becoming more tense as we approached the end of the quest. At least, we hoped it was the end. I myself had become increasingly on edge, but hadn’t realized it until Diotima asked me why I was snapping at her. I apologized and told her that the desert was getting on my nerves.
“I know what you mean,” Diotima said. “If we arrive at Siwa, only to find out that the body had been shipped on to somewhere else even more remote, I’m going to scream.”
“What could be more remote than this Gods-accursed place?” I asked.
“How about Carthage? I was talking to Herodotus. He thinks we’re heading in the right direction. After we’ve found the crook and flail he wants to go north to the coast and then take a boat to Carthage. He asked if we’d take him.”
“You told him no, didn’t you?” I said anxiously.
“Of course I did. I’m not crazy, Nico.”
I edged Pericles over to Herodotus to make sure that he was all right. Oddly, of the party he was the only one in decent condition. I asked him about this.
“Experienced traveler,” he said in brief. “One has to keep a cheery outlook when everything goes wrong.”
“Have you traveled far?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Across Persia. It’s easy with their roads. I’ve been up north to the cold barbarian lands, but I didn’t cross the border, I’m too interested in keeping my skin on. Down south of the Empire there’s a place called India. I’ve met men from there. Traders. You meet all sorts on the road.”
“Did you go to Susa?” I asked. It was the capital of the Persians.
Herodotus shook his head. “Nor Athens until the day I met you. It’s a funny thing; I’ve seen more of foreign countries than of my own. But isn’t that always the way?”
It wasn’t the way with me, but that was Herodotus for you. After meeting him I knew I’d have trouble with Diotima, who would want to visit those places too.