Day of the False King

by Brad Geagley

  “What could be more terrible?” Semerket’s voice was faint.

  “You’ve seen the insects in this accursed country—how monstrous they are? How aggressive?”

  Semerket nodded. He remembered that night outside the gates of Is, when he waited for Marduk to reappear from inside the city.

  “Imagine them twice and three times that size,” Shepak said. “It’s what happens when they’ve a ready supply of meat.” He drained his leather canteen. “And come next week, it’ll be my turn.”

  Grim silence hung between them. Then Semerket moved decisively to his feet.

  “Well,” he said, with as much confidence as he could muster. “There’s nothing for it, then, but to find the princess.”

  Shepak had to laugh, however morbidly. “And you think you can?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? She disappeared the very moment my own wife did, and in the same place.” Semerket looked around, surveying the ruins of the vast estate. “If I can find one woman, I’ll certainly be able to find the other.”

  BEFORE LEAVING, SEMERKET made one last search of the grounds. It was true that the Elamite forces had scrubbed the place clean of any evidence. When he mentioned this to Shepak, the colonel told him that there had not been much to discover in the first place; the raiders had themselves removed all traces of their attack, careful to leave nothing behind that might identify them. This in itself was curious.

  A while later, however, Semerket glimpsed something embedded in the underside of a fallen cedar crossbeam. He had not seen the object when he first had come through the ruined chamber, for the beam had been in shadow. Now that the sun had moved across the sky, its rays revealed a single arrow, slightly charred but still intact. It pierced the beam deeply. When Semerket bent to pull it out, it did not move.

  “Shepak—over here!” he called.

  The Elamite hurried to where he stood. Semerket pointed to the arrow. Shepak used his sword to dig it out, and Semerket caught it in his hand as it fell.

  “Odd-looking thing,” Shepak said. “I don’t remember seeing an arrow like it before.”

  “I have,” said Semerket shortly. “See there—? The shaft isn’t made of wood; it’s a reed. Papyrus, in fact, dried and hardened with resin. Look at this arrow point—made from Sinai copper. And the feather here—gray, with white tips?—I’d wager anything that it’s from a Theban goose.”

  He looked soberly at Shepak. “This arrow was made in Egypt.”

  IT WAS AFTERNOON when Semerket and Shepak began their journey back to Babylon. Since Semerket had divulged that the arrow was of Egyptian make, Shepak had grown distant, speaking to him only in grunts and monosyllables. It must seem more than coincidence that an Egyptian national should be investigating the murder of an Elamite prince and princess, only to turn up evidence of Egyptian complicity. It stank of conspiracy, in fact, and Shepak no doubt was reconsidering his alliance with Semerket.

  They rode swiftly, if silently, back to the capital. Neither of them had any wish to be out on the open roads after dark. Even Shepak seemed relieved when they reached the Ishtar Gate.

  Semerket gave the mare’s reins to Shepak at the door of Bel-Marduk’s hostel. Tersely, they agreed to meet the following morning, to determine their next course of action. Semerket gave the arrow to the colonel for safekeeping, telling him to hide it away and tell no one else of its existence; he did not want their only piece of tangible evidence to vanish mysteriously from his pack in the hostel.

  Just as he was about to go inside, however, Semerket saw his two Dark Head spies signaling him from the other side of the Processional Way. Though he wanted only to soak his tender, blistered backside in a cool bath, he picked his way through the traffic to where they stood.

  When he approached them, the two men hung their heads, regarding him with fatalistic sadness. “Good evening, lord,” said the fat one in a doleful voice, bowing slightly.

  “Why so glum?” Semerket asked. “You look like your mother’s just died.”

  “Our mother is well, thank you,” said the thin Dark Head, and for the first time Semerket realized that the two men were brothers. “It’s kind of you to inquire. We’re disappointed because now that you’ve found your wife, you’ll soon be leaving Babylon.”

  Semerket was momentarily without words. “What do you mean, I’ve ‘found my wife’?”

  “We know of the beautiful lady you hide at the Egyptian temple, my lord.”

  Semerket was amused. “She’s not my wife.”

  The two Dark Head spies looked suspiciously at one another. “We have heard it from her own lips!”

  “But she’s not…” Semerket began, and then stopped. Aneku probably still believed that if her real identity were known, she would be forced back into the Ishtar Temple, having left it under false pretenses. Well, thought Semerket, if passing herself off as his wife would help her, what harm was there?

  “I can assure you that I’m not yet done with Babylon.”

  “But if that’s so, why would the Elamites no longer require us to follow you? You might as well know that we’ve been dismissed from their service.”

  So the Elamites had given up spying on him. Why? Most likely it was because he had gone to the Elamite garrison to consult with Colonel Shepak, something that would have been quickly reported to the palace.

  “If it’s all the same, lord,” continued the fat spy, “since you plan on staying here, we would very much like to continue in your service.”

  Semerket snorted. “Now why should I pay you not to spy on me when I’m no longer being spied upon?”

  “You need our help, lord.”

  “I don’t.”

  “These are uncertain times in Babylon.”

  Semerket shrugged. “That may be, but you’ll get no more gold from me.”

  Both of his Dark Head spies bowed their heads, saying nothing more.

  Semerket was still laughing to himself as he entered the hostel’s courtyard. He dimly noticed a contingent of Elamite guards over at the stables, arrayed in glittering livery. He was surprised when, at a signal from the Bel-Marduk priests, one of the Elamites accosted him as he began to climb the outer stairs to his rooms.

  “Lord Semerket?” he asked.

  Semerket, surprised, nodded.

  “King Kutir requests your attendance at the palace.”

  “Kutir? Now?”

  The guard crossed his arms and nodded.

  “But I…I’m not dressed for the palace, as you can see. Nor am I bathed.”

  “Everything you need will be supplied upon your arrival, lord.”

  Semerket knew he was caught, and could no longer put off meeting with Babylon’s latest ruler. Nevertheless, he insisted that he retrieve the badge of office that Pharaoh had given him. For the first time since receiving it, Semerket slipped the pectoral around his neck. Against his dusty leather traveling clothes, its richness gleamed improbably. The falcon badge, with its outstretched wings of hammered gold, swung heavily from carnelian and lapis beads in the shape of teardrops. Above the falcon’s head, the eye of Horus stared out, the most potent of Egypt’s charms.

  A chair borne by twelve men awaited him on Processional Way. As he was carried aloft, the cynosure of all eyes on the avenue, Semerket felt thoroughly ridiculous. At least it was dusk, he thought, with shadows already concealing the long concourse.

  “Lord Semerket!” The voice suddenly came to him from a darkened vendor’s stall.

  From the stall’s depths, a man raised his hand tentatively to wave. Squinting, Semerket was surprised to discover that the man was the same one who had been speaking to Marduk in the Sick Square.

  “Halt!” Semerket cried to his Elamite guards. When they ignored him, he went through all the Babylonian words in his strained lexicon. “Stop! Cease! End! I will speak to this man!”

  The Elamite guard protested. “My lord, I remind you that the king himself—”

  “—must not be kept waiting, I agree,” Semerket inte
rjected. “Only a moment, Captain, to speak to my friend here.” At the soldier’s truculent expression, Semerket made his voice icy. “Or must I complain to the king of rudeness shown to Egypt?”

  The Elamite guard quickly gestured to the bearers to set the chair upon the ground. Semerket leapt from the chair, trotting to where the man waited.

  “I see your complexion is much improved,” Semerket said as he approached. Indeed, the man’s smooth face seemed as if he had never suffered from a skin ailment.

  “I used plain water, as my lord suggested. Its effects were truly miraculous.”

  “How did you know I’d be coming this way?”

  “I was told to meet you here and give you a message.”

  “From whom?”

  “I cannot say, my lord.”

  Semerket looked into the fellow’s face, trying to ascertain if the man concealed anything behind his servile manner. But the man’s expression remained bland and innocent.

  “What is the message, then?”

  The man took a breath, and recited. “ ‘It is noticed that you go to the garrison of the Elamites, my lord. It is devoutly wished that you avoid the area in the future.’ ”

  “Why?”

  “There is no more to the message, my lord.” The man shifted uncomfortably. “But, if you please, there is something that I would like to know…”

  Semerket nodded.

  “H-how is it that you knew water alone would cure my affliction?”

  Semerket laughed. “Do you think I can’t recognize an old beggar’s trick when I see one? If you want to appear worse than a leper, you have only to paste moldy bread to your face with honey.”

  A slow smile broke on the Babylonian’s face. “You’re the first to ever find out, lord.”

  When Semerket blinked, the man disappeared into the shadows of the market stall. Semerket went back to the chair and his bearers raised him high once again. All the short way to the palace, he thought of what the fellow had told him. Why must he avoid the Elamite garrison? Was he being warned—or threatened? And who had sent the message? Also, why would an apparently healthy man be stationed in the Sick Square…?

  If it had been Marduk who had sent the message (a logical thought, as Semerket had seen him in the company of the man, or at least believed he had), he of all people would know that Semerket would feel duty-bound to act contrary to the message’s instructions. But Marduk was a mere Dark Head renegade. No, the warning had to have come from someone else. But who? He was deep in thought when he noticed that he and his escort had crossed into the royal citadel.

  Shining tiles depicting stylized trees of blue, green, and gold sheathed the royal palace, raising their mosaic limbs to the sky. Ahead, an immense door opened as Semerket’s chair approached. The temperature dropped pleasantly once he was inside, for the palace’s brick walls were at least four cubits thick.

  In the dim interior, courtiers bowed low as he was borne through the winding hallways. The high chamberlain appeared almost instantly from a side hall, a thin, nervous eunuch of indeterminate age. His nostrils twitched to catch the reek of sweat and horse that emanated so richly from Semerket. The eunuch firmly pulled him from the chair and hustled him down a long hall into a side room, where a tub of steaming water waited. Serving maids suddenly appeared to strip Semerket’s clothes away, and he was embarrassed when they pointed at him, laughing, for they declaimed loudly that they had never before seen a circumcised man. Several of the women threw him suggestive looks, but he pretended indifference.

  After they had soaped and rinsed him, the eunuch ushered him to a room where a valet offered up a choice of garments to wear. Picking the simplest robe, he allowed them to place thin sandals of gilded kid on his feet. The valet would have draped ropes of gold about his neck, but Semerket insisted that his only jewel be his badge of office. Satisfied with Semerket’s appearance at last, but still lamenting his lack of ornamentation, the high chamberlain then led him up a narrow winding staircase, trudging the many steps to emerge finally into the indigo twilight.

  Many Babylonian buildings sported rooftop gardens, but the one he now beheld caused him to gape. It was terraced, rising in irregular heights as a real hillside might, and its pink marble planters were verdant with greenery. Perfectly framed by boughs of flowering trees, King Kutir stood with his back to Semerket, seeming to admire the moonrise. A woman was at his side, her hand resting delicately on the young king’s arm. The tableau was so perfectly composed that Semerket knew the king must have staged it just for him.

  The herald announced him in ringing tones, and the king turned, as if surprised. Semerket bowed low, in the Egyptian manner, arms outstretched, and Pharaoh’s pendant swung from his chest.

  “Semerket, you have come to us at last,” said the king. “I am saddened to have torn you away from your prayers, for I’ve heard how devout you are.” Kutir’s mouth twitched when he said this.

  Semerket’s tongue, for once, was usable. “But my prayers have been answered, Majesty—to meet with you at last, amid all this splendor.”

  The king snickered. The lady on his arm, however, turned her back—a deliberate snub that effectively silenced the king’s laughter. Kutir, embarrassed, forcibly turned her around again to face Semerket. The king’s fingers made white impressions in the flesh of her arm.

  “May I present the queen, my wife, Narunte, who is as eager to meet you as I.”

  This was so patently a lie that all Semerket could do was bow again, concealing his smile. The queen wrenched her arm from her husband’s grip and sank into a chair of carved ivory. She signaled for a slave to fetch her a bowl of beer, and sat glaring at Semerket as she sucked on the reed.

  At first glance, Queen Narunte seemed far older than her young husband, for her face was gaunt, her neck creased. She looked at Semerket with eyes of a demonic silver color, and in them her tiny pupils were pinpoints of hate. Had she not been introduced to him as the queen, her rudeness should have branded her a common trull.

  Kutir on the other hand was a prince out of legend—virile, with his beard curled and his long hair gathered into a knot at the back of his neck. His only flaw was that his eyes were small, set close together, while the tiny lines at their corners betrayed his anxiety.

  Semerket was suddenly aware that he was studying the royal pair as he would suspects in a crime, and hastily looked away. It was then he saw that Ambassador Menef was also in the gardens, standing behind the queen’s chair. Menef’s bodyguard, the man whose macabre smile was so remarkable, also waited there, stationing himself discreetly apart from the ambassador. The moment Semerket saw them, the pair genuflected extravagantly.

  At that point, Kutir came forward and draped his arm around Semerket’s shoulders. “Come and let us talk now that you’re here,” he urged, “as men would, away from these others.”

  Kutir guided Semerket up a flight of stairs to a copse of fragrant pines growing at the top level of the gardens. Kutir would have taken a seat on a marble bench had not a very large peacock already roosted there. He kicked it away, and the bird flew with great flapping wings to a pine bough above them, shrieking. The king then indicated that Semerket should join him on the bench. Attentive to the fresh droppings that covered it, Semerket sat carefully.

  “So,” Kutir said eagerly, “what is the offer?”

  “Sire?”

  “For the Marduk statue—what will Ramses give me?”

  Semerket, surprised, guessed that Menef had told Kutir of Pharaoh’s request, just as he had informed High Priest Adad. Once again, he grew alarmed at the ambassador’s intentions; any sensible emissary would have kept secret the fact of Pharaoh’s ill health. If other nations knew that Ramses was sick or dying, diplomatic communities throughout Asia would defer making any long-term treaties with Egypt, preferring instead to deal with his successor.

  Semerket breathed deeply, and began to list carefully the concessions Ramses had indicated he was to make. “Pharaoh is prepared to acknowl
edge you the true king of Babylon.”

  “And?”

  “And to offer assistance in subduing the various native factions.”

  Kutir snorted. “Hmmph. That’s at least a change in policy from his father’s.”

  “Sire?”

  “The Isin heir was raised in Egypt—from where he was set loose last year to pester and bedevil us. But of course you knew that.”

  Semerket knew nothing of the sort. Though it was customary to invite foreign princes to be educated in Egypt, and thereby civilized, Semerket had never heard any mention of the Isin heir from either the present pharaoh or his father. But Kutir was not interested in pursuing the subject.

  “And?” he prodded. “What else?”