Day of the False King

by Brad Geagley

  In response, Shepak shot Semerket an impatient, disgusted glance, clearly implying that they were wasting their time by interviewing such backward people. But Semerket stubbornly continued to believe that from their poetry real information could be gleaned.

  “How long after the raid did she come to you?”

  Several of them loudly counted out the hours it had taken for this strange woman to appear. They finally agreed that she had appeared some six or seven measures of the water clock from the time the desert demons had attacked the plantation, or just before dawn.

  “Was there a boy named Rami with her? He would have had a head wound—”

  Vigorously, they denied that a boy traveled with the goddess.

  Shepak, who had been silent until now, leaned forward to ask suddenly, “These desert demons who attacked her—did any of you actually see them?”

  The villagers shook their heads. They had been warned not to venture outdoors that night, they said.

  “Warned?” Semerket raised his head sharply. “Who warned you?”

  The rustics stared at one another, as if gauging how much they should tell him. The mayor’s wife at last broke the strained silence. “Mother Mylitta came to our village that evening. She told us that she was going to the plantation to warn the Elamites, that we must hide—”

  “She said that blood was in the sky!” The mayor excitedly interrupted his wife. “She told us that it’d be too dangerous to come out. Stay inside, she said. Blood in the sky, she said!”

  “Who is this Mother Mylitta?” mused Semerket, looking around the room. “Another goddess from the river?”

  Surprisingly, it was Shepak who answered him. “Mylitta’s as human as you or I, Semerket; she’s the head woman of Babylon’s gagu.”

  Semerket’s eyes widened in surprise. “The gagu?”

  Once again, the mysterious women of that strange convent had surfaced in the deepening mystery surrounding Naia’s disappearance. From the first day he had come to the city, these women had hovered at the fringes of his investigation. He had seen them at the river’s edge, when he and Marduk had first arrived at the city, then again at Nidaba’s house only the night before. Now they appeared to have some connection to the raid itself—though perhaps a benign one, if this Mother Mylitta woman had been truly bent on warning the Elamites. But the inevitable question had to be asked: how did Mother Mylitta know that such a raid was coming?

  Semerket turned again to address the room full of villagers. “How long did this woman—this ‘river spirit’—stay with you?”

  “A single day. At the end of it, she indicated that we must take her to Mother Mylitta. So we hid her in a cart full of straw and drove her into Babylon, past the Elamite guards.”

  Semerket’s heart began rapidly beating with excitement; the woman, whoever she was, mortal or goddess, was at the gagu! Without appearing eager to leave, Semerket nodded his thanks and edged toward the low doorway. Shepak followed, and together they walked to the canal where their horses were tethered.

  “What do you make of it all?” asked Shepak.

  “They told us the truth,” Semerket said simply.

  Shepak was disdainful. “So you believe that a nymph appeared to them from out of the river that night? That desert demons attacked her?” When Semerket nodded, he snorted contemptuously. “You Egyptians are so credulous!”

  Semerket looked at him sideways. “If you can believe that entire armies of Isins vanish into thin air, why can’t I believe in river nymphs?” Semerket came around to stand in front of him. “Don’t you see? In their own way, they told us how the princess survived—and that she can be found at the gagu.”

  “Has the river fever seized you again?”

  “What was the first thing the peasants sang about? It was how richly the woman dressed—the rings on her fingers, her necklaces. And what did she wear on her head?”

  “A golden band,” Shepak sneered. “So?”

  “Doesn’t that suggest a royal diadem to you?”

  Self-doubt began to soften Shepak’s features.

  Semerket pressed on. “To these people, a royal woman stumbling out of the dark, alone—mightn’t she seem like a goddess or spirit to them?”

  “But this woman was dripping wet, they said. How do you explain that?”

  Semerket shrugged. “Perhaps she hid in a canal or the river.” He smiled suddenly. “But that’s it! That’s how she got away from them!”

  “You truly believe it was Pinikir? Perhaps it was your own wife.”

  Semerket sighed, momentarily dispirited, staring at the ground. “No. Naia was only a servant. She wouldn’t have been clothed in jewels and silks.” He looked up again. “It has to be the princess. Look at what their song told us. The demons are obviously the raiders. The woman who came to them spoke only the language of spirits. I’ll wager that Pinikir couldn’t speak Babylonian, and babbled away in Elamite to them. And if I’m right, she’s hiding at the gagu right now.”

  “But—” Shepak almost shouted his frustration. “Why would she be in hiding? It makes no sense.”

  Semerket continued blithely. “Perhaps there was a conspiracy and Pinikir caught wind of it. It’s obvious this Mother Mylitta knew something, else why would she have rushed to the plantation that night?”

  “But surely Pinikir would tell Kutir that she was at the gagu—he’s her brother!”

  Semerket looked soberly at his friend. “Not if she suspects her brother was behind the attack,” he said quietly. “After all, I know that Queen Narunte hated her.”

  Shepak gave a great start. Before he could speak, however, a woman’s voice hissed at them from behind.

  “Egyptian!”

  They turned, looking back into the village. The wife of the mayor beckoned to him, the red sun of evening flickering in eyes as black as his own.

  “The boy you seek…?” she began.

  “What about him?” Semerket’s voice was suddenly very forceful, and the woman shrank from him, intimidated. When she did not speak, he said again insistently, “What about him?”

  She swallowed her fear. “That night of the attack, a caravan was at the oasis—”

  “What oasis? Where?”

  Shepak answered. “One a few leagues north of here, along the river; I know of it.”

  They both turned again to the woman. She pulled nervously at the strands of hair that escaped her headscarf. “Some of the caravan merchants went to the plantation, after the demons had fled. They saw what had been done.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “The merchants trade with us sometimes, when they come through here. Women talk, you know?”

  Semerket nodded.

  “All the people were dead, they said. Tied together, slaughtered all at once.”

  Semerket remembered the bloodstained courtyard in the rear of the plantation. He nodded, urging her to continue with her story, for that detail confirmed to him that she spoke the truth.

  “But as they looked around, one of the dead moaned. He was alive—this one you seek, the Egyptian boy! He called to them from beneath the bodies.”

  “Go on.”

  “The merchants bound his wounds and took him to their camp.”

  “What happened to him? Where is he now?”

  The woman shrugged elaborately, palms outward.

  Semerket took out a gold ring from his belt and gave it to the woman. She gasped in delight, taking his hands and kissing them. Then, looking slyly about to see if any of the villagers had seen the exchange, she quickly slipped the gold into the folds of her headscarf, running back to her own little round hut and slipping inside.

  Semerket and Shepak decided to separate. “You go to the oasis,” Semerket told his friend, “since you know where it is. Question anyone there. Find out what happened to Rami, if he’s still alive, where he might be. But remember, you’re not an Elamite commander any longer. If you frighten them, they won’t tell you anything.”

  At t
he junction of the north–south road, the two men parted with the promise that they would meet later at the Bel-Marduk hostel. Semerket turned his mount to the south, riding quickly back to Babylon. He was in time to see the movement of many Elamite troops converging on the city. They were the last of the armies withdrawing from the northern part of the country. Though they stopped him, suspicious of any galloping horseman, they recognized his pass from Kutir and let him ride on.

  WHEN HE RETURNED his horse, the stableman told him where the gagu was located—in the Etemenanki complex.

  “But you won’t be able to go there tonight, if that’s what you’re planning,” he said.

  Semerket raised his eyebrows. “But I’ve a pass.”

  The man looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “You don’t know what’s been going on in Babylon today, do you?”

  Semerket admitted that he did not.

  The stableman told him that the Elamites—might they all be flung into the Eternal Pit!—had swiftly revenged themselves on the city in retaliation for the Isins’ dawn raid. Suspecting that the Babylonian citizenry hid the raiders in their homes, the Elamites initiated a door-to-door search. But no Isin had turned up, clad in mufti or otherwise. Many Babylonian citizens had been slaughtered in the process.

  “But this hasn’t been enough for those damned murderers,” lamented the stableman. “They’ve even shut down the city’s granaries. Go out into city, anywhere, and you’ll hear the wails of our hungry children. The gods alone know how my wife is coping, or even if she’s alive!”

  Semerket wondered if he should even attempt going out onto the streets that night. But his need to know if Princess Pinikir was at the gagu was too compelling to ignore, and he set out alone on the avenues. Only by sheer luck did he manage to avoid every Elamite patrol.

  The gagu, he discovered, was a large structure to the rear of the Etemenanki complex, hidden behind its own wall and moat. A tall cylindrical tower of mud bricks rose from its confines, around which a winding staircase snaked. He had often seen the structure from afar during his peregrinations throughout the city, but never knew what it was. Idly, he wondered what purpose the tower served.

  The gagu’s gate was closed tightly, and its bridge was winched up over the moat so that no one could enter. Behind the walls, however, Semerket saw the flare of torches and heard the murmurs of many feminine voices. As he drew near, the sulfurous scent of burning bitumen grew suddenly strong. Above the gagu’s walls he saw thick roiling clouds of smoke spewing into the night sky from some hidden smelter. Semerket, who had seen no such clouds billowing forth during the day, was immediately suspicious. What were these women doing with the bitumen that could not bear examination by daylight?

  Semerket walked to the edge of the moat. “Hello!” he yelled out loudly into the dark. When there was no answer, he yelled again. “My name is Semerket, from Egypt. I want to speak to Mother Mylitta! Tell her!”

  A harsh though distinctly feminine voice answered. “Go away, Egyptian! Mother Mylitta decides to whom she speaks, not the other way round!”

  He stood defiantly, hands on hips. “Tell her that it concerns the Princess Pinikir. Tell her I know she was at the plantation that night—and that if she won’t see me, I’ll go to Kutir.”

  The women’s helmeted heads disappeared from the watchtower. Semerket assumed that they went to inform Mother Mylitta that he was at their gate. Placidly, he sat down before the moat, cross-legged, to wait her reply.

  Mother Mylitta’s response was not long in coming. With a great scraping of chains, the women lowered their bridge and Semerket crossed into the gagu’s courtyard. As he blinked in the bright torchlight, the gate was quickly shut behind him and the bridge rose again over the moat, locking him inside. He scrutinized the shadows for any available exits, but there were none; he saw only that several donkeys were hitched together, bearing their usual loads of black bitumen. As he waited for an escort, he went over to one of the asses to take a closer look at the bitumen.

  As if idly, he pulled out a gleaming black chunk from a donkey’s sack, tossing it into the air. It was surprisingly weighty for its small size, and oddly shaped—so rectangular it seemed almost fabricated. As the torchlight hit it, he saw a sudden telltale glint of metal. Semerket caught the piece in his hand again, paling, and turned to face the guards.

  Two spears were at his chest, their points almost touching his flesh.

  “Put it back,” one of the female guards said evenly.

  Carefully, Semerket returned the bitumen into the sack.

  “Step away from the donkey,” she ordered.

  “I’m sorry if I offended,” he said, affecting an expression of mortification. But he was not in the least sorry he had done it, for as the bitumen had flown into the torchlight he had discovered—finally—what the gagu was doing with the mineral.

  The two guards led him to the cylindrical tower of mud bricks he had seen from afar, and halted. The tower was very wide at its base—almost thirty cubits, he gauged—and as he looked up, he saw that it tapered inward as it reached toward the heavens.

  “Up there,” his escort instructed, nodding to the tower. She pointed her spear to the outer staircase. “Mother Mylitta’s in her observatory.”

  “Up?” he gasped.

  “You said you wanted to meet her, didn’t you?”

  Sweet Isis! How would he ever scale the thing? He looked at the staircase; it extended out from the tower no more than a cubit at most, and possessed no railing or balustrade. Semerket felt his legs starting to swim beneath him.

  “Can she not meet me down here?” he asked faintly, trying not to sound like he was pleading.

  “She cannot. It’s coming on the New Year and she reads the heavens for its portents.”

  There was nothing for him to do but put his sandaled foot tentatively on the first step. As he did, he realized that he was not breathing. Firmly, he bade himself to show a little fortitude. He inhaled and took another step, going up a single riser, and even felt brave enough to try the third.

  The curving stairs were steeply inclined, and his rise upward was precipitous. Semerket was careful to face inward, concentrating on the next stair in front of him. Though the women muttered under their breath at the slowness of their ascent, he was deaf to anything but his own terror.

  At last, many eons later, Semerket edged his way onto the uppermost level of the tower. Only about half the diameter of the base, it was crammed with bronze and copper instruments made for the calculation of the heavens. Semerket rejoiced to see that a waist-high wall surrounded the platform.

  A tall woman across from him peered through a long bronze tube affixed to a tripod. As he stepped onto the platform, she turned to stare at him. Semerket was dumbfounded to see who it was. “You!” he said.

  Mother Mylitta regarded him suspiciously. “We’ve met?”

  Semerket shook his head. “No. But I saw you at the singer Nidaba’s house, only last night.”

  Mother Mylitta was the older woman who had accompanied the donkey train to Nidaba’s back courtyard—the one he had heard speak his name so vengefully in the dark. If she was surprised that he knew her, her cold, dark eyes indicated only contempt. She bent to make another notation on a clay tablet. While she did this, Semerket finally screwed up his courage to look finally out and over the tower. From above the lingering smoke of cooking fires, the desert plains beyond the city were silver, especially brilliant in the dry, clear, starlit air. Semerket took a single step forward, looking down upon the wide walls surrounding the city. He was almost disappointed to see no chariots galloping atop them, four abreast.

  Without looking up from her notations, the woman spoke. “I’m told you stand in our courtyard and fling accusations at me from the dark.”

  He decided to come straight to the point. “I’m Semerket, envoy of Pharaoh—”

  “I know who you are.”

  He stopped, irritation plucking at him. He took another breath and began again.
“Because of the friendship between our nations, I’ve been asked by King Kutir—”

  “To find his sister, yes,” Mother Mylitta interrupted him again. “Go on.”

  Semerket gritted his teeth. All right, he thought, I can do it your way. “I know that Princess Pinikir survived the massacre. I know she came here.”

  Mother Mylitta looked up from her note-taking. She pursed her thin, wrinkled lips. Laying down her stylus, she placed her hands into the sleeves of her robes and stared at him. “It was not the princess who sought sanctuary that night.”

  “Who was it, then?”

  “A woman needing our help.”

  “Who was she? What was her name?”