by Andre Norton
And so in the end he managed to break down Kheti’s resistance, though the Nubian insisted upon escorting him as far as the outposts of the necropolis, the place of the dead.
There were flickering lamps in some of the village houses. But the cliffs, with their awesome array of tombs and chapels, were a black line across the sky, merging one darkness with another.
“The patrol drinks deep tonight of the funeral wines, as is their due,” Kheti said. “The Lord Unis may have treated the Lord Ptahhotep with unseemly haste in escorting him so swiftly to his other home, but he did not skimp on the feasting. And there may come other things out of the desert to seek the bounty of the offerings. Loosen your dagger, brother, and look twice at any shadow--”
Rahotep clung to the shadows, but he did not slink. Should he be discovered by a priest of the patrol, he determined to demand an escort to the chapel. Such ill fortune would prevent his plan from working, but it might save his life.
The necropolis was as barren as the desert. No wind whispered in a palm crown or rustled through grass. The shadows of rocks lay as long black fingers and threatening fists across his path. A jackal bayed the rising moon. Rahotep’s right hand rested above his heart, pressing painfully into the flesh the hawk amulet he wore on a chain about his neck. Anubis, the Seeker, the Jackal, who guarded the doors of the West, this was His domain. But Horus, the Hawk, flew over the desert lands, where the Jackal must pad in the dust. And tonight Rahotep believed he had more to fear from the malice of men than the displeasure of any Great One.
His sandal soles scuffed as he came upon stone pavement, the road leading up to the chapel. The scent of incense, of dying flowers, hung here, growing more noticeable as he advanced. Ahead was the gleam of a lamp, one of the small saucer type for the table of sacrifice. He hesitated for a long moment, listening. So small a lamp must be refilled often, which meant an attendant priest--unless such a guardian had shortly left. And there was no way of entering the chapel save by the road he was on--no hiding place from which he could spy. Rahotep kicked off his sandals, not only for reasons of reverence; bare skin on stone and sand was noiseless.
The captain stood now between the two slabs of red granite forming the door sides. The smell of the offerings was almost fetid in the airless interior. And the morsel of light played upon the painted walls, giving life and color to a face here and there or meaning to an inscription. But he could see no priest on duty.
Slowly Rahotep faced the west wall, his eyes in the restricted light searching for the square opening that must be there. His mouth was suddenly dry and parched. He rubbed his damp hands over the kilt on his thighs. So had he felt upon the occasion of his first assault of a Kush village. But he moved forward.
And his change of position showed him a glint of reflection from within that window. Because he had to, Rahotep raised the lamp from within a nest of withered garlands and held it high enough to see those stern features of a well-known face.
The sculptor Ikudidi was a true artist. He had wrought in stone not only the outward form of the Lord Ptahhotep as he had been in the prime of his vigorous manhood, but had also caught the quality of the man himself. Rahotep’s breath caught in his throat. This--this was his father! Then, in a flick of the wavering lamp light, that moment of recognition was past. He saw nothing but an outstanding work of art; the man was gone.
The inlaid eyes gleamed in the light; the lips were set in a serene thread of half-smile. Ptahhotep, as he had been, watched those who came to pay him remembrance. But Rahotep, shivering, put back the lamp, noting only half-consciously that it was close to winking out entirely. He would always believe that more than just the graven Watcher had greeted him for that revealing instant.
To the stone face he gave a warrior’s salute to his commander. Then he looked about him for what he had come to seek. Hentre had described it--an urn taken hastily from the stock of a dealer in canopic jars. It would have a jackal’s head for a stopper. There it was, between two wine beakers on the altar. His hand had fallen upon it when he was startled by a shout of outrage and anger from behind.
Reflexes trained to hair-trigger alertness by his border life saved Rahotep in that instant. He sensed rather than saw that figure springing at him from the doorway. And he had just time enough to counter that rush with a wrestling trick taught him in archers’ exercises. Linen, a priest’s shawl or long skirt, tore with a loud sound. And in the moment the lamp went out.
Rahotep exerted his full strength and hurled the other from him. He groped on the altar, spilling from it in his haste the offerings, his fingers dabbling in foodstuffs and dead garlands. Then he had the jackal’s head under his palm, and a second later the jar was tight in the circle of his arm.
But his assailant had been quick of thought, too, for his voice, raised in a call for help, rang out from the door of the chapel. That would bring the guard, and Rahotep would have no defense against evidence of the despoiled altar.
The captain threw himself at the door, guided by a shaft of moonlight. But the priest was valiant, strong in his righteous anger. He was waiting, and hampered by the jar, Rahotep could only chop with the edge of his flat hand at the other’s neck, a barbarian trick, one Kehti had learned from a river sailor and that he swore might be fatal.
A sharp pain scored Rahotep’s shoulder. But the priest had gone down, his dagger clattering from his hand on the pavement. And, before the tomb guardian could stagger up again, the captain was running, heading away from the road of the dead toward the open country with only the vaguest idea of the territory ahead.
There were torches moving in the tomb servants’ village. Rahotep listened to the shouting of the guards contemptuously. Had he been in command back there, there would be far less noise and more speed in spreading out a net of men to snare a fugitive. But he should thank Horus that they were such bunglers.
For several minutes Rahotep ran lightly, the impetus of his initial good fortune carrying him on. Then he was aware of blood flowing down his side, a sticky flood over his crooked arm and the jar he cradled. His bare foot came down upon a sharp stone, and the pain made him flinch, twisting his ankle awkwardly so that his smooth lope was reduced to a hobble.
All about him were tempting hiding places, but he did not know the ground as well as those who pursued him did. He might well take shelter in a trap. It was better to keep moving, even at his hampered pace. His path took him away from the cliffs, angling toward the river. Now he caught a glimpse of torches bobbing before him there. Would they uncover Kheti? He doubted whether any tomb guard could match the Nubian Scout in trail lore, especially at night. But he was also certain that Kheti would not leave the vicinity of the necropolis until he was sure of his captain’s fate.
Meanwhile, Rahotep leaned against a rock outcrop and forced himself to logical thinking. He dared not return to Semna in his present state. And to approach any of the villas of the nobles on the outskirts of the fort-city was to ask for arrest. As far as he knew, only Methen and Hentre within the territory would give him aid or shelter, and neither could protect a fugitive against the power of Unis.
His progress was in a broken zigzag as he made his way from one projecting bit of stone to the next. And the intervals in which he paused to steady himself against each outcrop grew longer in spite of his determination to keep going. That line of torches along the river reached now almost to the outer gates of Semna. In a few moments that refuge would be closed against him. Rahotep flogged his memory of the great fort, of the outlying villas, of all that lay before him in the general northern direction. And his uncertainty grew. If he kept on, he would be herded away from the river, backed into the scrub land that bordered the desert proper. Then they could track him down at their leisure.
He pressed his right hand tightly against the throbbing slash on his shoulder, trying to stem that steady flow of blood. The priest had not killed, but he had struck better than he knew. Now when Rahotep watched those torches, they seemed to swing and c
ircle like awakened birds in the air, and his lungs labored with the effort he made. But still tight against him he held the sealed jar.
As he wedged himself in an angle between two blocks of stone, using their strength to remain on his feet, he heard something new--the angry chattering of a baboon warning against invasion of its hunting lands. Rahotep shook his head--a baboon? The haziness that had first attacked his sight now jumbled his thoughts. A baboon--that had some meaning.
Then he fought his weakness, the fuzziness that wreathed him in. Kheti! Kheti’s warning from the time they were lads evading Rahotep’s scribe-tutor. And he hissed softly in return, a warm relief flooding through him. A shadow that had more breadth and strength than any real shadow flowed up to him, and the firm grip of strong hands closed about him. He flinched from the touch on his shoulder.
“Be easy, they have marked my hide somewhat,” he said, half laughing in sheer relief.
Kheti’s answering comment in Dedun’s name was more curse than petition.
“Do you know where we are?” Rahotep asked.
“Near to the shrine of Amon-Re, brother. But they are between us and Semna or the river.”
“Amon-Re!” Rahotep straightened. A hope, small and weak, but still a hope, came to life.
Amon-Re was the patron of Thebes, and the priests of His shrine had had, in the past, strong ties with the northern city that had been the capital of Egypt. Would they not favor a Pharaoh ruling there now?
Anubis was strong, but Amon-Re had greater power. It would depend upon the high priest--a timid man, or one who did not wish to dispute Unis and Pen-Seti, would be of no service. On the other hand, a Voice of Amon who was jealous of his own might welcome a chance to stand up to Pen-Seti. It was a gamble to be sure, but this whole venture was a throw of Senet sticks in the sight of the Great Ones.
“We shall go to the shrine--” Rahotep pushed himself away from the stones. He reached for a hold on Kheti’s shoulder to steady himself, and then urged the other to move. Who was the Voice of Amon now? So much rested upon that single question. In the five years since he had left the Viceroy’s court there could have been many changes.
The shrine light in the temple was larger and brighter than the lamp of the mortuary chapel. But the shadowy interior seemed as deserted to Rahotep as he staggered up the steps with Kheti’s support, to waver over the pavement of the main aisle.
In the chapel he fronted the graven image of the Watcher. Here he faced a more than life-size crowned king, the Double Crown on His head, the staff with the sun disc in His hand. And to that representation the captain made homage weakly, his knees on the cold stone, pushing the jar before him into the full beam of the light from the altar.
“Who are you who bring gifts with bloody hands into the sacred places of the Great One?” What Rahotep had taken for a second statue moved forward with a slow sway of priest’s shoulder shawl.
“Khephren!” He identified the priest almost stupidly.
“Aye, Khephren. And you, who steal through the night secretly, what do you here?”
Rahotep answered with the sullenness of complete despair. He had made his cast and the sticks had fallen against him. The Voice of Amon was Khephren, a man of austerity, of great and noted learning, but also one who of old had divorced himself from all connection with the rule of Nubia, who visited the Viceroy’s court only upon the demands of ceremony, and who had never been known to take a hand in any internal dispute.
“I am Rahotep, son to Ptahhotep.”
“And by this evidence a despoiler of tombs.” The Voice of Amon indicated the canopic jar, the remoteness of his voice chill with disgust.
“Not so,” Kheti replied when Rahotep found it hard to summon the words. “The Lord Rahotep but went to reclaim the Pharaoh’s message that our Lord’s call for service might be known. He robbed no tombs, though there will be those who will raise that cry against him. And he has taken a hurt that must be cared for--”
“It seems that there is some strange tale in this,” Khephren returned. “Let this robber of tombs speak in his own defense.”
Somehow Rahotep found words enough to give a bald account of the night’s happenings. Perhaps the very baldness of his tale was convincing, for Khephren heard him to the end without any interruption.
“And you came here then--why?” he asked at the end.
“Because He-Who-Travels-the-Sky overwatches Thebes, and Pharaoh is His son. Should a father turn against a son?” Something put those words into his mouth. Then the walls of the shrine tilted in a queer fashion, and he slipped sideways until Kheti caught him.
“Priest,” spat the Nubian, “my lord dies if he is not given aid. And then perhaps others shall die also--”
Khephren’s rigid features did not change. He stood above Rahotep now, more merciless in judgment than the statue of the god behind him. For a very long moment he looked down at the wounded man. Then he clapped his hands, the sharp sound echoing thinly through the temple. Men came out of the shadows and Rahotep struggled in Kheti’s hold. They would be thrown forth from the shrine now, abandoned to the hunters.
“See to the youth’s wound,” Khephren ordered. “And”--he stooped to pick up the blood-stained jar, handing it to a subordinate--”place this on the high altar under the protection of the Great One, not to be taken from His care until I so will it.”
Rahotep relaxed in the Nubian’s hold. For the time he had won his gamble. They had been granted sanctuary under Amon-Re.
Some time later he lay on a high, narrow couch, clenching his fists, as the temple healer searched the slash and used the fiery palm spirit on it liberally before he bound it up. Rahotep was refusing the sleep drink of poppy seeds the other prescribed, intent upon keeping his full senses, when Khephren entered the small room. The captain levered himself up on his elbow.
“What is your will with us, Voice of Amon?” His uncertainty made his tone harsh and demanding.
“Say rather, boy, what is Amon-Re’s will with all of us,” the high priest rebuked him.
Even in his weakened, dizzy condition, Rahotep sensed that there was more to this than the conventional answer of a priest. He watched the stern face with the narrowness of a war captive reading either life or death in the movement of his victor’s eyebrows. So he noted that the Voice of Amon was clad now not in his ordinary dress of linen shawl and skirt but in the inner and outer kilts of high ceremony, his shawl replaced by a leopard skin, one of its dangling, gold-taloned paws clipped to his jeweled cincture. High feast day, Rahotep wondered dazedly. Yet it was not dawn--or had the night worn away so swiftly?
Khephren made a gesture and four of the underpriests crowded into the room, taking up the bed on which Rahotep lay as if it were a noble’s litter. Kheti stood away from the corner, where he had been squatting, as if to raise protest, but his captain signed him to silence. Something was afoot, but Rahotep was beginning to trust the high priest. He had done all that he could do. The outcome would be the affair of Amon-Re and His Voice.
The bed was borne out into the space before the altar. There was the grayness of predawn outside the outer ranks of pillars. When the priests put down their burden, slightly to the left of the Amon image, Kheti went down on his knees beside the bed, lending his shoulder to Rahotep’s support so the captain could see clearly those gathered there.
Pen-Seti he had in a measure expected, also Unis--with a backing of guardsmen and Anubis priests. Drawn up opposite them was an even smaller group consisting of Methen, Hentre, and the Lord Nereb, with two of Rahotep’s archers to back them.
Khephren took his place before the high altar. In his hand a sistrum of gold wires and turquoise beads swung to make a sweet tinkle. One of the lesser priests flung powder on a censer, and the blue curls of incense twined upward like lazy serpents.
“Voice of Amon!” That was Pen-Seti, his silhouette against the wall behind him that of a bird of prey. “Release unto us these despoilers of tombs, these blasphemers of the Gre
at Ones, so that Anubis may deal with them as is lawful.”
Khephren’s face was expressionless, but Rahotep, watching, caught the faintest of eye flickers in his direction, and now he believed he knew what the high priest had been suggesting earlier. He hunched himself up against Kheti and stretched out one hand to the altar where the blood-stained jar still rested undisturbed.
“I appeal to the judgment of Amon-Re. May the Great One, in His everlasting wisdom, decide the truth or falsehood of my deeds!”
“To Amon-Re has this man appealed, to Amon-Re the judgment!”
Pen-Seti’s lips twisted, his hands jerked at his shawl. To a lesser man than Khephren he might have voiced the protest now to be read in every line of his body. But somehow here and now he did not quite dare to challenge the other. There had never before been any trial of wills between them, but over the years the Voice of Amon had achieved a position that overawed his fellow priests.
“To Amon-Re the judgment!” That full-voiced agreement came from Rahotep’s own party, and a few of those among Unis’s followers nodded in a surly fashion.
Khephren twirled the sistrum, and two of the Amon priests brought forward a small wooden shrine, immeasurably old, immeasurably sacred, for it contained “Amon-of-the-Road,” the Amon of travelers, which had been brought out of Thebes by that first Pharaoh who had added Nubia to Egypt.
The Voice of Amon prostrated himself before the shrine and then arose and broke the seal of its fastening. From the interior he brought forth and held up in both hands over his head the ancient statuette. And those watching, nobles and guards alike, went to their knees, shading their eyes with their right hands.
Rahotep heard through the silence the faint sound of Khephren’s unsandaled feet upon the stone, knew that he was approaching the bed. Yet the captain kept his head bent, his eyes covered. There was a hiss of indrawn breath, a faint murmur, and Rahotep dared to look up.