by T. L. Higley
I pulled away. “Why are you here, Tamit?”
“I told you. I wanted a tour of the pyramid.”
I pointed upward. “The corridor ascends four hundred cubits. Are you ready?”
She squinted up the ascending corridor, then turned to me and half smiled. “You win, Hemi. I care nothing for your pile of stones. I wanted to see you, to ask you to join me for a late meal tonight in my home.”
“The work takes all of my time, I am afraid.”
She scowled up at me. “And you have nothing to show for your life except the work!” Her face softened and she leaned close. “Life is more than building, you know.”
I turned from her and headed for freedom. “Not my life.”
She followed me in a pout, and I led her down to her waiting litter.
As I reached the meeting table to converse once more with my three overseers, I noticed their attention was drawn to a cloud of sand in the distance. We watched for a moment until a gold sedan chair appeared, carried by twelve slaves.
“Wonderful,” I murmured.
The slaves lowered the chair to the ground nearby, and Khufu parted the curtain. He was in full headdress today, with a braided wig hanging down each side and tucked behind his ears. He wore a gold-and-blue-striped nemes over the wig, gathered behind in a knot.
My resolve to forget last night’s revelation blew away in a sandstorm of howling anger, and my body tensed.
Khufu climbed out of the chair, and a slave immediately shielded his head with an ostrich plume at the end of a tall rod. Behind him, Ebo announced, “His Majesty Horus, Beloved by the Goddess of Truth, Strong in Truth, Chosen of Ra.”
My overseers crossed their chests with fists and responded, “Life, Health, Strength!”
I said nothing.
Khufu sighed. “I am restless today,” he said, joining us at the table, slave in tow. “Too much death around me. I felt I should come and see the progress for myself.”
I rubbed my eyes and turned away. With eyes closed, I could imagine Sen’s cozy, torchlit courtyard as a mirage rising from the burning sand of the plateau.
“Hemi?”
I swiveled.
De’de was grinning. “Pharaoh, Beloved of Horus, was speaking to you.”
I bowed. “My mind was on the project, my king. I apologize.”
“I was asking why there seem to be more men working on the east side today.”
I stared at him. “Are you jesting, my king?”
Khufu frowned.
“They are commencing work on the queen’s pyramid.”
“Ah.” Khufu studied the laborers.
The time line, the slowdown, the unexpected deviation caused by Merit’s death, all of it swam before my eyes for a moment, and I thought I might scramble across the table to wrap angry fingers around Khufu’s throat.
“Well then, we might fall behind,” Khufu said, like a pouting child whose toys do not please him. “Perhaps we could bring in a few more men so we don’t lose time.”
The other men looked to me for a response.
Cowards. I took a deep breath, then spoke through gritted teeth.
“Your Majesty, we have organized more than four thousand stone masons, eighteen thousand stone haulers, and hundreds of artists to complete this project. The men are divided into crews of two thousand, gangs of one thousand, with five groups of two hundred, each with ten teams of twenty.” My voice rose above the work-site noise, and I fought to control the hysteria in my voice. “Together these men will lay more than two million blocks of stone for the internal core and dress one hundred thousand casing stones. Every step they take has been planned and measured, counted and recorded. We cannot simply ‘bring in a few more men.’” I bent to brace my shaking hands against the table. “I suggest you leave the building to us and return to your palace. Perhaps your dwarf can entertain you and cure you of your restlessness.”
A stunned silence followed.
I straightened but did not break eye contact with the king.
Khufu’s eyes went cold. His hands went to his hips and he lifted his chin. “That is a good suggestion, Grand Vizier. Thank you. I would ask that when your work here is finished today, you would come and speak to me in my private chambers.”
I bowed my head and watched as Khufu mounted his sedan chair and his slaves carried him off toward the palace.
I had spoken rashly. But there was much more I could have said.
When I turned my attention back to the overseers, they each eyed me with a mixture of fear and pity. It was never a good idea to make an enemy of the Chosen of Ra.
* * *
I made my appearance in the palace that evening, my mind a jumble of regret and anger. Conflicting desires to placate and to confront Khufu warred for my loyalty.
Ebo, the head servant, led me to Khufu’s private chamber, the House of Adoration, and motioned me through the door. The room blazed with the harsh light of far too many torches, placed in pots around the perimeter. I blinked at the brightness and looked to Ebo. The jagged scar across his forehead shone pink in the torchlight.
Khufu stood on the opposite side of the chamber, his arms extended like falcon’s wings and his head thrown back.
Another man, naked but for the excessive jewelry at his neck, arms, and ankles, stood beside the king, shaking a sistrum at him. The naked man paused at my entrance, and Khufu dropped his arms and focused on me. He did not smile.
“Come forward, Grand Vizier. You know Djed-djedi, the magician?”
“No.”
Khufu resumed his pose. “He is calling up a prophecy. I have been having dreams.”
“I can return later.”
“Stay. Perhaps you will discover that your king knows more than you believe.”
“As you wish.”
The shaking of the sistrum resumed, each wooden bead twirling and beating against the others. The magician picked up a chant, words I did not recognize. I moved to the back of the chamber, alongside Khufu’s deep, rectangular bathing pool, and sat in a reed-bottom chair, with my staff across my legs. One of the many torches burned nearby and threw off an uncomfortable heat. The chanting continued.
“It is the ancient language. The first language,” Khufu said, his eyes still closed. “Do you know its meaning?”
“No.”
“No, of course you do not.”
I gripped my staff. “The king is displeased with my comments earlier.”
“The king cares nothing for your opinion.”
No, of course he does not.
The dozen torches grew unbearable, and I began to sweat. The bathing pool’s water looked cool and inviting.
The magician ceased his shaking and produced a small container. He dipped a finger into the package and brought it to Khufu’s lips. The king licked the substance from his finger.
“Come, Hemi. Come here.”
I leaned my staff against the wall and approached.
The magician focused on me for the first time. He was a little man, with eyes that seemed to cross when he looked at me directly.
“Give him some, Djed-djedi.”
Djed-djedi held out the package. Yellow-gold honey pooled in the center.
Khufu licked his lips. “It is sacred honey, from bees hundreds of years old. It imparts wisdom to those who partake.”
I held up a hand and stepped back.
“The grand vizier believes he has all the wisdom he needs, Djed-djedi.”
Khufu flicked his head toward me, and before I understood the motion, the magician coated his finger again and smeared the honey on my lips.
I sputtered and swiped at it with my fingers, then finally licked the traces from my lips.
Djed-djedi whispered a few words to Khufu, then began packing up his trappings. Khufu went to a small table and bent over a stack of papyrus bound in black hides.
The magician lit incense before he left, and the spicy scent filled the room within moments. He said nothing as he departed, just slipped from t
he room like the smoke from the incense.
Khufu waved me back to my chair and began to write on the papyrus. Several times he closed his eyes, whether to consult his memory or the gods, I could not be sure.
Finally he closed the book and looked up. “Perhaps someday I will allow you to read the secrets recorded here.”
I was familiar with Khufu’s secret book, in which he claimed to be recording the history of the world. “Would I discover anything so surprising?”
Khufu’s eyes narrowed. “All of Egypt would be surprised.”
“Then I should like to read it.”
Khufu stood and stretched, and his bronzed and oiled skin gleamed in the torchlight. “Something is troubling you, Hemi. You would not have spoken as you did otherwise.”
Troubling me, yes. Though nothing seems to trouble you. Not your dead wife, nor your dead friend. Why is that, Pharaoh?
Aloud, I said, “I regret my words earlier.”
Khufu leaned on the table. “I can see it there, just behind your eyes. You have learned something, perhaps? Something that makes you angry?”
“I have asked questions. Received some answers.”
“And those answers have led you to believe …”
“It would seem that the killer has not chosen his victims randomly. The Overseer of Constructions and the Great Wife shared a common interest.”
Khufu went to his chamber window and pushed aside the linen to study the night sky. “And what was this common interest?”
“They met secretly in the early mornings.”
Khufu didn’t turn. Didn’t speak.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you, cousin?”
The linen window covering rippled in his hand. I willed him to convince me of his innocence.
“I knew.”
I felt like I had been too long held under water and must surface or drown. My fingers squeezed my staff until they throbbed.
“How could you do it?” Even now, I wanted him to deny it.
“I am the king. I had to look to my own interests first.”
My rage burst in a torrent. I rushed at Khufu, the staff held over my head. A scream tore from my lips, with all the hatred I felt. Khufu’s eyes widened and he threw up an arm to block the staff. A cool wind rushed in through the window, but my anger would not be so easily quenched. I grabbed both ends of my staff and pushed against Khufu’s arm, wanting to hear the bones there snap.
With a yell, Khufu lunged forward. The staff spun away from us and dislodged a torch from its perch. I shoved Khufu’s shoulders backward against the wall and pressed my own forehead into the king’s.
It felt good. Fifteen years of resentment flowed through my chest. Now it bubbled up and spilled out like an acid, sharpening my voice to pointed flint.
“Not this time, cousin,” I growled. “I will not be silent again.”
The fallen torch blazed up beside us, and the leg of Khufu’s writing table joined the flame. Khufu’s eyes moved sideways. “My book! The table burns!”
“I care nothing for your book!” Heat poured into my face and I found it difficult to swallow. “Merit’s life, Mentu’s life, they were worth more than a world of books! And you snuffed them out like used-up torches!”
Khufu’s jaw muscles worked and he clawed at my arms, pinning him to the wall.
“I did not kill them, Hemi! I swear by the plucked-out eye of Horus, I did not kill them!”
FOURTEEN
I braced my forearm against Khufu’s throat. “Say it again!” I peered into my cousin’s eyes, trying to scrape the lies away. “I am not one of your equations, Hemi! The solution is not so simple.”
In my desperation to bring order, had I miscalculated?
“I did not kill them, Hemi.”
I released my hold and backed away, blood pounding at my temples.
Khufu dove for his sacred book, snatched it from the table, then grabbed a nearby jug of water and doused the flames.
The torch hissed to a few glowing embers, and the charred table leg smoldered.
Khufu inhaled deeply and turned to me, the jug dangling from slack fingers. “I will admit,” he said, “when I learned that Merit and Mentu were meeting secretly, I was incensed. I had always feared that someday she would turn her back on me.” He gave me a half smile. “Though I assumed it would be another man who took her away. I was shocked that it could be Mentu. He was not … I would not have expected it.”
I rubbed at my face, pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose. Mentu had been a good man but not an attractive one. I had not allowed myself much time to ponder thoughts of him and Merit together.
“I confronted her,” Khufu said, “told her that I knew about them.” He dropped to the chair beside the table and set the book in front of him.
“Did she deny it?”
“She didn’t need to. She told me why she was meeting Mentu. It did not involve her affections.”
I waited, arms crossed, heart slowing.
“It was about her pyramid.”
“The queen’s pyramid?”
Khufu fingered the book. “Yes. She feared that I would never commission the plans, that I was so consumed with my own building and cared nothing for hers.”
“She was right.”
Khufu acknowledged the accusation with a brief nod. “I know. She was meeting Mentu without my knowledge, to commission him to design plans without me.”
I breathed. “Why did she not ask me?”
Khufu lifted his head and laughed, the sad laugh of a defeated man. “Ask yourself why Merit did not think it wise to meet with you in secret.”
I licked my lips, which still tasted of the magician’s honey, and looked away.
“She and Mentu designed the plans together. When I made my accusations, she brought the plans to me, and I could do nothing but approve them immediately.”
I thought back to the day when Khufu had finally given me the plans. So much had happened since then, though it had been only a few weeks.
“So if not you, who would kill them both?”
Khufu shoved away from the table and drifted to the window. “I have asked myself that a thousand times. I have no answer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all of this days ago, when Merit was killed?”
Khufu turned again, as though he could not remain in one place long. He lowered himself onto his bed, his head supported by an alabaster headrest. “Shame. I did not want you to know what I had forced her to.” He closed his eyes. On the headboard above, the golden wings of Isis spread over him. “The strange thing is,” he said, “when she brought me the plans, she was not so eager for the pyramid to be built. She said she was unsure that it was necessary.”
“She did not expect to cross to the west so soon.”
Khufu pulled himself upright. “No. She spoke of doubts about the gods. About the afterlife. I confess I didn’t listen well. I thought them the silly notions of an overemotional wife. But now …”
“Now?”
He rested his chin on his palm. “Perhaps she had some foreknowledge of what was to come.”
I debated whether to reveal what I knew about the queen’s renouncing of the Egyptian gods. “If so, I hope she was at peace.”
Khufu sighed, then looked up. “Now that you know about all of this, I am anxious for you to find the one who killed them.”
“I am afraid there is little to pursue.” I flexed my fingers. “You were the only one I truly suspected.” Khufu said nothing, and I regretted my words. I held up my hands apologetically.
“I understand,” Khufu said. “We have been here once before, have we not, cousin?”
We do not speak of that day.
Khufu stretched himself on the bed again. “I am tired. Come to me tomorrow with anything you learn.”
I left the chamber silently, crossed out of the palace, through the courtyard, and down the path to my own home, refusing to look at my pyramid. My thoughts were muddied with rel
ief, frustration, and anger. While I did not truly wish to know that Khufu had killed the two, I was now without answers or even suspicions.
My home was cold and empty. In my absence, the slaves I kept had no doubt finished their work for the day and gone to their own quarters. Only a single lamp had been lit inside the front door. I carried it with me to the kitchen, where I found a jug of water. I poured the water over my sticky hands and rubbed at my lips. The sweetness of the honey sickened me, and I swigged from the jar to dilute the taste in my mouth. The jug made a hollow clunk when I set it on the table.
My inner courtyard sucked me into its dark silence, bouncing the sound of my steps back at me from its unpainted walls. I dropped onto a bench and studied the plants, several of which had grown brown with neglect.
Why should I pursue these questions any further? The truth would not bring my loved ones back from the west. I hated nothing more than unanswered questions, but if answers could not be found, was it not best to put the questions away and focus attention elsewhere?
I rose and crossed the courtyard to a side room to retrieve my seven-stringed harp. I needed to clear my mind. Back on the bench, I plucked uncertainly at the first few strings, feeling my way, letting a melody find me.
The harp came out on rare occasions, and only when I was alone. There was a weakness in it somehow, this need I had at times to create music, and I preferred to keep my weaknesses private.
The music was slow in taking over tonight. Discordant notes dropped like hard pebbles at my feet. I closed my eyes, tried to coax the music to flow. Then the beginnings of a melody seeped from my fingers, and I followed its trail. Downward, downward tonight, in melancholy low notes that sang out my defeat. The music swelled inside of me, and I let it flow through my hands. The strings vibrated with all the tension I felt and seemed to take it from me, the notes filling the courtyard and then chasing each other upward into the night sky.
I played on, my senses contained by the music. I did not know how long I played, only that when I stopped it was because I was empty. My face was wet with tears, and I dropped my forehead to the harp’s neck.
A noise at the edge of the courtyard startled me. “I have no need of anything tonight,” I called, certain that a slave had followed the sound and come to check on me.