by Mike Ashley
Once, standing before the Royal Wife to receive a compliment, she had a very bad moment. Dahi was saying amiably that she never feasted better at the palace, and biting with gusto into a steaming quail flavoured with delicate traces of aniseed. Then her expression changed. Clenching her teeth, she bent forwards. The cone of perfumed ointment on her head wobbled. Tamaket, nearest to her, said deferentially, “Your pardon, O Wife of the Living Horus,” and steadied her, looking intently into her face. “Are you ill?”
“Of course I am ill,” Dahi said harshly. “Ah! I know what this is. I have had these inner pains since I last gave birth . . . they come and go. Forgive me, my lord, I would retire. Send my physician to me, woman.”
“At once, Great One.”
A common woman’s ailment, and her physician confirmed it. The gods be thanked for that! Tamaket sweated to think what might have happened if Dahi’s pains had been caused by suspect food. By morning she seemed much improved. Tamaket witnessed two more such attacks over the months that followed, and heard of others, since her master was now something of a courtier – by force of circumstances, not by nature. It always tickled her humour when he appeared at court. Seeing him in ornate formal garments, among soft priests, sleek placemen and over-precise scribes like Montumes, was downright funny.
His father and brothers came downstream to visit him. They seemed willing to treat him as a kinsman again, though the father especially had no warmth. Still, after the fearful blasphemy of murder attempts against the godking had struck so close to his house, he must reckon it wisest to seem more friendly. Tamaket did not suppose the king – or Antef, either – was at all deceived.
Time flowed by as surely as the Nile. The months became a year, then three. After that one meagre inundation, the river rose high two years in a row, and with the obstructed gorge successfully cleared, the Waters of Shedet rose also. So did Antef’s reputation.
Tamaket enjoyed success herself. As the Royal Wife remarked, she had become a fashion, almost a craze, in Ithej-Tawy. Her circle of powerful well-wishers increased, and with them the number of spies she now possessed in many places, high and low.
She took to saying, “Oh, my master, may I assist at the feast Lady Nefer is giving? Her steward has been dropping hints for a week.” Then it would be, “The Temple of Hathor wishes me to help organize the moon ceremony, noble one, and the king will attend. May I do so?”
Antef was patient with his servants, even indulgent, but he saw Tamaket had gone to excess.
“You do not serve the whole of Lower Egypt, but me,” he warned her. “One last time. Then it must cease.”
In the event, one last time proved more appropriate words than either of them had imagined.
VII
Those who are in the sky are made wolves, and those who are among the sovereign princes are become hyenas. Behold, I gather together the charm from every place where it is, and from every man with whom it is, swifter than hunting dogs and quicker than light.
– Papyrus of Ani
Antef, as the King’s Friend, sat on a gold-inlaid chair beside Senusert. Lesser guests used mats and cushions among a forest of dark-red pillars. They made a great throng. Priests, scribes and officials mingled with a group of dignitaries from Crete with their curled dark hair and narrow-waisted kilts, bright with colour in contrast to the milky linen of Egypt. There were no envoys from Kush.
“It’s time,” Senusert said quietly to Antef. “When the river stops rising, and before it recedes, the fleet will depart.”
“Good,” Antef replied. “I’ve heard about the Kushite attacks against Semna. Two major ones in a season.”
“They will regret it. The dam you built has opened a door. Now we are going through it. To the ends of the land of Yam.”
“Don’t speak of it, my lord,” Dahi said. “I’ll be sorry to see you and our brother, the Lord Antef, go! Conquer these wretches, since you must, and then come home quickly.”
Antef did not hear what Senusert replied. Something affectionate, no doubt, but he found himself thinking of what was to come, and thinking of it darkly. He had been with Senusert on one expedition through Nubia. He began drinking deeply in an effort to be merry. This attracted no undue notice; it was a rare banquet at which wine passed around slowly. Dahi did not spare her cups, either, but then she had a good head for liquor.
She raised yet another to her lips. The cone of scented ointment atop her wig had melted to a stub by now, running down over her cheeks and shoulder so that her flesh glistened. She smoothed the remnant back, then drank half the cup’s contents in one gleeful draught.
“Fortune attend your campaign, and all that you do, beloved,” she said, passing it to Senusert.
The king took it.
His poison-taster, Ipi, plucked the goblet from Senusert’s grasp as he had been poised and waiting to do.
“No, mighty Khakaure; this holds poison.”
Senusert sat motionless in a haze of perfume and wine and light, calling on his savoir-faire. On campaign or on a throne, one acquired it. His face never changed, and his gaze travelled around to see who else was aware. Nobody, it appeared, except Antef. Then Montumes sidled in beside the taster, busy and knowing.
“He tells the truth, O king.”
Montumes dipped a finger in the royal cup and withdrew it with something adhering. Staring, the king saw what seemed to be a fragment of eggshell. He found no especial significance in that.
Montumes could not wait to enlighten him. “A dove’s egg, mighty king, blown, filled with death and resealed, ready to crush into your festive wine.”
Dahi snatched the cup in anger. “Oh such nonsense! Are you wit-stricken, Montumes? I have just drunk, and I am well. Look!”
In one impatient gesture she drained the rest and tossed the cup aside. People were staring, though it had not been the case before. The attention Senusert had wished to avoid was thoroughly upon them now.
“How did you ever conceive this ridiculous idea?”
Montumes picked up the fallen cup. “Ah. Ah. Great Ones, perhaps I was wrong.”
“Wrong?” Senusert snapped. “You must explain some way further than that.”
“Yes, O Living Horus.”
Antef, watching, knew by now that something was deeply amiss, as he saw Dahi’s eyes change and Montumes’s smirk. He never had cared for the man. Nor did Senusert, in that moment. The contretemps was growing worse.
It might be carried off with discretion yet. Rising with a yawn, the king declared that he and Dahi were retiring, with the ease of one whose word was law, and wished the company goodnight. He returned with Dahi to their private rooms. Montumes shortly followed, needing no command. You must explain some way further than that, Senusert had said.
He welcomed the Keeper of State Records with a curt nod, and ordered his guardsmen at the door to admit nobody else.
“There are witnesses I may have to call, O king,” Montumes ventured. “That young poison-taster – ”
“I will wish to see him in time. Not yet.”
Dahi said wearily, “All this talk of poison is folly. I am alive, my great lord, and not even in discomfort, though I drank the cup to the lees before you. Montumes’ reasons for doing this I do not know, but I remember he was with us at Semna when that wine-jar proved to be deadly.”
Senusert made no reply. Very clearly he was thinking. Frowning, he gazed at the Keeper of State Records, who continued to look at Dahi.
“There is something on your gown, just above the knee – Great One,” he said with poorly concealed spite.
Dahi, royal and divine, did not look down like a disconcerted servant. She shrugged in disgust. Montumes caught the king’s glance, and pointed to the Royal Wife’s gown, whereupon Dahi did lower her gaze, and and bring down her hand in an impatient brushing motion.
Senusert caught her hand before it could touch the linen. What he removed from his wife’s gown was a fragment of eggshell, adhering by some dark fluid it had conta
ined, that was certainly neither white nor yolk.
“That isn’t proof,” Senusert said grimly. “If indeed a dove’s egg charged with poison was crushed into our wine, a bit may easily have fallen on the Royal Wife’s gown by no action of hers. You have accused her of the vilest crime one may conceive. You must prove it past doubt. You will wail in regret that ever you were born unless you do.”
“Indeed and truly!” Dahi concurred. “Where did I hide it, for one thing, you dog? In my navel, perhaps?”
“In your perfume cone, Great One,” Montumes answered, “and it is a horror to me to declare it. Your fingers could find the egg readily, once the cone melted to a remnant. Not I alone, but Ipi the taster, saw it happen.”
“The taster? Your accomplice in this?” Dahi looked incredulous. To Senusert she said, “Am I to listen further?”
“I scarcely think so.” Senusert turned on his Keeper of State Records in anger. “This babble of poison fails on the most important point! Dahi and I were to share the cup you assure me was deadly. First she drank half, and then the rest, while I drank none. She is unharmed. Nothing can surmount that.”
Dahi nodded, lips shut hard and eyes fiery. Her look promised ruin to the record-keeper for this.
“Alas, O Living Horus!” Montumes answered. “What your wisdom perceives, the Royal Wife foresaw. She is inured to this poison. Since bearing her last child, she has taken slowly increasing doses, until she can swallow unharmed what would kill a company of soldiers. It is why she gave her child to a wet-nurse this time. She never did before.”
“Liar!” Dahi spat.
“That is why she was ill with recurring belly pains,” Montumes said inexorably. “Poison, not infection. Her physician was part of this impious scheme. I have had him watched day and night. He supplied the poison, measured the doses, and made lying pronouncements about the results being due to infection! If questioned, I think he will speak.”
Dahi’s face changed then, so terribly that the king felt a chill rising to his heart, as if he had indeed drunk the lethal cup and its working had begun. He knew Montumes. Scarcely the most daring of men, he would not accuse Dahi unless he was sure of her guilt – and sure, too, that he could substantiate it. The Nile would flow backwards first.
Senusert felt dazed. The air seemed to blacken and curdle around him. Taking it into his lungs became an effort. His face had changed also, and the change was not good to see.
As from a vast distance he heard Montumes say in a low tone, “I am grieved, O Living Horus, grieved – but there is more. I have scarcely begun.”
VIII
The sky pours water, the stars darken;
The Bows rush about, the bones of the Earth-god tremble.
– Hymn to Wenis
Senusert entered the empty, darkened banquet hall. Smells of food, wine, perfume and many warm bodies had grown stale in the past few hours. Mixed into the thick miasma were whiffs of vomit, also. Feasts began better than they ended.
The servants who cleaned up the mess had gone. One man had not. One man remained, a cup in his hands, drained to the lees, as he turned and turned it slowly in his fingers.
A brazier standing near cast a dim red glow on the seated man’s arm and profile. He never moved as Senusert approached; even his hands ceased turning the empty cup.
The king wasted no time. “How could you do it?”
“What?” The big man shook his head. “I’m drunk.”
“You may have emptied an entire wine-jar without help, but I know you are sober,” Senusert told him. “I asked how you could do it! Montumes knew everything, Antef. And so do I, now. Explain to me – that’s a command. When did you become a traitor?”
“Me?” After a moment Antef said disbelievingly, “Montumes says that? Of me? And you credit him? I’d say you must be joking, but this is not your kind of joke.”
“It’s no laughing matter, and I take oath to that on my father’s tomb.”
Antef said bluntly, “Then you’re the one drunken. Eye of Ra! I’m the one who caught the traitors for you!”
“Dahi confirms him.” After a pause, Senusert said in a voice like death, “I discovered tonight that there is nothing she does not know about treason. I credit her. You cannot shield her, or your father, Antef. And, by the Double Crown, if you prevaricate one heartbeat longer, I use this dagger.”
Antef heard the raw grief in his king’s voice, and the certainty. His own came back thick with pain.
“I discovered the traitors. They were guilty, not innocent. I delivered them to you. Senusert, I see you’re not joking. But what makes you believe this?”
“You know well! You discovered that your own sire was one of them – of the leaders! You did not tell me that.”
“No,” Antef agreed, his voice flat. “I did not. I warned him that I’d denounce him at any hint of a further threat to you. I left full written testimony sealed and safe lest he should try to silence me first – for he loves me little and I do not doubt he’d be capable of it – and let him know it was written. You will find it with my will in the vaults of the Temple of Sobek. I couldn’t hand over my father to disgrace and vile death, Senusert, no matter how black a traitor.”
“And so you became one yourself,” the king said bitterly. “Antef, you fool! Did you think you could outwit a man like your father, or hold him on a leash by such a simple threat? Dahi informs me – the bitch – that he was glad to have the other traitors caught, and be rid of them, they having proved so inept. I am sure he was. Madmen must have conceived the idea of training a man-eater in the hope that she would destroy me. The night of the lion hunt you were still true, were you not? When did you turn against me?”
Antef said wearily, “Does it matter?”
Senusert had been hoping that it might still turn out to be untrue.
“Not now. No matter when it began, I wonder how you could feast with me, hunt with me, take the honours I heaped on you, all the while intending my death. When did you learn that Dahi shared in the plot?”
He spoke Dahi’s name like a man taking his death-wound.
“She was not. Until she became enamoured of me. Then – it happened one step at a time.”
Senusert swore vilely. “When I called you a fool it was less than the truth! Dahi brought that poisoned wine to Semna three years ago and longer! She and your father – you don’t know it yet? They began this treason together.”
“No,” Antef said harshly. “I became enamoured of Dahi, Senusert. When she loved me also – there was no way to possess her but to murder you. Thus I joined forces with my snake of a father and became a snake myself. My suggestion was that I should kill you in the confusion of battle when we campaigned in Nubia again.”
“Your suggestion,” the king said, sickened. “But Dahi wanted something more certain, didn’t she? She has sharper fangs than your sire, knows less about honour – and until tonight I would have killed the man who uttered such things in my hearing. If I have to know it, by all the gods, so do you! Dahi desires power. With me as king, she did not rule. Married to you, with your father as Vizier, she could rule in all but name, for you can be managed, and would be content with building. She lured you, you dolt, and you do not know it! She loves you not. She loves no man.”
He saw Antef’s eyes blaze and the great muscles harden. Senusert’s own grip tightened on his poniard’s hilt. The blade was broad, hard and sharply pointed, and if Antef lunged at him, Senusert was more than ready to drive it through his heart.
“Sit still,” he said in the king’s voice.
“Not,” Antef growled, “if you say that again.”
Senusert could almost have pitied him, then, except that his own heart had turned to seared sand and boulders with death resident therein. He wanted to inflict pain so vile that his own pain would vanish. He wanted to drive Antef to attack him so that he could strike with the dagger.
He made his face a mask.
“She rejected your plan to kill me in t
he tumult of battle. Not certain enough. She was probably afraid that you might remember you had been my friend, and honest, and not be able to murder one who trusted you. It’s no failing of hers. She handed me that cup with a loving smile. Does that not tell you all you need to know?”
He knew the message had not come to him yet, either. Soon, he told himself, it is going to strike me, and I shall realize what this means, wholly. My friend, my brother, the one who never failed me, has turned traitor . . . would have murdered me, and she I love, who sat a royal throne beside me, bore my children . . .
“What will you do?” Antef asked.
“Keep this secret,” the king answered. “For now. I cannot decide at once, but to my son you are a hero, an example of courage and honour. He should not know the truth too young. With regard to his mother, perhaps he should never know it.”
He considered, while Antef waited in silence.
“Keep your great name,” Senusert said at last. “Come with me as planned on our expedition to the land of Yam. However, you are not to return alive. My Majesty commands it. Have you heard me?”
“Yes.”
Bending forwards, his eyes black in the brazier-glow, Senusert pronounced doom. “Your body shall be lost. You shall have no tomb. Your name shall vanish, and so also shall I deal with your father.”
“It is just,” Antef said resignedly. “But Dahi is the Royal Wife. You cannot deal so with her.”
“She is my children’s mother, and that is a great misfortune. She shall bear me no others. Having her buried with me is a thought I cannot stomach, but some way can be found to arrange it otherwise.” He added after a moment, “Plausibly.”
Antef nodded heavily. “There seems no more to say.”
“No.”
They spoke so quietly that none watching – and there was always someone watching the king – could have heard the exchange. Tamaket, in the night shadows of the hall, did not catch a word for all her sharp hearing, but she saw both men’s faces in the brazier-glow, and it told her enough.