by D. S.
Tjuya inclined her head and made a circular motion with her index finger. Shiri rotated a full circle as commanded. “Well, I can’t see what the fascination is.” Tjuya said. “Why, even Meira is a better woman than you. He really liked you didn’t he, Meira?”
“He liked me so much that he put his cock in my mouth,” Meira said proudly. Tjuya looked a little offended. “Must you always be so crude, Meira?” The slave giggled somewhat apologetically. Tjuya looked back to Shiri. “On our wedding night he insisted on taking Meira in every way imaginable. But still I think he prefers you. Tell me, Shiri, what perversities do you perform for him? What whore’s secrets have so enraptured my husband?” She bit her lip as she pondered it. “He uses your mouth and that hole between your legs no doubt. He turns you about and takes your ... your final secret also?” She twisted her lip as if disgusted by the sight of the creature.
Meira smiled coyly as she rose and moved on the slave. She raised the switch and gently traced a path between Shiri’s breasts almost as if assessing them. She took it lower before flicking it in one surprisingly hard smack between the slave’s legs. She glanced to her mistress expectantly. “May I declare love for your husband too, m’lady? I think the jest would play well with him. Oh! And perhaps we could send for some of the temple guards! We could have Shiri pleasure them two at a time so we could observe her talents first hand. Or maybe-”
“Do be quiet, Meira.” Tjuya appeared less than satisfied. When she’d seen that first tear come she’d thought she’d broken her, thought the slut was about to collapse into pitiful sobs and cry and weep her heart out. Instead her face had grown impassive, her eyes focusing on some distant half imagined object. And worst of all she was still pretty. A pretty, naive, and totally besotted slave girl – a potent combination. Little wonder her husband had whispered the slut’s name in his sleep. My wedding night and he had dreamt of another. She would never forgive the whore for that. She rose again and moved to the girl’s side, no longer making pretence of hiding the hatred in her eyes. “A shepherd girl isn’t it? How did your father scratch a living from that?”
“With her mother out whoring he probably didn’t have to,” Meira said as she continued to rub her switch suggestively up and down Shiri’s thighs.
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Tjuya said thoughtfully. “But still, he must have done something … he must have sheared them and sold the wool at least.” She sent forth a dainty hand and in one quick movement loosed Shiri’s hair so that it fell about her bare shoulders. Yuya will still desire her, still think her beautiful, still whisper her name in the dark of night, unless... She allowed her fingers to run through the slut’s long flowing locks before casting Meira a wicked glance, her eyes gleaming with poetic inspiration. “I wonder what a shepherd girl looks like once she’s been sheared.”
X
Solon gave the donkeys a lick of the whip when he saw the famous white walls loom up before them – the Jewel of the North. Where Heliopolis was a city by reputation, Memphis was one by right. It was ten times the size of any place Josef had ever seen, Kadesh, Megiddo and Heliopolis combined would make a mere suburb of this vast urban sprawl. For the greater part of an hour they’d been passing through outlying villages and hamlets, as the Tears of Isis split into a hundred winding distributaries that passed both through and around the northern capital.
Josef’s head arched upwards. The giant crenulated walls climbed to impossible heights, and behind them towered something even higher. A truly gargantuan temple that made the one in Heliopolis look less than a young boy’s castle of sand. It ripped the heavens like a spear, soaring to what must have been three hundred feet above the city below. “The great temple of Ptah, home of the Memphite Triad,” Solon said in tones that suggested he wasn’t sure if his companion had known.
As they drew closer, Josef saw what he was looking for; Amenhotep’s host. Hard bitten veterans freshly returned from their conquests. They seemed to be aimlessly milling about like as many ants in the shadow of the white walls. No sign of the slaves. “They’ll be in the grand market of Menes in front of the temple,” Solon said, as if he’d read his thoughts.
The journey had not taken more than half a day. The heart of the Lower Kingdom was not so far from Heliopolis. Solon glanced at the chests nervously. They were weighted with nearly a hundred pounds of silver, fifty pounds of gold, and the gods only knew how much copper; all the temple reserves. Behind them trailed a long thin line, a dozen or more carts full of salt, spice and grain. The flood had best not come late next season or the City of the Sun would starve. Twenty of Pentephres’s finest guards clad from head to toe in thick lamellar armour marched to either flank of the procession.
Yuya had made poor company this trip, silent and brooding, unconscious of the way his fingers twitched and fidgeted nervously. Solon looked over his shoulder, despite their sizable band, nobody was within earshot. “So, my friend ... what’s your real name?”
Josef started. “My real what?”
“Your name ... you know ... that thing your father called you when were usurping his place at your mother’s tits.”
“I think the heat slows your wits, old man.”
Solon held his eyes. “Hah! Wait ‘till the days of high summer, youngling!” He held out his hand as if catching the sun’s rays. “Heat such as this is barely noticed by those born in these climes ... best you remember that ... Prince of Shepherds”
Josef’s face grew stern, involuntarily his hand slid to the hilt of his knife before it seemed to remember the guards. Solon was not blind to the movement and his smile broadened. “Is the girl royal too? I’d not have named her as such, a peasant of the mountains if ever there was one … yet that makes small sense, mayhap the daughter of some minor chieftain, unaccustomed to court, but … even then, she lacks the airs of one that…”
“Do not speak of her.” Yuya clenched his jaw, his eyes fixing on the man at his side.
Solon saw murder in those cold blue flames and laughed at it. “Aye, a chieftain’s daughter, she must be, why else would a man pay fifty debens for a slave?”
“I warn you, old man, press further in this and I might get angry. You won’t like that.”
Solon grinned and continued regardless. “You’ll not have me believe you were struck dumb by her beauty.” One of the donkeys whickered and he flicked the whip again. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, she’s a nice look to her and no mistake, but there was a hundred better than her to choose from or I’m no judge.”
“Akil suspects too?” Josef spoke through gritted teeth. Two die as easy as one.
Solon shrugged. “Akil suspects there’s a strange protuberance on the front of his face. I informed him that’s it’s called a nose and we all have one, but I fear he’s not yet convinced.”
There was a bead of sweat about Josef’s brows and his tone grew increasingly menacing. “So then ... Solon ... it is you alone.” He pondered something for a moment. “How much to buy your silence?” Little wonder the bowyer had said nothing ‘till now. He frowned, the old man had waited until all the monies of the temple were at his back and twenty guards of the city were within easy call. I need only stay his tongue ‘till the end of the day, and then...
Solon ignored the question. “I fear you overreach yourself ... Josef,” he grinned as he said the name. “I think I know what it is you mean to achieve. A noble cause, no lie in that,” he spoke in a manner that sounded genuine. “But you have no friends, no allies.”
“A man of honour does not count his allies before standing up for what is right.”
“A man of intelligence does,” Solon winked. “I’ll keep your secret safe, have no fear on that account. I’ll even be your friend in this if you will it. Noble pursuits and hopeless causes appeal to me.”
“Are you not friend to Tuthmosis? Loyal to him and his house?”
“A friend of Tuthmosis? Aye, for my part. Such a Pharaoh there has never been, mighty in word and deed, and just ... in his f
ashion. But the son, no ... I’ll not follow that spawn of Apeth ... did you know he broke one of my bows? He even tried to name his creature, Herben, as first weapon-smith to the army just to spite me. I’d drink Seth’s piss and praise the vintage before bending the knee to him.” Solon turned from him and guided the cart through the colossal gate. “Someone once told me you were a good man, and I’d like to think that even the worst of us speak truth on our deathbeds.” His eyes widened as he saw throngs of the Co-Regent’s men crowding the streets ahead. “Likely we’ll be speaking truth soon enough.”
Three thousand soldiers and twice as many retainers and camp followers were already swarming about the stalls, and all the while more were squeezing through the gates. There was dancing in the streets and statues of the Co-Regent were being held aloft and paraded in every quarter. Beady eyed merchants were rubbing their hands gleefully and even the whore houses could not keep pace with the business. Criers in bright costumes and feathered hats stood at the street corners telling tales of Amenhotep’s triumphs before cheering crowds. Josef focused on one player, bearing a crude mock up of the Red Deshret Crown. He danced atop a wooden stage re-enacting Amenhotep’s epic duel with the Shepherd King. He quoted the Co-Regent’s own words and the crowds bubbled with frenzies of cheering.
“And then noble Amenhotep raised his battle won blade aloft, pointed to his terrible foe, and spoke in a mighty voice!” The player mimicked the motion with his own wooden sword before launching into the now famous quote. “Enough blood has been spilt this day, Jacobaam King. Cast aside thine armies and bare your blade. Fight me sword to sword and let us end this in the old way!”
The crowd cheered and surged as the actor cavorted before them. “And fight they did!” he roared. “From dawn to dusk they battled, their crimson blades singing over the blood-fields of Armegiddo! The last and greatest Hyksos King, and the valiant Prince of the Two Lands, locked in epic conflict!”
He swung the stick sword wildly about his head. “The very earth itself trembled beneath their feet and the red gods came down from the heavens to marvel at their valour! Noble Amenhotep took injury when the barbarian giant pushed forward with impossibly savage strength. Back and back he forced our gallant champion, as Amenhotep’s royal blood flowed like water, but still our prince would not yield! Mighty thunderous blows rained upon him, but never would he yield! Never! For Amenhotep fought for EGYPT!”
Chants of Amenhotep, Amenhotep, reverberated through the crowd. “And ‘ere the end our noble prince turned the giant’s attacks! Finally one man proved the stronger! Finally Amenhotep threw down his enemy and sheathed Memphite bronze deep in the barbarian’s heart!” The throng’s cheers and chants boomed and rolled, loud as thunder.
Their cart struggled on, Josef’s face a dower mask, he could still hear them. They spoke of how before the battle Thoth himself came to Amenhotep in his dreams and granted him his wisdom. The god of knowledge and truth revealed to him the secrets of the pass of Aruna, and blessed the Prince with the wisdom to devise great strategies that would see the barbarians defeated. Here and there Josef heard the odd players even go so far as to offer brief courtesy to the elder Pharaoh’s continuing triumphs over the cravens of Mitanni.
Solon shrugged as the slave markets finally came into view. “He forgot the part where noble Amenhotep shat fire and thunder from his arse and leapt the walls of Megiddo in a single bound.”
Josef nodded. “Aye, a humble king sits the Memphite throne.”
The humble king was not hard to find. He sat the red Deshret throne that brooded over the vast courtyard filled with pitiful, stinking, crying, humanity below. Josef cringed. My people.
The courtyard was flanked by soaring banners of purple and crimson that rippled lazily in the balmy evening breeze. Endless ranks of gold trimmed Companions lined the wide marble stairs that led to the throne. There the Co-Regent sipped honeyed wine and jested with his high lords. A great lion of hard, pale alabaster loomed up behind him, and behind that row upon row of granite and marble hewn statues dedicated to Sekhmet, Horus and Montu filled the ever loftier terraces that led at last to the entrance of the famed temple of the Ptah. Josef’s eyes were wide.
“You should see Karnack,” Solon said with a chuckle.
Ten men were needed to lift the chests, and that alone was enough to attract the attention of the Co-Regent and bring them to the head of a long line of petitioners. The Co-Regent’s ghaffir accompanied by a pair of golden Companions beckoned them forward.
Narmer grinned at him. “Lord Yuya, ever are you buying slaves.” He glanced to the chests. “The gods of Heliopolis treat you well it seems.”
“Well enough,” Josef grunted. Narmer made a show of removing the man’s blade and gave Solon’s staff a cursory glance. “Your last purchase provided a pleasurable fit?”
Josef did not reply and the ghaffir smiled as he led them up the polished steps. “You grow bored of her is it? She has no secrets left eh? I’d be happy to take her back off you if you wish, but at a sensible price of course.”
“I’m here to buy not to sell,” Josef said, before drawing up before the first of the royals; a boy of twelve or thirteen years by the look of him, though in truth he was older. Prince Tuthmosis, Amenhotep’s eldest son. Half buried beneath a mountain of gilded finery and semi precious stones, his painted face peered out guilelessly. His arms were thin and soft, his skin pale and sickly. He carried a blue faced doll with straw hair in one hand and his unfocussed eyes seemed to be looking everywhere but at the man before him.
The boy’s young wife held his other hand. Josef heard Solon inhale as he saw her. “Don’t happen to have fifty debens handy do you, Yuya?” Josef silenced the man with a glance before turning his gaze back to her. An excess of kohl surrounded her eyes, her cheeks and lips were rouged far too gaudily for one of her station, and as for her dress, what there was of it looked as if it had been designed to the whims of some lecherous brothel goer.
Even so, Solon had the right of it. Beneath it all she was a stunning, almost impossibly beautiful thing, perhaps three, even four years older than her sickly looking husband, and surprisingly enough, heavy with child. He noted that she seemed to squeeze the boy’s unresponsive fingers somewhat harder than was appropriate whenever the Co-Regent laughed or made boisterous jests with his lords.
Josef bowed before the pair in turn. The boy made little response. Was he deliberately rude, or just lost in some daydream? But for her part, the princess smiled shyly and proffered Josef an outstretched hand, he moved to bring it to his lips but at an abrupt grunt from Amenhotep she withdrew it hastily. She cast an apologetic glance in her father in law’s direction.
Amenhotep made some unclear gesture, but she seemed to understand and took a reluctant looking step in his direction. She shrunk from him a little when he sent forth his three fingered hand and allowed his stumps to pass through her sandy locks. The girl lowered her gaze and focused what were now embarrassed eyes on her sandals. The Co-Regent’s fingers slid absently to the Princess’s neck and lingered there a while before tracking a path slowly down her spine. He only withdrew them after they had journeyed past her upper thighs.
“Lord Yuya of Heliopolis, hero of Megiddo,” Amenhotep said in a friendly manner. “Even in his sickbed they say my father speaks well of you. You honour Memphis with your presence.” The Co-Regent’s gaze did not stray far from his daughter in law as he spoke and his fingers soon returned to their explorations.
Josef bowed. “The honour is mine, Divinity ... your father is not well?”
“You haven’t heard? Pharaoh was grievously wounded during the siege of Aleppo. Some craven’s arrow took him in the gut. Despite the wound, he fought on ‘till victory was assured and Old Aratama at last bent the knee.” He glanced briefly at Solon before returning his gaze to Josef. “Since your friend here had decided to abandon him I sent my own man to tend him in his place.” He shrugged. “Still, perhaps that is for the best; Herben’s skills are beyond
compare. He’s already sent away the fools that were botching the great one’s treatment, so I’m sure he’ll have him back to full health in short order.”
Solon raised his head, his eyes narrowing. Amenhotep ignored the look. “You wish to purchase cattle I presume?” The Co-Regent smiled, revealing teeth perfect and white as pearls.
“If it pleases Your Grace to sell, it will please me to buy.”
“They’re going cheap, a hundred and twenty copper rings per dozen, or the equivalent in salt, spice and grain.”
Josef laughed. “Do they come with golden collars and silver chains? I think perhaps I’ll return to Heliopolis and wait for your father to arrive with his batch.”
A delicate looking priest of Amun stepped forward at that. “You would barter with a god? Truly have the sun priests corrupted your mind if you think to argue coppers with-”
Amenhotep raised a silencing hand. He seemed more impressed than angry. “Let it be, Papis, this lordling amuses me.” He smiled at Josef. So you follow the sun priests now? Well then, let me put it in terms you can appreciate. My father is the sunset, his time is passing. But I ... I am the sunrise, and my time is nigh. Heliopolis would do well to keep in my favour.”
“They do not seem in the best of health,” Josef said a little more cautiously. “I’d not like to give more than ... five debens a piece.”
The Co-Regent’s face revealed nothing. “Yes, well, the journey was harsh and I had little enough fodder to spare for the likes of them. If you must have the truth of it I grow weary of the bastards. They do naught but piss and shit and stink and whinge. But five coppers is it?” He shook his head. “I’ve sold near four hundred at twice that price and better so far.”
“Four hundred in two weeks,” Josef said. It was as he’d hoped. They’re barely selling. “Feed aside it will take time and coin to train ‘em into anything but the simplest of tasks and without men who can speak their words...”