The City of Refuge: Book 1 of The Memphis Cycle

by Diana Wilder

  Khonsu lowered his eyes. “I'm sorry, Your Grace,” he said. The words stirred the shadows that filled the quivering air. “But crime goes beyond its victims and injures society. It's my duty to right any wrong I encounter, and in this matter I can't honor what you feel may have been his wishes.” He smiled then and added with an attempt at lightness, “Shall I go in fear of encountering his ghost, then, some dark night along the northern path?”

  Nebamun was gazing abstractedly before him with his hands folded. He looked. “Of all men in this city, Commander Khonsu, you have nothing whatever to fear from Neb-Aten, alive or dead.”

  The words seemed to hang and shimmer in the air. Khonsu drew breath to break the echoes when another voice spoke.

  “Your Grace, supper's being prepared, and I set the wine jars out to cool just as you ordered,” said a servant, hovering respectfully in the doorway. He seemed to have caught the undercurrents in the room, and was just on the edge of flight. “Will you taste the wine and tell me if it is satisfactory?”

  Nebamun looked thoughtful. “I'll come presently. I must speak with Master Sennefer first. As for you, Commander,” he said with a smile, turning back to Khonsu. “It would be best to narrow our patrols in the evening. Paser's done his worst, and while he didn't succeed in causing a mutiny or a stampede northward, he did sow some fear and that's bad enough. The men are nervous about ghosts, and I am chiefly concerned with the safety of the force. You and General Seti will ring the city securely with guards, but no one is to patrol farther than its outer perimeter.”

  “But any violated tombs—”

  “If they haven't been rifled yet, they aren't likely to be, this night,” Nebamun said. “They have gone this long without our protection. They can continue a few more days or weeks until I am satisfied that our group is truly at ease. Please convey my request to General Seti.”

  Khonsu acknowledged the command beneath Nebamun's courteous words. “At once, Your Grace,” he said.

  “And then return with General Seti and Captain Karoya,” Nebamun added. “I have ordered a feast tonight. I would be pleased if you would sit at my table.”

  “I am the one who would be honored, Your Grace,” Khonsu said.”

  Nebamun acknowledged the compliment with a smile and watched Khonsu turn and go toward the door. “And Commander...” he said in a soft and somehow dangerous voice that Khonsu had not heard before.

  “Your Grace?”

  “Would you be good enough to send someone to find Master Mersu and tell him I wish to speak with him at once?”

  XXVII

  “I can't understand why Your Grace is allowing that criminal to be here,” Sennefer said that evening as he extended his cup to be filled again. “He was found with stolen goods, he's disruptive and quarrelsome, and he's in disgrace!”

  He drank and then set down his cup, his gaze straying to Paser, who sat among the lesser officers and the men-at-arms, surrounded by Seti's men and scornfully ignoring them. He no longer wore a badge of rank; the skin that had once been hidden beneath the bronze plaque shone lighter than the rest of him.

  “I want him where I can keep my eye on him,” Lord Nebamun said.

  “I have heard the things he's been telling everyone since yesterday,” Khonsu said.

  “He's striking back at something he sees as an injustice,” Seti said with contempt. “He's too big a fool to see that he brought it on himself!”

  “There are plenty lots of fools around,” muttered Mersu, draining his cup. He seemed somehow subdued, and even a little afraid, but he had eaten his share of the beautifully prepared meal without any trouble, washing them down with liberal pulls at his cup, which was kept well filled.

  Khonsu raised his own cup and drank. It was the best wine he had tasted in years, finer even than what had been served at his wedding feast, lightly sweetened with strong honey and made aromatic with spices.

  He paused in surprise. For the first time in months he had remembered his marriage with nothing more than regret that it was ended. He lifted his cup secretly to Nebamun and drank, gazing out over the throng of feasters, his eyes settling again on Paser.

  He felt a twinge of sympathy for the man. He deserved all that had happened to him, but Khonsu could understand how a man like Paser might feel that he had been wronged. Realizing that his youth had left him. Pushed aside in favor of a younger man, made to serve under a younger man whom he probably considered his junior in ability. Caught in a theft of shameful pettiness and publicly stripped of his rank. And now, virtually a prisoner, being forced to watch those he hated as they ate and drank around him.

  Poor foolish man, Khonsu thought.

  A sudden stir jolted him from his thoughts. Paser was on his feet with a knife in his hand.

  Khonsu did not hear what Ptahemhat was saying, but he saw the twist of Paser's expression as his blade came sweeping upward. Ptahemhat yanked his own knife from its sheath and arched away from the stroke. The men around them scattered, though Ruia, hovering nearby, looked as though he were trying to find a way to separate them.

  “Clear away from them!” someone shouted, and the circle about the two men widened. Paser was twenty years older than his adversary, and he had put on extra flesh, but he was powerful with the madness of jealousy. He feinted again.

  Perineb was on his feet. “Put that knife away, Paser!” he commanded.

  “It'll be your turn next, eunuch!” Paser spat.

  Bronze clashed against bronze above the thud of feet upon the stone floor and the rasp of quickened breathing.

  Nebamun had risen with the rest. Plucking Seti's dagger from his belt, he descended the dais of the table in a leap and moved between the two combatants with well-trained ease.

  Paser's reddened eyes, wrenched away from his opponent, saw Nebamun and blazed into fury. “Ah!” he purred and redoubled his attack.

  Ptahemhat, blocked, stepped back as Nebamun's dagger flashed and darted in a parry that broke the force of Paser's lunge, deflected it to the side, and sent the man stumbling to his knees. In an instant Nebamun's knife point was digging into Paser's throat; Paser, staring up at him along the line of glinting bronze, subsided against the ground with a curse.

  The flurry of motion had passed. The diners slowly relaxed from their shock-rigid poses. A hastily emptied wine cup clicked against a table. A drawn dagger was sheathed with a sigh of metal against wood.

  “I don't permit brawling in my household,” Nebamun said coldly. “Drop the knife!”

  Paser obeyed.

  “Now stand up like a man and take yourself out of my sight! You're too foul for killing!”

  Paser picked himself up. “Doing it too brown, Your Grace!” he snarled. “You've given me orders for the last time! There's no justice with you! I'm through with you and all of yours!”

  “You brought your fate upon your own head,” Nebamun retorted. “Be glad that your punishment has been so light!”

  “A pretty speech!” Paser spat. “It's easy to talk when you have goons to do your dirty work for you!”

  Two of Nebamun's personal guard shifted and muttered.

  “He just beat you to your knees with no help from anyone else!” Ptahemhat flared.

  Paser flung him a look of scorn. “He had precious little help from you, Mama's boy!”

  “Mama's boy!” Ptahemhat yelled. “You fat, old—”

  “Hold your tongue, Ptahemhat!” Nebamun commanded. “And you, Paser, had better keep—”

  “Better keep what?” Paser sneered. “What more can you do to me than you and your pretty boy between you have already done?”

  Ptahemhat's eyes were blazing. “'Pretty boy'!”, he repeated.

  “I mean 'catamite'!” Paser hissed through his teeth. “Do you want me to explain it to you in detail? The way you fondled yourself into favor!”

  “I'll kill you!” Ptahemhat choked, surging forward.

  Lord Nebamun nodded to two of his guards, who seized the younger man and held him fa
st while he cursed and tried to shake them off. Nebamun waited until Ptahemhat had subsided before he spoke again with cold incisiveness. “You, Ptahemhat son of Kaya son of Kenamun, will go to your quarters and reflect on learning not to react to every insult scraped together and flung at you by a beaten enemy!”

  He watched as Ptahemhat obeyed and then turned to Paser. “And now for you,” he said. “You listened to an insult from someone who had nothing to do with you. You took it to heart and let it fester. You chose to listen to your own demon of jealousy and take a minor assignment given to one of your subordinates as an offense. You could have lived your life out in peace, prosperity and honor at Memphis and died beloved by all, but you forced your way into this expedition and wasted no time in spreading discord and hatred. For the sake of the love I once bore you, and which I still have for the family that you have grieved and harmed by your evildoing, I put up with your envy and anger far longer than I should have. Now it is time to make an end. You will be escorted to your quarters and left under guard so that honest men may enjoy their wine and meat.”

  “I've served you well, though you've forgotten it!” Paser interrupted furiously. “If you were any part of a man you'd pay me off and let me leave!”

  “His Grace has just put you under arrest!” Seti cried.

  “His Grace heard me,” Paser said, turning to the Second Prophet. “If he has any honesty in him, he'll admit I've got a point.”

  All eyes turned to Nebamun, who had hooked a thumb at his belt and was looking Paser over in a cool, appraising manner. “So be it,” he said at last. “I won't have it said that I withhold a man's just desserts. I'll pay you off, Paser. I'll make sure you get everything you have earned.”

  He looked around the room until he located the expedition's scribe. “Take three guards with you, Hormin, and go with Paser to the storehouses. Measure out a generous supply of provisions. Give him, as well, a bar of gold in payment for the years he was a good commander, before he allowed jealousy of an imagined enemy to poison his mind. Provide bedding and a pack donkey, and then see him to his quarters. You, Paser, will be put upon the road north in the morning. I warn you: it'll go hard for you if you are found anywhere within this province after tomorrow.”

  “I pass no more nights beneath your roof, Temple-Rat!” Paser spat. “I leave tonight.”

  Nebamun eyed him ironically. “What?” he said. “And brave the ghost that haunts the passes at night?”

  Paser curled his lip. “Neb-Aten doesn't frighten me!”

  Nebamun lifted an eyebrow. “I wonder if you're being wise,” he said.

  “Puzzle it out as you please!” Paser sneered. “You're nothing to me now!”

  One of Khonsu's guardsmen standing beside the door shifted his stance and glared at Paser. “Just say the word, Your Grace,” he growled. “He can't talk to you like that! We'll clap him in shackles! That'll shut his foul mouth!”

  Nebamun was gazing thoughtfully at Paser, Seti's dagger still gripped in one hand. His mouth tipped in an unwilling smile, but he finally shook his head. “Thank you, Harwa,” he said. “But Paser can leave us this night and follow his own path to hell. The consequences will be on his own head.”

  He mounted the dais again and gave back Seti's knife with a word of thanks. He nodded to the rest. “Go now,” he said. “And follow your orders.” When Khonsu would have risen he said, “No, Commander. Stay here. The night is young, and we have plenty of wine.”

  Khonsu bowed, but he caught Ruia's eye and nodded toward the door. Ruia smiled and inclined his head, and then left quickly.

  ** ** **

  Khonsu sighed in his sleep and turned his head more comfortably upon his curved head-rest. The wine had been sweet and pleasant, and he had felt sleep stealing over him as the feast went on into the night. Delicious wine, soothing away all sad memories, all pain, all that grated on the soul and dulled the spirit...

  Somehow he had gotten to his bed, but through the warm, comfortable haze that seemed to envelop him he could remember, dimly, Nebamun's and Mersu's voices speaking with the ease and humor of old friends.

  ...you'd best get to bed, Mersu. Ptah's beard! What a sot you are! You were never like this when we were boys together!

  And Mersu's voice had said, I had no reason to be like this.

  He remembered Lord Nebamun's voice saying, You have no reason now.

  No reason, Khonsu thought, his mouth stretching in a smile. Except that wine is so pleasant. He wondered how Paser was. The warmth retreated a little with the thought.

  Aie, Nebti, how did we get from where we were then to where we are now?

  And the memory of Lord Nebamun's voice once again. On our own two feet, Mersu, and by our own folly.

  ** ** **

  By our own folly. The words circled drowsily in Khonsu's mind, and he did not know if he had dreamed them. And then, as he fell more deeply into sleep, a web of memories spun into a bright and terrible dream. He saw the flash of weapons, the glint of sun upon flesh, heard the clash of metal upon metal.

  ** ** **

  Two forms towering over the earth, their shoulders piercing the sky, their swords more terrible than lightning, circled with a movement as slow as time itself, as swift as thought. It seemed as though the combat contained within itself the essence of strife.

  He looked up and up past the thunder and clash of the blades, up into the shadowed, inhuman faces.

  Papa, I'm afraid.

  He could hear Sherit's voice in his ear, feel the light, hot clasp of her hand in his, as it had been on the morning of his departure from Khemnu, even as he caught a sudden, dreadful glimpse of the combatants and understood that what he was witnessing was not a play battle fought with weapons of reed, but a conflict as old as time and dire as destiny.

  Falcon-headed Horus lifted his glittering sword and closed with black-hearted Set. The weapons clashed together in a shower of red sparks.

  Don't be afraid, Sweetheart, Khonsu whispered as he had that morning. It is Horus the Avenger fighting Set, who murdered his father.

  But will he win? Sherit's dream voice asked softly. Will he win?

  He could see Horus moving with the elegant skill of Nebamun in the audience hall, could see the glitter of his sword parrying Set's circling stroke.

  Yes, Sweetheart, he heard himself saying with the absolute certainty that he had felt in Khemnu on that morning that seemed so long ago as the other combatant went crashing to his knees with the sound of falling mountains. Horus always wins.

  XXVIII

  The tomb builders had widened a natural opening in the rock to form the tomb's entry. It showed upon the starkly shadowed lines of the cliffs as a slightly darker patch, out of sight of the common path.

  “Here it is,” said Mersu. “Disturbed. And smell the smoke!”

  The men around him stirred and murmured, but no one argued with him. It would have been difficult to do so: the plaster of the entry, textured and tinted to match the surrounding rock, had been shattered, littering the ground with its fragments.

  “Light your torches,” Khonsu commanded. He looked up at Lord Nebamun, who was standing with his arms folded and gazing at the doorway with a smiling expression that seemed out of place with the past days' events.

  Nebamun's staff had awakened that morning with headaches and malaise that seemed out of proportion to the quality of the meal from the night before. Breakfast had been a morose affair, with Nebamun absent for once. Even Mersu, who had an amazing tolerance for strong drink, had been silent and withdrawn, though he had nodded pleasantly enough when Khonsu asked if he would still be willing to escort them to Neb-Aten's tomb.

  “The tomb, you say?” he had repeated. “Oh, aye... Whenever you wish. Just give me a moment's notice and I'm at your service.”

  The Second Prophet sent word that he would accompany them just as they were leaving. They had departed for the tomb after Nebamun had made his appearance, as spruce as ever, but somehow withdrawn and thoughtful.r />
  They traveled by chariot despite Mersu's assurances that it was only a short walk. “I am tired,” Nebamun said. “I don't choose to fatigue myself further. But don't let me keep you from your chosen form of exercise.”

  Now Khonsu accepted a lit torch from Karoya and stepped forward into the tomb. Shapes leapt into being around him, jumbled boxes, chests flung open and overturned, a tangle of garments, smashed and scattered pottery shards everywhere beneath a gauzy pall of smoke.

  The decorations on the wall, depicting Neb-Aten's life, seemed to mock the disorder around them. Army camps bustling with soldiers and foreign envoys, the court of Akhenaten, with the king himself showering the young man with golden necklaces while his father, the Prince and Vizier Nakht, looked on. Farther into the tomb, Neb-Aten, trim and elegant in a courtier's robes, adored the gods and walked hand in hand with Osiris and Hathor to the judgment hall.

  The beautifully carved and painted reliefs were as fresh and crisp as the day they were finished by the sculptors. Neb-Aten's carved features were elegant, serene, and indistinguishable from a thousand other such representations.

  “The faces are intact,” Seti said. “How odd that no one tried to mutilate them.”

  “Why should they waste their time?” Nebamun asked. He was standing a little apart, by a seated limestone statue. “Only see what they have done here.”

  Khonsu raised his torch and went over to the statue. The torch dipped as he gasped in dismay and took a half-step forward.

  The life-sized statue was carved of dense, creamy limestone from the Akhet-Aten hills, and painted the hues of life. Neb-Aten, sitting with the monumental stillness of a god, hands flattened upon his thighs, chin lifted, seemed ready to rise and walk from his tomb. But the sight was sickening, for the face framed by the flowing lines of a heavy, formal wig was no more than a flat expanse of white stone, with an area of crushed, sparkling crystals where a forcefully swung maul had caught and sliced it away from the rest of the body, leaving the statue to stand as mute and enigmatic as a carved and painted riddle.