I showed the mace to Sabu. “Behold the instrument of your death.” I stroked it with my fingertips, kissed it. Then I turned, faced the crowd, held it high so all could see. More cheers. Bloodlust was running high. I turned around. I studied Sabu one last time. I resisted the urge to use the mace myself. I handed it to Iry.
Iry took it. He bent at the waist. He twisted his fingers in Sabu’s hair, yanked him upright.
Sabu whimpered louder.
Iry straightened. He raised the mace high in his right hand.
“For Father, and Hetshet, and Pentu and Pabasa,” I told Iry, sudden tears rolling down my cheeks.
“For Tamit,” Iry told me.
He swung the mace with all his strength against the side of Sabu’s head.
Brain matter exploded onto both of us and the ground. I didn’t care. Iry was strong; for a moment he kept Sabu upright. Then he let go of Sabu’s hair and my half-brother toppled face down onto the ground, the mace embedded in the side of his head.
“Thank you, Iry,” I sobbed.
“Burn his body,” Scorpion commanded his chief guard sharply. “Scatter his ashes. Give Sabu the eternal death.”
While everyone else followed Scorpion from the court to Nubt’s per’aa or back to their homes, Nofret and Heket and Iry and I seated ourselves on the dais beneath the sunscreen. Soldiers carried wood into the court and erected a pyre and doused it with oil. Then the four of us tossed Sabu’s corpse onto it. Using a torch, I lit the pyre on fire. Then we watched, wordlessly, for hours, as the flames slowly devoured Sabu and black smoke rolled towards the heavens.
Late in the afternoon, after the pyre had burned out, Scorpion’s soldiers scraped the ashes into a large earthenware jar and gave it to me. I led Nofret and Heket and Iry to Nubt’s burial ground south of the settlement’s walls, atop two gravel ridges in the middle of a wide wadi that reached from the western plateau to the river. Hundreds of pits marked the ridges, where brush and dirt mounded over graves had collapsed with time. I glimpsed a few beads and such in the dirt, reminders that most of the graves had been robbed at some point in the past. Father’s grave lay in the midst of forty or fifty large graves in a section of the cemetery where Nubt’s elites were buried. Because Sabu had wanted to portray the fiction that Father had been murdered by Pentu, he’d buried him in an elaborate grave during a ceremony that I’d been forced to attend. I’d never learned what had happened to Pentu and Pabasa and Baki; I assumed Sabu had dumped them in the river.
The four of us took turns grabbing handfuls of ashes from the jar and tossing them high into the air so the wind could scatter them. Night was falling; the western sky was painted yellow and orange and red. The wind was warm, the distant river gurgling softly. It was a good day to be alive. When we could grab no more ashes I turned the jar upside down to empty what remained. Then I smashed the jar against a rock. It shattered into a hundred pieces.
I gazed over the darkening cemetery, tears streaming again down my cheeks. “Hetshet.” I said. “Pentu. Pabasa. Father. Nofret. Heket.”
“Matia,” Nofret and Heket said in unison.
“Heria.” A sob escaped Iry’s lips. “Tamit.”
“You are avenged,” I whispered to the spirits of the dead.
We walked back to the settlement as stars began winking into the sky, my arms around Nofret and Heket, theirs around me. At long last, Sabu was no more. My long-delayed revenge was complete.
***
Iry and I sat on the heights overlooking Nekhen, basking in the glow of the setting sun and a warm gentle breeze. The boat in which our royal party had traveled south from Nubt bobbed in the distant river. Reflecting the sky, the water was beginning to take on gold and yellow and red. Behind us, Abar’s and Neith’s voices echoed from the cleft that held Tiaa’s kiln. They were playing with the shards that littered the ground. Iry had brought his daughters here to show Abar the etching on the rock of the first Abar’s body aboard the boat headed towards the star. She’d been solemn and suitably impressed.
All the members of Scorpion’s house, except for Mekatre and Nebta, had arrived here two days ago. Mekatre had remained in Nubt to begin transitioning the settlement to Scorpion’s rule. The rest of us had sailed for Nekhen the day after Sety confirmed Scorpion as king of both Tjeni and Nubt in an elaborate ceremony in the sacred court. Sety had placed the red crown of Nubt on Scorpion’s head, then removed it and replaced it with the white of Tjeni. He’d touched the talisman given his family by the falcon god to Scorpion’s brow, giving him the god’s blessing. I’d been standing next to Scorpion on the dais; Sety had turned and touched the talisman to my belly as well.
We’d come to Nekhen to deliver Heket to King Khab, as Iry had promised. But her stay here was going to be a short one – last night Scorpion had demanded that Heket be given to Iry as wife. That after he’d told Khab that he might or might not let Kama return to Nekhen to succeed Khab after he died. Scorpion’s unspoken message had been clear – Iry was going to be Nekhen’s next king. The marriage made sense from Scorpion’s perspective. By default, Tjeni was going to peacefully gain control of Nekhen, either through Iry’s marriage, or through Kama’s to Scorpion’s daughter Weret. Khab’s acquiescence to Scorpion’s demand meant he had for all intents and purposes yielded his authority to my husband. Though Khab would continue to rule Nekhen independently, from today he’d hold his throne at the pleasure of Scorpion and his house.
Neither Iry nor Heket had been pleased with their forced marriage. Neither had been in a position to refuse. Heket would be traveling back to Tjeni with Iry. Until he took over Nekhen’s throne, Iry was going to oversee daily affairs in Tjeni whenever Scorpion was residing in Nubt.
“I’m truly sorry Scorpion forced you to marry Heket,” I said.
“Father commands. I obey.” Iry said it without enthusiasm.
“Maybe your marriage to Heket was fated, Iry. Remember Sety’s prophesy.”
“Sety’s prophesy is growing in your belly.”
“Half of it. Don’t you remember the rest? My descendant’s supposed to marry someone from Nekhen. Their child will rule the valley. You’re positioned to be king of Nekhen after Khab dies. Maybe my descendant and your descendant are the two who’ll marry.”
Iry shook his head no. “Heket and I will never have a child, Matia. I’d never force myself on a woman who doesn’t want me, and she doesn’t. The night you and Nofret were alone in the hut with Sabu? I heard every word Nofret said as she kicked him. I’m sure Heket experienced everything Nofret did. The kindest thing I can do for her is not force her to be my wife for real.” He looked off in the distance. “Besides, no one will ever have my heart after Tamit.”
More lilting laughter from behind us.
“Do you remember the day we discovered this kiln?” I asked Iry.
He idly tossed a stone that disappeared over the edge of the terrace. “Hard not to, being here again.”
“Sabu had just murdered Hetshet. I’d just devoted my life to making Sabu pay for that.”
“And now he has.”
“He’s dead and I’m not sure of my purpose in life anymore.”
Iry gazed at my belly. “Isn’t it obvious? To raise your child. To make Sety’s dream come true.”
“That’s not enough for me, Iry.”
“Tamit was prouder of raising our daughters than anything else she ever did, Matia. And she did some very impressive things.”
“That’s just it, Iry. You allowed Tamit to truly live. You let her dream and helped her make her dreams come true. I’ve never experienced that kind of support, that kind of freedom. Scorpion’s getting old, Iry. I’ll be passed on to another man when he dies – maybe a decade from now. Maybe sooner. I won’t have a choice who it is. I’ll die knowing I never was what I was meant to be.”
“Nubt’s ruler.”
“It’s what I’ve prepared for my whole life.”
“You made that crystal clear the first time we were here.”
“I know I’ll never rule Nubt, Iry. But I could help Tjeni smoothly absorb Nubt if Scorpion would let me. None of you Tjeni royals may believe it, but the elites really do love and respect me. You have no idea how many told me they were ashamed they’d let Sabu treat me so terribly when he forced me to taste his food. After how he’d ravaged my family they were afraid of him. But now, if they saw me ‘falling in line’ behind Scorpion, they would too. Especially since I’m carrying his child.”
“Mekatre will never let you help him,” Iry said bluntly.
“He’d have to if the king ordered him to.”
“Father won’t.”
“Scorpion won’t always be king. Some day you might.”
“I won’t. Father will name your child his heir.”
“Do you really think so, Iry?”
“How can he not? Only your son with Father can fulfill Sety’s prophesy.”
“What if I give him a girl, Iry? Or what if I give him a son but Scorpion dies when he’s too young to rule? Convince me you don’t want the crown under either circumstance.”
“Of course I want it, Matia. Very much. I’ve worked hard to make Father see I’m the best choice to succeed him.”
“You want more than Scorpion’s crown, don’t you, Iry? You want to unite the entire valley. Thinking Sety’s dream referred to you and me set you on that path, didn’t it?”
“Only Tamit and Sety knew my true ambition, Matia. Yes, for years I’ve considered the South to be a steppingstone. Just like founding Ineb-hedj was. I have strong ties in the South and the North. Neither Lagus nor Mekatre do, despite their marriages. For centuries, beginning with my ancestress Abar, the gentle breeze of unification has been blowing through this valley. By capturing Nubt, Father’s unleashed a hurricane.”
“Weak kings will be blown away before it.”
“And men like Lagus and Mekatre.”
“If my son’s too young when Scorpion dies one of them is going to be king unless you claim the crown.”
“I don’t have the support of Tjeni’s elites, Matia. Without that I can’t possibly leapfrog my brothers. It’s too late for me. We both have to hope your son’s of age when Father dies and can take the throne in his own right.”
“Why are you so set on staking Tjeni’s future on an unborn child, Iry?”
“Your child proves Sety’s dream is going to come true, Matia. The unifier will be one of your descendants, not me. I knew the night you showed up in Father’s audience hall and he took you to wife that my dream of being king was dead. I knew then that my role was to pave the way for your descendants to unify the valley. I’m content with that, Matia. I’ve made my peace with the falcon god’s will.”
“Neither Lagus nor Mekatre will ever yield to my son, Iry. The day Scorpion dies they’ll kill him and me.”
“They’ll fight each other for primacy first,” Iry said. “I give the edge to Mekatre. Lagus has already turned Ineb-hedj’s elites and the delta’s elites against him. He has no supporters besides a few of Tjeni’s elites. Mekatre’s base isn’t any wider, but he has ambition enough to seize the throne.” Iry took hold of my hand. “I promise you, Matia – neither of my brothers will harm you or your son. I’ll protect you both. I’ll make sure your son sits Father’s throne when it’s his time. That’s the purpose of the rest of my life.”
***
We spent a week in Nekhen after the coronation, then returned to Nubt. Iry and Heket sat side by side in the pavilion amidships, portraying their mutual fiction that they’d fallen in line with their fathers’ agreement. Kama and Weret sat with us too. They’d come with us over King Khab’s heated protests. Scorpion had reiterated that Kama was going to live permanently in Tjeni. The unspoken message was clear – Kama was a hostage, and Scorpion was going to use him to control the succession in Nekhen to favor Tjeni. What could Khab do? Abandon his son and resist? Unless Scorpion allowed Khab to send his trade goods north, Nekhen would be completely isolated. The lesson of Maadi was clear. Do what Scorpion wanted, or disappear. As Scorpion had noted as we watched Nekhen disappear behind us, he was for all practical purposes now king of the entire South. And, as his wife, I was the most powerful woman in the world. Trouble was, I didn’t actually have any power.
Nubtians gazed at us, sullen and frightened, as Scorpion and the rest of the royal party and I walked up the street that led to the walled southern section of Nubt and the per’aa. We’d barely passed through the gate when a woman angrily confronted me. Renut, Parahotep’s wife, my cousin.
“You promised nothing bad would happen to us! You promised our lives would be better once Sabu was dead!” Renut broke into tears.
“What’s happened?” I demanded.
Renut was sobbing too hard to answer. She pointed.
What I saw made me physically sick. Six bodies, blackened and bloated from heat and sun, flyblown, hung from gibbets set directly in front of the per’aa. The remains were barely recognizable. Parahotep. Bebi. Hor. Huni. Ankhaf. Buneb. My cousins. The men who’d risked their lives to help me kidnap Sabu. The men Scorpion had restored to elite status and given sticks of authority. We’d been gone from Nubt for three weeks. Why had Mekatre turned on them and executed them? Why had he so publicly humiliated them?
“By the gods!” Iry said softly. He’d recognized them too. He turned swiftly to Heria. “Take my girls back to the boat. Right now! Don’t let them see.” As an afterthought. “Heket too.”
Mekatre stepped out of the per’aa. He saw us. He was dressed like a king, wearing the red crown. He was pushing the limits of his authority. His entourage spilled out of the door behind him. A girl quickly extended a sunshade over his head. He smiled. “Welcome back, Father!”
I cast propriety aside. I rushed to him. I confronted him. “What have you done!”
Mekatre’s smile faded. “I don’t answer to you, Matia. You’re just Father’s wife. I rule Nubt. Not you.”
“Why did you hang these men, Brother?” Iry asked sharply as he joined us.
“Answer.” Scorpion was beside us, his anger barely contained.
Not the reaction Mekatre had expected from his father. His face reddened. “They’re traitors,” Mekatre blustered. “Every last one! I was informed that Bebi and these others were planning to kill me and seize Nubt for themselves while you were in Nekhen, Father. I executed them to send a message.”
“Who informed you?” I demanded.
“None of your business.”
“Answer my wife!” Scorpion ordered.
“One of the elites. Ani, if you must know.”
“You fool!” I practically screamed. “Head of the family that was loyal to Sabu! Commander of Sabu’s army! Ani tricked you into killing off his rivals – the very men who risked their lives to capture Sabu with me!” I laughed at Mekatre hysterically. “Ani used you to avenge Sabu!”
“No one tricked me. It’s your word against Ani’s,” Mekatre said sanctimoniously.
“You’re too stupid to know who’s telling the truth and who’s lying to manipulate you!”
Mekatre’s brow furrowed in anger. He clenched his fists. If I hadn’t been his father’s wife he’d have hit me. Maybe hanged me too. “What’s done is done. A little fear will go a long way. Nubt’s elites will obey me without question from now on. Lapwings too. They know the consequence if they don’t.”
I was aghast. “Husband, what are you going to do about this?”
Scorpion shrugged. “What do you want me to do, Matia? I can’t bring them back to life.”
I wanted him to string Mekatre up beside the dead. I wanted him to strip rule of Nubt from Mekatre and give it to me. I wanted him to make Mekatre pay for what he’d done. But Scorpion wasn’t even pretending to care. He held his throne by fear and coercion; he likely expected Mekatre to rule the same way. That these dead men had made Scorpion king of Nubt without any cost to him didn’t matter. He didn’t know them. They were expendable. I, on the other hand, knew and loved every single m
an. And their wives and children. “Send Mekatre somewhere else,” I demanded.
“You know I can’t, Matia,” Scorpion said patronizingly. “I’d look weak. After what Mekatre did any sign of weakness could lead to rebellion.”
“More idiocy by Mekatre will definitely lead to rebellion, Husband.”
“Watch your mouth!” Mekatre snarled. “Tjeni’s your home now. Nubt’s not your concern.”
“Since Matia’s son will rule Nubt, it is her concern,” Iry told Mekatre. He addressed Scorpion. “Father, switch Mekatre’s and my roles. Let me stay here and try to set things right when you go back to Tjeni. Let him run Tjeni for you.”
“I’m king here. I’ll not have you interfering,” Mekatre spluttered.
“You’re not a king. I am,” Scorpion said sharply. He turned to Iry. “Tjeni’s the more important settlement. I need you there.”
“Father, I can’t be in Tjeni right now. I need more time.”
“Tamit?”
“Yes, Father. It’s only been seven months. It’s too soon for me to go back.” He lowered his voice. “I accepted the marriage to Heket. Let that be enough for now.”
Scorpion nodded, reluctant. “I understand, Iry.” He straightened. “Very well. You can stay – for now. You’ll rule Nubt in my absence.”
“This isn’t fair!” Mekatre protested. “You promised me Nubt, Father.”
“And you’ve already made a mess of it. Be content with Tjeni,” Scorpion replied.
“Leave Sety here too, Father,” Iry suggested. “And Matia. She can help turn this situation around.”
I was stunned.
“You expect me to leave my wife behind, Iry?” Scorpion wasn’t happy at the prospect. He enjoyed our marital bed.
“Just until after your child’s born, Father. Face it – we had one chance to peacefully absorb Nubt into Tjeni. That’s gone. Thanks to Mekatre, Tjenians are going to be treated like occupiers for years to come. Elites aren’t going to trust me. They’ll trust Matia. I need her here to make a start.”
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