‘My question first. What do you remember of that night?’
I looked at her. I had been only around six years old, but I still remembered every moment.
The night of the intrusion was still. A quiet night. I’d been lying in bed straining to overhear my parents talk. My father had been informed of unfamiliar faces appearing in town. Merchants, they said they were, but they traded precious little. He believed that these new faces were affiliated to the tomb-robbers, and that they’d set up camp somewhere in the desert outside the township, as was Menna’s usual practice.
To me, such information was priceless. With the rumours of Menna’s coming I was suddenly in great demand, my friends Hepzefa and Sennefer (but not Aya, who had yet to enter my life) badgering me for information on a daily basis: was it true that Menna planned to march on Siwa with an army of tomb robbers? Was it true that the points of his sharpened teeth were tipped with poison? I enjoyed the attention. Being the protector’s son certainly had its advantages.
Even so, mine was a fitful sleep. In my dream I stood before rocks, looking into a cave, and inside I saw eyes gleaming, a flash of white teeth in the oppressive dark. A rat. And then another. And another. As I watched, the cave seemed to fill with a heaving, writhing oily mass of bodies. They crawled on top of one another, each one trying to rise to the top of the pile, the shape of them shifting and bulging, more and more eyes appearing in the darkness. The noise of them, that scratching, scuffling sound, seeming to increase in intensity until …
I was waking. Only the noise of the rats did not disappear along with my dream. The noise was in the room with me.
It came from the window.
Now I jerked upright in bed. There was something out there, and at first I thought it might be a rat or … no, too big for a rat. Maybe a dog.
Then again, no. A dog didn’t sound this way. A dog wasn’t stealthy.
There was somebody out there. My eyes went to the screen at my bedroom window, and at first I thought it was moving in a breeze, but then I saw fingers. Knuckles. A hand carefully feeling its way inside.
Now I saw the face and upper body of a man as he eased himself through the aperture and into my room. His eyes gleamed evilly and between his teeth was a curved knife.
I scrambled out of bed as he drew himself up, and though my instinct was to run, and my brain was screaming at my legs to move, I couldn’t make it happen, couldn’t do anything – move, scream, shout, anything – and what prevented me from doing anything was fear.
The intruder had one crooked eye, wore a dark, dirty tunic and a striped cloak that reached down almost to the ground, flapping slightly in the breeze from the window. When he took the knife from between his teeth, he was grinning, but instead of the sharpened black wooden teeth I expected to see, his were normal – broken and dirty, but nothing like the deadly weapons my friends and I talked of in the streets of Siwa.
He put a finger to his lips to hush me, and still I wanted to run but my feet wouldn’t move, and I stood rooted to the spot as he took a step into the room towards me, light dancing on the blade he held, the knife moving toward me, entrancing and hypnotizing me just as though it were a swaying, hooded cobra.
I opened my mouth. Or, to be more precise, I felt my mouth open, and knew I had taken a first important step, my mind telling me that if I could do that then surely I could force a scream.
If I could just overcome my fear.
He took another step closer. Finger still at his lips. From outside I heard the whispers and muffled footfalls of more men arriving and I thought of my mother and father asleep in the other rooms and I knew the danger they were in.
And now, at last, I felt the scream bubbling up reaching my mouth, about to escape from my lips, when from behind me came my father’s shout as he entered my room. ‘I see!’ he bellowed, ‘So your master sought to silence me.’
The effect was instantaneous. The intruder reared back, the grin slipping from his face as he shouted, ‘Strike!’ and darted forward at the same time.
I turned and saw a second man appear in the doorway behind my father. ‘Papa!’ I called, and my father swung, meeting the new intruder with his sword, drawing first blood, a twist of the wrist proving fatal for his attacker. He dropped to one knee and span back to face front, blade arcing to parry an attack from the first intruder. Still rooted to the spot, I felt warm droplets of blood spatter my face.
My father was too quick for the crooked-eyed intruder, who took two quick steps back, the element of surprise lost, his knife a pathetic weapon against my father’s sword. At the same time my father reached for me, grabbing me by the upper arm and yanking me towards the door, where I stumbled and fell over the body of the second attacker.
From the house behind me my mother yelled, ‘Sabu!’ and my father turned, hauling me to my feet and pulling me into the house with him.
There, among the cushions and stools, was Mother, a blood-dripping bread knife in her hand, a dark, dangerous look in her eye and a body at her feet.
In the room was another man. A fourth was bustling through the door, armed, his teeth bared for attack. My mother called for me and I ran to her at the same time as Father surged forward to meet the two intruders – ‘Ahmose, get Bayek to safety,’ he cried, his sword swinging underhand.
In the next second one of the pair screamed and fell, his insides already spilling from his open stomach; the other yelled a curse and there was a ring of steel as their swords met. As my mother dragged me towards the bedroom, I saw my father duck and whirl, his sword held two-handed to meet two more invaders as they crowded into our house. The blade slashed, droplets of airborne blood in its wake. He wore an expression of almost serene concentration and, for a moment, even though we were besieged by killers, I had never felt safer or more protected.
The feeling evaporated. As Mother and I burst into the bedroom we found another intruder pulling himself to his feet, having climbed through the window. ‘Easy pickings,’ he said, grinning and bringing his blade to bear, but they were his last words, because my mother had taken two decisive steps forward and rammed the bread knife into his sternum before he had even brought his own blade to bear.
‘He was right,’ she said as he fell, and then pointed to the sleeping mat. ‘Stay there,’ she commanded, before raising her knife and flattening her back to the wall beside the window, twisting her neck to check outside. Satisfied nobody was there, she moved swiftly to the door, a contrast of bloodstained knife and elegant skirts that swished the floor.
There came a movement, a shifting shadow, and she raised the knife ready to defend herself again, only to relax at the sight of my father. His shoulders were heaving and he was bloody and drawn from battle, but he was alive. Outside in the dim light of our front room, I could see irregular shapes on the floor: the bodies of men who had fallen under my father’s sword.
‘Are you all right?’ said Mother, going to him, pawing at his tunic to peer beneath the bloodstained fabric for wounds.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘And you? Bayek?’ He looked meaningfully over her shoulder, at the corpse sprawled in their bedroom.
‘We’re fine,’ she told him.
He nodded. ‘Then I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘They will be striking at the temple hoping for relics, gold, offerings – whatever they can get their filthy hands on. They fear no gods; they don’t care if they offend the Oracle. It’s up to me to stop them.’
‘Will there be many?’ she asked.
‘Labourers mostly, the craftsmen he uses. The soldiers were sent here to deal with me. They expect me to be dead by now.’
With a warning to be on our guard, he left, and in the sudden quiet of our house – a house now seemingly littered with bodies – my mother sank against the wall and lowered her head. She rubbed her hands together as though washing, and I realized that she was trembling in the aftermath of combat, but aware that more men might come; that she might have to fight again.
&
nbsp; I thought of her stepping to the intruder and stabbing him – unhesitating, unwavering. For the first time that night I’d seen my parents spill blood. But while there was a sense that I’d been watching Father do his job and do it well – that keen sense of being protected I’d felt would stay with me – my mother seemed changed by it, as though ever aware of what lengths she would go to, to protect herself and her family. Over the years I would often see her studying her own hands, pensive yet oddly serene, and wonder if she was thinking back to that night.
Right then, though, I went to sit beside her. And in the moments before she roused herself and went to tell others what was happening, we comforted one another on the floor.
I ended my story, numb with the memory of it.
‘Your father foiled the assassination and saved the temple,’ said Rabiah. She had been peeling and pitting a date, and now she popped it into her mouth. ‘I was not there, of course, but from what he told me the gang had indeed begun its assault and many of those who worked at the temple were already dead. They would have stripped that holy place of its valuables, might even have killed the Oracle, were it not for your father’s interception.’
‘Was Menna there?’
‘Your father never told you?’
‘No, he never did.’
‘Menna was there, yes, but made his escape.’ Now Rabiah looked thoughtful as though considering before she next spoke. ‘That night changed everything for your father,’ she said at last. ‘He saw that night of violence through the eyes of his loved ones and began to question not only his own path but the one you yourself are destined to follow. He feared for you and became unwilling to train you for your role as protector; he began talking about wanting to shield you from violence. He would say you weren’t ready, that was his excuse – any excuse would do to not train you, we told him, Ahmose and I – but that was what he said.’
‘I was always ready. I wanted nothing more than to follow him.’
Rabiah raised an eyebrow, serious. She studied me for a moment, evaluating, with yet another of those piercing, all-knowing looks she managed so well.
‘Really? And how did you show that desire? What action were you planning to take to reconcile these two lives of yours: this “friendship” with Aya and your future as Siwa’s protector? What of her desire to return to Alexandria? What steps have you taken to assure your father that you are the right person to follow him into protectorship? That you would stay in Siwa, no matter what?’
‘I hoped …’
‘You hoped!’ She gave a full-throated laugh. ‘Not enough. What else?’
I shifted my weight, recognizing a battle that did not involve fist or weapon.
‘I have been a devoted son.’
She rolled her eyes and sniffed at me. That answer did not pass muster.
‘Not good enough. What else?’
I shook my head. ‘I might ask, what has he done to see that I’m right for Siwa?’
‘He’s full of doubts, Bayek,’ she said, stern and remote. ‘Doubts about you, about himself, about the way of the blade and the life supposedly mapped out for you. He needs convincing. After all, are you sure you want to follow in his footsteps?’
I rolled my eyes.
‘What?’ She said, sharply.
‘Aya said the same thing to me earlier.’
Rabiah’s expression flickered briefly, but I saw the approval there. I wondered what she thought of Aya’s dream, and mine, and how they might collide some day.
‘What was your reply?’
‘I said that I did.’
‘Ah, but that was then, when your father remained in Siwa. What about now?’
What if Aya leaves for Alexandria? remained yet unsaid.
‘I mean it now as I did then.’
My voice was certain, my back straight and my gaze steady. It was no longer a child’s dream. I could think of nothing else to do with my life.
‘He needed to see that. Perhaps then he could have changed his mind.’ She shook her head in exasperation and said something I’d heard my mother say before as well: ‘Perhaps what you both needed was your heads knocking together.’
I put a fist to my chest. ‘Then he failed to see what was in here.’
‘Perhaps he saw too much,’ said Rabiah simply.
That was not the answer I’d been expecting, and I was thrown off balance. Had it been combat, the victory would have been Rabiah’s right then and there. But I was used to discussing with Aya, arguing history and philosophy when she shared her studies with me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Doubts, doubts,’ she repeated, evading. ‘Perhaps what he saw was too important to him. Perhaps that’s the reason he could not see the lionheart inside.’
I looked at her sharply. ‘But you can?’
She nodded. ‘Indeed. In you I see the beginnings of a protector.’
‘Then why couldn’t he?’
‘Perhaps he just saw his son. And could see nothing else.’
‘Why did he leave?’ I asked her, changing the topic. Maybe an ambush would work, now. ‘Did it have something to do with Menna?’
She considered, her mouth moving slightly as though trying to dislodge bits of date from her teeth. ‘The truth is, I don’t know.’
‘But I saw him speak to you. He whispered to you. He told you the message, didn’t he?’
She shook her head, her frustration gleaming through. ‘He did not. He merely said it was too dangerous for me to know.’
I put my hands to my head. ‘Then what am I doing standing here? I must leave after the messenger at once.’
‘The messenger?’
‘He’s the only one who can tell us the content of the message.’
She held up a hand, smiling broadly all of a sudden, in spite of the worry lurking in her eyes ‘Wait. This river is not so easily forded. You think I’m going to be left to face your mother?’
She and mother were often allies, but when they disagreed … stories were told, in hushed whispers, of those epic verbal duels.
‘Besides,’ she continued, ‘there is more you should know. That night –’
‘No, no more. I must go. You can smooth things over with my mother, can’t you?’
Rabiah looked at me, eyebrow raised and a wry expression on her face.
‘Let’s hope so.’
7
‘No, he’s not leaving.’
My mother’s hands were at her hips, her face reddening as she looked from me to Rabiah and then back again. She and Rabiah had always been friends but for the moment that fact counted for very little.
‘Sabu has trained him; he learned his survival from the Nubians,’ insisted Rabiah. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back, trying to remain a calming presence.
‘But his training was not complete. Wasn’t that what Sabu said?’
‘It could be the making of him, Ahmose.’
My mother rounded on her. ‘Are you up to something?’
‘No,’ insisted Rabiah, although I saw her blink. ‘I want what’s best for your family and for Siwa.’
Mother frowned. ‘Hm, but maybe not in that order.’ It was not a reproach so much as simple acknowledgement – knowing and acceptance. ‘What have you told him? Come on, tell me exactly what you told Bayek about last night.’
‘I told him what Sabu said. That it was too dangerous for us to know why he was being called away.’
‘There was more. He must have told you more.’
Rabiah’s shoulders squared. I saw her hands clench behind her back. ‘I’m not lying to you, Ahmose,’ she said tightly.
I could tell my mother realized she had pushed a feather too hard. I stepped in, wanting to give them both a reason to retreat. ‘It’s all right,’ I told them. ‘Mother, Rabiah. It doesn’t matter why he left. I’ve made my decision.’
They turned their gaze on me: Rabiah poised, my mother shaking her head sadly – both of them knowing what was to come.
‘I’m goi
ng,’ I told them.
‘Just wait,’ said my mother quickly. ‘Wait. I don’t think this is what your father would want.’
‘Perhaps Sabu isn’t the best judge in this instance,’ said Rabiah with a wry expression.
My mother bit back whatever she had been about to say, and then nodded slowly to herself. Whatever Rabiah had meant, my mother had understood even if I hadn’t. ‘Rabiah, perhaps you should just go home and let me talk this out with Bayek,’ she said calmly.
Rabiah raised no objection, knowing my mother had reached a decision. They traded looks, the two of them conveying several competing emotions, then Rabiah fixed me with a meaningful stare and left.
‘You’re not ready,’ muttered my mother without much conviction. It was odd to hear those words from her when they usually always came from my father. She and Rabiah had always supported my desire to train as mekety, in spite of my father’s ire.
‘I’ll never be ready, at this rate,’ I told her, frustrated. ‘I want to go.’
‘This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I helped with your training.’ She sighed, shaking her head.
‘I don’t think anyone had this in mind.’ I was annoyed, though not at my mother, nor Rabiah. At my father, certainly, for leaving in such a high-handed way. At fate, for bringing this into our lives.
She smiled crookedly. ‘Look, give it some thought, that’s all I ask. Take the night to think it over, and if by morning you still want to go then I won’t stand in your way.’
Later that night I was lying on my mat, trying and failing to get to sleep, listening to the night, when she appeared at my door.
‘They can hear you sighing all the way to the temple,’ she said quietly. ‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you.’ A statement, rather than a question.
I nodded.
‘Then you should go now,’ she sighed, ‘while it’s cool and Siwa sleeps – and before I can change mine.’
She handed me a travel satchel, the contents of which I could guess: a waterskin and food, enough to give me a solid head start on my travels before I had to begin hunting for my survival.
Desert Oath: The Official Prequel to Assassin’s Creed Origins Page 3