Shadows on the Aegean (20 page)

Somewhere, in one of these lengths, there must be a doorway to the other path. Looking left, then right—there was no discernible
difference, so she opted for the right. I’ve been going left all night, she thought. Her breath was loud as she ran her hands
over the wall. There!

Chloe stepped back into the other section of the maze. Had she been here before? I’m going to carry chalk from now on, Chloe
announced in her mind. Sibylla was silent.

The paths were longer, the turns not so extreme. Chloe kept turning left, the distances growing shorter and shorter. It’s
a Greek key, she thought with relief. Running the last few passages, pushing herself off the walls into the next turn, she
arrived at the center just as the small clearing was flooded in moonlight.

Sweat clung to her, more from fear and nerves than exertion. She looked over her shoulders. She was alone. Stepping up to
the pavement, she saw the formula of the maze written in colored stone in the pavement. A Greek key around a five-pointed
star, the end of the key between the legs of the star.

That’s fitting, Chloe thought. The key is between the legs. Kela was definitely a fertility goddess. With a low laugh she
sank onto the cool grass.

She didn’t have to get back out, did she?

C
HEFTU SCHOOLED HIS FEATURES TO BETRAY NOTHING
. The court would be watching as he pulled away Senwosret’s bandages. This time he could not banish the observers. Everyone
would see. Or not, as the case may be. Swallowing carefully, he pulled back a layer of linen, thankful for the heavy shadow.
Reaching for a small lamp, its flame no bigger than his thumbnail, Cheftu waved the light before Pharaoh. Several swathes
of linen were still in place.

“Tell me what you see.”

“Brightness… flickers before me,” Praise Thoth, at least the surgery had not blinded him further! But had it healed him?

Cheftu held the light still. “Now, My Majesty?”

“It is before me. Standing.”

Cheftu knew the scales that had grown in Pharaoh’s eyes had thickened until his vision had narrowed into one small tunnel
of clarity. Finally the tunnel had closed, and Pharaoh had seen nothing. The tunnel was the vital part; the surgery should
have cleared and widened it, gods willing.

Ignoring the cold sweat trickling down his temples, Cheftu removed several more layers of linen. He tested again. The final
bandage dropped to the floor, and the light was extinguished. The court waited in breathless silence. “My Majesty, open your
eyes very slowly, very carefully.” He watched as the caked eyelids rose, revealing dark eyes.

Senwosret’s gaze was unfocused, his pupils dilated. Cheftu felt sweat run down his back. By the gods! What could he do?

“You are a young man, mage.”

Pharaoh could see!

The court erupted in sound. “Silence!” Cheftu shouted. “My Majesty, it will be several more days before your sight is clear
enough to stand Ra’s full power. You must keep in the shadows. You must not bend, or move your head rapidly.”

Senwosret smiled, his sagging jowls lifted slightly by the action. “So I live as a
kheft
for a few days! No matter. You have given me sight, mage!”

Cheftu allowed himself a relieved smile.

“In this court you have a new title, an honor and responsibility.” Senwosret lifted his hands, and the chamberlain handed
him the symbols of Egypt, the crook and flail. “From henceforth, this mage will be known as Necht-mer, Protector of Sight!
I vow, on the sacred head of Apis, that any desire of Necht-mer, up to a third of my kingdom, is his for the asking.”

Cheftu bowed, then thanked Pharaoh.

Senwosret took his hands, blinking back tears. “To see the faces of my grandchildren, this is a gift beyond understanding!
The gods’ blessings on you.”

Speared by the humility of the monarch, Cheftu could only nod as he turned and was greeted by the hordes of shaven and perfumed
courtiers.

Tonight Pharaoh was hosting a feast for the mage who had returned his sight. Cheftu, Necht-mer, had been awarded palace apartments
and given his choice of maidens. Even the perfumed limbs of a dozen different women couldn’t raise his attention. He had smiled
and thanked and sought blessed solitude. Imhotep came to see him, but Cheftu claimed to be resting. Ipiankhu invited him for
a stroll through the menagerie, but Cheftu declined.

Another time, another court. Cheftu sighed as he fingered the marks on his shoulder. The wound was not healing, and it hurt.
He drank another cup of wine. “Why” seemed so pointless to ask. Why here? Why trampled? Why apart from Chloe?

Why did he feel so ill at ease?

In disgust he threw his cup at the wall, watching the fragile alabaster shatter, staining the whitewash. The one moment of
gratification melted into a deep sense of regret, shame that he would treat his good fortune so callously. After tying on
his sandals, he left the palace, refusing guards,
slaves
, and bearers.

His steps took him through the rank gardens, past mosquito breeding pools and rotting flower beds. The gates from the palace
to the city were open, two young sentries on duty. They saluted him, and he felt a pang; even the Egyptian salute was different.

The road branched. He could walk toward the noblemen’s houses on the waterfront, or to the market clustered in the poorer
sections of town, with its sales of slaves and animals, fruits, vegetables, and goods, or toward the harbor. Cheftu set off
for the harbor, watching as the Egyptians haggled for fish, prostitutes flashed their wares with black-toothed smiles, and
children begged. His leg ached, yet his heart ached more. This was
not
Egypt.

Chaos ruled the waterfront. Men, cats, and children all raised their voices to Ra as they bargained and bartered and cheated.
Pulling his cloak over his head, Cheftu leaned against a wall, watching.

Papyrus boats bobbed in the water next to the riverboats with towering masts and center cabins. A nobleman’s barge, identifiable
by its gold-plated oars—what a ridiculous waste of gold—pulled in to dock. It was immediately surrounded with hawkers selling
overpriced food and pleasure, and children whose long black eyes camouflaged their plans to steal. Dockhands lowered a ramp,
and the party began to disembark.

The women came first, surely this generation’s flowers of Egypt, Cheftu thought. Their linen was finely woven, their
faces
protected by the sunshades and fans of their trailing slaves. Though they were beautiful, they were cold, aloof, and Cheftu
had no desire to see beyond their painted masks. A group of men followed; the famine had scarcely touched their toned, brown,
hairless bodies.

The owner of the ship, Cheftu guessed from the deference shown him, debarked last. He was a beautiful boy, a man, really,
but he walked with the hope of untried youth. Cheftu wondered if he’d ever been that young, that hopeful. Though he was only
thirty-two, he felt a thousand.

Only thirty-two in three time periods, he reminded himself; France, Hatshepsut’s Egypt, and now Senwosret’s Egypt.

Cheftu was sitting in a tavern, cringing at the bad beer, when the Aztlantu ships sailed in. The docks filled with silent
watchers as the huge, purple-sailed vessels dropped anchor and the Mariners came on shore.

Cheftu stared in astonishment at the ship. It was obviously not Egyptian design, nor did it resemble paintings he’d seen of
Greek triremes. Twenty oarsmen covered each side, and from the towering mast a square purple sail was now being lowered. The
prow and bow rose high out of the water at almost a ninety-degree angle. Along the waterline an artist had painted a wave
rippled with red and gold. Tritons of gold rose from the prow and stern. Shields rimmed the edge of the ship, the fronts now
turned inward as a sign of peace. Still, there was something familiar about the shields. Two circles atop each other, covered
in cow’s hide. Tall enough to cover a man even six feet in height.

Accustomed to being one of the tallest men in any time, Cheftu was surprised to see the Mariners were his height and taller.
Meat: they eat a lot of meat, Cheftu thought. They were built differently from the Egyptians, too: wasp-waisted and broad
shouldered with much larger bones. Next to them, the Egyptians looked like dainty children.

The Mariners marched in an orderly fashion. Their uniform seemed to be long braided hair, brief, brightly patterned kilts,
and codpieces. They wore strange boots that laced up to their knees.

Four of the black-haired Mariners carried a litter down the ramp. Cheftu swallowed hard when he saw the passenger. He was
white. Not just in skin color, but Anglo-Saxon in features, with a large bumpy nose and receding chin. Blond hair flowed over
the back of his chair, and his eyes were so intensely blue that Cheftu could see them from this distance. He was young, his
mostly bared body firm and golden skinned. He scanned the crowd coolly.

Cheftu had seen blonds in Egypt. Usually they were highly priced concubines from Hattai. But this man, with his sharp features
and prominent nose, he looked savagely English. “Who is that?” Cheftu asked the fishmonger standing next to him.

“Nestor, envoy from the empire,” the man said. “He was here a few weeks ago, and Isis knows why he’s back.”

“There is no famine in the empire?”

The fishmonger honked, a sound Cheftu took to be a laugh. “Nay. Aztlan’s streets are covered in gold, and they have a pyramid
that reaches the sky and blinds a man with its beauty.”

“Egypt too has gold,” Cheftu murmured. “It is not nutritious, however.”

“Aye, my lord. But in Aztlan they have fields that stretch for
henti
, as far as a man can see, waving with grain twice a year. They have orchards heavy with fruit, and the state gives every
man a concubine for a year.”

Cheftu grinned. Food and women, quite the fantastical empire. “If they have all of that, why is Nestor here?”

The man’s face grew solemn. “Pharaoh, living forever! alone knows.” He looked at Cheftu, noticing for the first time his fine
linen and muscled body. “Long may Senwosret live!” the fishmonger said, then scampered away.

Cheftu returned to the tavern and drank a few more cups of beer, his tongue numb to the taste now. In payment for his beer
he checked one of the children’s sores, rebandaged it, and bade the tavernkeeper’s family farewell. Walking through the courtyard,
he was surprised to see that stars were out. Another day and night alone in Egypt, he thought, and began making his way back
to the palace.

He needed to talk to Ipiankhu tomorrow.

Cheftu was ushered into the vizier’s chamber. Ipiankhu sat by a small table washed in sunshine from the clerestory windows.
Cheftu took the proffered seat and accepted a cup of beer.

The light glinted off the vizier’s chin and eyelashes. The man had auburn hair, Cheftu thought with astonishment. He had never
seen him without his full court attire, and now, sitting here with the barest of cosmetics, Cheftu could tell he wasn’t a
native Egyptian. “You asked to see me, my lord?” the vizier said.

Cheftu placed the ring on the man’s table. Ipiankhu frowned slightly, then picked it up. It was a two-sided swirl of pearl
and obsidian, inscribed in characters Cheftu had never seen. It had been in the parcel Chloe had received in Hatshepsut’s
Egypt, and he’d taken it from her … her corpse, he forced himself to think.