Year of the Hyenas (11 page)

“It’s where
they make
it. The god-skin.”

Semerket began
to
clamber back up to the pathway, finding it difficult to retrace his
steps up the mound of limestone shards. He spoke to the boy as he
ascended. “I don’t understand what you’re saying!”

“Every month
they
come.”

“Who?”

“The ones who
make the
god-skin. When Khons hides his face.” He was smiling.

“When there’s
no moon
…?”

The boy said
nothing.
Semerket remembered that there had been no moon for the past two days.

“Who are you?
Wait
there, please! I want to talk to you.”

Semerket
reached the
pathway and ran in the direction the boy had gone. He followed the
twisting road, hoping to catch a glimpse of the boy in the fissures
ahead. “Please!” he shouted into the air again. “Wait!”

There was only
silence. When Semerket reached the jutting corner of a crag, panting,
the boy was gone.

In his place
stood a
Medjay, spear lowered. His angry, red-veined eyes glared at Semerket
from his black face. Semerket had no choice but to slowly raise his
hands over his head.

WESTERNMAYORPAWEROfingered a fan of short plover
feathers. He kept his face slightly averted as if loathing the idea of
having to speak directly to Semerket. “You broke the law by going
there,” he told Semerket, “particularly without first presenting your
credentials to me. You’re lucky to be alive—the Medjays are instructed
to kill intruders on sight.” Pawero condescended to level a withering
glare at the Medjay standing at the back of the room, as if to accuse
him of failing in his duty to see Semerket standing alive before him.

The Medjay was
blinking, heroically attempting to keep awake. Tears of fatigue oozed
from his eyes. Pawero plucked at the fan, oblivious to the Medjay’s
drowsiness. He continued his harangue, “If every commoner were allowed
to roam—”

Semerket held
up the
vizier’s insignia on the chain of jasper beads. “The vizier has granted
me unrestricted access.”

Pawero’s cold
eyes
barely registered the badge’s existence, but his nervous fingers
continued to tear at his fan. “I shall tell Vizier Toh there cannot be
two authorities here in Western Thebes. I shall tell him the harmony of
Ma’at will be disturbed.”

Semerket
shrugged. “As
the mayor wishes.”

Pawero was
irritated
by Semerket’s indifference. Then he remembered what this Semerket had
said about him, and the laughter that had risen in the vizier’s
chambers when others had heard: “a pea-brained old pettifogger.”

Flushing
deeply at the
memory, pulling at the fan’s feathers, the Western Mayor tried another
tack. He smiled, his thin lips drawn back from his long, narrow teeth.
“I’m curious, clerk, how you managed to slip past the Medjay’s tower?”

Semerket saw
panic in
the Medjay’s red-veined eyes. Sleeping on duty incurred terrible
punishments for the Medjays, even dismissal from service.

Semerket
quickly
considered what his answer should be. “I… climbed to the high pathway
above the tower, lord,” he said after a moment. “I had seen a boy—a
prince—and was curious to meet him.”

Relief visibly
flooded
through the Medjay’s face. But Pawero’s next words made the black
policeman once again quiver in fear. “Then if this is true, Medjay Qar,
under your watch two strangers have been allowed entry into the Great
Place. What are we to think about this, eh?”

The Medjay
fell to his
knees, hands crossed against his chest. “There was no such boy, lord.
All the way from the Great Place this man told me how a prince appeared
to him. Yet when I examined the trail there were no footprints other
than his own. I thought he must be lying, or mad, and so I brought him
here.”

Pawero turned
to
Semerket with the same toothy smile. “I agree with the Medjay, clerk.
You don’t know the desert as we do; it’s a mystical place, able to
conjure hallucinations and mirages in naïve folk such as yourself.”

“It was no
mirage. The
boy and I spoke.”

Pawero was
unused to
being contradicted; his lips grew thin with suppressed rage. He fanned
himself furiously, only to find himself in a shower of floating plover
feathers. He threw the fan to the floor. “And what did this young
‘prince’ say to you, then?”

“That god-skin
was
being made there.”

The Medjay
stood up,
pointing an exasperated finger at Semerket. “I tell you there was no
such boy!”

Pawero made a
slashing
movement with his hand and the Medjay was silent. “God-skin?” Pawero
asked, looking directly at Semerket for the first time.

Semerket
nodded.

Pawero was
momentarily
taken aback and dropped his head to gaze at the floor of black basalt,
considering. After a moment, he looked up. His voice was doubtful. “The
skin of gods is gold,” he said. “Incorruptible. The purest material in
the universe. I cannot imagine what the boy meant—god-skin, gold,
cannot be ‘made.’ ”

“At least the
Lord
Mayor now acknowledges the boy spoke to me.”

Pawero
bristled. “I do
no such thing. It’s obvious you were merely under the desert’s spell,
nothing more. You imagined this so-called ‘prince.’ ”

Though
Semerket
remained silent, he radiated contempt for the mayor—for his overly
elegant garments, his elaborate wig whose tiny braids were woven with
droplets of gold, and most of all for his unrelenting hauteur. As far
as Semerket was concerned, Pawero was the essence of the empty-headed
nobleman.

Pawero’s
patience
broke at last. “I am well aware of your hostility, clerk. The feeling
is mutual. I know I’m just a ‘pea-brained old pettifogger’ to you—oh,
yes! I know that’s what you called me, don’t deny it—”

Semerket
silently
cursed his brother for having burbled that story.

“Nevertheless,”
the
Western Mayor continued, “on this side of the river I make the rules,
and you will do what I say.”

“I labor for
the
vizier, Lord Mayor. What you command does not affect me.” Semerket’s
voice was low.

This was too
much for
Pawero, who rose from his chair of state. “You! You with no family to
speak of—you will not talk to me this way! I shall not help you, sir.
No supplies will I give you. All whom I rule will be instructed to tell
you nothing. And when you die, may it be without shroud or tomb.”

Semerket was
unfazed,
and the black lights in his eyes were dancing. He understood human
beings well enough to realize that when Pawero threatened to inform the
vizier about him, the mayor had in fact exposed his greatest fear.
Semerket was quick to use the weapon. “Then I shall inform Vizier Toh I
suspect you of complicity, as Mayor Paser himself does. That you must
in fact be questioned more closely.”

Medjay Qar
regarded
Semerket with stupefaction. This was either the bravest man he’d ever
met, or insane. The Western Mayor was brother to Queen Tiya, the great
wife of Pharaoh. Did the clerk understand what he risked with his
unguarded tongue?

Pawero glared
at
Semerket. He rose tall from his chair, his face becoming even redder
than before. But he could not sustain his wrath; his expression
suddenly crumpled. He sat down to perch shakily on his chair again, his
rage burnt out as quickly as it had ignited. He sighed for a long time
before he spoke, looking at Semerket sideways from beneath his lids, as
if to gauge his effect on him.

“Paser is
wrong. This
crime troubles me—you don’t know how much. He uses this case to make me
look like a fool, particularly now that he’s caught my sister’s ear.
Even she, the great wife, clamors for justice. Tiya is convinced
catastrophe will come to us all because of this death, and urges me to
make an end of it. But what am I to do?”

Semerket
looked at him
evenly. “If you would solve this crime, then I must be allowed to
accomplish my task without interference from you or the Medjays.”

Another heap
of sighs
emanated from Pawero. He nodded. “Find who did this, clerk.” But his
kohl-rimmed eyes still glowed with a tired hatred.

Semerket
bowed. As he
turned to leave the room, Pawero spoke again. “Where will you go next?”

“To the
tombmakers’
village they call the Place of Truth. I will question the old lady’s
neighbors.”

“After you
have
questioned them, I would know everything they tell you.”

Semerket shook
his
head. “I cannot. What I learn must be a secret thing, to catch a
killer.”

Pawero
considered for
a long moment. Then the Western Mayor waved both Semerket and the
Medjay away with a weary hand. The last Semerket saw of him he was
slumped in his chair, staring at nothing.

Through the
vast,
high-ceilinged halls of Djamet the two men walked. Semerket stared,
never having been in a king’s residence before. The turquoise faience
tiles that lined the walls were luminous in the sun’s afternoon rays,
and the brightly painted pillars that supported the high ceilings were
too many to count. Gold and silver glinted from hammered vases full of
the last of summer’s blossoms. At the doorways and windows, fine
netting flowed with the afternoon breezes, keeping the swarms of black
Egyptian flies outdoors.

Djamet was a
temple
devoted to the worship of Amun-Ra, it was true, but it was also the
center of government for Western Thebes. Scribes, soldiers, servants,
and nobles hurried about, intent on their important tasks. Honor guards
formed from corps of Libyan mercenaries marched in formation, or stood
at the doors to Pharaoh’s private chambers, preventing entry. Semerket
was momentarily disappointed to see no women on the premises, for the
beauty of Pharaoh’s wives and their maids was legendary. He had
imagined a court full of pretty females, decked in flowers… sheer
muslins… musky perfumes…

“Where are
Pharaoh’s
women?” Semerket asked Medjay Qar. They were outside the hall of
audience, well into the outer alcoves where the craftsmen and priests
lived.

“Our pharaoh
is a
soldier and has a horror of allowing women to meddle in the affairs of
men. He confines them up there—in the harem—or in the gardens.”

Semerket
looked up to
where the Medjay pointed. On an enclosed balcony, high above the
ground, he saw the gauzy figures of Pharaoh’s wives peering through the
window slits. The harem was the responsibility of Naia’s husband,
Nakht, who because of his noble name had been appointed the steward of
the king’s royal wives. Semerket shuddered, remembering their last
meeting. Seeing the movements of the women behind the grating, Semerket
flattered himself that he was the object of their gazes. As if to
confirm this impression, faint, high-pitched laughter pursued him as he
made his way under the harem’s balcony to the temple’s entrance.

At the Great
Pylons,
Semerket spoke to Qar again. “It’s not true, you know, that I avoided
your tower this morning. I stopped there to present myself when I went
into the Great Place. Whoever was on duty was asleep; I heard the
snoring.”

He did not
wait for
Qar’s explanations or protests but started once again on the path that
led to the Gate of Heaven. Qar, his lower lip thrust out in shame,
hurried after him, saying nothing.

As they walked
the
stone road to the north, Semerket asked, as if idly, “Tell me, were you
Medjays on maneuvers last night in the Great Place?”

“No.”

“Any party of
mourners… officials taking inventory? Something of that sort?”

“No. I told
you. Why
do you ask?”

Semerket had
not the
heart to tell Qar that not only had both Semerket and the boy
trespassed into the Great Place, but at least six others had come and
gone there as well.

TENDRILS OF DISTANT CLOUDScaught the setting sun
as Foreman Paneb emerged from Pharaoh’s unfinished tomb. Wearily he
climbed the long flight of limestone stairs up to the tomb’s door. His
team had labored there for their customary eight days and now they
would pack up their gear and go home to the village for three days of
rest.

A flame flared
to his
left. Over in the company shed, the scribe Neferhotep was trimming the
wick on a candle. It was the scribe’s custom at the end of the work
period to compose a report to the vizier concerning the tomb’s
progress, whether he asked for one or not. The scribe casually looked
up, inadvertently glancing at Paneb. No unspoken communication was made
between them, no gesture of deference or greeting uttered. Neferhotep
leaned forward and pulled the curtain shut.

The two men
had never
gotten along. It was ironic that now, thanks to the tomb and their high
rank within the Place of Truth, they were bound together closer than
brothers. Paneb admired how Neferhotep never let their current alliance
stand in the way of their mutual disregard.

Hearing his
men’s
footsteps on the tomb’s stairway behind him, Paneb turned to welcome
their paint-splotched forms into the fading light. “Going home to that
pretty wife of yours tonight, eh, Kenna? We won’t be seeing you for a
day or two…. Kofi, get some sleep these next days, you’re looking
tired…. Getting drunk tonight, Hori? Good man…”

Though his
words were
cheerful, Paneb was not. Since the day when his aunt Hetephras was
reported missing, misery had been his only companion. Nothing cheered
him.

Paneb was the
foreman
of Pharaoh’s tomb, a large, solid man of prodigious strength and
mercurial temperament. Though by no means handsome, for his nose was
smashed from fights with other foremen, his presence was mesmerizing.
Paneb’s status in the Place of Truth was more like that of a folk-hero
than a real person. Seeing him so unnaturally subdued caused his crew
to regard one another with concerned frowns.