Year of the Hyenas (40 page)

A cry from
above
echoed through the canyon. “Get him!” shouted Nakht. “He’s in the wadi!”

Semerket ran.
He had
no idea where he went, for in his fall from the cliff he had lost all
sense of direction. He splashed through the newly created brooks and
pools, following the bend of the valley floor. He turned his head to
see if anyone followed him, but the patter of the rain and the cascades
of water from the cliffs above prevented him from hearing anything
else. Suddenly he was on his face. Something— or someone—had tripped
him. When he tried to rise, rough hands held him down.

“We’ve got
him!”

The voice
belonged to
the northern beggar, Noseless. He was pulled to his feet by many hands,
and his arms were pinned behind him. Though he struggled, he could not
free himself; there were too many of them.

Accompanied by
a surge
of mud and gravel, Nakht worked his way down the cliff, half sliding,
half leaping to join them.

“He’s a snake,
this
one,” said Nakht, “always slithering away to hide behind some rock.”

“Well,” said
Noseless,
fingering the knife in his belt and walking confidently toward
Semerket, “he won’t be slithering away again.” The beggar assumed a
wheedling stance, hunching his shoulders, and whining in mock
piteousness, “A tiny dablet of cash, kind sir? Some silver? A piece of
copper? What about
this
piece—?” Noseless whipped the dagger
from his belt, and
looked back to his beggars to see if they enjoyed the joke.

Neferhotep
came
running to them from the tomb. “For the gods’ sake, quit talking and
kill him this time!”

“He says they
have the
crown prince hidden away,” Nakht said, his voice edged with
uncertainty. “Maybe we should force him to take us there—”

“Don’t be a
fool,”
said the scribe. “Semerket’d never tell, you know that—he’s that
stubborn. Kill him
now,
I say.”

After a moment
Nakht
leaned toward him, his clipped voice low and gloating. “Well, it seems
you’re out of luck at last, Ketty.”

They circled
him.
Semerket knew he had only moments to live, and for the first time in
years he actually found his lips forming words of prayer. “Help me,
Mother Isis,” he prayed silently. “Not for my sake, but for Egypt’s.
These men shouldn’t be allowed to live.”

They forced
him to his
knees and shoved his head forward to bare his neck. In the dark, he
heard a sword unsheathed. He waited for the icy blow, not breathing. He
thought of Naia. Of his brother. Of Pharaoh. Semerket closed his eyes,
leaning back into his heels, and faced death for the second time that
day.

But the blow
never
came.

A sudden blast
of cold
wind hit his face instead. From down the length of the black canyon
there came a growing roar, sounding like some huge animal, unleashed.
The sound grew louder, accompanied by explosions of canyon walls as
they collapsed. Even in the darkness he could see the line of white
foam—the frothy edge of an immense wave of water speeding at them from
far up the canyon.

The last thing
he
heard before the wall of water hit him was the screams of the men in
the wadi. Then the churning desert sea engulfed him. Dense with mud,
sand, and grit, it hurled Semerket forward on its curling spume.
Patches of his skin were instantly rubbed raw, for the water was like
emery dust. His head broke the surface, and he saw beggars and Medjays
crushed against the cliff walls, screaming. The baskets of golden
discs, heaped on the desert floor, were instantly overturned and buried
by the waters.

Semerket felt
himself
carried along by the infant river in an almost leisurely fashion.
Though he was jolted painfully as he was hurled against submerged
boulders and canyon walls, he found that by simply allowing the water
to flow where it may he was in no immediate danger of drowning. He
almost laughed aloud, thinking how ironic it would have been to escape
a watery death in the Nile only to find it in the middle of a desert.

The clouds
were fast
clearing from above, and the blanket of stars behind them suddenly
shone through, silvering the Great Place with their light. He saw that
an overhang of rock was just ahead; as he passed under it he reached
up, feeling with his hands, searching for a handhold—a branch, a
crevice, anything. The waters tore at him, though, defying him to
escape them. It was hopeless, he decided. Just as he was about to drop
again into the torrent, his fingertips brushed something warm and
living—another hand was reaching for his.

Semerket
almost let go
from shock. He raised his head and found himself looking into the face
of the young prince who had so long ago told him that god-skin was
being made at the campsite.

“Hang on to
me,” said
the boy.

He reached,
but the
waters pulled savagely at him.

“I’m too heavy
for
you—I’ll only pull you down with me!” he told the boy. “Save yourself!”

“Don’t be
afraid,”
said the prince, grinning. And, strangely, Semerket was not afraid. He
stretched his arm as far as he could reach, grasping the prince’s
fingertips.

Then he was
atop the
ledge of stone, and safe.

HE AWOKE ON A PALLET OF SOFT DOWN. THEbrightness of sun on
whitewashed walls
stabbed like knives in his head. Squinting, Semerket saw a room that
was very neat, very orderly, except that there seemed to be two of
everything—from his newly washed kilt and mantle, hanging from pegs in
the wall, to the jug of water on the tiles beside him. It was a moment
before he realized he was seeing double.

The sound of
cheerful
humming floated to him. A young woman knelt before a chest, not knowing
he was awake. Semerket studied her as she withdrew a linen towel. If he
concentrated very hard, he discovered, he could force his eyes to
focus. The woman’s long black hair had a blue sheen, almost as blue as
the strands of beads in her ears, glimmering like the wings of beetles.

“I know you,”
he said
aloud, surprised.

She looked
over at
him, smiling. “I am Keeya, and, yes, you know me, my lord. I serve your
brother. He’ll be relieved to know you’re awake.”

He was in his
brother’s house across the river in Eastern Thebes. “How long have I
been here?”

“Three days.”

“
Three
—?”

“Lay your head
down,
my lord,” Keeya told him firmly. “The physician says you are not to
move, not until the iris in your left eye is equal in size to the one
in your right—though your eyes are so black, I can’t see how he tells
the difference.”

“How did I get
here?”

“Medjay Qar
brought
you. He says they found you high in the mountains of the Great Place,
the morning after the terrible rains. A young prince stood beside you,
he said, and called them over. When they reached you, the prince was
gone. You were so still, he said, they thought you were dead. They
don’t know how you managed to survive the terrible flood.”

Semerket
brought his
hand to his forehead and felt a bandage. “Where is Nenry?”

Keeya dropped
her eyes
sadly. “Alas, my lord, he is at the House of Purification. We are in
mourning in this house.”

He sat up
then,
despite the girl’s admonitions. “My brother is dead?”

She put a
finger to
her lips. “No, my lord. Please lie back down or the physician will be
very angry with you. Your lord brother has accompanied his wife’s body
to the embalmers.”

“His
wife
?” Semerket wrinkled
his brow, and pain shot down his face from his wound.

Keeya
moistened the
linen rag and brought it to his face. “An accident in the cellar,” the
girl said, and there was an odd spark of satisfied reminiscence in her
eye. Idly she brought a hand to her ear, lost in thought. Then she
shook her head slightly, and her blue earrings sparkled in the light.
“A knife,” Keeya said, her eyes hooded. “It was very sad.”

He sat up
again to
question the girl further, but the pain in his head was so great he
could only wince and lie back on the pallet.

“Do you see
why the
physician says to remain quiet?” Keeya asked archly, drawing the
blanket over him again. “And he is a very great physician—from the
palace!—so you must do as he says. Really, you would not wish to go
outside into Thebes today. It’s not a happy place.” She poured him a
bowlful of water and held it to his lips.

“What do you
mean?” he
asked after he had swallowed. “What has happened?”

“Why, soldiers
are
everywhere! There have been so many arrests, they say, that the
forecourt in Amun’s Great Temple has been turned into a prison just to
accommodate them.”

The thing he
had been
unable to remember rose suddenly in his mind to smite him. The
conspiracy!

“Pharaoh!” he
said.
“What has happened to him? Tell me!”

“Ah, my lord,
it’s
very tragic. Who would choose to live in such times? The stories they
tell are unbelievable.”

“Just tell me,
Keeya!”

“From what
your
brother says, His Majesty’s wives surrounded him in the harem. Queen
Tiya took a dagger and…”

The pounding
in
Semerket’s skull overwhelmed him, and the sudden roar in his ears
drowned out the serving girl’s words. He slipped again into
unconsciousness.

WHENSEMERKET NEXT WOKE, it was afternoon. His brother sat
cross-legged on the floor next to him, dressed in the dark gray robes
of mourning. Nenry seemed anything but mournful, for he was conversing
in low but energetic tones with two scribes who wrote quickly as he
spoke. When Nenry saw that his brother was awake, he dismissed the
scribes with a gesture. They backed out of the room, bowing as they
left. “Welcome back, Semerket,” he said.

“Who is
Pharaoh now?”
his brother asked.

The question
seemed an
odd one to Nenry, and he blinked. “Why, Ramses III, of course.”

Semerket gave
a start.
Had he dreamed the conversation with Keeya? “But your serving girl
said… at least, I think she said…”

“He was
wounded,
Ketty. But he is still alive—and asking for you, by the way.” Nenry
could not resist a smug grin.

“Me?”

“You’re a
hero! The
blackest conspiracy in the history of Egypt was thwarted because of
you.”

Semerket
dismissed his
brother’s words. “Tiya and Pentwere…?”

“In
custody—though
Pentwere is trying to convince everyone that the conspiracy was all his
mother’s idea. It won’t save him, though. Ramses is like a lion in his
wrath.”

“And the rest
of them…
Paser… Pawero? Iroy?”

“All in the
Djamet
prison awaiting their trial—along with almost everyone whose name was
on that list you found, together with their households. All yesterday
and today, soldiers have been raiding their estates and taking their
families and servants into custody. Over a thousand men and women, I’m
told, all locked into Amun’s temple.”

The image of
Naia rose
in Semerket’s mind. She would be among the thousand, and probably
terrified. “Nenry, you have to help me.” Semerket struggled to sit,
though his head still pounded and again his vision became blurred. “I
have to get Naia away from there, somehow—”

“Lie down,
Ketty.
Though I can’t have her released, I’ve seen that she and her child have
their own cell, and that the temple cooks should prepare her meals.
She’ll eat as well as the priests—which is to say better than Pharaoh.”

With a
relieved sigh,
Semerket lay back down. Then he turned alarmed eyes once again on his
brother. “How is it you can give such orders? Are you trying to protect
me—?” He stopped speaking when he saw the odd expression of wonder on
his brother’s face.

“Ketty,” said
Nenry,
swallowing. “I’ve the most incredible piece of news…”

Semerket
stared at
him. Never had he seen his brother so rapturous. “Well?”

Nenry took a
shaky
breath. “Yesterday the vizier proclaimed me the new Mayor of Eastern
Thebes.”

Semerket
decided that
he was hallucinating again and settled back down into the bedding to
wait out his mind’s spasm. But when he opened his eyes again his
brother was still sitting there with the same expression of wonderment
on his face.

“I didn’t know
you had
another son to sell, Nenry.”

Nenry did not
sputter
his usual protests, nor did his face fill with its usual tics and
grimaces. “My son is playing in my courtyard at this moment, Ketty,” he
said with calm dignity. “His adoption by Iroy has been invalidated. I
became mayor because of my ‘exemplary courage’ in helping to put down
the rebellion. Anyway, I was Paser’s scribe and knew about ruling the
city. It made sense to everyone.”

“You’re a
widower,
too, I hear.”