Year of the Hyenas (41 page)

“Y-yes…” Nenry
said,
and Semerket was relieved to see his brother’s face fill again with its
customary grimaces. “Merytra, er, had an accident in the cellar.
Terrible. Blood everywhere. Poor thing.”

“A knife was
involved,
Keeya said.”

“Yes—the
servants were
the only witnesses to her… clumsiness.” Nenry could not long endure his
brother’s black gaze, and he wailed, “She would have been put to death
anyway, Ketty! For colluding with her uncle and the queen. At least I’m
spared any scandal at the start of my term.”

“I understand,
Nenry.”

And Nenry
truly did
see understanding in the black depths of Semerket’s eyes, even
approval. After that, Nenry eagerly told his brother of his night at
Djamet.

The night of
the
rains, he told Semerket, Paser and Iroy had come to the temple and
replaced all the guards at every gate with men loyal only to them.
“Luckily,” said Nenry, “I had already arrived with Yousef and the
beggar army. I went back into the barracks to rouse the soldiers
against the conspirators, but what I saw there—” Nenry shuddered,
remembering.

“What did you
see?”

“It was like
something
out of an old folk tale of wizards and bewitched palaces. On every
barracks door, Iroy had scrawled symbols of bewitchment in human
blood—how he got it, the gods alone know. He had strewn amulets and
charms everywhere. When I opened the doors, I tell you, brother, it was
the eeriest thing I’d ever seen. All the men were
dormant
. They
couldn’t move,
could barely even breathe, though there wasn’t a mark on their bodies.
Who would believe that magic could be so powerful?”

Semerket
remembered
the terrible dreams that Tiya had sent and how perilously close to
death they had brought him. He swallowed. “Go on,” he said.

Before Nenry
could
continue, however, they were interrupted by Keeya. Gravely she led a
physician into the room, followed by three of his servants. Semerket
noticed how the young woman fleetingly touched his brother on the
shoulder as she left, how Nenry’s face flushed with pleasure when she
did. He suddenly knew the truth between them, the thing that Nenry was
too shy to mention. Thebes would have an intelligent and kindly first
lady, he thought.

“Good
afternoon,
sirs,” the physician said, scanning Semerket critically. “I shall be
glad to report to Pharaoh that our patient has revived.”

Semerket was
surprised
to see by his insignia that the man was actually one of Pharaoh’s own
doctors. The servants placed the physician’s box of instruments and
medicines beside the pallet. The physician sat next to Semerket,
cross-legged. He snapped his fingers and a servant handed him a stick.
The doctor held it in front of Semerket’s face, commanding him to stare
at it as he moved it up, down, and sideways.

“Have you
experienced
any pain in your head?”

“No.”

“Any double
vision?”

“No.”

The physician
regarded
Semerket doubtfully. “Please, Lord Mayor,” he said, “I have interrupted
your tale—do continue.” He began to undo the dressing on Semerket’s
head.

Nenry again
took up
his narrative. “At any rate, Yousef and I knew that we would have to
fight our way into the temple if we were to save Pharaoh. Yousef gave
the command soon after the Sekhmet garrison came, so that they barely
had time to settle in.

“I tell you,
Semerket,
I could hardly believe it myself.” He laughed raggedly, remembering. “A
beggar who only a moment before had been dying of leprosy—to see him
suddenly leap forward to stave in a guard’s skull—or the beggar woman
who without warning thrust a dagger into a soldier’s throat—nothing
could have been more surprising to the soldiers.”

Nenry told how
he had
slipped through the mêlée to run through the temple crying
that there was a riot in the courtyard. All the Sekhmet guards deserted
the palace doors, and came streaming to the temple’s entrance.

“It was a
scene out of
hell,” said Nenry, “the rains streaming down, blood on the tiles
everywhere. But then, from out of the dark, another army appeared from
the south. We all stopped fighting then, even the Sekhmet guards. We
just looked at each other—we didn’t know who these men were. But then
we saw old Vizier Toh borne in his chair, with Qar riding beside him.
We knew that the old man had come to save us. The moment he had
received the crown prince’s message he had embarked with his men to
Djamet, Qar told me later. From then on, it was a fight from room to
room throughout the temple.”

As they
suspected,
Prince Pentwere and a couple of his warriors had gone looking for the
crown prince, swords drawn, fighting their way to where his offices
were. What they did not expect to find was the giant Yousef and his
brawniest warriors waiting for them. A scuffle ensued in which a
disbelieving Pentwere and his men were taken prisoner. Pentwere’s
showy swordsmanship may have dazzled the crowds on festival days, but
it was no match for the underhanded tactics of Yousef’s men.

Nenry himself
stormed
up to the harem with his own contingent of beggars. “It was just as I’d
seen in the barracks,” Semerket’s brother said. “All the guards were
bewitched, frozen stock-still at their posts, not even aware that we
had come into the hall. We broke open the doors—not one of them moved
to stop us. Tiya had bewitched them all so that they would not come to
Pharaoh’s aid.”

The physician
at this
point emitted a gentle cough. “If I may continue from here, Lord
Mayor?” he asked. “Pharaoh himself told me what had happened prior to
being rescued. Perhaps you care to hear his story?”

“Please,” said
Nenry
in such a regal tone that Semerket rolled his eyes.

The physician
was
making a poultice of honey and herbs for the new dressing, and
continued to work while he spoke. “His Majesty was taking his ease in
the harem, as was his habit in the evenings,” he said. “I believe he
was listening to one of his wives playing a harp. At some point, the
commotion of the battle came to him from below. He rose from his couch
then, to speak with his guards—but was surprised when his wives clung
to him, preventing him from leaving. They were afraid for their lives,
they said, and he must protect them. It dawned on him—gradually, he
said, not suddenly—that his wives were actually forcibly holding him
there. They clung to his arms so he couldn’t move, and encircled his
legs with their bodies to prevent him from walking. He wasn’t so much
fearful, he said, as irritable—which, if you know him, is His Majesty’s
usual reaction to anything unpleasant.

“It wasn’t
until Tiya
approached him that he realized something was very wrong indeed. She
was carrying the books of forbidden magic that she’d taken from the
House of Life, and was chanting a spell from its scroll. She showed him
a waxen doll and Pharaoh, horrified, saw that it was of himself. Tiya
told him that it contained fingernail clippings and hairs from his
body, and even his seed that his wives collected after he had coupled
with him—”

The brothers
stared at
the physician, aghast.

“Yes,” the
physician
nodded. “Tiya had compelled every one of his southern wives to join the
conspiracy—not that they needed much urging. They had planned his
demise for months, they informed him. They had written secret letters
to their brothers and fathers, who were the army generals and captains
of the south, saying to rise against Pharaoh. Oh, gentlemen, the women
were very well organized! But by then your brother and his men were at
the door, causing some of the wives to panic. Pharaoh managed to wrench
himself free and stagger to the door just as it fell open. But even
when Tiya saw that all was lost, she was determined to kill her
husband. She took out a knife and stabbed Pharaoh along his abdomen…”

“Yes! I saw it
happen,” agreed Nenry. “Thank the gods it was only a scratch. After all
her planning and evil-doing, she failed in the end.”

The physician
wrapped
Semerket’s head tightly with a fresh bandage. He coughed in a rather
embarrassed fashion, dropping his voice so that his servants could not
hear him. “Forgive me, Lord Mayor, but I’m afraid that Queen Tiya
accomplished exactly what she sought to do.”

The brothers
looked at
the doctor then as if they had not heard him correctly. “Beg pardon?”
said Nenry.

The royal
physician
barked a command to his attendants; they withdrew from the room to wait
in the courtyard. “What I tell you, gentlemen,” the physician
whispered, “is a state secret—though it can’t remain one for very long.”

Semerket,
feeling
chill, spoke harshly. “Well?”

It was a
moment before
the physician spoke again. “What you must know is this: When I examined
Pharaoh’s wound that night, it seemed nothing very severe. I bandaged
it as I would any other superficial cut. But when I changed the bandage
again yesterday, the wound had enlarged and was even putrefying.
Nothing seemed to stanch the flow of blood at the site. Suspecting the
worst, I demanded at once to see Queen Tiya, who by then was in
Djamet’s prison. She admitted her final evil to me—the knife’s blade
had been coated with venom from the pyramid adder, Egypt’s most toxic
serpent. No one has ever survived its bite. It may take weeks for the
victim to die, but die he will and so will Pharaoh.”

The men found
it
difficult to look at one another after such devastating news. Semerket
swallowed, asking in a small voice, “Does he know?”

The physician
nodded.
“And that is why you must get well, Semerket—why you must tell me the
truth about your condition. Ramses calls for you daily. Your name is
his only comfort, he says, for you are the only one among all his
subjects who truly loved him. You saved his throne, and his heir is
safe because of you. He wants to thank you in person, before…”

“
Thank
me?” Semerket asked,
stunned. “But he’s lost his life because of me. If I had only
discovered the truth a single day earlier…!”

“But Pharaoh
certainly
doesn’t believe that,” the physician said incredulously. “He’ll make
you a rich man, exalt you above all others— you have only to name your
reward.”

But Semerket
shook his
head. “No,” he said. “I want nothing. I deserve nothing. I’ve failed.”

“YOU CANNOT REFUSEPharaoh’s gifts.”

Two days had
passed
and Semerket still could not stand without dizziness. Now he was bowing
his head before Vizier Toh, who had come to see him in his sickbed.

“Pharaoh is
generous,”
Semerket said, “but I cannot accept his gifts. I have done nothing to
deserve them.”

A look of
exasperation
crossed the vizier’s rubbery features. “I will not argue with you,” he
said testily. “I will keep the gold he has sent you at my estate,
against the time when you will want it—as you inevitably will.”

“Great Lord!”
protested Semerket. “I have no need for such riches. I would feel a
hypocrite to accept them.”

“It is not
your needs
I am thinking of,” Toh lashed out at him. Seizing his staff of office,
he rose from his chair to stand over Semerket. Semerket felt the old
man’s rheumy gaze boring into his neck.

“You must
understand,
Semerket,” he said firmly, though his voice was softer, “that it is
Pharaoh’s needs I am considering, not yours. My friend—the companion of
my youth—is dying. He needs to demonstrate his gratitude to you in any
way you will let him. You cannot be so cruel as to refuse him.”

Toh’s words
moved
Semerket to shame. “If the king truly wishes to reward me—”

“He does.”

“Then wait
until I
have at last completed the task that you set me so long ago—to find the
murderer of the priestess named Hetephras.”

Silence fell
in the
room.

“You have two
days,
you stubborn man,” Toh said, sighing.

“I will need
only one.”

“And then, by
the
little brass balls of Horus, you will appear before Pharaoh—and you
will be grateful for whatever he gives you—or I myself will cast you
into prison alongside the conspirators. I don’t care if you’re a hero
or not. Pharaoh will not be disappointed—not anymore.”

SEMERKET STOOD WITHQar in the cellar of
the house that had belonged to Paneb. The two men watched, silent,
while a squad of Medjays cleared away the sacks of grain, the fetid
jars of beer, and all the other trash that Paneb had so determinedly
heaped against the cellar’s mud-brick wall.

Semerket had
known,
always, that some terrible thing would be found behind the tangle of
hurled belongings and moldy foodstuffs. He had sensed it when he
explored the cellar that night so long before, together with the cat
Sukis. At the thought of the little beast, he felt his skin prickle—he
suddenly remembered that it had been she who had led him to the cellar,
where she had stood atop the pile of trash, mewing. Semerket put his
hand to the bandage on his forehead. Sukis… why should he feel so
despondent over the death of a cat, when so many people had died?

“Semerket—are
you all
right?” Qar asked, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady
him. “Do you need to sit?”

Semerket shook
his
head.

Only a few of
the
original Medjays who had guarded the Great Place were still on duty.
All the others had perished in the flood. Qar was now promoted to
captain, a reward for his loyalty to Pharaoh. The new Medjays who
labored in the cellar had been hastily conscripted from units
throughout Thebes. But their duties would no longer include the
policing of the tombmakers; Vizier Toh had permanently assigned an
army regiment to the Great Place. From that time forward, the
tombmakers would be forever overseen by them, never again left
unguarded.