House of Two Pharaohs, page 27
• • •
Z
ahra prowled through the shadows, following a man who hurried blindly through the quiet streets of Avaris.
He was not aware of being followed.
But he should have been, Zahra thought to herself. He should have known.
As he rounded a corner, the man’s face briefly caught the moonlight. It was her brother, Qar.
Zahra trailed her brother silently as he made his way towards the Temple of Baal. The once proud structure, where the Hyksos had worshipped their god, had been stripped and plundered upon their flight from Avaris. Now, it loomed in the dusk, a collapsing relic of Hyksos might.
Ahead of her, Qar reached a doorway and stopped to light a torch. Zahra saw the sparks from the fire-striker shower out into the dark, then the flame took hold. Finally, her brother glanced behind him.
Zahra wore a black cloak, but she knew her brother’s eyes were sharp. As he turned, she slipped behind one of the defaced pillars in the temple compound and waited. Had he seen her? She would know soon enough.
When he turned again and descended the stone steps that led down into the bowels of the temple, Zahra smiled to herself. Once again, he was being impetuous, and it had blinded him. She would never have allowed herself to be followed. She would never have been so foolish.
Zahra had not told Heru what she had resolved to do. There would be time for that later. Heru had stepped into the role of their father, and like Nimlot, he loved her. He only tolerated Qar. Egypt could never be united by someone like him – someone who had taken her love, and used it against her. Someone whose fear crippled his ability to act, and who, in turn, sought to use fear to cripple others.
But Zahra did not feel fear. Not anymore.
Something had changed in her on that fateful night when Qar had smashed her head against the flagstones. The wound had healed, but her mind had been altered. She raised her fingers to the skin above her right eye, to the shiny scar tissue and the depression that she hid under her hair. There was an anger inside her now that came like a storm, and nothing could calm her. Then the god would inhabit her – forcing his way into her skin, tossing her this way and that, shaking her until she thought her bones would break – and she would wake with no knowledge of what had happened or where she had been, what she had done. At other times, she would be left unable to move, unable to speak. And then there were moments like this one, Zahra thought as she followed her brother. Qar needed a light to guide him. She needed no such assistance. Her feet knew their way down the sloping stone steps, and they would not fail her. They would not make a sound.
At the bottom of the passageway, Zahra entered the low-ceilinged chamber just as Qar was leaving it through the doorway that opened into the larger chamber, the one where the Hyksos had created their god’s inner sanctum.
Zahra crossed the floor, following her brother. As she slipped inside, she saw Qar climbing the steps to a dais that had been constructed on the far side of the chamber, his torch illuminating the throne that had been set there – a single piece of ebony that had been brought overland from beyond the kingdom of Kush. He stood, mesmerised before it.
Beside the throne rested their father’s Anubis mask, on a small table.
‘Did you think that you would be the one to sit on that throne?’ Zahra asked evenly.
Qar started at the sound of her voice, echoing in the vast, empty space. He spun around, his eyes wide. ‘What are you doing here? You don’t belong here.’
Zahra smiled as she crossed the floor. ‘I belong here just as much as you do. It was our father’s vision. That is Father’s mask.’
‘I am the Shuyet. You are nothing!’ Qar said dismissively.
Zahra laughed as she climbed the steps to the dais where her brother waited, her normally melodious voice filled with menace. In her black robes, she seemed to grow taller as she stepped to the top of the platform. Terrified, Qar shrank before her.
‘I am the Shuyet,’ he repeated, in a quivering voice.
‘No, Qar,’ she replied calmly, reaching for the Anubis mask and running her long, elegant fingers along its snout. ‘You are just a boy. A scared little boy who unleashed his own feelings of worthlessness on the little sister who loved him. The little sister who loves him no more.’
She took hold of the mask and lifted it above her head, then set it down on her own shoulders. Her brother fell back in fright, thrusting his torch ahead of him as if trying to keep an animal at bay.
‘Who are you?’ he asked tremulously.
The Anubis mask stared back at him, and tilted its jackal head to the side. ‘I am the Shuyet,’ it growled.
Then in one swift motion, Zahra drew a short knife from her robe, took a pace forward and swept the blade across Qar’s exposed throat. He gasped, falling to his knees as his blood ran, pouring over his own robes and soaking them through, his torch dropping from his hand and rolling away across the dais.
Zahra looked down on him as he choked on his blood, his life ebbing away.
‘The portal to the afterlife is open to you,’ she said. ‘Your prophecy has come true. Qar is dead. My brother is no more.’
As Qar slumped forward, Zahra caught her reflection in the spreading pool of his blood. She cocked her head as she considered it, the Anubis mask staring back up at her, then crouched down, and dipped the tip of her finger in the thickening liquid. Lifting it, she made a few quick, precise strokes on the floor of the dais – the sign of Anubis in her brother’s blood.
• • •
‘T
he Shuyet is coming,’ Heru announced again, his deep voice reverberating off the bare stone walls of the near-empty throne room.
Taita allowed himself a subtle smile. These displays were as transparent as any temple ritual. And although he felt none of the awe that was intended, he was eager to finally meet his adversary.
Taita glimpsed the shadow first, and then a tall, slender figure in black robes appeared, its head covered by the gleaming jackal-head mask of Anubis. Behind it came Gyasi, dragging a young man by a chain fixed to a heavy leather collar around his neck. The prisoner was filthy, his breechclout soiled and his body and hair caked with mud. Taita could only imagine the kind of cell Gyasi had pulled him from.
‘Kneel before the god,’ Heru intoned. ‘Kneel before the Shuyet.’
Stepping forward, the guard behind him jabbed Taita smartly in the back of his knee with the butt of his javelin. A jolt of pain shot up into his hip and he fell to the floor, gasping as his hands hit the cold flagstones.
From his prone position, Taita caught the eyes of the young man, who had also been forced to kneel, Heru twisting his arm behind his back. His fear of what was to come was etched on his face, and although he tried to mouth a word to Taita, his lips were trembling and it was impossible to make out what he was trying to say.
‘It is time,’ Heru said, as Gyasi pulled the youth to his feet. ‘The judgment will begin.’
‘On what will you be judged?’ Gyasi asked. ‘Where are you sinless, Djenn of Memphis?’ It was then that Taita recognised General Kamose’s runner. He had escaped the slaughter on the hill, only to be captured and dragged to the Shuyet’s lair.
‘I am come to you . . .’ the young man began, his voice unsteady. ‘I am . . . I am void of wrong, without guile, a harmless one. Let me not be declared guilty.’
Taita looked up at the Shuyet, but the mask of Anubis only nodded almost imperceptibly to acknowledge the ancient words.
‘Where?’ Gyasi asked again.
Djenn took a deep breath and raised his head towards the Shuyet, but his nerve failed and he looked away. ‘O, Eater of the Shadow,’ he said, ‘I am not the cause of weeping to any.’
‘And?’ Heru prodded, when Djenn remained silent.
‘O, Breaker of Bones, I am not a teller of lies,’ Djenn continued, tears beginning to spill down his cheeks.
‘And?’ Heru prodded again.
‘O, Eater of Blood, I have not cursed a god.’
‘You have chosen,’ Heru said. ‘And now your heart shall be weighed.’
As he spoke these words, Gyasi struck Djenn from behind with the knife she had used to kill Asim and Sadiki. The blade found the cartilage between the base of his skull and the first vertabrae of the young man’s spine. Taita heard the grate of metal on bone as it punched home, and Djenn let out a choked cry as he fell to the floor.
Taita had thought that Gyasi had killed the youth – she had struck with force and found her target – but when he looked across at the prone body, he saw that Djenn’s eyes were still alive in his head. He was paralysed, and Taita knew that his soul would leave his body soon, but while he still had breath in his lungs he would remain with them in the throne room, to witness the rest of the Shuyet’s ritual.
Taking an obsidian knife – a wicked shard of volcanic glass – from Heru’s hands, Gyasi sank to one knee and rolled Djenn on to his side. As she began to cut, Taita watched the man’s eyes grow large, his pupils dilating with the pain, but he could not cry out; he was powerless under the blade.
A great spurt of dark blood erupted from Djenn’s mouth as Gyasi thrust her arm into his abdomen. Taita had himself learned the embalmers’ craft, had studied their texts and many times assisted those in the House of Beauty, but he had never seen someone defile a body like this. Gyasi took no care – she used her blade to slash through the stomach and hack at Djenn’s lungs, her face blank and emotionless as she dug deep inside him for her prize.
The floor became slick with blood and Taita tried to stand as the gore approached, but the guard forced him back down again and he watched, helpless, as it pooled around him, soaking into his robe.
Heru stepped forward, this time with a set of golden scales. An ostrich feather lay in the one pan. Into the other, Gyasi deposited Djenn’s heart.
‘You have been found wanting, Djenn of Memphis,’ Heru said as the scale tipped heavily to one side, tossing the feather into the air. ‘You shall not pass.’
As the feather spiralled down through the light thrown by the torches, Taita watched Djenn’s eyes cloud over as his soul left his body.
‘Don’t worry,’ Gyasi said, wiping the glistening blood from her arms as the Shuyet turned away and began to stride towards the door of the throne room, Heru following close behind. ‘Your turn will come.’
Looking back at Djenn, Taita saw that the ostrich feather – the symbol of Ma’at, of truth and justice – lay soaking up his blood, turning slowly crimson in the torchlight.
• • •
T
he body bobbed face down in the warm Nile current. Death had come very recently, for the blood that clouded the water around it had not yet summoned the river crocodiles to a feast.
As Hannu and Piay watched the corpse’s passage from the prow of the war galley, Hannu offered an appreciative nod.
‘One of the Shuyet’s lookouts,’ he said. ‘Our advance scouts are doing good work.’
Piay remained unmoved. ‘Even so, we cannot count on the element of surprise. There will always be one lookout that escapes our scrutiny and warns his master.’
‘We’ll be ready,’ Hannu grunted.
Though it was only just after dawn, the heat was already suffocating. The sun hung in a hazy silver sky and the marshes of the delta steamed, the choking stench of rotting vegetation enveloping the line of vessels making their way downriver from Memphis.
Hannu eyed his old friend as Piay searched the waters ahead. He had seen grief change a person many times – carving out a solid core from the soft sandstone of youth and creating something new, something more resilient. Piay didn’t laugh as much as he used to. But then nor did he boast or presume that life was a banquet laid out for his pleasure. He had become quieter, more reflective, a man who thought through his options and no longer acted with the recklessness that had defined him in times past.
Hannu admired this older, wiser Piay, though he would never admit it – there was an unwritten code that could never be broken.
Pushing his thoughts aside, Hannu turned his eyes back to the reed beds and twisted sycamores that lay off the port rail. When the guards had searched the palace and grounds and found Taita missing along with Gyasi, it was Piay who had pieced together what must have transpired. Many others would have given in to despair. What chance would there be of finding one man in a sprawling land like Egypt?
But Piay understood his master’s mind, and knew Taita would not have allowed himself to be taken so easily if his capture was not part of some larger scheme. And where others might have ignored such a mundane item, Piay had focused his attention on the pink ribbon found on the floor of Taita’s chamber. Nothing that surrounded Taita happened by chance – he had wanted it to be found.
The guards on the wall above the gate remembered a lone merchant driving out of the city in the middle of the night, and they had located an abandoned wagon along the riverbank. It was clear that a skiff had been pushed out into the water.
‘Taita has risked his life to give us an opportunity,’ Piay had said. ‘A chance to wipe out the viper in his lair before he has the chance to strike again.’
Back at the palace, Hannu had awoken the captains of the Blue Crocodiles and commanded them to prepare for action.
What remained of the three companies that had taken the field against the Shuyet’s army were hastily reorganised into two patched-up units of three hundred men while supplies were loaded into the galleys, and before the sun had reached its zenith the oarsmen were heaving their vessels downriver.
It was Hannu who had glimpsed the first pink ribbon, fluttering from the bulrushes in the fading light of the day. That was the moment they knew that they were on the right course, and that Piay had judged his master correctly. From then on, it was just a case of focusing their attention on the river’s bank.
They had anchored south of Avaris the first night. The moon was full, but hidden by cloud, and the steersmen were unwilling to brave the river in the half-light. It had been a sombre evening, for even this far from the Shuyet’s stronghold they did not dare disembark and light fires to warm themselves by.
Hannu checked the water’s edge, scanning back and forth until his eyes ached. He began to wonder if Taita had left any more ribbons. But then he caught movement on the edge of his vision.
‘There,’ he said, jabbing a finger.
‘Good work,’ Piay said.
Turning to look across the benches of muscled oarsmen, Piay summoned the captain to bring the galley to a halt and drop the anchor stone. The captain raised an arm to signal to the other ships behind to do the same. Once the galley was straining at its rope, Hannu and Piay clambered into one of the skiffs they’d been towing and Hannu took up an oar.
A branching watercourse carved a path between two vast reed beds. As he rowed them towards the shore, Hannu glimpsed footprints in the mud on the bank, and then movement. In the hot breeze, pink ribbons twirled from the tallest bulrush.
‘There,’ Hannu said. ‘Taita points our way.’
‘Two ribbons. The first time we have seen such a sign. Taita is telling us this place is different.’
Hannu nodded. ‘The end of the river voyage and a new one along the waterways.’
Jumping from the skiff, the two men splashed to the bank and squelched through the sucking mud until they stood on dry land, swatting at the sandflies that assailed them. Shielding his eyes, Hannu looked out across the marshland that spread as far as they could see. ‘There’s no doubt why the Shuyet made his camp here,’ he grunted. ‘No soul would venture into this foul place by choice.’
‘A stronghold made by the gods themselves,’ Piay agreed.
Hannu crouched, letting his fingers sift through the damp soil as he squinted into the distance. There would be safe paths across the treacherous, sucking marshland, but he was not the man to find them. ‘We have to follow the water,’ Hannu said. ‘The land is too dangerous.’
‘The water will have its own dangers,’ Piay replied. ‘The Shuyet will have made sure the approach to his fortress is protected. I doubt we will be able to approach without being seen.’
‘Aye, well, whichever way, we won’t be able to go any further in these galleys,’ Hannu said, standing.
Piay looked back to the galleys, moving in the gentle swell of the river. ‘I swear this now,’ he said. ‘Even if we have to swim there, we will save Taita’s life.’
• • •
O
nly the whispered, rhythmic rowing chant of the Blue Crocodiles broke the silence as they bent their backs over their oars. In the boats, no one else spoke, afraid that their voices might carry to the enemy.
In the prow of the lead skiff, Piay had wrapped a scarf across his mouth and nose to protect himself from the choking reek, but it made little difference. The waterway was narrow, the wall of reeds on each side reaching up to join with the sycamores that overhung the channel – a tunnel filled with greens and yellows, spattered with dappled shade. A man’s eyes could easily deceive him here, Piay thought as he watched the men around him trying to suppress their unease. They were soldiers, and they liked to have an enemy in front of them. Not being able to see what lay around the next bend made them feel as if they were constantly drifting into an ambush.
There had been no respite from the oppressive heat from the moment they had left the river – an expeditionary force of ten skiffs, filled with eighty men. The air was thick and still, clouded with insects. Not knowing how long their voyage would take, they had to be sparing with their water. It was all around them, but here the river was poisoned, fouled by the bubbles that rose to the surface and burst to release the rank smell of rotten eggs.
They drifted on, so far north now that the music of the marshes was broken by the shrieks of gulls wheeling across the sky. Occasionally, a loud splash would have those with bows quickly nocking a shaft, anticipating some savage attack. Even when none came, their senses continued to tingle. There could be no rest.
