Day of the False King (10 page)

Semerket shook his head in derision, for no
fewer than forty men carried Menef. He almost laughed aloud — no one,
not even the great Ramses III himself, had been carried by so many
bearers. This Menef’s ostentation was unbelievable! Semerket suddenly
wished he had brought his own badge of office that Pharaoh had bestowed
on him, for he sensed that Menef might be intimidated by such a jewel.

The chair began to move forward. At that
moment, a slimly built, sinewy man stepped forward through the gate.
Seeing the crowd, the man’s underslung jaw suddenly contorted into a
wide grin that did not correspond with the flat menace of his ophidian
eyes. The smile was a ghastly parody of good humor, a veritable rictus
of disdain and spite. In a low voice, the man directed the guards to
lash out at the crowd with their whips, to clear a pathway for the
ambassador’s approaching chair. Inexorably, the guards began to
advance, flailing their short whips of hippopotamus hide at the people.
Screams rang out, but still the stubborn mob would not disperse.
Semerket felt the rush of air as one of the whips cracked too near his
cheek. Rage began to build inside him.

The herald began to bawl instructions. “On
your faces!” he said. “On your faces before Pharaoh’s Beloved Friend!”

Semerket blinked in surprise. “Beloved
Friend” was a rank usually held by only blood relations of Pharaoh.

Despite the royal epithet, the crowd
continued to ignore the herald, and the grinning man realized that the
whips were having no effect on the mob. He shouted orders to his men,
and they brought the points of their spears forward. Only this quick
action prevented the mob from overwhelming the ambassador.

As Menef’s chair was carried past, Semerket
shouted up, “Ambassador, where are your servants Naia and Rami?”

Menef jerked his face in Semerket’s
direction, his small eyes staring down in sudden alarm. Quickly, he
directed his bearers to stop. “Who is that? What do you want?” cried
Menef in a thin, petulant voice.

“Pharaoh wants them back, Menef, and expects
your obedience.”

“Who are you? Am I supposed to keep track of
every whore and delinquent sent me, then? I’m not a wet-nurse, you
know. Come back later, or tomorrow, if it’s so important, and wait in
line like everyone else.” Menef turned to face forward again. With a
nervous gesture, he bade his bearers move on.

Semerket would have kept walking beside the
chair, pestering the ambassador, had not the commander of the guards
suddenly appeared before him, grinning his macabre smile. Semerket
noticed the man’s tiny tattoo at the corner of his eye, a miniature
asp, looking like a dirty tear.

Semerket attempted to lunge past him, but
the Asp stood in his way, a block of unyielding stone. He shoved
Semerket aside so that he half-fell into the dust. The Asp still
grinned, silently daring Semerket to attempt another move toward Menef.

By this time, however, the ambassador was
already far down the street, followed by his horde of desperate,
importuning petitioners. Seeing the ambassador surrounded, the grinning
man turned, almost reluctantly, and ran to catch up with his employer.

Only Semerket and Kem-weset remained in the
now-quiet avenue. When Semerket bent to help the physician to his feet,
he was distressed to see how the old man winced piteously, as if he
expected Semerket to strike him.

“No,” said Semerket, low, as to a child,
“I’m only trying to help you stand. Why would you think otherwise? Here
now, lean on me. Are you ready?”

The old man nodded slightly, unable to
speak, and Semerket hoisted him upward. Kem-weset staggered slightly,
but was able to stand on his own. Keeping a tight grip on the old man’s
bony shoulder, Semerket slowly walked him back to the Egyptian Quarter.

Semerket tried to think of something he
could say that would comfort the physician, but his tongue was a
useless sliver of wood in his head. They had reached the perimeters of
the Egyptian Quarter. A sudden stab from his forehead’s scar gave him
inspiration.

“Kem-weset,” he asked, rubbing his brow,
“would you favor me with a look at an old injury of mine?”

The physician did not answer, or even
acknowledge that he had heard. He continued to plod down the street,
and his head seemed too heavy for his neck to bear.

“It’s this old wound of mine — here, on my
forehead.” Semerket walked quickly to stand before the old man, forcing
him to stop. He held his head close so that Kem-weset could see the
jagged mark. “It stings like fire sometimes, and makes my head throb
like a temple drum. Nothing but sleep will ease it. Can you help me?”

In the ensuing quiet, Semerket thought that
perhaps the blow from Menef’s young guard had driven the wits from the
old man’s mind. In the long shadows cast by the afternoon sun, standing
beside the canal that girded the Egyptian Quarter, Kem-weset’s wavery
voice came to him at last. “You would consult with
me?”

“Are you not the finest physician in
Babylon?”

Kem-weset was silent for another moment.
Then he brought his face close to Semerket’s, looking at the scar with
a professional eye. The old man’s shoulders straightened imperceptibly
as he turned to Semerket and spoke the ritual words.

“I will undertake your cure,” Kem-weset
said. “Come to me when you are next in pain.”

IN THE SEARING RED LIGHT of
the setting sun, the ziggurat Etemenanki was a beckoning flame. Always
keeping its tumescent profile in front of him, Semerket was able to
traverse Babylon’s serpentine pathways rapidly. In a short time, he
found himself crossing the great bridge that spanned the Euphrates,
arriving on the other side of the river where the ziggurat towered.
Kem-weset had said that the Square of the Sick was located somewhere
nearby, and he wanted to reach the square before curfew was called.

He was curious to see the square, of course,
in the way all foreign travelers seek the novel and esoteric, but he
had another reason for going there as well. If Rami were indeed
injured, as Pharaoh’s cousin Elibar said he was, perhaps he would find
him among the sick and ailing there. At worst, it might be that one of
the ill could tell him if they had seen an Egyptian lad among their
company.

Semerket smelled the square before he saw it
— that curiously sweet scent of decay and human waste that accompanies
all sickness. By simply following his nose to where the scent was
strongest, he at last entered into the square from a side alleyway.

The Square of the Sick was enormous even by
Egyptian standards, with thousands of Babylon’s ill and injured lying
side by side in the open air, a solid mass of writhing, living flesh
stretching from one distant wall to another. Some lay on the bare
ground, while others, the nobles, reclined in large beds of carved
wood. Their moans and sighs filled his ears, crying out to passersby in
various tones of desperation — wails, too, as families gathered to
mourn their dying loved ones.

Semerket kept his head lowered, refusing to
meet the imploring gazes of those who called out to him, scanning the
square from side to side, careful not to catch anyone’s glance. He
jumped at the sudden appearance of a strangely attired priest,
outfitted in copper-hued robes patterned like the scales of a fish.

Dimly, Semerket recalled that the
Babylonians prayed to some water god — Ea, he believed the deity’s name
to be — who battled the demons that caused their maladies. He saw that
those fellows he had once believed to be beekeepers, the undertakers of
Babylon, also labored in the square. They culled the dead from the rows
of sick, taking them on stretchers into a far tent where vats of honey
awaited their remains. Still other attendants bore ewers of water,
together with bandages and salves for the ill.

Gradually Semerket came to recognize that
the city’s sick had not been so wantonly abandoned as Kem-weset had
intimated, but were well tended by the fish-robed priests and their
acolytes. As he penetrated further into the square, Semerket noticed,
too, that the priests had grouped the unwell according to the nature of
their ailments. It was an ingenious system, he realized, making it
easier for both Babylonians and tourists to go directly to where they
could offer their help and counsel in the most efficient fashion.

Semerket screwed up his nerve to approach
one of the priests. “Can you tell me —? Those with head injuries?” he
asked.

The priest pointed, coppery fish scales
gleaming in the sun’s last rays, to the far corner of the square.
Semerket went there without speaking to anyone. In truth, some of the
square’s inhabitants were of such horrifying appearance that he could
not regard them without becoming ill himself. Ghastly wounds, hideous
swellings, and deformities of every sort met his horrified gaze. By
staring straight ahead, however, becoming deaf to their pleading words,
he was able to reach his destination without incident.

When he reached the area the priest had
indicated, he gazed around, looking for Rami’s face. Most of the people
sequestered in the area were recent victims of war, judging from their
wounds. One man stared at him from beneath a bandage that revealed only
a single fierce eye. The eye seemed intelligent enough, however, and
Semerket approached him.

“I’m sorry to disturb you…” Semerket said.

The man did not move his head, but the one
eye stared up angrily into Semerket’s face.

“I’m looking for an Egyptian lad. His name
is Rami. He was struck in the head. Have you seen him?”

Fierce Eye continued to stare, but made no
answer.

“It happened about twelve weeks ago, by my
reckoning,” Semerket continued. But he ceased to speak when he saw the
single tear that trickled down Fierce Eye’s cheek and onto the pavement.

“Don’t expect an answer from that one,” came
the words from behind.

Semerket whirled around. A boy carrying a
water pail approached him. The boy knelt and dipped his ladle, bringing
it to Fierce Eye’s mouth. Most of the water ran down Fierce Eye’s chin
to pool in his lap, but some of the liquid made it into his mouth.

“He can’t talk,” the boy explained, bringing
another ladle full of water to the man’s lips. “The gods stunned his
mind, and now he can’t move a finger. What were you asking him?”

Semerket repeated his question.

“An Egyptian boy?” the boy mused. “There’re
no Egyptians here that I can recall — your people don’t like our
medicine much.”

Semerket knelt beside the boy, to gaze into
Fierce Eye’s face. “In Egypt, we’d have a physician open his skull.”

The boy suppressed a shudder. “I’ve heard
they don’t last very long when you do.”

Semerket shrugged. “At least they don’t
linger, either. What a terrible life he has.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the boy
philosophically, wiping Fierce Eye’s mouth with a rag. “At least here I
feed him every day and wait on him like he’s a noble. If you think
about it, he’s probably never had it so good.”

“Still…” Semerket stood, shaking his head
doubtfully. He hoped that when his own Day of Pain came, the gods would
be merciful and kill him outright. He looked about the square,
searching for Rami, but in the fading light of dusk, the faces of the
sick were indistinguishable from one another.

The boy spoke to him. “Have you any other
cure to suggest, other than to open his skull?” he asked.

“No,” answered Semerket, still looking into
the faces of the sick, “it’s the only cure I know —”

He broke off, the words dying on his lips.
Semerket quickly retraced the path his eye had taken; once again, he
had seen someone he thought he knew.

“Marduk —?” he said aloud in wonder. Then
Semerket yelled, “Marduk!”

Not fifty paces away, his one-time slave was
speaking to one of the ailing. Marduk jerked his head up when he heard
his name. Even in the twilight, Semerket thought he saw his eyes widen
in surprise. Without hesitating, Marduk bolted for a nearby lane.

Semerket broke into pursuit. It was not easy
to weave through the multitudes lying prone on the ground, but Semerket
was like an eel among the reeds. He leapt over their heads, ignoring
their yells and curses that followed him. Families visiting their
relatives cowered as he flew by, staring after him as they would an
escaped lunatic. The priests in their fish robes turned to frown at the
commotion.

Semerket reached the lane seconds after
Marduk had disappeared into it. There was no sign of him. Semerket
stopped, panting, and hurried to where the lane divided into two
streets. No one lingered there, nor were there any doors or gates
through which Marduk could have gone.

“Marduk!” he called out again. He waited for
an answer. “Marduk!”

When he was sure that he was completely
alone, Semerket turned dispiritedly, beginning to doubt his own eyes —
though if the man had not been Marduk, why would he have run away as he
did? He sat on the lip of a nearby cistern, the only structure into
which Marduk could have gone. But a bronze grille covered its top, and
the grating was too narrow for any man to fit through. Nevertheless,
just to make sure, he pulled on the grate; as he suspected, it was
locked.

Semerket returned to the Square of the Sick.
Ignoring the annoyed stares of those over whom he had so rudely leapt,
he searched for the man to whom Marduk had been speaking. He located
him in the area where the sufferers of skin afflictions were
sequestered. Semerket grimaced when he realized that the man’s face
sported suppurating wounds, and tried to ignore the great patches of
skin that peeled in sheets from his cheeks and chin.

“Do you know him?” Semerket asked the man
abruptly.

“Pardon, lord?” the man said, startled.

“The man you were speaking with just now —
who ran when I called out to him. Marduk is his name.”