Day of the False King (12 page)

“And if the magi say that Bel-Marduk’s idol
must remain in Babylon — even though the king should give you his
consent —?”

There it was, the reason why Semerket had
been summoned to Adad’s chamber. Semerket finally comprehended that the
idol was at the center of some political contest being waged between
the invader Kutir and the Babylonian clergy. It was clear the priests
were afraid the Elamite conqueror might send the idol away against
their will — and with it would go their power. Adad was warning
Semerket that the real consent must come from the magi.

“I would never subject Egypt to the
calamities you’ve described,” Semerket answered.

Adad pursed his lips. Unwillingly, his eyes
strayed again to the kid’s liver glistening on the table beside him.
Then, with an imperious wave of his hand, he dismissed Semerket.

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD of the
foreign legations, the only activity at the moment came from the
energetic feints and parries of a young guard, practicing his fencing
in the shadows of the Egyptian embassy’s high walls. He was the same
young man who had struck the physician Kem-weset with the shaft of his
spear the previous day.

The young man lustily thrust and jabbed into
the empty air, shouting and grunting. In his mind, he was slicing to
pieces the man who had humiliated him by seizing his spear and breaking
it in two. He could still hear the roars of laughter when his fellow
guards learned how easily Semerket had disarmed him. Worse, they had
told him that he must pay for a new spear out of his own wages — a
whole month’s worth!

Seething with shame, he vowed to never again
be caught so unprepared. He would perfect his swordplay, so that the
next time he met with the surly, black-eyed Egyptian, he would be
ready. With every thrust he made into the empty air, with every
slashing cut, he imagined Semerket skewered and bleeding before him.
Soon the sweat ran from the young man in rivulets, soaking his tunic.

His hatred was hotter than the overhead sun
bleaching the street to bone. Consumed by his need for revenge, the lad
was completely unaware of the stranger who watched him from a nearby
alleyway. As the youth whirled and feinted at his imaginary foe, his
watcher moved from the shadows to stand at the lintel of Menef’s gate.
The clerk in the sentry house saw him, however, and frantically
attempted to signal the young guard, to warn him of the stranger’s
approach.

“What —?” the young man said, puzzled by the
clerk’s grimaces. He leaned on his sword, and wiped the sweat from his
forehead.

“Behind you!”

A tone in the clerk’s voice made the young
man spin around in panic, panting for breath. The man whom he had
fought so furiously in his imagination now stood directly before him —
and, worse, he carried a long, wicked spear in his hands. To his shame,
the young man felt his bowels turning to water.

“Have you…” the young guard began, but his
voice failed. “Have you come to kill me?”

“What?”
Semerket said, surprised.
“Of course not.”

“W-why have you come here, then?” The lad’s
voice was still very faint. “With that?” He pointed to the spear.

“I mean to give it to you.” The lad flinched
when Semerket held out the spear for him to take. “I shouldn’t have
broken yours yesterday. I apologize.”

Clearly dumbfounded, the young man
reluctantly reached forward to take the spear into his hands. The
instant he felt its weight and heft, he knew it to be of superb
workmanship, better than any the legation had issued him.

“All the same,” Semerket continued, “you
shouldn’t have struck my friend like you did. He’s too old for such
treatment. You could have killed him.”

For some reason, perhaps because of the
man’s calm voice, the lad felt suddenly ashamed of himself. “They told
me to make sure he didn’t bother the ambassador,” he muttered.

“Well, you’ll find there are different ways
of obeying orders. It’s like hunting a hippo or a hare, isn’t it?”

The lad looked at him, confused. “What?”

“Kem-weset is just an old hare. A little
prod to his backside with the tip of your spear, and he’d have scooted
away quick enough. But you went at him as if he were a hippo. Do you
understand what I’m saying?”

“I suppose so,” mumbled the lad. He lifted
the spear, testing its weight and balance. “But — to bring me this
spear…Why did you do it?”

“I was a guard once myself, and young. I
remember how they’d make us pay if anything happened to our weapons.”

“You were a guard?”

Semerket nodded. “On a caravan, yes.”

The young man’s mix of feelings played upon
his face, one trumping the next in rapid succession. His hatred for
Semerket had entirely dissipated, replaced finally by interest. “Well,”
the lad was nevertheless awkward, “thanks.”

Semerket looked over to the clerk still
staring wide-eyed in the sentry house. “You’d better tell your friend
that I’m not here to kill you. In fact, I’m actually here to ask some
questions.”

The young guard’s eyes filmed with
suspicion. “Is that the reason you gave me the spear?”

“The spear is yours, in any case.”

“Menef’s not here. He stayed at the palace
last night.”

“I’d rather speak to you, if you don’t mind
— and your friend in the shack over there.”

The young guard was silent for a moment, as
if inwardly debating his answer. “Then it depends…”

“On what?”

“What it is you want to ask.”

“YES…YES,” said
the clerk in the sentry house, whose name was Nes-Amun. “She was as
beautiful as you say — for a serving maid, I suppose. But that didn’t
mean she was very accommodating. Besides, she was a bit older than I
like my women.”

Semerket resisted the impulse to knock the
clerk from his stool. He did not care for the hoarseness that crept
into Nes-Amun’s voice when, after much prodding, he at last remembered
Naia. But the pimply-faced youth had worked at the legation for over
two years and remembered many of the indentured servants who had come
from Egypt with Menef. So Semerket was forced to endure his unpleasant
words and character. “Yes, she was here — and the boy, too — and I can
tell you this even though I’m charged with remembering only those who
still work here.”

“Can you remember what happened to them?”

Nes-Amun shook his head. “We get so many
servants. They arrive with every caravan, hordes of them. Half of Egypt
must be here by now — particularly after the conspiracy against old
Ramses last year.”

“Are they all sent to Menef?”

Nes-Amun nodded indifferently. “It’s his
right to dispense with them as he sees fit.”

“Where does he send them?”

“Oh, some go to his friends, of course, if
the servants are intelligent or good-looking. Most of the time he sends
them on to Eshnunna.”

“Who?”

Nes-Amun again emitted a high mirthless
cackle. “It’s not a ‘who,’ it’s a ‘where.’ Eshnunna is the town where
Babylon’s slave market is, everybody knows that, about six leagues to
the northeast of here.”

“He sells their contracts to the slave
traders?” Semerket felt the blood draining from his face.

“And a nice profit he makes, too.” Nes-Amun
was like so many of the clerks that Semerket had known back in Egypt,
who took the first opportunity to snipe enviously at their masters
behind their backs. “He gets at least thirty to forty deben of silver
for each one. You’d better believe he’ll go home to Egypt a richer man
than when he came, the lucky sod.”

If Naia and Rami had indeed been given over
to the slave traders, they might have been sold anywhere in Babylonia —
even beyond its borders. How was he to find them? The city in its
immensity was bad enough; was he now required to search an entire
nation, as well? Then he remembered Elibar’s words to him, saying that
Rami had been attacked somewhere in the northwest outskirts of Babylon,
between the two rivers. His heart calmed a bit.

“Rami was at a plantation,” he said,
“somewhere to the northwest, outside Babylon’s walls. Have you any idea
if Menef knows anyone in that area?”

“Menef knows many people.”

“Do you believe, then, that they were most
likely sent to the slave market?”

Nes-Amun shrugged, scratching at the
pustules on his face. “How should I know? You really must ask Menef
these things.”

“I will.”

Nes-Amun unsuccessfully stifled a sardonic
laugh.
“If
he’ll receive you,” he said. “Which I
doubt
very much; he doesn’t see just
anybody
. I should know,
shouldn’t I, since
I
have the say of who comes and goes
through these gates.” He preened importantly.

Semerket did not tell Nes-Amun that he was
Pharaoh’s special envoy to King Kutir and therefore outranked the
ambassador. Let these youths continue to think of him as an ordinary
Egyptian citizen, attempting to find his unfortunate wife. He rose from
his stool, feeling tired; Nes-Amun’s answers had suddenly widened the
scope of his investigation radically.

Semerket nodded to the young guard, who sat
in the corner of the shed, carefully sharpening the blade of his new
spear. “Enjoy the spear,” he said to the lad in farewell. “But first
learn the difference between a hippo and a hare, eh?”

The young guard smiled, and nodded.

BACK AT THE HOSTEL, Semerket
approached one of his priestly hosts and asked if the inn could provide
him with quick transport to Eshnunna. The moment his words were out of
his mouth, the priest’s eyes grew bright.

“Does the Egyptian lord wish a slave girl to
warm his bed tonight?” he asked with a leer.

“Thank you, no.”

“Well, then, perhaps a boy. What’s a piece
of mutton, then, without the bone, eh?”

Semerket held up his hand, interrupting the
fellow. “I’ve no wish for a boy, either. Only a carry chair with
running bearers. A chariot would be better, if you have one. I’ll pay
for its rental, of course.”

It happened that the inn possessed its own
chariot with a driver and that it would be the god Marduk’s pleasure to
bestow the equipage on him for the day.

“You vouch for its quickness?”

“Oh, yes, my lord. The horses are very
fleet, and the chariot is practically weightless — constructed from
river reeds!”

Semerket waited outside in the broiling sun
for the chariot to appear. The grooms brought the vehicle around from
the stables, its two cream-colored horses stepping high. The driver,
though bowing his head to Semerket, never let go of the reins, and it
was all he could do to keep the horses steady while Semerket climbed
aboard.

With Semerket standing beside him, the
driver eased the chariot into the Processional Way. As usual, the
avenue overflowed with pedestrians, sedan chairs, and delivery wagons,
making the going very slow indeed. Some long moments later, they came
to the Damkina Gate, named for the goddess-mother of Bel-Marduk,
located at the northeastern juncture of the city walls. Semerket
informed the Elamite guards of his desire to go to the slave yards in
Eshnunna. They checked his name from an official list of persons
watched by the king, all the while making lubricious conjectures as to
why he wanted to go there. In the end, the Elamites allowed them to
pass, and the chariot and the team were at last on the road heading
northeast. The flat river plain stretched before them, wavy with plumes
of heat, and the sky was a colorless hue. Because it was full noon,
there was little traffic to impede them, save for a few Elamite
squadrons patrolling the river valley. Most people had sensibly gone
indoors to avoid the worst of the sun’s heat.

“Hold on, lord,” muttered the driver.

Semerket clung to the chariot’s reed frame
and braced his sandaled feet on its woven floor. The driver spoke in a
low voice to his steeds, though Semerket could not catch what he said.
The horses touched their noses together, as if enjoying a conspiracy,
and whinnied. Then Semerket felt the wheels leave the ground…

Semerket heard himself cry out in shrill
terror, hardly knowing if his feet still touched the chariot. The
horses cut directly across the plain, heedless of stones and boulders,
so that at any moment Semerket thought the wheels might fly to pieces.
No matter how hard he thumped on the driver’s back with his fists —
during those few times he dared to let loose a hand from the chariot
frame — the man refused to acknowledge his shouts and blows. All
Semerket could do, finally, was to hang on and pray to all the Egyptian
gods to preserve his life.

Within a single measure of the water clock
they saw the low walls of Eshnunna rising from the plain, and in
another few minutes they were through its gates. When he was at last
able to leap to the ground, cursing foully, Semerket reeled like a
drunken sailor, unable to find his balance. As he collected himself,
the driver calmly led the frothing horses to a nearby stable, telling
Semerket that when he wished to return to Babylon, he could find him
there.

When at last he could walk again, Semerket
took a quick survey of the small town. It was essentially a village of
low-slung barracks, used to house the ever-changing multitudes of newly
arrived slaves. The Elamite invasion had swelled the inventory to
bursting, and armed guards oversaw the vast yards where the slaves
congregated. Semerket was surprised to see the complacent expressions
on most of their faces; he had prepared himself for their miserable
wails and cries of grief, but the slaves seemed content with their lot,
not at all resentful of the guards. Nearby, he saw the raised stages on
which the slave brokers exhibited their merchandise to prospective
buyers. Painted signs posted on palm trunks advertised upcoming
auctions. “Strong, healthy males from Subartu!” proclaimed one. “Fine
girls of quality from Lullu, guaranteed none above fifteen!” said
another.