Day of the False King (2 page)

Pharaoh spoke from his seat. “Elibar
worships a nameless god of the desert, one so jealous it considers all
other gods to be demons or devils or frauds. Pay no attention to my
cousin, for his religion is simply another family sickness I must
endure.”

Elibar smiled indulgently; it was obvious
that theirs was an argument both cousins had waged amiably for many
years. The Canaanite continued to speak.

“As I say, the man drew the outline of the
ziggurat in the sand. Then he made a circle around it — this I took to
be the walls of the city. Two wavy lines on either side of it were, of
course, the Tigris and Euphrates. Then he took the stick and pointed to
the upper left of Etemenanki, outside the circle but between the
rivers. I assume he meant that your Rami could be found to the
northwest of Babylon, on the river plain.”

“Did the caravan master tell you if…if there
was a woman with him?”

“He said there were many women — many men,
too — but unfortunately they had all been massacred by bandits.”

Semerket abruptly felt light-headed, as if
his legs had somehow disconnected from his body. Black crowded the
edges of his vision.

“Get him a chair!” Pharaoh ordered, and the
servants scrambled to obey.

“No,” said Semerket. Sternly he forced
himself to breathe regularly, to stand erect. After an imperceptible
moment, he turned again to Elibar. “And these Isins,” he managed to
ask, “who or what are they?”

It was not Elibar but Pharaoh who answered.
“A native tribe in Babylonia. Egypt has very cordial relations with
them, for my father felt they had a fair chance of becoming the next
rulers. Of course, that was before the Elamites invaded.”

Semerket nodded. “And Menef — who is that?
It’s an Egyptian name, isn’t it?”

Pharaoh nodded. “He is our ambassador,
appointed by my father before he died.” He looked at Semerket with an
odd expression. “I’ve already sent a special dispatch to him, directing
that he help you find your friends when you arrive.”

It was a moment before Ramses’ words
penetrated Semerket’s clouded and anxious mind. He raised his head,
surprised.

Ramses nodded, confirming his previous
words. “I have named you my special envoy to their new Elamite king,
and have also prepared documents of manumission for your friends. Your
wife and the boy may return to Egypt whenever they wish.”

To Semerket’s surprise, he saw that guilt
laced Ramses’ expression — a quality rarely found in a Pharaoh.

“I should have freed them after my father
died.” Ramses sighed. “It was the only reward you ever asked. But with
the trials…my father’s burial…I thought the matter would keep. I was
mistaken. My only hope is that they’re still alive to enjoy their
freedom.”

Sensing Semerket’s discomfiture, Ramses
continued to speak. “When Elibar returns to Canaan, you shall go north
with him under his protection. It’s only a short journey to Babylon
from where his family resides.”

“May I ask —” Semerket had to swallow before
he could speak further. “May I ask when Lord Elibar will be leaving?”

“The day after tomorrow,” Elibar answered,
“at dawn. A royal galley will take us to Pi-Ramesse, and from there we
sail on the Big Green to Tyre, on one of my own ships.”

There was nothing more to say. Stretching
forth his arms at knee level, Semerket began to back out of the room.
There were a thousand preparations to make before he could depart. But
Pharaoh held up his hand, preventing him from going. “Semerket and I
must now speak privately,” he announced curtly.

Without asking the nature of this private
business, Elibar raised his fingers to his lips and made the gesture of
kissing the earth. “A hundred years,” he said, uttering the traditional
blessing to Pharaoh as he backed from the room.

As the rest of the servants melted into the
shadows, Ramses wrenched himself from his chair. “Follow me,” he told
Semerket.

Ramses seized an oil lamp to light the
windowless and winding halls of Djamet. Soon they came to a far door,
which the guards pulled open. Within the room, an immense model of a
new city was set upon trestles. The length and breadth of it took
almost the entire chamber.

“Look at it, Semerket.” Pharaoh gazed
lovingly on the model. “The new capital of Egypt. My engineers tell me
it will be the greatest project since the pyramids — the legacy of
Ramses the Fourth.”

Semerket knelt to inspect the model.
Miniature temples, causeways, palaces, workshops — all were laid out in
meticulous detail. He could even see the rounded ovens in the temple
bakeries. Pharaoh’s architects had thought of everything, down to the
new capital’s last alleyway and square.

“It will take generations to complete,”
Semerket said, mentally calculating the city’s phenomenal size.

Ramses looked at him so piercingly that
Semerket felt the color rising in his face. Pharaoh suddenly went to
the door and peered into the hallway in both directions. He dismissed
the guards that waited outside, telling them to post themselves further
away. Satisfied that no one loitered in the corridor, he motioned for
Semerket to come closer.

Pharaoh brought his lips close to Semerket’s
ear, lowering his voice to barely a whisper. “My physicians tell me
that I will live a hundred years or more,” he said, “but that only
means they’re not sure how long I will live at all. The priests have
cast my horoscope, but it’s so vague it might mean anything. I’ve
sacrificed to every god and goddess in the land — I’ve given them new
garments of rare silk, and gifts of gold and ivory to their priests.
Yet still the gods do not help me.” Again he looked around, as if
searching for spies. “And this is the other reason why you must go to
Babylon, Semerket, a secret reason. There is something you must do for
me, for Egypt, when you arrive there.” Once more, Pharaoh looked about
the room, squinting into the shadows.

Semerket stared at Ramses, waiting.

“In Babylon, you will go to their new king
Kutir. You will offer my greetings, and extend Egypt’s official
recognition of his rule. You will tell him I stand ready to assist him
with arms and gold to strengthen his dominion over the country.”

Semerket allowed his black eyes to glitter.
“And the price for Egypt’s support?”

Pharaoh’s gaze took on a dreamy look.
“Babylon’s god Bel-Marduk must make a state visit to Egypt. When he
arrives, I will take the idol’s golden hand in mine and gaze into his
eyes, for it’s said that doing so will drive out my every demon and
pain.”

Suddenly Ramses began to cough again, and
his glance filled with incipient terror. “Time, Semerket,” he pleaded
when he could catch his breath. “Bring the idol back to me, that I can
see this new city rise in the Delta, greater than any other. Death is
in me, Semerket. I can feel it gnawing at my vitals like a rat at the
grain.”

Semerket’s eyes grew wide.

Pharaoh’s hands gripped his shoulder. “My
son is only six years old. If I die, the priests of Amun will appoint
regents to rule for him. And who will they be?”

Semerket considered quickly. Tutors? The
child’s mother? These had been the traditional choices in the past. But
such persons, however close to the prince, would not be enough
protection in these uncertain times. The priests would certainly favor
the appointment of stronger, abler men from the royal family —

“Tiya’s sons,” Semerket said instantly.

Pharaoh nodded grimly. “Exactly. My
half-brothers, sons of that murderess who killed my father. How long
will my own son last, then, do you think? Such a small matter to
arrange some ‘wasting disease’ for him. Like father, like son, they
will say, dead of the same ailment.” Ramses’ fingers dug so hard into
Semerket’s flesh that his nails left crescents. “And after my son, who
next will they turn their eyes upon?”

Semerket knew the answer to that question,
too — they would seek the one who had exposed the conspiracy hatched by
their mother and brother, the one who had brought their own side of the
royal family into so much disgrace.

“Me,” Semerket breathed.

“You — to begin with! And after you’re dead,
none of your family will be safe. Do you understand why I chose you for
this task? You have as much to lose as I.”

Semerket swallowed. He saw clearly that it
was not only Pharaoh who needed the years the idol could bring; he
needed them himself — at least enough time for Pharaoh’s son to become
a man. Though he had little faith in the curative powers of foreign
idols, he had no choice but to believe with his king in the magic of
Bel-Marduk’s statue; it seemed their only chance.

“Yes,” Semerket said firmly. “I’ll bring
this god back to you.”

WHEN HE HAD ARRIVED earlier at
Djamet, the temple had not yet fully wakened. But as Semerket came
through the door that connected the palace with the temple proper, he
saw that the halls and sanctuaries now teemed with priests, singers,
nobles, and guards. He cursed silently, knowing what was ahead. As he
passed through the hall of soaring columns, he heard them whisper his
name nervously as he passed, sounding to him like the flutter of quail
wings. “Semerket…Semerket!” They probably imagined that he and Pharaoh
conferred about plans to hunt down any remaining conspirators, many of
whom still roamed these very halls.

Semerket felt his heart sinking, for in the
group of people clustered at the doorway was Prince Mayatum. The
youngest son of Queen Tiya, half-brother to Pharaoh, Mayatum would be
one of the regents for Pharaoh’s son should the unthinkable occur.
Though Mayatum wore a priest’s vestments, being the prelate who
governed the city of On, he exuded the oleaginous superiority common to
all of Tiya’s brood.

Semerket tried to hurry past the prince and
out to the Great Pylons beyond, keeping to the walls. Whatever they had
to say to one another could not be pleasant, for Semerket had presided
over the execution of his older brother, Prince Pentwere. In fact,
Semerket had been the one who had conveyed the white silken rope to the
prince, with which he had then hanged himself. As for the princes’
witch of a mother, Queen Tiya, whose plotting had been responsible for
the entire tragedy, she had disappeared from the royal palace, spirited
away under cover to some unknown destination. Some said that she had
become the victim of Ramses III’s final act of vengeance. Whatever had
happened to her, her scheming had proved treacherous for everyone, and
Semerket had no wish to confront the prince and reopen the wounds. But
Mayatum, alerted by a servant, turned just as Semerket was passing and
hailed him.

“Why, isn’t it Semerket?” he called out
warmly. “How fares the great hero of Egypt, the man who saved my
father…almost?”

Though the words the prince used were
flattering, Semerket still sensed an insult in them. He kept his head
lowered, staring at the black basalt tiles.

“I am well, Highness,” he said.

“I take it you’ve been meeting with my
brother?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“And how is his health today?” The prince’s
loud words seemed somehow too caring, too concerned. “Is his cough any
better? Not spitting up more blood, is he?”

Semerket kept his voice low, answering
obliquely. “Pharaoh’s health will improve, no doubt, upon seeing your
highness again.”

Mayatum flicked his whisk of horsehair at an
imaginary fly. “I’ve been out of the country, you know, meeting with
our allies in the East. Very secret, you know. Very hush-hush. In fact,
I’m on my way to make my report to Pharaoh now.”

Semerket felt his tongue withering in his
head. What did the prince expect him to say? Semerket was nothing to
him, beneath his notice. “I’m…I’m sure the king will be anxious to hear
what you have to say,” he muttered.

“Oh, ho!” Mayatum smiled. “So you’re
dismissing me, are you? You were always so direct, Semerket, so honest.
Some said to a fault, but never I.”

The prince dismissed Semerket with a wave of
his flywhisk, turning his back on him with seeming indifference.

Semerket left the temple quickly, almost
running to where the ferrymen congregated at the docks. Ever since the
trials, he had dreaded meeting any of Tiya’s remaining sons. It could
have gone worse, he supposed. Perhaps the prince had concluded that it
would be best to leave old hostilities behind and endure the shrifts a
new reign had imposed on them both.

As Semerket crossed the Nile again to
Eastern Thebes, he stood at the prow of his boat. The sky above the
city was afloat with streamers that soared from a thousand
crystal-topped spires. From Amun’s Great Temple, the distant voices of
the temple chorus pricked his ears with familiar psalm.

Every part of him was electric with
anticipation. Yes, the news he had received from Babylon was
devastating, and the secret of Pharaoh’s declining health was worse.
But the thing he had dreaded for so long had appeared to him at last.
He knew the worst, its shape and size, and its power over him was gone.
Now he could do something about it.

He knew in his heart that Naia was not dead;
he was absolutely convinced that she waited for him just beyond the
eastern horizon. Nothing could prevent him from bringing his wife and
Rami back to Egypt. Semerket felt the warm winds on his face blowing
from the east, and in them was the scent of Babylon.

THE CREW TOOK UP the ship’s
anchor stone at the first reddening blush of sunrise. Shakily, Semerket
thrust his head over the thatched gunwales. His stomach clenched. The
only thing he could see in any direction was the vast heaving ocean
that the sailors called the Big Green. No land. No birds. Only the
endless swells.

Semerket pulled himself to his feet, swaying
unsteadily with the motion of the ship. He was in time to see the
sailors unlash the single huge sail, painted in bright red and yellow
squares. As it billowed outward with a sudden, lethal snap, the ship
lurched forward so quickly that Semerket, already off-balance, fell
backward onto the deck.