Day of the False King (23 page)

The villagers broke into loud exclamations.
“Why, she was soaking wet, as if she’d just leapt from the river
itself!” “Beautiful, too, like a goddess!” “Clad in silks, in jewels!”
“What else could she have been, but a river nymph?”

Semerket looked over at Shepak, perplexed.

In response, Shepak shot Semerket an
impatient, disgusted glance, clearly implying that they were wasting
their time by interviewing such backward people. But Semerket
stubbornly continued to believe that from their poetry real information
could be gleaned.

“How long after the raid did she come to
you?”

Several of them loudly counted out the hours
it had taken for this strange woman to appear. They finally agreed that
she had appeared some six or seven measures of the water clock from the
time the desert demons had attacked the plantation, or just before dawn.

“Was there a boy named Rami with her? He
would have had a head wound —”

Vigorously, they denied that a boy traveled
with the goddess.

Shepak, who had been silent until now,
leaned forward to ask suddenly, “These desert demons who attacked her —
did any of you actually see them?”

The villagers shook their heads. They had
been warned not to venture outdoors that night, they said.

“Warned?” Semerket raised his head sharply.
“Who
warned you?”

The rustics stared at one another, as if
gauging how much they should tell him. The mayor’s wife at last broke
the strained silence. “Mother Mylitta came to our village that evening.
She told us that she was going to the plantation to warn the Elamites,
that we must hide —”

“She said that blood was in the sky!” The
mayor excitedly interrupted his wife. “She told us that it’d be too
dangerous to come out. Stay inside, she said. Blood in the sky, she
said!”

“Who is this Mother Mylitta?” mused
Semerket, looking around the room. “Another goddess from the river?”

Surprisingly, it was Shepak who answered
him. “Mylitta’s as human as you or I, Semerket; she’s the head woman of
Babylon’s gagu.”

Semerket’s eyes widened in surprise. “The
gagu?”

Once again, the mysterious women of that
strange convent had surfaced in the deepening mystery surrounding
Naia’s disappearance. From the first day he had come to the city, these
women had hovered at the fringes of his investigation. He had seen them
at the river’s edge, when he and Marduk had first arrived at the city,
then again at Nidaba’s house only the night before. Now they appeared
to have some connection to the raid itself — though perhaps a benign
one, if this Mother Mylitta woman had been truly bent on warning the
Elamites. But the inevitable question had to be asked: how did Mother
Mylitta know that such a raid was coming?

Semerket turned again to address the room
full of villagers. “How long did this woman — this ‘river spirit’ —
stay with you?”

“A single day. At the end of it, she
indicated that we must take her to Mother Mylitta. So we hid her in a
cart full of straw and drove her into Babylon, past the Elamite guards.”

Semerket’s heart began rapidly beating with
excitement; the woman, whoever she was, mortal or goddess, was at the
gagu! Without appearing eager to leave, Semerket nodded his thanks and
edged toward the low doorway. Shepak followed, and together they walked
to the canal where their horses were tethered.

“What do you make of it all?” asked Shepak.

“They told us the truth,” Semerket said
simply.

Shepak was disdainful. “So you believe that
a nymph appeared to them from out of the river that night? That desert
demons attacked her?” When Semerket nodded, he snorted contemptuously.
“You Egyptians are so credulous!”

Semerket looked at him sideways. “If you can
believe that entire armies of Isins vanish into thin air, why can’t I
believe in river nymphs?” Semerket came around to stand in front of
him. “Don’t you see? In their own way, they told us how the princess
survived — and that she can be found at the gagu.”

“Has the river fever seized you again?”

“What was the first thing the peasants sang
about? It was how richly the woman dressed — the rings on her fingers,
her necklaces. And what did she wear on her head?”

“A golden band,” Shepak sneered. “So?”

“Doesn’t that suggest a royal diadem to you?”

Self-doubt began to soften Shepak’s features.

Semerket pressed on. “To these people, a
royal woman stumbling out of the dark, alone — mightn’t she seem like a
goddess or spirit to them?”

“But this woman was dripping wet, they said.
How do you explain that?”

Semerket shrugged. “Perhaps she hid in a
canal or the river.” He smiled suddenly. “But that’s it! That’s how she
got away from them!”

“You truly believe it was Pinikir? Perhaps
it was your own wife.”

Semerket sighed, momentarily dispirited,
staring at the ground. “No. Naia was only a servant. She wouldn’t have
been clothed in jewels and silks.” He looked up again. “It
has
to be the princess. Look at what their song told us. The demons are
obviously the raiders. The woman who came to them spoke only the
language of spirits. I’ll wager that Pinikir couldn’t speak Babylonian,
and babbled away in Elamite to them. And if I’m right, she’s hiding at
the gagu right now.”

“But —” Shepak almost shouted his
frustration. “Why would she be in hiding? It makes no sense.”

Semerket continued blithely. “Perhaps there
was a conspiracy and Pinikir caught wind of it. It’s obvious this
Mother Mylitta knew something, else why would she have rushed to the
plantation that night?”

“But surely Pinikir would tell Kutir that
she was at the gagu — he’s her brother!”

Semerket looked soberly at his friend. “Not
if she suspects her brother was behind the attack,” he said quietly.
“After all, I know that Queen Narunte hated her.”

Shepak gave a great start. Before he could
speak, however, a woman’s voice hissed at them from behind.

“Egyptian!”

They turned, looking back into the village.
The wife of the mayor beckoned to him, the red sun of evening
flickering in eyes as black as his own.

“The boy you seek…?” she began.

“What about him?” Semerket’s voice was
suddenly very forceful, and the woman shrank from him, intimidated.
When she did not speak, he said again insistently,
“What
about him?”

She swallowed her fear. “That night of the
attack, a caravan was at the oasis —”

“What oasis? Where?”

Shepak answered. “One a few leagues north of
here, along the river; I know of it.”

They both turned again to the woman. She
pulled nervously at the strands of hair that escaped her headscarf.
“Some of the caravan merchants went to the plantation, after the demons
had fled. They saw what had been done.”

“How do you know this?”

“The merchants trade with us sometimes, when
they come through here. Women talk, you know?”

Semerket nodded.

“All the people were dead, they said. Tied
together, slaughtered all at once.”

Semerket remembered the bloodstained
courtyard in the rear of the plantation. He nodded, urging her to
continue with her story, for that detail confirmed to him that she
spoke the truth.

“But as they looked around, one of the dead
moaned. He was alive — this one you seek, the Egyptian boy! He called
to them from beneath the bodies.”

“Go on.”

“The merchants bound his wounds and took him
to their camp.”

“What happened to him? Where is he now?”

The woman shrugged elaborately, palms
outward.

Semerket took out a gold ring from his belt
and gave it to the woman. She gasped in delight, taking his hands and
kissing them. Then, looking slyly about to see if any of the villagers
had seen the exchange, she quickly slipped the gold into the folds of
her headscarf, running back to her own little round hut and slipping
inside.

Semerket and Shepak decided to separate.
“You go to the oasis,” Semerket told his friend, “since you know where
it is. Question anyone there. Find out what happened to Rami, if he’s
still alive, where he might be. But remember, you’re not an Elamite
commander any longer. If you frighten them, they won’t tell you
anything.”

At the junction of the north–south road, the
two men parted with the promise that they would meet later at the
Bel-Marduk hostel. Semerket turned his mount to the south, riding
quickly back to Babylon. He was in time to see the movement of many
Elamite troops converging on the city. They were the last of the armies
withdrawing from the northern part of the country. Though they stopped
him, suspicious of any galloping horseman, they recognized his pass
from Kutir and let him ride on.

WHEN HE RETURNED his horse,
the stableman told him where the gagu was located — in the Etemenanki
complex.

“But you won’t be able to go there tonight,
if that’s what you’re planning,” he said.

Semerket raised his eyebrows. “But I’ve a
pass.”

The man looked at him as if he’d gone mad.
“You don’t know what’s been going on in Babylon today, do you?”

Semerket admitted that he did not.

The stableman told him that the Elamites —
might they all be flung into the Eternal Pit! — had swiftly revenged
themselves on the city in retaliation for the Isins’ dawn raid.
Suspecting that the Babylonian citizenry hid the raiders in their
homes, the Elamites initiated a door-to-door search. But no Isin had
turned up, clad in mufti or otherwise. Many Babylonian citizens had
been slaughtered in the process.

“But this hasn’t been enough for those
damned murderers,” lamented the stableman. “They’ve even shut down the
city’s granaries. Go out into city, anywhere, and you’ll hear the wails
of our hungry children. The gods alone know how my wife is coping, or
even if she’s alive!”

Semerket wondered if he should even attempt
going out onto the streets that night. But his need to know if Princess
Pinikir was at the gagu was too compelling to ignore, and he set out
alone on the avenues. Only by sheer luck did he manage to avoid every
Elamite patrol.

The gagu, he discovered, was a large
structure to the rear of the Etemenanki complex, hidden behind its own
wall and moat. A tall cylindrical tower of mud bricks rose from its
confines, around which a winding staircase snaked. He had often seen
the structure from afar during his peregrinations throughout the city,
but never knew what it was. Idly, he wondered what purpose the tower
served.

The gagu’s gate was closed tightly, and its
bridge was winched up over the moat so that no one could enter. Behind
the walls, however, Semerket saw the flare of torches and heard the
murmurs of many feminine voices. As he drew near, the sulfurous scent
of burning bitumen grew suddenly strong. Above the gagu’s walls he saw
thick roiling clouds of smoke spewing into the night sky from some
hidden smelter. Semerket, who had seen no such clouds billowing forth
during the day, was immediately suspicious. What were these women doing
with the bitumen that could not bear examination by daylight?

Semerket walked to the edge of the moat.
“Hello!” he yelled out loudly into the dark. When there was no answer,
he yelled again. “My name is Semerket, from Egypt. I want to speak to
Mother Mylitta! Tell her!”

A harsh though distinctly feminine voice
answered. “Go away, Egyptian! Mother Mylitta decides to whom she
speaks, not the other way round!”

He stood defiantly, hands on hips. “Tell her
that it concerns the Princess Pinikir. Tell her I know she was at the
plantation that night — and that if she won’t see me, I’ll go to Kutir.”

The women’s helmeted heads disappeared from
the watchtower. Semerket assumed that they went to inform Mother
Mylitta that he was at their gate. Placidly, he sat down before the
moat, cross-legged, to wait her reply.

Mother Mylitta’s response was not long in
coming. With a great scraping of chains, the women lowered their bridge
and Semerket crossed into the gagu’s courtyard. As he blinked in the
bright torchlight, the gate was quickly shut behind him and the bridge
rose again over the moat, locking him inside. He scrutinized the
shadows for any available exits, but there were none; he saw only that
several donkeys were hitched together, bearing their usual loads of
black bitumen. As he waited for an escort, he went over to one of the
asses to take a closer look at the bitumen.

As if idly, he pulled out a gleaming black
chunk from a donkey’s sack, tossing it into the air. It was
surprisingly weighty for its small size, and oddly shaped — so
rectangular it seemed almost fabricated. As the torchlight hit it, he
saw a sudden telltale glint of metal. Semerket caught the piece in his
hand again, paling, and turned to face the guards.

Two spears were at his chest, their points
almost touching his flesh.

“Put it back,” one of the female guards said
evenly.

Carefully, Semerket returned the bitumen
into the sack.

“Step away from the donkey,” she ordered.

“I’m sorry if I offended,” he said,
affecting an expression of mortification. But he was not in the least
sorry he had done it, for as the bitumen had flown into the torchlight
he had discovered — finally — what the gagu was doing with the mineral.

The two guards led him to the cylindrical
tower of mud bricks he had seen from afar, and halted. The tower was
very wide at its base — almost thirty cubits, he gauged — and as he
looked up, he saw that it tapered inward as it reached toward the
heavens.

“Up there,” his escort instructed, nodding
to the tower. She pointed her spear to the outer staircase. “Mother
Mylitta’s in her observatory.”

“Up?”
he gasped.

“You said you wanted to meet her, didn’t
you?”