Day of the False King (4 page)

Semerket watched as Shaul and his companions
turned their chariots, returning to the west. He waited until they
disappeared over the rise; then, fighting an almost panicky feeling of
abandonment, he began to walk down the road that led south.

It took him the entire afternoon to reach
the next city. In all that time, he saw no one on the road. To his
relief, just as the sun began to fall behind the western hills, he
caught site of the ancient walls of Mari. A haze of black smoke hovered
above the city, thicker than the usual smut of cooking fires. As he
came nearer, he saw that the walls bore witness to siege engines
recently used against them. Holes gaped in their brown brick flanks,
and scars of soot and smoke zigzagged crazily across their ramparts.

In all the other cities of Mesopotamia
through which he had passed with Shaul and his companions, the noise of
human traffic and habitation had risen loudly to greet them. At Mari,
he heard only the occasional screeches of the carrion vultures wheeling
in high circles above. As he came nearer the walls, he saw bodies
heaped haphazardly in the fields on either side of the road. The
temperature had risen precipitously as he ventured further south, and
the bloating corpses seemed to melt together like fat left in the sun.
His nostrils curled at the sinister smell of rotting meat, overlaid as
it was with the pervasively acrid scent of human waste.

From behind the damaged city wall, he
unexpectedly heard male voices yelling in excitement. A gang of Elamite
soldiers suddenly burst through the ruined city gate, kicking a leather
ball, passing it to one another between their feet.

The squad of soldiers stopped abruptly when
they saw Semerket standing in the road. The ball came bounding over to
where Semerket stood, and he set off to catch it for them. When he bent
down, however, he saw that the leather wrapping covered a perfectly
distinct human head. Semerket recoiled, allowing the head to roll into
the field of corpses, losing it in the long shadows.

“Who are you?” one of the men asked in poor
Babylonian.

Semerket spoke haltingly. “I’m Semerket,
from Egypt. I’ve come to meet with your king Kutir and bring him
Pharaoh’s blessing.” Now that he had left the former colonies of Egypt,
he felt it safe to call himself by his own name.

When the lieutenant had translated his
words, the Elamites smiled cordially and nodded. “Welcome to the
kingdom of Babylon, Egyptian, or what’s left of it,” the soldier said
in his queerly accented Babylonian.

Semerket’s gaze wandered to the ruins behind
the gate. “What happened to this town, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Its people gave — how do you say it?
Hiding? Protection…?”

“Shelter?”

“Yes! Just so! They gave shelter to Isin
traitors. Our brigade was sent here to…” The lieutenant paused to once
again search for the correct word. “…to
demand
that they turn
the Isins over to us, or be destroyed.”

Semerket looked about. The citizens of Mari
evidently had not yielded to the Elamites’ request.

“Is everyone dead, then?”

“Eh.” The lieutenant shrugged
philosophically. “Most fled to swamps. Very disappointing. Mari is poor
city. No gold for soldiers, you know. No loot.”

Stepping over fallen bricks and charred
lumber, Semerket turned to the lieutenant. “I don’t suppose there’s an
inn where I could take rooms? I’ve walked most of the day, and would be
glad of a bed.”

“Priests of Bel-Marduk keep a hostel for
travelers — but they, too, flee to marshes.”

“What about food?”

The lieutenant shook his head, but then his
eyes brightened with joy. “You eat with us! With officers! We share our
rations with you and you tell us stories from Egypt. Come…come.”

Just as the last rays of the sun deserted
them, they reached the Elamite headquarters. From a half-burned-out
building at the far end of the walkway, he heard a cacophony of voices
spilling into the courtyard, all speaking a gregarious Elamite.

“This way,” said the lieutenant, pointing.
“We take our meals in the cooking shed, yonder.”

As Semerket entered the ruined shed, the
soldiers gathered there turned to stare at him — twelve of them,
Semerket counted. Old instincts in him made him note all the doors and
exits. When he was sure of their location, he turned his attention
again to the men. They sat on the floor on a carpet, in the center of
which was a large steaming kettle.

The lieutenant spoke rapidly to them in his
own tongue. Semerket could not follow most of it, but thought he
recognized
per-ah,
the Elamite word for “Pharaoh.”
Ramses
came out “Rah-may-seeyu” — at least, that is what Semerket assumed the
word meant.

The commander was a short, thick plug of a
man with sinewy arms lavishly scarred from battle. Without rising, he
hailed Semerket from the carpet.

“Egyptian!” he called in his gravelly voice,
speaking a more unintelligible Babylonian than even the lieutenant.
“Here! Come!” He indicated a seat of honor beside him.

Semerket walked carefully around the
perimeter of men and took his place beside the commander. A slave
lingering near the hearths, a man of Semerket’s age, staggered forward,
gripping a ewer and a basin. Chains, Semerket noticed, bound the man’s
legs together.

The slave placed the basin on Semerket’s
lap. In perfect Egyptian he said, “I am going to wash your hands now,
sir.”

Semerket’s head shot up. His expression must
have been one of shock, for instantly the Elamite officers roared out
in protest, jumping to their feet and reaching for their swords. They
lunged at the slave as if they would hack him to pieces on the spot.

“No!” said Semerket quickly. “No, I was just
surprised to hear him speak Egyptian. He only wanted to wash my hands!”

As if debating whether Semerket spoke the
truth, the commander hesitated, then gave a shake of his head. The
officers sat back down on the rug, but kept their hands on the hilts of
their swords and menace in their expressions.

“Slave is nothing,” said the commander.
“Only Dark Head we capture in battle. We kill later.” He drew his
finger across his throat, and laughed.

The slave hurriedly dried Semerket’s hands
with a towel. With his back to the Elamites, he whispered so that only
Semerket could hear, again in Egyptian. “Help me, lord,” he said. “I’m
a dead man if you don’t prevent it.”

Semerket’s expression did not change. The
soldier next to him passed him the basket of bread. Semerket took a
piece and dipped it into the pot of tasty stew. The meat was
surprisingly flavorful, though he was unfamiliar with the animal from
which it came. He only hoped it was not the flesh of some Dark Head
slave.

“So, Egyptian!” the commander said between
mouthfuls. “You are ambassador and friend of Great Rah-may-seeyu. You
are rich.”

“I’m his servant, not his friend.” Semerket
scooped some more stew into his bread. All the soldiers’ eyes were hard
upon him.

“Is long way to Babylon,” the commander
said, smiling. “Many Isin traitors hide behind rocks. I send men with
you tomorrow. Protection for you. In Babylon you must go to my friend,
General Kidin. Head of all Elamite forces. Much help to you!”

“Kidin,” Semerket murmured, noting the name.

The commander then said something to his
soldiers, smirking. His men laughed with him, and turned to regard
Semerket with enigmatic expressions. The slave went around the circle
of soldiers, wiping their hands on a cloth. When he reached Semerket he
whispered, “Beware, sir. He tells his men that you are not destined to
reach Babylon.”

Semerket felt a rush of paralyzing fear
surge through his body. These barbarians planned to murder him for the
gold they imagined he carried, no doubt to make up for their lack of
swag in Mari! He cast about feverishly in his mind for a plan. He did
not know the countryside, or even the layout of the city. Semerket’s
eyes instinctively found those of the Dark Head slave at the far end of
the shed; when their eyes met, there was understanding between them.

Semerket thrust his legs forward, stretching
luxuriantly. Solemnly he thanked the soldiers for sharing their food
with him. Then he yawned, feigning great fatigue, saying that he would
find accommodations at the ziggurat of Bel-Marduk, even though it might
be deserted. Would the escort promised by the commander be ready to
leave at an early hour?

The Elamites nodded vigorously. Yes, they
were quite sure they could be ready by then. Semerket noticed the
surreptitious glances the men exchanged.

Semerket rose to his feet, inclining his
head in thanks. As he started to the doorway, he turned, as though
seized by an incidental afterthought. “You know,” he said, “I was
thinking that I’ll need an interpreter. My Babylonian, as you can tell,
is very poor. Will you sell me this slave of yours?” He pointed to the
fettered man at the hearth. “I’ll give you three — no, five — gold
pieces for him. Egyptian gold.” By this, he meant the gold was worth
more to them than the debased pieces found in Babylon since their
invasion. He fished out the five glinting rings from his belt and saw
the sudden hunger in the soldiers’ eyes. “Do this, and I’ll be sure to
praise you to your king Kutir.”

The commander spoke again in Elamite to his
men, who readily enough agreed to part with the slave. The slave was no
further use to them, and, in any case, they were eager to rejoin the
bulk of their army in retreat —

“I mean ‘in retrenchment,’ ” the commander
said quickly.

Semerket nodded graciously.

They brought the slave forward and struck
the chains from his ankles. Semerket made cheerful farewells to the
Elamite soldiers, promising to see them again at first light. The two
men left the kitchens rapidly and went into the dark of Mari’s streets.

When they were out of earshot, Semerket
murmured to the slave in Egyptian, “Do you know the city? Can you get
us out of here now without being seen?”

The slave nodded. “The walls to the east
have been destroyed. We’ll slip out there, and continue on to the
river. They won’t think to look for us if we go in that direction. When
they find us missing, they’ll go down the southern route first.”

It was a good plan, and Semerket willingly
agreed to it. “What are you called?” he asked.

“Marduk.”

“Like the god?”

The slave nodded.

Semerket considered the name a lucky omen.

MANY HOURS LATER, just as the
sky became light, Semerket and Marduk reached a small town of
reed-dwellers, perched on a wide estuary of the Euphrates. The
villagers greeted Marduk lustily, and he hurried forward to speak with
them in a dialect with which Semerket was unfamiliar. After much
animated conversation, Marduk returned to where Semerket waited.

“Give me a gold piece,” he said peremptorily.

“Why?” asked Semerket, surprised.

“I’ve bought us a boat so we can take the
river down into Babylon. It’s safer than the roads, and faster.”

Semerket dutifully handed over the gold
piece, again admitting to himself that Marduk’s plan was a good one.

“It was a fortunate day when we met,”
Semerket said aloud. “When I think what might have happened to us if
you hadn’t been able to speak Elamite…” He shuddered.

Marduk’s brow lifted in surprise. “What are
you talking about? I don’t speak Elamite,” he said.

Semerket looked at him without
comprehension. “But, in the kitchen last night — how could you know
that the soldiers meant to kill me today?”

“I never said that.”

“You did!”

“No, lord. I told you that the commander
said you were not destined to reach Babylon. However, upon reflection,
he may have said something entirely different.”

Semerket could only sputter, but Marduk held
up his hand in an imperious gesture, silencing his protests.

“I said nothing other than what I had to,”
the slave said easily. “The rest you told yourself. But let us forget
this misunderstanding and bless the Golden One whose name I bear, for
now I have a new master and all is well.”

Semerket glared at Marduk with narrowed
eyes. “I could have had an armed escort all the way into Babylon.”

“But now you have me. Moreover, I’m
certainly far cleverer than they are. You won’t regret it, lord. You’ll
see. I’ll keep you safer than any Elamite.”

As Marduk moved off to confer once again
with the villagers, Semerket told himself that here indeed was a
trickster race. Never again would he trust anyone in the land of
Babylon — particularly those slaves who made such fools of their
masters.

MARDUK, IN
REALITY, HAD NOT PURCHASED A
boat; he
had merely hired one. Semerket learned of the deception the next
morning when Marduk introduced him to a merchant at the river’s edge.
The man, a wineseller, had agreed to escort them all the way to
Babylon, Marduk told him.

“And here is our transport,” he announced
with a flourish, indicating a vessel floating a few cubits away in the
stagnant marsh water.

Semerket’s eyes widened.

The thing — it could hardly be called a boat
— was made of skins stretched over branches. Perfectly round,
possessing no stern or bow, it resembled nothing so much as a gigantic
floating disc. Straw covered its insides, on top of which the merchant
had piled hundreds of clay wine jars. Its other occupant was a donkey,
delicately nibbling the straw.

“You don’t mean that this
thing
is
what I paid good gold to sail in?” said Semerket.

Marduk fixed him with a flat eye. “What’s
wrong with it?”

“There’s an ass in it, for one thing!”

“My lord,” Marduk said, taking him aside and
whispering, “when you’re in a foreign country, it’s very rude to mock
the local customs.”

“You’re saying my refusal to sail with an
ass is rude?” Semerket’s voice was loud in the morning air.

“I’m saying, my lord,” said Marduk, “that on
the Euphrates the traffic goes only from north to south —
with
the current. When this man and his son reach Babylon, they’ll dismantle
the boat and sell its hides. How do you suppose they’ll return to their
village if they’ve no donkey?”

Semerket breathed deeply before he answered.
“I don’t mock the custom,” he said carefully. “I’m only saying that I
think we should purchase our own boat — one that doesn’t include any
livestock.”

Marduk brushed away Semerket’s words.
“Absurd,” he said emphatically. “I don’t know anything about navigating
a river. Do you?”

Semerket took another deep breath. “No,” he
admitted.

Sighing dismally, Semerket carefully climbed
into the craft and seated himself in what appeared to be the only space
available — next to the donkey. The beast appeared to find him a
sympathetic pilgrim, for its lips drew back to form a smile of almost
certain joy and it began to butt its head aggressively against
Semerket’s thigh.

Semerket recoiled, but the ass continued to
nudge and nip at him until finally he was forced to scratch the beast
between its ears. Contentedly exhaling a fetid gust of fermenting hay
from deep inside its gut, it rolled against him, hooves thrust in the
air so that Semerket might tend all his parts equally.

“Groom to an ass,” Semerket muttered
dolorously to himself.

Onshore, a crowd some two or three deep had
gathered around Marduk. They all called loud blessings on him as he
headed to the round boat. Some of the mothers held their children up
for his kiss.

What is
this
all about, thought
Semerket.

The merchant and his son hurriedly spread
rugs to make a soft cushion for Marduk when he came aboard. Semerket,
miffed, attempted to claim the seat for himself; he was the master,
after all, and it had been his gold that had purchased their
accommodations. But nothing could budge the affectionate donkey, and
Semerket remained helplessly pinned beneath it.

It was only then that he raised his head to
look out upon the river, and saw that the odd boat had already reached
the center of the marsh without his being aware that they had cast
away. He was surprised at how steady the vessel was; he had to admit
that she took the water well.

As the wine merchant and his son rowed, one
pushing and the other pulling, they navigated easily through the
reed-filled estuary toward the main channel of the Euphrates. The sun
was hot in the glades, lulling Semerket into a kind of torpor. Having
had no sleep the night before, he soon nodded his head.

He jumped awake, swearing in fright,
however, when the donkey began to bray. The beast struggled to rise;
almost too late, Semerket realized the animal meant to defecate. He
scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid the shower of dung —
much to the glee of the Babylonians. But when Semerket attempted to
push the animal’s rump over the side, wanting to prevent the donkey
from fouling the boat any further, their laughter turned into protests.

“No, no, my lord,” said Marduk amiably from
his seat of honor. “The dung is to be collected and dried in the sun.
That way, in a few days we’ll have fuel for a fire when we go ashore.
Even scrub wood is too precious to burn in Babylonia.”

His fellow sailors decided that since the
ass had developed such a touching bond with Semerket, it would be his
task during their travels to collect and form its dung into bricks. In
patient kindness, the merchant’s son showed Semerket how to do it.

LATER, WHEN HIS MOOD
had improved sufficiently, Semerket began a polite inquisition of his
new slave.

“I’m curious,” he said to Marduk. “How did
you come to speak Egyptian so well?”

Marduk considered a moment before he
answered. “I lived there for a time,” he said carefully. “In my youth.”

“From your accent I gather you lived in
Lower Egypt?”

“In Pi-Ramesse, yes.”

“Ah! Who was your master? Would I know him?”

“I doubt it.”

“He must have been a kind man, to see that
you were so well educated.”

Marduk turned away from Semerket to gaze
across the river, his glance inscrutable.

“Is your master still alive?” Semerket
continued the inquiry.

“No.”

“Did you escape from him?”

Marduk shook his head, still looking away
toward the lavender hills on the eastern horizon. “When my master heard
that the Kassite king couldn’t last on Babylon’s throne much longer —
and that Elam planned to invade — he freed me. My country needed me
more than he did, he said.”

“But then the Elamites took you prisoner.”

“Yes.”

“So you were again a slave.”

Marduk turned and looked at him fully. For
the first time Semerket noted the man’s well-formed features. Marduk’s
intelligent brown eyes, contrasting pleasantly with the paleness of his
skin, were set far apart and deep, below a smooth high brow. His nose
was strong but not beaked, and his lips beneath his mustaches were
full. Like most Babylonians, he wore his dark hair long, and though it
was now scraggly from neglect, Semerket saw the straightness of his
back and the determined set of his shoulders.

This Dark Head, as the native Babylonians
were called, was no man’s slave, and never had been. The fact that
Marduk had naturally taken charge of their expedition and ordered
Semerket about so highhandedly was testimony to a long habit of
command. Why, then, Semerket pondered, should Marduk pretend he
was
a slave? Some pertinent facts, he sensed, remained unspoken.

“I don’t believe you are a slave,” said
Semerket finally, “or ever were.”

Marduk was wry. “Yet you nevertheless paid
five gold pieces for me.”

Semerket shook his head sadly. “I’d have
done better to throw them to the river god as an offering, for no doubt
you’ve already planned when and where you’ll escape.”

Despite himself, Marduk laughed aloud. He
did not confirm or deny Semerket’s accusation.

“I would ask a favor of you in return,
however,” Semerket pressed. “Will you stay with me after we reach
Babylon? For just a few days, anyway. I need someone who knows the city
well. I’m looking for a person — two, in fact. One of them is my wife.”

Marduk stopped gazing at the distant hills
and turned his incredulous face to Semerket. “Why is she in Babylon,
then, of all places?”

Perhaps it was the fact that Marduk was a
foreigner, Semerket later thought, or that he seemed a sympathetic
listener, but Semerket divulged everything to him. He described Naia’s
banishment, and the reasons behind it. Marduk interrupted him only once
— when Semerket told him of the strange message from Rami and how the
word
slain
had appeared near the phrase
attacked by
Isins.

“Isins?” asked Marduk sharply. “Are you sure
that’s what the message said?”

“Why? Do you know who they are?”

Marduk shrugged his shoulders, glancing
again toward the shoreline. “They’re a tribe who ruled as kings before
the Kassites invaded from the north. Now their fight is with the
Elamites. They’re hardly murderers, Semerket — in fact, we native
Babylonians regard them as patriots.”

Semerket snorted derisively. “May the gods
preserve me from patriots, for their crimes are always so noble.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon’s
voyage in silence. Semerket gazed out at the vast brown plains that
edged the river, an endless sea of furrowed ruts of earth, crosshatched
by canals and dotted with waterwheels. The fields rose imperceptibly to
become hills, which in turn changed abruptly into tall cliffs and
canyons through which the Euphrates snaked. Here the current was
markedly fiercer, but the little round boat proved just as steady as
she had in the barely stirring marsh waters. River otters gamboled
among the reeds, and once Semerket saw a cheetah warily lapping at the
water’s edge. At their approach, it turned and slunk back into a
ravine. Soon enough the canyons gave way again to marshes clotted with
reeds. Small at first, the reeds were soon as tall as trees,
overhanging the river so that the Euphrates seemed a tunnel of green,
filtered light.

“Like the heavenly fields of Iaru,” Semerket
murmured.

From time to time, Semerket glimpsed black,
viscous pools of some bubbling ooze forming at the river’s edge. Once,
a black stain crept all the way to the boat itself, glimmering with a
dirty iridescence. Semerket pointed at it, asking Marduk what it was.

“Bitumen,” answered Marduk. “The bane of
Babylonia’s farmers. It leaches up from the ground, like some
pestilence from hell, spoiling the crops and poisoning the earth.”

“Bitumen? I’ve seen statues and furniture
carved from it. I thought it was a kind of stone.”

“When it dries, yes, it’s amazingly hard.
You see it now in its natural state, thick and greasy. The only good
thing about it is that it can burn for hours.”

Semerket plunged his finger in the passing
water. It came back filmed in gooey black, smelling vaguely of sulfur.
It was difficult to imagine this wet, sticky stuff aflame.

“Is it a good source for lighting, then, or
heat?”

Marduk shrugged. “It throws off such a
stinking cloud of soot we only use it when there’s no dried dung. If
you ask me, that stuff is something the earth goddess has vomited up
and wants buried again. But I know that the ladies of the gagu have
taken out a license to exploit what they can find.”

“The ‘gagu’?”

“A convent of women whose religion is trade.
As we get nearer to Babylon, you’ll probably see some of their
caravans. You’ll know it’s them because all their drivers and guards
are females.”

“And women have found a use for this
bitumen?”

Marduk only shrugged again and fell silent.

The river began to bend lazily to the east.
Coming around a promontory, Semerket saw the distant walls of a city.
Like Mari’s, they bore the scars of recent warfare, but he noted that
they had not been breached. As in all Babylonian cities he had
encountered, Semerket saw the gilded tip of a distant ziggurat
thrusting up above the other buildings. As they drew nearer, the sounds
of vital city life began to reach them. They soon came to a long, flat
beach nestled against the city walls, where a superfluity of merchants
was already encamped.

“Where are we?” Semerket asked.

“In the place where we will stay the night,”
Marduk answered. “In the city of Is.”

Semerket raised his head. “
Is?
As
in ‘
Isin’?”

Marduk nodded. “Their ancestral home,” he
said.

THOUGH THE ELAMITES
had laid siege to the city of Is the previous year, its defenders had
repulsed them. This made Is a magnet for any rebel or dissident who
hated the Elamites, and the city had in effect become the unofficial
capital of the Babylonian resistance. Gangs of mercenaries and ragtag
refugees continually streamed into it from the east and south. Any one
of them might be an Elamite agent or Babylonian turncoat; consequently,
Marduk told Semerket, trust was not in plentiful supply in Is.

Shortly after they set up their camp on the
riverbank and lit their dung fires, Semerket announced that he wanted
to go inside the gates. “I mean to find an Isin mercenary,” he told
Marduk. “Someone who knows of any recent attacks against…”

He stopped. Attacks against whom? The only
thing he really knew was that Naia and Rami had been employed in the
Egyptian ambassador’s household. Surely if the ambassador had been
assaulted, someone would have mentioned it to him before now. However,
it was all he had from which to begin.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’m going into the city.”

Marduk instantly protested. “If you go
blundering in there, asking questions about the resistance, you’ll last
all of ten minutes before someone plunges a knife between your shoulder
blades.”

Semerket thrust out his chin obdurately,
saying nothing.

Marduk said that he would go inside the city
himself. “It may be I know someone in there. Perhaps I’ll find someone
you can speak with — someone who might know of any Isin raids.” He rose
to his feet, brushing off his tunic. “Just don’t go in there by
yourself. It’ll be your death if you do.”

Though Semerket cared little for arranged
meetings, always suspecting that much else had been arranged as well,
he knew that Marduk was giving him good advice and — this time — he
would take it. Semerket settled back against the city wall. His eyes
smarted from the low-hanging cloud of fetid, brown smoke emitted from
all the surrounding dung fires. He found it difficult to breathe and
took himself to the river’s edge where the air was clearer. As the
night passed, however, swarms of ferocious mosquitoes rose from the
stagnant water to pester and bedevil him. Semerket kept up such a
racket of slaps and curses that the wine merchant’s son took pity on
him and brought him an evil-looking black balm, gesturing that he
should apply it to himself. Semerket sniffed at it and the harsh scent
of bitumen assaulted his nostrils. Apparently there was a good use for
the stuff, after all, for after he had slathered it on his face and
limbs, the mosquitoes were not quite so determined to leach him dry.