Men of Bronze (12 page)

The three men bowed deeply and approached the throne.

“You look positively vexed, Sethnakhte.”

The vizier bowed again. “I am beset by petty, self-important men, great Pharaoh.”

“Are you, indeed? I understand this one bears a message for me?” he said, nodding to Tjemu. “Speak, then. Tell me your message.”

The Libyan swallowed hard. “O Pharaoh, I have been sent by Hasdrabal Barca, who commands the Medjay in your name. Barca instructed me to relay this to your royal person, and only to your royal person.” Tjemu held out the diplomatic pouch taken at Leontopolis.

“Approach, then.”

Tjemu hobbled forward and ascended the dais. Nebmaatra moved opposite him, in case he should fall. Tjemu began to prostrate himself, to show deference to the divinity of the king, but Pharaoh waved him off.

“With that leg you’ll never get up again, son. An arrow?”

“Spear,” Tjemu said, placing the pouch in Pharaoh’s hand. “Bedouin spear.”

Pharaoh frowned. “Are we at war with the Bedouin, again?” He pried open the flap of the diplomatic pouch, the leather stiff with dried blood. He tugged out the vellum and began to read. With each sentence, a change came over Pharaoh. His eyebrows met and formed a ‘V’; his brow wrinkled, his lips peeled back from his teeth in a savage display of naked rage. He handed the vellum to Psammetichus.

“Tell me,” Pharaoh said, his voice flat, “from the beginning.”

Quickly, Tjemu relayed the tale of Habu, of Leontopolis, of finding the dead Persian envoy. “Barca led the rest of the men on to Memphis to scout out the landscape and learn what he could of the Greeks’ disposition.”

Sethnakhte stepped forward. “With your permission,” he said, taking the vellum from the Prince. He scanned it, then laughed aloud. “It’s a forgery, Golden One. A plot by Cambyses to sow discord among us. Phanes is a loyal soldier; I’ve seen it with my own eyes. If we accuse him of treachery, then you may as well place my head on the block, too!”

“Maybe we should!” Tjemu said, his voice a dangerous purr.

The vizier rounded on the soldier. “Impertinent fool! I will have your skin flayed off your back and your miserable body staked out for the flies to feast on! This is nothing more than Barca’s way of casting your disfavor on the garrison at Memphis. It is no secret that the Medjay envies their position. Perhaps …”

Tjemu’s hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. “Speak ill of Barca one more time, you pompous ass, and there won’t be enough left of you to feed the maggots!”

“Enough, both of you!” Pharaoh said. “What say you, Psammetichus? Were you Pharaoh what would your decision be?”

The Prince stood silent for some time, his head bowed, his arms folded over his chest. Pharaoh’s heir had gleaned a reputation at Sais as a patient, concise thinker. He weighed his words like gold. “Phanes has served you loyally since the fall of Lydia, father. Thrice you’ve awarded him the gold of valor. Unlike the vizier, I do not count Phanes as my friend, and I would give everything I own to renounce the Libyan as a dog and a liar.”

“Yet, you wouldn’t.”

“No, Father.”

“Why?” Pharaoh felt pangs of pride deep in his chest.

“Because I know Phanes’ reputation,” Psammetichus said. “Glory is the hot-clefted slut who stirs his passions. He’s tasted it all his life. Among Greeks, glory, once sampled, is never forgotten.”

Ahmose nodded. “My mind says much the same thing. Leave me, all of you. There is much to ponder. I will make my decision before the sun strikes its zenith.” He gestured to the Prince, who nodded and led the way.

Silently, the men bowed and filed from the room. The Nubians closed the doors. Outside, sunlight seared the hypostyle hall, heating the stones like an oven. Nebmaatra led Tjemu to a bench where the Libyan could rest his leg. He scowled as Sethnakhte took hold of Prince Psammetichus’ elbow and guided him away from prying ears. They conversed heatedly.

“One day,” Nebmaatra muttered, watching the vizier. “One day he will make a mistake, and I will be right there.”

“Honestly,” Tjemu said, “I do not understand why Pharaoh dawdles. I say dispatch a regiment or two and order them to bring back that bastard’s head.”

“Life is simpler in the desert, Libyan,” Nebmaatra replied. “Many of the Pharaoh’s enemies will use this turn of events to promote their own careers. Powerful as he is, Ahmose is not the god-king of ancient times. Common men put him on the throne, and those selfsame common men can remove him just as easily. And, the common man of Egypt has been taught to fear Greek ambition. Ahmose has worked hard to allay those fears, but this incident may well destroy us all.”

“The politics of Sais,” Tjemu spat.

“No, the reality of life.”

Alone in the throne room, Ahmose sagged. One liver-spotted hand tugged the
nemes
cloth off his head; the other massaged his scalp. His chest ached, and he could feel congestion pooling in his lungs with every deep breath. These were the moments when this gilded prison made him long for simpler times, for a life of anonymity far away from the intrigues of court. Phanes, a traitor? He sighed. As much as he loved the culture of the Hellenes — its art, its vigor — he often had to remind himself that they were a bloodthirsty people whose ambitions rivaled those of the arrogant Persians.

Is this how it began with his old allies? A rumor here, an insinuation there? What started as a grand alliance between Egypt, Babylonia, and Lydia had barely lived through its infancy. Croesus of Lydia fell first, outwitted by that Persian swineherd Cyrus. Nabonidus of Babylon held out longer, but he, too, eventually succumbed to the Medes, a victim of his own indifference. After the fall of Babylon, the lesser members of the grand alliance vanished like smoke. Now, only Egypt remained.

Psammetichus spoke true. Yet, he left out how a rebellious subject lent credibility to the rumors that the cancer of corruption consumed the Land of the Nile. Once it became known that a man like Phanes, a man with detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the military and ambition beyond ability, was unhappy, Persian spies would crawl from every rat-hole in Memphis. Ahmose sighed again. He would have to take Phanes down a notch, show him who ruled and who served.

Ahmose heard the silky grate of oiled stone hinges and looked up. A section of the palace wall swung outward; a woman stepped through. Her long cotton gown flared out behind her as she crossed the throne room. Pharaoh smiled.

“You heard, I take it?”

“Heard? The palace is all a-twitter! Are you seriously considering sending troops to Memphis?” Her voice echoed the concern etched on her brow.

“Not send. Lead. Ah, Ladice. What choice do I have? In all my years, I’ve learned one lesson quite well: If I show weakness, I’ll not be long for the throne.” Ahmose gazed at her, felt the soothing effect her presence had on him. He could have stared at her for an eternity.

In her youth Ladice had been an incomparable beauty, one of those rare few the gods had gifted with a symmetry of form and a keenness of intellect. Poets from Cyrene to Byzantium composed verses in her honor. Sculptors begged to immortalize her in stone and bronze. Indeed, had Ladice been born a man, all of Greece would have had a new demigod to worship, a new warrior to emulate, a new philosopher to follow. As a man she would have conquered nations; as a woman, she conquered hearts. Yet, even though her thirtieth year had passed, Ladice’s allure faded but little. She retained the beauty of a Spartan queen tempered with the magnetism of wisdom and maturity.

Ladice knelt by the throne and clasped Pharaoh’s hand. Dark, liquid eyes stared up at him. “My heart cares more for your safety, husband. I’ve heard this Phanes embodies the worst aspects of my people — ruthless, ambitious, and cruel. As a tool, you could ask for none better, but as an adversary …”

“What would you counsel?”

Ladice sighed; her shoulders slumped. “I think you must do this, if for no other reason than to show the nobles of Egypt that you fear no man.”

He stroked her cheek. “I should free you from your bondage, child. Let you return to your home in Cyrene. I have kept you overlong as a slave of my harem.”

The woman laughed. It was a light, silvery sound that brought a smile to the old Pharaoh’s face. “Child? You are as adept at flattery as you are at statecraft. Do I toil under your overseer’s lash, my husband? Am I a silky plaything pining away in your seraglio? I think not. I live in the shadows by your side, giving you my love and my strength, should it be your desire.”

Ahmose kissed her gently. “If Phanes embodies the worst in your people, then you, favorite of my wives, symbolize what I fell in love with.” He broke their embrace. “Time grows short. Be off with you.”

“Shall I come to you tonight?” she said, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw.

Ahmose smiled. “Surely you do not wish to lay with a dried up old man?”

“Now you presume to tell me my own mind,” Ladice said, taking the
nemes
from him and arranging it perfectly. She placed the
uraeus
, the golden circlet wrought in the image of the divine cobra, on his forehead. “Let me come to you, if only to lay together and whisper.”

“After a dozen years,” Ahmose said, “you still surprise me.”

“I will take that as a yes.” Ladice kissed him quickly and hurried from the room. Pharaoh took up the crook and flail and tried to gather his thoughts, his purpose hindered by teasing images of his favorite wife. He laughed like a man twenty years his junior. “Guards!”

“I do not understand,” Tjemu said for the thousandth time. The man who shared his bench was a
hem-netjer
, a god’s servant; he threw his hands up in defeat. “You tell me tales that openly conflict with one another, and say that it does not matter? It does matter.”

“No,” the
hem-netjer
closed his eyes, “all that matters is that we enact the rites and observe the festivals that mirror the perfection of divine order, and to acknowledge and hold sacred the gods as represented by their animal forms.”

Tjemu looked lost. “So, when you worship the crocodile, you’re not actually worshiping the crocodile, but the spirit of Sobek?”

“Exactly!”

Tjemu shrugged. “It makes no sense …”

The priest started to open his mouth, but Nebmaatra interceded. “It would be easier, Pure One, to explain the subtleties of Egyptian religion to yonder statue.” A soldier of the Guard caught Nebmaatra’s eye and nodded. “It’s time.”

The guards at the palace doors snapped to attention as servants levered the gold-sheathed portals open. Nebmaatra helped Tjemu to his feet. Courtiers trickled in according to their social stature, lesser making way for greater. Nebmaatra and Tjemu fell in behind the vizier.

“… kept waiting like common courtiers!” Sethnakhte growled to one of his sycophants. “This is preposterous! I am vizier! I should be the one who counsels him! Who does he think —”

“School your tongue if you would remain vizier!” Nebmaatra warned. They were of comparable height, but the soldier’s thick frame made him seem all the more daunting. “The ground you tread can just as easily become your grave! Keep this in mind: should you attempt to walk the path that your friend Phanes has embarked on, then I will become your enemy. And my enemies tend to die violent deaths.”

The vizier’s thin nostrils flared. He bared his teeth in an animal-like snarl. “You are nothing to me! A peasant! For reasons known only to himself, Pharaoh favors you, but that favor will not last many more years. I will accept your lack of respect for now, but there will come a day when no one will stand between us. No one!”

“When that day comes, I’ll not be hard to find!”

Sethnakhte made a subtle spitting gesture and turned away from Nebmaatra, rejoining his clique.

“Why does Pharaoh tolerate him?” Tjemu whispered.

Nebmaatra exhaled. “His arrogance not withstanding, Sethnakhte is good at what he does. You’ll find that Pharaoh has boundless patience when it comes to men of that sort.”

“Snakes, you mean?”

Nebmaatra smiled.

Pharaoh held up his hand, and every tongue was stilled; every eye turned toward him. Psammetichus mounted the royal dais. Ahmose spoke.