Suzanne Robinson (33 page)

Minhetep’s staff tapped on the floor. Anqet turned toward the doors and observed Hauron walking toward her For half a breath she was transported back to a dark country house; she held a jar over her head and brought it crashing down on the man’s skull. Then she was back, standing beside Hauron while the vizier listened to her uncle’s story. His success depended much upon his eloquence, and Hauron’s tongue spewed forth believable lies as easily as a sailor slipped between the thighs of a whore.

“And so, my dear niece was stolen from me while we were on our way to my Delta estate. I searched for her for many weeks only to find that the criminals had sold her to Count Seth. The man seduced the poor child.” Hauron spread his arms and lifted his voice in impassioned appeal. “What vile acts has this degenerate performed upon my ward? Please, my lord vizier, restore Lady Anqet to my protection. Though she has been soiled, I still love her as a daughter My brother would have wanted me to care for her, and I’ve failed him. I will spend the rest of my life regretting how my carelessness caused her to be thrown
into the clutches of this man.” Hauron pointed at Seth. “Redress. I demand redress.”

Anqet was watching Hauron. He might have been her father’s twin soul, so much did he remind her of Rahotep. Like her father, he bore age well. His arms were knotted with muscles, and his body was suffused with a tight strength that spoke of constant exertion. His indulgences hadn’t yet made his eyes weak or his skin flaccid. In his costly linen and electrum jewelry, he rivaled even Seth’s brilliant elegance. Hauron’s breath was free of the odor of wine or beer. He was being careful in the abode of Pharaoh. With his sincerity and demands for restitution, he would have convinced even her of his honesty had she not been the victim of his drunken madness. Within the courtly dove lurked the crocodile.

Vizier Ay called for her to speak. With a secret glance at her lover, Anqet fell on her knees before Ay and pleaded not to be given into Hauron’s custody. She let her words become fevered. She trembled and began to sniffle. Poor Ay regarded her with alarm. He edged back in his chair as if to avoid contact with her. He asked for witnesses to support her claims. At this demand, Anqet burst into tears and wailed. The scribe covered his ears. Ay winced. Seth roared his anger at Hauron; he lunged at the man. Dega held his commander back with difficulty. Ay shot to his feet, delivering judgement in favor of Hauron. Anqet drove her wails to a high-pitched scream and collapsed on the floor.

Hauron slithered over to Anqet, and she allowed him to bundle her out of the reception chamber. Yelling obscenities at Hauron, Seth called after her.

Hauron hissed at her “Be quiet. It won’t do you any good to cry. No one believes you.”

Hauron jerked Anqet along as he hurried out of the palace. She noticed that he kept glancing back over his shoulder. Out in the main courtyard, he threw her into a chariot, took the reins from a groom, and charged out of the palace grounds. There followed a mad dash through the streets of Thebes. Anqet could perceive no pattern to
Hauron’s frenzied wanderings. He stopped once to bind her hands in front of her.

Anqet howled tearfully, but Hauron slapped her twice and finished the job She watched him look back the way they had come, as if he expected to see something. The long shadows of early evening were all that Anqet saw. They were all she expected to see. Could her uncle suspect that Seth was following them? From first-hand experience, Anqet was aware of her lover’s ability to stalk an enemy. She attributed Hauron’s uneasiness to the man’s cautious nature.

After another series of dashes through various enclaves in the city, Anqet noticed that Hauron had slowed his pace. He walked the horses through a section of town where Anqet had never been. Light was fading, and she was growing uneasy, for Anqet recognized the character of the area they had entered. Short, muscular men with oiled hair and beards, the scent of foreign spices and herbs, the staccato patter of Babylonian. A foreign quarter.

In striped skirts of blue and yellow, a merchant paused at the door of a tavern. His shoes were pointed and curled at the toes. He yelled at someone inside. Raucous laughter was the response. Anqet grew nervous, even though she knew there was no reason to be frightened. Seth was nearby. He watched them, ready to attack Hauron the moment the man tried to hurt her. Anxiety curdled through her stomach. Hauron stopped at the tavern where the merchant had yelled. He muscled Anqet past the Babylonian and into the establishment.

The air in the room was thick with incense, body odor, and stale beer. Black forms jostled by them in the dark, crowded space. Anqet took one look at the patrons and jumped for the door. Hauron caught her by the hair and yanked her back. He grasped her bonds and dragged her behind him. They weaved through the chairs and cushions, passing men slumped over stools or wallowing in pools of liquor. Throughout the lower floor of the tavern moved naked young women who served drinks, laughed, and teased customers. Anqet’s gaze slid away from a
corner where several men crowded around a girl, hands and bodies moving in an obvious rhythm.

Hauron stopped to speak to the owner of the tavern. Anqet’s eyes burned from the heavy incense. She looked past him into another room. Children. Nude, painted children. A fat Egyptian went into the room and returned, leading a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten. The child yawned through reddened lips. The fat man picked him up and disappeared up the stairs to the second floor Anqet felt ill.

She prayed silently.
Holy Isis, strike these people dead for their abominations. Send them to the Boiling Lake, or let me do it for you, somehow.

Hauron pulled her toward the stairs. On the second floor there was a hall with twelve closed doors. They went by three. From behind the fourth came a child’s sleepy voice. Anqet heard the voice cry out. She stopped, but Hauron pulled her into a room farther down the hall and slammed the door shut.

Anqet faced her uncle. Hauron let his eyes roam over her.

“I knew I’d find you,” he said. “I wanted revenge too badly not to find you. You’re going to pay for what you did, and for what your mother did.”

“We didn’t do anything to you,” Anqet said. She kept her eyes on Hauron and listened for Seth. He should be right outside the door.

“You both refused me. I’ll have revenge for that. You nearly emasculated me. But don’t worry, I’m fit to service you, and I will. I’ll have you over and over until you beg for mercy.” Hauron took up a wine goblet that lay ready on a tray and gulped down its contents. He refilled it and consumed the whole again.

As she watched him, Anqet’s fear grew. The wine would peel away the fragile skin of the man and leave her at the mercy of a fiend. As if he knew her thoughts, Hauron spread his lips in a wine-dampened leer.

“I was going to wait until I got you away from Thebes,
but laying hands on you has made waiting impossible. What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“You think your warrior count will come for you?” Hauron put the goblet back on the tray. “It gives me much satisfaction to tell you that Count Seth has been detained,”

Anqet’s wits fled. Terror washed through her.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not as stupid as you seem to think,” Hauron said. “Someone warned me that Count Seth would take you from me by force, so I arranged an accident.” Hauron chuckled, then shouted at her. “He’s dead! I’ve had your young stallion killed. His corpse should be floating in the river about now.”

Anqet’s rage took Hauron by surprise. She gave a demon’s howl and sprang at the man before he could react, her nails clawing at his eyes. Deep bloody furrows appeared on his cheeks and neck. Wrath gave her the strength to pound the man’s stomach hard enough to make him double over She leapt for the door, but Hauron stuck his foot out and tripped her.

Still gasping from her blow, he was on top of Anqet before she could get up. He slapped her. Anqet cried out and threw up her bound hands. Hauron dragged them away and hit her again and again with his open hand until she lay barely conscious.

Blood trickled from her mouth. Hauron propped her up. Something pressed to her lips. Wine flowed into her mouth, wine laced with something that made her lips and tongue numb. She sputtered and turned her head away, but Hauron forced the liquid down her throat. Anqet gulped it down by reflex. She opened her eyes. Hauron held her. His face was near, and it spun in circles. As darkness overtook her, she heard Lord Hauron chuckle.

“Ah, my fiery niece, what a marvelous whore you will make.”

He was tangled in a spider’s web. Thrashing his arms and legs, Seth tried to escape the strands that held him. Pain burst through his skull, so he stopped fighting. He opened his eyes but shut them again because there was a small sun in front of his face. Instead, he concentrated on the spider web. Seth stretched his fingers. They clasped taut leather bands that stretched from bonds around his wrists to stakes driven into the ground. Since his legs were also spread and immobile, he assumed they too were tied down.

The pain in his head subsided a little. What had happened? He and Dega had been tracking Anqet and that piece of offal, Hauron. In spite of the adze pounding in his skull, Seth forced himself to recall that secret chase. The man almost lost him twice in crowded streets. Seth took a back street to catch up, and then barreled down the Road of Libyan Captives. They approached an intersection. Dega pointed to a chariot as it disappeared around a comer farther up the road. Seth whipped his team into a gallop. Donkeys shuffled into his path from an alley, braying in fright. Seth hauled at the reins. His team reared and spun on their back hooves. He and Dega flew out of the chariot. His head plowed itself through the earth. Five pairs of feet surrounded him. Seth remembered a voice. It rasped out an order as Seth started to get up. A club descended on his head, and here he was. He had no idea what had happened to Dega.

Stupid
, Seth said to himself.
Uncle Hauron made
plans for you. You misjudged his cleverness as you did Anqet’s.

Anqet! Anqet was in Hauron’s grasp, and he had put her there. Seth tugged at his bonds. They only tightened. He risked opening his eyes again. The small sun turned out to be a translucent alabaster lamp on the floor near his head. It was the only light in the room. Again he strained at the lashes that held him. He sank back on the ground, as secure as before.

How long had he been here? There were no windows through which to judge the time. Seeking to quell his apprehension about Anqet’s safety, he looked around his prison. He was in a room bare of furniture, yet well finished with plaster and paintings on the wall. Seth lifted his head. That frieze of papyrus clumps and herons—he’d seen that design before.

A door opened and closed behind Seth’s head. Someone walked in and paused. There was a thud, like something being dropped, then footsteps. Even before his jailer came into view, the heavy, spiced perfume that wafted toward him announced her identity. He watched Gasantra come to kneel beside him. She wore only a filmy open drape and from one hand dangled an amulet in the form of the sacred eye of Horus. She carried a small vial in the other.

Gasantra crouched beside Seth and set the vial on the floor “My men assured me you would be well.”

Gasantra stroked his face. Seth jerked his head free of the woman’s touch.

“Release me, Gasantra.”

Gasantra shook her head. “There’s something I have to do first, and anyway, I’m not letting you go until I’m sure that witch is far away from us.”

Seth tried to pounce on Gasantra and fell back. “What have you done with her? Where is she? If she’s hurt, I’ll strangle you. I swear it. Where’s Dega?”

“Shhh.”

Seth tried again to toss off the hand that caressed his forehead. Gasantra held up the eye of Horus. Of white-and-blue
enamel, it was suspended from a gold chain. Gasantra clasped the object and recited obscure words.

His voice loud in the empty room, Seth cursed at the woman and asked, “What are you muttering about?”

“I’m going to break her power over you,” Gasantra said. She resumed her chant.

“I love her, you goat.”

Gasantra gave him a pitying look. “No, my sweet lord, you don’t. I finally discovered why you’ve been acting so cruelly. She has bewitched you. I consulted a magician priest, and he agreed. He gave me this amulet. It was expensive, but he assured me that if I perform the spell correctly, you will love me again.”

“I never loved you. Let me go.”

Time was passing quickly. He had to get free.

“Gasantra—beautiful, sweet Gasantra, please release me. I promise I’ll do anything you want. Only cut these straps.”

Gasantra laughed at him. “Oh no. Not until I’ve performed the spell.”

“This is ridiculous. Ugh!”

Seth choked on the noxious liquid Gasantra poured into his mouth without warning. He coughed and twisted his head away, but the woman forced the vial past his lips and pinched his nose so he couldn’t keep his mouth closed. She followed the dose with a cup of water obtained somewhere beyond his view. Seth drank deeply and swore at her. Above him, Gasantra’s face blurred, and darkness closed around him. Moments passed during which he could do nothing but listen to his own panting.

A liquid heat began to churn through his arms and legs. It spread to his loins and stayed there, roiling. Seth’s eyes widened. Perspiration beaded his forehead. He could feel his genitals tingle. Unwanted stimulation made him pant, and he strained at his bonds in an effort to escape his own arousal. Gasantra removed the falcon pectoral he was wearing and replaced it with the eye amulet. It lay cold on his chest.

From the oven his body had become, Seth struggled to keep hold of reality. He had to get free.

Gasantra crouched over him. She fumbled at his belt, chattering incantations all the while.

“What are you doing?”

The woman paused with her hands on his kilt. “I’m going to break her hold over you. This is part of the counterspell.” Gasantra tugged at the cloth and threw it away.