Year of the Hyenas (32 page)

“Surely, such
a
treasure as I’ve seen piled in that tomb should be enough reason to go
around them!”

“You don’t
understand—it’s not that simple. No, we need someone who has immediate
access to him.” Kenamun thought for a moment and then nodded to
himself, as though coming to a decision. “Wait here,” he said. As he
hurried off into a hallway, he warned over his shoulder: “Do not speak
of this to anyone, do you understand?”

Semerket
nodded his
head, albeit reluctantly.

The scribe
returned a
few moments later. “We’re very lucky,” he said breathlessly. “Tiya, the
Queen Mother, has consented to see us. Once you tell her your story,
I’m sure she’ll prevail upon Pharaoh to send some men.”

Semerket
followed
Kenamun through hallways leading to the southern part of the temple.
Only then did he realize that he was actually being taken into
Pharaoh’s private residence. An unornamented cedar door served as the
only entrance, unmarked and modestly sized. The single pair of guards
did not challenge their entry; Kenamun seemed well known to them.

The palace was
vast by
Egyptian standards, but not so huge as those Semerket had glimpsed in
Babylonia and Syria. The residence was built of stone, unlike most
homes in Egypt, which were constructed from mud bricks. Kenamun led
Semerket up a staircase to the second floor, entering a narrow
passageway pierced by thin slits. Gazing through them, trying to regain
his bearings, Semerket focused on the view of the temple gardens below
and the sacred lake beyond. Only then did he realize where Kenamun led
him.

Semerket
stopped. “But
this is the bridge into the harem!”

“Where else
would you
expect to find the great wife of the king?” asked the scribe.

Semerket
dutifully
followed him over the bridge and through the doors of the women’s
apartments. They entered a small, airy chamber. No one rushed to greet
the two men, nor were any of Pharaoh’s wives in evidence. Semerket felt
a momentary pang of disappointment.

He contented
himself
to examine the room. The walls were decorated in bright murals; on
closer inspection, Semerket was disconcerted to find these depicted
scenes of embarrassing intimacy. On one wall Pharaoh played a game of
senet with a naked girl. The wall opposite showed Ramses with his arm
draped about a concubine’s slim form, his fingertips casually grazing
her breast, while she extolled his erotic prowess with an upraised fist.

The soft noise
of a
footstep caught him by surprise and Semerket turned in its direction,
every nerve taut. Tiya was there. She was not clad in the same severe
garments as she wore the first time he had met her. Instead, her robe’s
sheerness caused him to blush.

“Semerket!”
Her
splendid voice was at once low and tender and warm, and her skin was
the color of the golden jasper beads around his neck. “You have been
much on our minds since that day we met in the vizier’s chambers.”

Semerket fell
to his
knees. She came forward then and lifted him by the hands. Her perfume
rose in his nostrils and to his shame he found himself staring at her
dark, hennaed nipples beneath the fine lawn of her bodice. She looked
at him sharply. “But where are the amulets and charms I sent you?” she
asked. “Didn’t you receive them? Pentwere said he’d placed them around
your neck himself. If he lied—!”

He interrupted
her
pretty distress. “Your son did indeed give them to me, lady, but I
removed them because of… of strange dreams they sent me.”

Tiya wagged a
finger
at him. “That’s because of the powerful prayers and incantations I said
over them. You should never have taken them off. No wonder Kenamun here
says you’re in trouble now. It explains much to me.”

Queen Tiya’s
clucking
tone was so oddly reminiscent of his own mother’s that he felt absurdly
comfortable in her presence. But then he found himself staring again at
her heavy breasts beneath the sheer muslin bodice, and he hastily
dropped his eyes.

“You have the
good
sense to be ashamed, I see,” she said, stroking his face. “You’re all
such naughty little boys, aren’t you, never doing as you’re told. But
thank goodness for that! Where would I be today if my own sons didn’t
need me as much as they do?”

Tiya grazed
his cheek
with her nails, and when she smiled at him he saw the tips of her even,
white teeth. Her fingers continued to travel upward, lingering for a
moment at the spot in his scalp where his hair had been so mysteriously
shorn. “Come,” she beckoned to him, “sit beside me at the window, and
you will tell me everything that has happened in the tombmakers’
village. Kenamun says it’s very serious. We will listen, and then
decide together what’s best.”

He allowed
himself to
be led onto an enclosed balcony above the gardens of Djamet. The queen
indicated that he should sit next to her on a couch by the grated
window. Kenamun was given a small foot-stool to sit upon, somewhat
farther away. The scribe, reticent to join their discussion, seemed
content to merely listen.

As he spoke,
Semerket
became aware of the Queen’s sinuous movements—how she absently traced
a finger across the line of her brow, or played with the tassel on her
golden belt. And even when she stretched her shoulders indolently, he
was aware of how closely she listened. She frowned and made soft moans
of horror at the thought of her ancestors’ tombs being plundered, at
how close he had come to death at an assassin’s hands. When he paused
in his narrative, she put sharp questions to him that demonstrated her
keen insight and understanding of the situation. Kenamun must have
briefed her well, he thought. He then told the lady of how Hunro now
languished in the tombmakers’ jail, accused of adultery, because she
had helped him.

“That’s also
why I’ve
come,” he concluded, “so that she can be rescued from prison to testify
against her neighbors.”

The queen
smiled at
him. “Are you in love with her?”

“She is
another man’s
wife, lady,” Semerket said, dropping his eyes.

Tiya put her
hand
under his chin and raised his face to hers. “Semerket, you should know
that it’s useless to try to hide anything from me.”

Semerket was
suddenly
ashamed, though he did not know why.

“She is the
first
woman since my wife to make me… feel something,” he answered her
tentatively. “If that is love—”

She laughed
delightedly. “Spoken like a man. Why can your sex never be truthful
about its feelings?”

“Does it
matter what I
feel?” he asked with some urgency. “She’s in danger. And the beggars
come tonight to remove the treasure from the Great Place! There is no
time to lose, Great Lady!”

The sound of
faraway
rams’ horns pierced the little room. Tiya’s face changed, becoming for
a moment hard and set. A maid—or perhaps one of the lesser wives—crept
to whisper something in her ear. She shook her head, saying nothing.

“I’m told that
Pharaoh
has concluded his conferences,” Tiya announced to Kenamun and Semerket.
“This morning my son Pentwere has organized a duck hunt in the southern
marshes. I will make arrangements for you to join us, Semerket.”

Semerket was
appalled.
There was no time for such frivolity. “Your Majesty—”

She held up a
hennaed
palm, her voice low. “There’s a reason I ask you along. These days the
red and white crowns are heavy on his brow. Another blow like this and…
well…” She sighed tragically, implying that Pharaoh was too frail a man
to burden with such news.

Semerket spoke
without
thinking. “Once the crown prince is named co-ruler, I’m sure it will be
easier—”

Tiya visibly
started,
her tawny eyes grew wide, and her mouth stretched into a sudden grimace
that exposed her sharp teeth. She seized Semerket’s arm, her nails
making red crescents in his flesh. “Who told you that? Where have you
heard such a lie? Spit it out, stupid! No one has yet been named a
co-ruler. Least of all that—”

Kenamun rose
from his
stool and cleared his throat loudly. Tiya looked at the scribe then,
and instantly shut her mouth. She lay again on the couch, breathing
deeply. When she had calmed herself she looked resentfully into
Semerket’s eyes. “Pharaoh has no need for a co-ruler. He is a mighty
bull, a soaring falcon.”

The
traditional words
sounded flat and lifeless in her mouth. Semerket said nothing. The
crescents she had left on his arm began to ooze thick blood. Tiya
pretended a fascination with the weave of her robe.

“I’m just an
old
woman,” she said, “too protective of her husband, I suppose. But I’ll
help you, Semerket, despite your cruel words.”

Tiya was
suddenly full
of plans and details for the proposed duck hunt, as if nothing had
happened. He would share her pleasure barque, she told him, and
Pharaoh’s mood would surely improve after a few successful kills. “Then
I will ask him for an escort to accompany you to the village. I must
find the perfect moment to put the question to him. But you must remain
silent, for now, for I am the only one who knows how to handle him.”

Suddenly, as
if a
spell had been lifted, the harem was full of activity. The lesser wives
appeared from their rooms, yawning, and eunuch guards were everywhere
about.

Swiftly Tiya
gave
Semerket instructions about when he was to appear at the temple
wharves. Kenamun would stay by him, allowing none to approach. He was
not to leave Semerket’s side, she emphasized. Who knew what dangers
lurked, or where? Hadn’t they already tried to kill Semerket once?

Bowing low,
Semerket
left the queen at the grated window. As he went through the doors that
led to the stone bridge, Kenamun hurried after him, saying, “An
extraordinary woman, the great wife, is she not?”

Semerket
merely stared
at him. All the way over the stone bridge he felt the sting where her
nails had dug into his arm.

AT THE SAME MOMENT, many furlongs away,
the servant Keeya stood at the outside fire pit, carrying a basket of
trash. It was filled with the usual detritus of Theban living—bones
from the week’s meals, fish heads, rags too worn for further service.
She searched about for the flint and the palm-fiber kindling.

It was
midmorning and
her mistress had gone to Sekhmet’s temple to visit her uncle, the high
priest. Merytra was often at her uncle’s temple these days, Keeya
thought. And when the woman returned, she was invariably moody and
withdrawn. At such times, Merytra often locked the servants in the
small cellar where the three of them slept at night. In the dark, next
to the sacks of musty-smelling grain and jars of fermenting beer, they
heard her walking on the floor above, sometimes treading in circles.
Often they heard her softly chanting to herself. Keeya suspected their
mistress had become possessed by a demon.

The flint was
in a
small niche within the mud-brick wall. As she stretched for it, she
felt a paving tile move unsteadily beneath her feet. It was slightly
raised above the others.

She thought
little
about it, and bent to shift the tile back into its place. But still it
was loose, as if it pressed on something beneath. Keeya lifted the
tile, and beheld what was tucked into the hole beneath. She only just
managed to stop the scream that threatened to escape her.

Swiftly she
replaced
the tile. When her mistress returned home, she said nothing, waiting
for Nenry to return for his noon meal. As soon as the scribe, loaded
down with papers and scrolls, wearily pushed open the gate, Keeya
approached him.

“Master,” she
said.
“Will you take a moment to look at something?”

Nenry was
about to put
her off, for Paser had left him alone with the morning’s work that
day—surveyor reports, taxation schedules. For some reason the mayor had
rushed off at the last moment to attend a duck-hunting party with Queen
Tiya, of all things. But the maid’s expression was so serious that
whatever protests Nenry harbored were stilled. Nenry followed her to
the fire pit.

Keeya lifted
the tile.
In the hole were the remains of an infant, a female. It was painted red
and glyphs were drawn upon its tiny palms, on its feet and forehead.
They were not ordinary glyphs, but primitive symbols from an ancient
time. Various amulets and charms were placed all about the little
corpse. The infant’s stomach had been slit open, and within it, among
its dried and desiccated viscera, was a waxen doll. A knife protruded
from the baby’s chest, and around its eyes a small bandage was tied.

“Gather the
others,”
Nenry said, his voice terrible.

Merytra was
lying atop
her bed, for it was her custom to nap while her husband ate his noon
meal—an arrangement that suited them both, for it kept their daily
interactions to a minimum. She was therefore surprised to see her
husband suddenly appear in her doorway, the servants close behind him.

“Why do idiots
disturb
my rest?” she asked resignedly, as if she addressed the gods to fathom
their purposeless ways.

Nenry swiftly
crossed
the room, grabbing her by her hair. He threw her, screaming, against
the wall.

“Witch!” he
yelled.
“Sorceress!” He almost began to weep, but stopped himself, firmly
banishing his tears. “Seize her,” he told his servants. “Bind her
tightly. Then take her into the cellar.”

Merytra was
too
shocked to speak. Not until the servants laid their hands upon her,
tying her hands together, did curses and hot oaths begin to pour from
her. But her husband and servants were deaf to her threats and promises
of punishments. Merytra had to take what satisfaction she could from
seeing how they shrank from touching her, as if she were a thing of
scales and horns.