Mara, Daughter of the Nile (23 page)

She stopped so suddenly that the hurrying servant almost crashed into her. He clutched frantically at his tray, and the Libyan pulled her on down the hall, muttering in annoyance.

“Does your master always hire entertainers for his parties?” Mara asked him breathlessly.

“Would I know, Impudent? He doesn’t invite me to them. Nor you either, I’ll wager. Make haste. I’ve other things to do tonight than answer empty-headed questions.”

Mara scarcely heard him. There were hundreds of jugglers in Thebes, of course. But if the one she had glimpsed was Sahure, then she was baffled no longer by her master’s knowledge of the Inn of the Falcon. Sahure did hire himself out whenever a chance offered—“I have seen high and low, princesses and slaves …” He was always boasting about it. Aye, it all fitted—into a pattern that had almost ruined her gambling! Perhaps the ring had saved her once again.

Thoughtfully she stepped into the chariot and braced herself for the bruising ride home. Sahure had not seen her, that was a smile from the gods. So long as Lord Nahereh did not decide to visit the inn himself, all was still safe. But she was glad Sheftu knew nothing of what had happened tonight. She hoped he would never know how fast and loose she had played with the fate of Egypt and his king.

RA, THE SUN GOD, had once more sailed his golden bark across the sky of Egypt. Over the high blue dome and into the West he had moved, as from time immemorial—unhurried, serene, remote from the anxious scurryings of his white-clad worshipers below. He left darkness in his wake as he dropped behind the desert hills and began his night’s slow journey through the Land of the Dead. Now long hours passed as he sailed the Dark River. At last he climbed into the East again, heralded by a rosy glow, bringing a burst of radiance as he crossed the horizon. Incense rose on the morning air from a thousand altars; cries of thanksgiving and entreaty came faintly to his ears, and the smoke of burned offerings assailed his nostrils. He was indifferent. Aloof, rigid in his perfection, wreathed in everlasting flames, he sailed slowly to his zenith and down his unchanging path once more into the West.

It was half after the mark of four, and Lord Merab’s party for the governor of Kush was at its height. At each end of the long reception hall stood tables loaded with refreshments, draped with flowers. Slaves hurried in and out among the beribboned columns, pouring wine, placing cones of scented ointment on the heads of guests and replacing necklaces of lotuses with fresh ones. Two bands of musicians played alternately; dancing girls whirled.

Lord Sheftu stood beside a garland-hung column near
the courtyard door, smiling serenely at the long-drawn hunting tale of His Excellency Pesiur, Master of Granaries, and wishing him and his ever-wagging tongue at the end of the earth. A fool at best, Pesiur was a cursed nuisance now, chattering away the precious moments. For Lord Sheftu to be seen at this reception had been important; for Sashai to escape, unnoticed, was becoming more vital every minute. A vision of the water-clock formed in Sheftu’s mind, with its level rising nearer and nearer the mark of five, when he must meet Djedet and the others in the City of the Dead …

“Well told, friend Pesiur, and bravely done! I can see your arm hurls a mighty spear. And now if you will excuse me—”

But no, Pesiur was off again, on desert lions this time, then veering to court gossip without a pause for breath. Sheftu gazed across the room, his head aching from the heavy fragrance of wine and perfume, and from his own exasperation. The laughter of women tinkled about him; they lifted jeweled hands to sip their wine or held lotus blossoms to one another’s nostrils with gestures of stilted grace, and occasionally cast lingering glances at young Lord Sheftu. The men strolled idly, stopping to exchange flatteries, gathering in little groups to mutter with their heads together, laughing at the antics of the pet gazelle which gamboled in the middle of the room with Lord Merab’s naked children.

And yonder, beyond the children, stood Count Kha-Kheper, his handsome leonine head bent in thought. Sheftu would have given his largest storehouse at that moment to know just what the count was thinking. Was he brooding about those vineyards the Architect had stolen from him? Or remembering the days of his youth, when he had been a commander of archers for the old pharaoh? Or reflecting on the plight of those same proud archers now, whose
shrunken ranks and poor equipment Sheftu had only a few moments earlier been describing to him?

I must find out, thought Sheftu. It is dangerous to leave it like this.

Yet outside the light was fading, the minutes stealing away. Osiris! Would this chattering Pesiur never leave off?

“… most attentive to the Canaanite princess, have you not, Lord Sheftu?”

Sheftu snapped alert. “I beg your pardon?”

“Ah, now, the truth, man!” Pesiur’s wig was slightly askew, his broad face flushed with delight at his own joke. “Tell me, is it the princess’ embroidery that attracts you? Or could it be the blue eyes of that little interpreter who goes with her everywhere?”

Fortunately for Sheftu, there was no need to answer. Pesiur was content with his own roar of laughter, and went on talking immediately. “
Ai
, you’re not the first one, I’ll wager, my friend—and it’s certain you won’t be the last. She’s a well-favored little maid. Where the devil did they find her?”

“I believe,” said Sheftu distantly, “she joined the princess’ suite at Abydos. Look yonder, my lord. They bring the mummy.”

A pair of slaves had appeared from the Hall of Pantries, carrying between them the wooden image of a mummy, rigid and deathlike in its painted wrappings. Other slaves, bearing huge garlanded bowls of wine, followed the Displayers of the Rigid One. According to custom, the procession began a circuit of the room, chanting, “Gaze here, drink and be merry; when you die, such will you be,” amid loud laughter and cries of thirst from the guests. Even Pesiur surged after the wine carriers, cup aloft, and Sheftu seized the moment. He walked swiftly around the other end of the room, where Count Kha-Kheper was already moving toward him.

They met in a half-concealed alcove near one of the refreshment tables. The count was a large, shaggy-browed, handsome man of middle age, and he at once came gruffly to the point. “I have been thinking of what you told me, Lord Sheftu. Can you swear to its truth?”

“Sacred Maat herself would swear to it, Excellency. The troops were in sorry plight, half the archers bareheaded and none of them paid. And the regular Army is worse yet. Should our enemies choose to attack us some fine morning, Egypt would be defenseless.”

“Monstrous!” muttered the other. “I knew naught of it …”

“Her Radiance and Count Senmut keep these things a closely guarded secret.”

“That scurvy Architect! Yet he is her favorite.”

“I have reason to believe his situation is far from stable at the moment. I—took a hand—in this matter of the bodyguard.”

“Good!” grunted the count “If we could be rid of him—”

“Excellency, think further. Would her next favorite be any different?” Sheftu brought his lips close to the other’s ear, dropped his voice to a mere breath. “Egypt must be rid of her, too.”

Kha-Kheper’s heavy brows drew hard together. In a voice equally low, he muttered, “You speak treason, my lord.”

“Is it treason to oust thieves, to rid Egypt of enemies? I am not alone, Excellence. Behind me stands an army—nobles, priests, common folk as well as armed soldiers—waiting only my signal. Your future lies with us—not with Hatshepsut. And the time is near.”

Kha-Kheper moistened his lips, flashed a look at Sheftu.

“Nobles?” he murmured.

“Aye, nobles in plenty. Those who love Egypt—and know which barrel holds the fish.”

The count was silent; he seemed scarcely to breathe. After
a long pause, he murmured, “I am a wealthy man, Lord Sheftu.”

“You could be wealthier.”

Again Sheftu waited, knowing the crucial moment had come.

“How much?” said Kha-Kheper softly.

“By half again.”

The heavy brows shot up, and Sheftu straightened, smiling to himself. Another great one had found his price. The count drew a long breath and met his eyes. “I, too, love Egypt. You have my full support against those who prey on her. When you need me, call—and may the gods smile on our cause.”

Turning abruptly, he walked away across the room.

Sheftu’s satisfaction was not unmixed with irony. It was surprisingly easy, he reflected, to promise a fortune one had not yet got one’s hands on. Getting it was going to be a different matter, yet get it he must; he had made half a dozen such promises on the strength of his plans for tonight. And this one had made him late …

A moment later he slipped out the courtyard door, unnoticed, and raced for his chariot.

It was well past the mark of five, and dusk was gathering over the City of the Dead. From the low, palm-thatched buildings workers were merging—stonecutters powdered with granite dust, embalmers bent with weariness and smelling of natron and spices, yawning glass makers, scroll copyists rubbing their eyes, gold artisans, weavers, potters, carpenters, jewelers. Singly and in groups they trickled out of the workshops to the streets, to form a homeward-bound stream which branched in every direction—east toward the Nile and its waiting ferries, north and south and west to scattered cottages among the fields.

In the lee of a deserted carpenter’s shop one small group lingered, casting anxious glances now and then toward the
distant palace and the clusters of trees and white walls which marked the villas surrounding it. Two of the men wore the garments of
neocori
, servants of the temple; the third was a burly priest, calm and imposing of mien, of obvious importance. Beside them stood a donkey laden with two huge baskets.

“It is a bad omen that he is late,” muttered the smaller of the two
neocori
. “A bad omen.”

“Think you he is late on purpose?” whispered the other indignantly. “I’ll hear no ill spoken of Sashai.”

“I spoke none, friend Kaemuas. Perhaps he failed to receive the message.”

“Nay, he had it,” the priest broke in.

Once more they fell to scanning the crowd in anxious silence. Suddenly a figure in the long robe of a lesser priest moved along the shadow of the next building, and in a moment was beside them, breathing heavily.

“I could not come sooner. Let us start at once. We have a long way to go.”

Without further talk the four struck out westward through the crooked streets, past the mud dwellings and the fields and out across the broad stretch of desert that lay beyond. Their white garments turned pink with the sunset as they moved nearer and nearer the dark blue shadow of the western cliffs, and finally they were swallowed, one by one, by a defile in the face of the rock.

The stones of the steep, narrow path pressed sharp through Sheftu’s palm-leaf sandals, and he sweated with nervousness under his priest’s heavy wig and tentlike cloak. Ahead trod Djedet, his broad back solid and his head erect. Sheftu thanked the gods for that stoic figure; his own composure had been sorely tried by the venture’s inauspicious start—his tardiness, the frantic rush to the meetingplace, and the disturbing memory of a certain remark of Pesiur’s. He felt confused and harried. But he could rely on Djedet, and on the diggers too, he thought. Loyal Kaemuas, and
Usur the weaver—both good men. He cast an anxious glance over his shoulder at the donkey. Its great side baskets hung heavy, laden with stones under a top layer of innocent funerary offerings. It was well; they must hang heavy indeed now, if they were to appear almost empty when coming out.

When coming out. Would they really be coming out, a few hours hence, with their mission accomplished and the baskets loaded with inestimable treasure? It was too far ahead to think of. Best wonder whether they could even get in! Sharp-eyed guards waited up ahead, at the entrance. The Valley of the Tombs was the most jealously watched area of land in all Egypt.

Nay, do not wonder about any of it, Sheftu counseled himself. Keep cool, deal with each thing as it comes.

But as he pushed the large worries to the back of his mind, Pesiur’s jibe about Mara came again to dance like a mocking
kheft
at the front of it. Was it so obvious, then, that Lord Sheftu was taking a peculiar interest in the Canaanite princess? It was too bad those few casual meetings had been noticed; worse, even dangerous, that Mara had been singled out as the real object of them. Worst of all, for Lord Sheftu’s pride, was the fact that his own powerful but secret attraction to those lotus-blue eyes was apparently no secret at all, but plain enough for even a fool like Pesiur to notice and comment on. Was he as transparent as a schoolboy in the first stages of puppy love? It was humiliating. However, if the court gossips thought him merely smitten with a pretty maid, perhaps they would inquire no further into his motives … perhaps.

The path turned and twisted, winding upward through the cleft in the hills. At last the palm-thatched hut of the guard station showed ahead in the dusk.

Djedet turned to smile at Sheftu. His moon-face was pale and set, but his voice steady. “The delay did not matter. It is the right hour, my friend. We planned well.”

“Aye.” Sheftu returned the smile with stiff lips, then murmured to the diggers, “Speak no word, remember.”

Gravely the little procession moved out onto the barren hilltop toward the hut. A guard appeared at the doorway, then stepped out, followed by another. But thanks to Djedet’s careful planning, they carried no torches, for it was not yet full dark. Sheftu was profoundly grateful for the semi-gloom when the guards came forward to peer into their faces.

“You have permits to enter here?” one asked gruffly.

Djedet advanced a step, his bulk imposing, his carriage haughty. “My good man, I am Djedet, priest of the
sem
rank and second official of the Necropolis. I need no permit. Now harken. Have you seen or heard aught suspicious in the valley the past two days?”