Reflections in the Nile (42 page)

The chamber was silent, each soldier, priest, noble, and servant listening to the analysis of the past few months. It could all happen that way, it was true. For a people whose lives were as integrated with religion as a sailor's with the sea, however, the explanation lacked the divine spark to make it believable. The heavens did not alter without a sacred presence to make it happen. One by one the people listened, weighed, and rejected the theory.

Since the gods were in control, this could not have happened without their consent or interference. Cheftu stood, watching Hat's face. The religiosity of her people would be her downfall. Life did not happen without a purpose and a hand behind it. They would believe nothing else. That's the difference between the Greek and the Oriental minds, the scholar in Cheftu thought. That is the key.

Iri bowed to Hat and backed toward his seat.

“Magus!” someone hailed him from the crowd. “If indeed all these things have happened as you said, which god commanded that they happen now? Their god or ours?” Twenty voices joined in, searching for a comprehensible answer in the confusion.

Iri held up his hands. “It is not the hand of any god, but just the reactions of nature,” he said, and was drowned out in the disbelief of the Egyptians.

One of the soldiers, at Hat's command, banged his shield with his sword. The sound reverberated throughout the room, bringing silence. Hat sat on the throne, glittering and angry, her black eyes focused on Moshe. Without dropping her gaze, she called for the priestesses. They had been huddled together, their graying robes hidden in the brilliance of the first light.

They walked forward, and Cheftu watched in horror as Pharaoh recognized Chloe the same moment he did. Hat sent a questioning look Thutmosis’ way, and Cheftu remembered she thought Thut had wed Chloe. She stood in the front of the group, tall and proud, despite the ash in her black hair and the smudges and creases of her clothing.

“What does the goddess say, Lady RaEmhetepet?” Hat asked. “Since you are still before me, I assume that the darkness was broken before this”—she motioned with her flail to Moshe—“this slave pulled his great illusion and revealed Ra.” She turned to Thutmosis. “What say you, nephew; did your bride bring aid?”

Thut looked at Hat steadily. “When I left the temple this morning, I took the life of the priestess, as I am commanded to. This lady was not that priestess, and is not my bride.”

Hat whirled on Chloe. “My lady …” Her tone was lethal. “Did you send another to die in your place? The right and responsibility were yours! You sacrificed someone before you? Who is dead?”

Cheftu felt cold sweat run down his back. Chloe had been in the temple. In these direst of times it was her duty to dance and plead before the goddess, then meet either Pharaoh or Horus-in-the-Nest, who were the physical manifestations of Ra. She was to please them, in a parody of seeking the god's pleasure. If the spell was not broken, it was the royal male's job to sacrifice the priestess in order to save Egypt. Instead Thut spent the night with someone else and plunged the sacred dagger into her breast while she was still warm from their union.

Chloe was responsible for the dead priestess! He closed his eyes in a brief and heartfelt prayer. She stood like a statue. Cheftu had the hideous fear that she didn't have the memory to know what she was supposed to do. She'd said she had no emotional memory. That was where this information would have been.

“ReShera. I sent ReShera,” Chloe said, her voice void of emotion.

Hat's steely gaze fixed on Chloe, filled with revulsion and disappointment “So you have broken your vows, betrayed a holy sister, and ignored my edict that you marry!” Chloe stood silent. Hat took a deep breath, her next words stiff: “Very well, priestess. In honor to your family, Count Makab, and the position you have held in my heart and in my court, you will marry Thut, conceive a new RaEmhetep priest, give birth, and then be turned over to the Sisterhood for execution as befits a soiled priestess. Remove her authority and take her from my sight!”

Cheftu stepped forward in protest, but Thutmosis gained Hat's attention. “Nay, Pharaoh. She is wed. I cannot take another man's wife.”

Hat asked in a voice throbbing with hatred, “Whose wife?”

Thut indicated Cheftu, who stepped forward, approaching the throne. “You!” she screeched. “A traitor and a traitor!” Thut looked from Cheftu to Hat, obviously bewildered. “You will not miss your wife! You are banished! May you meet again on the Shores of Night!” Her voice was shrill, and Cheftu looked at Chloe. She was already in the grasp of two soldiers, her broken ankh necklace, symbol of her position, lying in pieces at her feet.

Her green eyes were frightened in her ash-smudged face. He ran toward her, then screamed in pain as one of the Kushite guards lashed out. He fought, anger and fear giving him strength, paying no attention to his bloody back. Chloe was kicking and fighting as they half carried and half dragged her from the chamber. Then he saw nothing but ceiling as he was tripped and a spear pressed against his heaving chest.

He lay there, panting, terrified, replaying the fear in Chloe's look as she was taken from him.

Hat once again took her seat, and her voice was barely controlled as she spoke to Moshe. “Take your cattle. However, you will leave the eldest child of every family as a hostage. A credit on the family's return. Every family who does not return will have murdered their child. I will send scribes throughout the villages and we will have exacting records of every Israelite in Egypt.” She laughed, brittle but confident. “I see the fear on your face, Moshe. It is good to be afraid of the throne of Egypt”

“I am not afraid of you, Hatshepsut. I am afraid for you. You have just pronounced a death sentence on your own people.”

“Get out of my sight!” she hissed. “Make sure you do not appear before me again! The next day you see my face you will die.”

Moshe's voice was powerful as it washed over those present, imbedding itself forever into their consciousness. “Just as you say, I will never appear before you again.

“But hear what Elohim says. ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl who is at her hand mill and the firstborn of all the cattle. There will be a loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been before or ever will be again. However, among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.’ So you will know that our God makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel,” Moshe said, “all of your officials will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, ‘Go you and all the people who follow you!’ After that I will leave.”

He turned his back and walked the length of the room, awash in light yet still filled with darkness. Tears ran down Cheftu's face as he heard Moshe's steps fade.

The worst was yet to come.

C
HLOE WAS THROWN INTO A DARK ROOM.
It stank of urine, and she shivered at the scampering sounds of rodents. Once again she was in the dark, only now it was a dank darkness, all the more terrifying because she knew that somewhere above her the sun shone, bathing Egypt once more in its rays. Cheftu … She swallowed her tears and tightened the sash at her waist. The memory of the anguish in his amber eyes haunted her. Had he been hurt? She had thought he was a favorite of Hat's, so why was she so cruel? What had happened?

Now the Sisterhood would get her. She doubted Hat would make Thut marry her, so she'd just lost at least nine months of her life. She had also killed ReShera—unknowingly, but she was still dead.

Chloe wiped away the tears that streamed down her cheeks. She thought back to that fatal decision. When AnkhemNesrt had asked her to go to the White Chamber and Chloe had consulted the “other,” the only thought had been that to go to that chamber was state-sanctioned sex.
Nothing
about death or sacrifices. No doubt that knowledge was wherever the real RaEm was.

Had they changed places? Did RaEm have Chloe's cursory memory? Enough to get by in the twentieth century? Not that it mattered. Chloe had no idea how to return and wasn't even sure she wanted to. Oh, Cheftu! she cried. What had happened to him?

Would she ever see him again?

She sank to the floor, reaching for her necklace. But it was gone, broken into pieces and smashed on the audience chamber floor by the soldiers. Oh, Cheftu! she thought. Please forgive me! Because of her, he was going to be banished. To leave forever this land he loved so well and to which he had just returned. Why hadn't Thut defended him? Because to admit Cheftu had sworn fealty to him would probably have gotten them both killed. Chloe buried her head in her hands, letting the tears come.

CHAPTER 13

C
heftu laid down the brush with which he had been committing his staff and his holdings to Count Makab. He would be shocked at the turn of events. Makab was not wise with money, but he was just and would see the slaves emancipated and awarded a fee for their loyalty.

Sun streaked through the open garden door. The light cut through a pitcher of wine next to Cheftu, honeycombing the room in a prism of red. Like blood, Cheftu thought dully.

The slight body of an Egyptian woman had been delivered to him that morning. In exchange for his wife, the guard explained. Her face was covered, but her appearance had jarred Cheftu. He'd met ReShera only a few times, that he was aware of—the woman hadn't seemed to care for him. The corpse had worn a silver ankh with ReShera's name, so it must be she, but he was confused. Without Chloe's green eyes, one black-haired, brown-skinned woman looked much like another. Cheftu and Ehuru had taken her to the local House of the Dead to see that she was buried properly.

Thut had done his job well, killing her quickly and letting her blood drain. Rejoicing that it was not Chloe, Cheftu had covered her lean figure with a linen robe. At least not Chloe yet.

RaEm. Chloe. He felt tears in his throat. What he felt was so much more than love. She was the woman he trusted, the woman he respected, the woman formed from his own
ka.
Who was now the gods only knew where.

He turned back to his letter. He must gather their belongings and book passage, then he must find Chloe and rescue her.

Ehuru entered the room. “My lord, you have a visitor.” Cheftu looked at him. Ehuru had aged overnight. Company was Cheftu's last desire, but it was necessary. He gave a ghost of a smile. “Show him in.”

Lord Makab entered the room, his linen gleaming white, but his face drawn and gaunt. Cheftu got to his feet, extending both arms.

Makab embraced him. “My friend, life, health, prosperity.”

“To yourself also. Please, be seated. Have you eaten?”

“I have no desire to….” Makab's voice was low. “How is my sister, Cheftu? What matter of dark magic is this?” Ehuru appeared in the doorway, and Cheftu requested wine and whatever food could be found.

“You know, then?”

Makab sank into a chair. “Know what?”

“How is it that you are here?” Cheftu asked, trying to ease his friend's feelings.

“I received a missive that RaEm was going to marry Thut, so I began to travel. First our horses died on the way to the river. We had to walk for several days. I lost several good retainers to a hailstorm of fire—I confess I have never seen the like! We were living off the land when locusts descended. They clogged the streams and ate all the greenery. We survived by eating them. Then we reached the river, only a few days’ journey, but this blackness descended and the people were terrified. We had a mutiny and lost most of the crew
and
the captain. We just arrived. Out of an entourage of twenty, only six of us are left.” He sighed, accepting wine from Ehuru. “The torments on the Shores of Night could be no worse.”

“Did you come directly to me?”

“Aye, my good friend. I knew you had been assigned to look after…” His words stopped. “To look after her when she was banished here. I thought she was going to marry Nesbek, but then she is going to marry Thut. … I do not know what is happening here.”

“She married me.”

Makab laughed. “She despises you!”

Cheftu grinned as he crooked an eyebrow. “As I did her.”

Makab rubbed his face hard, then downed the rest of his wine and handed the cup to Ehuru for a refill. “How?”

Cheftu sighed. “It would take days and a lot more wine to explain. Suffice it to say she is a captive of the state, I have less than a week to leave Egypt and never return, and the worst plague of all is about to strike.”

Makab's expression was murderous. “Captive of the state? A hereditary prince banished? Plagues? Explain, Cheftu. Give me facts in quick succession. Why is she a captive?”

“She accidentally sent another priestess in her place for a ritual at the temple. The other girl was killed, as a sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice? A human sacrifice? That is a barbarian rituall We Egyptians haven't practiced such since Chaos!”

“The sun has risen every day, without fail, since Chaos. It did not these past few days.”

Makab looked away. “Agreed.” He peered over his cup at Cheftu. “So she substituted someone else?”

“Aye. So it seems.”

“You sound unsure.”

Cheftu scratched his chest. “I am. Something is not adding up. Hat's judgment was too quick. She is pharaoh, but she is acting without the proper religious authorities. She even let
soldiers
strip RaEm of her priestess authority.”

“Mere soldiers? Only a high priest can take away religious authority. While Hapuseneb may have turned over a lot of the priesthood to Pharaoh, living forever!, I am sure that he alone holds that power still!”

“Indeed,” Cheftu mused. “It is not adding up.”

Makab drained another cup of wine. “What is this about your being banished? Surely it is not true?”

“Aye.” He handed Makab the letter he had sealed a few moments before. “I have written asking you to take care of my servants and holdings.”

Makab looked at him. “Has Hatshepsut, living forever! gone mad? She cannot banish you! You have inherited your position for generations, as have I! What is her reasoning?”