Suzanne Robinson (24 page)

He rushed back to the house and roused his stepmother Cutting through her protests, he ordered her to Memphis in a military tone that left: her no option but to obey.

Khet was less amenable to being ordered about. The boy sensed his brother’s tension and demanded an explanation. They stood outside the stables arguing in the early morning sunlight while grooms prepared a chariot for Rennut.

“Anqet isn’t going. Where is she? Why should I go if she doesn’t?”

“Quiet!” Seth hauled Khet into the tack room. “I told you. Anqet must remain hidden until my guests leave.”

Khet pulled his arm out of Seth’s hold. “Something’s wrong. I can tell. Your tongue becomes a whip when you’re uneasy. Does this have anything to do with Sennefer? Where is he? And by the way, what happened last night?” When Seth glared at him, the boy folded his arms and
narrowed his eyes. “I could always ask Anqet. Seth, let go!”

Seth lowered his brother to the floor and sought to control his temper. Khet was looking at him with the pained eyes of a gazelle. He cursed and hugged the boy to him.

“Little Fire, I’m sorry. I forget that you’re growing up.” Seth fixed Khet with an intense stare. “These men are dangerous. I never planned to have them in the house, but they came. I must deal with them for Pharaoh. I can’t tell you why.”

“For Pharaoh?”

Seth nodded.

“How can you deal with them alone?”

Khet was too observant sometimes. “I won’t. I’ll send for Dega. He’s waiting upriver at the village of Crooked Palm.”

“But I can help.”

Seth shook his head. “A good warrior obeys his commander. I’m engaged in a campaign. Obey my command and go to Memphis. I can’t attack the enemy as long as you are here. I fear for you.”

“Can I take Meki?”

Seth smiled and tousled Khet’s hair.

“Take Meki. I promise to send for you soon. When this is over, you can come with Anqet and me to Thebes.”

Khet nodded. Seth could see that the boy was dissatisfied but resigned. He sent Khet to hurry Rennut and went to find his ally in crime.

Merab was in the garden with his two assistants watching fish in one of the ponds. The man was amusing himself by attempting to stab a large perch.

“Come inside,” Seth said. “We have to discuss the route my ships will take, and then I want to see the cargo.”

He managed to keep Merab entertained with business, food, and wine until dusk. There had been a frightening moment that morning when Khet and Meki charged through the reception hall and collided with Merab. The thief took
a swipe at the hound, but Khet grabbed the dog and pulled him to safety. The boy crouched at Merab’s feet and wrapped his arms around Meki’s neck. No words were exchanged as Seth left his chair and strode to his brother.

The thief stared down at Khet with a smile on his lips and a grimace in his eyes. “So this is Khet. Greetings, small warrior I’ve been curious about you, most curious.” Merab stretched out a hand to Khet. Meki snarled, and Seth pulled his brother to him, out of Merab’s reach. The man took a step toward Khet but stopped when Meki bristled and growled at him. Merab backed up, giving Seth a chance to slide his body between the thief and the dog. Ordering Meki and Khet out of the house, Seth moved away with his brother.

“Don’t bundle the child off on my account,” Merab said. He held the boy’s eyes with his own and tried to detain Khet with a hearty purr “I like children. Let’s visit awhile, young one. I’m sure you and I can tell each other fascinating stories about your brother.”

The boy shook his head, but his eyes were still drawn into Merab’s imprisoning stare.

“Khet’s in a hurry,” Seth said. “He’s going to Memphis.” He swept the boy across the room.

When they were near the door and out of earshot, Khet hissed at him.

“I don’t like that man.”

“Nobody does. Now go.”

Khet glared at Merab. The man had taken a seat and was stuffing his cheeks with roast pigeon while he kept his eyes on Khet. An apprehensive look settled over the youth’s face. He ignored Seth’s drag at his arm and studied the intruder intently. He jerked Seth down so that he could whisper in his ear.

“Seth, that man is evil. Make him go away, or something terrible is going to happen.”

“I’m trying to make him go away. What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like you’ve seen a monster from the desert.”

Khet started to pull Seth toward the front portico,
suddenly more eager to leave than Seth could have wished. He joined Rennut and the party of servants that would accompany them to Memphis. Seth’s last sight of the boy convinced him that Khet had experienced an intuitive loathing for Merab. The boy stood beside his tutor in a chariot, his body rigid and his face blank. Meki growled nervously and crouched beside the boy on the ground. Puzzled, Seth watched Khet’s figure until it was lost around a bend in the avenue that led to the village of Annu-Rest at the northern edge of the estate.

With the family on their way and Merab satiated with an afternoon’s gorging, Seth felt free to go with the thief to the town of Annu-Rest. There, moored at the water’s edge, were two innocuous cargo vessels, ostensibly loaded with sacks of grain, jars of oil, beer and wine, and crates of linen. With peeling paint and cluttered decks, the two ships looked like any of the thousands of such craft that plied the Nile.

Seth stepped after Merab onto the deck of the largest freighter and joined him and the captain of the ship. While Merab conversed with the man, Seth observed this newest thief. Paheri was a tall man of muscular build whose most distinctive feature was a shaved head. It wasn’t the fact that he shaved his head that was unique, for this was a common practice. What made Paheri’s head noticeable was the white scar that ran in a straight line from the middle of his forehead down the center of his skull in a wide, shining band. To Seth it looked as if someone had taken a wood plane to Paheri’s scalp.

He decided it was time to sow the first seeds of doubt and fear among his allies. He yawned elaborately and stretched, arching backward and taking quick glances around the ship. He cut through Merab’s rumble.

“I want to see the cargo,” he said.

Merab and Paheri exchanged looks.

“It’s still daylight,” Merab said.

Seth looked purposely at the unkempt and brutal-looking oarsmen scattered about. “I see no one here who shouldn’t be. Show me.”

They took him to an enclosure formed by stacks of grain and linen. Paheri stuck his hand between two bales and dragged out a cloth-wrapped bundle. He knelt and spread the packet out at Seth’s feet. From the folds of the material tumbled a mass of glitter.

Seth’s heart pounded. Ear studs, pectorals, an Osiris pendant, rings—all bearing royal symbols. He picked up a massive earring of gold. From the stud hung a large gold ring, the interior of which was filled with two uraei, royal snakes. The two serpents flanked a tiny figure of Tutankhamun’s brother, the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten. From the ring were suspended strands of miniature beads of gold, malachite, carnelian, and lapis.

Seth trailed the beads across his palm. He remembered these earrings. He’d last seen them worn by the old pharaoh when Tutankhamun was a babe. He remembered standing by, a youth bored with his new duty as honor guard-nursemaid-companion to the royal child, while Akhenaten played with his brother. He saw Pharaoh toss the youngster in the air and catch him. A minister sought words with the king. Deep in conversation, Pharaoh gave the child the earpiece but failed to notice what Tutankhanum was doing with it until Seth leapt forward to snatch the earring before the prince could swallow it whole.

“Seth,” Pharaoh had said, laughing, “your sharp eyes have saved my brother Horemheb tells me he’s in need of alert men. We shall have those falcon’s eyes trained by one who can put them to use.”

Now he closed his hand over the earring. Tossing it back on the pile of jewelry, Seth kicked at it. “You stuck to portable things, I take it.”

Paheri grunted. He removed several bales from a crate and opened the container Inside lay two alabaster vases, each the size of a ten-year-old child. Inlaid with gold and turquoise, they were worth more than a year’s labor to a farmer.

Seth lifted an eyebrow. “You had enough time to cart away quite a bit, Paheri. Tell me. Who among the necropolis police did you bribe?”

“You don’t need to know that,” Merab said.

“You must have talked some mortuary priests into joining you too,” Seth continued brightly. “I must say, you fellows have an intense loyalty. I myself wouldn’t be able to trust a priest gone bad, or a policeman. Or have you killed them?”

“Shhh!”

Merab hustled Seth out of the enclosure, Paheri close behind.

Paheri stuck his face close to Merab’s. “I told you we should have killed the priests,” the captain said.

“Shut up,” said Merab.

Seth was standing in the middle of the deck with a perplexed look on his face. Several crewmen were busy coiling a rope in front of him.

“You know”—Seth rubbed his chin, deep in meditation—“I remember the funeral.” Furtive glances were cast at him. “There was this relief in the tomb. I had to stand still a lot, and that’s always tedious when you’re young, you understand. Anyway, there was this relief and an inscription. A curse, actually. A curse on anyone who violated the king’s tomb. Oh, it was a fine curse.”

Seth grinned and raised his voice:
“Amun shall deliver them to the flaming wrath of the King on the day of his anger; his serpent-crown shall spit fire on their heads, and shall consume their limbs, and shall devour their bodies.… They shall be engulfed in the sea, it shall hide their corpses.… Their sons shall not succeed them; their wives shall be violated before their eyes.… They shall belong to the sword on the day of destruction.”

Seth chuckled and flung an arm about Merab’s shoulders. The man swore at him as he noticed sickened looks on some of his men’s faces.

“Yes indeed,” Seth said. “I’m glad we’re all barbarians here. It wouldn’t do to take the curse too seriously. Why, I do believe my sleep would be disturbed with pictures of my head on fire or my bloated corpse floating in the sea. And then there’s the fact that without proper burial, one is damned.” He slammed Merab on the back. “But I’m a
half-breed. I don’t take much stock in the power of dead kings or Amun-Ra. Do you Merab?”

“Will you be quiet!”

“Get him out of here,” Paheri said. “Before he has my crew puking on the deck.”

When they got to the manor house, Merab was still fuming at Seth over a pitcher of beer in the feasting hall.

He growled his ire: “You did that deliberately.”

“What?” Seth asked.

“Don’t cast that stick at me, my lord. You were trying to stir up trouble. I’ll have no more of it.”

“You won’t?”

The count hooked a leg over the arm of his chair and sipped his beer He stared at Merab. The older man squirmed under that cold surveillance and sought a way to put Seth on the defensive.

“I won’t. And another thing. You never told me what happened after you caught that spy of a singer What did you do with her? Who did she serve?”

“I told you. She was waiting for her lover.”

“And you believed her?”

“After the way I asked that question? Of course. Besides, it doesn’t matter now. She’s dead.”

Merab pounded his fist on a table. “You should have let me question her.”

Seth toyed with the midnight-blue beads in his belt. “My dear Lord Merab, I was having too much fun to share my entertainment with anyone. I used her until I got tired of her, and then I slit her throat. She made a pretty corpse.”

Merab examined him. Seth met his gaze openly.

“Sorry you missed the game, my friend. I tell you what. After this is all over, you and I will amuse ourselves if that’s what you want. I have two slaves back in Thebes—twins. Bareka! They’re good together Long fingers and wide mouths that can swallow you entirely.”

Merab was distracted from the topic of dead singers.

In the darkness of the storeroom, Anqet glided back and forth on top of Seth. She heard him murmur words of surprise and pleasure, and she swooped down and located his mouth while maintaining her slow pumping movement. She felt Seth’s hips rise to meet her own. Anqet stopped her movements and sucked at Seth’s mouth. He tried to speak again, but she smothered the words. When he would have grasped her buttocks and moved her up and down his penis, she caught his hands and pinned them beside his head. She waited, feeling him pulsate within her.

Seth tore his mouth from hers. “You’re killing me” He was pleading.

Anqet laughed and stayed still. She stroked his ribs and thighs. With agonizing slowness, she resumed her pumping motions so that each stroke was glutted with sensation. Seth heaved and tried to reverse their positions.

“No,” Anqet said. She shoved him back beneath her. “I am master.”

To prove her words, she sat up with him still inside her. She tensed her leg muscles and began to move up and down. She felt Seth tense under her. His body trembled. A helpless moan escaped his lips. Anqet toppled forward.

In a growing frenzy she slithered over the wet surface of Seth’s body, stroking faster and faster. She could feel her lover’s hardness reach deep within her In a delirium
of pleasure, she sought to thrust him to the very center of her body. She groaned and writhed as climax exploded through her. Seth cried out in response. His hands clenched on her buttocks, and a hot stream of his seed filled her. Collapsing on top of him, she rested on the muscled couch as Seth stroked her hair and back with shaking fingers.

“Thoth, lord of magic, concocted a love potion and gave it life,” he said. “It’s name is Anqet.”

“And Seth, lord of carnal pleasure, sent to earth a love-charm bearing his name to tempt her beyond forbearance.”

“I only came to talk with you and see that you fared well. I didn’t think you wanted me.”

“I want you,” Anqet said. “It’s my permanent state. I was worried, and time passes slowly when you’re locked up. I thought Merab had surely killed you. If you hadn’t come when you did, I was going to take Uni and search for you.”