The City of Refuge: Book 1 of The Memphis Cycle (8 page)

XII

“I am amazed to find a splendid palace and a delicious meal, in the middle of a city described as ruined, deserted and accursed,” remarked General Seti as he set down his wine cup with a sigh and raised a portion of roasted meat to his lips.

Nebamun had concluded the audience upon Seti's arrival, and that dinner be announced. They repaired to the dining hall to find supper awaiting them. Now, sitting at the head of the group between Lord Nebamun and Khonsu, Seti conversed easily and with humor, and did justice to the skill of Nebamun's cooks.

Once the meal was well under way, after a disturbance among the priests: Seneb again, from what Khonsu could see, Seti turned to Lord Nebamun with a puzzled smile. “I bear my father's personal greetings, Your Grace. He has asked me to remember him to you, and assure you of his friendship and continued good will.”

Nebamun's expression eased into a smile. “General Ramesses is the kindest of men and the best of commanders. I must send him my respect and good wishes, as well.”

Seti reached for a piece of cumin-crusted fish. “He told me he knows you well.”

“That he does,” Nebamun said.

Seti's puzzled expression deepened. “But I–”

A voice rose beyond them.
“...accursed, accursed..
.” Seneb the priest, sitting halfway down the length of the room, spoke louder. “Great Ptah, I have felt it, rising, filling my sight until all is fire and darkness and blood...”

Nebamun scowled at Seneb and then directed a look at Perineb, who spoke to one of the priests beside him. The Second Prophet turned back to Seti. “I beg your pardon, General. You were saying...?”

“Only that I don't understand,” Seti continued, though he stared at Seneb. “When did my father know you? I'd surely have remembered the honor of Your Grace's acquaintance!”

Nebamun's eyes raised to Seti's face with the touch of a reminiscent smile. “It was a long time ago and you were very young.”

Khonsu could hear the mumble of Seneb's voice.

“My memory is excellent, Your Grace.” Seti frowned.

Nebamun's smile faded. “Oh, we met.” His voice was gentle.

“But where?” Seti persisted.

“It was in Thebes,” Lord Nebamun said at last. “I kissed you in your cradle, though I would not expect you to remember that. I have the liveliest memories of you.” He turned calculating eyes on Seti. “I will never forget the first time I, and most of your father's friends, saw you. You were your father's firstborn and he showed you off to a gathering of the generals. He was so proud to have such a healthy wiggler of a lad that he removed your swaddling to show us how strong and well-formed you were and held you up for all to see. You broke wind more loudly than any horse I have heard. Then, kicking and crowing, you showed your maleness and vigor by dousing General Horemheb, who was waiting with arms outstretched to hold you. You had perfect aim and distance for such a youngster.”

Seti threw back his head with a shout of laughter. “It serves me right for being impertinent to an elder! And you did it neatly, though I meant no offense. How odd that my father has never mentioned that tale...”

Nebamun raised his cup of wine. “Your father is a kind man.”

“With a wicked sense of humor,” Seti chuckled. “I'd call it merciful, rather!” He turned to Khonsu with an apologetic smile. “I remembered a charge that was laid upon me earlier today, Commander.” He took a folded and sealed packet of papyrus from his sash. “I have a message for you, delivered to me at the height of this afternoon's confusion. Here it is, along with my apologies for my tardiness.”

Khonsu took the packet and looked it over. From the regularity and rhythm of the script forming his name, it had been written by a skilled scribe. The other side of the packet, which should have contained the name of the sender, was blank.

Glancing at Nebamun for permission, he took his dagger and cut the string that secured the message, crumbled the mud seal, spread the sheet and read the salutation:

Sherit greets her father, Khonsu, in life, prosperity, love and health. Khonsu's daughter, Sherit, says to her beloved father, how are you? Are you well and happy in your heart? Behold, I am growing strong!

Khonsu's hand shook; he had to lower the letter and blink the blur from his eyes.

Lord Nebamun had turned away to direct an impatient stare down the room at Seneb, who was speaking of curses with increasing loudness. He looked back at Khonsu and leaned forward. “Is it good news, Commander?”

Khonsu's voice quivered. “All is well, Your Grace,” he said in a low voice. “I certainly hadn't expected…” He lowered his head, unwilling for the others to see him wiping at his wet cheeks. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Please forgive me, Your Grace. It's a letter from my little daughter. Just five years old. She's been sick for so long. Someone must have known I was worried about her. I–I never expected to receive such a thing. To think I was fretting about her just this morning...” He looked up into Lord Nebamun's sympathetic gaze. “If I could only thank him... I wonder who sent it.”

“No!”
Seneb screamed.
“No, I can feel it closing in!”

“Great Amun's crown!” Seti exclaimed. “Is the man mad?”

Nebamun flicked a scornful glance at Seneb. “I'll deal with him.”

General Seti lifted his eyebrows, but he nodded. “Did you say the letter is from your daughter, Commander?”

Khonsu had been scanning the letter again, feeling the relief wash through him in a warm tide. “She's been sick,” he said through the tightness in his throat. “I thought I might lose her... And she's still frail.”

He looked up to see Seti watching him with a sympathetic smile. He lowered his eyes again. “His Grace saw her the morning we left, I know.”

Nebamun smiled and sipped his wine. “Yes. A pretty little girl, obviously her father's delight.”

Khonsu did not try to deny it. “She's only five. I was so worried about her, Even this morning, on the way to the quarry… And now, thanks to someone's kindness–and may the gods bless him for it! –I know.” He looked up at Seti. “How did this message come to you, General?”

Seti lowered the cup. “I felt a touch on my arm in the middle of the ruckus. I saw a messenger standing behind me.” He considered and then added, “He was wearing a plaque on a thong about his neck, but I don't remember its device, whether royal or from your province. He was well-mounted and leading his horse.”

“Did he say who had sent him?”

Nebamun’s eyes lingered on the half-opened message. He blinked, lifted his eyes to Khonsu's face, and drummed his fingertips on his knee.

“I didn't give him time,” Seti replied. “I was short with him, in fact. I knew your name from this assignment, so I accepted the message, thinking you were away on patrol. In any event, I was too occupied to seek you out because he arrived just as pandemonium struck. He wanted to deliver the message to the person most likely to be the commander of the guard force here and then make his departure. I told him my name, and gave him permission to leave. He was glad to obey.”

Nebamun's fingertips stilled. He leaned forward as Seti drew breath to speak again and said quickly, “What does it say, Commander? Is your daughter better now?”

Khonsu scanned the letter. “Yes, Your Grace! Blessed be all the gods! She says she's stronger. She ran in the streets with two of her friends, and though it tired her, she doesn't ache as much as she did, and her heart doesn't leap…She's hungry now! I had to coax her into swallowing gruel before!” He read further. “My sister also speaks to me in this. Who is the scribe?” He skimmed down to the bottom and nearly dropped the letter. “Thoth's beak!”

Nebamun, smiling now, lifted his eyebrows.

“This was written by Thutnakht, the chief scribe of the Temple of Thoth!” Khonsu exclaimed,. “Written in his own hand, the finest scribe in Egypt! He adds his own observations about how Sherit seems to be! It's beyond everything wonderful! Here, Your Grace: read it!”

Nebamun took the message from him and opened it.

“I am happy to have been the bringer of good news, however unwittingly,” Seti said, “I have two daughters of my own, and I'd be frantic with worry if they were ill.”

“But who could have sent the message?” Khonsu asked again.

Nebamun handed it back. “He probably wanted to remain unknown. But I am glad the little maid–”

A shriek from the center of the room cut him short.

Seti started and dropped the small loaf of bread he had taken up. “What the devil is wrong now?” he demanded, brushing at crumbs.

“Seneb again,” sighed Mersu, who had been sitting quietly beside Khonsu. He eyed the priests disgustedly and threw down the leg of duck he had been gnawing. “It figures the fool'd pick this time to show off! Look, there he goes!”

Seneb pushed to his feet and staggered sideways.
“Cast it down!”
he cried. “
Cast it down!”
His voice rose to a scream.
“Cast it down and let it rot! Or it will cast itself down and bury us all beneath it! We are warned! We are warned!”

“What is this disgraceful racket, Perineb?” demanded Nebamun.

Perineb, jolted out of his habitual serenity, looked at once harassed, uncomfortable and angry. “I have no idea, Your Grace. He's been saying to whoever would listen that his head was buzzing ever since we arrived here.”

“His head's buzzing because there's nothing inside it,” muttered one of the soldiers.

“If he were within reach,” whispered Mersu out of the corner of his mouth, keeping one half-amused eye on Nebamun's increasingly ominous expression, “I'd just bet His Grace would make his head buzz in earnest!”

Seneb was wide-eyed and glaring into the air.
“The city seeks to bury us! It will kill us!”

The room broke into a spate of murmurs, people sprang to their feet, craning their necks in time to see Seneb rise to his full height and fling himself face forward to the ground, to lie flailing and shrieking.

Khonsu, watching in astonishment, caught the flinching moment when Seneb turned in his fall to avoid striking the pavement with his forehead.

Ecstatic fit?
he thought.
A very careful one!

Lord Nebamun waved the others aside and made his unhurried way over to Seneb. He gazed down at the man with a glint in his eye, and then spoke his name sharply.

Seneb, arching and thrashing against the floor like a beached Nile perch, ground his teeth upon crowing, incoherent cries, oblivious to everything else.

Nebamun turned and located a large water jar standing against the wall. He speared one of the strongest soldiers in his personal guard with a look and nodded toward it. The man took the jar by its sturdy handles and dragged it over, and, at a nod from Nebamun, he hoisted it with a grunt and upended it over the prostrate priest. Water crashed upon the floor in a solid sheet, spattered upward, and splashed down once more, leaving a pool that lapped against Nebamun's sandaled feet.

Seneb sat up with a strangled oath and spat out a quart of water.

Lord Nebamun smiled at the guard, stepped out of the puddle and twitched the soaked skirt of his robe away from his ankles. “This assignment appears too much for your delicate constitution, my lad,” he said with chill gentleness as he motioned to the grinning soldier to set the jar down. “You will return to Memphis by special ship tomorrow morning.”

He eyed the priest's stunned expression and continued, “I'll be devoting some thought this evening to the best place for one of your extreme sensitivity. Somewhere placid, deep in Nubia, I think: Mirgissa, maybe. Or the fortress at the cataracts near Uronarti. The priest of Ptah there reported, just before we left, that his assistant had died of an infected lizard bite, and he requested another. That billet should suit you perfectly.”

Seneb's jaw sagged. He drew a quick, gobbling breath. “Y–your Grace,” he gasped, “I never meant–!”

“You should have thought carefully before you decided to play such a stupid game with me,” Nebamun said. “Go to your quarters, gather your belongings and prepare to leave tomorrow. One of the servants will bring you some dinner.”

Seneb turned to Perineb. “Your Reverence,” he began.

Perineb pointed to the door.

After Seneb had left, Nebamun looked around at the rest of the group. “I'll tolerate no more of this nonsense,” he said. “We're grown men here to do a job, not little boys shivering over scary stories told around the hearth. I am sick of all this nauseous drivel of ghosts and curses and haunted cities. It is time that these 'ghosts' learn with whom they are dealing. We have a half-division from the Army of Upper Egypt. General Seti, you will assign your best men to patrol with Commander Khonsu's sentries. As for the rest–” He frowned at his audience. “Paser! Come forward!”

Paser leapt to his feet. “Your Grace?”

“I am sending Seneb back to Memphis at first light. You will travel with him to Khebet bearing a gift and a message for Mayor Huni. Report to me early tomorrow and I will give them to you. You can commandeer a ship at Khebet to bring you back. Do you understand me?”