Day of the False King (17 page)

“Shepak — over here!” he called.

The Elamite hurried to where he stood.
Semerket pointed to the arrow. Shepak used his sword to dig it out, and
Semerket caught it in his hand as it fell.

“Odd-looking thing,” Shepak said. “I don’t
remember seeing an arrow like it before.”

“I have,” said Semerket shortly. “See there
—? The shaft isn’t made of wood; it’s a reed. Papyrus, in fact, dried
and hardened with resin. Look at this arrow point — made from Sinai
copper. And the feather here — gray, with white tips? — I’d wager
anything that it’s from a Theban goose.”

He looked soberly at Shepak. “This arrow was
made in Egypt.”

IT WAS AFTERNOON when Semerket
and Shepak began their journey back to Babylon. Since Semerket had
divulged that the arrow was of Egyptian make, Shepak had grown distant,
speaking to him only in grunts and monosyllables. It must seem more
than coincidence that an Egyptian national should be investigating the
murder of an Elamite prince and princess, only to turn up evidence of
Egyptian complicity. It stank of conspiracy, in fact, and Shepak no
doubt was reconsidering his alliance with Semerket.

They rode swiftly, if silently, back to the
capital. Neither of them had any wish to be out on the open roads after
dark. Even Shepak seemed relieved when they reached the Ishtar Gate.

Semerket gave the mare’s reins to Shepak at
the door of Bel-Marduk’s hostel. Tersely, they agreed to meet the
following morning, to determine their next course of action. Semerket
gave the arrow to the colonel for safekeeping, telling him to hide it
away and tell no one else of its existence; he did not want their only
piece of tangible evidence to vanish mysteriously from his pack in the
hostel.

Just as he was about to go inside, however,
Semerket saw his two Dark Head spies signaling him from the other side
of the Processional Way. Though he wanted only to soak his tender,
blistered backside in a cool bath, he picked his way through the
traffic to where they stood.

When he approached them, the two men hung
their heads, regarding him with fatalistic sadness. “Good evening,
lord,” said the fat one in a doleful voice, bowing slightly.

“Why so glum?” Semerket asked. “You look
like your mother’s just died.”

“Our mother is well, thank you,” said the
thin Dark Head, and for the first time Semerket realized that the two
men were brothers. “It’s kind of you to inquire. We’re disappointed
because now that you’ve found your wife, you’ll soon be leaving
Babylon.”

Semerket was momentarily without words.
“What do you mean, I’ve ‘found my wife’?”

“We know of the beautiful lady you hide at
the Egyptian temple, my lord.”

Semerket was amused. “She’s not my wife.”

The two Dark Head spies looked suspiciously
at one another. “We have heard it from her own lips!”

“But she’s not…” Semerket began, and then
stopped. Aneku probably still believed that if her real identity were
known, she would be forced back into the Ishtar Temple, having left it
under false pretenses. Well, thought Semerket, if passing herself off
as his wife would help her, what harm was there?

“I can assure you that I’m not yet done with
Babylon.”

“But if that’s so, why would the Elamites no
longer require us to follow you? You might as well know that we’ve been
dismissed from their service.”

So the Elamites had given up spying on him.
Why? Most likely it was because he had gone to the Elamite garrison to
consult with Colonel Shepak, something that would have been quickly
reported to the palace.

“If it’s all the same, lord,” continued the
fat spy, “since you plan on staying here, we would very much like to
continue in your service.”

Semerket snorted. “Now why should I pay you
not to spy on me when I’m no longer being spied upon?”

“You need our help, lord.”

“I don’t.”

“These are uncertain times in Babylon.”

Semerket shrugged. “That may be, but you’ll
get no more gold from me.”

Both of his Dark Head spies bowed their
heads, saying nothing more.

Semerket was still laughing to himself as he
entered the hostel’s courtyard. He dimly noticed a contingent of
Elamite guards over at the stables, arrayed in glittering livery. He
was surprised when, at a signal from the Bel-Marduk priests, one of the
Elamites accosted him as he began to climb the outer stairs to his
rooms.

“Lord Semerket?” he asked.

Semerket, surprised, nodded.

“King Kutir requests your attendance at the
palace.”

“Kutir?
Now?”

The guard crossed his arms and nodded.

“But I…I’m not dressed for the palace, as
you can see. Nor am I bathed.”

“Everything you need will be supplied upon
your arrival, lord.”

Semerket knew he was caught, and could no
longer put off meeting with Babylon’s latest ruler. Nevertheless, he
insisted that he retrieve the badge of office that Pharaoh had given
him. For the first time since receiving it, Semerket slipped the
pectoral around his neck. Against his dusty leather traveling clothes,
its richness gleamed improbably. The falcon badge, with its
outstretched wings of hammered gold, swung heavily from carnelian and
lapis beads in the shape of teardrops. Above the falcon’s head, the eye
of Horus stared out, the most potent of Egypt’s charms.

A chair borne by twelve men awaited him on
Processional Way. As he was carried aloft, the cynosure of all eyes on
the avenue, Semerket felt thoroughly ridiculous. At least it was dusk,
he thought, with shadows already concealing the long concourse.

“Lord Semerket!” The voice suddenly came to
him from a darkened vendor’s stall.

From the stall’s depths, a man raised his
hand tentatively to wave. Squinting, Semerket was surprised to discover
that the man was the same one who had been speaking to Marduk in the
Sick Square.

“Halt!” Semerket cried to his Elamite
guards. When they ignored him, he went through all the Babylonian words
in his strained lexicon. “Stop! Cease! End! I will speak to this man!”

The Elamite guard protested. “My lord, I
remind you that the king himself —”

“— must not be kept waiting, I agree,”
Semerket interjected. “Only a moment, Captain, to speak to my friend
here.” At the soldier’s truculent expression, Semerket made his voice
icy. “Or must I complain to the king of rudeness shown to Egypt?”

The Elamite guard quickly gestured to the
bearers to set the chair upon the ground. Semerket leapt from the
chair, trotting to where the man waited.

“I see your complexion is much improved,”
Semerket said as he approached. Indeed, the man’s smooth face seemed as
if he had never suffered from a skin ailment.

“I used plain water, as my lord suggested.
Its effects were truly miraculous.”

“How did you know I’d be coming this way?”

“I was told to meet you here and give you a
message.”

“From whom?”

“I cannot say, my lord.”

Semerket looked into the fellow’s face,
trying to ascertain if the man concealed anything behind his servile
manner. But the man’s expression remained bland and innocent.

“What is the message, then?”

The man took a breath, and recited. “ ‘It is
noticed that you go to the garrison of the Elamites, my lord. It is
devoutly wished that you avoid the area in the future.’ ”

“Why?”

“There is no more to the message, my lord.”
The man shifted uncomfortably. “But, if you please, there is something
that
I
would like to know…”

Semerket nodded.

“H-how is it that you knew water alone would
cure my affliction?”

Semerket laughed. “Do you think I can’t
recognize an old beggar’s trick when I see one? If you want to appear
worse than a leper, you have only to paste moldy bread to your face
with honey.”

A slow smile broke on the Babylonian’s face.
“You’re the first to ever find out, lord.”

When Semerket blinked, the man disappeared
into the shadows of the market stall. Semerket went back to the chair
and his bearers raised him high once again. All the short way to the
palace, he thought of what the fellow had told him. Why must he avoid
the Elamite garrison? Was he being warned — or threatened? And who had
sent the message? Also, why would an apparently healthy man be
stationed in the Sick Square…?

If it had been Marduk who had sent the
message (a logical thought, as Semerket had seen him in the company of
the man, or at least believed he had), he of all people would know that
Semerket would feel duty-bound to act contrary to the message’s
instructions. But Marduk was a mere Dark Head renegade. No, the warning
had to have come from someone else. But who? He was deep in thought
when he noticed that he and his escort had crossed into the royal
citadel.

Shining tiles depicting stylized trees of
blue, green, and gold sheathed the royal palace, raising their mosaic
limbs to the sky. Ahead, an immense door opened as Semerket’s chair
approached. The temperature dropped pleasantly once he was inside, for
the palace’s brick walls were at least four cubits thick.

In the dim interior, courtiers bowed low as
he was borne through the winding hallways. The high chamberlain
appeared almost instantly from a side hall, a thin, nervous eunuch of
indeterminate age. His nostrils twitched to catch the reek of sweat and
horse that emanated so richly from Semerket. The eunuch firmly pulled
him from the chair and hustled him down a long hall into a side room,
where a tub of steaming water waited. Serving maids suddenly appeared
to strip Semerket’s clothes away, and he was embarrassed when they
pointed at him, laughing, for they declaimed loudly that they had never
before seen a circumcised man. Several of the women threw him
suggestive looks, but he pretended indifference.

After they had soaped and rinsed him, the
eunuch ushered him to a room where a valet offered up a choice of
garments to wear. Picking the simplest robe, he allowed them to place
thin sandals of gilded kid on his feet. The valet would have draped
ropes of gold about his neck, but Semerket insisted that his only jewel
be his badge of office. Satisfied with Semerket’s appearance at last,
but still lamenting his lack of ornamentation, the high chamberlain
then led him up a narrow winding staircase, trudging the many steps to
emerge finally into the indigo twilight.

Many Babylonian buildings sported rooftop
gardens, but the one he now beheld caused him to gape. It was terraced,
rising in irregular heights as a real hillside might, and its pink
marble planters were verdant with greenery. Perfectly framed by boughs
of flowering trees, King Kutir stood with his back to Semerket, seeming
to admire the moonrise. A woman was at his side, her hand resting
delicately on the young king’s arm. The tableau was so perfectly
composed that Semerket knew the king must have staged it just for him.

The herald announced him in ringing tones,
and the king turned, as if surprised. Semerket bowed low, in the
Egyptian manner, arms outstretched, and Pharaoh’s pendant swung from
his chest.

“Semerket, you have come to us at last,”
said the king. “I am saddened to have torn you away from your prayers,
for I’ve heard how devout you are.” Kutir’s mouth twitched when he said
this.

Semerket’s tongue, for once, was usable.
“But my prayers have been answered, Majesty — to meet with you at last,
amid all this splendor.”

The king snickered. The lady on his arm,
however, turned her back — a deliberate snub that effectively silenced
the king’s laughter. Kutir, embarrassed, forcibly turned her around
again to face Semerket. The king’s fingers made white impressions in
the flesh of her arm.

“May I present the queen, my wife, Narunte,
who is as eager to meet you as I.”

This was so patently a lie that all Semerket
could do was bow again, concealing his smile. The queen wrenched her
arm from her husband’s grip and sank into a chair of carved ivory. She
signaled for a slave to fetch her a bowl of beer, and sat glaring at
Semerket as she sucked on the reed.

At first glance, Queen Narunte seemed far
older than her young husband, for her face was gaunt, her neck creased.
She looked at Semerket with eyes of a demonic silver color, and in them
her tiny pupils were pinpoints of hate. Had she not been introduced to
him as the queen, her rudeness should have branded her a common trull.

Kutir on the other hand was a prince out of
legend — virile, with his beard curled and his long hair gathered into
a knot at the back of his neck. His only flaw was that his eyes were
small, set close together, while the tiny lines at their corners
betrayed his anxiety.

Semerket was suddenly aware that he was
studying the royal pair as he would suspects in a crime, and hastily
looked away. It was then he saw that Ambassador Menef was also in the
gardens, standing behind the queen’s chair. Menef’s bodyguard, the man
whose macabre smile was so remarkable, also waited there, stationing
himself discreetly apart from the ambassador. The moment Semerket saw
them, the pair genuflected extravagantly.

At that point, Kutir came forward and draped
his arm around Semerket’s shoulders. “Come and let us talk now that
you’re here,” he urged, “as men would, away from these others.”

Kutir guided Semerket up a flight of stairs
to a copse of fragrant pines growing at the top level of the gardens.
Kutir would have taken a seat on a marble bench had not a very large
peacock already roosted there. He kicked it away, and the bird flew
with great flapping wings to a pine bough above them, shrieking. The
king then indicated that Semerket should join him on the bench.
Attentive to the fresh droppings that covered it, Semerket sat
carefully.

“So,” Kutir said eagerly, “what is the
offer?”