Vengeance of Orion Page 26

  No, I told myself. My days of serving them will be finished once I have brought Athene back to life. Or so I hoped.

  We sailed on, and watched crocodiles slithering along the reed-choked banks of the river, and mountainous hippopotami splashing and roaring at one another, their huge pink mouths and stumpy teeth looking ludicrous and terrifying at one and the same time.

  "Not a good place to go swimming," Lukka observed.

  "Not unless you want to end up as their midday meal," I agreed.

  Finally we neared Wast, the mighty capital of the Kingdom of the Two Lands. Along the eastern shore of the river, reedy swamps gave way to cultivated fields, and then to low whitewashed dried-brick buildings. Across the river we saw more tombs cut into the western cliffs.

  As we sailed onward the buildings became larger, grander. Dried brick gave way to dressed stone. Farm houses gave way to handsome villas with brightly painted murals on their outer walls. Graceful date palms and orchards of citrus trees swayed in the hot wind. In the distance we began to see massive temples and public buildings, tall obelisks and gigantic statues of a standing man, magnificent in physique, his fists clenched at his sides, his face smiling serenely.

  "They all have the same face," Helen said to Nefertu.

  "They are all statues of the same king, Ramesses II, father of our current king Merneptah."

  The colossal statues towered along the river's eastern bank, row upon row of them. The king must have quarried out whole mountains of granite and barged the rock along the river to put up such monuments to himself.

  "Ramesses was a glorious king," Nefertu explained to us, "mighty in battle and generous to his people. He erected these statues and many more, even larger ones, farther upstream. They stand to remind our people of his glory, and to awe the barbarians to the south. Even to this day they are afraid of his power."

  " 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,' " I said. The phrase sprang from my memory, and I knew it had been written for this egomaniac Egyptian king.

  There were more tombs along the western cliffs, including one that was so beautiful it took my breath away when I first saw it. White, low, columned and proportioned in a way that would some day grace the Parthenon of Athens.

  "It is the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut," Nefertu told me. "She ruled like a man—much to the unhappiness of the priests and her husband."

  If Menefer was impressive, Wast was overwhelming. The city was built to dwarf human scale. Enormous stone buildings loomed along the water's edge, so that we tied our boat to a stone pier in their cool shadow. Avenues were paved with stone and wide enough for four chariots to run side by side. Up from the riverside rose many temples, massive columns of granite painted brightly, metal-shod roofs gleaming in the sun. Beyond them, up in the hills, handsome villas were dotted among groves of trees and wide cultivated fields.

  We were greeted at the pier by a guard of honor, wearing crisply pleated uniforms of immaculately clean linen and chain mail polished so highly that it glittered. Their swords and spear points were bronze, and I noticed that Lukka took in their weaponry with a swift professional glance.

  Nefertu was met by another official, dressed only in a long white skirt and gold medallion of office against his bare chest, who introduced himself as Mederuk. He led us, one and all, to the palace where we would await our audience with the king. Helen and I were put into a sedan chair carried by black Nubian slaves, while Nefertu and Mederuk took a second one. Lukka and his men walked, flanked by the glittering honor guard.

  Helen was beaming with happiness. "This is truly the city where I belong," she said.

  I belonged back at Menefer, I thought, at the great pyramid. The longer I remained here in Wast, the less likely my chances of destroying the Golden One and reviving Athene.

  Looking through the curtains of our sedan chair as the Nubian bearers carried us up the rising avenue, I saw that Nefertu and Mederuk were chatting gaily like a pair of old friends catching up on the latest gossip. They were happy. Helen was happy. Even Lukka and his men seemed to be satisfied that they would soon be employed in the Egyptian army.

  Only I felt restless and unsatisfied.

  The royal palace at Wast was a vast complex of temples and living quarters, soldiers' barracks and grain storehouses, spacious courtyards and pens for meat animals. Cats roamed everywhere. The Egyptians revered them as sacred spirits and gave them free rein throughout the palace complex. I thought that they must be very useful against the mice and other vermin that inevitably infested granaries.

  Our quarters in the palace were—palatial. Helen and I were given adjoining huge, airy rooms with high ceilings of cedar beams and polished granite floors that felt cool to my bare feet. The walls were painted in cool solid blues and greens, with bright reds and golds outlining the doorways and windows. The windows of my room looked out across tiled rooftops toward the river.

  I saw that whoever had designed the room had a strict sense of balance. Exactly opposite the door from the hall stood the door to the terrace. The windows flanking it were balanced on the blank wall by paintings of window frames, exactly the same size and shape as the real windows, their "frames" painted the same bright colors.

  Half a dozen servants were there to look after us. Slaves bathed me in scented water, shaved me, clipped and combed my hair, and dressed me in the cool, light linen fabric of Egypt. I dismissed them all and, once alone in my room, found my dagger amid the clothing I had left in a pile at the foot of my bed. I strapped it onto my thigh once more beneath my fresh Egyptian skirt; I felt almost naked without it.

  Those false windows bothered me. I wondered if they hid a secret entrance to my room. But when I scanned them closely and ran my fingers across the wall, all I detected was paint.

  A servant scratched timidly at the door, and once I gave him permission to enter, he announced that the lords Nefertu and Mederuk would be pleased to take dinner with my lady and me. I asked the servant to invite Nefertu to my room.

  It was time for me to tell him the truth about Helen. After all, she wanted to be invited to stay in Wast. She wanted to be treated like the queen she had been.

  Nefertu came and we sat on the terrace outside, under a softly billowing awning that kept the sun off us. Without my asking, a servant brought us a pitcher of chilled wine and two cups.

  "I have something to tell you," I said, once the servant had left, "something that I have kept from you until now."

  Nefertu smiled his polite smile and waited for me to continue.

  "The lady with me, Helen: she was the Queen of Sparta, and a princess of the fallen Troy."

  "Ahh," said Nefertu, "I was certain that she was no ordinary woman. Not only her beauty, but her bearing showed royal breeding."

  I poured wine for us both, then took a sip from my cup. It was excellent, dry and crisp, cool and delicious. I took a longer swallow, savoring the best wine I had tasted since Troy.

  "I had suspected that the lady was an important personage," Nefertu went on. "And I am happy that you have been honest with me. Actually, I was about to question the two of you rather closely. My lord Nekoptah will want to know everything about you and your travels before he grants you audience with the king."

  "Nekoptah?"

  "He is the chief priest of the royal house, a cousin to the king himself. He serves mighty Merneptah as first councillor." Nefertu sipped at his wine. He licked his lips with the tip of his tongue, and darted a glance over his shoulder, as if afraid that someone might be listening to us.

  Leaning closer to me, he said in a lowered voice, "I am told that Nekoptah is not content merely to have the king's ear; he wants the king's power for himself."

  I felt my eyebrows climb. "A palace intrigue?"

  Nefertu shrugged his thin shoulders. "Who is to say? The ways of the palace are complex—and dangerous. Be warned, Orion."

  "I thank you for the advice."

  "We are to meet with Nekoptah tomorrow morning. He desires to see you an
d the lady."

  "What about Lukka and his troops?"

  "They are quartered comfortably in the military barracks on the other side of the palace. A royal officer will inspect them tomorrow and undoubtedly admit them to the army."

  Somehow I felt uneasy. Perhaps it was Nefertu's warning about palace intrigues. "I would like to see Lukka before we go to dinner," I said. "To make certain he and his men are well taken care of."

  "That is not necessary," said Nefertu.

  "It is my responsibility," I said.

  He nodded. "I'm afraid I have made you suspicious. But perhaps that is all to the good." Rising, "Come, then. We will visit the barracks and see that your men are happy there."

  Lukka and his men were indeed comfortably quartered. The barracks was nothing like the luxury of my own royal apartment, but to the soldiers it was almost heaven: real beds and a solid roof over their heads, slaves to fetch hot water and polish their armor, food and drink and the promise of a night's whoring.

  "I'll keep them in check tonight," Lukka told me, a hard smile on his hawk's face. "Tomorrow we parade for the Egyptian officers; I don't want them hung over and disgracing you."

  "I'll join you for the inspection," I told him.

  Nefertu almost objected, but stopped himself before saying a word.

  As we left the barracks and headed back toward our apartments I asked him, "Is there some problem with me being present at the parade ground tomorrow?"

  He smiled his diplomat's smile. "Merely that the inspection will be at sunrise, and our meeting with Nekoptah is shortly afterward."

  "I should be with the men when they are under inspection."

  "Yes, I suppose that is right." But Nefertu did not seem overly happy about my decision.

  We dined that evening in his apartment, a room about the same in size and decorations as my own. I got the feeling that Nefertu was delighted at his good fortune in finding us. It is not every day that a civil servant working in a small town far from the capital is invited to the royal palace and housed in such splendor.

  Helen told her story to him and Mederuk, the official who had met us at the pier. She held them fascinated with her tale of the war between the Achaians and Trojans, and seemed quite proud to place herself at the center of it all.

  Mederuk stared at her shamelessly all through the dinner. He was a man of middle age, his hair gray and thinning, his body overweight and soft. Like all the Egyptians, his skin was dark and his eyes almost black. He had a bland round face, virtually unlined, almost like a baby's. His life in the palace had left no traces of laughter or pain or anger on that chubby, insipid face. It was as if he carefully erased all evidence of experience each night and faced each new day with a freshly molded blankness that could not possibly offend anyone—nor give any hint of the thoughts going on behind that bland mask.

  But he stared at Helen, beads of perspiration dampening his upper lip. "You must speak to Nekoptah," he said, once Helen had finished her tale. The dinner was long finished; slaves had removed our plates and now nothing was on the low table at which we sat except wine cups and bowls of pomegranates, figs, and dates.

  "Yes," agreed Nefertu. "I'm certain that he will advise the king to invite you to live here in Wast, as a royal guest."

  Helen smiled, but her eyes went to me. I said nothing. She knew I would leave as soon as I could. Once I knew that she was safe, and that Lukka and his men were accepted in the army, then I could leave.

  I said, "The lady brings a considerable treasure with her. She will not be a burdensome guest."

  The two Egyptians saw the humor in my statement and laughed politely.

  "A burden to the king," giggled Nefertu. He had drunk a fair amount of wine.

  "As if the great Merneptah counted costs," agreed Mederuk with a well-trained smile. His wine cup had not been drained even once. I looked at him closely. His smooth plump face showed no trace of emotion, but his coal-black eyes betrayed the scheming that was going through his mind.

  Chapter 37

  I left Helen's bed before sunrise and silently padded through the door that connected to my own room. The sky was just starting to turn gray and the room was still dark, yet something made me halt in my tracks and hold my breath.

  Just the faintest whisper of movement. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I remained stock-still, my eyes searching the darkness, trying to penetrate the shadows. There was someone else in the room. I knew it. I sensed it. Still straining to see, I recalled exactly the layout of the room, the placement of the bed, the table, chairs, chests. The windows and the door to the hall . . .

  A slight scraping sound, wood or metal against stone. I leaped at it, and banged painfully into the blank wall. Recoiling backward, I staggered a step or two and sat down on my rump with a heavy thud.

  I had run against the wall precisely where one of the false windows was painted. Was it actually a hidden door, so cleverly concealed that I could not discern it?

  I got slowly to my feet, aching at both ends of my spine. Someone had been in my room, of that I was certain. An Egyptian, not the Golden One or one of the other Creators. Sneaking around in the dark was not their style. Someone had been spying on me—on us, Helen and me. Or going through my belongings.

  A thief? I doubted it, and a swift check of my clothes and weapons showed that nothing had been taken.

  I dressed quickly, wondering if it was safe to leave Helen alone and sleeping, wondering if the intruder wanted me to wonder about her and stay away from Lukka and the parade ground. Nefertu had warned me about palace intrigues, and I was thoroughly puzzled.

  A scratching at my door. I yanked it open and Nefertu stood there, dressed and smiling the polite meaningless smile that served as his way of facing the world.

  After greeting him, I asked, "Is it possible to place a guard at Helen's door?"

  He looked genuinely alarmed. "Why? Is something amiss?"

  I told him what had happened. He looked skeptical, but strode off down the hall to find the guard corporal. A few minutes later he returned with a guard, a well-muscled black man dressed in a zebra-hide kilt with a sword belted around his middle.

  Feeling somewhat better, I went off to the parade ground outside the barracks.

  Lukka had his two dozen men arrayed in a double file, their chain mail and armor glistening with fresh oil, their helmets and swords polished like mirrors. Each man also held an iron-tipped spear rigidly erect, at precisely ninety degrees to the ground.

  Nefertu introduced me to the Egyptian commander who was to inspect the Hittites. His name was Raseth, a swarthy, heavyset, blustery old military man, bald and blunt as a bullet, with arms that looked powerful despite his advancing years. He limped slightly, as if the years had added too much weight to his body for his bandy legs to carry.

  "I've fought against Hittites," he said to no one in particular as he turned toward the troops lined up for him, "I know how good they are."

  Turning toward me, he tugged at the collar of his robe, pulled it down off his left shoulder to reveal an ugly gash of a scar. "A gift from a Hittite spearman at Meggido." He seemed proud of the wound.

  Lukka stood at the head of his little band, his eyes staring straight ahead at infinity. The men were like ramrods, silent and unblinking in the early sun.

  Raseth walked up and down the two ranks, nodding and muttering to himself while Nefertu and I stood off to one side, watching.

  Finally Raseth turned abruptly and limped back toward us.

  "They fought where?" he asked me.

  I briefly described the sieges at Troy and Jericho.

  Raseth nodded his head knowingly. He did not smile, he was not the type of officer who smiled in front of troops.

  "Engineers, eh? Well, we don't engage in many sieges," he said. "But they'll do. They'll do fine. The king's army welcomes them."

  That was the easiest part of the day.

  From the barracks Nefertu led me across a wide empty courtyard. T
he morning sun was just starting to feel hot against my back, throwing long shadows across the smoothed dirt floor. Along the back wall of the courtyard I saw a cattle pen, and a few humpbacked brahmas shuffling around, their tails flicking at flies. The breeze was coming off the river, though, and I smelled jasmine and lemon trees in the air.

  "The royal offices," Nefertu pointed toward a set of buildings that looked to me like temples. I noticed that he looked nervous, tense, for the first time in all the long weeks I had known him. "Nekoptah will see us there."

  We headed up a long, slowly rising rampway, flanked on either side by statues of Ramesses II, all of them larger than life, each of them the same: a powerfully muscled man striding forward, fists clenched at his sides, a strangely serene smile on his handsome face. Not a flaw in body or face, perfectly symmetrical, utterly balanced. The pink granite of the statues caught the morning sun and looked almost like warm flesh.

  I felt as if a living giant were gazing down at me. Or a god. One of the Creators. Despite the sun's warmth, I shuddered.

  At the end of the statue-lined ramp we turned left and passed a row of massive sphinxes: reclining lion's bodies with the heads of bulls. Even reclining, the sphinxes were as tall as I.

  "The lion is the symbol of the sun," Nefertu explained. "The bull is Amon's totem. These sphinxes represent the harmony of the gods."

  Between the forepaws of each sphinx was a statue of—who else? At least these were merely life-size.

  "Are there no statues of Merneptah?" I asked.

  Nefertu nodded his head. "Oh, yes, of course. But he reveres his illustrious father as much as any man of the Two Kingdoms. Who would want to tear down statues of Ramesses to replace them with his own? Not even the king would dare."

  We approached a huge doorway, flanked on either side by two more colossal statues of Ramesses: seated, this time, his hands filled with the staff of office and the sheaf of wheat that symbolized fertility. I began to wonder what it must be like to ascend to the throne after the reign of such a monarch.