Day of the False King (20 page)

Semerket heard Menef gasp. “What
audacity — she sings ‘The Lament’!”

Semerket had no idea what the ambassador
meant, but as he listened it became clear how daring Nidaba’s choice of
song was, particularly because she sang her defiance of Elam’s rule
directly to Elamite officers.

Nidaba’s voice throbbed with
grief.

Beside him, in other chairs and
divans, Semerket heard the muffled sobs of the listeners, and glanced
in the direction of the Elamites to gauge their reaction. They, too,
began to screw up their faces and dab at their eyes. Soon they were
bawling as loudly as the other guests. The impact of Nidaba’s
incredible voice was such that even Semerket felt his eyes begin to
overfill.

After the recitation of many stanzas Nidaba
finished, her voice rising in even more full-throated misery, scarring
the night with its melancholy:

Nidaba stilled the strings with
her hand, and her voice died away with them. She dropped her head as if
she had no more strength to lift it. Then she rose quietly and left the
dais, to disappear into a back room.

No one moved for a few moments. Servants
again relit the lamps, and wine was brought. The guests stood gazing
embarrassedly at one another, overcome by emotion. Then, gradually,
they broke apart into groups. He could hear Menef’s gurgling voice:
“Can you believe it? ‘The Lament!’ Do you think they suspected?”

Semerket took the opportunity to slip away
from the courtyard and into the gardens. Sounds of the night floated to
him; crickets chirped, an owl hooted in a tall palm, while a vole
ducked for cover in the ivy at his feet. Then a different sound
altogether came to him from the rear of the villa. A far gate opened,
and with it came the low murmur of feminine voices. One of them was
Nidaba’s; after tonight’s performance, he was sure of it.

Picking his way through the dark, careful
not to stumble on the vines crossing his path, he followed the voices
to a rear courtyard. As he came nearer, he smelled the ammoniac reek of
pack animals. A small donkey train had just arrived, stripped of their
bells. Their hooves, he noticed, were wrapped in thick woolen cloths,
preventing them from being heard on the streets.

Women were removing the donkey’s packs under
Nidaba’s direction — members of the gagu, he thought. In a hushed
voice, Nidaba told them to take their loads into the kitchen cellar.
One of them, smaller than the others, staggered under a pack’s weight,
and cried out softly when it dropped to the ground. Instantly, shiny
chunks of black bitumen spilled out, clanging heavily across the tiles
of the courtyard. The woman apologized in desperate whispers, looking
nervously at Nidaba and then at a tall elderly woman who emerged from
the shadows. Semerket had not seen her lurking there, and her instant
appearance was almost shocking, as if she had conjured herself into
being. Her dark robes were embroidered in mystic symbols, and atop her
head was a tall crown of intricate workmanship that exaggerated her
already impressive height.

Nidaba bent down to gather up the spilled
bitumen herself, hoisting the sack almost effortlessly to her shoulders
and disappearing down the cellar stairs. Emerging once more into the
feeble torchlight, she led the older woman to the well, speaking with
her in low tones. Semerket strained to hear. They spoke so quickly that
he could comprehend only a fraction of what they said. But a single
word caught his ear — his own name.

Their voices rose to a climax of fierce
whispers, and then subsided. He leaned forward, hoping to hear more,
but the women of the gagu took that moment to depart. In a moment,
Semerket emerged from his hiding place. If she was startled to see him,
Nidaba did not show it.

“You wouldn’t have been spying on me, would
you?” she said.

He made no answer at first. His deliberate
hush seemed at last to penetrate her indifferent facade and, for a
moment, Nidaba’s face betrayed frenzied panic.

“Will you tell the Elamites?” she asked
breathlessly.

“Tell them what? That you receive supplies
of bitumen from the gagu? I’m sure they have more pressing concerns.”

Nidaba’s face visibly relaxed, but tensed
again at his next words.

“I need to speak with the Heir of Isin,” he
said bluntly.

She stopped. “What makes you think I know
him?”

He looked at her with irony. “Do you really
think I can’t guess what’s going on here? That this place — and you —
are part of the resistance?”

She shook her head, dropping her eyes.
“You’re mistaken. I cannot help you.”

“I’m not mistaken. Why can’t you help me?
Did that woman forbid it just now?”

Her eyes flashed in the dark. “So you
were
spying on me.”

“I heard her say my name, and not in a
friendly way.”

Nidaba made a vague gesture. “You should
leave my house, Semerket. I’m sorry.”

He was silent. The set of her jaw told him
he would get nothing more from her. He inclined his head to her, and
kissed his fingertips. “Thank you for your hospitality this evening,”
he said. “For all my life, I will be able to boast that I heard the
great Nidaba sing in person.”

Semerket found Menef in the courtyard, and
informed him that he was leaving. The ambassador made a great show of
regret, but, strangely, did not offer his chair, nor did he suggest
that one of his men accompany Semerket back to the hostel for his
protection. His bodyguard, the Asp, was nowhere to be seen. Semerket
was forced to set out into the dark streets alone, and hoped that he
could remember the way back to his hostel.

Using the flames atop Etemenanki’s ramparts
as his touchstone, he went west to the river where he expected to meet
the Processional Way. From there it was a straight route back to his
hostel. But again, Babylon’s twisting streets and the near total
darkness served to confuse him utterly. Despite the suddenly chill air,
he began to perspire. Soon he had to admit the truth to himself: he was
lost. Semerket forced his thumping heart to calm itself. What was the
worst thing that could happen? He would have to wait in some town
square until first light, and then find his way back, that was all.

Ahead of him, barely visible in the
starlight, he spied a well. His thirst suddenly powerful, he groped for
its bucket and tossed it down into the water. The bucket’s splash was
loud in the deserted square, and Semerket winced when he heard it. He
pulled it up by its rope and cupped his hands to drink. As he bent over
the bucket, he felt his falcon badge lightly strike its edge.

He raised his head at a distant footfall, so
slight he might have imagined it. Semerket turned in the direction from
which the sound came. His heart was beating so fiercely he could hear
nothing but its own frantic pulse. He probed the dark with his eyes,
trying to see something, anything.

Then, black upon black, he saw them framed
in the narrow street — two shapes moving stealthily toward him.

“Who is it?” he said loudly. “What do you
want?”

The shapes stopped. If they had continued
walking, or if they had hailed him, he would have stayed by the well.
But when they froze, silent and guilty, their sinister intentions were
betrayed.

Semerket threw the bucket in their path and
ran. From behind, he heard one of his pursuers trip over it, coming up
cursing. Semerket darted down an alley, trying not to dash himself
senseless against any lurking walls or steps.

The men who followed him did not even try to
hide their footsteps now. He heard them split up, one following him
down the alley, the other taking off in another direction. Semerket ran
full out, heedless of the dark and the snares it contained. He heard
his pursuer’s breath coming fast upon him. How was it that they could
follow him in all this gloom? Then he realized his new linen robes must
gleam like a beacon. He could not even hide in some doorway, hoping
they would pass him by. His only chance was to keep running.

Twice he struck his shoulder painfully on a
jutting wall, and another time sent a clay pot flying with his foot.
Pain radiated up his leg from the blow, for he wore only the light
kidskin sandals the high chamberlain had given him — good for an
audience in the royal gardens, perhaps, but scarcely adequate for the
evasion of assassins.

Semerket had no idea where he went, for his
terror had by now claimed all his tenuous sense of direction. He
splashed through gutters filled with stinking waste, following the
streets’ curves and twists with outstretched hands. He no longer heard
his assassin running behind him. He canted his head to listen, to make
sure that he had lost him.

Semerket turned, staggering backward,
staring into the dark. With an “oomph!” he crashed into something hard
and unyielding directly behind him. It was the second assassin, waiting
for him. Semerket felt powerful arms encircling him, holding him fast.
He tried to struggle, but the arms were like manacles.

“I’ve got him!” his captor shouted in
strangely accented Babylonian.

“Cut his throat and be done with it! Hurry!”
came the distant cry.

Semerket pulled at the iron arm that clamped
him, and he felt his captor’s other hand fumble for the knife in his
belt. Then he saw a flash in the dark as a blade of shiny bronze came
toward his neck.

He screamed silently to himself. In the
moment before the blade tore out his throat, he uttered a wordless
prayer to all the gods of Egypt. Too soon he felt the sting of its cold
bronze edge bite into his neck. Hot blood spilled from the wound down
his chest. But then he heard the knife scrape across the outspread
wings of his falcon badge. In the struggle, the pectoral had been
pushed up by the man’s arm, wedged like a protective shield across his
throat.

Semerket sensed the moment when the man’s
grip loosened, and he suddenly went limp, slipping out and under his
attacker’s arms. He rolled into the street, trying to get as far away
from his assailant as possible. He tried to regain his footing, but his
limbs were like lead. At any moment, he knew, the other assassin would
be upon him to finish the work.

Sudden footsteps were indeed echoing in the
dark, rushing upon him. This was the end, he thought. The other
assailant reached him, and now there were two against him. Semerket
braced himself to feel the terrible kiss of that freezing blade once
again on his throat. He closed his eyes.

But the footsteps went past on either side
of him, going in the direction of his attacker. Semerket heard the
sounds of a man’s labored breathing, like the wheezing of a punctured
bellows. A tremendous invisible scuffle occurred. From the black came a
single, aborted scream, and then a ghastly, gurgling moan.

Semerket, still lying in the street, felt
the shock of impact as a body fell beside him in the dark. A rush of
air enveloped him, and warm drops of something splashed upon his face.
He was too dazed to register what it was, too confused. Then
none-too-gentle hands were pulling him to his feet, and he was being
reassured in strangely familiar voices —

“Do you see now, my lord, why you need us to
watch over you? Didn’t we tell you these were uncertain times in
Babylon?”

“DOES HE BREATHE?”
Semerket rasped to his Dark Head spies, pressing his hand against his
neck to stop the flow from his wound.

One of the spies moved to the prone form of
the assassin, laying his head on the man’s chest to listen. “He lives,”
said the stout brother, his familiar wheeze rumbling through the
desolate alley. “But barely.”

“I stabbed him, lord,” the thin one’s voice
came to him from his left. “It was a good thrust — in his back, I
think.”

Vaguely, Semerket saw the outline of the
thinner spy as he leaned forward over the body. Semerket heard the
high-pitched sigh of metal sliding through flesh followed by the gurgle
of escaping air as the man removed the knife.

“What should we do with him, lord?” the thin
spy asked. “Throw him in the canal?”

Semerket tried to piece together some kind
of plan, but the attack had numbed his mind. “Where are we?” he asked.
“What part of the city?”

“Just up the road from the Egyptian Quarter,
my lord. Near its main square.”

That was a bit of luck. They could go to
Kem-weset’s house, where the physician would be able to tend them both.
Semerket directed the Dark Heads to get the man to his feet.

“He’s going fast, lord,” wheezed the fat spy
doubtfully. “I don’t think he’ll make it.”