Day of the False King (25 page)

Semerket resisted the urge to flee, for in
the gloom the man resembled nothing so much as one of hell’s demons
coming to claim him. Dimly, he heard Nidaba introducing him as Pharaoh
Ramses’ friend.

“No need to tell me who it is,” the man
chortled. “We’ve already met!”

Shocked, Semerket recognized the man as one
of those Isins he had met in Mari — the man who had first told him that
Isins had never attacked the Elamite plantation. At that time, the man
had not been particularly amiable. Now he smiled broadly in the
torchlight and clamped his arm around Semerket’s shoulders as though he
were an old friend.

“So you want to see the Heir? Well, it’s
been a few days since you’ve had chance to talk together, eh? I imagine
there’s a lot to catch up on.”

“Pardon?” Semerket asked. Had they confused
him with someone else?

But the man was already heading down the
tunnel with Nidaba at his side, and Semerket had to hurry after them.
They came to the place where four of the cisterns, along with their
attendant canals, emptied into one enormous arched cavern. Several
levels deep, the place echoed from the roaring of water. He became
gradually aware that hundreds of Isin soldiers camped there. As he
looked down on them from above, they shot him suspicious glances.

Another abrupt twist in the tunnel, and he
was shown into a small chamber lit by a number of oil lamps. After all
the darkness, the lamplight temporarily dazzled him. All he could see
were the silhouettes of several persons milling in the room.

Then he heard his guide’s gruff voice
saying, “Here’s your Egyptian friend, lord.”

A silhouette advanced toward him, arms
outstretched. Semerket felt himself embraced.

“So you found me at last, Semerket!” the
figure said in perfect Egyptian, albeit in a flat, northern accent.

Semerket realized that, of course, he had
indeed met this Heir of Isin before, the princeling raised in the court
of Ramses III. His eyes adjusted to the glittering light at last.

Standing before him was his one-time slave,
Marduk.

HIS FIRST REACTION WAS RAGE —
more at himself for having been the stooge once again of duplicity
perpetrated by his former servant.

“You abandoned me,” he snarled coldly at
Marduk.

Marduk’s smile vanished.

“What did you expect?” he snarled back.
“That I would lead you by the hand through the city, point out the
sights? I had to meet up with my men, you fool!”

“How was I supposed to know that? You never
told me who you were, what you were doing here —”

“I
couldn’t
tell you! If you had
known I was the Heir, your own life would have been in danger.”

“A little help in finding my wife and
friend, that’s all I wanted. And I had saved your life!”

“Haven’t I looked out for you? Didn’t I send
those messages to you, warning you away from the garrison and the
harbor?”

“How was I supposed to know who they came
from?”

“I thought if anyone could figure it out,
it’d be the great investigator from Egypt. Apparently, it was beyond
your limited capabilities.”

“What hurts most is that you never trusted
me enough to tell me who you really were.”

“I
did
trust you.”

“Oh, yes,” scoffed Semerket, “when you
needed to sneak into the city, acting like some moron, drooling —”

“I had to get past the Elamites, Semerket.
Surely, even you must realize that. They’d been alerted I might attempt
to enter Babylon. And you have to admit, no one ever willingly looks at
the simpleminded.”

Semerket regarded Marduk with exasperation.
“I suppose that kind old master of yours back in Egypt was Ramses III?”

Marduk nodded. “He took me into his court to
raise me out of harm’s way, as a favor to my father. When the Kassite
kings were set to fall, he sent me back to claim my throne.
Unfortunately, that’s also when the Elamites chose to invade.”

They stared at one another for a moment. Now
that he had voiced all his resentments, Semerket had nothing else to
say. “Well, anyway,” Semerket admitted grudgingly, “it’s good to see
you again, Marduk. The truth is, I missed you.”

The tension in the small underground chamber
evaporated. Marduk’s soldiers, who had retreated to watch the fracas
from the outer tunnel, suddenly crowded back inside the room, relieved
and laughing.

“Ah, Semerket, Semerket,” said Marduk,
sitting down on a brick bench. “Tell me how you are, and how your
investigation proceeds.”

Semerket winced to hear Marduk’s question,
for there were painful things he had to ask his friend. He sat beside
Marduk to tell his story. It never occurred to him that Marduk could
become the next king of Babylon and that it might be better to stand in
his presence; to Semerket, Marduk would always be the prisoner he had
saved from the Elamites, his one-time slave. Marduk himself did not
take offense, and listened intently while Semerket related the events
of the previous week.

Semerket told Marduk how he had learned that
Naia and Rami had been at the plantation where the Elamite prince and
princess were attacked. Marduk was not unfamiliar with this; he only
nodded, asking how it was that Kutir had seen fit to retain Semerket in
locating his missing sister.

At this, Semerket spoke in Egyptian,
informing his friend of Ramses’ urgent need for Bel-Marduk’s idol.
Marduk had not known of Pharaoh’s sickness, and was shocked. He looked
upon the fourth Ramses as his elder brother, Marduk insisted.

Semerket also told him of Queen Narunte’s
hatred for her sister-in-law, Princess Pinikir, and how he himself had
been attacked by someone he believed might have had some connection to
her. This, also, was not a surprise to Marduk; it seemed that the Heir
of Isin had a host of informants throughout the city who kept him aware
of all that transpired, particularly if it concerned his Egyptian
“master.”

Semerket fell silent now and bit his lip.
His growing uneasiness was plain to see. Marduk laid his hand on
Semerket’s arm, forcing him to look into his face. “What do you need to
ask me, Semerket?”

Semerket had always been incapable of
dissimulation, and decided to ask the dreaded question. “Marduk, did
you order the massacre at the Egyptian temple? If you did, then you’re
responsible for the deaths of three people I considered friends.”

Marduk gave a start. There was an angry
stirring in the room. “Isins don’t attack civilian targets, Semerket,”
he said in a cold voice, “particularly the houses of gods.”

“A rogue band, perhaps drunk —?”

“Impossible.”

Semerket reasoned that Marduk had nothing to
gain by lying to him, and nodded. “I do believe you. But since your
Isins didn’t do it, you must know that someone — some group — wants
everyone to think you did. Just as they want everyone to believe that
you attacked the plantation, as well.”

Before Marduk could react, the tall Isin
from Mari stepped forward, bringing his face close to Semerket’s.

“I told you back in Mari we didn’t attack
that damned farm! What is it with Egyptians, anyway? The other one
tried to accuse us of the same thing!”

Perhaps it was the omnipresent sound of
rushing water from the nearby canal that prevented Semerket from
hearing clearly, for it was a moment before he comprehended what the
man had said.

“What other one?”

Marduk turned to nod to a soldier waiting in
the doorway. The man walked swiftly down the outer hallway, the echoes
of his boots receding with him.

“Now,” said Marduk, when they heard
footsteps again approaching the chamber, “you’ll see how I take care of
you, Semerket. When you told me the story of how the plantation was
attacked by Isins, I put some men on it back in Mari. We were able to
discover a few things, one of which should interest you exceedingly —”

A small commotion at the door interrupted
Marduk. The soldier had returned, and the milling Isin warriors moved
clumsily aside to allow him into the room. Semerket noticed that a
second person followed the soldier.

Semerket blinked. He rose to his feet
slowly, staring.

He’s no longer a boy, Semerket thought. He’s
lost his adolescent reediness, and his shoulders are broader.

“Rami?” he said at last, so quietly that he
might have mouthed the name.

The boy stared at him, his expression
unreadable. Semerket had been largely responsible for Rami’s banishment
from Egypt, having uncovered his parents’ complicity in rifling the
tombs within the Great Place. Though he had managed to save Rami from
the executioner, getting him exiled instead, the lad had blamed him for
having destroyed the life he had known. Semerket was therefore unsure
what kind of welcome he would receive from the young man.

Perhaps Rami had not altogether grown up,
for his face suddenly crumpled like any child’s when he recognized
Semerket, and he flung himself into Semerket’s arms. “I knew you’d
come,” he said in Egyptian. “Naia told me you would.”

At the sound of his wife’s name, Semerket’s
chest thudded. Rami alone knew the truth of what had happened that
night. But the boy was clearly in too vulnerable a state to answer any
questions about it; and perhaps, too, for the first time in his life,
Semerket did not want to know the answers.

“Of course I came,” Semerket said. “I’m the
one who got you into this, didn’t I?” He extracted himself from Rami’s
grasp, gazing at him at arm’s length. The lad was emaciated, pale, with
dark circles ringing his eyes. Semerket saw the boy stagger slightly;
clearly, Rami had not recovered and would need the services of a good
physician quickly.

“Rami, I know an Egyptian doctor here in
Babylon,” Semerket said. “I’m going to have him brought here.”

Before he could finish, Rami grew even
paler, and put his hand up to his ear. “I’m sorry…sometimes when I
stand for too long —”

Rami’s eyes began to quiver, then rolled
upward into their sockets. Without another sound, he fell to the floor.

“I MUST OPEN YOUR SKULL,”
Kem-weset said to Rami.

At Semerket’s request, Marduk had sent a man
through the tunnels to fetch the physician. When he arrived, Kem-weset
evinced no surprise to find Semerket surrounded by Isin rebels, as well
as a male Ishtaritu, for he had long before accepted that Semerket was
a Follower of Set, allied to danger, chaos, and trouble. Rami,
meanwhile, had regained consciousness in the interval between his
collapse and the physician’s appearance, and resisted Kem-weset’s first
attempts to examine him. He was well, the boy insisted. All he needed
was sleep. Rami tried to shake off the physician’s hands that continued
to press gently on his skull, but then he cried out sharply.

Kem-weset withdrew a razor from his medicine
chest and carefully shaved away the hair over the boy’s left ear. Even
Semerket could see that though the skin had healed, the skull was no
longer rounded at the area, but indented. Kem-weset said that he must
perform the surgery immediately.

“No!” was Rami’s instant response.

Kem-weset spoke calmly. “Then you won’t get
well. Your attacks will become more frequent, until finally you will
die from them.”

“I’ll die from the operation!”

“Quite possibly,” Kem-weset agreed. “But you
also have one chance in three of surviving. If I do nothing, you have
no chance at all.”

“It’ll hurt!”

“I have drugs to calm the pain. You’ll feel
very little.”

In the end, Rami had to agree to the
treatment. Kem-weset then shaved his head entirely and applied a
numbing salve to the area where he would cut. The physician called for
wine.

“Is that wise?” asked Semerket, alarmed.
“Surely your hands will be steadier without it?”

“It’s for Rami, you idiot,” answered
Kem-weset shortly. “I’ll mix the poppy paste into it.”

The wine was brought, and Kem-weset spooned
a thick, viscous brown substance into it, stirring until it was
completely dissolved. Following the custom of centuries, just as he had
done for Semerket, Kem-weset wrote out a prayer of supplication on a
strip of papyrus and ran it through the liquid. The glyphs melted, the
inks bled away, and Kem-weset brought the bowl to Rami’s lips.

“Drink it all down,” he commanded.

Kem-weset beckoned Semerket to join him at
the corner of the room, and spoke to him in a low tone. “If you have
anything to ask him, Semerket, you’d best ask now.”

Semerket shook his head. “If these are to be
his last moments, I’d rather not torment him with useless questions.
There are more important things.” But he was saying to himself, Coward!

Kem-weset gruffly patted his arm. He
returned to his box of instruments and asked one of the Isins to bring
a flame in which to purify them. He also asked Semerket for a silver
piece, though he did not say what it was for. Semerket did not ask.
Marduk offered up his own mattress, helping Semerket carry Rami into
another small room, where they laid the boy upon it. Every oil lamp in
the cistern was collected from the soldiers and brought there, until
the area was bright as day.

Rami attempted to lie quietly while the drug
worked its magic, but it was apparent that the sedative was having the
opposite effect on him than the one intended. “Semerket,” he said
anxiously, “Semerket, my Day of Pain has come, hasn’t it?”

“Of course it hasn’t,” came his automatic
reply.

“I heard what the old man told you, that
you’d better ask me about Naia, now, while I’m still alive.”

“There’s no need. It can wait,” replied
Semerket, too quickly. “Tomorrow, perhaps, when you’re well enough.”
When I can bear it, he was thinking.

But the boy was not listening. Once he began
to speak, his words poured out in a torrent of confession and
self-reproach. “I know I’ll die today,” he said in a quivery voice. “I
think I only lived long enough so I could ask for your
forgiveness…because you loved her so much.”