Sting of the Scorpion (10 page)

“No! Ever since you…died…I haven’t been allowed outside the palace. I’m not permitted to play with the other palace children and I can’t visit the servants’ quarters any more. I have to spend more time here studying, so that I can be a great pharaoh like father. I hate it.”

Ramose didn’t know what to say. He thought the boy must be lying, but he didn’t think he was clever enough to put on such a convincing display. He heard footsteps in the hall. “We need to go somewhere where we can talk without being disturbed.”

“I know a place,” said Tuthmosis.

Ramose could scarcely believe he was allowing the young prince to lead him by the hand, but he did. Tuthmosis led him to a narrow staircase that went up to the roof. He zigzagged across the roofs until he came to the western hall, which rose up higher than the other buildings. More steps led to a ledge where a shuttered window let light into the vast hall below. There was a stool in a corner that couldn’t be seen from anywhere in the palace.

“I come here when I want to get away from everyone,” said the young prince.

Ramose couldn’t believe it. He had used the same hiding place when he was younger.

Ramose sat down on the dusty stool and looked at the boy. He had grown taller since he’d seen him last. He had lost all his puppy fat. The mischievous glint in his eyes had been replaced with a worried, almost frightened look. His fingernails were bitten down.

“What has happened to you over the past year, Brother?” the boy asked eagerly. “Tell me everything.”

Ramose told him all about the attempt to kill him, his escape to the Great Place, his journey towards Memphis to see Pharaoh, his adventures at the pyramid and in the desert. Tuthmosis sat with his mouth open, listening to everything with amazement.

“But who would want you dead?” asked the boy with tears in his eyes.

“I believe it was your mother and the vizier who planned to murder me,” said Ramose.

Tears flew in all directions as Tuthmosis shook his head vigorously.

“No, that can’t be. Mother wouldn’t do such a terrible thing.”

“I think she would do anything to make you pharaoh, and with the vizier encouraging her…”

“But I don’t want to be the pharaoh.”

“There is something else, Pegget,” said Ramose.

Tuthmosis smiled and wiped away his tears. “You haven’t called me that since I was a small child.”

The word meant frog. “It isn’t a very nice name, I suppose,” said Ramose, feeling guilty.

“I like it,” said Tuthmosis. “It’s the sort of name an older brother should use for his younger brother.”

Ramose felt even guiltier. He had never thought of Tuthmosis as a brother. Not like his older brothers. And yet they had the same father. He could see they both had the same large ears, long fingers and a way of turning their mouths down instead of up when they smiled—just like their father.

“What else do you have to tell me?” Tuthmosis asked. “I hope it’s not as upsetting as the rest.”

“It is worse, Pegget,” Ramose replied. “It’s Father, he has ascended to the sun. He died at midday. I was with him.”

Tears flowed again from the boy’s eyes. Ramose put his arm around his brother’s shoulder.

“You’ve come just in time then,” said the boy wiping his eyes on his kilt. “You can take your place as Pharaoh’s elder son and heir.”

“I have to wait until our sister returns to the palace. I need her support.”

Tuthmosis nodded, though he looked a little timid at the mention of Hatshepsut.

“Your mother won’t be so pleased to see me, though,” said Ramose.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re here. You are the true heir. There’s nothing she can do to change that.”

Ramose wasn’t so sure.

“I’ll stay in hiding until just before dawn,” said Ramose.

Tuthmosis hugged his brother. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you. May the gods protect you.”

Ramose turned and left. He didn’t know what to think. He wanted to believe that Tuthmosis was telling the truth, that the boy didn’t know about the poisoning, that he didn’t mind if he wasn’t the pharaoh. Ramose stumbled down the steps in confusion—and into the arms of two palace guards.

The guards each grabbed hold of one of Ramose’s arms.

“Let me go,” he yelled. “Do you know who I am?”

One of the guards chuckled to himself. The other took a wooden club from his belt and Ramose watched as it curved towards him and crashed into his head.

Ramose awoke to find himself in a dark room with his arms and legs tied up. The walls were roughly plastered with mud. Faint light seeped in through the cracks in the door. The earth floor was covered with straw that smelt of pig urine. It wasn’t a room, it was a pigsty.

He wriggled his hands and feet to try and free himself from the ropes, but all that did was make his wrists and ankles sore. He thought back to his meeting with Prince Tuthmosis. The boy had tricked him with his hugs and his tears. It must have all been a sham. Without Ramose noticing, the boy had somehow alerted the guards to come and capture him. He felt foolish that he had fallen for such a ploy.

Struggling to his knees, Ramose shuffled around his prison. He searched every finger-width of the foul place in search of something that could cut through the ropes. There was nothing. He strained against his bonds until his wrists were bleeding, furious that he’d been bound and imprisoned like a foreign captive, like a pig ready for slaughter. In anger and frustration, he threw himself against the door again and again until he fell back to the stinking floor, exhausted.

He had to think. Anger would achieve nothing. He only had a few hours until the succession ceremony that would proclaim the next pharaoh. He had to get out of his prison. He couldn’t think of anything he could do. The light seeping in through the cracks faded.

The sound of a bolt sliding startled him. A servant entered holding a lamp. The light reflected in his frightened eyes. Another servant followed carrying a bowl and a cup. He put them down in the straw. Neither said a word, but outside Ramose could hear a voice—a stern female voice.

“He must stay there until after dawn.” The voice sent a cold shiver down his spine. It was sweet sounding, but cruel at the same time. “If he escapes, you won’t see another morning.”

Ramose knew the voice. He knew it well. As the servants hurried out, Ramose could see briefly through the doorway. There was a blur of bright white in the lamplight, a flash of gold, a glint of turquoise. There was a waft of perfume. Ramose tried to cry out but his voice caught in his throat. It was Hatshepsut, his sister. She was the one who had imprisoned him.

Ramose sat in the dark and tried to make sense of it. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps he’d misheard what she’d said. Perhaps it wasn’t her he’d seen at all. It had just been a glimpse, a few seconds in dim light. He argued back and forth with himself for some time, but in his heart he had no doubt. His sister had betrayed him.

Through all the time that he had been away, Ramose had endured the hardship and disappointment with the thought that his sister was waiting for him, missing him, praying for his safety. It had helped to keep him going. But all that time she had kept a terrible secret. She didn’t want Ramose to be the pharaoh at all. Instead it was the half-brother who they had both despised that she wanted to rule Egypt. Why? Did she hate him so much? Did she think Tuthmosis would make a better pharaoh?

Everything Ramose believed had been turned upside down. He slumped to the floor, his face in the foul straw, and wept. He cried out in pain and misery.

He was alone in the world, completely alone. His loved ones had slowly been stripped away from him one by one. First, his mother, whom he could hardly remember. Then his older brothers, then Heria, his beloved nanny, and, only hours ago, his father. Now he had discovered that his only remaining family, his sister whom he had trusted completely, had turned against him.

Ramose thought of Keneben—perhaps he would come and free him. His tutor had risked everything for him before. Surely he wouldn’t let him down now. But would the gentle tutor be able to stand up to the vizier and Hatshepsut? Ramose had felt lonely on his travels, but he’d always had the thought of coming home. Now he was home and he was more alone than he’d ever been. He sobbed out loud, not caring who heard him. He sobbed until every scrap of his energy was gone.

Ramose lay with his face squashed into the dirty straw for hours. His mind was blank. Every thought was painful. It was better not to think at all. His left arm was numb beneath him. His foot was prickling as if someone were sticking sewing needles into it.

He heard movement in the straw behind him, a faint rustle. He thought for a moment that there must have been another prisoner whom he hadn’t noticed in the darkness. Then he saw a little creature run across the floor to the bowl of food. He could see it by the faint light from the guard’s lamp that seeped in through the cracks in the door. It was a mouse. The little creature sat no more than half a cubit from Ramose’s head, nibbling on a piece of bread. It was such a delicate creature, so small. Every day it had to risk its life just to feed itself. It had to creep out at night to steal food, living in constant fear of the palace cats that wanted nothing more than to crunch its fragile bones. He didn’t disturb the mouse. He let it eat its fill.

Ramose suddenly remembered Karoya and Hapu. He’d been so busy feeling sorry for himself, he hadn’t given a thought to them. What would Hatshepsut do with his friends? The two people in all of Egypt that he knew he could rely on, the ones who had voluntarily stayed with him through all sorts of danger and hardship. He felt ashamed that he had forgotten them.

He scrambled painfully to his knees and wriggled his fingers until the feeling came back into them. The mouse sat watching him. The mouse hadn’t died, so he knew the food wasn’t poisoned. He needed to eat. He had a lot to do. With difficulty he picked up the cup of water with his bound hands and drank. He picked up the remains of the bread, now dried up and mouse-nibbled. He scraped up the cold lentil stew with the bread and ate it all. It wasn’t the best meal he’d ever had, but it wasn’t the worst either. He sat up and felt his strength and determination return. He’d been in worse situations. He’d been lost in the desert, buried alive in a tomb, washed away by a flood. He’d survived all of that. Escaping from a pigsty shouldn’t be difficult.

He picked up the empty bowl and struggled to his feet. He shuffled back and forth until he had cleared away the straw from an area of the earth floor. He raised the bowl as high above his head as he could and then with all his strength he flung it onto the cleared patch of floor. The bowl shattered. Ramose knelt down and examined the pieces. A hint of a smile crept over his face as he picked up one long shard with a sharp edge.

He sat with his back against the wall. He gripped the shard firmly between his feet and began to rub the cords that bound his hands backwards and forwards across the shard. The rope was made of twisted reeds. He cut through it fibre by fibre. It was slow work, but Ramose had no doubt that he could do it. Once his hands were free, he started to cut through the rope around his feet. The whole process must have taken two hours, but Ramose kept at it without stopping. Finally, the ropes around his ankles fell away. He walked around the cell for a few minutes until his legs lost their stiffness.

The room was built to imprison pigs, not people. The roof was low and made of two wooden beams with palm branches laid across them which were plastered over with a thin layer of mud. Ramose jumped up and grabbed at one of the palm branches. It was brittle from years of baking in the sun. It broke in half. He pulled the branch down and then another. The thin mud plaster crumbled and showered down on him. Ramose smiled to himself as he looked up at the black sky pricked with the light of the numberless stars. He jumped up again and grasped hold of one of the solid wooden beams with both hands. Then he swung up his leg. He hooked his foot around the beam at the second go and gradually managed to hoist himself up.

He inched his way along the beam. A thin sliver of moon was reclining low in the sky. It gave next to no light but there was enough light from blazing torches dotted around the palace walls for him to get his bearings. The preparations for the dawn ceremony were underway. Ramose guessed it was less than two hours before dawn. There wasn’t much time until the ceremony began, but first, Ramose had something to do. He had to find out if his friends were safe.

He jumped down from the pigsty roof. But instead of heading towards the western hall, he turned the other way and retraced his steps towards the temple. He found the servants’ quarters, slipped through the hole in the wall and ran through the darkened gardens towards Keneben’s mother’s house.

The house was in darkness. Ramose crept in. He tiptoed to the room where he and Hapu had slept. Hapu wasn’t there. He went up the garden steps to the roof. Karoya wasn’t there either. Their bags were gone. There was no sign that they had ever been there. He went back down the steps and into the house. Keneben’s bed was empty and hadn’t been slept in. Ramose had a bad feeling. If his sister had turned against him, his friends weren’t safe.

By the time he had run back to the palace the area around the western hall was buzzing with activity. Ramose was puzzled. The succession was a simple ceremony only involving the new pharaoh and the head priest. It had to take place at dawn the day after the old pharaoh’s death. Egypt without a pharaoh was a terrible thing. Without a pharaoh to take charge of the country, without the god-king ruling the land, Egypt would dissolve into chaos. Dreadful things would happen: disease, famine, defeat at the hands of enemies. It was vital that the new pharaoh be in place as soon as possible. The coronation itself would be a lavish ceremony with rituals, a sacrifice to the gods and a banquet lasting for days. That would wait until after the old pharaoh’s funeral.

Ramose’s heart was thudding, partly because he was running hard, partly because in the next hour or so he would become Pharaoh of Egypt. He would be king; he would have a place among the gods. But he didn’t feel any different to any other day. There was no spark within him that might grow into a divine flame.