Year of the Hyenas (17 page)

Perhaps it
meant
nothing, the lioness being only an apt symbol for the tension he and
Qar both felt in their day-to-day lives. Semerket stopped his pacing,
and sighed. He wrapped himself in Hetephras’s light skins, for the
desert air was cool.

A scratching
on the
priestess’s door took him unaware. The tallow candle lit his way to the
front room.

Hunro waited
in the
street for him. She was arrayed as he’d never before seen a woman dare
clothe herself. Her sleek shift was dyed the radiant color of
pomegranate, a color reserved for gods and goddesses. Her hair was
spangled with flecks of gilded wax. Her face was painted like those of
the goddesses in temples, her eyes extended by antimony and malachite,
and on her cheeks she had daubed circles of ochre. The heavy scent of
sandalwood enveloped him.

Semerket’s
tongue
instantly cleft to his mouth, refusing to move.

“Let me in and
close
the door,” she said impatiently. “Or the neighbors will gossip.”

Instead of
doing as
she said, Semerket pushed the door open even wider so that all could
see inside.

Hunro smiled
defiantly
and walked past him into Hetephras’s front room. “Can it be you’re
afraid of me?”

Semerket
nodded.

Hunro affected
a
little moue of hurt. “It doesn’t please a woman to hear she frightens a
man, because then that thing beneath his loincloth becomes shriveled
and useless.”

She drew
nearer to
him, but he backed away again. “I fear your husband, as well,” he said.

“Neferhotep?”
Hunro
chortled. “Don’t fear a mouse—rather fear the lion, Paneb.” His
expression once again made her roll her eyes in exasperation. “How do
you think we amuse ourselves in this dreary little place? If it weren’t
for the sin of adultery, we’d all go mad.”

“You more than
most, I
think.”

Her high,
sandy voice
was laced with defiance. “I’m an honest woman in that respect—more than
most, I think.”

“Why did you
come
here?”

“I came to
tell you,”
she said with a sigh, “that the elders have agreed to allow you to
question the villagers. You can begin whenever you like.”

He looked at
her with
skepticism. “And you came here to tell me, dressed like that?”

Her brow was
knitted
with hurt, and her voice was like a small feather. “What’s wrong with
the way I’m dressed? Most men find me beautiful when I robe myself like
a goddess. Don’t you?”

Again his
tongue
became unusable, and he only nodded.

Cooing a
little trill,
she pressed herself against him. Despite the cool night air, he began
to sweat. “If you think me so beautiful, why don’t you make love to me
then?” she asked, and sought his lips with hers. They kissed for how
long Semerket did not know. He was surprised to find himself so
aroused. Summoning all his resolve, however, he firmly pushed her away.

The gold in
her hair
shimmered as she shook her head in disbelief. After a time she said to
him, “If you will not have my body, then—for I am obviously only a
withered and ugly hag to you—what about my mind?”

“What about
it?”

“What if I
told you I
know things?”

He blinked.
“About…?”

“About this
place, its
secrets.”

“If you do
know
something, it’s your duty to tell it officially, for the record.”

She laughed
again,
amused by his naïveté. “Others around here might have a
different idea about what my duty is.”

“Tell it for
Hetephras’s sake then, for the old woman that everyone seems to have
forgotten.”

At the mention
of the
old priestess’s name, Hunro’s painted mouth became a gash in her face.
“It’s true she was kind to me, about the only woman around here who
was. And I’m not the sort who forgets her friends, despite what people
may say.” Semerket was amazed at how quickly Hunro changed when the
spark of desire was not in her. She seemed suddenly old and defeated,
the paint on her face becoming caked and cracked. “But since I never
give away my favors for nothing, I will tell you this, and put it on
account.”

She leaned
forward and
whispered in his ear. “Do you know why the elders needed two days of
‘deliberation’ before you could question the others?”

“Because of
your
tradition of debating the issue—”

She laughed.
“There is
no such tradition. But that’s all I will say, Semerket. Unless…”

He took a step
nearer.
“Unless… what?”

“I am
wealthy,” she
said urgently. “From gifts I made the men give me to sleep with
them—every one a stone to make a bridge across the river. Take me
there. I don’t know the city; you do. You’ll never want for anything
again, I promise. We can live in luxury there. And I’ll give you love
like you’ve never known it before—” She would have brought her lips
again to his, but he moved aside, staring into the dark.

“Look
elsewhere,
Hunro,” he said. “Luxury has no appeal for me. And I would never take a
man’s wife from him, for I know the other side of it.”

Hunro stared
at him.
“What a fool you are. I could drive that wife of yours from your mind.
I could turn your skin to ashes if I wanted. And I could make you a
rich man in the doing of it.” She pushed open the door, looked back at
him, and then walked swiftly down the alley.

That night on
his
pallet he could not rid himself of the memory of her words. But it was
not the tantalizing hints and clues she’d given him regarding the
tombmakers that kept him awake. He remembered only the press of her
flesh against him, the curve of her belly and the feel of her breasts.
He thrashed about in misery for long minutes in the dark, and in the
end resorted to that solitary gesture by which Atum begat the entire
world.

IT WAS NEAR DAWNwhen he heard a
whisper at Hetephras’s door. “Semerket!”

Qar, waiting
for him
in the avenue, put a finger to his lips. When they had taken themselves
inside, away from the street and from those who might hear them, Qar
said quietly, “I’ve just come from a secret meeting of the Medjays.”

Semerket
nodded,
waiting.

“I told them
of my
sleeping sickness.” Instead of being desolate, he was smiling. Sukis
leapt to the Medjay’s lap, and he stroked the cat idly. “What do you
think? It only needed my confession for the others to admit they suffer
from it as well. Always on the same nights—when there is no moon.”

“How is that
possible?” Semerket asked.

“Can’t you
guess?
Someone drugs our food,” Qar said balefully. “It would be easy. Our
meals are all prepared in the village kitchens by the servants, and
then brought to us individually. Anyone could do it.”

Semerket’s
eyes
widened and he bent close to Qar, whispering, “But for what gain?”

Qar exhaled in
a
great, sad gust. Irritated, Sukis jumped from his lap to the tiles and
headed to the kitchen, hopeful for mice. “What better time to rob a
tomb than when the Medjays are sleeping? What better night than when no
moon lights the Great Place?”

Semerket
considered,
and then said aloud, “‘Where the god-skin is made… when Khons hides his
face.’”

Qar looked at
him.
“What are you saying?”

“It’s what the
boy
told me there in the Great Place, remember? The prince you said didn’t
exist. He spoke of gold being made when there was no moon.”

Qar shook his
head.
“It still doesn’t make sense. You can mine gold. Hammer it. Grind it
into dust if you want. But you can’t
make
it.” Then in the dark
he inhaled
sharply. “But you can
re
-make it…”

Semerket shook
his
head, not understanding.

“Long ago,”
Qar
explained quickly, “a series of tombs in the Place of Beauty were
robbed. The thieves didn’t need to disturb the seals on the tombs’
doors—they dug straight into the queens’ tombs, from the top, then
burned it all. When the flames died, all they had to do was gather the
pools of melted gold from beneath the ashes. That’s how we caught
them—melting the bigger pieces in a jar.”

At that,
Semerket
remembered the shards of broken pottery wrapped in his cape, the
blackened pieces shattered by fire—and the traceries of gold in their
cracks. He had believed the gilding to be some kind of design, or
writing, but if what Qar believed was true, its meaning could be far
more sinister.

“We’ve agreed
that on
any given night one of us Medjays will not eat,” Qar was saying. “He’ll
raise the alarm if he sees anyone suspicious go into the Great Place.
Obviously, someone from the village is behind it.”

“Who?”

Qar shook his
head.
They pondered for a few moments in silence. Then the Medjay spoke.
“What I’ve really come here to ask is this—can you have that person you
mentioned begin to search the bazaars for royal jewels?”

“Yes.”

“Good man,”
Qar said.
He walked back toward the night-shrouded alley. “And Semerket—be
careful what you eat. Your food, too, is prepared in the kitchens. The
Medjays agreed that it’s only a tiny step from making us sleep the
night to making us sleep forever.”

Semerket felt
his
scalp tingle.

“One thing
more…”
Qar’s voice was suddenly hesitant, and he sighed again before he spoke.
“We dream of lions. All of us.”

Noiselessly
Qar closed
the door behind him.

SNEFERU LOOKED UPfrom his potter’s
wheel. Semerket loomed in the doorway with a heavy bundle, which he
placed on the ground. Like many of the other artists, Sneferu used a
makeshift wooden shed at the village’s northern gate as a workshop. It
was located next to the cistern where the donkey train unloaded the
village’s daily supply of water, sparing Sneferu from having to tote
heavy jars back and forth from the cistern to his home.

Sneferu let
his wheel
slow, and squeezed a dripping sponge over the half-formed bowl that was
spinning on it. From experience he knew that visits from Semerket were
long and arduous, and that the bowl must be kept moist.

“Semerket,
good
friend,” Sneferu attempted a cheery tone, “why have you come here? Have
you decided that I murdered Hetephras?”

With a grunt
Semerket
untied the ends of the woolen sack and upended it. Fragments of
charred black pottery spilled out in a heap, the ones he had found in
the abandoned campsite in the Great Place.

“I’ve broken
this jar
that belonged to Hetephras.”

“Hetephras? I
don’t
recall her owning any such—”

“Can you fix
it? I
don’t wish to offend her spirit.”

Sneferu
nodded. “If
all the pieces are there, yes, I can mend it for you.”

“I thought it
would be
best to bring it to you, as you probably made it…?” If Sneferu replied
affirmatively, then Semerket would know that the campsite had been
attended by someone from the village, that the pieces were not from
some ancient fire kindled centuries before.

But Sneferu
shook his
head. “Perhaps when it’s together again, I’ll be able to tell.”

“When will it
be
ready?”

“So many
pieces here,
my own business being so full—I’ve no assistant, you know—”

“How long?”

“A few weeks.”

Semerket took
a gold
piece from his belt and laid it on the counter. “I’ll match this if you
can make the repair faster,” he said.

But the potter
let the
gold ring simply lie there, not looking at it. “I’ll get to it when I
can, friend Semerket,” he said, “as I’ve told you.” He turned his
attention back to his wheel.

When Semerket
left the
workshop, the potter took the gold into his palm and sniffed.

ACROSS THE RIVER, in Eastern Thebes,
the smoke of sacrifice twined silkily into the sky, rising in a thin
black smudge from Sekhmet’s temple. It was early morning and the temple
fires blazed, hungry for the first of the sacrificial victims to be
offered.

Nenry’s wife,
Merytra,
waited at the edge of the crowd of acolytes, clutching a piece of
crumpled papyrus in her hands. She shifted her weight nervously from
side to side, her myriad bracelets jingling each time she did. Her eyes
found her great-uncle, the Lord High Priest Iroy, as he prayed silently
to Sekhmet.

The acolytes
drew
apart as the first bull was led to the altar. The beast walked placidly
up the stairs to where Iroy and his priests waited. There, the animal
nodded its head, signifying that it went willingly to its death.
Merytra knew this to be an old trick caused by the priests flicking
holy water into the bull’s ears.

Just as one
priest
stunned the bull with a hammer blow to its skull, her great-uncle
deftly slit its throat with a large bronze knife. The bull fell to its
knees, emptying its bowels convulsively upon the altar, its steaming
blood coursing over Iroy’s hands. The salty, ferrous smell of blood and
the acrid smell of shit rose in his niece’s nostrils. At the altar Iroy
cupped the blood in his hands; he then carried it to the goddess’s
garments, patting them down. The robes clung redly to Sekhmet’s stone
breasts, picking out the goddess’s nakedness beneath.

The sun
glistened on
the altar of white marble, suffusing the temple with a bright, blinding
light, and Merytra was momentarily stupefied by it. She began to feel
faint. Sickly haloes vibrated at the periphery of her vision, and the
reedy music of the piping priestesses screeched eerily in her head.

She stood
mutely as
Iroy drizzled roasted barleycorns over the lifeless bull, which was the
tradition. His attendants began to expertly flay the black hide from
its flesh, then hacked the beast’s haunches from the carcass with
glinting silver axes.

The fatty
thighbones
were handed to the high priest, who set them upon the sacred fire, when
they sizzled and spat as the flames leapt to devour them. The oozing
blood ran over the marble altar to pool in a specially contrived font
in the ground.