Again the crack of the lash sounded in the room—four times, five times, six. Through a blur of pain Mara heard the relentless voice again. “Who is he?”
Slowly, but stubbornly, Mara shook her head. She heard Chadzar swearing at her under his breath, the Architect rapping out, “Double the strokes again.”
Mara gasped in protest, then in agony as the lash bit through the linen of her dress and laid open the skin beneath. She felt the linen tear away from her back, heard the whine of the next stroke, and tried to brace herself for it. But the lash was living fire now, and each blow tore through her flesh. She could not brace herself. She could only retch helplessly, try to twist away from the remorseless whip, and grow sicker, dizzier.
“Stay a moment!” cried Hatshepsut. “Call off your Libyan ape, Nahereh, he’ll kill the girl and we’ll be no wiser than before. You, slave! Up on your knees and listen to me. Can you hear what I say?”
The room was whirling, and the voice seemed to whirl, too; but after a moment splashes of light appeared through the hazy darkness, swam into focus, and resolved themselves into the torches. Mara felt herself pulled to her knees; Senmut was repeating the queen’s question impatiently. “Can you hear Her Majesty?” Mara nodded, sick with the smell of blood and the taste of it on her lips when she tried to moisten them.
“Listen well, then,” ordered Hatshepsut. “I will spare you all further punishment for your crime if you will answer the question. More than that—I will free you from slavery and give you fifty gold deben and a silver chain. Think! Only a word or two and you will walk out of this room a free maid, with gold in your sash and your life before you.”
Gold and freedom, thought Mara dimly. Once I wanted those things above all else.
“Majesty,” she whispered again, “I do not know the leader.”
Nahereh’s cold voice broke the heavy silence which followed. “Your Radiance, it is barely possible she speaks truth. The informant I discovered and questioned told of a certain scribe who interested me much. It is said he alone knows the leader. I did not believe this, but . . . if I might put a question—”
“Do so!” snapped Hatshepsut.
Nahereh turned to Mara. “Answer me, Insolent One, or I’ll call back the Libyan. Do you know this Sashai?”
“Aye, I know him.”
“Who is he, then?”
“Sashai. That is the only name I know.”
“Liar! You know him well—well indeed, according to that juggler. Was it not he who warned you when his own followers would have killed you? Aye! And was it not he you risked your own neck to save?”
“He, and others.”
“What others?”
Mara was silent a moment. Then she said, “Those—like myself.”
“And who is so worthless as yourself, pray? What babble is this?”
You would not understand, thought Mara, even if I told you. You do not know those others. But I know them, Son of Set! Nekonkh and Ashor and Miphtahyah and Nefer and the temple priests and the fishermen on the Nile and the goldsmiths and carpenters and potters and stonecutters going home from their work in the City of the Dead, and their friends and kin, they are the others.
She understood Inanni’s story now. They were her friends and kin, the only ones she had. They were Egypt. I do not do this for the king, she thought in wonder. I do it for Egypt.
“Still silent!” hissed Nahereh furiously. “By Amon, these rebels are madmen, all of them! Chadzar, come forth again—”
Oh, Amon, I cannot stand another lashing now! thought Mara. Not yet—I must have time, a little time—
“Wait!” she choked. “I will tell you—something—all I know. I have heard them say that he is not a scribe, this Sashai, but a sculptor, one who has worked on the great temple under the cliff. But I do not know his name, I swear it!”
“If that is so, I can find him easily enough!” put in Count Senmut. He stepped closer to Mara. “Describe him!”
“He is—short, not much above my own height, with heavy shoulders and a girth it would take two sashes to go around. He wears a—curled wig and has a scar on his chin.”
Senmut straightened slowly, his eyelids drooping with disbelief. “I do not recall such a man among my crew of sculptors.”
“But I know him well—he is as I say!”
The queen’s scornful laughter cut through her protest. “I think it is her fear of the lash that speaks, Senmut, not her memory! Is there no way to test this, without sending to the City of the Dead to rouse all the sculptors in Thebes from their couches and drag them here?”
“I know a way, Your Radiance,” said Lord Nahereh. He walked past Mara to the main doors of the room, and muttered something to a soldier, who hurried out. Returning, Nahereh remarked, “It will be but a moment, Your Majesty. As for you, girl, if you’ve not spoken truth this time, I hope you’ve made your peace with the gods.”
How can he find out, so surely, so soon? thought Mara. He’s bluffing, there’s no— Then she remembered the juggler.
She sank back on her heels and let her head drop, her raw and aching shoulders turning to a mass of fire in protest against even that slight movement. She was still dizzy with the pain of it when she heard the door behind her open, the sound of someone falling to his knees, then Lord Nahereh’s cold voice. “Here’s our testing stick, Your Radiance. Come forward, juggler. Pharaoh would question you.”
The twisted, strangely graceful body glided past the corner of Mara’s eye, the queen’s voice rang in her ears.
“You may speak to my majesty, juggler. I want the truth for once! Is the man called Sashai a short man, full of girth, with a curled wig and having a scar on his chin?”
“Sashai?” echoed Sahure, and Mara’s aching flesh quivered under the amusement in his tone. “Your Eternal Radiance, I would scarce describe him so, since he is tall, and of a strength like a tree trunk, and without visible blemish. A young man, he is, somewhat homely of countenance, though this bedraggled lily here found him handsome enough, I daresay . . .”
“Amon deliver me from this wretch of a slave!” gasped the queen, almost transformed by her fury. “She has done naught but lie, naught but defy my majesty! You! Libyan!” Hatshepsut rose from her throne, and her voice rose to a shriek. “Come forward and teach this riffraff who it is she defies! Lay on, do you hear me? Beat her! Beat her! Beat her!”
Chadzar was obeying already, and his blows grew heavier with every scream of his infuriated pharaoh. But the screams grew dim in Mara’s ears; she swam for a few endless moments in a sea of fire, then faded slowly into a sea of black, where there was no pain.
CHAPTER 24
For Egypt
Nuit the Starry One, goddess of the sky, arched her spangled body over the land of Egypt and gazed down serenely on its sleeping thousands. In palace and villa and hovel they slept, long of eye, with their amulets about their necks, each stiffly pillowed on his headrest of wood or carven ivory or gold. The sailor slept on his vessel on the Nile, the priest in his temple cell, the beggar in his lane. The scent of lotuses and the river and the black earth rose like the very breath of night to delight Nuit’s nostrils, and the cat slept, and the waterfowl slept, and the dead slept in their spices and wrappings, deep in the tomb.
But not everyone slept. In Bubastis, in the North, a thief prowled the night; in Abydos three surgeons worked over an old man who moaned in pain; and in Thebes two men argued in tense and urgent whispers in an alley.
The eyes of Nuit rested on these two with mild curiosity. One was young, dressed as a scribe; the other a burly riverman. They seemed agitated and in anxious haste; presently they left their alley and moved swiftly, but with great caution, down another, glancing always from side to side as if searching for someone. Nuit became aware that there were other dark figures scattered throughout the alleys and byways of this particular area, hiding in two
s or threes, sometimes venturing forth, also searching, until they found others. The scribe discovered one such group, joined it eagerly, and gave whispered orders, then hurried with his companion toward the river.
There was a small papyrus boat bobbing against one of the ladders of the wharf, which Nuit had not deemed worth her notice until the scribe and the riverman dropped into it and paddled in silent haste out across the Nile. The eye of Nuit was distracted; for a time she was engaged in admiring her own starry reflection in the dark mirror of the water; when she remembered the two men, they were already scrambling up the opposite bank and starting at a run through the streets of western Thebes. At a corner within sight of the palace wall, near a clump of acacia trees, they halted, held a brief conference, then separated. The riverman melted into the thick shadows under the acacias; the scribe made his way by lane and back alley into the district of great walled villas to the northwest. He was moving with the utmost caution now, and he grew warier the closer he approached a certain broad street lined with sycamore figs, and an estate of noble proportions which fronted on it. Nuit was pleased; the sycamore was sacred to her, and its glassy leaves mirrored her own beauty, as well as emitting the delicate, sharp scent most welcome to her nostrils. Because of the sycamores, she looked with favor on the estate whose walls the scribe was circling stealthily, and smiled when he scaled the wall by means of its vines, slipped through a corner of the large date grove, and approached the great columned, silent house set in its midst. She watched him until he gained an inner courtyard by the servants’ wing, and knocked softly on a door. Then the faint cry of a woman in Menfe reached Nuit’s velvet-dark ear, and remembering her duties as protectress of mothers and childbirth—for was she not the mother of great Osiris himself?—she turned her attention to another drama.
* * *
• • •
“Irenamon!” whispered Sheftu, knocking again, and more insistently, upon the door.
There was the sound of a startled movement within, then the old man’s voice. “Who’s there, at this hour of the night? Wait, I’m coming . . .”
In a moment the door was opened a cautious crack, then it swung wide, revealing an Irenamon who looked strangely shrunken and fragile, and bald as an egg, without his eye-paint and elaborate wig. “Your lordship!” he gasped. “What is—”
“Hush! Let me in, quickly.” Sheftu stepped into the room and silently closed the door, while the old man fumbled to light a lamp. “Irenamon, has anyone been here tonight? Have you been disturbed?”
“Nay, my lord, none but that Midianite trader, earlier this evening, come peddling his wines as he does every—”
“No one else? You have seen no soldiers about?”
“Soldiers? Indeed no! What would soldiers . . . ?” The lamp glowed into brightness now and Irenamon turned to study his master’s face by its light. “Your lordship! Is there trouble? Does it mean something is wrong, that no soldiers have been here?”
“Nay, it means all is unbelievably right!—as yet. Oh, Amon, it means I have made a terrible mistake, perhaps a fatal one for a maid who still keeps silent, even at this moment, under I know not what punishment. . . . Quick, Irenamon! Rouse one of the grooms. I want Ebony and the black mare hitched to my chariot within five minutes, and ready in the main courtyard.”
Sheftu caught up the lamp from the old man’s table, and shielding the flame with his hand, dashed through the servants’ wing into the inner garden and up the stairs to the second floor of the main house. Once in his own room, he tore off his coarse scribe’s garments and put on fine linen ones, with his costliest jeweled collar and a golden headcloth. By the time he reached the main courtyard, the black horses were harnessed and tossing their silken heads.
Seizing the reins from a sleepy groom, Sheftu leaped into the chariot and snatched the whip from its holder.
“Your lordship, take care!” begged Irenamon in a quaking voice, gripping the side of the chariot with both hands. “I fear for you . . . May I know where you are going?”
“Aye, and you may know as well that I may never come back. I go to the palace, old friend, to stick my head in a noose. Pray to the Shining One that it will not tighten too soon.”
Sheftu leaned to grip the old man’s hand. Then he popped his whip and the chariot plunged forward amid a clatter of hoofs, spun out of the imposing gates and down the Street of Sycamores toward the palace.
* * *
• • •
In Menfe, the baby had been born—a tiny man-child yelling lustily in the Egyptian night. Already the mother had tied a protective amulet about his wrist, and the father was hurrying to burn a pinch of incense for Nuit the Great Mother, in gratitude for the safe birth. As its fragrance drifted upward to the nose of the Starry One, she smiled serenely and allowed her lustrous eyes to move again to Thebes.
She could not find the scribe now; in the great villa under the sycamores she saw none but an old man in nightclothes, standing alone by the gates with his bald head bowed in his hands. However, there was movement far away down the dark street—swift and reckless movement, and the clamor of hoofs. It was a chariot, driven full tilt by a young noble in a collar that rivaled Nuit’s own star-gemmed throat, and his horses were black as her hair. She watched him with interest as he sped through one street and then another, and upon rounding the last corner beside the palace walls, pulled up short beside a clump of acacias she thought she remembered.
Aye, it was the same, for out of its dark shelter darted the river captain, who held a hurried conference with the nobleman, then set off at a lumbering trot around the curve of the palace wall. The other whipped up his horses and drove straight for the main gate. His voice, bold and demanding, floated faintly to Nuit’s faraway ear, and in a moment the palace gates swung open. At his barked order the sentry snapped to attention, raising his sword to salute as the chariot flashed past him and whirled down the East Avenue.
The Starry One had seldom encountered a more impetuous young man, and she found herself pleased by him. She wondered where he had sent the riverman, and to what purpose. After a brief search she discovered the captain some distance to the West, pounding heavily at a door of the long barracks which housed the pharaoh’s bodyguard. His answer was the flare of a lamp within, then the door swung open. Nuit blinked rapidly at the light, causing a thousand stars to twinkle. To her disappointment, the captain stepped into the lighted room where her night-seeing eyes could no longer follow him.
* * *
• • •
“General Khofra?” panted Nekonkh.
“I am he. What is it, man?”
“I bring the signal. Lord Sheftu’s orders—to be obeyed tonight, at once! He bids you rouse your soldiers. At the mark of four, exactly, they’re to march on the palace. Overpower the sentries first, and leave enough archers at the gates to hold off the regulars should they try to bring aid. Then—”
“Stay a moment!” burst out the general incredulously. “Tonight? The revolution’s to take place tonight?”
“At the mark of four, no later! Harken— Once in the palace, you’re to send a detachment to the king’s apartments, while you storm the throne room. Take plenty of men for that. We think the room’s full of regulars. You’ve just half an hour. Hasten!”
“You must be mad, my friend! I can’t do it that fast!”
“The gods willing, you can!” bellowed Nekonkh. “By Amon, you must! Lord Sheftu’s walked into the lion’s jaws, and he’ll die like a trapped rat if we don’t bring it off! He may anyway.” Nekonkh jammed his wig down more firmly onto his head and reached for the door latch.
“What of the other factions?” barked Khofra, who in spite of his protests was hurriedly buckling on his leather tunic. “The priesthood, the nobles who’ve sworn loyalty, the common folk. Have they been roused?”
“That’s where I’m going now, to rouse the nobles. I’ve comrades acr
oss the river doing the rest. By this time the queen’s high priest has fallen, if all’s gone well, and there’ll be a procession out of the temple at dawn, followed by the populace. They’ll do their parts, never fear. But without your seasoned troops—”
“They’re far from seasoned, Captain!” said the other grimly, seizing his helmet from a chair. “The thing’s impossible, but by every god in Egypt, I’ll do my best!”
“Luck go with you!” Nekonkh plunged out into the night again as Khofra vanished down the long hall of the barracks to rouse his soldiers.
* * *
• • •
Nuit did not see the captain emerge, for she was watching the young man in the shining collar. He had abandoned his chariot near the palace stables and set off at a run through a maze of gardens and courts. Ahead, in the direction he was running, lay the north wing of the Golden House, and the great hall where the woman Hatshepsut—she who arrogantly claimed descent from Nuit’s own glorious grandfather, Ra the Shining One—was accustomed to hold her audiences. Something was happening in that hall, something ugly. But there was too much torchlight for Nuit’s dark-loving eyes to make out what it was. She felt a flicker of apprehension, quite unsuitable to a goddess, when she perceived that her bold young man was making straight for the anteroom that adjoined the hall. He passed into the mist of light that surrounded the portals, then to Nuit’s disappointment, he, like the captain, vanished through a torchlit door.
She shrugged her starry shoulders. These scurrying mortals had amused her, but now she would spend what remained of the hours of darkness in admiring her beauty in the mirror of the Nile. She began to do so, but soon the urgent calling of a woman in the Delta recalled to her mind her age-old duties, and she forgot Thebes as she ushered another new Egyptian into the world.
* * *
• • •
Mara swam up slowly out of her sea of dark oblivion. Someone was splashing cold water into her face, and shaking her roughly.