But when he moved again, it was to shake his head, a slow movement that barely moved the tresses of the wig he wore and the striped nemes that framed his face. “You will never, ever speak of that day again, Hemiunu, son of Neferma’at. You have been judged by your king and your god and found guilty. Your name will be chipped away from the carving of Egypt’s greatness. It will be blotted from the scrolls that speak of her history. You leave nothing. No family, no son, no legacy. Your sentence is death. In the custom of nobles, I will grant you the favor of death by your own hand. That is as far as my mercy will extend.”
With my hands still bound behind me, I could only lean forward to touch my forehead to his leg. “Khufu,” I pleaded, my eyes squeezed shut. “Think. It is I, your friend and cousin. It is I.”
He stepped away from my touch. “For many years you believed me insensible to you and Merit, Hemi,” he whispered. “As though I was too foolish and vain to care. You were wrong. I loved her too, Hemi. From the day I met her, I loved her.”
I looked up at him, pondered his whispered confession. “But Amunet,” I said. “Your attention was all for Amunet.”
His chest rose and fell with each breath he took. “How would it look for the future king to watch from the side while his cousin stole the heart of his future bride, of his only love?”
I licked the dryness from my lips and swallowed. “I didn’t know, Khufu. I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
He turned away. “Then I am a better actor than even I knew.” He sat on his throne again. “You took her from me twice, Hemi. I cannot forgive you that. I can never forgive.”
He called out a command over my head, and I heard guards trotting into the hall behind me. They grabbed my arms and lifted me to my feet.
“Return the grand vizier to a cell,” Khufu said. “And when he is safely locked inside, toss him a knife.” Khufu looked into my eyes. “Do the honorable thing, Hemi. For once, do the honorable thing.”
And then the guards turned me from my king, my Egypt, and dragged me from the Great Hall.
* * *
How long does it take a man to find the courage to end his own life, when it is not his desire to do so? This I wondered as I huddled in the corner of my new cell, empty of any other prisoners.
I would have welcomed the whining of Wati.
The knife was unassuming. Not a sword, nor a battle-worn weapon that had defended Egypt from her enemies. No, it was
a simple blade, a mottled green-and-gray flint that had perhaps chopped heads from chickens or scraped the scales from carp.
The silence of the prison pressed around me. Two guards kept watch, I knew, at the entrance. Perhaps one slept while the other remained vigilant. They did not speak. The smell of the Great Hall’s incense clung to me still, even here in the rancid underground, and I thought how much it was like me, this blended odor of royal incense and rotting criminal. Or perhaps the incense was only the smell of funerary spices. My skin seemed alive with the touch of insects. I brushed at my arms and legs.
Sometimes, I believe, in the late watches of the night, a man will ponder that even with a wife at his side and children safe in their beds, he is alone. The very nature of man is that he is an individual and thus alone inside himself. But it was not this isolation that I pondered this night. It was a deeper, more pervasive emptiness that reached in to constrict my heart like a vise. The knowledge that my parents had already crossed to the west, that my brother would not mourn my death. I had no one. No one.
Yes, there was Neferet, my conscious mind argued. But my heart told me she would soon forget. Now that Sen had been made overseer of constructions, she would be noticed by a noble in the court and taken as his wife before my body had grown cold.
I touched my thumb to the blade edge of the flint. They had not even done me the courtesy of giving me a sharp knife. Was it dulled by the deaths of other criminals? Was this the knife given to all who must die alone by their own hands? I had seen traitors sentenced this way before and had never given them a thought after they had left the Great Hall.
How was it accomplished? Would I somehow place it under my chest and fall upon it? What if it were not deadly enough to pierce
through to my heart, and only wounded me so I would lay here in the dirt to slowly bleed my life away? And what then? Would I learn the true weight of justice, as I feared? Did the gods await me, as I had been taught?
The taste of hopelessness in my mouth was a bitter herb.
I do not know how many hours passed in this manner. I had the sense that dawn would soon arrive, and I wondered if there were a deadline on my sentence. The word made me laugh with the irony. I had lived for deadlines all my life though none had been so … terminal.
The guards were now waking to their duties, and I heard the hum of conversation coming down the shaft. Two voices at least, maybe more. My heart reached out for human contact, and I wished one of them would come down here and stay with me.
One of the voices was low but definitely female, I realized. A seductive, flirty voice that made me think of Tamit. Had she come to watch me suffer? The conversation at the top of the shaft continued, as though the woman had come only to visit the guards. I strained to make out their words.
And then the woman laughed, a sound that caused the knife to slip from my fingers and thump to the mud floor.
I knew that laugh.
I stood and went to the bars of my cell, turned my ear to the shaft. She laughed once more, then spoke again in that throaty voice. It was only her voice for a while, and I wondered what she would find to speak so long about to two prison guards.
I heard the shuffling sound of heavy sandals scraping across the stones. Then the slap of smaller feet descending the shaft.
Neferet appeared, torch in hand, and eyes dancing. She rushed to my cell door. “Hold this,” she said and thrust the torch at me.
I reached a hand through the bars and held the torch. She worked at the pin with trembling fingers. I could hear the sound of my own breathing.
“Neferet—what—how?”
Her glance flicked up at me for an instant, her brown eyes glittering with honey-colored flecks and a tiny smile on her lips. “You said to save my poisons for the day of your execution,” she said. “Today seemed close enough.” The pin came free in her hands, and she snatched the torch from my shaking hand and swung the gate open in one motion.
“Come!” she said and grabbed my arm. “There is not much time. They have both run for the weeds, but they will be back.”
I pulled from her, retrieved the knife, and tucked it into my belt. “Neferet, no guard would leave his post to vomit!”
She winked at me. “Not vomit. Something even worse to succumb to in front of a woman.”
She ran toward the shaft and I followed her up, up and out, and felt like a falcon released from its cage, as though I could fly upward forever. We ran past the guards’ empty bench and into the night air. The dawn was tickling the edge of the eastern desert and already lightening the sky.
I now led the way, across the small enclosure outside the prison walls, and rounded the corner to take to the path to the wall of the royal estate.
A massive chest met me at the corner. We impacted and both recoiled. Our guard was back, his face pale and angry. He reached across his body for his sword.
The injustice of the past day boiled inside me. Before he could unsheathe his sword, I fisted my hand and pounded his jaw with all the anger I felt. He staggered back a step or two. Neferet stood
between us and brandished the torch as though trying to frighten off a desert jackal. I went at him again, a passing thought of the knife at my belt. But he had not wronged me and was only doing his duty. He threw up an arm to block my blow and shoved me backward with his forearm.
We fought at the entrance to the prison yard. An unlit torch rested in a socket on the wall. Perhaps the guard feared killing the grand vizier, for he had reconsidered and chose the torch as weapon instead of his own sword. The wood was black and greasy with bitumen, and he wielded it with skill in a quick blow to my head. I went down, blinking away the fiery flashes behind my eyes. Self-preservation took over, and I swept at his legs with my own in a fury of retaliation. He hit the ground beside me, with a crack of his shoulder. We both struggled to our feet, then his face contorted in the unmistakable bared teeth and squinted eyes of a severe stomach cramp. He doubled over, and I gave the back of his neck a satisfying chop with the side of my hand. He moaned and fell forward to his knees.
I glanced at Neferet, and she nodded. We ran.
Through the village that made up the royal estate, past my own house, which would surely be searched, and toward the open gates.
For a free man, the desert is a wide and wonderful open space of sky and sun. For a hunted man, there is no place to hide.
Stop, Neferet,” I said. “We must have a plan.”
She whirled on me with torch held aloft. We stood inside the gates huddled close to a sycamore. A rectangular reflecting pool ran along the path. “We must first get out of the royal estate,” she said, catching her breath. “No place to hide here, no one you can trust.”
For the first time I noticed how she was dressed, the robe a riot of color, cut wide to expose her chest. She wore an ornate wig and her face was heavily painted.
“For the guards,” she said, her face flushing.
I took the torch from her hands and thrust it into the water. The flame disappeared with a hiss and sizzle. An oily film spread across the water.
The darkness along the wall felt safe. I dreaded the open desert.
Neferet carried a pouch and from it drew two dark robes. “Here.” She thrust one at me. “These will help us remain unseen.” We covered ourselves, then with a mutual nod moved toward the gates and out of the royal estate.
We kept to the wall at first, until it rounded away from the path to the village. “It is the only place to hide until we know what to do,” Neferet said. “There are a hundred crevices where a man can get lost in the village.”
A wave of dizziness swept me, and I put a hand to my head where the guard’s torch had struck me. When I pulled my hand away, it was sticky with blood.
Neferet cried out. “You are hurt!” She was close beside me in a moment, her hands exploring my arms, my face, my neck for other injuries. I let her touch me, let the sparks fly through my blood, and my breathing shallowed with something other than pain. “We will go to my home first,” she said, her hand still on my face. “For only a moment. I will take care of your wound there.” She let her palm drift down to my chest, and I half expected her to claim she would also care for my heart.
The edge of the desert was a strange and fiery red now, and I lifted my eyes to the evil portent, wondering what it meant.
Neferet saw it too and took my hand. “Come, we must go. Dawn arrives.”
We hurried down the path to the workmen’s village. Soon the laborers would rouse themselves from their beds and drag themselves along this road for another day at the pyramid.
The pyramid. How long since I had given the Horizon of Khufu any real thought? Was it possible that something so important to me only days ago could now seem like an inconvenient burden? I felt it glowering down upon me now in disapproval, knowing that I only thought of myself.
The silence of the desert was broken only by an occasional howl in the distance or the nearby scuttle of snake or lizard. I felt as if all
my senses were heightened, as though they had been rubbed raw until even their slightest stimulation would cause me great pain.
Ahead, a dark huddle of moving forms approached. “These robes will draw attention now,” I said. We stripped them off and Neferet shoved them back in her pouch. We continued on, and I prepared to meet either friend or enemy on the path ahead.
When they were still two hundred cubits away, the mysterious jangle of camels come to trade from far-off lands reached our ears. Neferet dropped behind me with a nod.
Within minutes we had intercepted the traders. To not speak to them would have aroused more suspicion than we desired. One of them slid from his camel and stood beside the red-tasseled beast.
“Welcome to Giza,” I said, bowing my head at the huge man, who was dirty and bearded, with a robe that would grow hot in this land. He wore a banded head-covering such as the people of the eastern desert wear. Tools and weapons of all sorts hung from the thick belt at his waist, and he wore one large wooden hoop in his ear.
He bowed in response to my greeting and pulled a pouch from the camel’s pack. “Does my lord have use for some Nubian gold?” He looked over my shoulder. “For the lady, perhaps?” His words faded off as he took in Neferet’s appearance. He gave me a black-toothed grin and a knowing wink. “One must keep these kind of ladies in gold, you know, for them to be of proper service.” He barked a laugh and his three companions, still astride their camels, joined in.
I swallowed and the muscles in my arms tightened. “No gold today, my friends. But I wish you well in your trading. You will find those in the royal estate much enamored with Nubian gold.”
The trader replaced the pouch into the camel’s pack and gave his companions a glance. “I believe,” he said, “that I am much enamored with your woman.”
The others prodded their camels to their knees, then came to stand beside him. I could feel Neferet draw up close behind me, could hear her rapid breathing. Her small hand found the hollow of my lower back and trembled there.
I drew myself up and glared at the leader. “She is my sister,” I said. “And I am a priest, a holy man. Do not tempt me to call down the fury of the gods upon you.”
The trader laughed. “Your gods do not know me, Egyptian. What have I to fear from your gods?”
In that moment, for reasons I did not understand, the gods chose to assist me in my lie.
Only twice before in my life had I witnessed the dark sky turn to gold as though the sky goddess Nut had hurled a fiery torch to earth. But in the early morning half light, the sudden flame in the sky blinded us all. A moment later, Nut’s torch seemed to strike the far-off mountains with a mighty crack that shook the very earth on which we stood.
I composed myself quickly and turned an icy glare upon the traders. “Do you still claim no fear of my gods? Shall I beseech Nut to slay each of you with her fiery torch?”
But they were already up and on their camels, clucking at the beasts to move along. We watched them only a moment, then continued on toward the village.
“What does it mean?” Neferet asked. “The sky?”
“There will be floods from the heavens. A great evil. We must hurry.”
We moved toward the village with haste. A few minutes later, Neferet said, “Your
sister
? Why did you not claim me as your wife? They might have been less inclined to—”
“Because no man with self-respect would allow his wife to dress as you are dressed.” My reply silenced her and I feared hurt her. I regretted this but had no idea how to rectify it at this moment.
We drew close to the village, and the pungent odor of manure assailed us. Scattered over the fields outside the village, sheep and cattle grazed while their shepherds dozed against rocks, relying upon their dogs to warn them of approaching danger.
“We cannot risk the dogs,” I said and pulled on Neferet’s arm to slow her.
“I know. Follow me. We will circle the village to the back. I know a way.”
But the dogs sensed us—perhaps smelled us—anyway. As we dropped over the edge of a ridge to a canal a few feet below, the hungry bark of sheepdogs raised the alarm. Shepherds called to one another with shouts of concern. Neferet and I crouched and ran along the canal bank that circled the village.
I had a moment to ponder my situation as we ran, and I marveled at how my once well-ordered life had so quickly turned to chaos.