Shiri (13 page)

Josef was wide-eyed, he still held the priest’s wrist. “Hold up there, Hapu, I’ll punish the girl for this no need t
o...”

“No need!? No need do you say? This whore of
Palestine commits high sacrilege! She will burn in the hell fires of retribution and the dogs of
Anubis
shall feast on her flesh to cleanse the earth of its wickedness!” He looked distraught, “See! See! The sacred tiles beneath her feet are defiled! We must send for
Hapi’s
waters and perform the rites of purification! Only the Tears of
Isis
can wash away her filth!”

Josef ignored the priest, he took her seemingly roughly by the arm and led her outside. “Jos ... Yuya,” she stuttered,
“I’m sorry I ... forgot, I...” She felt terrible, a fool ...
a burden
,
just
like he’d said I would be, I’ve messed everything up already.

She half expected him to shout at her or slap her in the face and so show the priest that he meant business. His eyes were angry when he put his lips to her ear but his words were ... soft. She realised his anger was not for her, “Don’t worry, Shiri. I’ll take my sword to that priest’s throat if he persists in this nonsense.” He saw the guard, Donkor, making his way down the steps. “You, Donkor,” he called. “Get back to your post.”

The man turned. “It is not for you to give me orders, lordling, the whore will pay for her sacrilege, she must burn in the Godfires as is written in the book of...”

Josef moved towards him, he seemed almost to grow taller, his voice deeper, his eyes darker, and there was steel in his words. Even Shiri drew back from him. “You will return to your post, Donkor, or will you have me give my orders with this?” he allowed his hand to rest on the hilt of his sword.

The guard seemed suddenly unsure of himself. He looked past the stranger to Hapu, the priest was flustered and unwilling to challenge the noble’s word. Donkor nodded, glancing at the slave as he made his way back up the steps. Shiri’s heart beat a little slower.

“You’d be
st be waiting here,” Josef said. “I’ll deal with you later.” He said that last part loud enough to ensure Hapu heard.

“Don’t worry, Yuya, I’ll see young Shiri keeps herself out of trouble,” Solon was grinning broadly, almost as if he’d found the whole display a great entertainment. He winked at Josef. “Fifty debens for naught but a bonfire? I wouldn’t have that for you, besides, the way I hear it, this one’s yours alone to punish.” He elbowed Akil, “Poor girl’s in for a tough time of it eh, Akil? Like as not, her master will only see fit to give her half his bread tonight.”

Shiri glared at him.
The old man, was too sharp by half
. Josef let go of her wrist and entered the temple alone. She peered after him, but he did not look back. The sound of
sistrums
being shaken and the scent of frankincense accompanied his entrance. The altar, which held an ivory statue of the same lion man she’d seen before the gates of the city, was illuminated by a ring of lamplight. It stood at the core of a vast vaulted chamber supported by a series of granite pillars, some of which were blackened and scorched, and in the shadows, hunching forward on a cold granite throne, an old man stared back at her.

V

“Young master Yuya I presume?” White teeth glinted behind thin lips skilled at frowning, while cold grey eyes brooded under weighty lids furrowed and creased by many winters.

Josef bowed.
“At your service, your holiness”

“Word of your death has tormented my sleep.” The priest’s voice was strangely resonant, “Nobody was happier than I to discover the reports were ill-founded.”

“I’m quite pleased on that account myself,” Josef said. His eyes studied the high priest. He wore a striking necklace of red gold and a double banded ring that mounted a Nubian bloodstone of preposterous size,
The Sun Ring.
Josef felt his eyes being drawn to it – scarlet flames frozen for eternity in a green crystal prison.
The captured blood of a god.
If the priest had hair it would have been silver, and his thin limbs blanketed by yellow splotchy skin, indicated he had suffered from a protracted illness. His breath came in slow, wheezing pants. His nostrils whistled a dying man’s tune.

“
That
was an entrance.” The old man closed his eyes. “Do men take their whores to worship in the Wildlands?” Pentephres was a stern sort at the best of times. He sunk into his granite hewn high seat and did not look inclined, or able to rise and greet his visitor in a manner more fitting the man’s rank.

Josef bowed low.
“A foolish error from one who has been away too long. You have my word of honour as a loyal son of the Two Lands, that henceforth I’ll let no Habiru set foot inside your temple.”

“In my day,” the priest said, “before the countless victories of Tuthmosis, third of his name, I could walk from Heliopolis to Memphis and not see a single slave. Now I find them even in our temples.
”

Josef shifted
. “Again, I can only apologise I…”

Pentephres
’s waved the words aside. “Young Hapu is ever ... overzealous in his adherence to the old ways,” he paused as if the effort of speaking wore on him, “and times are changing eh? The high lords take bodyslaves now and oft as not they forget they are at their side. A few licks of her master’s whip will be punishment enough for that one.” His eyes slowly opened and seemed to focus on his guest, “Still … it was better when bodyslaves were the domain of our women alone I think.” He inhaled deeply – a long, gasping breath that seemed to pain him. He gazed at Josef a little strangely. “Come closer, child I ... cannot see you.”

Josef’s heart beat faster, he took a single step and went to one knee, head lowered.

“You come back to us a man grown, Yuya.” There was a curious tone to the priest’s voice now, “How old were you when you left us, five was it?”

“Six”

“Ah yes of course, six ... the years ... they play tricks with the mind.” Pentephres took a long sip from a goblet hewn from a solid block of rock crystal. It was inlaid with delicate silver glyphs that seemed to glint almost magically in the lamplight. “So many used to pass through the schools of Heliopolis, it is hard to remember all the faces ... and yet,” he leaned forward a little, “You may look at me, child, I’m not the Godking, and I would see
your
face.”

Josef raised his head and placed a hand on his knee in a manner that displayed Yuya’s ring clearly, “I mean to offer my service to the Three That Are One,” he said hastily.

Pentephres’s eyes seemed to flick towards the ring, before slowly, deliberately, the old priest drew a crumpled letter from his robes. “Yes, I received this from your father ... a year ago. He announced that you would be returning immediately to escape the troubles.” His eyes peered accusingly above the papyrus, “He ordered you to avoid the shepherds by leaving quickly. Clearly you failed him in that.”

“Through no fault of my own, your holiness, the shepherd rebellion took us by surprise both with its swiftness and its scale. I had hoped to
leave as the disturbances were mounting but clearly, as you say; I failed in that.”

Pentephres touched the Sun Ring, caressing the bloodstone with trembling hand. He closed his eyes and whispered some strange incantation in a language lost to time. The light seemed to go out of the chamber and the shadows about the priest grew dark and black as night. Pentephres
’s incantations grew louder and slowly he straightened himself up. His breathing became stronger, his shoulders less hunched. He raised his head and smiled before bringing the ring to his lips and kissing it. “My life for the Three That Are One,” he whispered. “My life for the
Aton
.”

Josef watched the show curiously.
‘The ring of Heliopolis, blood of the creator, healer of wounds,’
or so the wet-nurses said. He glanced to the alcoves as ghostly shadows flitted silently away, a line of extinguished oil lamps in their wake.
He thinks to play me.

“Is that what happened?” Pentephres
looked suddenly alert and proved he was not yet in his dotage, by standing and moving towards Josef. His voice rose almost aggressively. “Perhaps you first journeyed to the lords of Karnack. That is where the power and riches lie now. Perhaps you only came to me after they turned you away.” His breath no longer came in wheezes, his fingers no longer trembled.

“I have no desire to serve the Hidden One.
Amun
does not speak to me.”

“And you claim the gods of
Heliopolis do?”

“I hope that perhaps in time the
Three That Are One might deem me worthy. I know in my heart that the priests of Sun Temple tell it true. The spirit of life and light is the true lord of creation just as the brethren of Heliopolis have ever...”

“Hah! Do not play at fancies with me youngling, I know wither the wind is blowing. The priests of Karnack turned you away! Be straight with me in that much at least!” He
showed the boy his back, his eyes surveying the gutted innards of his once great temple. “Where have you been these fifteen years past?” Pentephres said. “Where was your father’s gold when the Sun Gate burned and I sent word that I had need of forty thousand debens to purchase slaves and material? Where were
you
when she came into her blood and the appointed year arrived?” He made an irritated sound in the depths of his throat. “And now you come to me with nothing, your lands confiscate to the Crown, your family decimated root and branch.” He turned and pointed an accusing finger at Josef. “Oh I know your game, youngling. You mean for me to name you heir to the Sun Ring in place of Hapu
or Potiphera who have served me well these twenty years past.”

Josef stood and for the first time held the man’s gaze. “Twenty years in which they have allowed the temple
to fade into obscurity.”

“And you would do better of course.” Pentephres dismissed the notion with a snort.

“I could not do worse.”

“You think it an easy task, Yuya? You think we have not done all in our power to rebuild?”
Pentephres glanced at the boy as if accessing if he was worth the effort before motioning for him to come closer and give ear to his conspiracies. “It was the priests of Karnack that did it.” He whispered.

He had journeyed to
Thebes and taken the same accusations to the Godking. Tuthmosis had given him a perfunctory hearing before dismissing him without even bothering to bring the acolytes of Karnack in for questions. “Heliopolis was always the brighter star,” the priest said airily. “Karnack, naught but a mongrel pup beside our ancient temple. So the acolytes of the Theban Triad sent fiends and criminals in the night. They burnt it, they burnt my ... burnt our temple and defaced the Sun Gate knowing we lacked the funds to ever repair them. We fought the fires all night long,” he pulled back the sleeve of his robe, revealing the scars of some old and gruesome burn.

“I remember t
he smoke and the ... heat still,” Pentephres said. “We begged and pleaded for money to rebuild, we leased the Temple’s lands out to the noble houses of Memphis, we offered blessings and absolutions to those who give even the smallest of tributes. For a price we allow merchants and ... and whores to ply their trade in the very shadow of the Temple, but still we cannot raise the funds.” He turned on Josef. “And you come here and tell me we have not done enough? We have done all we can and more! But where was the house of Ratoker when the Sunpool was emptied to fight the flames and the very rocks themselves sundered in the fires of hate? Where was your father? Where were you?”

Josef could feel the pain in the old man
’s voice as he spoke. He stepped closer, placing a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “I am
here
now, and I would rebuild the Temple. I would make it the wonder of the ages.”

Pentephres shrugged him off. “And what secret fortune do you possess, Yuya? Your father is cast down; you have naught to offer but the clothes on your back and words in your mouth. What I
need
are slaves, hundreds of slaves, thousands, and to buy slaves I
need
gold, and to make gold I
need
slaves.” He chuckled as if there were some dark humour in his quandary. “The gods mock the plights of priests and sinners alike. Oh I have some coin and much salt and grain to barter, but with the cost of a decent Habiru or Nubian these days...”

Josef smiled.
“I’d wager the cost of slaves is about to become more reasonable.”

There was a flicker of interest about the priest’s eyes. “New stock is it?” Pentephres was ever quick to spot a bargain. If the victors of
Megiddo were bringing a few hundred slaves back with them they might be going a little cheaper than normal. But even then he would need thousands, not hundreds. “From the war is it?” He paused as if pondering something, before apparently thinking better of it. “Eh, no, no I care not for new won cattle, vile and barbarous that lot. They’ll do more harm than good.”

“The greater houses of
Memphis will like as not be of a similar opinion.”

“And with good reason, so unruly and the smell ... the smell offends me. No, better to have home grown cattle, bred to serve and able to speak the tongues of civilised folk.”

“But those come at a price, and I assure you I have experience in dealing with these ... cattle. I’d have them bending their backs to the work soon enough.”

“Experience gained at your father’s knee is it? Hardly the
greatest reference, did he teach you how to lose an army and drive a whole province to revolt? Did he teach you how best to bare your neck so they might slice off your head?”

Pentephres seemed a little perturbed that frank talk of the father did not seem to offend the son. The man barely seemed to notice. “Amenhotep drives near ten thousand new won slaves before him,” Josef said. The priest’s eyes widened at the figure. “He means to sell, and sell quickly so he can pay for new temples, coronation ceremonies, gilded chamber pots and the like ... Memphis will be overrun for a season or more.” Josef lowered his voice conspiratorially. “But what the Co-Regent forgets is that the richest nobles of
Memphis are still on campaign with his father. There’ll be few in the city with desire or funds enough to buy more than a handful. And so the prices...”

Pentephres’s eyes glinted. “The prices will be most ... favourable.” The old man did a few calculations in his head. Nothing excited his sensibilities quite so much as the possibility of getting one over on the nobles of Memphis, and better yet the Southron lords of the Upper Kingdom and those blasted priests of Karnack.

He could buy up a whole swath of dirt cheap Habiru, set them to work, train them up, and then sell them on piecemeal in a few years time, or whenever the price was right. “I’d wager, even the best of them will not be going for more than nine or ten debens a piece,” the priest said, “And like as not, the Co-Regent will be willing to accept salt and spice to some degree at least ... mayhap even grain ... why I could ... I could buy me two for the price of one. If I invested the temple reserves ... why I ... why I could take over three thousand! Enough to raise the temple to even greater heights than before! The Sun Gate would stand proud once more! And Heliopolis ... Heliopolis would have a monopoly on nearly half the slaves in the Memphite plain!” His eyes were glowing. “We could hire them out, sell them, mayhap even establish a brothel or two! By
Horus,
Yuya, there’s money to be made here!”

Josef’s heart was pounding. E
ven better than I had hoped
. He looked away, trying to hide his excitement.
Three thousand at a stroke
, not free true enough, surely he could never hope to achieve that much, but if he could somehow get himself into a position of power in Heliopolis he could at least make their lives easier, and in time maybe ... just maybe he could think of something. He felt a thrill of apprehension, if Pentephres discovered that Tuthmosis would be bringing a second batch, near ten thousand more, in a few moons time he would not be so happy. But such bridges would be crossed another day.

The high priest smiled with his eyes and gazed at Josef with new found respect. A hint of something else slowly entered the old man’s countenance, almost as if there and then he had just decided on something. “You speak with knowledge that few of my acolytes could match.”

“Knowledge is a poor substitute for wisdom, or so the greybeards say.”