House of Illusions (14 page)

For some time I turned all these things over in my mind, recalling the General’s words to me when he gave me this commission and my own questions regarding it, and as I did so the conviction I had felt then, that something was wrong, became certainty. Paiis had not become a general because he was an expert at making love. He was a logical thinker, a sensible man. He knew, as well as I, a mere junior officer knew, that all that was necessary for the arrest and internment of this woman was a written order to the mayor of her village who was perfectly capable of having her escorted to the nearest town. Yet here I was, sleepless on my pallet in the middle of the night, with a complement of men and a stock of provisions, on our way to Aswat as though she were at the very least a criminal of some importance. And the man in the cabin. He was not the mayor of her village. He was not a Herald. He was not even a serving soldier in any division active at present in Egypt. What was he then? My thoughts skittered away from that question.

Nevertheless, on the seventh night out, when he had glided across the deck and over the side, I got up, and being careful to stay low and not show myself above the level of the railing, I slunk to the cabin. He had left the door open so I did not have to be concerned that it might squeak and give me away. Still almost on my hands and knees, I went in. The interior was almost completely dark and very stuffy, smelling acridly of his sweat. I dared to pause for a moment, although every nerve in me screamed to be quick, and gradually my eyes adjusted until I could make out the dented cushions on which I supposed he spent most of his time, and a bundle beside them. With a curious reluctance to touch it, I lifted the coarse folds of the cloak and shook them. Nothing fell out, but under the garment there lay a leather belt, thonged to hold two knives. One was short, little more than a blade for gutting a kill, but the other curved wickedly and was roughly notched at intervals towards its point so that as it was withdrawn it would rip and mangle a victim’s flesh beyond repair.

This was not a soldier’s weapon, I knew. A soldier had to be able to work fast, strike or slash, withdraw and strike again. This knife would require not only great strength to pull out of a wound but also time. Not much, certainly, but more than a soldier in the heat of a battle could afford. This was a dagger for one killer, and only one prey. Vaguely aware that my heart had begun to beat erratically I knelt and ran my hands under the cushions. Coiled beneath one of them I found a length of thin copper wire wound at either end around two small, grooved blocks of wood. A garotte. I replaced it with shaking fingers, made sure that the cloak covered the belt once more, and backed out of the cabin.

I had only just lain down again under the awning and pulled a blanket over my shoulders when I heard the faint whisper of the man’s foot regaining the deck. Closing my eyes tightly, I willed myself to stop trembling. The door gave out its tiny sound, and from the far end of the craft one of the sailors sighed and began to snore. I did not dare to sit up for fear the man inside, inches from me, would realize that I was not asleep. Had I left everything as I had found it? What would happen if he suspected that I had gone through his belongings while he swam? Would he be able to smell my presence? For I knew now what he was. Not a soldier. Not even a mercenary. He was an assassin, and Paiis had hired him, not to arrest the woman, but to kill her.

Even then I tried not to believe it. Lying there rigid while the stars wheeled slowly overhead, desperate to get up, to swim, run, anything to release the mental fever that had seized me but afraid to so much as twitch a toe, I did my best to think of one reason after another why the situation was as it was. I was grossly mistaken about the man. He was a foreign mercenary who, of course, preferred to carry and use the weapons he had been trained to use in his own country. That was perfectly acceptable. Someone of great importance, a Prince perhaps, had been harassed by the woman and had demanded her imprisonment and Paiis, because of the high standing of the man complaining, had done everything he could to make absolutely sure that nothing would go wrong. A quick message to the mayor of her village would not do. But why the secrecy? Why was the man hiding himself? Why was I commanded to proceed with a minimum of exposure?

Try as I might, it was impossible to justify any of the weak arguments my thoughts, in a pathetic effort at self-defence, presented, and in the end I was left with the inescapable conclusion that the man I trusted and in whose hands my welfare, to a large extent, lay had lied to me. I was not bringing a loss of freedom to the woman at Aswat, I was bringing death, and I did not know what to do.

My first reaction, as I allowed the truth to come clear, was a cold and selfish anger towards the General. He had used me, not because I was a capable soldier but because I was young and inexperienced. A more seasoned officer would perhaps have smelled something bad at once and refused the assignment on some clever pretext, or puzzled over it without the insecurity that had assailed me, and been confident enough to take his concerns to someone higher than Paiis. Another General perhaps.

But, of course, there was another reason why Paiis had chosen me for his dupe. He had to make absolutely sure that the assassin’s blade would slide into the right woman. If he killed someone else by mistake, there could be many unforeseen complications. He could have sent one of the many travellers who had been accosted over the years but none of them, I thought bitterly and with a sense of shame, would be naïve enough to accept the flimsy story of arrest, not sitting in a boat with an arresting officer who did not speak and did not allow his face to be seen. You fool, I told myself. You arrogant fool, imagining yourself superior in some way, deluding yourself that Paiis respected your abilities and singled you out for them. You are nothing but an anonymous tool.

The man inside the cabin sighed in his sleep, a long exhalation that ended in a rustle as he shifted his body on the cushions. I could try to kill him now, I thought stupidly. I could creep into the cabin and run my sword through him while he dreams. But am I really capable of killing a man on the battlefield, let alone in cold blood as he lies unconscious before me? I have been through the motions, that is all. Paiis knows that too. Naturally he does. And supposing I try such a thing, and succeed? And supposing I have built a house of smoke out of my own fears and phantoms and this man is innocent of all save eccentricity? I felt my bowels loosen at the terrible thought. I am a soldier under orders, I reminded myself. Those orders are to escort a mercenary to Aswat and assist him in his orders. I do not know what those orders are, apart from the falsehood the General told me. A sane and obedient young officer would shut his mind to all speculation and simply do what he was told, leaving the rest to his betters. Am I obedient? Am I sane? If I am right in my horrible assumptions, will I stand by and let the man kill, without any trial, without any written execution directive? And oh gods, I must talk to her about my mother. I had thought there would be time on the journey back, but if I am right and she is to die and I am to let it happen because that is my duty, how am I to speak with her first?

I had never felt so alone in my life. What would Father do in this situation? I asked myself, and even as I asked it, the answer became clear. Father was a man who had built his life on risks. He was not afraid to throw everything he had into a new caravan, with no guarantee of further riches at the other end. He was also honest and moral in his dealings. “Kamen,” he would say, “no matter what the cost you must not allow this thing. But you must make absolutely sure that your suspicions are confirmed before you disobey your superior and throw your career away.”

Miserably I turned onto my side and rested my cheek against my palm. The voice had begun as my father’s but ended as my own. I would have to confirm my suspicions beyond any doubt. I was not foolish enough to assume that I could walk into the cabin and ask the man what his intentions were, therefore I had to wait until his actions proved me right, and in doing so I was putting my own life in danger. For if he was an assassin, he would not allow me to come between himself and his pay. I meant nothing to him, and as nothing he would brush me aside. By my reckoning we were about three days out of Aswat. I had three days to decide what to do. I began to pray to Wepwawet, steadily and coherently, and I did not stop.

We tied up just out of sight of the village on a hot, breathless evening when the sun had sunk below the horizon but the last of his light still tinged the river pink. I vaguely remembered the bay in which we berthed, wider now because of the flood, the trees clustering along its pleasant curve half-drowned, and I knew that the river path bent sharply inland to pass behind the sheltering thicket. Anyone walking from Aswat to the next place would go by without knowing that the boat was there. I did not allow the cook to light the brazier and we fed on cold rations— smoked goose, bread and cheese—while the light continued to fade and the activity of the many birds around us died away until the only sound was the quiet gurgle of the water as it poured towards the Delta.

I had forced myself to eat without appetite and had just drained my beer when there came a sharp rapping on the wall of the cabin. With a sense of shock I realized that the sound had come from inside. I waited, suddenly dry-mouthed in spite of the beer, and then his voice came, muffled by the wood. “Officer Kamen,” he said. “You can hear me?” I swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Good. We are at Aswat.” It was more of a statement than a question, but I answered.

“Yes.”

“Good,” he repeated. “You will wake me two hours before the dawn and you will lead me to this woman’s dwelling. You know which it is.” He spoke with a heavy, guttural accent. His Egyptian was clumsy, as though he did not use the language often or had not learned it correctly, but the coldness and sureness of the delivery left me in no doubt as to the clarity of his mind. Paiis must have told him everything I had myself confessed. Otherwise how would he know that I could lead him straight to the woman’s home? I took a deep breath.

“It is not kind to rouse her from her sleep in order to arrest her,” I said. “She will be frightened and confused. Why not do it tomorrow morning after she has had a chance to wash herself, and dress and eat? After all,” I added daringly, “she is not being detained for any major crime. She may not be mad enough to be under the special protection of the gods but she is certainly not fully in control of her faculties. An arrest in the darkness would be cruel.”

There was a moment of silence during which I imagined, chillingly and with certainty, that he was smiling. Then I heard him stir. “Her neighbours, her family, they are not to be disturbed,” he said. “The General tells me this. If we go in the morning the village will be up. People will be about. They will see, and be distressed. Her family will be notified later.” I exhaled loudly enough for him to hear.

“Very well,” I agreed. “But we must be quiet with her, and gentle.” I waited for a reply but there was none. My throat was now so parched from sheer nervousness that I could have drunk the whole beer barrel dry and I was about to signal to the cook to bring me more, but I changed my mind. My wits must not be clouded.

I needed one more piece of confirmation. As the darkness deepened and the chatter of the sailors gradually gave way to the subdued sounds of the night river, I lay stiffly, senses alert although my eyes were closed. Time passed but I was not tempted to sleep. I was beginning to think, with enormous relief, that I had been completely mistaken, when I heard the familiar creak of the cabin door. Cautiously I opened my eyes. An oddly misshapen shadow was moving across the deck and it took me several seconds to realize that the man was not naked this time but shrouded in his voluminous cloak. He disappeared over the side. I sat up and crawled quickly to the railing. He was just entering the trees, and even as I watched he blended with their shadows and was gone.

I sat back on my heels and stared at the planking of the deck. I did not think that he had gone to kill, not without the final identification I was to provide. No. He was scouting, assessing the layout of the village, its tiny alleys and open squares, routes of escape if that became necessary, even perhaps a suitable burial place for her body, out on the desert. He would return in two or three hours and then sleep, waiting for my call.

I had gone back to my pallet and was composing myself for a long and anxious wait when a piece of knowledge struck me with the force of a khamsin wind and I cried out aloud, clapping my blanket to my mouth even as I did so. Once he had killed the woman, he would have to kill me too. I was to lead him to her. Unless he then sent me away on some pretext or other while he did what he was being paid to do, an unlikely happening, I would be a witness, able to hurry back to Pi-Ramses, to other authorities than Paiis, and spill the story of an arrest that was in reality an order to destroy. Would he calmly return to the boat and make up some story for my sailors? Tell them that she had fallen ill and could not be moved for some time but that I had been left to guard her? Or would he simply vanish into the desert after burying both of us, so that no one would ever know the truth? And what of Paiis? Was my death part of his original plan? Did he have a tale ready to tell my family when I did not come home? A lie was easy when there was no one to gainsay it. Oh, Kamen, I thought, you are indeed a gullible, innocent fool. You have put your head into the lion’s mouth, but you can thank the gods that it has not yet closed its jaws.

My impulse was to jump up and rouse the sailors, blurt out my suspicions, command them to take us away from Aswat immediately, but a saner judgement prevailed. I had no proof at all. I would have to see this thing through, and seeing it through meant that by the time the sun rose either I would be branded an idiot in my own eyes forever or one of us would be dead. I cursed Paiis as I lay there, cursed myself, cursed the events that had led me to this moment, but my curses turned to prayer as I remembered my totem’s temple so close by, and the prayers calmed me.