House of Illusions (15 page)

He came back just after the moon had passed its zenith, and this time he did not go straight into the cabin. When I saw him turn towards me, I closed my eyes and forced myself to relax, opening my lips slightly and breathing deeply as though in sleep. I felt him come to a halt. I could smell the wet mud on his feet as he stood there looking down on me, watching me, his very immobility a threat. The moment stretched, froze, stretched again, until I knew I must leap up screaming, but then I heard the squeak of the door and I was safe. Even if it had not been necessary for me to wait a decent interval while he himself drifted into sleep, I would not have been able to move. My knees shook and my fingers trembled. But after a while I managed to bring my body back under my control and without a sound I rose, working my way patiently across a deck still wet from his footsteps, and lowered myself over the side.

Beyond the trees was the path and I took it running, conscious that I did not have much time. It led me, as I had thought it would, to the edge of the modest little canal that connected the Nile with the paving before Wepwawet’s temple where it veered, taking a route directly behind the building, past the woman’s hut, and then back beside the river and on into the village itself. Panting I slewed with it, aware, even with the urgency of my mission, how good it felt to be on land, to be running unfettered, to be free under the dark lacery of palm fronds. I could keep going, I told myself. Just run on and on until Aswat is far behind me and I am safe and can make my way back to Pi-Ramses, but even as I was thinking these things I was slowing before the entrance to the ramshackle hut I remembered only too well.

For a few moments I paused, listening and catching my breath. The night was quiet, the vast landscape of the desert opening out to my right, its edge of small fields now only great pools of star-shot water sliding away before me. Everything was grey and still. The wall of the woman’s house cast a black moon-shadow over my feet. I had half-expected to see her dancing on the dunes like a demented goddess but they lay empty. I could wait no longer. Grasping the tattered reed matting that served her for a door, I lifted it and slipped inside.

I knew where her cot was, and no more than four strides took me to it. Looking down I could make out the shape of her, one arm outflung towards me, her knees bent under the blanket, and as my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I could see her face also, half-hidden in a welter of disordered hair. Giving myself no more time to hesitate and so perhaps lose my nerve, I bent, clapped one hand over her mouth, took her shoulder with the other, and put my knee hard against her outer thigh. She jerked once, convulsively, and I knew she was instantly awake, but then she lay still. “Please don’t be afraid,” I half-whispered. “I mean you no harm, but it is very important that you don’t cry out. May I take my hand away?” She nodded vigorously and I removed my fingers. At once her head came up and she shrugged me away from her shoulder.

“You can take your knee off me as well,” she hissed. “It weighs like a boulder. Explain yourself quickly or I shall be forced to do you some damage.” Swiftly and quite unselfconsciously she sat up, swung her feet onto the dirt floor, and stood, taking the blanket with her and draping it around herself. Reaching to the table she snatched up the stub of a candle but I grabbed her wrist.

“No!” I whispered. “No light. Come outside so that we can talk freely. I don’t want to be caught by surprise in here.” I felt her hesitate and I waited, still holding her wrist. It was stiff with tension.

“I have nothing to steal,” she said softly. “And if you had meant to rape me it would all be over by now. Who are you? What do you want?” Her tone was heavy with suspicion but the tautness had gone out of her so I let her go, moving to the door mat and lifting it. After a moment she gathered the blanket more tightly about her and followed, ducking past me and then pausing to inhale the night air.

Taking her elbow I guided her across the churned sand to the line of trees that began beside the temple and straggled between the desert and the path leading to the centre of the village, and I drew her into the tangled shadow where we could not be seen from any direction. Here we halted and immediately she turned to me and searched my face. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes. I thought I knew you and I was right. Wait a moment. More than two months ago, at the beginning of Thoth. In the temple, and then I caught you spying on me as I danced out there.” She flicked a hand towards the rolling sand dunes. “You are the one who kindly took my box, the only one to take pity on me in many a long year. I am sorry, but I do not remember your name. Why are you here? Why the secrecy?” The smile blossomed on her face like the opening of an exotic lotus flower. “It has something to do with my box, doesn’t it? I have hardly dared to hope that by some miracle you were an honest man and did not simply toss it overboard. You were able to bring it to the attention of Ramses, weren’t you? Is he coming for me? Did he send you to me with a message?”

“No,” I replied shortly. “You must listen to me, for there is not much time. I disregarded your warning and gave the box to General Paiis. I believed that you were indeed insane and I did not know what else to do, seeing that in all good conscience I could not throw it away. I am sorry!” The smile left her face to be replaced by a dawning incredulity. “I did what seemed to be the most honourable thing but I think I have only succeeded in putting you in terrible danger. I am here on the General’s orders,” I went on hurriedly. “and with me is a man I believe to be an assassin who has been sent to kill you. Just before dawn I am to lead him to your house. I had thought we were to arrest you for being a public nuisance, but whatever was contained in that box of yours has prompted an attempt on your life. I am convinced that you are to die.”

She studied me carefully for a while. I stared back, but I could see no trace of fear in her face, only a thoughtful speculation. “So in the name of honour you handed over the responsibility you accepted quite freely to a man you had been asked specifically to avoid,” she said at last. “That was a cowardly thing to do. But you are still a young man, therefore I forgive you for confusing honour with cowardice. I am not in the least surprised that Paiis has decided to get rid of me, seeing you were stupid enough to stir up all his old misgivings. And why, my fine young officer, are you disobeying your superior so flagrantly in bringing me this warning?” I was dumbfounded at her composure. “But perhaps you are not disobeying him at all,” she went on drily. “Perhaps you have been sent to trap me, to frighten me into fleeing with your tale of an assassin, and thus I would violate the terms of my exile. Then he could quite legitimately have me arrested, thrown into prison, and forgotten.”

Fingers steepled to chin she began to pace, the blanket dragging behind her, and I did not speak. She had been entirely correct in her calm assessment of the motive that had prompted me to take her box to Paiis. I was guilty of a wrong but I did not understand the larger situation, could not have understood what I was really doing when I placed the box on his desk. I was still out of my depth, so I watched her and kept silent. She sighed twice, shook her head, then laughed without humour. “No,” she said. “He would not try to force me from Aswat. He knows that no matter what I will not go. For sixteen years I have kept the law. Paiis knows that mere tales will not cause me to jeopardize any chance I might have to regain the King’s favour. In any case, if I was foolish enough to run I would have to be arrested with a legitimate warrant issued by the King’s officers on the word of the mayor of Aswat. All that would be much too public for dear Paiis. He wants to bury the past. Literally. No.” She stopped pacing and came up to me, looking directly into my face. “You choose to warn me first because you are indeed an honourable young man who must try to undo the harm he has done and secondly because you know that of course if I am to be murdered you must die too.” She had grasped the whole situation with a speed and acumen that stunned me, and seeing my expression she laughed again. “I am not such a crazy woman after all, am I?” she chuckled. “How invincibly arrogant the young can be! So. I am to die just before dawn, when you have pointed the finger of doom at me?” She frowned. “He will not choose to make his move if we are together. That would decrease his odds of success. There would be more of a chance that something might go wrong. He will invite you to bring him to my threshold, then he will turn and kill you before entering and slaughtering me. That way he deals with one of us at a time and also it means that both our bodies are close by. Easier to drag off and bury.” She fell to chewing her lip, then she held out a hand. “Well? Have you brought me a weapon?” I shook my head, bemused.

“I have only my own, my sword and dagger. I left the sword on the boat.”

“Then give me the dagger. Otherwise how am I to defend myself? Do I throw my lamp at him?” I hesitated, looking into her sober face, and she exclaimed angrily, “You still have a doubt regarding his intention, don’t you? You will not make a move until you are absolutely certain. But such scruples will get us both killed if your suspicions are correct. You must trust me. Listen. If you give me the dagger, I will swear by my totem Wepwawet to return it to you meekly and willingly if it becomes clear that the man on your boat is innocent of all save a desire to arrest me. Can you trust this oath?”

At her words my mind suddenly filled with a vision of the little wooden statue beside my couch at home, and I remembered all the prayers of desperation I had sent to the god over the last few terrible days. She was watching me anxiously, lips parted, fists clenched at her sides, and I smiled as a great cloud of uncertainty was lifted from my shoulders. It was as though the name of the god had at this moment become a password of mutual surety between us and for answer I unhooked the scabbard and handed her my weapon. She behaved as a soldier might, drawing out the blade and inspecting it carefully, testing its edge for sharpness before slipping it back into its sheath. “Thank you,” she said simply. “Now what plan can we make? I think this. You will lead him here. I will shadow both of you. I can watch you on the path without detection. I think you will agree that he will attempt to kill you as soon as you have pointed out my house. As he prepares to knife you in the back I will cry out, and you will turn and kill him instead.” I disagreed.

“It won’t work,” I said. “He needs me to identify you without any doubt. Supposing I point out your house and he kills me but you are not there? You might be sleeping at the home of a friend or relative. Then how will he find you? This is what he will think. In any case, if he knows his business, I will be dead before I can even turn around. This man can move in silence, and swiftly. And even if I am able to face him before his knife finds my back I do not know … I do not think … I have not yet drawn blood of any kind.” Her hand was on my arm, warm and reassuring.

“I have killed,” she said in a low voice, her grip tightening. “Twice I have killed. It is possible to murder and remain whole, but it is the remorse afterwards that can drive one to the brink of madness. Do not allow the prospect of shedding his blood to unman you. He is an animal, nothing more. He will certainly feel no such remorse after killing you.” The hand was withdrawn and my skin felt cold where it had been. “If you are sure that he needs you to identify me with no room for error whatsoever, then he will be forced to face us in the same place at the same time,” she went on briskly, “but that will not be his choice so beware! He will do his utmost to separate us at the last moment. It seems that we will have to improvise our defence after all, and pray that you are right in your assessment of his thoughts. I owe you a great deal for this,” she finished, leaning towards me and kissing me gently on the cheek, “and I will do everything in my power to make certain that your bravery is not the last act of your life or mine. Keep your sword to hand, and pray!” She shrugged the blanket higher on her shoulders, glancing up at the sky, and as she did so an awareness of time passing rushed in on me.

“I must get back to the boat,” I said urgently, for the moon had gone and the merest hint of dawn was in the air.

“Do not sleep again!” She nodded and I turned away from her, half-running back across the sand, but she called to me, “What is your name?”

“Kamen. I am Kamen,” I answered without looking round, and I plunged into the shadow of the temple wall.

There was still no visible sign of sunrise as I waded to where the boat was tied, but its vanguard was all around me in the stirring of the breeze and a sense of invisible awakenings in the river growth. Quelling the need for haste that would have had me rushing on board, I stood knee deep in the water, my hands pressed to the side of the craft, and strained to hear anything unusual in the darkness, but all was quiet. Cautiously I grasped the deck rail and pulled myself up. The sailors still lay wrapped in their dreams, vague humps clustered under the prow, and the cabin sat like a squat sentinel, shuttered and silent. I crept to the awning, and lifting my blanket I carefully dried my legs. If the man noticed that they were wet and muddy, he might come to the correct conclusion. Then strapping on my sword, I went to the cabin door and rapped on it loudly. “Dawn approaches,” I called. “It is time.” There was no more than a hint of movement within before he emerged, cloaked and barefooted, bringing with him a miasma of stale hot air. He said nothing. He merely nodded and strode towards the side. “We must run out the ramp,” I said. “We cannot expect the woman to climb to the deck.” He paused.

“Not now,” he replied curtly. “We will command the sailors later.” With that he clambered over the side. I followed grimly. I had given him yet another chance to inadvertently prove himself innocent of my misgivings and a wave of despair swept over me as I left the shallows and padded after him through the sand. He was waiting. I came up to him and with a gesture he waved me past. “You lead me,” he said.

Everything in me seemed to shrink and waver as I brushed by him and set off to cover the short, the very short distance to the woman’s hut. I think until that moment the reality of it all, Paiis’s treachery and my own imminent death, had been like a game in my mind, moves and motives of make-believe that I had played through as though when it was over I would wake the man and we would arrest the woman and sail happily back to the Delta.