House of Illusions (31 page)

“If you are for the feast, you have come the wrong way,” he said. “Go back to the main entrance.” Nesiamun peremptorily held out his scroll.

“I am the Overseer of the Faience Factories,” he replied. “I have been granted an audience with Prince Ramses.” The man unrolled the scroll and read it quickly.

“Your audience is for tomorrow morning,” he announced firmly. “The Prince entertains tonight. Come back at the appointed time.” Nesiamun took back the scroll.

“The matter to be discussed with the Prince is very urgent,” he pressed. “It has become more so since His Highness agreed to see me. It will not wait.”

“Everyone wants the Prince’s immediate attention,” the soldier snapped. “If you were a minister or a general I would let you through, but what important business can the Overseer of the Faience Factories have at this time of day? I am sorry.” Nesiamun stepped close to him.

“You do your job well,” he said forcefully, “and for that the Prince should be grateful. But if you refuse us entry you will be even more sorry. At least send for a Herald. If you do not I will summon one myself.” The man did not back away, but after a moment he spoke to his fellow.

“You may leave your post,” he said. “Go and find a Herald.” With a creak of leather and a clack of brass studding the soldier vanished into the night beyond the gate. None of us moved, but I could feel my master’s tense impatience. He was breathing heavily, his thumbs hooked into his belt, and every so often he glanced over his shoulder to where more shimmering, torch-lit celebrants paraded towards the public entrance in a burst of happy noise. Nesiamun seemed calm but only, I think, in order to impress the officer barring our way. I knew that at the first sign of hesitancy we would be dismissed.

But we did not have long to wait. The guard resumed his place before the gate and the Herald saluted. “It is the Noble Nesiamun, is it not?” he said pleasantly. “I understand that you wish to have a message conveyed to His Highness. You are on the list of audiences for tomorrow you know.”

“I know, but this will not wait,” Nesiamun replied. “Go to the Prince and tell him that I am no longer concerned solely with the fate of my daughter. The life of a royal son is also at stake. My companion, Men the merchant, and his scribe, Kaha, will bear witness to the second matter. We beg for a few words with him at once.” The Herald had been well trained. His expression did not change to either curiosity or doubt. He bowed again.

“I will speak to His Highness,” he said. “He is still in his quarters but is about to leave for the feast.” He strode away and the three of us drew back a little from the gate. Presently the two guards struck up a conversation with each other and ignored us. The path behind was quiet at last. Only single lights moved along it as an occasional servant hurried on his errands. I felt a wave of fatigue and my master’s face in the dimness looked haggard. Was Kamen still alive? In the wash of my sudden exhaustion I did not believe so, and saw all this effort as futile.

The Herald did not come back for some time but when he did he nodded to the soldiers who stood aside from the gate. “I will take you to the Prince,” he said, “but I have been commanded to caution you. If you are misrepresenting a case, you will be in peril of His Highness’s extreme displeasure.” His words should have warned me, but I was so relieved to be walking through the gate on his heels that I paid them no heed.

It was a short distance to the stairs that hugged the outside wall of the Throne Room and ran up to the Prince’s spacious apartments. We were led across the grass, followed the palace wall, and turned around a corner. Another two soldiers stood by the bottom step but the Herald did not pause, and we followed him up the stairs. At the top was a landing and a tall double door on which the Herald knocked. It was opened and a dull light seeped out. We went through, and I found myself at one end of a dark passage that ran away to my left. Directly in front of me were more closed doors. The Herald knocked again and a sharp, authoritative voice bade him enter. The light that poured out this time was steady and strong and the three of us moved, blinking, into its radiance. “The Noble Nesiamun,” the Herald announced and left us, closing the doors behind him.

In the moment before I bent, with the others, into an obeisance, I scanned the room. It was large and elegant. The walls glowed deep blue and a delicate beige, the colours of Egypt’s desert so finely depicted here, and I remembered that the Prince had always loved the simplicity of our horizons and often went out alone into the sand to think or meditate or hunt. This predilection had set him apart from both his sociable brothers and those at court who had tried to plumb his mind to determine which political party he favoured in the days when his father had not declared an Heir and the ministers and powermongers scrambled to make themselves agreeable to all the royal sons.

This Ramses had wisely and modestly kept his counsel, expressing only his love for his father and his country while his brothers actively played for the throne. Hui had told me years ago that the Prince’s seeming self-effacement and kindness hid an ambition as fiery as his brothers’, but he was more clever and patient in his manipulations to gain his goal, winning men and women to his personality. If that was so, he had finally succeeded, for he was now Pharaoh’s Heir and right hand, ruling Egypt for a father whose health was failing and who would soon leave Egypt to sail in the Heavenly Barque. Whatever dreams for Egypt’s future he had he still kept to himself, but it was said that he was showing a cautious interest in the hitherto neglected army that would flower when his father died.

His furniture was also simple and expensively elegant, the chairs of gold-chased cedar, the brazier in the corner polished bronze, the triple shrine containing the images of Amun, Mut and Khonsu of gold inlaid with faience, carnelian and lapis lazuli. Lamps were everywhere, on the cluttered desk, the few small tables, standing in the corners. A scribe sat cross-legged by the desk, his palette across his knees, watching us impassively as we straightened from our reverence.

But I had no eyes for him or indeed for the Prince, for there was another man in the room, sprawled indolently on one of the dainty chairs. He came to his feet slowly with a familiar grace that sent shock bolting through me. I heard Men give a strangled grunt. My heart began to pound as I waited for the Prince to speak and release us from our desperate silence.

Paiis looked us over with a half-smile on his painted lips. “I greet you, Nesiamun,” the Prince said mildly. “I was to have the pleasure of a meeting with you tomorrow but the Herald garbled some nonsense about a royal son in danger and you hanging on my gate. On General Paiis’s recommendation I have already issued a warrant for the arrest of your son, Men, on a charge of kidnapping your daughter, Nesiamun, and it is only a matter of time before Paiis’s men wring from him the location of the girl, so I cannot imagine why you are here together but state your business quickly. I am hungry.”

“On the matter of the kidnapping, Highness,” Nesiamun began, “the General acted precipitously. My daughter has been a guest in the house of Men without my permission and I beg you to rescind the warrant at once. The whole thing was a misunderstanding.”

“Is that so?” the Prince broke in. “Then why is the whole force of the Pi-Ramses police combing the city for her?”

“I requested their assistance when Takhuru went missing from her home,” Nesiamun replied evenly. “I did not know she was with her betrothed. She had left without a word. I am angry with her.”

“No doubt.” The finely feathered royal eyebrows rose. “So your son, Men, is to be blamed for nothing more than an excess of love?” He turned to Paiis who was standing with braceletted arms folded. “The young man was also temporarily missing, was he not? He did not appear to take his watch on your estate?”

“That is correct, Highness,” Paiis said smoothly. “He has proved himself to be completely untrustworthy. In the end I traced him back to his father’s house, where he was holding the Lady Takhuru. Men did not know that she was there.”

“You bastard!” Men shouted. “It is all a lie! All of it! Where is my son? Is he still alive?”

“Why in the name of all the gods would he not be alive?” the Prince asked irritatedly. “And you.” He pointed at me. “I do not know you. What are you doing here?” There was a sudden hush. Paiis was openly smiling at us but his eyes were on me and they were cold.

My moment had come. Taking a deep breath, I severed myself finally and utterly from my past.

“I beseech your indulgence, Highness,” I said. “I am Kaha, scribe to my Master, Men. I think that it is my place to begin what will be a long story, but before I do, I ask you if you have ever heard these names repeated all together. The Seer Hui, the Generals Paiis and Banemus, the Royal Butler Paibekamun, the Lady Hunro.” His brows drawn in puzzlement he began to shake his head, then he paused and his expression changed. His face became immobile but his kohled eyes grew alert.

“Yes,” he barked. “Continue.”

So I did. With Thu’s manuscript in my hands I told it all. As I spoke servants entered and left, moving quietly to trim the lamps and lay wine and honey cakes before us. No one ate. Ramses listened intently, betraying nothing of his thoughts as my voice filled the room. Nesiamun and Men stood with lowered heads, wrapped in their own emotions. Paiis watched, eyes narrowed, mouth thin, and I knew that if we did not succeed in convincing the Prince of the truth the General would exact an immediate and ruthless revenge. I was afraid but I struggled on.

Someone came to the door, was admitted, and began to speak, but the Prince raised a jewel-encrusted hand. “Later,” he said, and his attention returned to me. The door closed softly. By the time I had finished my part of the tale, the Royal Scribe was surreptitiously flexing his cramped fingers and the lamps had all been replenished with oil.

Ramses considered me carefully. He pursed his hennaed lips. Then he turned deliberately to the General. “A very interesting story,” he said casually. “Longer and more involved than the tales my nurse used to tell me but absorbing just the same. Paiis, what do you think of it?” Paiis’s broad shoulders lifted in a disdainful shrug.

“It is a marvel of inventiveness woven with a few threads of truth to give it a poisonous sting, Highness,” he replied. “I knew this man when he was in my brother’s employ. Even then he was flighty and garrulous. You are, of course, aware that the woman who tried to murder the One years ago has defied her exile and is free somewhere in the city. It is my belief that she has formed an association with Kaha in order to discredit those who once showed her kindness and by lying, win a pardon. They brewed this fantasy together.”

“And why would he do such a thing?” Ramses folded his arms. He was no longer looking at Paiis. His gaze was on a far corner of the bright room.

“Because he has been in love with her for years,” Paiis answered promptly. “She had a facility for capturing men’s baser emotions and evidently she has not lost it.” A peculiar expression flitted across the Prince’s face, almost a twist of pain.

“I remember her well,” he said, and cleared his throat. “My father’s concubine, to his undoing. I was placed in charge of the investigation into her culpability. No evidence was found to link anyone other than her with the crime.” His eyes left the ceiling and swivelled to fix themselves on me. “Now why was that, if your story is true?” It seemed to me to be a naïve question, but I knew that this Prince was far from stupid. He wanted something put into words.

“Because instead of throwing the pot of poisoned massage oil away, the Butler Paibekamun kept it and gave it to you, Highness, so as to cast the blame on Thu.”

“Thu,” he repeated. “Yes. Gods, she was beautiful! And what was your lie, Scribe Kaha?” I dared to glance at the General. He was standing with his hands behind his back and his legs stiffly apart as though he were on the parade ground disciplining his troops.

“Go on, Kaha,” he said. “Perjure yourself for the sake of a love long since swallowed by the past. Lie for this Aswat peasant.” Anger gripped me for a moment, eclipsing my fear of him.

“I lied once in the past out of loyalty to you and to the Seer,” I retorted hotly. “Out of loyalty, General! But I am a scribe, and still have a reverence for the truth. Do you think it is easy to stand here knowing that I am but a small minnow trying to swim in a river choked with sharks? That I can be eaten while the powerful continue to enjoy the freedom of the water? You will be granted more clemency than I, no matter how heinous your crime!”

“Peace, Kaha,” the Prince put in mildly. “Egyptian justice extends without partiality over both noble and commoner. You have no more to fear from the judges than Paiis.” I went down on one knee.

“Then prove it, Highness!” I cried. “My lie was this. My Master Hui told your investigators that Thu had asked for the arsenic to cure worms in the bowels and he did not suspect that she intended to use it against your father. Yet he told me, with great satisfaction, that he knew how it was to be really used, and he rejoiced that Egypt would be rid of the royal parasite.” I faltered. “Forgive me, Highness, but those were his words. I am trained to remembered accurately such things. When I was asked what I knew of the matter, I repeated the lie of my Master. I also lied in the matter of the whereabouts of my Master on the night your father nearly died. Hui told us all in his household to explain that he had gone to Abydos to consult with the priests of Osiris for a week and had not returned until two days after the murderous attempt. It was not true. He was in his house all the time, and he gave Thu the arsenic with which to poison the Great God during the time he was purported to be away.” I rose.

“It is certain that your word alone will not be sufficient,” Ramses said. “Yet I am not prepared to dismiss this affair out of hand.” He bent and whispered to his scribe. The man rose, bowed, and went out. The Prince turned to Men. “And you,” he said. “What do you have to do with all this?” Men straightened.

“It is quite simple, Highness,” he said. “My son, Kamen, is an adopted child. His real mother is this same Thu and his father is your father. He is your half-brother. Fate brought them together at Aswat. She told him her story, and since then the General has been trying to kill both of them for fear their testimony should carry a combined weight of honesty.” Paiis burst out laughing, yet the sound had no ring of humour and the Prince silenced him with a savage and imperious gesture.