House of Illusions (38 page)

And revenge there would be, I told myself as my hurt receded and I approached the open door of the Golden Scorpion. No memory would be as sweet as the taste of Hui’s downfall on my hungry tongue. Pausing to brush as much soil from my legs and sheath as I could, I slipped the knife inside the linen bag and stepped down into the friendly yellow lamplight.

The room was comfortably full. As before, a few heads turned, and I stood for a long moment to allow my presence to become obvious to anyone waiting for me, then I threaded my way to the far corner and slid along one of the benches. The proprietor came at once, but I told him I was waiting for someone. He hesitated, obviously puzzled by the contrast between the quality of the linen I wore and my dishevelled appearance, but having satisfied himself that I was not trying to sell my body in his establishment, he went away.

I watched the customers come and go, a steady, happy stream of young officers and city commoners with their women. Sometimes one would glance about the increasingly stuffy premises and I would tense and lean into the light, but I was not approached. I began to be anxious. Kamen had definitely said that he would send word to me on every third night, but the hours were wearing away, the proprietor was making it clear that he would rather have a drinker in my seat, and I was too conspicuously alone among soldiers who, though not on duty, had surely been given my description.

I began to strain to hear the conversations around me, expecting my name to issue from one of the many mouths. In the eyes that flicked over me I thought I read vague suspicion, a doubtful weighing of recognition, and in the end I could bear it no longer. Rising abruptly, I made my escape, emerging into the shadowed alley with a gasp of relief. Something had happened to Kamen. I was sure of it. I knew by now that he was a man of his word and besides, his attitude to me had been touchingly protective. He would be aware of my anxiety, and there must be a very good reason for his silence.

No, not a good reason, I thought as I blended with the dimness and began to walk towards the end of the Street of Basket Sellers. A bad reason. Something sinister. Paiis has found him. Paiis has killed him. A surge of panic made my heart jump. No. Do not think of that. Think only of his arrest. Presume that he is in hiding and cannot show himself. He cannot die, or the burden of guilt will kill me too. Surely the gods would not be so cruel as to allow me to find him only to have him snatched away from me. Oh Wepwawet, Opener of the Ways, help me now! What shall I do?

A hand fell on my shoulder and for one idiotic moment I thought that the god himself had come up behind me in answer to my prayer. My breath hitched. The pressure of the hand increased and I was forced to halt, turning away from the glaring torchlight of the larger street and back into the dimness.

A young man stood before me, his grip changing to my upper arm as I faced him. I recognized him immediately as one of the roisterers in the beer house. Kamen’s messenger, I thought with relief. He did not want us to be seen together and he has waited until I left. Yet I had no intention of giving myself away prematurely, for I did not like the way he kept a firm hold on my flesh. “What colour are your eyes?” he asked abruptly.

“You have mistaken me for a whore,” I answered calmly. “I am not for sale.” He leaned forward and peered at me intently, then he pulled me, politely but determinedly, towards a door through which a little light was spilling. Angrily I tried to shake free, but he simply held me more tightly, scanning me with care.

“Is your name Thu of Aswat?” he demanded. A wave of terror broke inside me.

“No, it is not,” I said, “and if you do not let me go, I will begin to scream. There are laws against accosting women in public places.” He did not seem in the least perturbed and his clutch did not loosen.

“I think it is,” he replied. “You fit the description my captain was given. Tall, blue-eyed, a peasant who walks with the grace of a noblewoman and speaks an educated tongue. I followed you from the Golden Scorpion because I was not sure I recognized you, but now I have no doubt. You are under arrest.” Quickly I glanced about, but as luck would have it the street was temporarily empty of even the most persistent whore.

“And you are drunk,” I said loudly, insultingly. “If you let me go at once, I will not report your behaviour to the city police. Otherwise you will wake tomorrow with more than a sore head full of regrets.”

“I am not drunk,” he insisted. “I am sorry, but you must accompany me to the authorities.” I knew then that I had no hope of talking him into a doubt he obviously did not have, but out of my desperation I tried once more.

“What authorities?” I spat. “You are no soldier. Where is the evidence of your rank?”

“My authority comes from the order passed to my captain by His Highness the Prince Ramses. I am not on duty tonight.”

“Then you cannot take me anywhere. Do you think I am stupid?” He did not even smile.

“Far from it,” he acknowledged. “The Prince’s Division and the city police would not have been mobilized to search all over Pi-Ramses tonight for a stupid peasant woman. I must confess I am curious to know what heinous crime you have committed, although it is none of my business. You might as well submit yourself to whatever fate awaits you, Thu of Aswat, for having found you, it is my duty to pass you to my superior. I may not be in rank this night, but he is.”

The terror had turned to a cold sweat that flooded my spine and sprang out over my scalp. I forced my body to relax, my shoulders to slump. “Very well,” I said tiredly. “Lead on.” I would have groped for the knife but it was still in Hui’s linen bag together with the food and my other arm was imprisoned. However, the young man’s grip lessened at my words and he took a step forward. At once I turned my head and sunk my teeth into his forearm. He yelped, and as he pulled his arm away I pushed him hard in the chest and ran towards the brightness of the larger thoroughfare. People were there. I could lose myself in the crowd. I could hide.

But I had reckoned without the damnably fashionable sheath I had stolen from Hui’s bath house. Tight from hip to ankle it acted like a hobble and before I knew it I had stumbled and was on my knees in the dirt. Frantically I tore at the one seam running up the side of the garment but the thread resisted my feverish nails while the soldier, already recovered, began to shout for assistance and a group of his friends burst from the doorway of the Golden Scorpion. Stumbling to my feet I hitched the thin linen around my thighs and fell towards freedom but it was too late. Rough hands grabbed at my hair, hauling me back, and an arm went around my throat. “Consider yourself a prisoner of the Horus Throne,” the young man panted.

They tied my hands and marched me through the city. Although some of them were indeed drunk, and laughed and joked at their good fortune in apprehending such a dangerous criminal, the one who had followed and arrested me was not and he made sure that I was closely hemmed in by the others. One went ahead to warn the citizens to clear a path and I walked through lakes and eddies of inquisitive faces, some pitying, some hostile, all staring at the dishevelled woman whose fate, thank all the gods, was not theirs.

I did not look at them. I looked beyond them to where dark doorways invited, or dim alleys wound into invisibility, but no opportunity for flight presented itself and finally, exhausted and resigned, I was ushered into a small mud brick building and deposited before a desk from behind which a uniformed man was rising. My captors vanished after untying my hands and relinquishing my bag.

After a brief pause, during which the man’s gaze never left my face, he nodded, came around the desk, and placed a stool behind me. I sank onto it gratefully and waited while he opened my bag, examined the contents, and drew out the knife and the unopened wine jar. “Good Wine of the Western River, year sixteen,” he said. “It is yours?”

“Yes.”

“May I open it? Will you share it with me?” I shrugged.

“Why not?”

“Thank you.” He pried off the wax seal imprinted with the source and year of the wine, reached to a shelf behind him, and set two cups on the table. While he poured, I summoned up enough energy to study the insignia on his leather helmet and bracelet. He belonged to the Division of Horus, the Prince’s personal Command. And had the young soldier not said that the warrant for my arrest came from the authority of the Prince? In my fear I had passed over the words, but now I remembered them.

“You are not under General Paiis,” I blurted. He glanced up in surprise, then handed me a cup.

“No, of course not,” he replied. “What made you think that you were arrested on the General’s orders? It is Prince Ramses who signed the warrant. Drink. You look completely spent.”

“Did the Prince order my arrest on the advice of the General?” He blinked at me quizzically.

“I have no idea. All I know is that some hours ago the city police and all men from the Prince’s Division who were on duty or watch were commanded to begin a search for you. You are badly wanted. For good or ill?” I managed a smile and raised the cup to my mouth. The wine smelt of Hui, and slid down my parched throat like one of his elixirs.

“I do not know,” I said honestly, replacing the cup on the desk. I was beginning to feel better. If the Prince wanted me found, it surely meant that Paiis had failed to keep his filthy murder plot to himself. Or at least he had been compelled to come up with some pretext for my arrest that would limit his power to get at me and Kamen. And where was my son? Had he reached the ear of the palace after all? I was suddenly hungry. The captain saw me eyeing the bag and pushed it towards me.

“Eat then,” he said. He regained his seat. I poured more wine for myself and fell upon the bread, figs and cheese.

“You may keep the rest of the wine for yourself,” I told him. “Now where am I to spend the night? And have you any word of my son?” He frowned.

“Your son? No. I did not know that you had a son. I know nothing about you, Thu. As for where you are to spend the night, my orders are that when found you are to be conveyed at once to the royal harem.”

The cloud of my euphoria condensed into a heavy weight of undigested food and hurriedly drunk wine and a surge of nausea made me swallow convulsively. Feeling suddenly faint, I groped for the edge of the desk. “No,” I whispered. “No! I cannot go back there, not now, not after so many years. The harem is a prison, I will not be able to escape it a second time, there is death in that place, oh please put me anywhere but there!” My voice had risen. My fingers curled around the wood. This has nothing to do with Paiis, I thought to myself frantically. This is the Prince’s doing. He will take a vicious delight in seeing me trapped there once more, and this time there will be no one to protect me. I will disappear into that huge herd of perfumed cows. I wanted to run from the room but my limbs were trembling so hard that I could barely lift my head. The captain leaned over and pried my hands loose, holding them warmly.

“I do not know what peculiar tale you could tell me if you wished,” he said deliberately, as though he was speaking to a frightened child, and indeed at that moment I was a child, undone by the prospect of a fate far worse than the death I had imagined at Paiis’s hands. “What I do know is that the Prince is a fitting and merciful Heir, worthy to ascend the Horus Throne when his father goes to the gods. He is neither petty nor spiteful. Nor are his punishments greater than the crimes he judges. You are understandably distraught after being paraded through the city. Calm yourself.”

I am distraught because my punishment will come from a Prince whose advances I once repelled and who was instrumental in having me condemned to death, I thought wildly. In the harem I will never have a chance to even speak to him. He will drop me into that ocean of anonymous women and I shall be lost, forgotten for ever, and he will ponder the ironies of fate and smile to himself.

But under the captain’s touch my sanity gradually returned and I was able to sit straight. “You are right,” I said shakily. “Forgive me. I am very tired.” For answer he rose, and going to the door, rapped out a sharp summons.

“You can ride to the harem in a litter, I think,” he said. “Here is your escort. It is time to go.”

I had to use the desk to pull myself to my feet and I stood there weakly, loath to leave the bare room that had in so short a time become a haven of safety. Beyond the door a torch flared into life and I saw the litter resting on the ground, its plain, heavy wool curtain raised, its interior like a dark mouth without teeth, open to devour me. So my life has come full circle, I thought dismally. But I go to the harem as a prisoner this time, in an unadorned public conveyance, and I must bid farewell to a soldier not a Seer. Such are the jokes of the gods. The captain was waiting by the door, his arm extended. I took a moment to straighten, to breathe deeply, to lift my chin. Then I walked past him, clasping his hand as I did so. “Thank you for your kindness,” I said.

“May the gods go with you, Thu,” he replied, and the door closed behind him. I do not want the gods to go with me, I thought mutinously as I climbed into the litter and twitched the curtain down. There is no justice in the heavens. Let them spy out some other victim on whom to practise their idle malice, and leave me alone.

The litter was lifted and began to move. I peered out, hoping that at least the guard might be thin and I might tumble out and escape, but a soldier walked to either side, sword drawn, and I heard one ahead crying a path and the crunch of sandalled feet behind. There would be no unpremeditated halts on this journey.

There were no cushions in the litter, only a hard straw pallet on which to recline. I curled up and squeezed my eyes shut, pushing away the threatening phantoms of the future that tried to take command of my mind. I am alive, I told myself firmly. I have survived much. I can survive this too. The scorn of the women who remember me as Pharaoh’s would-be killer will be no different than the hatred of Aswat’s upright villagers. Remember Kamen, Thu. Remember your son. You gave birth to a Prince, and nothing that might happen to you can alter that glorious fact. So I fought to gain some confidence while my heart beat a tattoo of fear and my brave thoughts shredded like windblown tatters even as I unfurled them.