Shiri (33 page)

Tiye shook her head.
Pharaoh must have dismissed him.
“I … I don’t know.”

“Last I saw of him he was getting drunk with the rest of us in the great hall,” Narmer said.

Smenkaure met her eyes. “You are certain this Habiru did not leave your chambers even for an instant?”

Tiye nodded. He held her gaze a moment longer before all at once he showed her his back and moved for the door. Smenkaure made an unpleasant face. He brought his lips to his brother’s ear, “She lies.” He wave
d at one of the Companions. “Take the slave. I mean to put her to question.”

Tiye stepped forward quickly, “No! I told you I will deal with the Habiru.”

He didn’t turn back to her. “I will have the truth of this.” He nodded to the Companion again,.“Take her.” The man hesitated a moment, glanced from Tiye to Smenkaure and made his choice. He moved towards the slave.

“If you take her I’ll … I’ll tell my husband how you disobeyed a direct order from his … from his queen!” Tiye’s voice sounded increasingly shaky.

Smenkaure paused at the door as six solemn Companions, bearing a covered stretcher, slowly filed past. He turned and looked at her without fear or emotion. “His queen is it? Aye, you’ll be that now.” He held her eye for what seemed like an age before at last he grunted, and his subordinate stepped away from the slave, looking somewhat relieved. Yet, still the battle of stares continued. He touched the hilt of his blade and bowed a little shallowly, his eyes not once leaving hers. “Mark me, Princess, men will bleed for this.”

XIV

Jafar was dead. The fiend had stretched him over a pit of flaming coals while he’d questioned him. Akil had watched with water in his eyes as occasionally Smenkaure prodded Jafar’s flesh with a giant, evil looking branding iron,
“Why did you leave your post? Who did you see? When did you turn traitor?” Always the same questions repeated again and again until Akil lost count.

Soon enough Jafar had grown silent and Smenkaure could get no more out of him. Akil didn’t know how long he’d sat there. His throat was parched, his limbs battered and bruised where the brothers had beaten him. He’d never thought it would end like this. The stories never mentioned branding irons and roasted captives. They talked of honour and glory on the battlefield, not slow painful death in the dungeons of Pharaoh’s palace. Jafar’s corpse had been dumped unceremoniously in the corner and a rat had settled atop his face gnawing a bloody hole in his cheek. Nobody seemed to pay the creature any mind. Akil heard a barked command and suddenly strong arms grabbed him.

He shrieked that he’d tell them all he knew. They didn’t need to torture him. He’d strangle the slave with his own hands. He’d murder the high priest of Heliopolis, batter the princess bloody, anything. They wouldn’t listen.
Why wouldn’t they listen?

His arms were lashed with leather and suddenly he felt himself being hoisted over the fire.
His bowels gave way and he could hear his captors laughing and jeering as he begged them for mercy. One of the men threw oil over the coals and the flames rose towards him. They seemed to be laughing too.
He cried as the heat built up and he felt the flesh of his stomach redden and blister. Then he felt another pain, even worse than before. For an instant the whole world went blank and then he was back, woken by the sound of his own screams.

The men were laughing harder now. Four, five, he didn’t know how many there were, he looked desperately from one grinning face to another. Then he saw
him.
Alone amongst them his face was hard and callous as stone. The serpent brand was in his hands. Akil saw pieces of his own flesh stuck to it. His tormentor brought the serpent nearer – straight at his face.
That pain again.
More screams, more pleas for mercy, more pain, more laughter, more fire.

He heard the voice. It sounded distant, but
nonetheless it filled his ears. “Why did you leave your post? Who did you see?” He screamed the answers as best he knew them but it didn’t stop the torment. Again came the brand, again came the pain, again came the questions, “Why did you leave your post? Who did you see? Why did you leave your post?” Again and again and again until finally, mercifully, Akil’s world went black and the pain ceased.

Smenkaure turned from his victim in disgust. Death was his trade. Blade, bow and naked hand his tools. But he had other skills besides. He could make men talk, he could make men scream. He warmed the brand in the fiery coals and motioned for Akil to be taken down and left to rest on the cold stone floor. The
ghaffir
was not yet dead and may still reveal something new. Only when the shrivelled husk of a man began to moan once more did Smenkaure remove the iron and kneel beside him. He allowed the glowing metal to hover before the man’s eyes. Gently, he stroked a meandering raven coloured lock from Akil’s brow before cradling his head in his hands. He smiled almost sympathetically. “Why did you leave your post?” His voice was soft as a maiden’s kiss.

Akil mumbled something through broken teeth, his words garbled and confused by unrelenting agony, “Ph … Pharaoh … Pharaoh … permission.”

Smenkaure sighed. He brought the iron to the man’s cheek. The screams rolled over him like water as the scent of burning flesh filled his nostrils. When he removed the iron half the man’s cheek came off with it, “Why did you leave your post?” He sounded half irritated, half bored now.

The answer came in sobs.
“He …he told ... me to,” Smenkaure slammed the hard edge of the brand across the man’s jaw and the last of Akil’s front teeth gave way. The Memphite champion rose and turned to the brazier, again stoking the charcoal with his brand. Slowly he turned it, watching as the red glow returned to the metal. He did not look on his victim this time. “Why did you leave your post, Akil?

The sobs came even louder as the
animal begged and cried and pleaded like a Habiru suffering under his master’s flail. Smenkaure shook his head.
He had been a man once.
He heard his brother’s voice, “He won’t talk, not sense at least.”

Smenkaure withdrew the br
and slowly and met Narmer’s eye. “Everybody talks brother.” He inspected the serpent critically before returning it to the coals. “And this one tells it true, Pharaoh told him to leave.”

“If he tells it true why do you continue to put him to question?”

Smenkaure shrugged. “He and that other one were the sole guards in the royal chambers. They left their posts and Pharaoh was murdered. He should have gone to you and advised you that the royal chambers were unguarded. He deserves no reward but pain.” Akil reached a pleading hand towards his booted foot. Smenkaure peered down with an almost quizzical expression before stepping on it. The creature writhed and sobbed in agony as he crushed down and felt fingers break beneath his weight. He returned his gaze to his brother, “You should not have taken the sword.”

“Trust me, brother, he would have wanted me to have it.”

Smenkaure’s response was an unimpressed grunt. He removed the brand from its fiery berth and brought it down against Akil’s back. When he withdrew it, the thing at his feet was little more than a convulsing slab of meat. He looked to his brother, his eyes as cold as the brand was hot. “He wished to bed the Princess. That much is plain. He left the feast not long after her. You stayed behind by cause of orders or drunken stupor.”

“Orders
,” Narmer said quickly.

Smenkaure stepped a little closer to his brother, an unpleasant look on his face. “Either way he followed her to her chamber, dismissed the
ghaffirs
and died. The Princess showed bruises and her slave looked like she’d done a turn in the fighting pits of Tjaru. Nobody else could have entered the royal quarters without somebody spotting them, I’m sure of it. Clear enough what happened. He ordered her to his chambers and in fear or panic she sent the slave to murder him.”

“Nay, that’s not how it was,” Narmer said, “The slave lost her head is all, it happens to Habiru sometimes.” He shrugged, “Father always said, ‘never trust a Habiru.’ And you saw her. She tried to kill the Princess too.”

Smenkaure turned away from him. “If the slave had meant to kill her she had time enough to go about it.” He rubbed his chin. “But if she had merely meant to absolve her mistress of suspicion and so take all the blame on herself, what better way than to feign an attack on her?”

Narmer laughed.
“Now that’s loyalty and no mistake.” He shook his head. “You have it wrong, brother. No Habiru would do as much, even for the kindest master.”

“It was an act,” Smenkaure said, “The Princess is the villain in this, the slave merely her tool.” He held his brother’s eye, “And call me fool if you will, but you saw the way they looked at each other, and how the Princess jumped to protect her. Something is not right with those two.”

Narmer placed a hand on his shoulder. “Guard your tongue, brother. Amenophis will take offence if you speak against his wife.”

“It’s a poor king that’s offended by truth.” Smenkaure turned and gave Akil’s midriff a rather lacklustre kick.
“Have you no more of worth to tell me?” He kneeled and slowly he turned the man’s head, bringing the serpent brand towards the unmarked cheek. He allowed it to hover mere inches from the flesh. “Please …. Please no! Please!” He brought it closer. The animal screamed and convulsed in terror, searching for anything that could rescue him from the cruel metal. “They said … they said the baby died!”

Smenkaure paused, “Baby? What baby?”

Akil’s head jerked and lolled in a fit of pain or terror, blood and phlegm bubbling at his lips, “Tiye!” he wailed, “Tiye!”

At those words a man emerged from the shadows. He held a thin golden chain in hand. He gave it a little tug and a collared slave boy clad in nothing but perfume followed in the manner of a pet hound. The man held a scented linen cloth before his noise in an attempt to block out the stench that seemed to hover about the shudde
ring meat at the brothers’ feet. “What did he say?”

Smenkaure glanced at the grand vizier and shook his head. “He grows delusional
. The fires oft have such an effect before the end.” He caressed the blackened shaft of the serpent brand with genuine affection.

Papis kneeled by Akil’s side. He produced a small vial of water from somewhere under his robes and brought it to the man’s lips. Akil gulped at it eagerly, gagged and almost retched. The vizier made a few tender noises, “Sssh child, be still, be still.” He leaned forward and kissed him gently on the forehead. “I remember you, Akil. You once spared
Amun
from the fires of Heliopolis. There is no evil in you. Speak now and perhaps I can convince these brutes to spare you further torment.”

The thing that had once fought for Tuthmosis the Great looked into the grand vizier’s eyes, pleading, begging
for some release from the pain. “I … I …” his eyes rolled back in his head.

Papis shook him.
“Speak!” Akil’s head flopped to the side and the high priest of
Amun
graced Smenkaure with an irritated glance. The man’s methods needed refinement. He was about to let go of the dead thing when its eyes shot open, “Yuya … he said he killed the Prince!”

“The Prince? What prince?”

“He must mean Tenamun, younger brother to the Dreamer.” Narmer said without undue surprise.

Papis nodded.
“Aye … Tenamun … of course. I always told Pharaoh as much. I had a force of Companions ready and waiting to take righteous vengeance and burn the heretics of the Sun Temple from the map for good and all. Pharaoh refused to give the order though.” Papis shrugged, “I suppose he feared it would cause untold strife between the Two Lands.”

Smenkaure glanced at the vizier strangely as Papis turned back to Akil. “What prince?” He whispered.

“He said … he killed the Prince,” Akil repeated with unseeing eyes, “The Prince of Shepherds…”

The vizier shot Smenkaure a bemused look. “You’ve broken his mind.”

Akil coughed. “Yuya … n … not Yuya … the slave … the slave … lovers … the babe … they said twins … the slave … Tiye smuggles her to Heliopolis … the slave … Shiri knows…”

His head lolled to the side again and this time, try as he might, Papis could not get his eyes to open. He rose,
“What do you think he meant by that?”

The
ghaffir
shrugged. “Nothing he hasn’t said a hundred times before. Apparently Tiye sneaked her bodyslave onto a small barge bound for Heliopolis yestermorn. Gods know how she managed it; I had half a hundred men watching for just such a thing by the docks.” He wiped bloody hands against his breastplate.” All I know is that slave killed our king, killed him on the orders of a mistress that would rather murder a Pharaoh than bed him.”

Papis wrung his hands excitedly. “No, no he said something about Lord Yuya, Lord Yuya and the slave?”

“Yuya? This has naught to do with that one.”

The vizier made a face. “You think mere women could plot the death of Pharaoh? Nay, there’s more to it than that. There was an assassin, an unseen assassin and mark me the Jealous God had a hand in it. Who now could deny
Amun
the chance of unleashing war and vengeance upon the false one?”

“I’m not concerned with the wars of priests.” Smenkaure said, “I’ll say it again, Lord Yuya has naught to do with this. Even if he has it could never be proved without putting that slave to question, and of course her Royal Highness has forbidden that.”

“A decree from Amenophis would see it done,” Papis said.

“He’ll give no such decree. He’d not risk his pretty wife crossing her legs when he enters her bed.”

Papis smiled and tossed a rolled sheath of papyrus at the Companion. Smenkaure knelt to pick it up. His eyes widened. “Amenophis … he gives permission to put the slave to question … so long as no word of it comes to Tiye.” He spun, gesturing for his brother to follow. “We make for Heliopolis at once!”

The vizier watched the pair leave in a rush of shouts and curses. He turned from the body at his feet and tugged on his chain. Obediently his pet followed behind him. Once clear of the stench he grinned, feeling rather pleased with himself. A gesture sent the boy to his knees and a second had his hands searching beneath his master’s kilt. The vizier’s smile grew broader as gently he stroked the slave’s hair and pinched his cheek until the boy’s eyes watered,
Habiru always look prettier with tears in their eyes.
“And so you see my love, Amenophis is not such ‘a poor king.’