Son of the SunLij, the Pharaoh Knefer-Lijedefer- ElijahSen-Adom, the harpist - Dominic Neferura-Ulive, Lij's wife and sister - Liv Menkh, Chief Advisor - Viggo Pen-Nekeb, A eunuch; body slave to Lij - Sean Astin Seti-Hop, a physician - Ian Mckellan Nefer-Aru, Lij's mother - Cate Blanchett Merit-Aton, Liv's mother - Miranda Otto Setep-Aton another royal physician - Chris Lee Orem, a eunuch, Liv's lover - Orli Captains of the Guard, Zeser-Amon - Sean Bean and His brother, Ankh-Aton - David Wenham Imhotep, the Royal architect - Billy Menep-Atifer-Ankh-Ra - Lij's Granny - An old woman with heart. Sennacherib, King of Assyria - Karl Urban Argamus of Kishlan - Hugo Weaving Garmen - Craig Parker Iri-Natjer - Lij's cousin Pretep-Ra - Lij's cousin and Nat's wife Agor - Kishlan captain Soraya - Kishlan healer Lygia - Mistress of the Slaves Leila Khatun - Keeper of Mysteries Ahmose - Lij's chief concubine Peri - Aton - Another concubine Chief Herald Several friends, aquaintances and folks who merit mentioning, but no names, please! Part 25 - Royal Escape It was the overseer who carried Lij into the dispensary. He had found him leaning up against the wall in the outer corridor by the latrine he said, before lumbering off. Soraya, surveying the damage, was glad Lij's friends did not see him naked. From his neck to his groin he was a mass of bruised flesh. He said nothing, just looked at her, quietly, as she anointed the welts and bruises and gave him a draught for the pain. "Before the others wake and find you, do you want us to tell them of this...?" Lij raised himself on his elbow. "Say nothing, I beg you! I do not want to disturb my...people. The man is mad! If Argamus had not come to the chamber door, I would be dead by now. I will be dead tomorrow, I have no doubt of it. He likes to strangle his boys when he is...as they..." Lij could say no more, and pressed his face into the pillow. Lygia came in, took one look at the man on the bed, turned on her heel and went out again. An hour later, the dance troupe left the Kishlan palace. One of the girls, lovely but pale, was said to be very sick, so the guards gave her a wide berth. One of the other girls, a tall, willowy piece with wicked brown eyes, half carried her to the camels, where she was bestowed carefully in the covered palanquin. Nobody thought to count them out. Shortly after this, the old perfume seller and her entourage left, she said, for the oasis of El Kabir, where she was meeting a merchant in two days who would provide her with good quality supplies. *** Back at the palace Argamus had broken his fast, and with a sigh, called his vizier to his side. The man went down to the slave quarters and came back with disquieting news. "I spoke with Leila. The Egyptian slave boy is dead, Lord, " he stated baldly. "He is buried in that place Agor spoke of - Shuptu-Mittu. Sennacherib throttled him, like all the others." "Find the place - use torture if you must to gain information - and have the place sealed up. No one else will ever know Sennacherib's filthy secrets. We will keep that maniac's deeds to ourselves, and our own involvement in them. See to it now!" Argamus wanted to delegate the telling of this latest disaster, but owned that his other Egyptian guest, slightly more important in the scheme of things than the life and death of a mere slave boy, might wish to be told of the loss of his property by the king. Therefore Argamus squared his shoulders, and sent his vizier to the Lord Payankhi to request his presence before the king . Dom was conducted to a private chamber, not in the Throne Room to which he had previously been summoned. Argamus had just been informed that a host of Egyptian troops were amassed on his borders. Obviously Payankhi was more important to the Great One than people had realised. He was determined Garmen would bear the brunt of his displeasure when he returned - if he returned. Therefore he determined to appease the Egyptian lord before the host's leader descended on him with his demands. "You sent for me, lord king?" Dom bowed gracefully. He was glad to find the Kishlanite alone. That Sennacherib was not there lightened Dom's heart. He did not know how much longer he could contain himself in front of that tyrant, even to keep Lij safe. "Pray be seated, my lord", Argamus said, shuffling the scrolled documents on the table in front of him, not knowing how to say what he must, and settling on formality to ease the telling. "I am sorry to inconvenience you further, but I offer you this substitute whom you might find suitable. He is a very handsome lad, and trained in...many areas." A boy who was standing behind Argamus' chair stepped forward. He was indeed a beautiful young man, about eighteen years old, with long dark hair falling in ringlets to his waist, and large brown eyes. He smiled at Dom. It was an intimate smile. Dom failed to return it. "If you mean this boy as a substitute for Adom, I am afraid there is not any man living who could stand in his place. I must therefore, refuse your kind offer, lord king." The boy lowered his eyes, and stepped back behind the chair. Dom's hard grey gaze pierced Argamus like hot needles. There was real fire in them. Argamus coughed, nervously, and put the scroll down. His lover must be dead, and he had taken this boy for comfort. Ye gods! This is far from easy. "I am very sorry, my lord, to have to tell you that your boy is dead, but these things happen in the best regulated slave quarters. He fell, I understand, from the balcony, and broke his neck. I beg you will accept the compensation I offer you." Dom gasped and then there was no more sound. Argamus thought he had seen healthier corpses than the man who was sitting opposite him. There was another gasp, and Argamus realised the man was having trouble breathing. He watched Dom lean back in the chair and close his eyes. "My lord, are you well?" the king asked, worried by Dom's appearance. Dom's senses were leaving him.Dead? My Lij dead? No, no no no! Argamus shook Dom's shoulder. "My lord? ...Fetch my physician! Quickly!" he ordered a guard at the door. The man ran out. *** Dom was in his bed. His eyes were closed, his face pale and still. The chief physician of the court shook his head. "I cannot tell what ails him, Lords", he said to the king and Menkh, who stood by Dom's bedside. Menkh reached out and grasped Dom's hand. It was cold. "Two days and he has neither moved nor spoken," the physician told Menkh, who was looking at Dom's face with deep concern. "Please would you leave us?" he asked the king. Somehow he made the request seem like an order. They were left in peace. "Dom!" Menkh said urgently into the man's ear, once the door had been shut behind Argamus and his physician. "He is not dead, Dom, do you hear me? Not dead, I swear it. I saw him yesterday at our camp at the wells of Al Jareth." Dom's eyes opened slightly, as he slowly returned to the world of the living. He whispered through stiff, dry lips, "You would not lie to me about such a thing, my friend. He lives?" Menkh knelt by the bed and gathered the shaking Dom into his arms. "He lives!" *** Argamus insisted on accompanying Lord Payankhi and Lord Menkh back to Egypt. Although he had never met the Great One, he was sure he could persuade him to his point of view. He was little more than a boy after all. Surely it was his advisors that ran Egypt? He would tell the Great One how much he had been deceived in Sennacherib, and where his loyalty lay...with Egypt of course, where else? Knefer-Lijedefer's army could crush him like a beetle. The Pharaoh must be told the truth - well, the truth as he, Argamus, saw it. Garmen endured a comprehensive scold from his cousin in which service, committment and loyalty blew around the room like a rudderless ship. Used to his cousin's ways, he accompanied his cousin and master in the very impressive cavalcade that left Kishlan three days later, under the escort of five hundred of Egypt's finest - and tallest - Nubian warriors. A very impressive sight, indeed, yet not as impressive as the five thousand soldiers who surrounded them at Al Jareth - and far from as impressive as the small, fat woman dressed in pale grey, who swept Payankhi into a hug that would have crushed a lion, and before whom even Lord Menkh bowed. When Argamus heard her titles recited by Zeser-Amon, he nearly lost the use of his bowels, but she was not looking at him, but at Payankhi. "Come with me, my Lord. I have some news to impart to you", he heard her say, stiffly. The two of them disappeared inside a tent. "Dom!" she cried as soon as they were alone, holding him close. "Oh, Dom, I am so happy! He is safe! You and he are safe, now. He has gone on to your little house by the river with Pen-Nekeb and two of the women." "No one here has seen him; it would be folly to have let him be recognised. Folly to have allowed the Kishlan kingling to know whom he let slip through his fingers. He was dressed as one of the dancers, and Orem, too. He needed a man's strength to help him." "Two women assisting him might have caused suspicion. They might have wondered why they were taking a girl so obviously sick from her bed. He needs a few days to rest before returning to court. He has been hurt, Dom..." "Hurt?" Dom whispered, casting a strained look at the old woman . "How?" Menep's eyes darkened. "Sennacherib tried to throttle him when he had him in bed, Dom. If Argamus had not knocked the door and shouted..." "In the Assyrian's bed?" Dom repeated, slowly. "My poor Lij!" "No, you mistake, Dom. He did not... lie with him like that. I doubt if Lij would recover from it had he done so..." Dom bowed his head. "It would not matter to me how the tyrant had used him as long as he was returned to me." Menep took hold of Dom's hands. "I know that, my chick. But it would have mattered to him. We must thank the gods for preserving him for us, Dom. He could not have lived with the shame of it." Dom sipped from a goblet of wine Menep pressed into his shaking hands. "How...how did he...? What did he make him do, lady? Did he tell you?" He wanted to know, yet he did not. It would make no difference - yet it would. It was better to be prepared so that none of Dom's horror would appear in his face when Lij eventually told him - as his Lij must - what had taken place. "Yes, he did, Dom. I had a short meeting with him before he left here. Lij has always confided in me, since he was a small child. He, the Assyrian, used his mouth on him. And then, when Lij couldn't...wouldn't respond...he throttled him. He would have killed him then, if Argamus hadn't hammered on the door." Dom thought how much Lij used to love his - Dom's - mouth arousing him. He wondered if this was now lost to them forever. Dom kissed the old woman, and held her close for a while. Then he did what any Egyptian Prince would do. He went to help the others entertain their royal guest. Argamus had given him the harp he had been using whilst he was held a prisoner in Kishlan, but Garmen had brought his own harp for him from Egypt. This was most precious to him as Lij had given him this harp after he had confided some things to his kingly lover one night as they talked after love, in bed. Personal things that lovers share. The harp had been given a name. It was called Osian. Dom played for the guest and his friends after dinner in the big tent. He wept tears of joy as his fingers flew over the strings. Lij would hear the song he had written for him in Kishlan. Soon he would play it just for him. *** Pretep watched intently as the physician stirred the water in which the peach kernels were soaking. "Stand well back, lady, The fumes poison the very air. Have you found a subject to test it on?" Pretep nodded. "One of my slave girls. She broke one of my favourite Bythian vases last month, and I never liked her. We will test it out on her. Here is the cloth." Setep-Aton took the piece of fine embroidered lawn and dipped it in the water, and fished it out again with a short stick. He used the stick with another to spread the cloth onto another cloth fixed to a pole suspended from the ceiling. The liquid ran from the cloth into a runnel and down the corner drain. They quickly left the tiny room for the one next door where Setep-Aton slept. "It should be dry by the morning, lady. Will you be able to come down then?" "This part of the cellars is rarely used, Setep-Aton. I shall contrive to be here early enough. Have it ready!" "Bring a basket or some vessel in which to carry it", the physician warned as the woman prepared to leave. "And I would like some other meats if you can procure some. I am tired of fowl." Pretep snorted. "I will see what I can do. Just be ready when I come. The Pharaoh and his queen must die soon, and I intend to see it goes smoothly." Setep-Aton bowed his accomplice from the rooms. She was a clever woman. She would make a strong queen. Strong, but deadly. Whether her vacuous husband would make a good king was in doubt. He was far too indolent for kingship. He stirred the mixture again. The king and his wife were under The Penalty of the Peach. Death. Sentence would be carried out swiftly. This poison could be ingested through the skin, therefore a poisoned item of clothing was a perfect medium in which to administer it. The House Of the Thothmides would have another head...and not Menkh, either. Pretep-Ra had taken care of every eventuality. She was a very rich woman, and everyone had their price. My vengeance will be complete. They will all die. Setep-Aton smiled. |