The bodyguard entered the king’s chamber and bowed.
Pharaoh rolled the scroll before him and raised his head. “What is it?”
“Majesty, Pharaoh’s chief concubine, the Lady Sitiah, wishes an audience. She waits outside.”
Menkhepere groaned. The last thing he wanted or needed was a visit from that harridan. He’d even forgone a rendezvous with Alia to finish his preparations — so whatever Sitiah had in mind could wait for his return from the campaign. “Tell her Pharaoh sleeps.”
The soldier bowed again, “Yes, Majesty.”
“Oh, and when you have sent her away, I want you to deliver a message to the queen’s apartments.”
While the soldier went to do his bidding, Menkhepere searched about for the square of cloth to accompany his message of farewell to Alia. When the guard returned, he still hadn’t found it.
“Ramose, have you seen the cloth?”
The guard shook his head. “Not since I returned it to you last eve, Majesty. Perhaps a servant took it while cleaning,” he offered.
Menkhepere pursed his lips, but he hadn’t the time for a full search. He would question the servants before leaving and make sure it was found. He intended to take it with him, to remind him of Alia’s love during the long separation ahead.
Meanwhile, he held up the small necklace and stared at it. Gold, trailing strands set with lapis and red semi-precious beads — it would look lovely against Alia’s pale throat, he’d decided as he searched through a cache of trinkets recently tithed by the Nubians.
When he’d wrapped the necklace in a fine piece of linen and fastened it with a golden cord, he handed the gift to the guard. “Take this to Ineni, my queen’s steward, and say these exact words: 'Tell the lady who holds my heart that I vow to return as soon as I am able.' Ask her to accept this token as my promise.”
The guard nodded and left immediately.
It took every ounce of control for Sitiah not to begin throwing things. She paced the length of her chamber and back again, livid that her future husband still refused her. How was she to free him from the clutches of that stupid girl if he wouldn’t allow her anywhere near him? Well, she thought in resignation, she would probably have to dispose of him as well after she’d rid herself of the whore and that stupid Neferure.
A sound in her outer chamber made Sitiah spin about. There, in the doorway, stood Arad holding a cup of wine, a satisfied smirk plastered across his face.
“Have you got her? Did you bring her here?”
“We had her, Sitiah, though when I came to fetch you, you were no longer here. Alas,” he added in a mocking tone, “you missed all the sport.”
“What!” she screeched. But before she could begin her tirade, Enlil entered the room; his face, hands, and tunic were bloodied, and he carried a jug of wine. A long, open cut sliced down his cheek. “I see the bitch fought you.”
“Only for a short while. After I showed her what I could do with your new flail, she crumbled quickly. I am afraid your flail did not survive.”
Sitiah arched a thin brow. “And the girl?”
“Her body is on its way out of the city. She will not trouble you further.”
He held up the jug of wine and a cup. “Here, you must join our celebration.” Pouring her a measure, he smiled sweetly and darted a glance across to Arad. His friend raised his cup as if toasting their success.
“What of Neferure and her favorite eunuch?”
Enlil’s smile was almost chilling. “The poison should be beginning to affect them now. Soon, they shall be beyond any help. To our victory,” he cried, raising the goblet to his lips.
“Our victory,” Sitiah murmured as she, too, drank.
She gulped the wine.
The two men remained silent. One moment. Then another.
The cup slipped from her fingers. Fire burned down her throat. Her eyes grew wide and frantic as she staggered, then fell to the floor, gripping at her neck in desperation. “What have you done to me?” she wailed.
Arad came forward to stand over her. She quivered as she looked up into his face.
“Your greed made you a liability, Sitiah. All traces of Pharaoh’s family must die if we are to install the new order. You do understand, don’t you?”
Sitiah made an attempt to lunge at his legs, but her body had lost all its strength. The burning coursed its way down her into her stomach, scouring all the way to her gut. She curled into a ball and began rolling about, alternately whimpering and crying out in pain.
Both men watched in fascination as the poison did its work.
When, after several minutes, Sitiah’s body finally lay inert, they picked her up, removed all her clothes, and placed her in her bed, covering her completely.
Enlil slipped out the window and made his way to the house where they were meeting with the prince and two merchants who had helped orchestrate the coming attack against the usurper; an attack that would commence several days into the long march to Megiddo.
Arad left through the outer chamber, stopping only to inform the man standing guard that Sitiah was indisposed and wished to be left alone until she called for her maids.
The great barge came to a halt at the city of Memphis in the late afternoon after a two-day trip down river. Here, Pharaoh’s 20,000 troops were mustering for their march across the desert to Sharuhen, then beyond to Taanach and Megiddo via several Kmt-held forts in the region. At each fort town, the army would provision itself for the next leg of the march.
After disembarking, Pharaoh and his generals immediately retired to the palace to plan strategy and prepare their assault on the rebellious Retennu princes.
Late in the evening, with barely a gurgle to mark its presence, a small boat slid into the reeds not far from the main wharf and disgorged four black-clad passengers, who silently crept to higher ground along a narrow fisherman’s track. Without uttering a sound, the leader pointed to the guards that flanked the outer perimeter of the palace. Ducking low, each man sped across the small open courtyard until he reached the white wall that surrounded the palace complex.
When all four men had made it across unseen, the leader motioned to each man. The leader and his second scaled the wall near where they stood, while the others headed around the corner to approach from the southern walkway.
“Through that small gate and up the steps,” the leader whispered urgently. “There should be guards just inside the corridor.”
The second man nodded and began creeping toward the gate, his long knife glinting as it caught the moonlight. Just as he was about to put his hand on the statue that marked the gateway entrance, the leader yelled, “Run, Arad!” but before Arad had a chance to react, five of Pharaoh’s elite bodyguard jumped upon him, a bronze dagger digging at his throat.
Other soldiers spewed out of the gateway, bearing torches and sickle-bladed khopesh. The soldiers dragged Arad into the circle of light, and he groaned to see his three companions already subdued. Enlil’s forehead bled from a cut that slashed across the width of his brow, and he hung limply between the two guards who held him.
“So,” Pharaoh’s voice cracked like thunder in the silence. “We meet at last, Arad, son of Hallil.”
Arad’s head whipped around, but he refused to speak. Instead, he raised his chin in defiance and drew himself up to his full height as Pharaoh came to stand before him.
Pharaoh stared at Enlil’s body a moment. “He is not dead?” he asked one of the guards who held the prince.
“He lives, Mighty Pharaoh,” the man replied with pride.
“Good. Take them and bind them. On the morrow I will question the prisoners. Maintain the vigil by the river — we must be certain we have all the assassins before the army marches.”
Pharaoh nodded his satisfaction to each of his guards before returning to his sleeping chamber.
Alone on the massive bed, with its soft goose-down mattress, he suddenly wished he had relented and brought Alia on this journey. After the tension of the long wait for the assassins to make their move, he would have relished the solace Alia’s love would have brought him in the silence of the night. Now that some of the danger had been eliminated, perhaps he’d halt here in Memphis an extra few days and send for her.
The night loomed long and sleepless. Despite being happy that Arad and Enlil were finally captured, he couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding that seemed to grow inside his chest, moment by moment. Since their departure from Thebes, he’d felt an inner restlessness that now, in the depth of the night, seemed to overwhelm him. Several times he checked with the guards to learn if more of Enlil’s assassins had made their way into the city. But each query brought a negative answer.
“Are the four rebels still secure?” he asked shortly before dawn as his inner sense of alarm became almost unbearable. The bodyguard dispatched a messenger to the guardroom to inquire.
Just after sunrise, while he was shaving alone in his room, the guard reported the approach of another of the royal barges. Scant minutes later, the guard returned to announce that Vizier Rekhmire and a woman servant awaited in the chamber beyond.
Alia had come? A sense of excitement tore through him.
“The vizier seeks an audience and says it is of the utmost importance that he speaks with you before you depart.”
“Bid him and the woman join me at breakfast.”
At Rekhmire’s entrance he stood. Disappointment flooded his chest when he noted the small dark-skinned slave who trailed behind.
Alia hadn’t come.
He tried not to show any emotion, but one look at his vizier’s ashen pallor was enough to make him quake. He all but fell into his chair and drew a deep breath in an attempt to brace himself. “What is it, Rekhmire? Why are you not guarding my royal household?”
Rekhmire threw himself to the floor. The tiny black woman followed suit.
“Great Majesty, I come as bearer of tragic news.” Rekhmire choked the words out, “I offer my life for those I could not protect. Please, allow me death.”
Menkhepere felt the blood begin to roar in his ears.
His voice, when he spoke, came as a mere whisper. “Stand, Rekhmire. Explain yourself.”
When he met Rekhmire’s eyes, he felt an icy blade slice into his heart and had to clutch the arms of his chair to prevent himself doubling over at the sudden fit of nausea that threatened to assail him.
“Majesty, I don’t know where to begin ...” Rekhmire’s face, already a colorless gray, seemed to pale further.
Pharaoh turned away, unable to meet Rekhmire’s eyes, certain the vizier’s news would rock him to his very core. He had felt it all night, indeed several nights — some horror had been brewing since he’d left Thebes.
Taking hold of himself, he drew on every measure of his training, first as priest, then as Pharaoh, to bear what his loyal vizier had come to say. He leaned back, and his voice was barely audible when at last he’d gathered himself enough to hear the worst. “Speak it, friend.”
“The morning after you departed, Neferure did not attend garden or temple as is her wont, so I went to query the guards and found the outer audience chamber empty. As this had never occurred before, I sought the queen’s private chambers. When I entered her quarters, I found her steward in the doorway gasping for breath. He didn’t recognize me at all and was overcome by great pain. He died in my arms as I tried to question him.
“I then rushed into Neferure’s bedchamber but arrived too late. Poisoned. A tainted platter of goat’s cheese had spilled to the floor alongside her bed.
“I found all her women bound and locked in a nearby chamber. Alas, two slaves were dead also. And the guards. The royal children are, praise Isis, unharmed.”
Menkhepere raised his tear-filled eyes to Rekhmire’s. He didn’t care if he showed weakness — his great wife, his closest friend for all his years as pharaoh, murdered? A chill coursed through him. “Who did this?” he asked, though deep in his soul, he already knew the answer.
“I do not know, Majesty, although I suspect the dissidents led by Prince Enlil had a hand in it. But I have not finished, Majesty, there is more.”
He saw his vizier’s throat working uneasily and another shiver rushed through him, more chilling than the first. “Say it all,” he murmured, trying not to shudder.
Rekhmire drew the black girl to her feet. “This is Nany. She worked in the household of Sitiah, the chief concubine, and was friend to Alia.”
Pharaoh glanced at the girl’s face and remembered he’d seen her several times when Alia sat at her painting. The girl’s eyes held a look of abject terror.
No.
No — it cannot be! NO — not Alia! His heart ceased to beat as a creeping numbness overcame his entire being. He gulped great breaths and prayed to Isis that he was wrong.
“You are Alia’s companion,” he stated brokenly as he attempted to swallow down the hard lump that had formed in his throat. “Speak.”
“Great Majesty, three nights since, just before dawn, I came upon two men and my friend, Alia. One man, Prince Arad, who’d hidden within my Lady Sitiah’s apartments for many weeks, sat upon the divan in one of the outer chambers.” Nany’s lower lip began to quiver even as her wide black eyes began to fill.
Rekhmire nodded for her to continue.
“The other man, Prince Enlil, who also had spent much time in my mistress’s rooms, tortured Alia with a whip—” she fell to the ground and began to sob.
Menkhepere stared down at his hands. They shook with rage and fear and emotions he couldn’t begin to name. His whole body went cold and rigid, locked in a spasm of unleashed fury. He wanted to run across to the barracks and kill the prisoners with his bare hands! But his legs were leaden — Nany had not finished her story, though he fervently wished not to hear the rest.
“Please tell me that she escaped unharmed,” he pleaded, first to the girl, then Rekhmire.
“Continue your tale, Nany,” Rekhmire commanded quietly, his face a study of hopelessness.
Nany sat up but couldn’t seem to stand; her black eyes overflowed with misery as she described, in detail, the brutality she’d witnessed. “Oh, Majesty, I tried to run for help when I realized the he was hurting Alia, but Prince Arad — he saw me. He grabbed me and hit me with his fist! When I awoke I found myself alone in the room ... all that remained was her bloodied gown, the flail, and this.” Nany crawled across to Pharaoh’s feet, and with quivering fingers, laid before him the linen swatch that he and Alia had used as their private signal.
Unable to speak, he stared down at the fragile piece of fabric until it dissolved before his unseeing eyes.
“I ran for help and the guards searched all the rooms, but no one could find her ... I do not know if she still lives ... she is my only friend.” Mewling like a kitten, Nany again slumped to the floor.
With a thrash of his heavy fist, Menkhepere smashed the small table that sat beside his chair. A copper cup clanged to the tiles, spilling its blood-red wine.
A well of blackness filled his chest, and he felt himself falling into it. The well was cold and lonely, yet he welcomed those sensations, for unless his Alia still lived, he’d know no warmth until his own death.
For long minutes he stared into the distance, seeing nothing, feeling the emptiness that would be his home. In his mind he suspected she was dead, though his heart refused to acknowledge the fact. He tucked the linen square into his golden wristlet and thrust himself from his chair.
“I go to kill them,” he informed Rekhmire as he started toward the door. “I will rip their tongues from their heads and feed them back to them! I will cut off their penises before their eyes, then gouge those out also. I will hear them screaming with agony before the next hour is done, and I will exact a torture so painful it will be tenfold that which they inflicted upon my beloved! A hundredfold!”
“Wait, Majesty! There is more.”
He halted, turned to Rekhmire, and let out a savage howl. “What more could there be? My love is tortured, most likely dead, and my great wife is murdered! What else can you say that would be worse?”
Rekhmire stepped closer to place a hand on his Pharaoh’s shoulder. “The chief concubine, Sitiah, is murdered also.”
He began to laugh; a hysterical bark that sent chills down Rekhmire’s spine. “The witch consorted with these rebels. She is lucky — she has escaped my wrath in this life. But I will have vengeance — I will deny her the next!”
He turned away, then spun back, his anger so intense it terrified him. “She is not to receive the rites, Rekhmire! Sever her head and leave it as carrion for the vultures, then toss her body into the river. She will not enjoy an afterlife! She is to receive a traitor’s end ... just as those assassins will.”
Rekhmire followed his Pharaoh out of the room toward the audience hall, where Kmt’s generals were awaiting the order to march.
Several priests stood in an anteroom, ready to adorn Pharaoh with his regalia, the twin crowns and uraeus, his golden collar, the crook, and the flail. He barely noticed their ministrations, his mind seething with the retribution he planned to exact.
Taking the high chair on the dais above his men, Pharaoh struggled to control the explosive fury that threatened his very sanity. Those assembled bowed in obeisance and waited quietly for their god to speak.
“Rekhmire.”
“Yes, Majesty?” He stepped up on the dais beside his ruler.
“Once we have addressed the assembly, return to Thebes and have the guards search out my beloved. I do not care if it takes them to the ends of the earth or the end of time. And if she is not found, I will continue the search in the afterlife and beyond. Alia is mine and, by Isis, she will be returned to me.”
He raised his voice to address the upper ranks of his army.
“Hear this, all Kmt, who live and work by Pharaoh’s decree. A reward, his weight in gold and a gilded chariot, to the man who learns the fate of Alia, Princess of Retennu, former freedwoman in the house of my queen, Meryt-re-Hatshepsut Neferure. Two thousand of the army’s number will immediately return to Thebes to begin the search.”
Waving Rekhmire forward, he bade his vizier inform the assembly of the tragic events that occurred in Thebes after their departure.
Tuning out the words that still filled him with utter disbelief, he extricated the swatch of linen from his wristlet and raised it to his nose so he could again lose himself in the scent of cherished memories. How long he sat clutching the linen, he didn’t know, but it seemed a mere moment later when Rekhmire directed the guards to bring the prisoners to kneel before him.
Minutes passed as Pharaoh studied the four animals kneeling before him — and they were animals, for men did not torture their own sisters. Again the urge to barehandedly rip out their hearts surged through him. The need for vengeance was so strong he felt almost sickened by the thoughts that ran through his own mind.
What else these barbarians had done, they were yet to learn, but that was only a matter of time. He would draw out every single confession with the measure of pain each prisoner deserved.
He could see little resemblance between Arad and his beloved Alia, except perhaps the liquid green of his eyes.
Handing the crook to one of the priests, Pharaoh stood to tower above the prisoners. His flail, the symbol of Pharaoh’s dominion over his people, he retained, wishing that just this once it was not a ceremonial implement but a real whip, which he could use to effect the first stage of his vengeance.
“Arad, son of Hallil, and Enlil of Sechem, you have been caught attempting to assassinate the person of Pharaoh, your lord and conqueror. Vizier Rekhmire informs me that you murdered Pharaoh’s great wife and also tortured the freedwoman Alia, daughter of Hallil and sister of Arad.” He watched both men closely. While Arad seemed to flinch at the charges, Enlil glanced up with a crazed smile that suggested triumph, despite the fact that he knew his own death was imminent.
“Have you nothing to say?” Rekhmire demanded as he stepped forward.
Arad closed his eyes and shuddered, no doubt imagining his fate.
Enlil grinned. “That whore betrayed her family — treason is punishable by death in my country, just as it is in Kmt.”
“Only Pharaoh or his vizier can decide or execute law.” Pharaoh flicked his hand toward the two prisoners who’d accompanied Arad and Enlil. “Bring them forward and remove their tongues and eyes.”
The assemblage stood silent and tense as the two men struggled against their captors and screamed with pain as the soldiers hooked their tongues and sliced them away. Both Arad and Enlil were spattered with blood as their rebellious comrades cried out in misery.
“Now, kill them,” Pharaoh ordered without inflection.
Pharaoh watched without seeing, rigid in his stance. The gaping void within his chest grew steadily — he would feel no pleasure with these two deaths. He hoped the pleasure would come when the princes met their fate. He hoped their agony would somehow fill the void.
Two soldiers stepped forward and cleanly decapitated the mutilated men. The still twitching bodies crumpled in front of their countrymen, gushing warm blood over their legs and feet.
Arad vomited, while Enlil, ever defiant, glared up into Pharaoh’s face.
“So, Enlil, are you ready to speak?”
In answer, Enlil spat on the floor before him.
Pharaoh turned his attention to Alia’s brother.
“Arad, son of Hallil, did you and Enlil murder Pharaoh’s great wife, chief concubine, royal guards, and two of the great wife’s women?”
The soldier gripped Arad’s hair and yanked his head back until Pharaoh could see his face. A trail of bile slid slowly down Arad’s throat and breastbone, accentuating his heart that seemed to beat out of his chest.
“All traces of Pharaoh’s rule must be eliminated,” he groaned weakly as if repeating a lesson memorized by rote. “The land of Retennu can only be strong again if Pharaoh is defeated.” His head fell forward the instant the guard let go of his hair.
Pharaoh took a step forward. “The land of Retennu will be crushed, just as you will be crushed.
“Now, tell me what you did with Alia, your sister.”
Again the soldier wrenched Arad’s head back, drawing a gasp of pain from his lips. “The woman, Alia, ceased being sister to me when she betrayed her people. Whatever Enlil did, she deserved.”
Pharaoh nodded to the guard and amid Arad’s screams, the soldier sliced out his tongue. Again he began to retch, his blood and bile mixing with his dead comrade’s blood on the ground before him.
“Enlil of Sechem, if you wish to see your family in the afterlife, you will answer this question — does Alia yet live?”
Lifting his chin, Enlil gave Pharaoh a defiant smile. “That, you will never learn from my lips. The whore is beyond you — you might have your kingdom, but that is all you will ever have.”
As a soldier stepped forward with a knife at the ready, Enlil laughed out loud. “A curse upon you and all your descendants. May you never keep those you hold dear safe! May you ever lose them and die of loneliness! I pledge on my soul, and by your gods and mine, my descendants will return to thwart yours through all eternity. They will wrest those you cherish most from your grasp, so you are ever without a mate. Not until you willingly surrender your kingdom— ”
“Cease!” Pharaoh nodded to the soldier who dragged Enlil’s head back and neatly caught his tongue with a sharp hook. Blood spurted upward, covering Enlil’s face, as he too cried out, his tongue landing between his knees.
Sightlessly, Pharaoh resumed his chair while his soldiers systematically cut each man to within an inch of their lives. His soldiers were expert, making sure their captives remained aware and could know their fate. Finally, when what remained was neutered and barely recognizable, the whimpering murderers were taken to the river where the crocodile god, Sobek-Re, had patiently awaited his prize. The soldiers cheered as the two men were tied to posts and slowly lowered, screaming, into the snapping jaws of the great beasts.
Pharaoh stood silently on a platform above the scene, nursing the anguish that he feared would be his companion for the rest of this life. The void in his chest was yet to be assuaged — he drew the swatch of fabric to his lips and closed his eyes, remembering the short burst of love that might have to last for this lifetime — perhaps forever. The coldness he felt was real, almost all-consuming — if she still lived, there’d be a flickering of warmth somewhere inside him. Hope remained, a desperate hope, and he searched within himself to catch hold of that elusive feeling, but the ice seemed to pervade almost every sinew, every cell. The only true warmth now lay in memories.
“I promise, Little Flower, one day I will find you and I will rescue you.”
No one but Rekhmire heard his whispered vow — directed to the heavens, where the gods, his brethren, held sway over the fortunes of all who lived. He would make sacrifice at all the temples, give riches to their coffers, whatever it took to gain their aid in finding his love.