The sky above Saqqara burned white-hot, baking the sprawling necropolis like clay in the kiln of Ptah, the Creator. Stone and soil absorbed the heat, radiating it back in a dull imitation of the sun. Few things could survive in this waterless waste. Scorpions and beetles crawled through sand thick with yellowed bone, shards of pottery, and scraps of crumbling linen. Jackals slept the day away in the shade offered by the stair-stepped pyramid of Djoser. Falcons soared over the Serapeum in search of prey, riding that same bellow's-breath of air that rattled the leaves of acacias and sycamores yet provided little respite from the intolerable heat.
Through this inferno a runner came.
He was no ordinary man, this runner, but a Greek, born into a cult of personal glory and prowess that elevated him beyond the pale. Failure. Mercy. These were not words he used often, if at all, for to speak them would be to acknowledge them, to give them weight. Phanes of Halicarnassus acknowledged nothing save his own superiority.
Physically, that superiority was plain to see: a perfection of face and form that seemed somehow a blending of mortal and divine. Broad of shoulder with lean — almost feminine — hips, his powerful frame carried a layer of iron-hard muscle forged on the anvil of war. Dark eyes set deep into an angular face glared at the wasteland before him as though it were an enemy ripe for conquest.
He followed a vestigial road past crumbling pyramids, smaller than the monoliths at Giza, to the north, but impressive nonetheless. But if Phanes felt even the slightest twinge of awe at these constant reminders of Egypt's unfathomable age, he did not show it. For him, such glories of architecture, and their appreciation, were better left to the sophists.
Phanes ran with a loping stride that ate up the miles, sweat sluicing down his naked torso, soaking the scrap of cloth twisted about his loins. He darted around a plodding oxcart carrying chunks of limestone down to the stone-cutters' market in Memphis. A grizzled old man and a lad of twelve eyed him as he passed. The boy made to wave, a smile cracking his brown face, but a harsh word from his grandfather aborted the gesture. The old man wore a look of tolerant disgust. They were a proud folk, these Egyptians, Phanes could not deny that. Proud, strong, and courageous, but lacking the all-consuming thirst for freedom that separated Greek from barbarian.
Phanes crested a final ridge, the sun at his back, and beheld the panorama of the Nile Valley below. The sapphire ribbon of the river and the green of the cultivated fields stood in stark antithesis to the naked sand and rock of the desert's edge. More striking, though, was the city rising like a mirage from the Nile's bank.
Memphis. The City of Menes. Situated on a broad plain eight miles long and four miles wide, and protected from the annual Nile floods by a complex system of dikes and canals, the foundations of Egypt's capital were laid even as Phanes' ancestors crept from their caves to ponder the riddle of fire. It was a bustling metropolis before Herakles endured his twelve labors; impossibly ancient on the eve of Ilium's fall. With each successive dynasty, Memphis grew in power and size, earning the appellation Ankh-Tawy, the Life of the Two Lands. By the year of Phanes' own birth, the generations who had lived and died in Memphis could be tallied in the hundreds.
Dominating the cityscape was a sprawling complex of temples dedicated to the gods of the Memphite triad: Ptah, Osiris, and Sokar. According to ancient tradition, it was Ptah, the Egyptian Hephaestus, who created man, conjuring him by thought and word. For that gift, the gift of life, Egypt repaid the Chief Artificer by building for him an earthly palace of unrivaled splendor. The Mansion of the Spirit of Ptah was a collection of open-air courts, shaded colonnades, hypostyle halls, chapels, shrines, sacred groves, and pools. Every pharaoh since the second Rameses — great Ozymandias — felt duty-bound to glorify the Creator by adding another ornamental pylon, another obelisk, another statue, until the whole became as chaotic and jumbled as the Labyrinth of the Cretan king, Minos. North of Ptah's temple, at the end of an avenue of human-headed sphinxes, lay the enclosure of hawk-headed Sokar, protector of the necropolis; south, near the edge of the city, lay the solemn and brooding precinct of Osiris, the Lord of the Dead. Other, smaller temples radiated out from these.
By the time Phanes reached the outskirts of Memphis, the sun was a ball of molten copper on the western horizon. He slowed his pace, drawing superheated air into his lungs in gulping breaths. The broad, dusty road swarmed with traffic. Men caked in grime trudged home from the quarries. Carts and wagons rattled over the hard-packed earth, laden with produce bound for the evening market in the Square of Deshur. Donkeys brayed and struggled. Oxen stumped along, led by brown-skinned children armed with frayed reeds. All around, flies rose in thick plague-like clouds, seemingly fueled by the combined stenches of rotting fish, dung, and rancid oil.
This portion of Memphis, abutting Saqqara, was given over to the industry of death, and by Phanes' reckoning it was a thriving industry. His Greek forebears were pious folk, godfearing and mindful of tradition. They buried their dead with dignity, said a few prayers over the graves, and went on with their lives. Compared with the Egyptians, though, his ancestors were a disorganized pack of heathens. Phanes had never seen a society so enamored of death, and their fascination was reflected in the number and variety of merchants lining the street, hawking every conceivable amenity, from incense and unguents to palm wine and cedar resins. Potters sold canopic jars for the deceased's viscera; sculptors turned blue-glazed faience into small ushabti figurines; carpenters crafted coffins of palm-wood and cedar; jewelers worked gold, silver, lapis lazuli, and a whole host of semiprecious stones into amulets and fetishes; weavers made fine linen; scribes offered meticulously lettered copies of the Book of the Dead.
Phanes passed a public well alongside the road in the shadow of a stand of palm trees. The canopy of green fronds crackled in the light breeze. A Nubian slave, nearly naked in the blistering heat, worked the creaky arm of a shadouf. His efforts filled the basin one bucket at a time. Men and women clustered around the stone-lined pond, some washing off the day's dust, others filling pottery jugs. A toddler squealed as his father splashed water over him. But, as the Greek ambled by, their laughter, their chatter, ceased. Even the children stopped, staring, fearful in the sudden silence. Phanes felt the hostility in their collective gazes.
They did not hate him for his foreign blood. Indeed, two generations of Greek mercenaries had honorably served the kings of Sais, their heavy armor shaping a political landscape ravaged by years of Assyrian rule. No, they hated him because, instead of serving Pharaoh as mercenaries should, Phanes and his men strutted about like conquerors, taking what they wanted, and who. None were safe. Not the priests in their temples or the merchants in their stalls. Not their daughters or wives. Not their sons. The Greek garrison strangled Memphis with a noose of arrogance and greed, tightening it daily. Phanes sneered at their impotent rage.
Ahead, a chariot cut through the human sea like the prow of a ship. Pedestrians scurried aside; the driver plied his whip to remove any stragglers from his path. Phanes grinned. The man who worked the reins was Greek, as well, though burned dark as an Ethiop by the relentless sun. His height, combined with lean muscles and a long jaw, gave Phanes the impression of a racing hound, a thoroughbred. He wore a short Egyptian kilt of bleached linen, belted at the waist. Phanes raised a hand in greeting as the chariot drew abreast.
"A true man," the driver said, curbing the horses, "would have made that run in full panoplia."
"A true man," Phanes said, "or a Spartan?"
"They are one in the same."
"You are Spartan, Lysistratis, yet I see no sheen of sweat on your brow. Did you sprout wings and fly to the Serapeum?"
"If I did, who then would look after your affairs in Memphis while we're off puttering in the desert?" Lysistratis said. "Come. You've a guest. That fool Callisthenes has returned from Delphi."
Phanes' grin widened, a wicked gleam in his eyes. He leapt up into the chariot beside Lysistratis. "Praise the gods! That bastard's been away so long I feared he'd made off with our offering."
"Why you would trust a fat and lazy merchant of Naucratis is beyond me," Lysistratis said. "I would have gone."
"Only you would suspect good Callisthenes, jolly Callisthenes, of treachery. What was the oracle's answer?"
The Spartan shrugged. "Wouldn't say. Says her message is for you, alone."
Phanes expected as much. It wasn't superstition or piety that drove him to seek guidance from the gods, but tradition. Since hallowed antiquity, the Greeks undertook no expedition, nothing, without first consulting the proper oracles. Heroes sought divine wisdom in their dealings. Kings sought answers to thorny problems. Even the lowliest sheepherder beseeched the gods for guidance in raising worthy flocks and worthier sons. With that in mind, Phanes sent offerings to the temples of Zeus at Dodona, Gaia at Olympia, and Dionysus at Amphicleia. Thus far, the answers to his enquiries had been cryptic yet affirmative. The last, and the one he anticipated most, was the answer of the priestess of Pythian Apollo at Delphi.
Lysistratis hauled on the reins, his horses disrupting the flow of traffic along the Saqqaran Road like a stone dropped into a fast-moving stream. Egyptians scrambled aside as the Spartan's whip cracked above their heads.
Phanes openly leered at several of the women on the street, their linen skirts sheer, their bare breasts slick with sweat. "I'll not miss this slag-heap of a land, Lysistratis, but I will miss its women. Egyptian women are so … liberated."
"I've heard the women of Persia are more beautiful." Lysistratis raised his voice to be heard over the clatter of the chariot's wheels. "Think Cambyses will share his seraglio with us?"
Phanes grinned. "We give him Egypt, and I imagine he'd let us rut his sisters out of gratitude."
From the Saqqaran Road, they crossed the broad, redpaved Square of Deshur at the western entrance of the Mansion of Ptah, where the Alabaster Sphinx glowed in the setting sun. Around this recumbent image, the evening market swirled. Men and women employed by the wealthier households bustled between stalls selling produce, bread, meat, and beer, haggling over prices, and arranging delivery to their masters' kitchens. Priests of the temples stood aloof as their factors inspected lambs and sheep, seeking those of the finest quality to serve as the next morning's offering to the gods. One such priest turned his head as Phanes' chariot passed; the Greek was unsure whether the sneer curling the priest's thin lips was intended for him, or for the bleating lamb his agent held between his knees.
Phanes' eyes narrowed. "No matter what the oracle's answer may be, it's time we started culling the herd," he said, indicating the Egyptians with a nod of his head. "Use the Arcadians. Leon's men. But keep them under strict discipline, Lysistratis! I don't want a repeat of last summer's little orgy of violence. We're not the krypteia, and these aren't helots we're terrorizing."
The Spartan glanced sidelong at his commander. He had been responsible for giving Leon's men a free hand during last summer's troubles, and though he found their methods deplorable — whole families executed to the last child — they were effective. The Arcadians were experts at rooting out discontent among the populace. "Where should they start?"
"I leave it to you."
The chariot rattled over a stretch of broken pavement before plunging down the great north-south avenue, called the Way of the Truth of Ptah. Lysistratis said, "There's a gaggle of wealthy men, old bureaucrats for the most part, who have been trying to get letters through to Pharaoh. Petenemheb showed them to me. Mostly, they complain at great length about the `arrogance of the Hellenes', and beg Pharaoh's intercession. I suspect they would organize any resistance the Egyptians might mount against us."
"Who leads them?"
"Most of the letters came from a man called Idu, son of Menkaura. A merchant, of all things," Lysistratis said, with a moue of distaste. His Spartan heritage gave him a healthy disdain for those who made their lives off the needs of others. "A dealer of wine."
Phanes grunted. "Menkaura?"
"You know him?"
"There was a general from Memphis in the army of old Pharaoh Apries, during the Cyrene campaign. They called him," Phanes barely suppressed a grin, "the Desert Hawk."
"If he's the same man, then his son does not share his martial pretensions," Lysistratis said. The chariot passed beneath the twin colossi of Pharaoh flanking the gates leading into the fortress enclosure of Ineb-hedj, the White Walls. Hoplite sentries snapped to attention, their spear-butts grinding against the flagstones. Bronze flashed in the fading sunlight. Ahead, on a manmade acropolis, the citadel walls reared above the city it professed to guard.
"Use this Idu as an example," Phanes said, his face diabolical in the thickening shadow. "Menkaura, too. I want these Egyptians to bleed for me as I bled for them, Lysistratis. I want them to fear me before I pillage their peaceful little world."
Callisthenes of Naucratis paced in a tight circle, his stubby fingers twittering with a finely carved jasper scarab that lay on his breast. Lamplight gleamed on his shaven skull, and the green malachite outlining his eyes — an Egyptian trick to lessen the sun's harsh glare — gave Callisthenes a sinister cast incongruous with the colorful linen robes draping his fleshy frame.
The antechamber of the throne room at Memphis recalled the glory of an age long past, an epoch when Pharaoh's shadow stretched across the known world. Under incised and painted murals depicting the battle at Qadesh, dark bearded emissaries of the Hittite king would have felt outrage at the portrayal of their lord as coward. Dark-skinned Nubians, accounted the tallest men on earth, would have been made to feel small and inconsequential beneath the mammoth columns that supported the ceiling, their shafts like stalks of papyrus hewn from cold white limestone. Messengers from Palestine would have found the bound figures etched into the stone tiles to be a source of distress: at every step, they would grind their captive ancestors beneath their bare feet. The effect the chamber had upon foreigners who came to Memphis, whether a tribute bearer or princely ambassador, was to remind them of their place by reinforcing the splendor and majesty of the Lord of the Two Lands.
An effect wasted on the two hoplites standing nearby.
They were part of the squad tasked with holding inviolate the inner throne room. In rotating shifts they ground their spears outside the sealed gold-sheathed doors, bronze statues who would spring to murderous life should an intruder dare even to touch jamb, threshold, or lintel. Unlike their brothers walking sentry on the ramparts, the door wardens' vista never changed: cut and fitted stone, painted plaster, gilt, leaf, and inlay; a landscape of opulence that jaded their senses. Callisthenes stalked past them, lost in thought.
"Slow down, lad," said the elder of the pair, a tough shank of whalebone, his face seamed by sun, wind, and the indelible march of time. He spoke a rough patois, Ionian Greek leavened with words drawn from Egyptian and Persian. "You're making my head ache. Take a seat and rest. The general's coming as quick as he can."
Callisthenes ignored him. He stopped and stared at the life-sized statues of ancient pharaohs lining the walls, their stony faces in sharp relief: the powerful visage of Ramses the Great; hawkish Thutmoses, savage warrior-king who brought Palestine to its knees; stern Horemheb, who was general before he was pharaoh. The olden kings stared back with cold, accusing eyes.
Beneath their gaze, Callisthenes experienced a sense of loathing for his Greek heritage. How could his own people engender such revulsion in him? His Hellenic cousins possessed a fighting spirit without equal, but they cheapened it through an overweening sense of pride. Kings could buy their loyalty like a prostitute's wares, and still they called others barbarians.
Callisthenes was a child of two cultures, two philosophies, two religions; as drawn to the quiet precepts of the sage Ptahhotep as he was to the blood and thunder of Homer's epics. Among his countrymen at Naucratis, he was anathema, a traitor to his people; at Memphis, he was an interloper, a Greek masquerading as an Egyptian. To whom did he owe his allegiance? A complex question, and one that, since departing for Delphi four months ago, had never left the forefront of his mind.
Callisthenes' journey to central Greece for Phanes of Halicarnassus came at the behest of his father, a merchant and politician of Naucratis. Old Rhianus could smell a chance for profit the same way a hound smelled blood. "Egypt is rotting," he would say to Callisthenes on his infrequent trips home. "A cancer is gnawing away at Pharaoh's guts, and when he dies the country will die with him." Rhianus wanted his son in a position to benefit from Egypt's illness; never had he asked Callisthenes what he wanted. Perhaps that was a godsend, since his desires were nebulous, hazy. The only thing Callisthenes knew for certain was the world at large should let his adoptive homeland alone. Let the Egyptians go about their business; let the Nile rise and fall as it had for a thousand generations.
Red-orange light flooded the antechamber as an exterior door opened and shut again, bathing the room in the brilliant gleam of dusk before plunging it back into artificial night. The hoplite guards snapped erect. A mask of politesse slipped easily over Callisthenes' face, impenetrable, flawless, transforming him into a young man so taken by tales of valor that he would do anything to be viewed as an equal in the fraternity of war.
Phanes strode across the antechamber, the Spartan in his wake calling for one of the hoplites to fetch water and a robe for their general. Callisthenes flashed an amiable smile. He inclined his head and was preparing to launch into a litany of greeting when Phanes shattered decorum by sweeping the merchant up into a rib-splintering hug.
"Zeus Savior! You are a welcome sight, Callisthenes! Waiting for your return smacked of the punishment of Tantalus, and I've found it not to my liking! Great gods of Olympus! I am pleased to see you!" Phanes grinned as he loosed Callisthenes. The merchant staggered and righted himself with as much dignity as he could muster.
"And I you, general. Forgive my delay. We had unfavorable weather after reaching Athens. We were forced to sacrifice to Uadj-ur and the four winds before we could make good our departure by sea."
Phanes eyed him critically. "I imagined a trip to the heart of Hellas would have broken you of this Egyptian affectation. Still, Delphi seems to have agreed with you. How fared Naucratis in the Pythian Games?"
The merchant smiled. "Half the world, it seems, turned out to see my own cousin, Oeolycos, take the prize of valor in the pentathlon; the other half came to see the new temple of Apollo. A splendid structure. Your donations were well spent." Callisthenes stroked the scarab hanging around his neck. "Forgive me for being brusque, general, but I am weary. Shall we finish this?"
A servant bustled up, bearing a bronze ewer of water and a linen mantle. Phanes waved him away. The general vibrated with suppressed excitement — his eyes were glassy and bright, feverish, as if the juice of the opium poppy surged through his veins. "On to business, then."
From inside his robe, Callisthenes withdrew a tube carved from a branch of olive wood, its surface burnished from years of use. Lead sealed its ends, the metal impressed with the symbol of the oracle at Delphi. "I gave your original inquiry to the prophetai and left it in their care. When I returned after the proscribed time, I received this. I pray it provides you the insight of Apollo." Callisthenes made to leave, but a gesture from Phanes forestalled him.
"Stay," he said. The general savored the moment, as a groom on his wedding night eager to make that first taste of pleasure last. Accepting Lysistratis' knife, he used it to pare away the seal at one end of the tube, then handed it back. Phanes removed a small roll of vellum, opened it with trembling fingers, and read aloud:
"Many are the dreams of the Hellene, as grains of sand on the beach, And their passions and hatreds run deeper than the depths of Oceanus. Take heed, child of Halicarnassus! Take heed, for long have you toiled In sand and sea for a master cold as stone. Yet despair not, for guile, craft, And bronze are the tools by which thrones are toppled. "
Phanes looked at Lysistratis and grinned.
"Oracles," Lysistratis said, shaking his head. "Can they never answer plainly? What does it mean?"
"It means the gods favor us in this. `Despair not', it says, `for guile, craft, and bronze are the tools by which thrones are toppled'." Phanes handed the vellum to the Spartan, who only laughed.
"If you say so, then it must be. I think wine is in order, a libation to Apollo."
"Do not celebrate our victory just yet," Phanes said, his brows furrowed. "We'll proceed as planned. Instruct the polemarchs to be ready to deploy in Memphis by week's end. As of now I want campaign discipline. No carousing, no fraternizing. I want the men ready to pull out in an hour's notice."
"I'll see to it personally." Lysistratis bowed and took his leave.
"What of me?" Callisthenes said. "I've been away for months; there's no telling what damage that half-wit Akhmin has wrought in my absence. Am I to be privy to your plans now, or will you discharge me like a servant who has reached the end of his usefulness?"
"You wound me, Callisthenes," Phanes said. "I promised Rhianus you would be kept safe and well-cared for. War is coming; it is as certain as the rising of the sun at dawn. Unlike the Egyptians, we have the luxury of deciding what stance to take — to rise or fall, to side with the victors or be counted among the slain. We're going to give Cambyses what he wants, and in return he'll give us what we want."
The warm blood flowing through Callisthenes' veins turned sluggish, a glacial brine. Despite this, the merchant's face remained neutral. "If war is, as you say, a virtual certainty, then only a fool would want to be on the losing side. How can you be so sure Cambyses and his Persians will conquer Egypt? The Assyrians tried, to the ruin of their empire."
Phanes smiled, a gesture lacking compassion or humor. "The Assyrians didn't have a phalanx of Greeks at their disposal. When the time comes, we will strike right here, in Egypt's heart. We'll raze Memphis, then fade away into the Western Desert to raid the oases there. We will hand Cambyses the jewel of his empire. You are welcome to come along, of course."
Callisthenes, his fingers stroking the scarab at his throat, resumed pacing. "Not every Greek is receiving this courtesy, are they?"
"No. Only an elite few."
"Why me?"
"Because," Phanes said, his tone matter-of-fact, "you understand these Egyptians. You know what they fear, what moves them. You're a master at gathering social intelligence — at dissecting their circles and cliques and defining who moves in and out of them. It is information Cambyses will need. Beyond that, you have wisdom, Callisthenes," Phanes gripped the merchant's shoulder, "and that is a rare gift these days. I sleep better knowing you serve with me, rather than against me. We will talk more of this later. Go, rest and see to your business." With that, Phanes turned and vanished through an interior door, servants flocking around him like a covey of sparrows.
Callisthenes watched him go, the mask of politesse sloughing away like a snake's skin. His eyes glittered dangerously in the wan light. Blood throbbed at his temples, filling his ears with the whirr of kettledrums, the clash of bronze. He glanced up at the statue of great Ramses, Ozymandias of legend, warrior, conqueror, statesman. Granite eyes flashed in imperious wrath at what his stone ears had overheard.
To whom did he owe his allegiance? "Pythian Apollo be damned! " Callisthenes hissed in Egyptian. Stopping Phanes would be a deadly game, the merchant reckoned, one pitting both sides against the middle, and his life would be forfeit should he lose. Still, he knew full well how Egypt would fare under the heel of a foreign tyrant. Egyptians should rule the Nile valley. The statues lining the antechamber's walls, the images of the pharaohs of old, appeared to nod in unison in the flickering lamplight.
Now, Callisthenes thought, gathering his robes about him, all I need is an ally
South and east of the fortress of Ineb-hedj, along the banks of the Nile, lay the district of Perunefer. A bustling naval yard in ancient times, Perunefer diminished over the years into a small and insular enclave of fishermen. Even so, signs of its former glory abounded. The canting beams once used to support the hulls of Pharaoh's warships now served as drying racks for hundreds of nets. Stone stelae, their commemorative hieroglyphs faded by time and neglect, paved the grassy sward where each day's catch was gutted and strung for drying. Middens rose at every hand, artificial hills of fish bones, scales, and entrails towering over the drab huts of the fisherfolk. A rutted dirt path wound through this festering maze. It descended through stands of palm, willow, and sycamore, following the natural slope of the shoreline until it dead-ended at a quay of age-blackened limestone. Water lapped against the hulls of skiffs tied to corroded mooring rings.
Overhead, twilight hastened into night. Stars flared to life, casting their thin light on the dark waters of the Nile. The two men who walked along the quay had no need of other illumination; their business was best concluded without it. Flakes of stone crunched underfoot as the smaller of the pair, his weight resting on a gold-shod staff, turned to his companion and hissed, "Are you positive it was him, Esna?"
The man called Esna nodded. He wore a kilt of muddy brown linen and a broad leather belt, trimmed in copper scarab and ankh amulets that clashed with each step. One long-fingered hand rested lightly on the ivory hilt of a knife. "Beyond doubt, lord," Esna said. "The Phoenician is no easy man to forget. I saw him at Sile once, perhaps three years ago. Then, this afternoon, I saw him again on the road from lunu, leading a train of camels and men. A score of them, foreigners all. I hurried back as quick as discretion allowed."
Music filtered through the trees, from Perunefer, the sound of flute, sistrum, and lyre punctuated by crude laughter and snatches of song. Esna glanced up toward the tree line, aware of how exposed they were here on the quay. His companion, though, was oblivious, his brows knitted in a look of brooding consternation.
Ujahorresnet, First Servant of Neith in Memphis, tapped the butt of his staff on the stones, a metronomic rhythm that kept time with his thoughts. The priest was small for an Egyptian, thin to the point of emaciation, with shoulders unbowed despite the sixty-four years that weighed upon them. His skull was shaven and his blunt features concealed a mind sharper than the claws of Amemait, the Devourer. "What business has he here?"
"Of that I have no knowledge, lord," Esna said.
"He has few allies in Memphis, and none among the Greeks. I want to know his movements, Esna. Have your people locate him, keep him in sight at all times. Also, set a man to watch the house of the Judaean, ben lesu. He has served as the Phoenician's informant in the past."
"Your will shall be done, lord." Esna bowed deeply and withdrew.
Ujahorresnet remained still. He stared into the rippling waters of the Nile, lost in thought. The Phoenician. He had spent the last twenty years watching him from afar, chronicling the highs and lows of his career, cataloguing his countless sins against the lady Ma'at, until he knew the man better than he knew himself. The Phoenician was, above all things, a creature of habit. Rarely did he leave the windswept deserts of eastern Egypt; rarer still did he travel to the populous heartland of the Nile valley. What prompted this visit? The priest did not chide himself for not placing a man inside Sile, among the Medjay. To do so would have meant relying on a foreigner. A foreigner! The thought was like bitter oil on the priest's tongue. Never again!
Ghosts from the past shimmered and danced in the water. He could yet recall every detail of her face — the flaring of her thin nostrils, the cosmetics lining her eyes, how her lips curled into an angry pout. The day had been one of unaccustomed clarity, with only a light haze obscuring the view from the roof of his villa. Pharaoh's palace glittered in the distance.
"I am your father, Neferu! You will do as I command! " The fury in his voice sent his servants running, scattering them like a flock of birds. But not Neferu. Not dear Neferu. In a gesture so reminiscent of her mother, she had drawn herself up, straight and tall, her eyes flashing in the afternoon shadows.
"I'm not one of your slaves!" she said. "I'll choose the man I am to marry "
The family of Ujahorresnet was of pure blood, untainted, their lineage unbroken back to the time of Amenhotep the Golden. As a daughter of princes, Neferu's future had lain in the inner chambers of Pharaoh's palace, as wife to his heir, mother to the sons of his son. Instead, without thought or word, she threw it all away so she could go off and serve as whore to the son of a foreign merchant. Ujahorresnet tasted gall.
Though he served as high priest of Neith in Memphis, Ujahorresnet made lavish sacrifices to the shrine of the lady Sekhmet, goddess of vengeance. Once invoked, Amon himself could not sway the Mistress of Plagues from her destructive task. He'd given the goddess blood; would she give him satisfaction?
"How?" Ujahorresnet said, staring at the water. "How do I stop a man whose name has become a byword for violence?"
For an instant the Nile turned like glass and Ujahorresnet saw the heavens reflected there, one cluster of stars brighter than the others: the constellation of Sah, the Fleet-footed, the Long-strider, called Orion by the Greeks.
Ujahorresnet sighed and closed his eyes. The Greeks. His answer had been there all along, written in the stars. He would need the foreigners.
"You teasing little whore." Phanes laughed, slapping the young woman's bare buttocks. The motion caused warm water to slosh over the rim of his bath. Her body, perched precariously on the tub's edge, writhed in pleasure as she continued exploring herself with her fingers.
"Come here, Sadeh," Phanes said, reaching for her.
The woman, Sadeh, a sloe-eyed Egyptian beauty barely half the Greek's age, slithered close to him and pressed her naked breasts against his chest. Her nimble fingers kneaded the hard ridges of muscle rippling down his abdomen as she lowered herself onto his erection. She arched her back, grinding her pelvis against him in the first of many orgasms. Phanes grinned.
The bathing chamber was spacious, lit by several oil lamps whose light the floating clouds of steam diffused and scattered. Paintings from myth and legend adorned the walls. Dionysus, Priapus, Aphrodite, and the Naiads all frolicked through an Elysian paradise in pursuit of the same pleasure Sadeh received. Her damp hair hung like a veil about her face; Phanes reached up and caught a handful of it, thrusting mercilessly into her as she ground down upon him. He made not a sound as she shivered and moaned.
Phanes glanced up as Lysistratis ambled into the bath. Sweaty, covered in dust, the Spartan looked as though he had just finished a footrace. He made a curt gesture, indicating the woman should leave. Sadeh, pouting and still unfulfilled, made to disengage herself from Phanes, but the Greek took her by the hips and forced her back into position. Sadeh gasped, her eyes glazing.
"Your lechery knows no bounds," Lysistratis said, grinning. "Does she speak Greek?"
"No. You look troubled. Is there news?"
"Only a worrisome rumor," Lysistratis said, "about the Medjay. I'm told Bedouin came down out of Sinai and razed the village of Habit. In itself, that is nothing extraordinary, but these Bedouin pushed on instead of returning to their moun tain fastness. A company of Medjay tracked them through the waste to the Nile's banks and slaughtered them in the ruins of Leontopolis. I've sent a charioteer to survey the site, though in my bones I know what he'll find." The Spartan stripped off his tunic and eased himself into the far end of the tub.
"And what will he find?"
"A dead Persian. Arsamenes should have set out from Babylon a fortnight ago, which explains why the Bedouin pressed on to the Nile. They were escorting him to Memphis. I knew you were teasing the Fates by using Bedouin in the first place," Lysistratis said, shaking his head. "The Medjay are too canny not to notice such a large force crossing the border."
"What's done is done," Phanes replied, trapping Sadeh's hardened nipples between his thumb and forefinger. He twisted them gently, sending her into spasms of pleasure. "The hand of Apollo has blessed us."
"The blessing of Apollo's not proof against failure," Lysistratis said. "Barca himself leads these Medjay and he's not a man to be trifled with. He stands high in Pharaoh's counsel. That alone makes him a dangerous opponent."
Phanes said nothing for a while, his tongue engaged in a duel with Sadeh's. Though Memphis had countless prostitutes and courtesans — women of Syria, Greece, Libya, and Nubia — Phanes limited his sexual encounters to young Egyptian women of the upper class, chosen as much for their looks as their parentage. Under Phanes, Sadeh would learn to embrace her primal side, her innate lasciviousness. He would use her, treat her no better than a common whore, then cast her aside like so many who had come before her. The thought sent a ripple of pleasure through his loins.
He broke their kiss, leaving Sadeh breathless. "Barca! Phoenicians should keep to the sea, where they belong! Meddlesome bastard!"
"Bar-ka," Sadeh panted in Egyptian, recognizing the name. "He is a goblin the matrons of … of Sais use to frighten s-small …" Her voice faltered as she shook through the throes of yet another orgasm.
"Mind your business, girl," Lysistratis said, "lest we put your mouth to better use." Then, to Phanes, "Look, Barca is notorious for being a thorn in the side of Pharaoh's enemies. He has two choices: he can go to Sais and warn Amasis, or he can come to Memphis and attempt to interfere. Granted, he's one man, but — "
"If he comes here, Lysistratis, I want him dead. Before he can cause problems," said Phanes. "Double the guards on the eastern shore and send out additional patrols."
"I'll see to it tomorrow." Lysistratis floated up behind Sadeh, cupping her breasts as he kissed her. She stretched her hands above her head, her nails digging into the Spartan's neck. Her moans redoubled.
"Ah," Phanes said, his hands spreading Sadeh's buttocks to allow the Spartan to enter her, "if only the rest of Egypt could be plundered as easily as you, my dear."