I slipped back to the Residence. I knew what was about to happen. Sobeck’s lover had been caught. She would be slung in the cage in the olive grove where she had betrayed the Magnificent One. The cat would be put in with her. I crouched like a frightened boy in the dormitory even as the hideous screams began. They continued till late in the evening when the poor woman eventually died, or the executioner took pity and dealt her a killing blow. I was more frightened than I ever had been in The Cauldron. Where was Sobeck? How had Neithas been discovered? Was it Rameses who had informed on them? Horemheb? Or the spy in our midst? I recalled Sobeck regaling us with those juicy morsels of gossip about the sexual prowess, or lack of it, of the Magnificent One. If the court learned that, every one of us risked a hideous death. Is that why the Residence was deserted? Had my companions been arrested? I drank more wine than I should have done and fell asleep, only to be aroused roughly by Huy holding an oil lamp, his face riven with anxiety.
‘You’ve heard the news?’
‘And the screams,’ I replied. ‘Where is Sobeck?’
‘They were both caught returning to the palace,’ Huy replied. ‘Judged and sentenced immediately by the High Priest of the Temple of Amun-Ra.’
‘And Sobeck?’
‘In the Chains,’ — a reference to the palace prison. ‘He has been sentenced to be put to the Wood.’
‘Exposed!’ I gasped, struggling to sit up. ‘Sobeck out in the desert?’
‘The Magnificent One was furious.’
‘Do they know about us?’
Huy shook his head. ‘The others have sent me. They want you to visit Sobeck. You are his companion.’
I argued but at last agreed. Huy made to leave.
‘One other thing,’ I called. He came back. ‘If they were caught red-handed,’ I swung my legs off the bed, ‘then there must be a spy amongst us!’
Huy just stared at me and left.
I dressed in a gauffered robe, my colours and decorations clear to see. They gave me safe passage across the palace grounds. The Chain’s cellars and dungeons lay below the royal barracks. Again the guards let me through down into a stiflingly hot, sombre corridor. A man and woman, cloaked and hooded, their lined faces wet with tears, pushed by me. I guessed they were Sobeck’s parents. The masked gaolers under the command of one of the executioner’s assistants, a tattoo of the nafdet high on his right arm, did not question me but opened the door to Sobeck’s cell, a small stone room with a narrow vent high in the wall. On the far side, a slab of raised, rough stone served as bed, table and stool. The ground underfoot was mud-strewn and smelt like a midden-heap. Two lamps of cheap oil glowed beneath the garish curses drawn on the wall for the benefit of prisoners, about how the anger of Amun-Ra would consume them:
‘He will give you over to the King’s fire and the day of his wrath. His uraeus will shoot out flames at your face. Your flesh will be destroyed, your body consumed. You will become like a serpent of the Underworld on the morning of New Year’s Day, dead and rotting. No more will you be able to pursue the offerings of the dead. No one will pour out water for you. Your sons will not succeed to their inheritance. Your wives will be violated before your very eyes. On the day of slaughter you will be put to the sword. Your body will shrivel with waste for you shall be hungry and yet have no bread.’
Sobeck, dressed only in a loincloth, sat beneath this hideous scrawling. He was dirty, his face and body covered with cuts and bruises. He grinned and spread his hands.
‘Why Mahu, Baboon of the South. I would like to welcome you.’ He stared round. ‘I never thought I’d regret leaving The Cauldron.’
I could only stand and stare.
‘Silent as ever,’ he breathed. ‘What have you come for, Mahu? To see if I have talked?’ He pulled a face and shook his head. ‘Tell them not to worry, especially those two vipers Horemheb and Rameses. I was drunk.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I was stupid.’ He screwed up his eyes. ‘Neithas?’
‘She’s dead. I heard her die.’
Sobeck bent his head, shoulders shaking.
‘To be put to the Wood. Ah well.’ He lifted his head, tears in his eyes. ‘You’ve heard the poem, Mahu?
He smiled grimly. ‘But that wouldn’t affect you, would it, Mahu? You have no heart, to live and love.’
I recalled that beautiful face. ‘I might have.’
‘They wanted the statue back,’ Sobeck continued as if he wasn’t listening, ‘but I was so drunk and Neithas was so terrified she didn’t tell me so I don’t know where it is.’ He got up, walked towards me and put his hands on my shoulders. ‘I was a good companion, Mahu?’
‘You were.’
‘Look at you,’ he breathed, ‘black tight hair, a handsome face and those deepset eyes like a monkey on a branch.’ He let his hands fall away. ‘Will you help me?’
‘How can I? What influence do I have?’
‘The statue!’ Sobeck went back and lay down on his bed. ‘Find the statue, then do what you can!’
When I left the Chains and returned to the Residence, it was late afternoon. I sat in the porticoed entrance trying to recall what Sobeck and his lover would have done. Undoubtedly they were betrayed. Justice would have been fast as well as terrible. The Magnificent One would not wish to make a great show of being betrayed by a Royal Ornament.
A sycamore tree at the far side of the Residence caught my eye and I recalled Aunt Isithia’s garden, Dedi singing beneath the tree, bringing out the piece of pot-shard on which my aunt had scrawled her curse. I got to my feet and went into the olive grove. Both the cages had been removed but the reek of death remained; splashes of blood still stained the grass, rutted and marked by the carts. Where, I wondered, would I take a young woman for courting and have my pleasure?
I went deeper into the olive grove, vigilant for any soft shady grass which could be used as a couch, away from the path but not too far, not in the dead of night when the two secret lovers would not dare use an oil lamp or carry a flaring torch. A little brook ran through the grove to feed a small pool nearby. Eventually I found the place I was looking for. The grass was well-shaded from the sun by the thick branches of the olive tree. The lovers had drunk from the rivulet whilst they had left pathetic traces of their stay, small beads and a soiled linen cloth smelling of perfume. I went round the olive tree, dug at the soft, recently-turned earth and plucked out the statue.
The following morning, dressed in all my glory as I termed it, I presented myself at the gates of the Silent Pavilion. Imri allowed me through into the courtyard where servants and retainers were lounging. A chariot had been unhitched and a palanquin rested on the ground. My heart leaped. Had the Beautiful One returned?
‘My Lord is with his mother and His Excellency God’s Father, Hotep,’ Imri explained. He led me across the courtyard, around the side of the house and into a well-watered fertile paradise of a garden. The flowerbeds had been enriched with black Canaan soil in which flowers of every description blossomed to give off their fragrance. Small pools with lush reeds and water plants glittered next to shady alcoves and herb plots as well as a small lawn where a baby gazelle grazed. Behind a screen of sycamore trees stood a brilliantly coloured pavilion approached by steps, its door panels pulled aside to catch the sun. The Veiled One was sitting at a table within, his mother on his right, Hotep on his left, laughing and talking, picking at the silver dishes laid before him. Imri told me to wait and, going ahead, knelt at the foot of the steps, nose to the ground. I couldn’t catch his words. The Veiled One ignored him, staring at me, a faint smile on his face. Imri waved me forward. The Veiled One threw me a cushion on which to kneel. I caught this and made obeisance. Hotep lifted his cup so as to shield the lower part of his face. I caught the Queen staring curiously at me so again my head went down.