"Then they do."
"Princess, you will not be the one flayed alive in the Great Hall."
"I'll tell them I thought some of my jewelry was thrown down here, accidentally, that I made you go after it. That should sound like something a princess might do."
Tsem heaved another sigh. "Unfortunately, it does," he agreed. "Hand me that thing." He passed her the lamp in trade.
The waste-water trenches were flagged over in the courtyard itself, and they entered the drain just below the level of the yard. The sink, however, had a raised wall around it, to prevent young children from falling in. After placing the poker across the width of the opening, Tsem pulled himself up onto the wall, then, with another dubious glance at the forged iron, swung himself over the lip. Hezhi watched his head disappear, then leaned over the edge of the sink, holding the lantern out to give Tsem light to see by. She noticed that he didn't much trust the rope; he was descending more by bracing himself against the walls of the sink than by lowering himself. His body more or less blocked the shaft; she couldn't see around him to his eventual destination, though she had of course looked down it in the daytime. It hadn't seemed that deep then, but now Tsem seemed to be going down and down. As if night conspired with darkness to make the depth more profound.
Finally she heard a pair of splashes, and Tsem looked up, huge white teeth gleaming orange in the lamplight. "Lower the lantern." His voice floated up.
She grimaced. She hadn't thought of that. Impatiently she pulled up the rope, tied the lantern to it, and then lowered it back down to Tsem. She glanced around anxiously, worried that someone might have noticed them by now, but she saw no one in the faint moonlight. She climbed up onto the lip of the sink. Light flickered up from below. It was a weird sight, the deep, yellow hole with Tsem's shadowed face at the bottom of it. Taking a deep breath and a hold on the rope, she let her weight drag her over the edge.
The breath turned out to be a mistake, and she gagged audibly at the stench surrounding her. The smell at the lip of the sink was bad, but somehow the effect was different when one was suspended in its maw. And soon she would be wading in the source of that fetor! Nevertheless, she let herself down, depending, unlike Tsem, entirely upon the good intentions of the rope. True to her trust, the braided hemp did not fail, and Tsem's thick hands received her, lowered her gently into the noisome muck at his feet. She stared down, appalled, at the viscous liquid that stood up to her ankles. It was barely moving. That meant that the overflow from the fountains was not feeding this part of the sewer— confirming what her map said. Despite the horrible smell, Hezhi felt a little spark of elation. It was real; the things she had worked out on paper, in the library—they were real.
"Move up the tunnel a bit, Princess, so I can pull the rope down."
She complied, taking the lamp back from Tsem and stepping out from under the sink, farther down the sewer duct itself. Behind her she heard Tsem cursing as he yanked this way and that trying to dislodge the bar braced across the opening. Meanwhile, she examined the sewer.
It was not as large as she expected. She had to stoop a bit in it, which meant that Tsem would have to go on all fours. It was plenty wide enough for either of them, however. Tsem would not get lodged in it, like a stopper in a bottle.
Behind her, Tsem's low curses were punctuated by a sharper one, as the poker finally fell and presumably hit him.
"Tsem? Are you all right?"
"Oh, I will be, Princess, as soon as I'm down on my knees in this muck."
Hezhi stifled a giggle. "Sorry, Tsem."
"You carry the lantern, Princess," he replied dolefully. She nodded and began making her way down the low passage, in the direction of the water flow.
Fortunately for Tsem, it wasn't long before they joined a larger tunnel. They passed beneath another sink, and after that the duct sloped more steeply downward, flowing into a central passage. This was vaulted, easily rising high enough for Tsem to stand upright. Hezhi had read that these larger tunnels were designed to return vast amounts of water to the river in the event of a flood. The passage seemed capable of that to her, being easily as wide as one of the halls in the palace. Better yet, the edges of the passage were raised above the channel of the sewer itself, making it possible to avoid actually being in the water. This was fortunate; she couldn't tell how deep the channel was, but she suspected that it would be over her head. A constant sound of trickling water surrounded them, fountain overflow joining the stream. Unlike the first, narrow shaft, here the water was actually flowing with some force.
"Which way now?" Tsem asked from behind her.
"Left," she replied. She had memorized as much of her map as possible to avoid having to consult it constantly.
The ledge was comfortably broad, even for Tsem. At his insistence, he went first. Hezhi began to protest, but at the limits of the lantern light she noticed something that changed her mind: a plethora of minuscule lights, the shining eyes of rats staring at the lantern. She relinquished the light to her bodyguard, and they continued on.
The larger tunnels were less noisome than their entryway. The air moved a bit more readily here, helped by the sinks and storm drains they occasionally passed beneath. Twice they heard people near these openings, conversing about this or that, and she felt a little thrill of excitement. It was like being invisible, able to see and hear others but not noticeable herself. In fact, however, she realized that they were in a great deal of danger of being detected, if anyone happened to be glancing down one of the shafts when the light of the lantern passed beneath them. But this didn't happen, and her fantasy of invisibility remained intact.
"We'll enter the Second-Dynasty sewers soon," she whispered excitedly to Tsem. "They are below these and lie atop the buried city."
"Second-Dynasty sewers," Tsem grumbled. "My heart is filled with joy."
Up ahead, water muttered angrily, cascading more loudly than the constant background gurgle of inflow through the small ducts. The crashing increased as they approached it, and soon the two stood peering down into the depths of yet another hole. This one was very large, white limestone blocks set along its rim. The stone below it was limestone, as well, but it was a different color, seemed older somehow.
"See?" Hezhi commented. "This hole was cut down to the old system. Everything below this is Second Dynasty or older."
Tsem just sighed and uncoiled the rope, keeping any further comments to himself. The cataracts fell downward perhaps fifteen feet. There was nothing to brace their trusty poker against— the hole was much too wide. Tsem cast about for something to tie the rope to. He stopped when Hezhi tapped him on the arm.
"What?" he asked. She pointed.
"Engineers have to come down here periodically to make sure nothing important has collapsed," she explained. "We don't need a rope."
A series of steel spikes were driven into the side wall of the shaft. They were almost certainly intended to be used as a ladder.
"Ah," Tsem replied. He approached the spikes, reached down, and grasped one. He pushed hard on it, gradually shifting his full weight to bear upon it. The spike remained firm.
"Seems sturdy enough," he commented, and after a slight hesitation, he began clambering down the questionable ladder. He yelped when the fifth spike down tore from the stone under his enormous weight, but maintained his hold.
"Several of them are loose now," he called back up, when he had reached the landing at the base of the wall. "The stone is more rotten the farther down you go."
"I'll be, careful," Hezhi promised. In a few moments she stood on the landing next to the half Giant.
"Well," she said, scanning what she could see in the lamplight. "Second-Dynasty sewers look remarkably like Third-Dynasty sewers."
"I have no opinion," Tsem commented, "lacking your informed judgment."