Day of the False King Read Online Free

prince used were
flattering, Semerket still sensed an insult in them. He kept his head
lowered, staring at the black basalt tiles.
    “I am well, Highness,” he said.
    “I take it you’ve been meeting with my
brother?”
    “Yes, Highness.”
    “And how is his health today?” The prince’s
loud words seemed somehow too caring, too concerned. “Is his cough any
better? Not spitting up more blood, is he?”
    Semerket kept his voice low, answering
obliquely. “Pharaoh’s health will improve, no doubt, upon seeing your
highness again.”
    Mayatum flicked his whisk of horsehair at an
imaginary fly. “I’ve been out of the country, you know, meeting with
our allies in the East. Very secret, you know. Very hush-hush. In fact,
I’m on my way to make my report to Pharaoh now.”
    Semerket felt his tongue withering in his
head. What did the prince expect him to say? Semerket was nothing to
him, beneath his notice. “I’m…I’m sure the king will be anxious to hear
what you have to say,” he muttered.
    “Oh, ho!” Mayatum smiled. “So you’re
dismissing me, are you? You were always so direct, Semerket, so honest.
Some said to a fault, but never I.”
    The prince dismissed Semerket with a wave of
his flywhisk, turning his back on him with seeming indifference.
    Semerket left the temple quickly, almost
running to where the ferrymen congregated at the docks. Ever since the
trials, he had dreaded meeting any of Tiya’s remaining sons. It could
have gone worse, he supposed. Perhaps the prince had concluded that it
would be best to leave old hostilities behind and endure the shrifts a
new reign had imposed on them both.
    As Semerket crossed the Nile again to
Eastern Thebes, he stood at the prow of his boat. The sky above the
city was afloat with streamers that soared from a thousand
crystal-topped spires. From Amun’s Great Temple, the distant voices of
the temple chorus pricked his ears with familiar psalm.
    Every part of him was electric with
anticipation. Yes, the news he had received from Babylon was
devastating, and the secret of Pharaoh’s declining health was worse.
But the thing he had dreaded for so long had appeared to him at last.
He knew the worst, its shape and size, and its power over him was gone.
Now he could do something about it.
    He knew in his heart that Naia was not dead;
he was absolutely convinced that she waited for him just beyond the
eastern horizon. Nothing could prevent him from bringing his wife and
Rami back to Egypt. Semerket felt the warm winds on his face blowing
from the east, and in them was the scent of Babylon.
    THE CREW TOOK UP the ship’s
anchor stone at the first reddening blush of sunrise. Shakily, Semerket
thrust his head over the thatched gunwales. His stomach clenched. The
only thing he could see in any direction was the vast heaving ocean
that the sailors called the Big Green. No land. No birds. Only the
endless swells.
    Semerket pulled himself to his feet, swaying
unsteadily with the motion of the ship. He was in time to see the
sailors unlash the single huge sail, painted in bright red and yellow
squares. As it billowed outward with a sudden, lethal snap, the ship
lurched forward so quickly that Semerket, already off-balance, fell
backward onto the deck.
    “At least the ship’s moving again,” he
thought sourly.
    On the previous day, the crew had not been
allowed to ply their oars, for it was the Sabbath of Elibar’s strange
and only god. Even food was forbidden them. Not that Semerket could
eat. For almost the entire three days of the voyage, he had been so
sick he thought he was going to die. Strangely, he seemed to be the
only one aboard affected by the malady. If he survived, he vowed to
himself, he would never again sail abroad on this salt sea, no matter
how much time it might save him.
    The ship began its relentless pitching and
tossing as it skimmed across the white-topped waves, assisted by the
ten pairs of rowers. Semerket felt his guts twist again into