Day of the False King Read Online Free Page A

painful
knots. The captain must have seen his beleaguered expression, for he
came aft and bent down to speak reassuringly to him.
    “Now, now, sir,” the captain said, “no need
for that face. Coastal waters soon and we’ll be moored in Tyre by
nightfall.”
    Semerket nodded, unable to speak, and
attempted once more to stand. This time he was successful. He looked in
the direction of the ship’s prow and saw that Elibar and his four sons
had already gathered around the bronze cooking brazier.
    Elibar saw him standing, and cheerfully
hailed him from the fore-deck. “Can you manage something to eat today,
Semerket?” he asked in Egyptian. “We’ve slaughtered a sheep to break
the fast.”
    Semerket shook his head weakly. In response,
he heard the low snickers of Elibar’s sons, who had joined them in
Egypt’s northern capital of Pi-Ramesse where they had been visiting
their aunt Ese, Pharaoh’s mother. Though the youngest of them was still
beardless, they were all strong, competent men, tall in stature and
hard in appearance. Their eyes were the bright and piercing bronze of
hawks, and their skin darkened from weeks spent herding their father’s
immense flocks of sheep. They had been quick to tell Semerket that
though their ancestors had settled in Canaan, they considered
themselves members of the Habiru tribe — or tribes (Semerket gathered
there were more than one). Their country was a new one called Israel,
or perhaps it was Judea; they conversed so rapidly in their strangely
accented Egyptian that Semerket was unsure. Whatever its name, it
seemed to be a nation where there were no kings, but rather judges,
ruling by the consent of their fierce desert god.
    Seeing him awake, the young men gathered
around Semerket to question and pester him. “Is it true you’re going to
Babylon to bring back the devil’s idol for Cousin Ramses?” asked the
youngest.
    “I’m going there to find my wife,” Semerket
said, choking back his stomach. He was shocked to learn that the lad
knew of his quest for the idol of Bel-Marduk. Ramses must have confided
the secret to Elibar.
    “Egyptian women are harlots.” This from the
eldest.
    “My wife is no harlot,” Semerket said
firmly, an edge to his voice.
    “Yet our father tells us she is not really
your wife at all,” said the tallest son. “He says she divorced you to
marry another man, a traitor who raised his hand against our dead Uncle
Ramses. Is that true?”
    Semerket’s stomach churned dangerously. “She
wanted a child,” he managed to gasp. “I couldn’t give her one. She
didn’t know he was a traitor when she married him.”
    “Is that why you Egyptians allow your women
the freedom to bed whomever they choose? Must they search everywhere,
then, for men who can give them sons?”
    “That isn’t why we allow freedom to women —”
    “Look what happened to Uncle Ramses — killed
by his own wives. How shameful is that? In our land, you would never
hear of such disgrace. Women should keep to their homes, raising their
children and spinning the good wool.”
    Semerket truly did not feel up to such
debate, but attempted to answer the lad reasonably. “Men and women in
Egypt take their example from the marriage of Isis and Osiris,” he
explained. “Osiris could not be King of the Dead without the help of
his wife.”
    At this, Elibar’s sons burst into
contemptuous laughter. “But they are false gods,” said the third
oldest. “They don’t exist! How can you even mention them to us?”
    This comment provoked the young men to lapse
into their native tongue, all shouting together and gesticulating
violently, turning their backs on Semerket. He took the opportunity to
slip away unnoticed and join Elibar at the ship’s prow.
    The ship rolled suddenly, and Semerket was
surprised to find he suffered no accompanying urge to vomit. In fact,
the mutton stew in the swaying cooking pot smelled almost tempting.
Perhaps he had at last obtained his — what did the