Egypt

13

The next day we reached Bubastis, the trading and temple capital of the eighteenth nome of Lower Egypt-famed for its markets and for its worship of Bast, the Cat Goddess-as a result of which more cats were buried there than anywhere else in the Two Lands. Its position between our great Egyptian cities to the south, and the north-eastern trade routes into Canaan, Qadesh and Byblos, and then the remote empires of Babylonia and Mittani, had made it a key trading post.

I was impatient for the feel of solid ground beneath my feet again. But Bubastis only amplified the sensations of strangeness that had begun to haunt me, and which I had been unable to brush aside. Despite the fame of the grand centre of the city, what I could see of the place was overwhelmingly awful: improvised out of mud and water and sun, and dominated by a terrible damp heat that clung at our skins. The docks smelt of decay and filth. Commodities lay piled up in great heaps of confusion and noise; thousands of indistinguishable labourers and dock-workers merged together into one seething mass of humanity, toiling and shouting in the oppressive heat. And the flies and mosquitoes! Nakht insisted we each carried heads of fresh garlic to chew continuously as a remedy against the fever sickness. But their ceaseless buzzing and aggressive attentions irritated me intensely, giving me no peace; and I was forever swatting away at them, and slapping myself like a lunatic.

I asked Nakht for permission to take a tour of the town. Assuming I wished to visit the city’s sights, he agreed, saying Bubastis had ‘many temples and monuments of interest’, and he looked forward to my account over dinner. I did not tell him I had no interest whatsoever in temples and monuments. If opium jars were being imported into Thebes via the Great River, they would almost certainly not be brought ashore to be secretly traded in Memphis, because it was the most secure, and carefully controlled, military city in Egypt. It would make more sense to trade and transfer them here, to smaller ships among whose consignments the jars could be hidden. I decided I would see what I could find. But as I was preparing to set off, Simut appeared and asked if he could join me. I tried to refuse, but he smiled, and accompanied me anyway.

Leaving the ship, we descended into the chaos of the docks. Instantly, my skin burst with perspiration. We commandeered the best transport we could find to carry us into the city: a poor chariot of crudely hewn wood, undecorated, and without any suspension, driven by a toothless and incomprehensible local man. He stared at us in wonder and joy, as if we were visiting gods come to be fleeced on earth by him. We set off towards the dock gate, our bones grinding in their sockets with every jolt, while the man screamed vile curses in his unfathomable accent at the crowds.

As soon as we passed through the great gate of the docks, a vast, pathetic crowd of supplicants and beggars, young and old, raised a well-practised wail of hope and despair, clamouring for our attention and pity. Desperate and mostly unlovely young girls and boys smiled winningly, offering themselves to us; weeping mothers held up scrawny, mewling infants; deliberately crippled children begged for charity with rehearsed smiles and tears, crying out for pity, for the Gods’ sake. They were all beaten back by the dock guards, who casually set about them with their truncheons, and we quickly moved ahead.

The city’s main street ran into the baking, shimmering distance. Through the humid air, we could see the walls of a large, square temple rising above the grander houses that surrounded it. The green tops of trees appeared above the enclosure walls-a welcome sight amid the dry dirt. But I ordered the driver to turn away in the direction of the less salubrious quarters of the city. He grinned at me, spat in surprise, and headed down a dusty, narrow street, which led to the poor districts crowding the water’s edge. Hovels packed its sides in dark piles of crumbling, unstable mud-brick several floors high, most indistinguishable from the decomposing heaps of ordure and junk that lay everywhere, playgrounds for filthy children, feral cats, wild dogs and vicious birds.

‘I thought you wanted to see the sights?’ said Simut.

‘I do. I thought we’d take the scenic route.’

He glanced at me suspiciously.

‘What are you up to, Rahotep?’ he asked.

‘Just satisfying a private curiosity,’ I replied.

Narrow alleyways ran off into dark warrens and grim tenements. Tiny dark stores sold vegetables in piles on woven mats-but these were not the beautiful fruits we were used to in Thebes. These were the cheapest leftovers, most already bruised or rotting under a cloud of flies, unfit for sale in the central markets of the great cities. And every other shop front and narrow passageway offered young, human flesh. Countless young girls displayed themselves to us, calling offers and imprecations, and, when we passed without responding, they cried after us the filthiest, most inventively abusive insults I have ever heard, mostly about the superiority of dogs over Simut and myself as potential lovers.

Simut shouted over the noise of the street, and the creaking of the cart: ‘I heard this place was called the Way of Shame. Now I know why! I suppose most of them come from small delta villages, and end up in this fly-ridden dump for the rest of their lives.’

‘Most of them have been abandoned by their families, and here they are, selling the only thing they have left…’ I replied.

In our fine linens we were an unusual sight in this ghetto; children chased after us, shouting and yelling expletives, and women’s voices, rough and caustic, called out to each other from hovel to hovel, laughing and mocking. We drove on, and I saw no sign of what I was looking for, until suddenly I glimpsed something near a tavern. I commanded the driver to stop. Instantly more young women and girls crowded around us, offering their naked breasts with exaggerated smiles of seduction, which only served to display the rotten teeth in their mouths. Many of them bore the black spots and marks of the diseases of their trade. Simut shouted at them, but the women were not afraid; they just laughed louder, pushing their bodies even more ostentatiously forward, playful but forceful.

‘We can’t stop here!’ said Simut.

‘Wait in the chariot. I won’t be long,’ I replied.

‘I think we should go back right now,’ he replied, gripping my arm.

‘Just give me a moment,’ I said, and jumped down from the chariot. Simut jumped down after me.

‘I’m coming with you. But I don’t like this…’ he said.

We entered the tavern. I looked around, but the young man with the dazed eyes and languid movement, who had caught my attention as he entered from the street, was nowhere to be seen. The proprietor, a vast man in filthy linens, couldn’t believe his luck; he shambled forward to greet us, bowing subserviently and yelling at his tiny wife to bring beer. The place was a dump. The few crude benches and stools had been broken and mended many times over, the floor was filthy with bits of food and duckshit trodden into the muck, and the clientele were a motley band of low-ranked sailors and dock-workers; a few Egyptian, but most Nubian or Syrian. Young women called from the staircase leading up to the brothel on the first floor. Simut surveyed the surroundings with utter contempt.

The proprietor kicked two mangy cats off a bench, and bade us be seated. He set out two chipped bowls of beer and a dish of bread and chickpeas. The whole place watched as expectantly as an audience at a performance as we received these offerings. The beer was thick and cloudy, and the bread and chickpeas full of grit from the crumbling grindstones.

‘This is not what we want,’ I said. ‘We are looking for other pleasures…’

He scowled sourly, but when he grasped my meaning, his jowly face lifted itself into an ugly grin. He jerked his thumb up at the ceiling.

‘Only the best for you, sir. Only the best. Go on up, please…’

‘If I wanted a woman, I wouldn’t come here…’ I muttered into his filthy ear.

His eyes narrowed. He considered us both, and then nodded, throwing his filthy cloth over his shoulder, and indicating we should follow.

‘It’s definitely time we left,’ said Simut, getting up to leave.

‘Not yet. Wait here,’ I replied.

‘Have you lost your mind?’ he hissed.

I followed the landlord down a fetid corridor, which gave on to an even filthier yard, where a few miserable ducks, tied together by their feet, huddled in the shade, and then, via a broken doorway, into a dank lane. Human ordure ran along a channel in the middle, and naked children splashed around in the mud and mess. He knocked on the lintel of a doorway opposite. The ragged cloth that served as a curtain was drawn back, and the landlord shrugged with barely disguised contempt and proposed I should enter. By the dim and dusty light filtering in through the shadows, I saw men and women lying together, in a kind of stagnant disarray. Most had their eyes closed, dreaming deeply. The place smelled of sweetness and corruption. The languid man I had noticed earlier was just settling into the bliss of his latest fix. A thin young man, all skin and bone, his weak face pitted with spots, beckoned me further inside with a gap-toothed grin, showing me jars in the shape of the poppy seed that contained the opium itself, and nodding enthusiastically.

‘Here is plenty for you, all excellent quality. Come…’

I pulled him aside so that his back was to the wall, and I was close to his face.

‘Where do you get it? Who is your supplier?’

He scowled.

‘Why do you care, as long as you can buy?’

‘That’s my business. Answer the question.’

He turned away, and I saw him reach for his little flint knife. I grabbed his arm, shook the knife from his hand, and held my dagger’s blade to his sallow cheek.

‘Call that a knife? This is a knife.’

He glanced down at the clean blade of polished bronze. Perspiration beaded his dirty brow.

‘Answer the question, and then perhaps I won’t cut your nose off.’

His eyes were mean and vicious, so I sliced into the skin of his cheek, just a little. Some of the clientele gazed at us without moving.

‘I get it from the docks!’ He winced.

‘Where in the docks?’

He was too slow answering, so I jabbed the knife deeper. A line of blood appeared and began to trickle down his scrawny chin. He would have a scar to remember me by.

‘From the ships…’

I changed the position of the blade to draw a different cut across his face. Another line of blood began to follow the first, dripping off his chin on to the floor in slow drops.

‘I don’t have all day.’

‘From a man…’

‘What is his name?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Where can I find him?’

‘You can’t. I don’t find him. He finds me.’

‘When? How? What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know! He makes a delivery via an intermediary, and he takes the payment… I never know when they’re coming-’

‘When did they last come?’

There was no answer, so I made another cruel downward cut with the knife, and more blood flowed.

‘Yesterday!’ he shouted, struggling.

Suddenly, a black storm blew up inside me. I punched him hard, and he fell backwards among his clientele, who murmured gently in their trances, and peered at the commotion. Two strangers pushed through the filthy curtain, and came at me. I had my knife poised to slash at them, but one of them kicked my feet from under me, my dagger went spinning away across the floor, and I sprawled among the muttering clientele. When I looked up, the other thug had his own blade-a long, curved scimitar-poised. He grinned toothlessly. My hand gripped the leg of a stool, and I threw it with all my strength. But the thug ducked, and the stool slammed into the wall behind him. The man whose face I had cut was leering, encouraging the two thugs to kill me. They came for me; but suddenly a jar shattered over the skull of the one with the scimitar, and he crashed to the floor; the other turned, and I saw Simut slam him hard in the face with the heel of his hand, shattering his nose. He slumped to his knees, holding his face, blood dripping down his chest. I snatched up my dagger and Simut dragged me away towards the door. The evil little guy I’d cut was cowering in a corner.

‘Leave him!’ shouted Simut.

But I gripped him tightly by the throat.

‘Tell him Rahotep is looking for him. Tell him to come and find me. If he dares! Understand?’ I said.

He nodded, terrified, unable to breathe.

And then Simut was pulling me away, into the filthy lane, and back into the crowded streets. He was furious.

‘Whatever you were doing in there, it’s got nothing to do with our mission. It’s unacceptable!’

‘It’s none of your business,’ I snapped.

‘It’s all of our business! What do you think this mission is? Some sort of opportunity for you to conduct a personal vendetta?’

I stared at him.

‘Nakht told you, didn’t he?’

‘Of course he did. Your emotional state was considered a liability to the mission. But it was Nakht who said he would take personal responsibility for your behaviour. And now you’ve let him down.’

‘Don’t tell him,’ I said.

‘I have a duty to tell him,’ he replied.

We rode on in silence, until we arrived back at the boat. I was about to jump off, but Simut grabbed my arm again.

‘Listen to me, my friend. I know how you’re feeling. Everything’s unreal except your grief and hatred. You want revenge. But this mission matters more than anything else. And remember-whatever you do, you can’t bring Khety back.’

‘Why do people keep telling me that?’ I said, shaking him off.

‘Because it’s true,’ he replied.

The wind of rage died away suddenly. I felt tired. Simut let go of my arm.

‘Every night, when I lie down to sleep, I see his face,’ I said.

‘I won’t patronize you by telling you time heals,’ he replied. ‘And I won’t say anything to Nakht. But please, my friend, take my advice. Focus on the mission. If we fail, then I fear the End of Days is upon us.’

Later that night, when I finally drifted off to sleep, I dreamt a thin cord, clotted with blood, had been stitched into my mouth and tongue, and then down my throat, into my heart, where a thick black knot held it tight. And the knot was feeding on my heart’s black blood, and growing bigger. And no matter how hard I pulled, no matter how much agony I tolerated as I pulled, I could not loosen that knot. I woke suddenly, with a brief cry, sweating, my heart racing. A feeling of insistent irritation seemed to have taken over my limbs, and I could not keep still. My fists were clenched. My jaw muscles were tight. My shoulders ached. I felt a tension in my skin, as before a sandstorm. The ship felt like a trap. I couldn’t breathe. I had to move.

A half-moon shone down on the docks and the ships. Two palace guards stood watch.

‘I need to conduct a security tour of the docks…’ I said to them.

‘No one is allowed off the ship after dark,’ said the first, firmly and without any finesse of respect or politeness.

‘And I’m telling you I’m not happy to sleep until I’ve satisfied myself there’s no threat out there in the docks.’

‘Our orders are clear-’ said the other.

‘And so are mine. The royal envoy’s safety is my responsibility, and I’ll answer only to him. Do you really want to wake him up over something as trivial as this?’

The two guards exchanged glances.

I quickly slipped past them before they could say anything more. Once on solid ground, I jogged quickly away into the shadows. On the far side of the high mud-brick walls that surrounded the docks, I could hear the late-night noises of the boisterous taverns and brothels of the town. Lamps were still burning in a few of the ships’ cabins up and down the wharves; night guards were stationed at the main-and only-entrance gate. Mosquitoes buzzed constantly in my ear. I slapped them away. Waving, and munching on my garlic, I loped silently over to the long, low storage depots, which cast strange shadows in the moonlight. Keeping within them, I moved from entry to entry-but they were all locked; the seal on each one was freshly made, bearing the marks of the owner. I hesitated, unwilling to leave traces of myself, but unable to control my curiosity.

The seal broke under my hands, I swiftly untied the cords and opened the doors. Inside all was dark and still. I could just make out mounds of materials, under protective sheets. These would be embargoed goods-gold, ivory, ebony or alabaster-which Egypt trades for the things it needs-silver, copper, cedar, lapis lazuli, unguents, horses and so on-from the northern lands. They would be awaiting recording, taxation and permissions before passing into or out of Egypt. I went quickly through the piles, but there was nothing but rough-hewn blocks of alabaster there. No sign of anything less legal.

Even if I worked all night, it would be impossible to search every warehouse. Away from the ship, the irritation in my limbs had calmed, but I felt reluctant to return at once. My mind was still buzzing, and I knew I would not sleep. So I continued down the wharf, away from the gatehouse. It was now so quiet I could hear the occasional catfish flopping in the river, and the far, brief cry of a hunted animal out on the marshes. I walked as far as the northern end of the docks, only to find my way blocked by a high wall. I could see no entrance gate, or doorway. I followed the course of the wall to the very edge of the dock, where it met the river. It then continued out on to the water, supported by wooden foundations set in the river mud. I looked around for something to stand on, so that I could see over the top of the wall. I found a large, empty storage jar, and with some effort managed to roll it into position next to the wall in relative silence. I climbed on top and found I could just reach the parapet with my fingertips. I was not as fit as I used to be, and I struggled to pull myself up, using my feet to push and scramble for support.

A pair of soldiers on watch were standing right below me. I saw a large open enclosure; here were more storehouses, all dark and shut, but in one there was an open door to what looked like offices and dormitories. A military ship was moored at the jetty. By the light of the moon, a small team of soldiers was unloading long boxes made of crude wooden planks, two men to each one. They looked like crude coffins. The soldiers carried no standards, and so I could not tell which division they belonged to. The two soldiers beneath me walked away along the dock, watching the process carefully. They seemed to be in charge. They had their backs to the moon, their faces were only shadows. When one of them turned to speak to the other, for a moment I caught a glimpse of his profile. But as he turned, I ducked down quickly, for he would have stared straight at me-and I would have been picked out clearly by the moonlight.

I walked back quickly to the ship, wondering exactly what I had seen on the far side of that wall.