Dream Boat

Chapter Twenty-four

Whether you liked to call this public holiday by its Mentu-name of Lotus or simply preferred the idea of it being a good, old-fashioned Saturday, there was no disputing the jollity of the occasion. After the sacrifice and the ensuing penances, the band struck up again and off the cult members twirled, in their wigs and kilts and diamond-patterned shifts, dancing and clapping and singing at the tops of their voices like… well, like proper Pyramidiots!

But they were happy. For all his faults, Mentu made these people happy, by giving them, Claudia supposed, exactly what they wanted. A refuge from real life, with prayers and work to control and discipline their minds, interspersed with festivals like today when they could let off steam. Supply and demand, it kept the world turning; Claudia had no real objection to that.

'I simply don't wish to be part of it!' she told a small toddler, picking her up and swirling her round so her legs fanned high in the air.

The toddler chortled and gargled and made giggly noises and Claudia's arms were aching badly by the time she set the girl down, but as she turned away, tears of disappointment welled up in the huge, doe-like eyes, forcing her to pull off the tot's nose at least seventeen times before hunger pangs took over from fun and little fat legs waddled off to scavenge the last of the bull meat from the sacrificial platters. Watching her, Claudia felt a pang for this beautiful, happy creature for whom outsiders would always be enemies, who would never experience the cut and thrust of bartering in a street market redolent with spices and liniments and vellum, never even see cloth bales fluttering in every colour of the rainbow, much less encase herself in floaty tunics or diaphanous, feminine wraps. Sweet Juno, those little fat feet would never learn to walk in soft, tooled-leather slippers, no perfumer would mix a personal scent for the grown woman to wear. She would not smell the sea, not even a river, or gasp at the wonder of a flotilla under full sail, canvas bellied out in the wind. She would never see olive groves tumbling over the hillsides, or the breathtaking spectacle of an army marching off to war. For that little girl, the excitement of two Titan gladiators battling it out in the arena would remain a mystery, as would the thrill of a chariot race. In their place, she was doomed to a life of servitude, in a valley from which there could be no escape.

Claudia watched the grease dribble down the child's chubby little chin, and felt a tear trickle down her own cheek.

With a sideways peep she noticed Shabak leading Junius towards his hut for treatment and knew enough about her bodyguard to know he'd raise the subject of Berenice, the baby and the hemlock, man to man, as it were, over the dressings. She doubted he'd get far with his interrogation. Shabak was not the rugged boys-together type!

Over on the temple platform, Mentu and his nine cohorts clapped and swayed, the crocodile dancing hand in hand with the vulture and the cat, the ibis garlanded with flowers to mark his special day. She looked at them. Glanced at the Pharaoh's domestic wing. Glanced back.

And felt a spark of mischief kindle in her breast.

The wing was deserted as Claudia slipped through the door and, in the silence, heard herself gasp. Good grief! Dazzling mosaics spread themselves across the floor and stretched away to infinity. Lurid paintings covered the walls, hunting scenes, battles, gods versus giants, all the way up to the gilt, stucco ceiling. The first room she entered was Mentu's, and it was clear the simple life was not for him. A bed of pure bronze lay smothered under piles of swansdown cushions and sheets of iridescent damask. In the centre of the mound, sprawled flat on its side, a jet-black tomcat encased in rolls of fat lifted half an eyelid.

'Sssh!' Claudia placed her fingers to her lips.

The eyelid closed. Not even a stiff white whisker twitched as the intruder poked around inside chests of maple wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl and inspected gold statuettes, ivories, hinged jewellery boxes filled with rings and amulets and cloak pins. If he wore one pin for every tunic with a different amulet and, say, three different rings each day, Claudia calculated that it would take several months to wade through this lot.

The cat was snoring as she slipped into the adjacent room. In here, a sunken bath was surrounded by white marble statues whose lifeless toes pirouetted on glazed floor tiles lit by a score of alabaster lamps. The finest linen towels stood stacked against a chest containing oils and unguents, strigils, scissors, clippers. Water lilies floated in the water, which was warm.

She moved on to what had served the previous owner as a lofty, vaulted atrium and where, in pride of place, a throne of pure gold in the shape of a couchant lion stood beneath a tasselled awning which had been suspended to fan the Pharaoh as he rested. Fragrant resins pumped out their expensive aromas from braziers mounted high on the walls, and ribbons, ivies and garlands of bright scented flowers wound their way round pillars of the finest Parian marble to the red-painted capitals.

So many colours, so many scents, each and every one vying for attention. The golden stucco ceiling was adorned with flying beasts. A drunken Bacchus was surrounded by leering satyrs, all pawing the same weary nymph. Leopards were disembowelling a stag. So much colour, so much heat, so much movement. So much coming at you at once and none of it pleasant. Claudia's instinct was to step back. To retreat. To escape.

Then she remembered the delighted squeals of a little girl spinning through the air, and instead of turning round, her long legs marched her purposefully forward down the wing. Quite what sabotage Claudia planned to carry out, she wasn't sure, only that Mentu must be stopped. It was sickening enough what he was turning decent people into, and irrelevant that his victims queued up willingly in droves.

Mentu had no right to deny that child her proper destiny.

Other rooms led off from the central corridor, equally opulent, equally lavish in their decoration. In a line, five scented chambers each comprising four beds divided by shimmering drapes and compensating with onyx, tortoiseshell and silver what they lacked in privacy. These, then, were the chambers where Mentu's twenty wives slept and, across the hall, their recreation room. More pillows. More diaphanous drapes. A lyre propped against a chair leg. A tapestry loom. Goblets of gold, salvers of bronze piled with apricots, peaches and plums. Claudia ran her finger over the polished maple-wood couches upholstered in scarlet and green before closing the door on this room where intimate, cloying secrets swapped in hushed whispers still drifted in the sultry air.

An office. Full of scrolls and counters, money boxes, chests and desks, the smell of ink and parchment stamping their own scent above the aromatic resins and wild-flower garlands. Hmm. Nothing here to vandalise; trashing records wouldn't mean a thing. The damage had to be something personal which would strike deep into Mentu's heart, as well as spike his guns.

She moved on. Smaller chambers, elegant and expensive. A woman's room, decorated with cat paintings, cat statuettes, even (yuk!) a cat mummy. Bast's room, obviously, and Thoth's was next door — a stuffed ibis in the corner proved it. Watery scenes around the walls of the room opposite betrayed the bearer of the crocodile mask and — Ah. This is interesting.

Claudia listened. Only a lazy bee, buzzing round the garlands, disturbed the hush. She slipped into the room. Talk about repression! Whoever slept here was so withdrawn, you could mistake him for a tortoise. She lifted the lid of the clothes chest. As expected, creases you could cut yourself on, sandals scrubbed so clean they might be new. Nothing out of place. A tidy mind to reflect an ordered personality? Or the room of a martinet who never let himself go? The name, Neco, inscribed on the cover of a wax tablet told her nothing, except this was the room of the commune's Chief Scribe, responsible for overseeing the members' correspondence and 'Uh. Uh. Uh-uh-uh.'

Amid the graveyard silence, the grunting put Claudia on instant alert. She froze, straining in the stillness of the hall.

'Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh.'

Sweet Janus! Someone's in trouble! Her thoughts flew to the boy, Sorrel, who'd been caught by the guards last night trying to escape. They were keeping him here, then, a prisoner. She tiptoed down the corridor, careful lest the boy was guarded. She was no match for a scimitar… Four doors down she stopped. The grunts came from here.

'Uh. Uh. Uh.'

Now she listened carefully, there seemed to be a second sound. A mewing…

Quietly, Claudia eased open the door.

Whoops!

Not the boy from last night. Not a guard. Not, in fact, anyone in trouble at all. And the naked man pumping away at the girl who knelt face down on his crumpled couch with her skirt up around her waist probably wouldn't thank Claudia for rescuing him, either.

Beating a silent retreat, she identified the man as Min. Apart from the distinctive curly-toed sandals, his room was larger, more spacious, the decor more elaborate than the others she'd seen, except one. Mentu's. Whose couch was buried under a mountain of iridescent pillows, and where the gold was only marginally more dazzling.

Min and Mentu, the Egyptian siblings behind this elaborate scam.

Min and Mentu, lovers of fine arts.

Strange how their footwear was really all she knew about the brothers: one wore built-up shoes to disguise his lack of height; the other was in such a hurry to consummate his lust that he hadn't bothered to untie the sandal straps which were wound halfway up his calves.

The majestically titled Grand Vizier, Second-in-Command, Min would be responsible for overseeing the commune's finances, for booking in the contributions to the Solar Fund and salting them away. How did he feel, taking orders from his brother — occasionally, as Mercy pointed, being overruled? Min's unprepossessing back view had given her few clues about his personality, only his appearance. He was older than she'd imagined — early sixties — with what was left of his hair wiry and grey. Min, like his brother, though, was short and he was also stocky with it, plus A scraping sound from his room sent her ducking behind a gilded statue. For six or seven heartbeats nothing happened. Then the door opened and the girl came scurrying out, tears streaking her cheeks, her face crumpled in anguish.

A battering ram hammered into Claudia's heart.

Rape.

'I could have stopped it,' she whispered. 'Dear sweet Jupiter, I could have helped that poor girl.'

She replayed the scene, and saw it from its genuine angle. Min: his sandals still tied. The girl: skirt round her waist. No foreplay, no lust, no mutual passion.

What Min wanted, Min took.

Claudia's weight could not support her, she slid to the floor, her heart crashing wildly in her chest.

I could have prevented that attack.

Could you? a little voice asked. The violation was already under way, the bastard had nearly finished. All you'd have done was shout and scream and raise the roof, and who the hell would take your word over his?

Huddled in the corner, Claudia's teeth began to chatter. Who indeed? Two silly girls would have been hauled up before the Holy Council. Raped by Mentu's Grand Vizier? Slander! Defamation! Spiteful, vicious smears! One branded jealous because she hadn't been the chosen lover, the other branded bitter because she'd been cast over. No one would listen. No one would believe.

Croesus! Was that what had happened to the six missing girls? Claudia buried her head in her hands. Had Min raped them as well, forcing them, in anguish and despair, to kill themselves? It would explain Berenice's strange behaviour, certainly, because her baby had died a truly horrible death. Hemlock would have paralysed his lungs, his limbs, every tiny muscle in his tiny body, and no mother whose mind was running lucidly would choose to kill her child in such a manner when she could have smothered him painlessly in his sleep. But poison him she had. To spare him the indignity and shame of growing up to believe his mother had spread malicious allegations?

Assuming, though, the six girls had committed suicide, why had no one found their bodies? Surely one of them would have wanted to make a statement with her death, perhaps drowning herself in the ceremonial pool or hanging herself from the gateway? Or was this yet another angle to Min and Mentu's cover up?

'What are you doing here?' The voice was openly antagonistic and carried a slight whistle. 'This wing's out of bounds.'

The curly-toed open sandals were familiar. But not the skinny legs which they encased.

Claudia said nothing. Still shaking from shock, she simply couldn't. Dammit, she hadn't heard him sneak up! Frantically, she reassembled her composure as a bony hand gripped her arm and hauled her to her feet. The light which flickered in his eyes told her that he enjoyed feeling her wince.

'What's going on, Neco?'

Min, spruce in white clinging shirt and pleated kilt, came striding out of his bedroom. His whole mien was military, his voice clipped, and Min, she realised at once, was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed without question.

'I found this bitch snooping around.' Neco's whistle was the result of two front teeth which stuck out and crossed.

Claudia blasted him with a glare that could have uncurled his sandalled toes. ''I'll have you know, you imbecile, that I contributed an olive grove in Campania and vineyards which stretch across three hills of Frascati to this organisation. I've come to see exactly where my money's going!'

There was something reptilian, repellent, about the Chief Scribe, even more than his nauseating master. Repressed, undoubtedly. A martinet, no question. But with Min, one suspected the battle lines would be drawn up from the beginning. With Neco, you would never see the blow which felled you.

'How dare you-' he began, but a podgy hand forestalled him.

'Why don't you rejoin the festivities, Neco?' There was steel in the faded blue eyes of the Grand Vizier. 'I'll deal with this.'

Cold glances flickered between Vizier and Scribe. No love lost here, then. Eventually Neco's thin lips curled in acquiescence. 'Sir.'

Claudia followed his retreating back. Hair tortured to within an inch of its life by hot curling rods. A slight stoop from years bent over a desk. Stomach muscles flabby from too much time in a chair. Everyone here looks inwards, she thought, to their own needs. Proof that self-absorption can lead to obsession.

'Never mind Neco,' harrumphed the Grand Vizier. 'Holds a senior post, y'know. Don't tolerate familiarity.'

It wasn't clear whether Min meant Neco or himself.

'Vineyards, eh?'

'In Frascati.' Claudia smiled, and wondered whether it reached as far as her eyes.

'White stuff, presumably.' His full mouth formed a ghastly, kissy pout. 'Too dry for my taste. Prefer the sweet stuff, don't yer know.' And still there was no softening in the steel. 'New girl, are you? Don't believe I've had the pleasure.'

Damn right!

'Heard about you, though.' They were still standing in the middle of the corridor, outside his own bedroom door. 'Caused a bit of stir, what?'

If he grabbed her now, say by the hair, he could drag her inside his room and no one would ever know. Those hands — those big, strong, army hands — could clamp around her throat and within a count of thirty she'd be dead.

'My puppy's missing,' she said with commendable mildness.

'So he said.'

Who? Geb? Penno? Shabak? It wasn't lost on her that someone had reported back, but then Min hadn't intended that it should be! Heatwave or not, suddenly it seemed icily cool.

Claudia swallowed.

In the eighteen hours since her arrival, she'd been unable to find Flavia anywhere, and, by heaven, how she'd searched. Another of Min's conquests? A picture swam before her. Of a chubby fifteen-year-old, sobbing into the sheets as she struggled helplessly beneath the Grand Vizier.

Sweet Janus.

Suppose the total was now seven missing girls?