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Bird in a Snare Page 3
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Eventually, Nub-nefer sent the children to bed, and she prepared to accompany the servants who carried Baket-iset’s couch to her chamber. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said to Hani and his guest as she departed. “A mother’s duty calls. I leave you to your discussion. Lord Abdi-ashirta, we’re honored to have you as our guest. Please consider the servants your own, if you have any needs.”
He bowed a little from his seat. “The pleasure is all mine, my dear lady. Thank you for everything.”
The two men were silent for a moment. The moringa-oil lamps flickered in the night air from the porch. It had grown cool, and the hair on Hani’s forearms rose in gooseflesh.
“That was a nice touch, Hani—the hunting party,” Abdi-ashirta said finally, turning to his host. “I hope I can welcome you to A’amu one of these days. We have a marsh, too. A different set of birds, though. You’ll find them interesting, I don’t doubt.”
“That would be marvelous, my lord.” Hani tipped his head, his pleasure unfeigned. All at once, he spotted Qenyt, his pet heron, stalking with ungainly strides across the porch, approaching the diners. No doubt she’d been awakened by the voices and lights. Hani pointed. “Look. We’ve confused her. She thinks it must be day and can’t figure out why there’s no sun.”
Abdi-ashirta turned toward the tall bird, who weighed the men in return with her pale-gold eye and hesitated as if unsure whether to enter the room or continue lurking out of doors. The hapir chuckled. “How extraordinary. Is it tame?”
“Only partly. We’ve raised her from the egg, but she still won’t approach unless she thinks there’s something in it for her.” Hani held out a piece of bread, and Qenyt extended her neck uncertainly. But the heron didn’t come any closer and at last drifted, with her angular dance, back off into the dark garden.
“Ah, yes,” Abdi-ashirta said with a comprehending smile. “Every creature under the sun is in it for his own benefit, isn’t he? Yes, indeed. Self-interest balanced only by suspicion.” He watched the departing heron in silence, and Hani watched him. The hapir’s lips curled amiably upward in the nest of his gray beard.
⸎
The next morning, Hani left his guest with the vizier’s secretary. By now, Abdi-ashirta is no doubt in Aper-el’s presence. Hani wondered whether they would speak Amurrite or Egyptian together, because the vizier of the Lower Kingdom was in fact a prince from somewhere in Djahy whose family had lived in Kemet for a generation or two and had proved useful to the living Haru. Aper-el himself had recently risen to the summit of Neb-ma’at-ra’s Hall of Royal Correspondence. Normally, he would have been in the northern capital, Men-nefer, but since the first royal jubilee, the court had been almost permanently in residence in the south, so he was just as often to be found at Waset. That had to gall the vizier of the Upper Kingdom.
Hani stood for a moment in the lofty, shadowed reception hall of the royal offices. He, too, was technically headquartered in Men-nefer, but his ancestral home was here in Waset, where he and Nub-nefer had grown up. She came from a family of priests of Amen-Ra—Third Prophets of the God, for the most part—who were prestigious but just lowly enough to hold hereditary office and not be blown back and forth on the winds of political appointment like the higher priests.
“Hani, my son!” came a familiar voice from the doorway. Hani turned, already brightening. It was his father, Mery-ra. The old man entered, a squat silhouette with a rocking gait, and approached his son with open arms. “What a coincidence!”
As he embraced his father, Hani laughed knowingly. “Stop playing innocent. Nub-nefer told you where I’d gone, didn’t she?”
“She did, my son. I cannot lie. I wanted to ask you how your visit with the fox of A’amu went.”
The two men drew to the side, where they could speak without attracting too much attention. It was early, and the visitors were still sparse. The men’s voices tended to echo through the vast shadowy empty spaces between the columns and above the plastered floors, and Hani was habituated to discretion.
“I’m sorry you weren’t available to dine with us last night, my father. I’d have liked to have had your opinion of our guest.”
Mery-ra, who lived with Hani’s family, had—as usual—spent the evening in the company of a noble widow. Their respective children observed the affair with amusement. Hani couldn’t help but notice how his father reeked of perfume even now. The old man was a semiretired military scribe, a stocky foursquare man who was still hale—and as sharp as ever, for all his sixty years—and his son valued his insight.
“I didn’t want to impinge on your official duties...” Mery-ra began modestly.
“The children all ate with us. But that’s all right, Father. You had important things to do, too,” Hani teased.
Mery-ra blushed a bit above the jowls. “So what did you think?” His bright little eyes sparkled with curiosity. “What kind of man is Abdi-ashirta?”
“Intelligent. Charming. Doesn’t miss much and doesn’t give away much. A fox, as you’ve so rightly named him.”
“Do you think he’s honest?”
“He’s honest when he says he wants our favor. Are all his actions really on our behalf? I doubt it.” Hani remembered the Amurrite’s remarks about the heron. That had been an honest communication.
“Did you like him? Did you feel good about him? I mean, in the gut.” Mery-ra narrowed his eyes and made a clutching gesture toward his substantial belly. Hani knew how much store his father set in that indefinable inner voice that diplomats developed.
But Hani was not sure what his answer should be. “I’m ambivalent,” he admitted, pushing back his wig and scratching his head. “I do like him, but he makes sure to be likable. What I think impressed me most was the way he reacted to Baket-iset. There’s some goodness in him somewhere. Still, his agenda isn’t ours. He’s a good leader to his people in proportion to how many concessions he wrings out of us.”
Mery-ra nodded and clapped his son on the shoulder with a proud smile. “You won’t let yourself be dazzled, my boy. You’ll give the king solid advice.”
Hani grinned. “So I’m safe to continue into the Hall of Royal Correspondence without you as a chaperone, am I?” He was deeply fond of his father, but sometimes the old man seemed to feel he still needed to direct his forty-one-year-old son. It occurred to Hani that Aha probably thought the same of him.
“You are, you are. I’ll go back home before it starts getting too hot. I walked.”
“You ought to have taken a litter, Father.”
“Well,” Mery-ra mumbled evasively, “I didn’t want to take Lady Meryet-amen’s vehicle...”
Hani smirked. “Ah, so you spent the night there, did you? When did you encounter Nub-nefer?” This was a verbal game they often played.
“Oh, I returned this morning, but briefly. Anyway, son, I’ll see you at home for lunch, yes? You can tell me everything then.”
“Only if you tell me everything!” Hani threatened with a mock punch at his father’s chest.
The two men laughed, full of affection, but both no doubt relieved not to have had their secrets winkled out of them. Mery-ra saluted his son and toddled off, disappearing into the brightness of the open door. Hani turned back into the dim cool of the Hall of Royal Correspondence, shaking his head in fond amusement.
He turned his attention to the secretary on duty. “Is Lord Ptah-mes receiving? Hani son of Mery-ra would like to make his report.”
The prune-faced scribe retreated in haughty silence through the commissioner’s door. A moment later, he returned, softened a bit. “Lord Ptah-mes awaits you, my lord.”
Hani brushed off his shirt and kilt in an automatic gesture. Ptah-mes was such a dapper fellow that Hani always felt frowsty by comparison. Lord Ptah-mes was several years his senior, as tall and elegant as Hani was broad and rumpled. The high commissioner’s clothing always seemed impossibly white and untouched by the wrinkles of normal human occupancy.
As Hani entered, Ptah-mes smiled, hi
s austere features warmed by respect and even affection. “Hani, my friend. I’m sorry to have inflicted our fellow on you on such short notice, but I wanted someone to have a chance to evaluate him under more informal conditions.”
The two men gripped one another’s forearms like two friends, then Ptah-mes seated himself and gestured to Hani to do the same. Hani spread his hands. “It was no burden, my lord. Abdi-ashirta was a charming guest. As I was just saying to my father, he’s clever and charismatic. I begin to understand how he manages to control the brigands and stateless refugees who are his people.”
“And why it’s so important that he remain in some sort of power over them, Hani.” Lord Ptah-mes shot him a piercing glance. “I say this because there are those who don’t agree. They believe Abdi-ashirta is becoming dangerous and must be defanged.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say he isn’t dangerous. He’s very intelligent. And disciplined, I think. Every time I thought he might have revealed something by accident, I came to realize he probably knew quite well what he was saying.”
Ptah-mes nodded thoughtfully.
Hani raised a considering eyebrow as he reflected on the old hapir. “And there’s this to be said about him—or any brigand leader. He has his people’s support only as long as he continues to bring them successes. Booty from the vassals of Kheta. Concessions from us. He must keep expanding.”
“Which gives him a certain predictability, at least. Imagine trying to deal with the hapiru without a head, without a spokesman. What would we be facing? A nest of snakes. Every time we sought to communicate with one, another would strike us in the back.” Ptah-mes expelled a breath of frustration through his nose.
“I agree, my lord,” said Hani. “I think he’s honorable in his own way. However, he... he wants very much to be made a king. That would be the great prize that enables him to stop his cycle of constant activity.”
Ptah-mes sniffed. “Where is the brigand who doesn’t want to be made a king? What sort of vassal would he be, though? He has a long experience of complete autonomy, doing what he thinks is best and simply justifying himself after the fact. But still...”
“There’s no perfect solution, I suppose. Abdi-ashirta is, as you say, the known danger.
Someone else might be completely unpredictable. At least we know that Abdi-ashirta will do his own will. And so far, he has more or less done what we want him to do. He’s attacked the vassals of Kheta Land and never ours.”
“Or never openly attacked them. Remember his takeover of Simurru.” Ptah-mes bared his teeth in a cynical grin. “He claimed to be protecting it while its commissioner, the Priest, was out of the country.”
Hani had to laugh at the hapir’s balls. He shook his head at the memory. “But he handed it back over as soon as we demanded—with fulsome self-justification, of course. Some other bandit leader might not have done that.”
“To be sure. He’s useful.” Ptah-mes’s smile faded. “But the Priest—Pa-hem-nedjer—has never forgiven him that humiliation, Hani. And that’s why there’s no guarantee that Abdi-ashirta will continue in power, despite his utility. We must make the strongest case we can.”
Hani nodded, sobered. He understood why there were two opinions regarding Abdi-ashirta and his Amurrite outlaws. Hani himself was of two minds, alternately seduced by the old man’s charm and disturbed by his ambitions.
As if he’d read Hani’s thoughts, Lord Ptah-mes said grimly, “It’s not a matter of trusting him. We must never do that. It’s a matter of finding in Abdi-ashirta the more manageable of two evils.”
“What does Our Sun Neb-ma’at-ra think of him, my lord?”
“May life, prosperity, and health be to him,” murmured the high commissioner. He seemed to have drifted away into his own thoughts. After a moment, he said thoughtfully, “I believe the Living Haru is of our mind in this.”
“Then surely that settles our policy—”
“One would think.” Ptah-mes’s brows drew down in a pensive knot. “Have you reported to Aper-el yet?”
Hani shook his head slowly. “Not yet, my lord. Is he... of our mind as well?”
“That’s my impression. But Aper-el is newly in office. He’s still easily influenced by those who are not of our mind—Pa-hem-nedjer and his people.” Ptah-mes pinned the diplomat with a black-eyed stare. “Hani, how would you like an audience with the king?”
⸎
It was not the first time Hani had come into the presence of the Living Haru. Neb-ma’at-ra had honored him more than once and had even bestowed gifts of food and gold upon him, although never the much-coveted shebyu necklace of heavy gold disks that elevated the recipient to an altogether different level of prestige. Even though Hani had been head of the delegation that had brought the king’s second Mitannian bride to him from distant Naharin, he was a fairly minor functionary. He had no illusions about his prospects, although the favor of the king could alight suddenly in unexpected places and make a new grandee of the most modest fellow. That honor was nothing Hani coveted.
By way of two massive doors that formed a kind of lock separating the profane world from the rarefied precinct of the divine king, doorkeepers admitted Hani to the House of Rejoicing, the great jubilee palace on the west bank of the River. They led him through a tree-lined court, the walls more beautiful than nature, with paintings of marsh plants, sky-blue water, and birds brought to life by the dancing shadows of the real palms. In a small jewel box of a columned anteroom, Hani waited with several other Hall of Royal Correspondence employees who had an audience scheduled that morning.
At last, a majordomo, staff in hand, beckoned to him, and Hani passed through the tall golden double doors into the king’s private audience hall. Fan Bearers and guards in gilded corselets stood to attention at either side of the dais. Neb-ma’at-ra was not alone upon the platform. His eldest surviving son, Nefer-khepru-ra Wa-en-ra Amen-hotep, sat beside him. Hani experienced an inner sinking. His dealings with Neb-ma’at-ra went back years, whereas the young coregent had ruled alongside his father for no more than five. Hani didn’t know him well, nor was he sure that he liked him. There was something serpentine about the youth—his languid, boneless movements, the way he listened silently, watching with his remote, heavy-lidded gaze. He was more or less Aha’s age, with his mother’s pointed face, sensual mouth, and slight physique and his father’s narrow eyes. He was already becoming heavy in a loose, unhealthy way; despite the thin shoulders, his belly spilled over the elaborate belt of his shendyt kilt.
His father, Neb-ma’at-ra, twisted Hani’s heart with pity. The king was only a handful of years older than Hani, but his health was clearly failing. He’d been exceptionally fat for years, and the corpulence of the king had spoken eloquently of the wealth of Kemet, the fertility of her mighty River. But now he seemed bloated and lethargic, his ankles and feet enormously swollen in their golden sandals, his jowls puffy and bloodless. Hani could hear the labored wheeze of the royal breathing even from the foot of the dais, where he prostrated himself. Neb-ma’at-ra’s small eyes, painted with malachite, lacked their usual sharp penetration; his pouty little mouth was slack. He looked mortally tired.
Hani pulled himself to his feet with repressed fear accelerating his heart. The reign of this king had brought nearly forty years of peace and incomparable prosperity to the Two Lands. When he flew into the western sky, Nefer-khepru-ra would rule. And Hani, for all his acumen, had no idea what that might mean for Kemet. There were disturbing rumors.
“Hani,” wheezed the king. “I see too little of you.”
“It’s always a festival when My Sun deigns to grant the breath of life to his servant,” Hani replied, bowing. He saw for the first time that Aper-el, the vizier of the north, stood in the shadows at the foot of the royal dais, to the side of the young coregent. The vizier’s eyes were lowered in his pale, angular face, his hands folded over the long official kilt tied in a decorative knot at his chest. He’s on our side, Hani told himself, grasping at optimism.
That’s what Ptah-mes said.
“What do you think of Abdi-ashirta?” Neb-ma’at-ra asked with his usual directness.
And speaking honestly, Hani told him his observations—the man’s cleverness and charm, what Hani perceived to be his basic decency, but also his self-interest.
The king nodded as Hani spoke, a swollen finger tapping thoughtfully upon the arm of the throne. “It seems to me that the hapir’s capability serves us well. Do you know Rib-addi, the mayor of Kebni, Hani?”
“I know of him, My Sun, although I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him.”
“Pleasure?” Neb-ma’at-ra chuckled, a deep, weary gurgle that struggled up through his rolls of fat. “He has single-handedly buried the Hall of Royal Correspondence under his alarmist letters for years. Rib-addi is nominally in control of Simurru and the Amurrite areas of the coast of Kharu. He holds Abdi-ashirta responsible for every ill. According to Rib-addi, the man is riding roughshod over our native mayors and Egyptian officials alike up there.”
“So I understand, My Sun.” Hani grinned.
“But this isn’t wholly a bad thing. Let the vassals deal with their own problems, as long as it’s one tiny kingdom against another. The only thing that would worry me is if the Great Kings of Naharin or Kheta got involved. And Kheta is rising.”
“Indeed, My Sun...”
“You will observe that the heart of our foreign policy in the north is to isolate Kheta—to knit friendships with her neighbors, to sow dissension among her vassals, all without leaving too many footprints.” The king smiled, exposing his rotten teeth. “And how does Abdi-ashirta fit into this?”
“I know Abdi-ashirta wants to be recognized as a vassal, My Sun.”
Neb-ma’at-ra gave a snort. “He wants to be recognized as a king, even at the price of vassalhood. He figures we’re far enough away not to chafe at his royal decisions too much. But from our side, Hani”—the king’s dull eyes had taken on something of their usual penetration—“he’s more useful as an unconsecrated leader of an unofficial group. Rather like the soft, quilted padding of a piece of armor, he can absorb any shocks with no loss to us. If he were a vassal...”