Scroll of Saqqara(189)

All the entrances were guarded, he knew that, and sure enough another tall figure bulked where the large near passage gave out into the night. Hori did not want to kill again. These men were innocents doing their duty and nothing more. But he realized, on a rising tide of cold desperation, that he would somehow have to shamble up to the soldier and at least disable him. That was the answer.

Creeping forward, he hefted the blade. The man stirred, shifting his stance, and his sword clinked softly against the studding on his belt. Hori struck, aiming for the tendons behind the knee. He felt them give as he slashed, and with a howl the guard went down and lay writhing and shrieking. There was a tall jar just inside the passage kept full of drinking water to be cooled by the breezes that funelled through the open doors at either end. With a grunt Hori tipped it over. Water gushed across his feet, swirled about the guard and cascaded, mingled with blood, onto the grass. Hefting the jar, Hori brought it crashing down on the soldier’s head. The shrieking stopped abruptly. Shaking and sweating, Hori stepped past him and out into the garden.

The night was still and fine with a full moon and a black sky resplendent with stars, but Hori had no inclination to admire it. He set off for the watersteps, weaving and stumbling but covering the ground steadily, all his attention grimly fixed on putting one foot after the other. Nevertheless, his nose told him that the river was rising. Its smell—rich, dank and slightly humid—underlay the more fragile aromas of flowering shrubs and watered grass. He stayed off the path, trudging silently along, his ears and eyes alert for any sign of more guards. But tonight he was lucky. He presumed that they were posted around the perimeter of the estate.

The torch illuminating the watersteps flared and danced in the moving air by the river. He passed under it, too tired to make a detour so that he would not be seen. He did not know how he would deal with the man always guarding the boats. He negotiated the steps carefully, his balance teetering because of the constant throbbing in his head, and there was the guard, sitting at the bottom, his back against the stone and fast asleep. There is another servant who needs a severe reprimand, Hori thought, repressing a desire to giggle aloud. Now where is the skiff? He spotted it to the right, rising and falling gently on the swell, its tether looped to a pole.

Trying not to put any vibrations through the step that might wake the soldier, he went lightly, lifting a steering pole from its site in the mud and approaching the skiff. There were no oars resting in the bottom but it did not matter. He knew he had no strength to row in any case. He must trust to the now purposeful running of the current, growing each day as the Nile filled, to take him the short distance north he needed to go. He slipped the skiff’s tether and half scrambled, half fell into it.

Grasping the pole he pushed off, and the little craft bucked and began to swing towards midstream. Once there, Hori knew he need do nothing but sit and let the flow take him away. His head was spinning and he was suddenly terrified that he might lose consciousness. The knife was still in his hand. He had no belt to take it, only the kilt wrapped loosely about his waist, so he laid it in the bottom of the skiff and set one foot over it. With both hands he sank the pole once more, and the skiff protested, but after a moment Hori felt the current tug at it and he relaxed with a quivering sigh.

When next he came to himself he was floating in a broken shaft of moonlight with the dark city on his left and the shadows of spindly acacia bushes clinging to the bank on his right. He had fallen unconscious after all. Whimpering, he slapped his face twice but his fingers merely brushed his skin. The burst of strength that had brought him this far was failing rapidly and he was all at once frightened that he would die here, hunched over in the skiff, and he would bob and rock all the way to the Delta before his body was found. It would be too late then to beautify me, he thought in a panic. My body would have rotted too far. O Amun, King of gods, have mercy on me and bring me safely to the watersteps!

The skiff glided on, and slowly but surely Hori saw the darkly familiar shrubbery that thickened, deepened, and became the palm plantation in which Tbubui’s old house was nestled. He began to ply the pole, clumsily jerking the craft towards the bank. For a moment it did not respond, and he was afraid that the current would prove stronger than his own miserable efforts, but then it turned reluctantly and soon was grinding against the dilapidated stair. Hori fumbled about for the knife, found it, and fell out of the boat onto the steps. The skiff immediately began to angle and drift away, but he did not care.

It all seemed to take a very long time. On hands and knees he crawled up onto the path, and once there he lay for a while with his cheek against the hard sand. I want to sleep, he thought. I want to sink into the ground forever. And indeed his thoughts did run away so that the next time he opened his eyes he sensed that the moon was waning.