Free Day of the False King by Brad Geagley Page B

shrugged. “Yes, all right. Why not?”
    “You’ll purchase onions and bread for the
altar?” The priest was smiling with surprised delight. He turned to the
priestess behind him. “Mother, today is a fortunate one for us!”
    To Semerket’s distress, he saw that tears
flowed down the old woman’s cheeks. Impulsively she reached forward to
take his hand and kiss it.
    “It can’t be so strange,” Semerket said, a
trifle embarrassed, “for wayfarers to offer thanks to the gods?”
    “Around here it is,” the old woman said
forthrightly. “Most of the Egyptians in this neighborhood didn’t come
to Babylon willingly. They have very little to be thankful for, and
blame the gods for their misfortunes. Hardly anyone makes offerings
nowadays.”
    Semerket knew that Egyptian priests and
priestesses lived mainly from the sacrifices of bread, vegetables, oil,
and other foodstuffs given to the gods. Seeing the old couple’s eyes
shining from their sunken faces, Semerket grew concerned.
    “When was the last time you ate?”
    “It’s of no importance. We serve the gods in
joy.”
    “
When?”
Semerket’s voice was
perhaps harsher than he intended.
    The woman spoke quickly. “Two days ago.”
    “Hasn’t Ambassador Menef sent you
provisions, or workers to help you? Isn’t it his duty to maintain this
temple?”
    The thin, little woman narrowed her eyes.
“He has his own private chapel, on his estate, with his own priests. He
doesn’t come to our services anymore. He said —”
    “Mother.”
    The old woman fell silent, staring at the
floor in shame. Semerket noticed how her tunic, though meticulously
cleaned, had been patched and repatched so many times that there was
more Babylonian wool to it than good Egyptian linen. Semerket bent to
regard the woman’s tired eyes.
    “Tell me.”
    With a fearful look at her husband, she
whispered, “He said that my husband and I have done too little to lure
the people here — that’s what he said, ‘lure’ — as if this place were a
circus and —”
    “Mother!”
    But the old woman’s words continued to pour
out in ever more aggrieved invective. “We’ve even had to sell the gods’
statues from their niches in order to keep the temple up. We traded the
last one a month ago, and then only for what its bronze was worth.
What’s next for us? My husband forbids me to beg — he says it demeans
our calling — though sometimes the pains in my stomach are so sharp,
that I — that I —” The rest of her words were swallowed in a sudden,
silent convulsion of weeping.
    The old priest stepped between Semerket and
his wife. “I’m sure the ambassador has many reasons for why he hasn’t
sent us sustenance,” he said firmly. “The war with Elam, I know, has
caused much suffering. We’re not the only ones who go hungry in
Babylon, you know.”
    Turning suddenly, Semerket retraced his
steps through the gloomy temple and out to the gates. The old couple
hobbled after him in alarm, believing that he was leaving them for good.
    “You two!” Semerket shouted to the spies
when he reached the gate.
    They peeked from behind the wall where they
hid. “Do you mean us?”
    “I need you to get some things. Go into the
marketplace around the corner. Bread, onions, honey, oil. A goose, if
you can find one.” He turned to the wide-eyed priestly couple. “Do you
think the gods would like some beer?”
    The elderly priest seemed too dazed to
speak, but his wife chimed in hopefully, “Oh, yes, please! The August
Ones haven’t had beer in so long.”
    The spies frowned. “Who the hell are you to
order us around!?” the thin one railed.
    “Semerket, envoy of the fourth Pharaoh
Ramses, come to parley with your king Kutir — as you well know, since
you’ve seen fit to follow me around all morning.”
    “That’s a lie —!”
    “We never —!”
    The obsidian flash that glinted then in
Semerket’s eye made them abruptly cease their protests. “Do I really
have to tell the