'Your Majesty, observe the seal on this lid.' I pointed it out to him and the king peered at the clay tablet.
'Whose seal is this?' he demanded.
'Observe the ring on the left forefinger of the grand vizier, Majesty,' I murmured. 'May I respectfully suggest that Pharaoh match it to the seal on this chest?'
'Lord Intef, hand me your ring if you please,' the king asked with exaggerated courtesy, and the grand vizier hid his left hand behind his back.
'Great Egypt, the ring has been on my finger for twenty years. My flesh has grown around it and it cannot now be removed.'
'Lord Tanus.' The king turned to him. 'Take your sword. Remove Lord Intef's finger and bring it to me with the ring upon it.' Tanus smiled cruelly as he stepped forward to obey, half-drawing his blade.
'Perhaps I am mistaken,' Lord Intef admitted with alacrity. 'Let me see if I cannot free it.' The ring slipped readily enough from his finger, and Tanus went down on one knee to hand it to the king.
Pharaoh bent studiously over the chest and made the comparison of ring to seal. When he straightened up again his face was dark with anger.
'It is a perfect match. This seal was struck from your ring, Lord Intef.' But the grand vizier made no reply to the accusation. He stood with his arms folded and his- expression stony.
'Break the seal. Open the chest!' Pharaoh ordered, and Tanus cut away the clay tablet and prised up the lid with his sword.
The king cried out involuntarily as the lid fell away and the contents were revealed, 'By all the gods!' And his courtiers crowded forward without ceremony to gaze into the chest, exclaiming and jostling each other for a better view.
'Gold!' The king scooped both hands full with the glittering yellow rings, and then let them cascade back between his fingers. He kept a single ring in his hand and held it close to his face to study the mint marks upon it. 'Two deben weight of fine gold. How much will this case contain, and how many cases are there in the secret store-room?' His question was rhetorical, and he was not expecting an answer, but I gave him a reply nevertheless.
'This case contains?' I read the manifest that I had inscribed on the lid so many years before. 'It contains one takh and three hundred deben of pure gold. As to how many cases of gold, if my memory serves me well, there should be fifty-three of gold and twenty-three of silver in this store. However, I have forgotten exactly how many chests of jewellery we hid here.'
'Is there no one I can trust? You, Lord Intef, I treated as my brother. There was no kindness that you did not receive from my hands, and this is how you have repaid me.'
AT MIDNIGHT THE CHANCELLOR AND THE chief inspector of the royal taxes came to the king's chamber where I was changing the dressing on his injured arm. They presented their final tally of the amount of the treasure and Pharaoh read it with awe. Once again, his emotions warred with each other, outrage vying with euphoria at this staggering windfall.
'The rogue was richer than his own king. There is no punishment harsh enough for such evil. He has cheated and robbed me and my tax-collectors.'
'As well as murdering and plundering Lord Harrab and tens of thousands of your subjects,' I reminded him, as I secured the bandage on his arm. It was perhaps impudent of me. However, he was by now so deep in my debt that I could risk it.
'That too,' he agreed readily enough, my sarcasm wasted upon him. 'His guilt is deep as the sea and high as the heaven. I will have to devise a suitable punishment. The strangler's rope is too kind for Lord Intef.'
'Majesty, as your physician, I must insist that you rest now. It has been a day that has taxed even your great strength and endurance.'
'Where is Intef? I cannot rest until I am assured that he is well taken care of.'
'He is under guard in his own quarters, Majesty. A senior captain and a detachment of the Blues have that duty.' I hesitated delicately. 'Rasfer is also under guard.'
'Rasfer, that ugly drooling animal of his? The one who tried to kill you in the temple of Osiris? Did he survive the crack that Lord Tanus gave him?'
'He is well if not happy, Pharaoh,' I assured him. 'Did Your Majesty know that Rasfer is the one who, so long ago, used the gelding-knife upon me?' I saw the beam of pity in the king's eye, as I blurted it out.
'I will deal with him as I deal with his master,' Pharaoh promised. 'He will suffer the same punishment as Lord Intef. Will that satisfy you, Taita?'
'Your Majesty is just and omniscient.' I backed out of his presence and went to find my mistress.
She was waiting for me and, although it was after midnight and I was exhausted, she would not let me sleep. She was far too overwrought, and she insisted that for the rest of the night I sit beside her bed and listen to her chatter about Tanus and other topics of lesser importance.
DESPITE THE DEARTH OF SLEEP, I WAS bright and clear-headed when I took my place in the temple of Osiris the following morning.
If anything, the congregation was even larger than it had been the day before. There was not a ___ soul in Thebes who had not heard of the downfall of the grand vizier, and who was not eager to witness his ultimate humiliation. Even those of his underlings, who had most prospered under his corrupt administration, now turned upon him, like a pack of hyena who devour their leader when he is sick and wounded.
The barons of the Shrikes were led before the throne in their rags and bonds, but when Lord Intef entered the temple, he wore fine linen and silver sandals. His hair was freshly curled, his face painted, and the chains of the Gold of Praise hung around his neck.
The barons knelt before the king, but even when one of the guards pricked him with the sword, Lord Intef refused to bend the knee, and the king made a gesture for the guard to desist.
'Let him stand!' the king ordered. 'He will lie in his tomb long enough.' Then Pharaoh rose and stood before us in all his grandeur and his rage. This once he seemed a true king, as the first of his dynasty had been, a man of might and force. I, who had come to know him and his weaknesses so well, found that I was overcome with a sense of awe.
'Lord Intef, you are accused of treason and murder, of brigandage and piracy, and of a hundred other crimes no less deserving of punishment. I have heard the supported testimony of fifty of my subjects from all walks and stations of life, from lords and freemen and slaves. I have seen the contents of your secret treasury wherein you hid your stolen wealth from the royal tax-collectors. I have seen your personal seal upon the treasure chests. By all these matters your guilt is proven a thousand times over. I, Mamose the eighth of that name, Pharaoh and ruler of this very Egypt, hereby find you guilty of all the crimes of which you are accused, and deserving of neither royal clemency nor mercy.'
'Long live Pharaoh!' shouted Tanus, and the salute was taken up and repeated ten times by the people of Thebes. 'May he live for ever!'
When silence fell, Pharaoh spoke again. 'Lord Intef, you wear the Gold of Praise. The sight of that decoration on the breast of a traitor offends me.' He looked across at Tanus. 'Centurion, remove the gold from the prisoner.'
Tanus lifted the chains from Lord Intef's neck and carried them to the king. Pharaoh took the gold in his two hands, but when Tanus started to withdraw, he stayed him with a word.
"The name Lord Harrab was tarnished with the slur of treason. Your father was hounded to a traitor's death. You have proven your father's innocence. I rescind all sentences passed against Pianki, Lord Harrab, and posthumously restore to him all his honours and titles that were stripped from him. Those honours and titles descend to you, his son.'
'Bak-Her!' shouted the congregation. 'May Pharaoh live for ever! Hail, Tanus, Lord Harrab!'