The Quest

Pharaoh turned his head slowly and stared at her. 'If he is not my enemy, why did you wish to hide him from me?' he asked.

Mintaka faltered and covered her mouth with a hand. She sank down upon her throne, her face ashen and her eyes stricken.

Pharaoh turned back to Soe. 'State your name!' he ordered the captive.

Soe glared at him. 'I acknowledge no authority above that of the nameless goddess,' he declared.

'The one you speak of is no longer nameless. Her name was Eos, and she was never a goddess.'

'Beware!' Soe shouted. 'You blaspheme! The wrath of the goddess is swift and certain.'

Pharaoh ignored this outburst. 'Did you conspire with this sorceress to dam the Mother Nile?'

'I answer only to the goddess,' Soe snarled.

'Did you, in concert with this sorceress, use supernatural powers to inflict the plagues upon this very Egypt? Was your purpose to topple me from the throne?'

'You are no true king!' Soe shouted. 'You are a usurper and an apostate! Eos is the ruler of the earth and of all its nations!'

'Did you strike down my children, prince and princess of the blood royal?'

'They were not of the royal blood,' Soe asserted. 'They were common'ers. The goddess alone is of royal blood.'

'Did you use your evil influence to turn my queen aside from the path of honour? Did you convince her that she should help you to place the sorceress on my throne?'

'It is not your throne. It is the rightful throne of Eos.'

'Did you promise my queen to restore our children to life?' Pharaoh demanded, in a voice as cold and sharp as a sword blade.

'The tomb never yields up its fruit,' Soe replied.

'So you lied. Ten thousand lies! You lied and you murdered and you spread sedition and despair throughout my empire.'

'In the service of Eos, lies are things of beauty, murder is a noble act.

I spread no sedition. I spread the truth.'

'Soe, you are condemned from your own mouth.'

'You cannot harm me. I am protected by my goddess.'

'Eos is destroyed. Your goddess is no more,' Pharaoh intoned gravely.

He turned back to Mintaka. 'My queen, have you heard enough?'

Mintaka was sobbing quietly. She was so overcome that she was unable to speak, but she nodded, then covered her face in shame.

At last Pharaoh looked directly at two figures who were standing

quietly at the back of the hall. The visor of Taita's helmet was closed and Fenn's face was covered with a veil. Only her green eyes showed.

'Tell us how Eos was destroyed,' Pharaoh ordered.'

'Mighty one, she was consumed by fire,' said Taita.

'So it is fitting that her creature should share her fate.'

'It would be a merciful death, better than he deserves, better than the death he dealt out to the innocent.'

Pharaoh nodded thoughtfully, then turned back to Mintaka. 'I am minded to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself in my sight, and in the sight of the gods of Egypt.'

Mintaka threw herself at his feet. 'I did not understand what I was doing. He promised that the Nile would flow again and our children would be restored to us, if only you would acknowledge the goddess. I believed him.'

'All this I understand.' Pharaoh raised Mintaka to her feet. 'The penance I impose upon you is that your own royal hand will set the torch to the execution fire in which Soe and the last trace of the sorceress will be expunged from my domains.'

Mintaka swayed on her feet and her expression was one of utter despair. Then she seemed to rally herself. 'I am Pharaoh's loyal wife and subject. To obey his command is my duty. I shall set the fire under Soe, in whom once I believed.'

'Lord Meren, take this miserable creature down into the courtyard where the stake awaits him. Queen Mintaka will go with you.'

The escort marched Soe down the marble staircase and into the courtyard. Meren followed them down, with Mintaka leaning heavily on his arm.

'Stand by me, Magus,' Pharaoh commanded Taita. 'You will bear witness to the fate of our enemy.' Together they went to the balcony that overlooked the courtyard.

A tall pile, built of logs and bundles of dried papyrus, stood at the centre of the courtyard below them. It had been soaked with lamp oil. A wooden ladder reached up to the scaffold that surmounted the pyre. Two brawny executioners were waiting at the foot. They took Soe from his guards and dragged him up, for his legs could barely support him, then roped him to the stake. They descended the ladder, leaving him alone on the summit. Meren went to the burning brazier beside the doorway into the courtyard. He dipped a tar-soaked torch into the flames, carried it to Mintaka and placed it in her hand. He left her at the foot of the execution pyre.

Mintaka looked up at Pharaoh on the balcony above her. Her expression was pitiful. He nodded to her. She hesitated a moment longer, then hurled the burning torch on to the bundles of oil-soaked papyrus.

She staggered back as a sheet of fire shot up the side of the pyre. The flames and black smoke boiled up higher than the roof of the palace.

In the heart of the flames, Soe shouted to the cloudless sky, 'Hear me, Eos, the only true goddess! Your faithful servant calls to you. Lift me out of the fire. Show your power and holy might to this petty pharaoh and all the world!' Then his voice was drowned by the crackling of the conflagration. Soe sagged forward on his bonds as the smoke and heat enveloped him, and the leaping flames screened him. For an instant they parted to reveal his form, blackened and twisted, no longer human, still hanging from the stake. Then the pyre collapsed in upon itself and he was consumed in the centre of the fire.

Meren drew Mintaka back to the safety of the stairway and led her up to the royal audience hall. She had become a frail old woman, stripped of her dignity and beauty. She went to Pharaoh and knelt before him.

'My lord husband, I beg your forgiveness,' she whispered. 'I was a stupid woman, and there is no excuse for what I did.'

'You are forgiven,' said Nefer Seti, then he seemed at a loss as to what he should do next. He made as if to lift her to her feet, but then stepped back. He knew that such condescension ill-befitted a divine pharaoh and glanced across at Taita, seeking his guidance. Taita touched Fenn's arm.

She nodded and lifted her veil, revealing her golden beauty, then crossed the floor and stooped over Mintaka. 'Come, my queen,' she said, and took Mintaka's arm.

The queen looked up at her. 'Who are you?' she quavered.

'I am one who cares for you deeply,' Fenn replied, and lifted her up.

Mintaka stared into her green eyes, then suddenly she sobbed, 'I sense that you are good and wise beyond your years,' and went into Fenn's embrace. Holding her close, Fenn led her from the chamber.

'Who is that young woman?' Nefer Seti asked Taita. 'I can wait no longer to know. Tell me at once, Magus. That is my royal command.'

'Pharaoh, she is the reincarnation of your grandmother, Queen Lostris,'

Taita replied, 'the woman I once loved and now love again.'

Meren's new estates extended for thirty leagues along the bank of Mother Nile. At the centre stood one of the royal palaces and a magnificent temple dedicated to the falcon god Horus. Both buildings formed part of the royal gift. Three hundred tenant farmers tilled the fertile fields, which were irrigated from the river. They tithed a fifth part of their crops to their new landlord, Lord Marshal Meren Cambyses. A hundred and fifty serfs and two hundred slaves, captives of Pharaoh's wars, worked in the palace or on the private part of the estate.

Meren named the estate Karim Ek-Horus, the Vineyards of Horus. In the spring of that year when the crops were planted, and the earth was bountiful, Pharaoh came downriver from Karnak with all his royal suite to attend the nuptials of Lord Meren and his bride.