Year of the Hyenas by Brad Geagley Read Free Book Online Page A

copper rings from his sash.
“Go to the tavern at the corner, and bring us a jug of wine. If I find
the seal broken, you’ll be beaten with a stick.”
    The man
scuttled from
the room like a dung beetle. Semerket noted that he limped, that his
injuries were fresh. Instantly an image of Nenry’s terrifying wife took
shape in Semerket’s mind. “Your servant?” he asked.
    “My valet,”
Nenry
answered. “I had to bring in someone. This place of yours smelled worse
than a nest of river ducks. You can’t expect someone of my position to
wash down a house by myself.”
    Semerket laid
his head
back down on the pillowed cradle. The mere mention of wine had done
much to calm him. “What position?”
    “Why, I’m the
chief
scribe to the Lord Mayor of the East! I sent you an announcement when
the office was given to me. You didn’t receive it?” Nenry’s face
revealed sad disappointment that his brother apparently knew nothing of
his good fortune, for he believed in his heart that all men envied him.
Nenry counted on it, in fact.
    Semerket spoke
with
difficulty. “I thought you served at Sekhmet’s temple.”
    “I’m happy to
say that
my diligence and skills were noted there.” A fatuous smile settled on
Nenry’s lips. “Thanks to the gods, my wife and I are now among the
first citizens of Thebes.”
    “Ah, yes. Now
I
remember. And you had only to sell a son to do it.” Semerket inserted
the phrase like a surgeon incises a wound, finished before the bleeding
has begun.
    Nenry winced.
He rose
to stand indignant and outraged above his brother. “How can you say
that? My son is now a prince because of my selflessness. I gave him to
my wife’s uncle because of what could be done for him. I did it for the
boy, do you hear?”
    Semerket
became calmly
reassuring. “You mistake me, Nenry. You’ve done well. ‘Chief scribe to
the mayor’—that’s worth two sons, at least.”
    Nenry looked
at his
brother, hands falling to his side. “Why do I keep helping you? You’re
never grateful. You always sneer at me. Why? What have I ever done to
you?”
    Semerket now
directed
so level a gaze at his brother that Nenry was forced to drop his eyes.
“You sold your son to become a scribe. A scribe, Nenry! If you
knew
how much Naia and I yearned for a child… Yet you gave yours away as
casually as a woman loans a kerchief.”
    Tics and
twitches laid
claim to Nenry’s mouth. “I should have let you die today. Everyone
would have been better off if I had.”
    “Yes.”
Semerket’s
voice was tired, dull. “Especially me.”
     
    THE SERVANT RETURNEDwith the wine, and
Nenry broke its seal. He poured a bowl and handed it to Semerket, who
drank it down in a single draft. Silently he held out the bowl for
more. This time he drank it more slowly, and sighed. Strength visibly
returned to him. He turned his black eyes on his brother and the
serving man. “Join me,” he said.
    “You’re very
free with
the wine I paid for.” Nenry was still peevish, but he nevertheless
poured the wine. The three men sipped in silence for a while.
    Semerket
raised his
head from the bowl and looked about the small house. “I never expected
to come back here,” he said, almost in wonder.
    “Why not?”
    “Wasn’t that
obvious?
I meant to die.”
    Nenry remained
unmoved. “You mean you’d tired of pounding on Naia’s gate at all hours,
heaping shame on yourself and the family?” He expected his brother to
fly into one of his dark rages, and waited apprehensively for the
explosion.
    But Semerket
said
simply, “No. I’ve done with that, now.”
    Nenry grunted
sarcastically. “To what miracle does Egypt owe this change?”
    Semerket
inhaled
slowly, and the words came out in a long sigh. “She’s pregnant with
Nakht’s child. Did you know?”
    Nenry turned a
shocked
face on his brother. His hostility was forgotten, and he became
instantly contrite. “Oh, Ketty!” He drew nearer to his brother, his
face inches from Semerket’s. “How