Before long they came to the first of the branching channels. Piay raised his hand and the Blue Crocodiles lifted their oars out of the brackish water.

  ‘No ribbons here to guide us,’ Hannu grunted.

  ‘We could get lost in this place,’ Piay breathed, ‘going round in circles, no doubt just as the Shuyet intended.’

  Hannu cursed under his breath.

  Piay gave a signal, choosing a direction, and oars were lowered back into the water. With slow, steady strokes, the boats advanced.

  • • •

  T

  heir progress was slower than they had anticipated. The labyrinth of waterways was difficult to navigate as they explored branching courses, only to come up against fallen sycamores or pools of thick mud. Every now and then they would glimpse the spoor of hippos or catch the water-trail of river crocodiles speeding just beneath the surface.

  Gradually, though, they began to find their way along a route that took them steadily north.

  When he felt Hannu’s finger tapping on his shoulder, Piay glanced back to see his assistant peering towards the sunset.

  ‘I’d hoped that we would at least locate the fortress before night fell,’ Hannu muttered.

  Piay looked around. The light seemed to be quitting the marshland far faster than it would the open desert, the shadows quickly collecting in the pools and beneath the vegetation.

  ‘These waterways are treacherous enough in daylight.’ Hannu grimaced. ‘We cannot navigate them in the darkness.’

  ‘We will have to camp, then,’ Piay said, feeling the tension of the moment grip him. ‘While there is still some light left, let’s find a place to sleep.’

  ‘I would bet that every inch is crawling with vipers and scorpions,’ Hannu grumbled.

  ‘We can tie up the skiffs and some can sleep in them.’

  ‘Good,’ Hannu said. ‘I’ll not take my chances on land.’

  Through a gap in the vegetation, Piay looked out across the marsh as the sun sank into the west. What if they were too late? What if Taita was already dead?

  • • •

  S

  leep did not come easily. Though Piay lay looking up at the milky trail of stars in the sky above him, lulled by the gentle swaying of the skiff, he could do no more than drift in and out of consciousness. He told himself that if they were attacked, the lookouts would raise the alarm, but he started at every night sound – an owl hooting, a splash near the riverbank, the grunting of a distant hippopotamus.

  And so he was only dozing when the agonised cry tore through the night. Instantly hauling himself up on the rocking boat, he snatched up his sword as Hannu did the same.

  Shouts echoed from the other moored skiffs and from the places where his men were camped. ‘We are under attack!’ a voice cried, before being cut off.

  Silhouettes flew from the bank, splashing into the water as the din of battle grew. Against the lightening sky, Piay glimpsed swords flashing as the enemy fell upon the Blue Crocodiles still in the camp.

  ‘Where are the lookouts?’ Piay exclaimed.

  ‘Dead,’ Hannu snapped, bracing himself as the skiff rocked even more wildly.

  Those on the water would never be able to get to their comrades in time, Piay could see, and even if they could clamber up the banks and through the thick vegetation, they would be at an immediate disadvantage.

  Some of his men were already slithering through the undergrowth towards safety, while others simply threw themselves into the river. Their flailing, as they desperately swam for the skiffs, only attracted the river crocodiles, and in no time the black water was boiling with struggling men and hungry beasts.

  Piay glimpsed a light flare somewhere on the bank above him and an instant later a burning arrow flew within a hand’s breadth of this head.

  ‘Back to the boats!’ Piay roared. ‘Fall back, Blues!’

  Hannu had already grasped the oars and started to heave the skiff away. Piay caught a soldier’s hand as they ploughed through the water, trying to drag him on board, but as he came over the side a blazing shaft thumped into his neck, another into his chest.

  The night lit up as blazing arrows rained down. Flames roared up from the skiff behind them on the waterway, the Blue Crocodiles aboard choosing to throw themselves into the water and risk being torn apart by crocodiles than be burned alive.

  As the screams died away, Piay found that he was trembling with rage. This route to the Shuyet’s stronghold was as dangerous as he had feared. How many Blue Crocodiles had they now lost?

  He would make the Shuyet pay for every life, Piay vowed. Every one.

  • • •

  ‘T

  aita. Do you hear me? I have food for you.’

  Taita opened his heavy eyes to see Gyasi standing next to where he lay, a wooden bowl in her hands. ‘It may not look like much when compared to the delicacies you are accustomed to, but it’s what we eat here.’

  Taita roused himself and climbed to his feet. The cell in which he found himself was filthy, and his robe was stained with dried blood. It had not been a dream, then, he thought to himself. Djenn had been judged by the Shuyet and found wanting.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Gyasi said when Taita made no move to take the bowl from her hands. ‘But I warn you, you will not survive here if you think yourself better than us.’

  ‘How could I?’ Taita replied flatly. ‘I am your captive.’

  Gyasi laughed. ‘How wise you are! And now the Shuyet wants to see you.’

  Taita heard footsteps approaching and two guards appeared outside the cell. Her smile as sly as ever, Gyasi commanded the men to unlock the door. Then she led the way along a narrow corridor and up a flight of stone steps, to a chamber that looked out over the great expanse of marshland that surrounded the citadel. It was still two hours to morning, the sky the colour of a ripe plum.

  Inside, the Shuyet sat, attended by Heru, a golden senet set glinting from the table in the torchlight.

  ‘Leave us, Gyasi,’ Heru ordered as soon as she had pushed Taita to his knees. ‘We will have need of you later, but your blade can rest for now.’

  ‘Anubis, Protector of Graves,’ Taita said, bowing his head as Gyasi complied with Heru’s command. ‘I am honoured to be in your presence.’

  ‘You are not afraid?’ Heru’s voice was a low growl.

  Taita smiled. ‘I fear neither man nor god, despite your show earlier.’

  ‘All who know of the great Taita speak of your matchless intellect,’ Heru continued. ‘The Shuyet has found it to be . . . adequate.’

  ‘I thank you,’ Taita said, with the faintest of smiles at the jackal mask. ‘I regret that it took me so long to divine the nature of our contest.’

  ‘Sharp as your mind is, it is no match for a god’s,’ Heru said.

  ‘Of that, there can be no doubt,’ Taita replied. ‘But now that we are here, I would swap a truth for a truth.’

  ‘What child’s game is this? You are our captive!’ Heru hissed, even as his master raised a hand to silence him. ‘The Shuyet is Anubis. The god lives within him . . .’

  After a long pause, the god spoke at last, in a hollow voice. ‘What is the truth you would know?’

  ‘I would know what you want from me.’

  ‘And with what truth will you unlock this knowledge?’

  Taita smiled. The time had come to reveal what he had known to be true from the moment he set eyes on Gyasi. The truth that Lostris had confirmed for him in his dream. ‘I know that you are a woman.’

  The Anubis mask continued to stare at him, cold and quiet.

  At last, the Shuyet grasped the gleaming black jackal mask and pushed it up and off her head. As her black hair tumbled in gleaming coils around her shoulders, her high cheekbones were revealed, her full lips, her eyes as blue as the darkest sapphire. The beauty of that face could take a man’s breath away, but for the wide, shallow depression in her forehead. Taita was momentarily silenced by it, and the shock of recognition.

  ‘Are you surprised?’ the Shuyet asked, her voice now mellifluous.

  ‘Yes,’ Taita said. ‘I knew that you were a woman. But I did not expect you to be the woman we met in the desert, on our way back to Memphis from the dead city. You must have only just laid waste to the returning caravan ahead of us.’

  The Shuyet smiled in affirmation. ‘Heru, bring our guest to the table.’

  ‘Is that wise –?’

  ‘This is not an assassin. He is a man of wisdom.’

  The scribe stepped forward and helped Taita to his feet.

  Seated across from the Shuyet, Taita could sense the power within her. Here was someone with the natural ability to command men – a remarkable, fearsome woman.

  ‘And no one knows the truth?’ he asked. He could not imagine how she had managed to keep such a secret from so many for so long.

  ‘Gyasi does, of course. So does Heru. And a few others who attend to me. It really is not so difficult a secret to keep when there are none who suspect what I truly am. Without the mask, I can come and go amongst my people as I please, and no one is any the wiser. You yourself did not suspect me in the desert.’

  ‘That is true,’ Taita conceded. ‘How did Gyasi and Heru come to be in your service?’

  ‘Gyasi grew up here. I met her when I first arrived to oversee the rebuilding of this citadel, after my brother had pilfered enough money for . . .’ She gestured to the walls, and the ceiling over their heads. ‘She was just a child then.’

  ‘And Heru?’

  ‘My father was Heru’s mentor. He has been at my side since I was a girl. He knew the great dreams my father had for this land. For a long time, after my father’s murder by the Hyksos, he tried to talk me out of pursuing them. But after my brother died, he understood my determination, and he dedicated himself to helping me. Heru loved my father, and he believes I will fulfil his dreams.’

  ‘Your father dreamed of a Lower Egypt restored to what it was in the days of the Red Pharaoh.’

  The Shuyet nodded. ‘He did. He believed that the heart of Egypt, the land of the ancients – Memphis and the delta – must be reclaimed from the Hyksos and protected from the sons of Mamose.’ She paused. ‘Heru became my voice, and with his guidance I was transformed into Anubis. After that, men did not question me. Those whose fathers had served the Lower Kingdom, who had taken up arms as brigands or raiders during the reign of the Hyksos, flocked to my side. I took the small force my brother had built, and turned it into an army.’

  Heru appeared at Taita’s side, an alabaster cup carved into the form of a lotus flower in each hand.

  ‘But you have not answered my question,’ Taita said. ‘What do you want from me? Everything you have done has been to bring me here. You murdered the scribe in the vault, knowing that it would bring me to Memphis. You tried to capture me in the dead city, and when your men failed, you sent Gyasi to me.’

  Heru appeared again at Taita’s side with a bronze jug, pouring a stream of aromatic wine into the Shuyet’s cup, the wine turning the lotus pink, as if suddenly it had come into bloom on the table before her.

  ‘Some wine, Lord High Chancellor? It is always coldest here before the dawn.’

  ‘I know you have discovered Imhotep’s tomb,’ the Shuyet said as Heru poured the wine into Taita’s cup. ‘That you have been inside. I know the Sons of Apis are no more. I know you are the Chosen One of Imhotep, and that one of the spells he left for you opens the portal to the realm of gods. That in this way, the power of Anubis could truly be harnessed, and deployed, to keep Lower Egypt safe.’

  Taita’s eyes widened, startled at how much the woman before him knew.

  ‘Did you think you were the only one who studied the ancient scrolls?’ she asked, taking a sip from her cup. ‘This is our land, after all. We are the true descendants of the old people.’

  ‘You have no idea what you are asking. You cannot wield Imhotep’s spells.’

  ‘My mind is sharp, Taita, you know that. I see the hidden patterns in this world. My father taught me well. I will not approach them foolishly.’

  ‘You will learn nothing from me,’ Taita pronounced firmly.

  ‘Oh, but I will, Lord High Chancellor. Once I have defeated the pitiful force sent for your rescue, and Piay has joined you in captivity, I will compel you to take me there, to open the tomb and teach me how to use the spells.’

  ‘There is nothing you can do to me that would result in my opening the tomb for you.’

  The Shuyet chuckled. ‘I know you are strong, formidable despite your age and your will is fierce. But I also know that you love Piay like a son. Do you doubt that I will hesitate to judge him as I judged Djenn? Do you think I will hesitate to break him? And I will make you watch, until you give me what I want.’

  Standing, the Shuyet approached the window. ‘Let me show you something, Lord High Chancellor.’

  Taita stood and followed her. Across the marsh the sun was rising. The sky looked bruised, blues and purples fading to a sickly yellow along the horizon. But closer to the citadel, perhaps half a day’s walk, a fire raged, the reeds ablaze. Taita knew that somewhere out there, Piay and Hannu and the Blue Crocodiles were caught, men trapped by the flames in the mist of dawn. ‘You knew Piay would find a way to follow me,’ Taita said as the Shuyet took another sip from her cup. ‘But he will not be so easy to take captive.’

  ‘It matters not. In a few months I will be able to compel him to come to me. Gyasi is pregnant with his child. One way or another, he will come.’

  Taita paused to consider this new piece of information.

  ‘A truth for a truth, you said,’ the Shuyet continued.

  ‘What is the truth you would know?’ Taita asked.

  ‘I would know the spell you used to seal Imhotep’s tomb.’

  Taita felt hands on him even as he heard the Shuyet’s words, felt his head pulled back, Gyasi’s knife at his throat. Heru appeared before him with the lotus cup, the wine inside slopping over the edge.

  ‘Open his mouth,’ the Shuyet said. ‘Cut it open if you have to. Make him drink.’

  The peseshkef blade was of bronze, the edge sharp enough to cut silk. Taita heard the Shuyet walking away, humming gently to herself, as Heru forced the knife between his teeth.

  • • •

  ‘I

  saw the vulture and the cobra stand on either side of the river, divided by the waters. I saw the waters rise and fall one hundred seasons. I saw one hundred sheaves of corn, and one hundred birds fly over the river. Below them I saw the dust of battle and the flash of swords. I saw the smoke of burning cities mingle with the dust.

  ‘At last I saw the cobra and the vulture come together in congress. I saw them mating and entwined on a sheet of pure blue silk. There were blue banners on the city walls and banners of blue flew on the temple pylons.

  ‘I saw the blue pennants on the chariots that drove out across the world. I saw monuments so tall and mighty that they would stand for ten thousand years. I saw the people of fifty nations bow down before them.’

  Taita sighed and pressed his fingers into his temples, then he said: ‘That was all my vision.’

  Opening his eyes, he looked down upon his mistress, her head resting lightly on her silken pillow. She was as frail as a wounded bird, her skin as pale and translucent as mother-of-pearl.

  Taita knew that he was in Lostris’ bedchamber in the Palace of Memnon, the night before she had been taken from him. She had asked him to work the Mazes of Ammon-Ra, and – for the last time – he had, sliding over the edge of reality into the realm of dreams and visions.

  ‘So, do the blue banners fly, Taita?’ Lostris asked.

  ‘They do, my mistress . . . From the walls of Thebes, they fly.’

  ‘The two kingdoms are united, Taita. So why do you not rejoice?’

  ‘It is too soon, mistress. One hundred seasons have not yet passed. There is a new enemy. One we did not foresee. A handmaid of Anubis.’

  ‘Zahra . . .’ Lotris sighed.

  ‘Zahra?’

  ‘Her mind is wounded. It is the work of her brother and the Lord of the Red Land. He entered her when her blood was shed inside his temple.’

  Lostris raised her hand. Taita saw how thin her arm had become, the bones of her wrist pushing against her brittle skin. As he watched, she drew the outline of the spell Taita had used to seal Imhotep’s tomb with her index finger, leaving it shimmering in the air between them.

  ‘To defeat her, my Taita, you need to heal her. She is not the enemy that you think she is.’

  The outline of the incantation swam before Taita. It was a plain thing, but no less beautiful for its simplicity. Read one way, it was a spell for closing – the ‘closed mouth’. Read the other way, it was a spell for opening – the ‘open hand’. But Imhotep had also been a physician, and Taita now saw that there was another way to use the spell.

  ‘You could not heal me, Taita, but you can heal Zahra. She is my heir, just as Piay is the inheritor of Tanus’ spirit.’

  Leaning forward, Taita reached out to touch the gods’ letters. ‘I could not heal you then, but I can now . . .’

  Standing, Taita stripped the cover from his mistress, revealing her naked body on the linen sheets. Just as he remembered, her body was that of a woman who had carried three others in her womb. She was unnaturally thin, almost emaciated, but her belly protruded like a pale ivory ball, out of proportion with her slim arms and legs.

  Taita laid his hands lightly on her belly, just as he had done so many years before, upon the silvery streaks where the skin had once stretched to accommodate life. He felt again the thing that was within her and knew again that it was not life he felt beneath his hands, but death.

  ‘Let me take it from you. It is a thing of Seth.’

  ‘I tried to hide it from you . . .’

  Taita began to recite the spell, his hands still on Lostris’ abdomen. Her flesh yielded to his touch, the skin growing thinner, the muscle fibres unravelling like papyrus soaked in water.

  ‘Take it away, Taita. Stop the pain.’

  The thing of flesh and blood that sat inside her womb was visible now. It pulsed with life, but that life was that of its host; nothing within it was alive.