which they had obviously eaten their dinner, and I sniffed it. The smell of mushrooms was stronger.
'Ask the cooks,' I suggested. Then, in a sudden access of anger, I hurled the bowl against the wall. The crumpled bodies reminded me of my pets who had died the same death, and Khetkhet had been my friend.
I took a deep breath to calm myself before I asked, 'No doubt your prisoner has escaped?' Tanus did not reply, but led me through into the grand vizier's bedchamber. Immediately I saw the painted panel that had been removed from the far wall of the empty room, and the opening behind it.
'Did you know that there was a secret passage?' Tanus demanded coldly, and I shook my head.
'I thought I knew all his secrets, but I was wrong.' My voice was resigned. I think that in my heart I had known all along that we would never bring Intef to justice. He was a favourite of the dark gods and enjoyed their protection.
'Has Rasfer escaped with him?' I asked, and Tanus shook his head.
'I have him locked in the arsenal with the barons. But Intef's two sons, Menset and Sobek, have disappeared. Almost certainly they were the ones who arranged this murder of my men, and their father's escape.' Tanus had full control of that wild temper of his once more, but his anger was still there beneath it. 'You know Intef so well, Taita. What will he do? Where will he go? How can I catch him?'
'One thing I know, he will have made plans against such a day as this. I know he has treasure stored for him in the Lower Kingdom, with merchants and lawyers there. He has even had commerce with the false pharaoh. I think that he sold military information to him and his generals. He would receive a friendly welcome in the north.'
'I have already sent five fast galleys to the north, with orders to search all vessels that they overtake,' Tanus told me.
'He has friends across the Red Sea,' I said. 'And he has sent treasure to merchants in Gaza on the shores of the northern sea, to be held for him. He has had dealings with the Bedouin. Many of them are in his pay. They would help him to cross the desert.'
'By Horus, he is like a rat with a dozen escape-routes to his hole,' swore Tanus. 'How can I cover all of them?'
'You cannot,' I said. 'And now Pharaoh is waiting to witness the executions. You will have to report this to him.'
'The king will be angry, and with good reason. By allowing Intef to escape, I have failed in my duty.'
But Tanus was wrong. Pharaoh accepted the news of Intef's escape with remarkable equanimity. I cannot fathom the reason for this, except perhaps that the vast quantity of treasure he had acquired so unexpectedly had mellowed him. Deep in his heart he may still have cherished some sneaking affection for his grand vizier. On the other hand, Pharaoh was a kindly man, and may not have truly relished the prospect of watching Lord Intef being nailed to the city gates.
It is true he showed some passing annoyance, and spoke of justice being cheated, but all the time we were in his presence, he was surreptitiously studying the manifest of the treasure. Even when Tanus admitted his responsibility for the prisoner's escape, Pharaoh brushed it aside.
'The fault lies with the captain of the guard, and he has already been sufficiently punished from the poison bowl that Intef provided for him. You have sent galleys and troops in pursuit of the fugitive. You have done all that can be expected of you, Lord Harrab. It remains only for you to carry out my sentence on these other criminals.'
'Is Pharaoh ready to witness the execution?' Tanus asked, and Pharaoh looked about him for an excuse to remain with his manifests and tax-collectors' reports.
'I have much to do here, Lord Tanus. Proceed without me. Report to me when the sentences have been carried out.'
SO GREAT WAS THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN the executions that the city fathers had erected a Taita stand in front of the main gates. They charged a silver ring for a seat upon it. There was no lack of customers, and the stand was packed to capacity. The crowds who could not find a seat upon it overflowed out into the fields beyond the walls. Many of them had brought beer and wine to make a celebration of it, and to toast the barons on their way. Very few of them had not suffered from the ravages of the Shrikes, and many of them had lost husbands or brothers or sons to them.
Stark naked and bound together, as Pharaoh had ordered, the condemned men were led through the streets of Kamak. The crowd lined their way and hurled dung and filth at them as they passed, screaming insults and shaking their fists. The children danced ahead of the procession singing bits of doggerel made up on the spur of the moment:
Nails in my tooties, bare bum to the sky,
I am a baron, and that's how I die.
Obedient to my mistress's wishes, I had taken up a place on the stand to watch the sentence carried out. In truth I had no eyes for the clothing and jewellery of the women of fashion around me when the prisoners were at last led through the open gates. I looked instead at Rasfer and I tried to revive and inflate my hatred for him. I forced myself to recite every cruel and wicked act that he had ever committed against me, to relive the agony of the lash and the knife that he had inflicted upon me. Yet there he stood with his white belly sagging almost to his knees, with excrement in his hair and filth streaking his face and running down his grotesque body. It was difficult to hate him as much as he deserved.
He saw me on the stand and he grinned up at me. The paralysed muscles on one side of his face made it only half a grin, a sardonic grimace, and he called, 'Thank you for coming to 'wish me godspeed, eunuch. Perhaps we will meet again in the fields of paradise, where I hope to have the pleasure of cutting off your balls once again.'
That taunt should have made it easier for me to hate him, but somehow it failed, although I called back to him, 'You are going no further than the mud in the river bottom, old friend. The next catfish that I roast on the spit I will call Rasfer.'
He was the first prisoner to be lifted on to the wooden gate. It took three men on the parapet of the wall, straining on the rope, while at the same time, four more shoved from below. They held him there as one of the regimental armourers climbed the ladder beside him with a stone-headed mallet in his fist.
