Sharp thumps woke him. The door quaked and his father’s worry-tinged voice infiltrated the gloom.
“Nic! Open the door. Come on, mate. You’ve been comatose for twenty-three hours. You’ve got to eat something.”
Groggy perception brought vicious aches and a tide of freezing sweat. A white blaze jack-hammered his skull. Nic’s teeth rattled and he groaned, sicker than he’d ever been. Nausea hit and he projectiled onto the carpet. Finished, but not any better, he observed through slitted lids. It was the most he could manage.
“That’s it! Move, Sam!” With a resonating crash, a splintered hole materialised around the knob, the sole of a Blundstone extracted. A hand looped through to wrangle the lock, and it eventually bounced open. Jonathon barged in, Sam pursuing tighter on his heels than a sheepdog.
“Jesus! What’s that stink?”
“Vomit?” Sam supplied helpfully.
Nic wanted to laugh but didn’t have the energy. His brother wore his school uniform and Nic strained to decipher if it was morning or afternoon.
“Something else...”
Another torture lurked beneath the pall of illness, but the physical symptoms besieged and he was thankful. Blinds shot up and sun accosted as if lava. He recoiled from the blitz, the motion stabbing swords in his flesh. The bed-linen reefed off in a glacial blast.
“Is the thermostat working?” he croaked in protest.
“Dad,” Sam’s tone was tremulous. “He looks awful. He’s the colour of putty.”
“Where’s all that blood coming from?” A hand lay on his back provoking another volley of hurt and Nic flinched. “You’re burning up. Help me, Sam. Let’s get him unfurled and take a look.”
He thought himself only half present, but when they attempted to wrestle him flat, Nic thrashed and howled against the reality. His core split apart like someone eviscerated him with a chainsaw.
“Hank!” Jonathon bellowed. Another set of hands joined the fray.
The trio eventually succeeded in crucifying him to the mattress, punctuated by Hank’s, “Holy mother! You want me to phone an ambulance? That’s god-awful infected. He’ll be septic before too long.”
“Call Hanna!” Sam cried. “She’s a surgeon. Anatoly’s a doctor as well. They’ll get here faster.”
A litany of ‘no’s’ chorused in Nic’s mind, but he couldn’t get his glued mouth to function. Not an Arkady, please not another Arkady. He faded in and out.
“Hank?” Jonathon queried.
“You invite them here, I’m gone. There’s a perfectly good hospital down the road.”
“That’s forty-five minutes away!” Sam said.
“No choice, I think. Make the call, Sam. Hurry! Get me some water and a flannel before you go, will you, Hank?”
“I’ll bring the first aid kit. Maybe you can clean it up a bit. Give him some aspirin for the fever.”
“He’ll never keep it down. He needs an IV.”
“I told you, Johnny, the big-house people are bad news. Crap happens anytime you go near ‘em. Those are claw marks or I’m Sophia Loren.”
“You couldn’t be Florence Nightingale, make yourself useful?”
“Let me know when you remove those blinkers. Okay, Johnny? No amount of money’s worth this shit.”
“Shut up, Hank! You’re out of a job if we lose this farm. I’m all ears and so far you’ve come up with zero alternatives.”
“And how’s your plan workin’ out?”
“I don’t have the luxury of choosiness. We’re buried deep and I’ve got two sons to care for. I’ll be buggered if they’re paying for my mistakes.”
“They’re close enough to my own flesh and blood, so don’t give me that bunkum,” Hank said angrily.
“Keep your voice down!”
“I’m a partner in this catastrophe. You Lawson’s are my only family, in case you’d forgotten. I’ll be out more than a job, so we’re in the same hole. But as I keep saying, the Arkady’s aren’t the solution. Makes no sense, but they’re gunning for your boys. You want to care for them? Get them the hell away before there’s a real burial.” Stamped boots receded.
“Superstitious mumbo-jumbo,” Jonathon muttered.
Nic’s mind eddied sluggishly. Something important had transpired, but he couldn’t nail it down before awareness fled. Sam’s voice droned as he hovered in an out, transporting him to an ancient era, its geography exotic. In a detached portion of his mind, Nic recognised the throes of delirium, but was powerless against its inevitable drag.
His heart leapt. There she was again, converging on his path from an alleyway up ahead. From only a peek of black tresses and rouged lips beneath the cowl of her robe, he was certain. She moved through the market with an otherworldly grace, befitting a Priestess of the Temple of Ba en Aset. All grovelled to the dirt as she passed.
Her intoxicating perfume branded his senses. The bribe paid to determine her name was exorbitant: Sanura. If he was caught, death proved the beginning of his trials. A herd of ostrich bobbed past and he lost sight of her in the dust and noise of the bazaar. Craning, he tripped and stumbled into the boy in front.
“Kafele!” His head jerked under the onslaught of an open-palmed slap. He cursed his size and broadness amongst slim-hipped colleagues that made him too visible. The scribe-master bawled, “Wake up, boy! Is your brain in the sky?”
Kafele sighed and returned his attention to his sandals. “Yes, Master Baruti. I am sorry.” As the son of Nobleman Senenet, the Pharaoh’s most honoured advisor, behaviour above reproach was expected. Hoping for a peaceful moment to observe her in the teeming marketplace was futile, in any case.
And he pined in vain, a Chaste of the Temple off-limits. The upcoming festival of Akhet, the time of the Nile’s great blessing, provided the only opportunity to get close -- watching from a distance as the Priestesses danced in the Temple courtyard.
“Halt!” Master Baruti yelled.
His charges jostled to a stop like obedient sheep. Their Master moved off to indulge in an impassioned conversation with the nearby papyrus trader, the quality of the reeds from the previous season particularly noteworthy. These meetings always included lengthy speculation on the height of the Nile’s imminent flood.
The apprentices milled by a stall selling flat-bread, Kafele’s stomach growling in anticipation of the evening meal. Or maybe his hunger was due to another need entirely. Since he’d first set eyes on her at the Temple school, his mind had not strayed far from Sanura. And she seemed to appear with unerring regularity, wherever he ventured.
Not that he ventured beyond stone-bound walls often. Instruction as a Scribe was arduous work, twelve hour days, six days a week. But the food was good and plentiful, bathing frequent, and the potential for good standing among the nobility, high. These expeditions to learn the ways of taxation came as a welcome break.
“Kafele,” Akiki whispered.
Unlike him, his friend was a litter-runt, ribs sharp relief above the gold cord of his white loin-skirt. He made an appalling stick-fighting partner and held a spear as gingerly as he would an asp. Flapping gums more than ably compensated for the lack of muscle.
He launched the all-too-familiar nag. “You could not be more obvious if Ra himself shone the light. You must stop this! Fornicating is frowned upon for us, above all others. You compromise your journey in the afterlife with open lust. A Bast Priestess could never accept such an advance.”
“Calm yourself, Kiki. I know of our rules.” He’d inked them on papyrus enough.
“Well do yourself justice and adhere to them!”
“Proceed!” the Master barked, shepherding them with rod-wielding zeal.
But when it came to Sanura, Kafele’s restraint failed, which surprised him not at all. What did surprise? She eventually reciprocated with equal passion, earning the lovers a doom worse than exile to the Underworld.
***
Chapter Twenty-Two