by LJM Owen
‘What do we call ourselves?’ Henry said. ‘Nothing to do with Buffy, or Firefly. Not the A-Team. How do we describe ourselves, collectively?’
‘A deduction of detectives?’ Nathan offered.
Elizabeth chuckled. ‘Not that kind of collective.’
Rhoz held up a finger. ‘A shelf of librarians?’
‘A trench of archaeologists?’ Alice chimed in.
‘A snoop of sleuths?’ was Llew’s offering.
‘Ooh, I like that,’ Henry said. ‘I once told Elizabeth she was an intermillennial sleuth. How about a snoop of intermillennial sleuths?’
‘That’s a bit long,’ Nathan objected.
‘Very well. Snoop of sleuths it is!’ Elizabeth said. ‘Now can we begin?’
‘Whom do we meet today?’ Rhoz asked.
‘Merneptah, fourth Pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty,’ Alice said.
‘His tomb was stunning,’ Henry reminisced, as Alice and Elizabeth laid out the skeleton. ‘It had beautifully painted scenes from the Amduat throughout.’
‘Unfortunately for him, all that effort went to someone else,’ Elizabeth said, ‘as his mummy was found in a cache along with five of the other mummies we’re looking at from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties.’
‘Musical tombs,’ Henry said.
Looking into Merneptah’s face as she settled his skull and jaw into their foam rest, Elizabeth could see multiple points of similarity with mummy one from the Tomb. Today was definitely looking promising.
‘So,’ Nathan said. ‘How tall was today’s first suspect?’
Elizabeth handed him the tape measure.
‘One point seven metres,’ was Nathan’s calculation, which agreed with the other estimates Elizabeth had found in the literature. ‘The same height as his father and great-grandfather.’
‘What do we know about him?’ Rhoz asked.
‘When his mummy was first examined it was found that he was almost bald, with just a narrow fringe of white hair on the sides and back of his head – rather like my own Taid! – and some sparse whiskers on his face,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Apparently, he was also quite overweight when he died.’
Looking at the proportions of Merneptah’s forehead, midface and jaw, she was strongly reminded of his father, Ramesses the Second; but Merneptah resembled his grandfather, Seti the First, even more. Again, the overall effect of facial features had skipped a generation.
‘He definitely belonged to the family,’ she noted. ‘And if you recall the features of our first Tomb mummy, his face has the same proportions, and almost identically shaped orbits and nasal aperture, I think. I suspect we may find that, of all the Pharaohs we’ve examined so far, she may most closely resemble Merneptah here.’
‘So we’re on the right track?’ Henry asked.
‘Looks like it!’
‘His teeth?’ Alice asked.
Elizabeth tilted the cranium back to reveal the full dentition, or at least what was left of it. ‘Terrible. They’re severely worn and quite a few are missing…again, too many to include him in any dental analysis.’ She ran a finger over the stumps left in the maxilla. ‘But I can see the outline of what would have been the extra tubercle on the outside of his upper second molars.’
‘How old was he when he died?’ Rhoz asked.
‘At least late sixties, if not in his seventies,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Even though he was Ramesses the Second’s thirteenth son, he was already quite old when he took the throne. His reign lasted less than ten years, during which time things deteriorated somewhat for Egypt.’
‘I’ve observed that pattern in many histories,’ Rhoz said. ‘When a long-lived ruler passes away there’s usually a crowd of people willing to have a go at taking over the country.’
‘Absolutely,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘Apparently there was a real fight among the Second’s descendants as to who should rule next. And the Sea Peoples, whom I can only describe as Mediterranean gypsy pirates, teamed up with the Libyans to take a run at Merneptah.’
‘I’m sure I read about them in relation to our first Pharaoh, Ramesses the Third, as well,’ Nathan said.
‘Yes, they attacked Egypt repeatedly,’ Elizabeth said. ‘In fact, the Sea Peoples attacked Egypt under the Third’s reign to the point that he drained the royal treasury to fund armies to defend the country. He was so broke couldn’t even pay the tomb builders in Deir el-Medina, so they laid down their tools and refused to work until they received their full back pay. It was the first documented workers’ strike in history.’
As she talked, Elizabeth was turning the bones of Merneptah’s spine, pelvis and legs this way and that. ‘There’s a lot of signs of wear here. He must have been quite uncomfortable in old age with extensive arthritis throughout his body.’ She returned to his head. ‘The more I look at the proportions of his face, the more I’m certain there’s going to be a way to compare our Tomb mummies and the Pharaohs for familial relationship. We should be able to see if one of the Pharaohs is more closely related to the Tomb mummies than any of the others. That should help us narrow our search for other evidence of exactly who built the Golden Tomb.’
‘You’re thinking of a wider search of other records from that time?’ Henry asked.
‘Precisely.’
‘Shall we see where the next Pharaoh sits?’
‘Yes!’
As they laid out the bones of Seti the Second, Elizabeth became even more excited. Sexual dimorphism aside, he was almost identical to mummy one from the Tomb, a closer match even than Merneptah.
‘How about I calculate his height?’ Nathan said.
‘Absolutely,’ Elizabeth agreed.
Nathan worked his tape measure and calculator magic. ‘One point six four metres tall…five feet five inches?’
‘A bit shorter than the previous Pharaohs,’ Henry said.
‘Yes, it’s one of the vagaries of post-cranial metrics that I was referring to,’ Elizabeth explained, looking over the skeleton for any other signs of similarity with the Golden Tomb mummies. ‘Even though his father, grandfather and even great-great grandfather were all one point seven metres tall, and his mother was also descended from Ramesses the Second so genetically he should definitely have been the same height, Seti the Second was a good five centimetres shorter than his immediate forefathers.’
‘How could that be?’ Rhoz frowned.
‘It could have been due to any number of things: poor nutrition in the womb, childhood disease, or bad gut bacteria that didn’t allow him to absorb nutrients during growth phases,’ Elizabeth explained.
The front doorbell rang, breaking the flow of conversation among the sleuths.
‘I’ll get it!’ they heard Matty yell, from another part of the house.
‘Is it my imagination or is he younger-looking than the other Pharaohs?’ Nathan asked, returning the group’s attention to the skeleton in front of them.
‘Good eyes!’ Elizabeth complimented him. ‘Going by his teeth, he was probably in his thirties when he died. He actually had good teeth,’ she added, with a touch of surprise. ‘And, look, there’s the additional tubercle on his second molars. You did an excellent repair job by the way.’
‘Thank you.’ Nathan smiled.
‘Repair?’ Rhoz asked.
‘His head and hands were broken off by grave-robbers, so when Nathan prepared the data for our printouts he made sure all the bones lined up properly. He’s been fixing issues like that for us along the way.’
‘Posthumous bone repair…have data manipulation, will travel,’ Henry joked.
‘Too right,’ Nathan said. ‘So, why don’t we look at the rest of today’s mummies, review what we know, then work out what to do next? I’m enjoying this so much I’m up for a ton more computer work.’
‘Sounds like a plan!’ Rhoz said.
�
��Great,’ Alice added.
Elizabeth heard the front door close as she glanced eagerly at the next sets of boxes. ‘I’m feeling cautiously optimistic that we’re getting closer to an answer. Our Golden Tomb mummy number one looks so much like Seti the Second that I have a feeling we’re going to be able to figure this out after all.’
Alice smiled broadly at Elizabeth as she turned to retrieve boxes to pack away Seti the Second’s bones.
There was a rap on the library door. Everyone in the room turned to see Matty pop his head in and wave an envelope. ‘Delivery for Dr Pimms,’ he said.
As she took the letter from him, Elizabeth’s heart swelled with pride at the sight of Matty moving around the house without his crutches. It was such a hard-fought, hard-won victory. She was incredibly proud of and pleased for him.
Alice asked Matty about his cheffing course as Elizabeth opened the envelope and scanned the contents. Phrases jumped out at her:.
‘… have had to live with the guilt…my part in your father’s death…forgive me…’
Elizabeth felt as though she had receded into a tunnel deep inside her head.
‘Elizabeth?’ Nathan said. ‘Are you okay?’
Out. She had to get out. ‘Yes.’ Elizabeth’s tongue felt thick, slow. ‘I’m not feeling great. I’ll be back soon.’
‘You look pale,’ Rhoz said, as Elizabeth pushed past her.
She felt as if she was floating inside her body, distanced from everything, and that it was operating of its own accord.
‘Who dropped off the note?’ Elizabeth heard Alice ask as a hand that proved to be her own opened the front door.
‘Judy,’ Matty answered, as the door closed behind her.
Chapter Fourteen
Year 6, Reign of Pharaoh Siptah (1187 BCE)
Men-nefer, Khemet (now Memphis, Egypt)
Tausret, Divine Wife of Amun, Regent of all Upper and Lower Khemet, stared resolutely out of a window at goddess Nut’s dazzling body, watching the crescent moon and twinkling stars of her night beauty slowly fade. As she watched, Nut’s robes altered from inky black to blush pink and finally lightest blue. Tausret had patiently endured the dawn ritual of being scrubbed, shaved from head to toe, rinsed, dried and adorned with paint, perfume, linen and jewels. As long as she complied with her servants’ directives, she could otherwise concentrate on the day ahead.
Her thoughts were occupied by directing Khemet’s generals to defend its borders, ensuring food reached outlying starving villages, and quelling endless coup attempts.
Today Siptah, ostensibly ruler of Khemet, would meet with the Chief Priest of Amun. In the two flood cycles since Chancellor Bay’s death, the Aur had risen to less than half its previous tidemarks, reducing the water available for irrigation dramatically. As a result, the country’s food reserves had run out. Her people were starving, and many were wandering, displaced, stealing and looting for survival.
Tausret needed to build one particular dam ahead of the coming flood to protect the lives of thousands. For some unknown reason the Chief Priest of Amun was still resisting her irrigation program and running a campaign to turn the priests of several other major gods against her. The time had come for him to capitulate or be replaced.
An owl flew past the window, late on its way to roost. Distracted, Tausret turned her head to watch its path. The woman applying her makeup clicked her tongue. Tausret wondered if the owl was a messenger from Seti, carrying reassurance from the Land of Two Fields that today she would finally eliminate the lingering influence of Bay, whose dying words often haunted her quieter moments. ‘I am not the true threat to Siptah. That remains.’ Had it been a final bluff, or the truth?
The makeup artist put one finger under Tausret’s jaw; she lifted her head.
After her morning counsel with Seben, she had sent her lover and most trusted adviser down the corridor to prepare Siptah for the coming confrontation.Tausret was increasingly proud of her half-brother. His understanding of state politics was developing rapidly for one so young.
As the artist patted crushed green powder onto Tausret’s eyelids, a terrified shriek rang out in the corridor. ‘Guards! Guards!’
Pushing the attendant aside, Tausret stepped into the hallway to see an hysterical servant twisting her dress in a panic. A cohort of Medjay sprinted past her into Siptah’s quarters, tunics and headdresses flapping wildly.
No! Tausret flew to the door of Pharaoh’s chambers.
Inside, Siptah lay on his bed, spittle foaming from his mouth. Beside him, Seben knelt on the floor, her torso slumped over him.
‘Get a physician. Run!’ Tausret screamed at a guard. She leapt to the bed and gathered Siptah, who was barely breathing, into her arms.
A medical scribe arrived. ‘Mighty Lady, you must let go of him.’
Siptah’s body slipped from Tausret’s grasp as she pulled Seben to her and sank to the floor, cradling Seben’s head in her lap.
Tausret sought Seben’s eyes for reassurance. The grim determination on her face said there was none.
Seben whispered something, her lips barely moving. Tausret pulled her closer and lowered an ear. Seben repeated the name of her poisoner and their motive.
Tausret drew back to look at her, desperate to have misheard, but her beloved companion nodded and mouthed the name once more.
Tausret watched the light fade from Seben’s eyes.
Peril lay in the House of Women, closer than she could ever have imagined. Her first act as Pharaoh would be to eradicate it. She had failed to protect her brother and her lover; and to protect Khemet she would have to kill those precious to her yet again.
Overwhelmed with loss and betrayal, Tausret rocked Seben back and forth, her keening filling the room.
Chapter Fifteen
Now
Canberra, Australia
As Elizabeth pounded up the track into the bush behind the house she startled a lone red-necked wallaby, causing it to dart from its hiding place in the scrub. It jumped onto the path directly in front of her and froze. Elizabeth screamed, and the wallaby bounded away into the scrub.
Elizabeth collapsed to her knees on the dusty path. How could Judy have been responsible for Dad’s death? She raised the letter, hands trembling. In the phrenic library Oliver advised that she calm down and read the letter in its entirety before jumping to any conclusions.
Dear Elizabeth
I have tried for almost four years to find the right words to tell you this, but there are none. I also can’t bear this secret any more.
You asked me why I have gone out of my way to help you and your family. Because I owe you.
The reason I do as much as I can for you all is that I feel responsible for your father’s death, and I’m trying to make up for it, although I know nothing I ever do will be enough.
Please understand, I never meant for it to happen. If I could go back in time and do things differently, I would. I have consulted a solicitor, and she advised me that I wouldn’t have a case to answer under the law, yet in my heart I’m guilty. If I had done more, tried harder, I might have been able to save him.
I realise, now I’ve told you, that I can’t prevent you from telling your family, but I hope you will give me a chance to explain to you in person before you tell anyone else.
Could you please come to work an hour early on Monday and I will explain and answer any questions you have?
I hope one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not having tried hard enough.
Judy
Elizabeth sucked in a breath then forced it from her lungs with a whoosh. The letter made no sense. How could Judy have been involved in her father’s death? Think, think!
Elizabeth’s father had been discovered early one morning by a para-librarian investigating a malfunctioning robot in the stacks beneath the Llewellyn Wing. He
had been identified by co-workers. No-one in the family had viewed the body; the police had said his injuries were too severe. The official report stated that he had sustained significant trauma, ‘incompatible with life’, when an enormous tub of books fell on him. It was ruled an accident.
In the stacks, robotic arms moved among towers of book bins three storeys high, hooking and retrieving containers according to instructions received from the Library’s internal ordering system. Somehow one was dropped on Elizabeth’s father; his death had likely been instant.
The ensuing investigation had discovered an obscure glitch in the computer code that controlled the robots – an unfortunate combination of tower, row and item bar code that triggered the robot to release the bin prematurely. Under international law – or, rather, the lack of it – the Panama-registered robot-design corporation couldn’t be held responsible for the incident, and pursuing them in the civil court was far beyond the means of the Pimms family. Apart from paying out her father’s superannuation, Library management was given the all-clear.
No-one in the family harboured any resentment toward the Library. But they had sworn to harangue on sight the reporter who had headlined an account of William’s death The Body in the Library.
The whole heartbreaking, stupid, avoidable thing had been an accident.
So what was Judy talking about? Was she there the night the robot had malfunctioned? Did he survive the accident? Was he still breathing and she failed to call an ambulance? Had Judy left him there to die?
Rereading the letter for a fourth time, Elizabeth saw that it could be interpreted in a number of ways. Judy didn’t actually say she was in the stacks that night. Had she known the robots were malfunctioning, perhaps?
Elizabeth wanted to know what Judy felt so guilty about, and why now?
A cockatoo screeched overhead, bringing Elizabeth’s focus back to her present surroundings. She was kneeling in the middle of a dirt path deep in the bush, flies buzzing around her face, covered with sweat. Time to move, but what next?