by Paul Doherty
‘My lady?’
Hatusu glanced up. The rest of the royal circle had risen. Sethos, talking to two of the scribes, was staring at her strangely. The doors had been thrown open to allow clerks and servants in. She glanced to her left. Senenmut was standing next to her holding two brimming glass goblets.
‘My lady, you still grieve?’
Hatusu took the goblet from his hand.
‘My lady still grieves,’ she answered but she smiled at Senenmut with her eyes. ‘I thank you for your support.’
‘If you don’t feel well,’ Senenmut raised his voice, ‘then, my lady, I’d take the night air, it will refresh you.’
Cradling the goblet between her hands, Hatusu followed Senenmut out on to the balcony. The air was rich with the perfume from the flowers below. It brought back bittersweet memories of her shy husband, Tuthmosis. How he would love to take her walking there, discussing some project or wondering about religion. Yes, Tuthmosis always thought about the gods, about their nature and their function. She used to listen to him with half an ear, but Senenmut? She would watch this man intently.
‘A soft, balmy night,’ he began. ‘One dedicated to the goddess Hathor.’
‘The goddess of love,’ Hatusu replied, not turning her head. ‘Well, she’s a goddess I’ve not paid much homage to.’ She glanced sly-eyed. ‘At least, not for the moment.’
‘And that is wise, my lady. This is the season of the hyena, the year of the locust.’ Senenmut was talking fast. ‘Out beyond the borders, in the Red Lands, Egypt’s enemies prepare. More dangerous are the snakes coiled and ready in your own house.’
Hatusu looked at him quickly. Did he know anything about what was going on? Was Senenmut the blackmailer?
‘You talk of snakes.’ Her voice was cold.
‘That is appropriate, your highness.’ Senenmut deliberately enhanced her title. He stepped closer. ‘Your highness,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘You must trust me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you can trust no one else.’
‘Has Rahimere bribed you?’
‘He tried to.’
‘And why did you refuse?’
‘For three reasons, my lady. Firstly, I do not like him. Secondly, I like you. And, thirdly, the bribe wasn’t big enough.’
Hatusu burst out laughing. ‘So, tell the truth.’ She moved her wine cup from one hand to another, her fingers brushing his. ‘Just how can I bribe you?’
‘With nothing, my lady. But, if I succeed, with everything.’
‘Everything?’ Hatusu teased. She smiled up at him from under half-closed lids. She felt a flush of excitement. Here was a man who wanted her; desperately wanted her and was prepared to play for the highest stakes. ‘So, tell me, my clever overseer of works, what is Rahimere really going to recommend?’
‘He’s going to recommend an army be sent south. Omendap will lead it.’
‘Were you with my husband at Sakkara?’
Senenmut shook his head. ‘What would an overseer of royal works have to do with the army?’
‘But you were a soldier once. A captain in the chariot squadrons, I understand?’ She looked at him from head to toe, deliberately imitating a woman studying a wrestler before she lays a wager. ‘Your wrists are strong, your legs firm, your chest broad and you have no fear.’
‘I am the overseer of Pharaoh’s works,’ Senenmut continued drily. ‘As I have said, Rahimere will recommend the army move south and you go with it.’
‘I guessed that already.’
‘You must not refuse.’ Senenmut now drew closer, staring over her head as if discussing something of little importance. ‘Go with the army,’ he urged. ‘You’ll be safe there. Stay in Thebes and you’ll die. I will go with you.’
‘And if I fail?’
‘Then I fail with you.’
‘And if I win?’ Hatusu teased.
‘Then, my lady, I gain everything.’
‘And you’ll wait till then?’
His clever eyes crinkled in amusement.
‘My lady, that’s a matter for you. Yet heed my advice. If you can, bring this matter before the lord Amerotke to a close. Bury it, forget it.’ His eyes grew puzzled. ‘Only the gods know why you began the business in the first place!’
Senenmut was about to continue when the clerks announced the councillors must retake their seats. They went back inside and the doors were closed. Hatusu started. An oil lamp had fallen from its niche, causing a little chaos and some nervous laughter. The flame caught one of the rugs but a quick-thinking servant stamped the flame out. The oil lamp was replaced. A psalm was chanted to divine Pharaoh. The officiating priest had scarcely withdrawn when there was the most heartrending scream. Hatusu whirled round. The commander Ipuwer was on his feet staring in horror at his arm. On the table before him lay his writing bag, documents spilling out. Hatusu, appalled, saw the viper curling among the papyrus sheets.
Dagger out, General Omendap lunged at the snake. He missed. The snake struck again, this time taking Ipuwer in the thigh. Omendap was on his feet lashing out with the dagger. The council chamber was in uproar. The doors were thrown open, soldiers rushed in. Ipuwer had collapsed to the floor. Members of his regiment were around him. Omendap had killed the snake, picked it up with his dagger and hurled it down the council chamber. They watched helplessly as Ipuwer entered his death throes, body shaking as the venom sped through his blood. Eventually he gave a strangled cry, a final convulsion, then his head fell sideways, eyes glazed, mouth drooling.
‘Have him taken out!’ Omendap ordered. ‘The news of his death, leave that to me!’
Hatusu sat rigid as a stone. Ipuwer’s sudden death brought back memories of those terrible convulsions of her husband before the statue of Amun-Ra! The priests taking his corpse into a small side chapel and the dreadful events which had followed.
Rahimere had the chamber cleared. The rest took their seats once more. No one spoke but everyone moved gingerly; cloaks, bags, belongings were carefully searched with the point of a dagger, walking sticks or fly whisks.
‘A terrible accident,’ Bayletos intoned.
‘Accident!’ Senenmut scoffed. ‘My lords, my lady Hatusu, do you think that was an accident? Did Commander Ipuwer put a viper in his sack? If he did, why was it not there at the beginning of this meeting?’
‘Ipuwer was murdered,’ Sethos declared. ‘Someone put that viper there. An assassin who intends to kill and kill again! Divine Pharaoh’s journey to the far horizon will not be alone!’
‘I agree.’ Rahimere’s hard eyes studied Hatusu. ‘Murder has been done and I call upon the god Thoth, the speaker of truth, to unmask this assassin and bring him,’ he paused, ‘or her, to merited destruction!’
Wadjet: guardian goddess, often depicted as a cobra.
CHAPTER 6
The assassins, the Amemets or devourers, sat in a circle in the small palm grove near the temple of Hathor, a deserted, secluded spot. Their leader had felt confident enough to light a small fire against the evening chill. The city had fallen silent. Only the occasional faint cry of a guard or sentry was carried on the night breeze. Sometimes from the river they heard the roar of a hippopotamus or the sudden flights of birds from the papyrus thickets. The air was pungent with the sweet smell of rottenness from the Nile. The river was beginning to fall, leaving vast areas of rich mud which dried in the sun and, baked hard at night, gave off its own strange perfume. The Amemets were confident. Their leader had told them exactly what they were going to do. Nothing dangerous, just the removal of a few guards, followed by the abduction and execution of Captain Meneloto.
The Amemets whiled their time away, telling stories until one of them had produced their pet cat, a huge, horn-eared, half-wild animal they regarded as their amulet, their mascot for good luck. Someone else had captured a scorpion, carefully imprisoned in a piece of hardened papyrus. A small circle of fire was created. The scorpion was placed in its centre and the cat put down. Wagers were laid an
d taken and one of the Amemets began the usual count. The wager was to see how long it would take the cat to kill the scorpion. The animal moved quickly, trained to kill and be rewarded with choice pieces of meat. It delicately avoided the small ring of burning charcoal, hit the scorpion on the side, turned it over and, with one swipe of a powerful paw, removed the poisoned tail before crunching the rest in its jaws. A sigh went round the onlookers. The cat had moved quickly and only a few had won. The rest forfeited their hard-earned debens of copper until the next time.
‘A true killer,’ the Amemet leader declared.
He picked up the cat, held it to him and stared up at the sky. He had received his orders. They had come as secretly and mysteriously as the last. Yet the gold had been paid; whoever was hiding him must be a great Egyptian lord.
‘It’s time, yes, it’s time,’ he said softly.
He handed the cat to his lieutenant. The fire was quickly doused. The Amemets donned their black cloaks, hiding their faces as if they were sand wanderers. They drew their daggers and padded quietly as the cat they worshipped across the open space and up an alleyway.
Meneloto’s town house was a small, two-storeyed building surrounded by a garden and a curtain wall. The guard in front was fast asleep on the cheap beer he had drunk. He was disposed of immediately, his throat sliced from ear to ear. The soldier guarding the postern gate at the back was more alert. However, before he could cry out, the Amemets were on him, stifling his mouth, pushing him down to the earth, their daggers moving in and out until his body stopped jerking. Hands covered in his hot blood, the Amemets scaled the wall and flowed like a wave of darkness across the moonlit garden. Two more guards were killed. The seal on the side door was broken, the lock forced. A sleepy-eyed officer staggered round a corner into a hail of arrows. He died immediately. The Amemet leader scurried ahead. The rest of his followers dispersed, intent on stealing anything valuable. A few minutes later Meneloto, still drowsy from a heavy sleep, was quickly forced to dress, pushed down the stairs and out into the garden. The night air revived him; shadowy figures gathered round. Meneloto grasped the cloak pushed into his hands and glanced across the garden: in the corner the buttress was decayed. If he reached it, he could climb over the wall and hide in the warren of alleyways beyond.
‘You are to come with us,’ a voice grated.
‘Where?’
‘To a safe place!’
Meneloto realised he was going to be killed; he swung the cloak round as if to put it across his shoulders but threw it at his captors. At the same time he burst into a run, knocking aside the hands that grabbed out. He reached the wall and was up and over before the first arrows whirred above his head.
Amerotke sat in the chair of judgement in the Hall of Two Truths and stared in disbelief at Sethos.
‘Captain Meneloto has escaped?’
‘Apparently.’ The royal prosecutor spread his hands. ‘Certainly with the support of others. The soldiers guarding him were killed.’
Amerotke looked down at the floor. He ignored the murmur of consternation from the scribes and witnesses. The life of Thebes, he reflected, was like the Nile. It swirled and changed. Even as he walked into the city this morning, Shufoy loudly complaining behind him, Amerotke had noticed the change. A tension hung in the air. The guards at the gate had been doubled. Trade in the marketplace was not as brisk at it should have been. Crowds clustered round the beer shops and wine booths. Shufoy had brought him the gossip: how at the meeting of the royal circle in the House of a Million Years, the popular and ambitious Ipuwer, commander of the Horus regiment, had been bitten by a snake. Publicly, it was proclaimed as an accident; privately, people whispered murder and drew similarities between the commander’s death and that of divine Pharaoh.
On the one hand Amerotke felt relieved by Meneloto’s escape, on the other angry that his time had been wasted and justice had been thwarted. He had reached his decision, the only logical conclusion. Divine Pharaoh may have been bitten and killed by a viper but that snake was not the one whose desiccated corpse lay on the floor before him. Somehow or other he must have been bitten by another viper. If that was the case? Amerotke sucked on his teeth. Was it an accident or was it murder?
‘These matters should be adjourned.’ Khemut, his chief scribe, spoke up. ‘My lord Amerotke, the prisoner has gone, so a judgement cannot be delivered.’
Amerotke touched the pectoral of Ma’at. He felt a spurt of anger. Justice was Pharaoh’s, a tool of the gods, not the plaything of a faction in the royal circle.
‘Judgement can be deferred,’ Amerotke declared hotly. ‘But I, as chief judge in the Hall of Two Truths, have the right to comment on the case before me. There are matters here which deeply concern me.’
The court fell silent. Amerotke placed his hand on his knees. Keeping his head rigid, he regarded a symbol painted on the far wall, the all-seeing eye of Horus.
‘First,’ he began, ‘I find it difficult to believe that Pharaoh’s death is not connected to the blasphemous and sacrilegious desecration of his tomb which took place as divine Pharaoh journeyed down the Nile.’
A loud sigh greeted his words, a stir of excitement.
‘Secondly, I find it difficult to believe,’ Amerotke continued remorselessly, ‘that Pharaoh’s death was caused by the viper found on the Glory of Ra. Thirdly, I accept the opinion of witnesses, both those produced by the eyes and ears of Pharaoh as well as those by the now-absent Meneloto. All spoke the truth, as they saw it. However, in the end, divine Pharaoh’s death conceals a dark mystery.’
Sethos leaned forward as if to interrupt but Amerotke made a cutting movement with his hand.
‘Judgement will not be given. The case will be adjourned.’
Amerotke did not move from his judgement chair. Sethos sighed in exasperation and clambered to his feet. He bowed to the judge then to the shrine and padded quietly out of the Hall of Two Truths. Amerotke snapped his fingers, indicating the court would remain in session and other cases would be heard. Sethos would have loved to take him aside and discuss what he had said but Amerotke was determined not to be drawn into the subtle intrigues of the royal circle. Amerotke would also have liked to comment on Commander Ipuwer’s death but he had the good sense to bite his tongue. If he was placed on oath for his opinion, then he would give it. He suspected divine Pharaoh had been murdered and Commander Ipuwer’s death was connected to it. And who had freed Meneloto? Was it the royal circle? Had some order been passed down that this embarrassing trial be brought to a sudden conclusion, that the matter be brushed aside and quickly forgotten? Or had Meneloto, fearful that he might not receive true justice, conspired with friends to effect his escape?
Amerotke accepted the small cup of watered wine Prenhoe offered. He sipped and handed it back, then looked at the scribes, still restless and fidgeting.
‘The court is still in session,’ Amerotke announced. ‘Bring in the next case!’
The scribes would always remember that morning. Chief judge Amerotke moved quickly but ruthlessly. A woman who had killed her child was ordered to carry that child and sit in the marketplace for seven days in public view. Five drunkards who had urinated in the sacred pool of the temple of Hathor, the goddess of love, were summarily dealt with and taken down to the House of Darkness to be stripped and flogged. A merchant who had sold putrid meat, causing the death of two of his customers, received a heavy fine and banishment from the city markets for a year and a day. By noon Amerotke believed that he had emphasised divine Pharaoh’s justice enough. The court was adjourned. He rose from his judgement chair, tense and angry, and walked into the small side chapel. He took off the pectoral of Ma’at but started as a figure stepped out of the darkness. The man was dressed like a priest. Amerotke noticed the strength of his wrists, the arrogant tilt of his head.
‘You have no right to be here.’ He turned away.
‘Come, come, my lord Amerotke, is your memory fading?’
Amerotke turned and smiled. ‘Y
ou’ve put on a little weight, my lord Senenmut, but those eyes and that voice. How can I forget them?’
They clasped hands.
‘However, this is my chamber, my private chapel,’ Amerotke reminded him.
‘That’s why I’m here,’ Senenmut replied. ‘My lord Amerotke, I bring greetings from her highness the lady Hatusu, widow of divine Pharaoh.’
‘I know who the lady Hatusu is!’
Senenmut pushed a small scroll of papyrus into his hand. Amerotke unrolled it. He noticed the cartouche sealed at the bottom and kissed it. The summons was short and succinct.
‘Lord Amerotke and the lady Norfret are invited to a banquet at the royal palace this evening where lord Amerotke will receive the official ring and seal, tokens of his promotion to membership of the royal circle.’
‘A surprising honour.’ Amerotke raised his head but Senenmut had gone.
The sun was slipping into the west, bathing the city with its dying rays, when Amerotke, Norfret in the chariot beside him, made his way down to the House of a Million Years on the banks of the Nile. Norfret had been quietly pleased by the great honour bestowed on her husband.
‘You must take it,’ she had urged, grasping him by the hand. ‘Whether you like it or not, Amerotke, you are caught up in the politics of the court.’
‘They want to shut my mouth,’ Amerotke had replied tersely. ‘To silence or buy me. Meneloto’s escape, not to mention Commander Ipuwer’s sudden death, is enough embarrassment for one day.’