by Brad Geagley
The jar was topped with a bust of Imsety, the human-headed son of the god Horus who protected the deceased’s preserved liver. Once again Semerket was astonished by the grace and delicacy of the workmanship. The glyphs were of inset gold and the god Imsety himself wore a cascading wig of carved lapis.
“My grandfather made it,” belched Paneb. “He was famous in his time for these jars. Every pharaoh, every noble, the queens—they all had to have a set for their tomb.”
“It’s beautiful,” Semerket said. “Did your grandfather leave it to you?”
The question was an innocent one, but Semerket instantly sensed that Paneb had tensed. “Amen-meses,” Paneb answered, after a moment’s hesitation.
“What?”
“A trader—a merchant—from Kush. Amen-meses brought it to me. He used to sell my grandfather’s work down south—thought I might like to have it.”
“He must be very old by now, to have known your grandfather.” Semerket held the jar into the candlelight, but was actually staring at Paneb.
“Yes…” Paneb was weaving slightly, his eyes blanketed by the dark. Suddenly his entire face changed to distress. “I’m sorry… I…” he said uncertainly, lurching for the kitchen.
When Paneb had vomited out all the wine he had drunk, he sank to the floor, trying to curl up on the tiles. Semerket knew from his own sordid experience how uncomfortable the foreman would feel in the morning. Dragging him into the sleeping room, he laid Paneb down on his pallet, covered him with skins, and placed a jug of water beside him.
It was only then that he truly looked about the foreman’s house, at the dirty plates left unwashed by the hearth, the overturned furniture and broken crockery. It exactly resembled his own home after Naia had left him. Semerket looked down at the snoring foreman, and felt a twinge of pity for the man. He was suffering badly, that much was obvious. It was not pleasant to see a person in so much pain.
But such unpleasantness did not prevent Semerket from seizing the opportunity that had been presented to him. Taking the candle into the kitchen, he retrieved the canopic jar from the niche into which Paneb had thrust it. He held the jar in the wavering candlelight, seeing again its perfect line and sinuous detail.
Turning it slowly in his hand, he noticed a small cartouche-shaped indentation that was incised into the alabaster, near its bottom. He knew that the sacred oval shape was used only to display the names of pharaohs, queens, and gods. He could not help but suspect that the complete cartouche, perhaps made of gold or silver like the rest of the inlaid glyphs, had been deliberately scratched from the piece so that its owner’s name could not be read.
Semerket looked about the kitchen and found a fairly clean plate. Holding it above the candle’s wick, he waited until a smear of carbon had collected, then wiped his finger across the soot. Holding the jar close to the candle so he could see, Semerket rubbed his finger lightly across the cartouche. Though faint, the glyphs once inlaid there were revealed.
Semerket mouthed their syllables slowly. “Twos-re.” He had never heard the name before, but another sweep of his blackened finger across the cartouche enabled another glyph to appear. “Divine woman,” it read, the symbol for a female pharaoh.
This was no leftover relic from Paneb’s ancestor, Semerket realized, nor had it been made for sale to the Kushites. It was a queen’s jar, and a ruling queen at that. Still, he had to make sure what he suspected was true.
Semerket strained, pulling at the lapis head. It refused to budge, so tightly were the two pieces wedged together. Inhaling silently, holding his breath, Semerket again pulled at the head, twisting it this time in his hand. The wig of carved blue stone cracked in half.
Semerket swore viciously to himself. The head came free, leaving a chunk of the stone wig attached to the rim of the jar. The room was instantly redolent of bay leaves and pine resin, so strong that he worried the aroma would wake Paneb. But the foreman’s heavy breathing still rumbled from the sleeping room.
He set Imsety’s damaged head down on the floor. Tilting the jar toward the candle, he peered within. As he had suspected, a resin-soaked, linen-wrapped object was inside, resembling a piece of rotting wood— Queen Twos-re’s preserved liver.
From his experiences in the House of Purification, he knew that after the liver had been dried in natron and wrapped in linen strips, it was then placed in such a jar. A viscous resin mixture of juniper and bay had then been poured, boiling, over it. Semerket inserted a finger into the jar and felt the glass-like surface of the hardened resin. Judging from how strong its harsh medicinal scent was, he surmised that whoever Twos-re had been, she had not been dead for very long. Strange that he had never heard her name mentioned, nor seen any inscription or stele bearing her figure or cartouche.
The jar was stolen from a tomb, that much was clear to him. But who was the thief—Paneb himself or the merchant Amen-meses? Either way, Paneb had to have known that the jar was stolen. This in itself was a crime, though many nobles—even pharaohs themselves— collected the grave-goods of ancient dynasties as a pastime.
Semerket bent to retrieve the cracked Imsety head. Holding the candle so that the wax dripped onto its shattered edge, he glued the two pieces securely together. It would hold, but not forever. He was so intent on his task that when he felt the rush of softness about his legs, he gasped aloud, leaping and almost dropping the jar altogether. Sukis was looking up at him, obviously disgusted by his gutless reaction. She mewed in derision.
Fearful that Paneb would hear her, he put his finger to his lips, futilely attempting to hush her cries. Moving back slowly through the room in which Paneb slept, he returned the jar to the chest from which Paneb had taken it. He hoped that in the morning Paneb would believe that he himself had put it there, and that he would not look too closely for cracks or smudges of lampblack.
Semerket tiptoed from the room, returning to the hearth where the candle glowed. The steady drone of Paneb’s breathing still rattled distantly, and Semerket roamed about the foreman’s home, accompanied by Sukis. In the reception room, he found Paneb’s tool sack. In it were copper chisels of every width, picks, pig-bristle brushes, wooden mallets for pounding. There was nothing made from the blue metal.
As Semerket returned to the kitchen, he heard Sukis’s loud cry again. Holding the candle so its light swept the room, he saw the cat poised at the stairs that led into the cellar. Swiftly, she disappeared down into the dark.
He followed her; he would have to catch her and quickly leave. Looking about in the cellar, he saw the normal supplies—sealed jars of beer and wine, bits of broken furniture, extra linens, and sacks of wheat and hops. But there was something odd, too—the goods had been pushed deliberately against a corner wall. Paneb had piled everything, anything he could find, against that wall.
Semerket saw Sukis leap to the top of the heap, to look searchingly at the mud bricks. Perhaps she had located a rat, he thought. But the cat looked to him and wailed insistently.
As silently as he could, obeying some instinct (as well as the cat), Semerket lifted the sacks of grain and placed them against the opposite side of the little cellar. Just as he was about to move a chair that was missing its leg, he heard footsteps above. Sukis retreated behind some wheat sacks, ears flat against her head.
Semerket blew out the candle. Paneb had risen from his pallet and was tramping about the kitchen. In the dark, the foreman lurched into some crockery and swore dully as the dishes fell, crashing to bits on the tiles. Eventually he made his way to the rear privy. Semerket heard the powerful stream of Paneb’s urine hitting the collection bowl. Groaning, the foreman finally returned to his sleeping room.
Semerket waited until Paneb’s breathing again became steady. Though he would have preferred to linger, to find what was hidden beneath the rubble in the cellar, he could not find the flint to relight the candle. He cursed himself for his thoughtlessness when he realized that he had left it in Hetephras’s tomb. In the lightless cellar, he just managed
to edge toward the stairs to climb them one at a time. He slipped silently into the dark alley from Paneb’s door, Sukis padding softly beside him.
HETEPHRAS’S FUNERAL took place on a day in midwinter. As soon as the sarcophagus came within sight of the village, borne on a sled and dragged by a white ox from Djamet Temple, the women of the village began to ululate shrilly, their eerie cries echoing through the canyon walls. As the catafalque drew near, Semerket saw that pepper had been thrown into the eyes of the ox so that the beast wept.
Behind the professional mourning women, who wailed and tore at their hair, stood the elders and their families, standing stoic and dry-eyed. Paneb wept openly, however, and many in the crowd went up to him to drape their arms about his shoulders and whisper comforting words into his ears. He seemed deaf to their appeals, the tears rolling steadily down his cheeks, and he could only stare in misery at his aunt’s brightly painted sarcophagus. Hunro stood beside Neferhotep, wiping at her reddened eyes. For once the stoop-shouldered scribe stood straight. But he shed no tears, his face stony. Khepura stood on his other side, opposite Hunro.
Semerket peered at the head woman, trying to read her face. Whatever she was feeling, it was not mournful. Her eyes darted about, and she twisted and pulled at her wig, nervously trying to adjust it. Once she looked straight at Semerket and he ascertained immediately what she felt—it was fear.
At a sign from the priest the sled was pulled to the cemetery gates. Several villagers rushed forward to bear the coffin on their shoulders. Gradually they made their way into the courtyard of Hetephras’s tomb and set her sarcophagus upright at the tomb’s door, beneath the small brick pyramid, so that the priestess seemed to be a guest at her own funeral.
At that point the villagers brought forth their offerings—baskets of onions, whose sharp smell would remind Hetephras to breathe again in the afterlife; flat loaves of bread, jars of wine and honey, wreaths of sweet-smelling flowers. Queen Tiya herself had sent a beautiful chair of gilded wood. Taking a special lever made from the metal of a fallen meteor, a priest approached the sarcophagus and performed the act of opening Hetephras’s mouth. Now that she could breathe and speak again, Paneb came forward to utter the ritual words, for he was her closest living relation.
“May you stand forever beside Osiris, Hetephras,” he said, his voice hoarse, “in the fields of Iaru forever, in the house of eternity that we have made for you.” Then he addressed the god of the afterlife. “Osiris, who created us, make her face to shine brightly again, raise her arms and fill her lungs with your breath.” Then again he addressed the dead woman. “Open your eyes, Hetephras. Open your eyes.”
Paneb’s voice broke and he could not continue. It was Hunro who stepped forward in his place to utter the concluding prayer. “In peace, Hetephras, may you ever rest among those who did right.”
Earlier in the day a great pit had been dug in the main avenue of the cemetery. The servants had filled it with coals and embers, and now it glowed hot. The ox was sacrificed. It was flayed, cleaned, dressed, and spitted.
The feast lasted long into the night. Hetephras’s coffin was at last taken into the crypt, together with the grave-goods. Below, she was placed on the wooden bed next to the coffins of her husband and little son.
It was at that point that Semerket witnessed something strange. With many a grunt and heave, the men of the village rolled a huge stone wheel—the one he had seen in Ramose’s workshop—into the tomb’s forecourt, and painstakingly angled it in front of the tomb’s door. It fit so snugly that not even a piece of papyrus could have been wedged through the cracks. Semerket looked about the cemetery in confusion. No such wheel blocked the doors of other tombs; Hetephras’s was the only tomb that possessed one.
Semerket noticed that Sukis had perched on the rock behind him. Poor cat, he thought—did she know that her mistress was inside the tomb? He reached for her, to take her into his arms, but she backed away and leapt to a higher rock. She stared, eyes gleaming, at the tomb-makers as they continued to feast into the night.
SEMERKET WAS IN the potter Sneferu’s workshop, again demanding to know when he might finish assembling the broken pieces of the pot Semerket had found at the phantom campsite. Sneferu apologized, saying that his official work had prevented him from attending to the matter.
“It seems you’ve taken a long time to perform a simple task,” remarked Semerket, scarcely able to hide his irritation.
“If you’d care to take the pieces elsewhere… ?” asked Sneferu hopefully.
Semerket shook his head, “No, no…” He looked away.
Children suddenly went running past the shed in the direction of the northern gate, followed by groups of excited adults. Semerket turned to watch, his ears now catching the thin strains of rams’ horns that blew from far down in the river valley. Sneferu rose from his potter’s wheel and joined Semerket outside the workshop. An incongruous smile of joy lit Sneferu’s face.
“What—?” Semerket started to ask, but Sneferu was gone, joining the crowds to cheer at the village gates. Once again he heard the rams’ horns blow, nearer this time, and the tomb-makers’ voices rose to an even more excited pitch.
Semerket stood at the fringes of the crowd. Five chariots sped up the path toward the village, great clouds of dust churned from their wheels. The horses were among the finest he had seen, small red ones that soared like birds over the rock and sand, their legs a blur. Despite the steepness of the trail, the charioteers drove their teams at a harrowing pace, seeming not to care that at any moment the horses might misjudge their footfall and plunge over the cliff’s steep edge. But the steeds made no misstep, and the tomb-makers cheered; they knew this thrilling show was staged just for them.
As the riders drew near, Semerket saw that their leader wore a breastplate of overlapping gold discs, while on his head was a crown of woven leather. The men who followed him were also richly armored, though not so grandly. Khepura pushed her way through the crowd beside him, angling to get closer to the charioteers. Semerket reached out to grab her massive arm.
“Let me go, you fool! It’s Prince Pentwere!” Khepura jerked her arm free and hurried forward.
Semerket was familiar with this son of Pharaoh, as all Thebans were. He was the firstborn child of Queen Tiya, and therefore the nephew of Mayor Pawero. Unlike his brothers, who were careful to remain discreetly in the background, Pentwere was a highly visible figure in the southern capital. The prince was chief of his own elite corps of charioteers. Often they could be seen on feast days performing feats of derring-do for the crowds, shooting at targets, thrusting their spears at one another in mock battle, and jumping back and forth from chariot to chariot. Thebans adored Pentwere above all the other royal family— for he was southern, his mother more royal than even Pharaoh, and he was as good-looking as a god.
But Semerket knew that Pharaoh had chosen another as his crown prince—also named Ramses, the firstborn son of his Canaanite wife, Queen Ese. This prince was little known to the southerners, being confined to a life of duty and service in his father’s court in Pi-Remesse. Thebans grumbled bitterly that so fine a prince as Pentwere had been passed over in favor of a middle-aged, sometimes sickly prince of the north.
As Pentwere leapt from his chariot, the villagers gathered round to hail him, and the prince held out his hands to grasp theirs and laugh. He was every inch the folk-tale prince—tall, burly, chestnut skin stretched taut across his high cheekbones, sleek and well-oiled.
Pentwere hailed Chief Scribe Neferhotep and Foreman Paneb as old friends, who were careful to remain cordial to one another before the prince. No trace of their recent disagreement was allowed to mar the day. Surrounded by his handsome cohorts—all strong, muscular men like himself—the prince clapped the tomb-makers fondly on their backs. In a final gesture for the villagers, Pentwere’s groom cast gold pieces into the air. The tomb-makers and their children screamed for joy as they ran to gather them up.
The gold was soon pocketed,
and the crowd reluctantly returned to the village. Neferhotep and the elders led the prince a few paces away from the gates to confer with him in low voices. Semerket could not imagine what they had to say to one another; he doubted whether the finer points of tomb construction were in Pentwere’s lexicon.
Semerket spied Hunro walking with the crowd back through the village gates, her hips swaying languorously. Pushing his way through the remaining villagers, he joined her.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked, jerking his chin in the direction of Pentwere.
“The prince often comes here to review the progress of his father’s tomb.”
“And the others?”
“I don’t know all their names, but the black one is Assai. Just look at those shoulders! And that neck!” Her eyes were smoky with lust. Then to Semerket’s shock she began to jump up and down, making sounds like a lovesick young girl. “Oh! Oh, look! They’re coming this way!”
Indeed, the royal party was progressing to where he stood. Hunro’s sharp nudge reminded him to bow low, arms outstretched.
“Well now!” Pentwere’s voice was hearty. “So this is the clever man who solves the riddle of the old priestess’s death! I especially wanted to greet you today.”
“Oh?” Semerket said, looking up. “Why?”
Pentwere’s black companion, Assai, was instantly offended that Semerket would question the prince so directly. But Pentwere ignored any breach of etiquette and answered Semerket carefully, so that all could hear. “My mother sends her regards, and bids you make haste in this matter. The gods grow impatient, she says.”
“Tell your mother—and the gods, please—that I’m doing my best.”
The prince regarded him with narrowed eyes and laid his arm across Semerket’s shoulder. “How is the investigation coming? Do you have any leads?”
“Not really.”