Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing

by Lynda S. Robinson

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. Zar returned with a kilt, which he wrapped around his waist.

  Sennefer fidgeted, then burst out, “Are you awake now? Because I’ve no time to waste. I can’t find Anhai.”

  “You mean she’s vanished from your chamber?” Meren asked.

  “No … uh, no.”

  Kysen gave Sennefer a look of disgust. “He hasn’t seen her since before the guests began leaving.”

  “I thought she was among the crowd,” Sennefer said.

  Meren fixed him with a searing gaze, and he dropped his eyes.

  “The truth, Sennefer. I’ve no patience with quibbling at this time of night.”

  “You want the truth?” Sennefer ran a hand through his hair as he paced back and forth by the bed. “I’ll give you the truth, then, cousin. I didn’t look for her, and I didn’t ask for her. I waited, thinking she’d return, because I knew she’d gone off with your precious brother.”

  “How do you know this? Ra went off to the village of Green Palm.”

  Sennefer gave a bark of laughter. “A lie, no doubt, to disguise their meeting.”

  A noise at the door prevented Meren from arguing. Zar came forward, followed by a servant. Meren was surprised to see his steward Kasa. The man bowed, his face impassive.

  “This humble servant requests an urgent word of the lord,” he said. He gave the others in the room a sideways glance that stopped when it encountered Sennefer.

  Uneasiness crept over Meren. In all the years he’d been lord at Baht, the steward had never disturbed him at night.

  “Give me a moment, Sennefer.”

  “Gods! You’re more worried about accounts than my wife.”

  Meren took Kasa aside and nodded for him to begin.

  “The lord is discerning.”

  “Out with it, Kasa. What’s wrong?”

  “The workers were just beginning the day’s grain grinding, lord.”

  Meren glanced at the high, grilled windows of his chamber and found that the first gray light was filtering through them. “Kasa, quit delaying. I’ve something else to deal with.”

  “The—the two are the same, lord. One of the workers has found a body in one of the large granaries.”

  “In the granary. In it?”

  Kasa nodded, and Meren glanced at his cousin, who was still pacing and talking to Kysen.

  “Not the Lady Anhai.” Meren thought of the tall, beehive-shaped domes in the granary court.

  “Aye, lord. Someone dragged her up the stairs and, well, dumped her in on top of the grain and replaced the cover.”

  “Meren, are you finished?” Sennefer asked. “We’re losing time while you babble about your taxes.”

  Chapter 8

  Meren strode out of the house with Sennefer at his side and turned left to reach the gate in the wall that hid the granary forecourt from view. His eyelids felt as heavy as fishing weights. A mooring stake was being pounded into his head, and his mouth was dry as the fields outside Baht.

  He went through another gate, with Kasa trotting ahead. Kysen walked behind them. A crowd of servants and laborers had gathered in the large granary courtyard that lay north of the house, between it and the outer wall. Within the courtyard sat four granaries in two pairs. Between each pair of domed structures stretched a high, solid mud-brick platform with attached steps. Loads of grain were brought up the steps to the platforms and emptied into the top of the dome through a circular opening.

  Meren followed Kasa to the second pair of granaries. The servants were muttering among themselves and making the sign against the evil eye. The steward stopped at the bottom of the steps, beside which stood an older man with yellow teeth. He was Meren’s overseer of the granary, Hray, who had discovered the body. The two bowed as Meren mounted the steps. Sennefer was on his heels.

  At the top of the stairs, Meren barred Sennefer’s way and said, “No. Let me look first.”

  “She is my wife!”

  “That is the point I was about to make.”

  Meren walked along the platform to the first of the two granaries. Its round wooden cover lay on the ground, no doubt dropped there by Hray. Grain had been scattered on the platform and had fallen to the packed earth at the base of the granary. Bending over the opening, Meren peered inside. Rapidly growing daylight revealed the body. Anhai lay on her right side, her knees drawn up toward her chest, her arms bent toward her face in front of that short, sharp little nose. Her mouth was closed, concealing the razor tongue that would slice at its victims no longer. He could see nothing wrong with her—no wound, no blood, not even a bruise.

  “Well?” Sennefer said as he came forward.

  He stood beside Meren and looked down at his wife. Sucking in his breath, he held it, then expelled and whispered, “Anhai?” Gripping the edge of the opening, he stretched out a hand as if to shake her shoulder.

  Meren grabbed his forearm. “Don’t. Her ka is gone, cousin.”

  Sennefer stared at his wife’s body and repeated her name on a questioning note. Then he began shaking his head.

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

  Meren noted the dazed look in his eyes and the way he slumped against the side of the granary. As Sennefer’s knees buckled, Meren quickly slipped an arm under his shoulder and helped him back down the stairs. He handed his cousin over to Kysen.

  “Take him to his chamber—no—take him to my chamber and have Zar attend him.”

  Kysen gave him a quick look of comprehension that assured Meren that Sennefer would be guarded as well as attended and that his and Anhai’s chambers would be quietly searched.

  Meren went back up the steps and resumed his examination of Anhai. She almost looked as if she was asleep, except that her body was cool to the touch. The pallor of death was upon her, and he noted that her blood had seeped down to the portions of her body that rested on the grain pile.

  Her clothing was arranged perfectly. Even the knot in the lengths of her robe that reached under her breasts was neat. The portion of her wig that was visible seemed free of grain, but there was grit on the back of it. The back of her gown was slightly dusty, but its pleats were smoothed and followed the bend of her torso and legs.

  Meren lifted his face to the growing heat of the sun as he thought about what he was seeing—the odd resting place, the lack of marks on the body. The eastern sky was alight. Returning to his task, he reached inside the granary and tugged on Anhai’s cool left arm. It moved, but was growing stiff with that strange paralysis that Nebamun, his physician, attributed to the shock of death and the flight of the ka from the body. He would have to get Anhai out of the granary soon, or she wouldn’t unbend enough to fit through the opening.

  Straightening, Meren rubbed his sore eyes, then took another look at the body. The overall impression was of neatness and peace. He glanced over the rooftops, into the distance over the trees. The scene around him seemed so mundane—the granaries, the workers and their tools, his daughters’ pet cats. Not a place in which one expected to find the dead body of a noblewoman. The contrast between the prosaic scene he’d witnessed regularly as a child and the presence of death almost made him shiver. A sibilant whispering distracted him, and he glanced down at the servants hovering below.

  “Kasa, take note of who was here at the discovery. Have them wait. The rest of you go about your chores.”

  Lapsing into thought once more, he evaluated the possibility of danger to his family. There didn’t seem to be a threat at the moment, but he would have to be on guard. He glanced at the forecourt and saw Kysen standing in the gateway. Confronting him with excited irritation were Idut and Nebetta. Behind them stood Bentanta, silent, her lips pressed together. Kysen was shaking his head. Idut whirled around and stalked back to the house. Nebetta shook a finger at Kysen and followed her, but Bentanta delayed. Raising her eyes, she met Meren’s gaze. Her face was impassive, yet severe, like a mortuary statue. Without acknowledgin
g him, she turned and headed toward the main house.

  Brushing away flies drawn to Anhai’s body, Meren resumed his examination. He searched her for wounds and found none. He even removed the rigid bronze bracelet on her left arm. Drawing back the retractable pin, he bent the hinged half-cylinders and pulled it off. It bore an Eye of Horus inlay of white frit and lapis lazuli. Her arm was undamaged.

  Meren was about to replace the bracelet when he noticed something stuck in the hinge, a small fragment of linen from Anhai’s dress. He tugged on the tiny scrap, and it came free. Once he held it, he realized it wasn’t linen but papyrus, a corner of a rectangular piece. Slipping the fragment into the folds of his kilt at his waist, he replaced the bracelet.

  He noted the congealed unguent from the scent cone Anhai had worn last night. It had melted into her wig and streaked the broad collar of ivory and turquoise beads on her shoulders. The back of the collar, like the back of her gown, was covered with a fine layer of dust, yet it remained in place on her shoulders with the counterpoise positioned perfectly at her back.

  While Meren studied the body, Reia and Iry entered the courtyard along with Kysen, who closed the gate to the forecourt. Backing away, Meren lapsed into thought while he glanced behind him to the rear of the courtyard. An awning was attached to the courtyard wall and two support posts. Beneath this shelter lay a row of seven concave querns of varying colors. Oblong grindstones lay on top of each quern. Nothing remarkable. Shaking his head, he motioned to Reia and Iry.

  “Remove the Lady Anhai.”

  The two men extracted the body, whose left side was dark from pooled blood, and laid it on the platform. Meren knelt and lifted Anhai’s robe, but could find no sign of the cause of her death. Kysen stepped past him and began to examine the interior of the granary where Anhai had lain.

  Meren descended the steps to the ground. A knot of pain was growing in the space between his brows. Rubbing the furrows there, he ordered Anhai’s body removed to one of the storage rooms in the service building before the back gate. Then he turned to the unfortunate Hray.

  “Very well, tell me what happened.”

  Grimacing to reveal his yellow teeth, Hray bowed and said, “I came into the court with those men, the grinders, as I do every day, lord. I had my measuring container and went to the last granary, which is the one with the oldest grain, and I opened it and—and found her.”

  “So the cover was in its place?”

  “Aye, lord.”

  “And did you notice anything unusual or see anyone who shouldn’t have been here?”

  “No, lord. There was only us, and all appeared as it should.”

  Hray indicated a group of men standing beneath the awning in a furtive clump. To Meren they looked apprehensive, but humble laborers tended to appear so when faced with situations that brought them unhappy notice from their lord. One of them shuffled backward and nearly stumbled against a yellow quern with a black grindstone resting on top of it. He looked down at it, scowled, and shoved another laborer, and a shouting contest ensued.

  “You took my grindstone!”

  “Liar! I never touched your foul grindstone.”

  “You did. I see it on your quern right there, you jackal.”

  Kasa rushed over to them and bellowed for order. Meren turned back to Hray.

  “If you remember anything else, tell the steward.” He motioned to Kasa, who hurried over to him. “You did well to come to me at once.”

  Kasa bowed. “Yes, lord.”

  Waving Kasa away, he began a circuit of the granary court. The ground was hard, packed earth covered with a layer of dust. Hundreds of footprints, both bare and sandaled, broke the surface of the dust. Useless to try to decipher them. Too many curious servants had trampled the area.

  Much of the courtyard was empty space, left bare to allow donkeys to pass through, carrying grain from the threshing floors between the fields and the house. Baskets, sacks, and bowls were stacked near the grinding area. The day’s requirement in grain was measured out and recorded by Kasa and Hray, then given to the laborers. These men first crushed the tough wheat in mortars, then sifted it to remove the bran. After this, the grain was ground on the quern. Then the rough flour was taken to the kitchens, where maids ground it further.

  Meren walked around the perimeter of the courtyard, seeing nothing but ordinary equipment—stacks of extra winnowing fans, yokes for oxen, grain baskets. Under another shelter near the awning hung water jars. One of them rested askew within the ropes used to suspend it.

  At last he came to the awning, beneath which still hovered the grain grinders. As he approached, he glanced at the querns. The yellow one now bore a grindstone that matched its color, and the black grindstone had been put on top of a black quern. Each set rested on a woven rush mat.

  At Meren’s command, the stones were removed and the mats lifted. His thoroughness yielded nothing, however, except a view of more packed earth and dust. The grinding area was next to the granary in which Anhai had been found, but appeared to bear no mark of her presence. Again Meren felt oddly disturbed by how normal everything appeared despite the presence of death.

  “Why would she come here?” Meren muttered to himself.

  “You spoke, Father?”

  “Ah, Ky. Zar is watching Sennefer?”

  “And I put one of the men outside your door. I’ve finished looking at the granary. There’s nothing in it but grain, and I dug deep to see if there was anything below her body.”

  Meren nodded. Sweeping his arm around to indicate the courtyard, Meren said, “All this is a great puzzle. Why would Anhai come to this place? And what caused her death? There’s no sign of a wound upon her, no mark of poison, no trace of evil magic, nothing. It’s as if she decided to go to sleep in that granary, and her ka fled her body.”

  “Perhaps the gods simply ordained that she die now,” Kysen said.

  “Now, now of all times, when she seemed so full of humor, health, and venom? And if she just died, why would someone put her in a granary?” Meren asked. “I like not this coincidence—her dying just when we come to Baht for this special task. Gods, this business has distracted me. Have you received word that our visitor has departed?”

  Kysen gave him a rueful glance. “Reia said the ship is still moored to the bank.”

  “Fiends of the netherworld!” Meren lowered his voice again. “Go to him and ask him to make haste in his departure.”

  Widening his eyes, Kysen thrust out his hands and shook his head. “You forget, Father. You’re one of the few in the world who could even imagine saying such a thing to him. If you want him to leave, you’re going to have to persuade him yourself.”

  “Damnation.” Meren rubbed his eyes, then looked at his smiling son. “You’re amused by my predicament, but it won’t be so amusing if this turns out to be murder and he is here within reach of a killer.”

  “No, and that’s why you must be the one to persuade him to sail out of harm’s reach. He’ll listen to you.”

  “All right. I’m going, but you’ll have to stay here and make sure none of our unwanted guests leaves. Curse it. I was hoping to get rid of them today. Who stayed here last night? There was Sennefer, and there was Anhai and Bentanta. At least my other uncles couldn’t come.”

  “Don’t forget Nebetta and the loquacious Hepu, her upright spouse,” Kysen said. “And Wah. Antefoker’s family and the rest of the neighbors went home.”

  “And Ra? Has he come home?”

  “I don’t know, Father.”

  “Very well, I’m going now. And Ky, be certain to tell the men searching the house to look for any document or letter that looks suspicious.” Meren withdrew the scrap he’d found on Anhai. “We’re looking for something this could have come from.”

  “That’s awfully small, Father.”

  “It may be nothing, but we have to be certain. Also, none of the family or guests leaves Baht. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “They won’t like bei
ng treated like criminals.”

  “Then use diplomacy.”

  “There’s nothing diplomatic about posting charioteers at the gates, Father. Nothing at all.”

  Meren had no sympathy to spare for Kysen. In his view, he had the worse task. He had to persuade his mischievous sovereign to return to the stifling and rigid ceremony of court. Without bothering to change his clothing, Meren left by the side gate in the granary forecourt used by those making grain deliveries. He skirted around the deserted threshing floors.

  He drew little notice from the groups of winnowers working on a late batch of grain. Using pairs of wooden winnowing fans, they bent over piles of grain, scooped it up, and tossed it high in the air. The light chaff caught in the breeze and was blown away in golden clouds. As Meren left them behind, he heard them begin a winnowing song.

  Retracing his journey of last night, he found the king’s ship, as Kysen had said, still moored to the bank. Plainly garbed royal sailors and bodyguards lounged about in the shade of palm trees. Only to Meren was their tension and alertness apparent. His own anxiety reached greater heights when he realized that the king wasn’t on his yacht. He was out in the middle of the river, spearfishing, alone except for Karoya.

  Spitting forth every curse learned in barracks and on battlefields, Meren commandeered a skiff and poled out to the king’s craft. As he neared the boat, Tutankhamun heaved his spear into the water with a cry. Pulling it back, he lifted a long silver fish into the craft, where Karoya removed it. The king then looked up as Meren drew alongside.

  “Meren, a surprise. Did you see me get that one? What a size he is.”

  Bending low from his sitting position, Meren said coolly, “Thy majesty’s prowess is bruited about the kingdom. Thou art Horus, Strong-Bull-arisen-in-Thebes, Golden Horus, Mighty-in-strength, Majestic-in-appearance, given life forever.”

  Arched brows drew together. The king threw his spear down and glared at Meren. At Meren’s signal, Karoya picked up the weapon and exchanged places with him. Pharaoh sat down in the boat and pointed to a spot. Meren seated himself. As the Nubian rowed himself out of hearing, pharaoh scowled at his visitor.