by N. L. Holmes
Maya’s eyes were round as doum fruit, but he rallied. “Never, Lord Hani. I’d never leave you to face danger alone.”
Hani smiled, rueful, caught between tenderness and fear for the boy. “You’re a good man, Maya. But please think of your mother, too.”
“You’re not sending me away, are you, my lord?” Distress was writ large in Maya’s crumpled brow and hanging jaw.
“No, no. Not if you’re willing to stay. You know”—Hani stared thoughtfully into space—“Pa-khuru said Yanakh-amu is waiting for us in Urusalim.”
“Who’s that, my lord?”
“He’s a very high-placed member of the court, one of the vassal princes who grew up with our good king. Actually, a Fan Bearer at the King’s Right Hand”—Maya’s eyes grew wider—“but in fact, most of his duties have lain in Djahy, where his knowledge of the language and culture have made him most valuable to Neb-ma’at-ra. He’s solidly loyal. I had intended all along to visit him while we were traveling.”
“And now he’s waiting for you.”
“So it seems. I wonder why.”
They managed to corral all their baggage and scribal equipment, and Hani called the servants to pack up the tent. That very evening, they set out southward down the east side of the mountains and through the desert to Urusalim.
⸎
Urusalim was a small kingdom straggling over the bleak desert hillsides. There was neither water nor fertile soil for much farming; thus, its economy consisted mostly of sheep herding and caravan stops. They did, Hani remembered, produce good wine. The capital was a palm-fringed ring of golden stone casemate walls enclosing a small settlement, radiating heat and dust. The triple gates seemed disproportionately massive, and Hani wondered what they protected that was not visible.
Pa-khuru conducted the party to the palace, where he peeled off with his men toward the garrison’s barracks. Hani wasted no time in seeking out Lord Yanakh-amu.
The commissioner of Djahy was a small, slightly built man a few years older than Hani. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but his boyish face was always lively and full of good humor, with its wide smile-crescented eyes and mobile mouth. He was perhaps the only bureaucrat in the diplomatic corps whose presence made one feel happier, Hani thought with an inward grin.
Yanakh-amu greeted the emissary in his office, rising to his feet even though he could have remained seated. “Hani, how good to see you. You got here with impressive speed.” He forestalled Hani’s bow and, smiling, drew him to a folding stool.
Seating himself, Hani saw in amusement that the stool legs were decorated with the heads of ducks. It was meant for me. “We were only at Temesheq when we received your command, my lord. I... heard about Pa-wer.”
A sorrowful expression tinged the perpetual cheerfulness of Yanakh-amu’s face. He might have passed completely for an Egyptian except perhaps for his lighter skin. His speech was completely without accent. Clean-shaven, wigged, clad in white linen—almost nothing identified him as a native of the northern states. But then, he had probably never even seen his natal land until adulthood, having been brought up at the court of Kemet. Hani noted that he wore around his neck several heavy shebyu collars. Yanakh-amu had reached the pinnacle of advancement—and deservedly, Hani thought. He was an honest man, free from pretension.
“Our diplomatic service seems to have become dangerous all of a sudden,” the commissioner said with a wry lift of the eyebrows. “I wonder if it’s a coincidence that Pa-wer just left a post at Simurru.”
“Did I mention that I was en route to interview him about the finding of Abdi-ashirta?” Hani said. “It was apparently he and his men who discovered the old man in the course of the siege. If there was a siege.”
“Is there some doubt about that?”
“Curiously, Pa-hem-nedjer implied that it was a token resistance. And the son of Aziru, who was actually there, said the same thing—that his grandfather was simply going to turn the city over to us peacefully. But of course, he was dead. I suppose something of a siege must have begun before our troops realized there was no one pushing back.”
“Hmm,” Yanakh-amu mused, pursing his lips. “Pa-wer might have clarified that for us, at least. One of his men was badly injured in this assassination. If he survives, he may be able to tell us something—or not.”
“I had also hoped, my lord, that Pa-wer would know who had actually found Abdi-ashirta's body. I would have liked to understand the circumstances better. He was stabbed in the back, you know, so it seems unlikely that it was just a result of whatever token siege was mounted. Pa-hem-nedjer may well be right when he says it was not his men. And yet...”
“And yet?”
“The murder weapon is an Egyptian knife.” Hani drew the knife carefully from the linen he had wrapped around it and handed it, hilt first, to the commissioner.
Yanakh-amu stared at the blade and the inlaid handle for a long time, his kohl-rimmed eyes shifting here and there over every part of its surface. Finally, he said thoughtfully, “I’ve seen this knife before, Hani, I’m almost certain. But I can’t remember where.” He looked up. “It’s entirely possible that some native in Kharu has been using an Egyptian knife, of course. That alone proves nothing.”
“Granted, my lord. However, Rib-addi was convinced the perpetrator was an Egyptian.”
Yanakh-amu emitted a bark of amused laughter. “Rib-addi, eh? No doubt he did. You talked to him, did you?”
“I did, my lord. I thought he might know what’s going on in his own city of Simurru.”
Yanakh-amu shook his elegantly wigged head and sighed. “Don’t believe everything that old fox of the sea tells you, Hani. But no doubt he does know everything that’s going on. What did you make of him?”
Hani laughed. “A fox is exactly what I said to myself, my lord. He reminded me of Abdi-ashirta, although less charming and more obsequious by far. He seems to know many of the great courtiers of his generation and wasn’t above dropping a few royal names. He claims he’s more Egyptian than Kebnite.”
“Don’t we wish that were so. In fact, this brings us to my reason for summoning you.” Lord Yanakh-amu rose with a heavy sigh and drifted to the window of his office—whether in restlessness or to check the room’s security, Hani could not have said. When he turned back to Hani, his pleasant face was serious. “Rib-addi is bringing a lawsuit against Lord Yapakh-addi. Do you happen to know him?”
“Only by sight, my lord. A friend of the king, is he not?” Into Hani’s mind’s eye drifted an image of a bulbous hook-nosed man about Mery-ra’s age with a beard so dark that he never looked quite shaved.
“He is.” Yanakh-amu snorted in self-deprecating humor. “What a bunch of troublemakers these Amurrites brought up at court have turned out to be!”
“But not you, my lord,” Hani said with a teasing smile.
The commissioner sighed, taking it in stride, as always, but troubled nonetheless. “I try not to be.” He sighed again and confronted Hani with folded arms. “What should I say about Yapakh-addi, who is, after all, the king’s friend? He, too, is a fox, I don’t doubt. Rib-addi is suing him to get back an extremely large amount of property he says was taken from him by Yapakh-addi’s men.”
“Under what pretext? Surely not simple theft?” But that possibility existed. Hani didn’t know Yapakh-addi, but the man was sufficiently powerful to have gotten away with almost anything, no matter how flagrant, were he so inclined. After all, he enjoyed the royal protection.
“That will be up to the adjudicator to decide, I suppose.” The commissioner eyed Hani for what seemed like an endless space of time. Then, with a thin smile that popped a dimple in his cheek, he said, “You are the adjudicator, my friend.”
“I am?” Hani couldn’t conceal his surprise. “I thought I was investigating the death of Abdi-ashirta.”
“And that of Pa-wer, since they’re almost certainly connected. And you’re adjudicating Rib-addi’s suit. He requested you by name.”
&nb
sp; Hani’s humor melted like lead into his belly. This would prolong his stay in A’amu. He had hoped that he could return directly from Urusalim, but now he would have to go back up to Kebni and hear out the whining old mayor of the city. And what was worse, he would have to examine a close friend of Neb-ma’at-ra for possible wrongdoing...
Yanakh-amu must have seen Hani’s troubled expression. He clapped him on the shoulder in commiseration. “I’m sorry to do this to you, Hani. You’ve just made yourself too well liked among these slippery northerners. And we need Rib-addi, you know. For all his flaws, he’s loyal.”
“May Ma’at guide me in her truth, my lord.” Hani did his best to put a smile on his face, but he feared it wasn’t very convincing. He bowed deeply and took a profound breath. Here I go into the mouth of the beast.
As Hani backed to the doorway, Lord Yanakh-amu called out with sincere warmth, “And Hani—try not to fall afoul of people in high places, eh, friend?”
⸎
Before Hani left for Kebni, he wanted to interview the wounded soldier who had nearly given his life to protect his commander. The youth wasn’t yet out of danger, the emissary saw. The young soldier lay in a curtained-off space of the barracks with a doctor’s assistant in attendance. When Hani entered, a magician was just departing, his bowls and bags and scrolls under his arm. From within the nook, the bitter smell of burning aromatics wafted, attempting to cover up something worse and more intimate.
“How is our patient?” Hani asked the practitioner in a hushed voice. The man shrugged with a dubious curl of the mouth. He shot a glance at the patient, and Hani understood that he didn’t want to discuss the man’s case in his presence, although to every appearance, the soldier was unconscious or asleep.
The two of them stepped away beyond the curtain, and the assistant said quietly, “He may or may not live, my lord. He was stabbed in the belly, and it may be, as often happens, that the wound will become rotten. Beseech the Lady Sekhmet for him.”
Hani cringed. Even after all his years with the army, the terrible things that befell the bodies of soldiers still managed to make him go pale. He’d seen too many young men yield up their souls in torment. One could only trust that a pleasanter place awaited them in the Field of Reeds.
His brow puckering with pity, Hani said, “I am investigating Lord Pa-wer’s murder for the high commissioner. Do you think I could ask this man a few questions? He must have seen who attacked them.”
The doctor’s assistant shrugged. “You can try, my lord. I’ve given him poppy juice, so he may be sleeping.”
Hani turned back to the soldier’s bed and seated himself on the mattress at his side. Full of regret, he reached out a hand to shake his arm gently. It seemed a shame to make the man waken from beneficent sleep only to surface into pain and hopelessness.
The patient opened a groggy bloodshot eye. His dark face was flushed and beaded with sweat. Fever doesn’t seem like a good sign, thought Hani grimly. “I’m the high commissioner’s investigator, son. Can you tell me what you saw of your attackers?”
The soldier struggled to focus his eyes. The poppy seemed to have warded off the agony that awaited him. “Hapiru,” he murmured.
Hani’s heart froze in his chest. “Are you sure? How could you tell?” The hapiru look no different from any other men of Kharu. They could have been anyone from the north.
“One... one said, ‘This is from Aziru for... for his father.’” The soldier’s voice was already slurring with fatigue, his eyes rolling up as he fought sleep.
Hani sat silent as the young man drifted back into unconsciousness. Somehow, this struck him as very bad news. If it should prove that the hapiru had murdered an Egyptian officer, it could create quite an incident, perhaps pitch the border into a state of war—not something Hani or any other right-thinking Egyptian wanted to see happen. But perhaps the soldier wasn’t clear on what had been said. He was drugged, after all.
“Thank you, son. The gods protect you and give you healing.” On an impulse, Hani pulled the little amulet of the scorpion goddess Serqet, who protected people from harm, from around his own neck and laid it gently on the soldier’s chest. Then Hani rose, and with an icy sense of something not quite right sitting heavily within him, he made his way quietly back to his chamber.
⸎
“I can only tell you what the soldier said, my lord,” Hani said to Yanakh-amu with a sigh. “He might have been delirious, for all I know. What I can say from the witness of my own eyes is that Aziru himself, his brother, and his two sons were in Temesheq when the murder took place.”
Hani and the commissioner had met to discuss the soldier’s testimony before the emissary took off once more for the north. Lord Yanakh-amu’s pleasant face was deeply thoughtful.
“It could have been any of Aziru’s men acting on his behalf, Hani,” Yanakh-amu said in gentle reproach. “Why do you seem reluctant to accept that scenario at its face value?”
“I couldn’t tell you, my lord. I just... feel it isn’t true. But until we find out what is the truth, I guess we’ll have to accept it.”
“You think a man at the gates of death is lying?” Yanakh-amu looked at Hani skeptically.
“No, indeed. But I think the perpetrators might have made a point of saying something about Aziru and his vengeance to hide their own traces.” Hani made a helpless gesture with his hands. He couldn’t explain why this idea wouldn’t let go of him. He supposed his father’s counsel to listen to his instinct had marked him. Certainly, I could never take such amorphous evidence to court. And how could the murderers have been sure the soldier would even live to tell their tale? They dealt him a grievous wound, certainly intended to kill.
Yanakh-amu blew out through his mouth wearily and leaned back in his chair, a meager figure no heftier than a boy. He fixed Hani with a humorous brown eye. “Well, return to Kebni and try to make Rib-addi happy without antagonizing Yapakh-addi.” A conspiratorial curl lifted the corner of his mouth, suggesting he knew how very difficult such an assignment was going to be.
Hani replied with a rueful laugh. His mandate was indeed becoming more and more complicated, more and more impossible to fulfill. He suspected that when the dust cleared, no one would be satisfied. He just hoped he would still have his self-respect intact. “I’ll do my best, my lord.”
He took his leave and headed back to the room he shared with Maya. The secretary was sitting on the floor, copying a letter that Hani had dictated before his meeting with the commissioner. Hani wanted to keep Lord Ptah-mes apprised of the turns his investigation had taken. Particularly now that he was going to entangle himself with court grandees, he needed Ptah-mes to know his every move.
Even more, he wanted to sit down with a scroll across his own lap and write Nub-nefer a long, detailed letter. She wouldn’t be happy that he had given away his amulet. She would be no happier that he had to return to Kharu after having come so close to the borders of the Black Land. Hani wanted to reassure her that she and the children were constantly in his thoughts. He expected some kind of message from his father any day, although he had moved about so much that a courier might have trouble finding him. Another reason Ptah-mes should be kept informed.
⸎
The awaited letter arrived just as Hani and Maya set out for Kebni. They had decided to sail back rather than subject themselves again to the rigors of an inland journey. The weather had begun to cool in the evenings, but the afternoons were still enervating. Hani figured they had just enough time to get to their destination before the sailing season was drowned in autumn storms, which were already overdue.
Thus, Hani was seated in the little draped cabin of a ship when he broke the seal and unfolded the long, narrow bundle of papyrus. His heart lifted at the sight of his father’s bold writing, and his eyes sought out before all else the words, “Everyone is well.” After a moment, he realized that while Mery-ra had physically written the missive, it was in the voice of Nub-nefer. She gave him a long, cheerful
recital of the children’s doings, anecdotes of the pet birds, and a dinner with Meryet-amen, his father’s lady friend—a delightful personage who looked remarkably like Mery-ra, it seemed. Amen-em-hut and his wife, Anuia, had dined with the family. Hani’s brother, Pa-ra-em-heb—Pipi—had brought his girls from Men-nefer to play with Neferet and Sat-hut-haru. Maya’s mother had sent them some melons. Life went on peacefully. No words of reproach or anxiety appeared. A great weight lifted from Hani’s chest and flew away.
At the end of the letter, Mery-ra himself had added a few words: We miss you, my son. Nub-nefer was disappointed at the delay of your return, but she’s strong. I had a little conversation with your friend Ptah-mes, who says—purely confidential, now—that our good king is failing. Life, prosperity, and health to you and Maya. Come back to us soon. Your loving father.
Longing for his family and his home flooded Hani, leaving a burning hole in his chest. Just let me finish my mandate in the north, and I’ll hurry back to the Black Land. He glanced at Maya, who sat cross-legged at his side, reading over a letter his mother had dictated to the neighborhood scribe.
The young man looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “What happens if a person is lost at sea? What’s his afterlife like if he has no body to take with him?”
Hani grinned. “I don’t think we’re in any danger of going down, friend. The weather is calm.”
“My mother asks in her letter, and I didn’t really know what to reply.” Maya made a dismissive little gesture as if to make clear that this fear was his mother’s, not his.
“Well, I can’t answer that either. Nor, indeed, am I sure what happens if we die on land in some faraway country and our bodies aren’t embalmed and given the proper rites. Still, there are lots of Egyptians in A’amu, and I’m sure we’ll find some adept in the arts of the Lord Inpu if we need one.”
Maya nodded, pensive, and returned to his letter. But a moment later, he said, “I want to build myself a nice tomb like yours someday, my lord.”