by N. L. Holmes
They were escorted into an expansive vestibule, where a handful of clients already awaited an audience with the master. But the gatekeeper strode on, beckoning the two men to follow. At last, they entered a room as large as Maya’s whole house, stacks of folded and rolled papyri on the shelves that lined the walls. The familiar smell enveloped Maya. Hani gazed around with interest.
On the floor sat an elderly man in a round wig, with a roll stretched over his crossed legs. He looked up at the visitors, even before their guide could introduce them, and crawled to his feet. “You are the king’s adjudicator, are you not?”
“Yes, I am,” said Hani respectfully. “Lord Yapakh-addi has given me permission to examine the following items in his records of expenses.” He extended the potsherd upon which the signed permit was written.
The bookkeeper looked at it intently then turned to the shelves and ran a finger across them until he came to a certain papyrus. He pulled it out, unrolled it a bit, then handed it to Hani, his knobby finger indicating a column. “Here is the first record of a loan, dated, and on this side, you see the repayment, also dated. You’ll note that the repayments are all relatively recent. Lord Yapakh-addi gave his debtor ample time to repay before he began to garnish his property.”
“May I copy this?”
“By all means. When you’ve finished, I’ll show you the next entry. There are a number of them, spread out over five years. Lord Yapakh-addi keeps impeccable books. It’s a mania, you might say.”
“Do you know what these loans were for?”
“Nothing more than appears in the records, my lord.” The old bookkeeper looked self-satisfied, as if his ignorance were a virtue.
“And these little red marks that start appearing after each entry?”
Maya craned his neck around Hani’s broad body to see what he was referring to.
“Those mark loans that were not repaid voluntarily. You’ll notice that a small fee is included for Lord Yapakh-addi’s expenses in recouping these.”
“That sounds reasonable,” murmured Hani.
By the time the bookkeeper informed them that they had seen all the entries, spread out as they were over a number of papyrus rolls, the morning was nearly gone. Hani thanked him courteously, and they made their way out the door. Seekers of favors still thronged the vestibule.
When they were once more on the street, Maya whistled. “That’s quite a house. The cadet prince of Kebni did all right for himself in his place of exile.”
“And it seems everything is in order. Unless someone has made all this up out of whole cloth and falsified years’ worth of carefully kept books, there were some twenty loans made by Yapakh-addi to the kingdom of Kebni, which were never repaid. The entries confirm Yapakh-addi’s claims.”
Maya looked skeptical. “Why did he keep lending to Rib-addi once he saw he wasn’t getting his gold back?”
Hani snorted. “There’s a mystery. Seems like it would have stretched even Yapakh-addi’s boundless patriotism. But his motive doesn’t concern me.”
“That’s all legal, then, eh? The judgment goes to Yapakh-addi?”
“I’m afraid so. This has been a real economic blow to Rib-addi, no doubt. I wonder what he needed the gold for originally.”
“Clean clothes, perhaps.” Maya laughed a little unkindly.
Hani chuckled. “I wish we could make Ili-rapikh pay up, but that’s outside my mandate. I’ll tell Ptah-mes my suspicions for sure, though.”
Hani left Maya off at Hani’s home office to write out some fair copies of various letters while he himself headed for the Hall of Royal Correspondence, where Lord Ptah-mes had agreed to meet him.
⸎
Ptah-mes, elegant in his mourning scarf, looked grim and whittled nonetheless, as if the scant year since Hani had last seen him had been a trying one. Hani had just started to make his bow to the high commissioner when he realized that a second person was present. Aper-el, the vizier of the Lower Kingdom, stood unobtrusively against the light from Ptah-mes’s window, reduced to a silhouette version of himself.
“My lord, forgive me,” Hani cried, bowing doubly. “I didn’t see you. Lord Ptah-mes gave me no warning—”
“It’s all right, Hani,” said the vizier in his nasal voice. Somehow, along with the accent of upper-class Waset, there remained a trace of Djahy in his syllables. He stepped forward so that Hani could see his gaunt, pale face, its thin nose like the beak of a predatory bird. He had been a military officer, and there was something martial in his bearing even now. “We might as well both get your report at the same time.”
Aper-el seated himself in Ptah-mes’s chair, and Ptah-mes took a stool, managing to maintain his dignified air even with his knees folded up. Hani remained standing. This was no friendly visit with his longtime acquaintance and superior.
“Tell us what you found out about Abdi-ashirta’s murder,” ordered Aper-el brusquely.
Hani recounted the little they had discovered about the assassination—Rib-addi’s comments, the Egyptian knife, the subsequent murder of Pa-wer, the bodyguard’s dying testimony, the lack of additional clues to follow. Something made him hold back the late king’s suspicions. He still didn’t know exactly where Aper-el stood on the matter of the hapiru.
“What do you think of this Aziru who has succeeded his father?” asked the vizier.
“A charming man, my lord, but with a capacity for cruelty, I think, and somewhat enigmatic. He seems to have been educated here, but he was unclear about whether that was at court like his father.”
Aper-el gave a snort and shot Ptah-mes a quick glance. “Yes, he was at court, all right. As a sort of nonroyal prince, if you will—a hostage for his outlaw father’s good behavior. One of the crowd of little northerners, more or less of our generation, who grew up with our late king. Always fancying himself insulted. I’ve never met anyone who appreciated less the honor of living in the royal nursery, the Kap.”
“Except, perhaps, Yapakh-addi,” added Ptah-mes, with a dry smile.
Feeling somehow the need to defend the hapir, Hani said, “Aziru told me that his father was here as a servant of Rib-addi as a youth. Perhaps that explains why the son imagined everyone looked down on him.”
“Not even a servant. He was a slave. Abdi-ashirta spent most of his sojourn here under house arrest.”
Hani barely resisted crying out a disrespectful, “What?” He couldn’t keep his jaw from dropping. “What did he do, my lord? My impression of the man was that he was quite honorable in his way.”
“I don’t know that he did anything terrible—he was just a lad—but it displeased his master. Rib-addi was rather demanding in his youth, I’m told, always wanting to cut a fine figure. Perhaps it was just an imagined impertinence, but he practically locked the boy up and only let him serve him in his chamber. It went on for years.”
Hani was as stunned as a sacrificial ox that Rib-addi could have been so unkind. And that Abdi-ashirta had been so embittered that the whole rest of his life had become an attempt to break Rib-addi’s kingdom into pieces and prove to those who had contemned him that he was as worthy as they of wearing a crown. Yet—and this was perhaps the most surprising thing of all—Abdi-ashirta had retained some humanity, some compassion. Hani had seen a real goodness in him, despite his vendetta, and realized now that it was born of suffering. The news sat like lead in his belly. He found it harder than it had been a moment before to think well of Rib-addi—although what youth didn’t commit follies he later repented of?
“I’m dumbfounded, my lord,” he admitted finally, raising and dropping his hands in helplessness.
“You begin to see now why we’ve taken with a grain of salt Rib-addi’s perpetual complaints about Abdi-ashirta and his band of outcasts,” Aper-el said. “And also why we’re not too worried about the designs of the hapiru. It’s more a personal crusade against Kebni than a real move to establish a threatening power in the north.”
“At least under Abdi-ashirta,” said Pt
ah-mes blandly. Hani wasn’t sure if he was correcting the vizier or simply adding to his statement.
“We can’t see the future,” Aper-el replied in an equally opaque tone.
“Do you think the young king—life, prosperity, and health to him—will want me to continue the investigation of Abdi-ashirta’s murder, my lord?”
“I can’t answer for him, Hani. Everything is in turmoil at a moment like this. I’ll arrange an audience for you after the funeral at some point. Our good Sun God needs to consider the resignations of the diplomatic corps, of course.”
That is, Hani realized, even the powerful vizier of the Lower Kingdom can’t be sure he’ll have a job in a few days.
Aper-el rose from the chair, and Ptah-mes did the same. Ptah-mes and Hani bowed and kept their noses to the ground until Aper-el had left, his sandaled footsteps clip-clopping off into the distance. Then he and Ptah-mes looked at one another.
“Just enjoy a few days with your family, Hani,” said Ptah-mes. “I can’t even tell you whether the suit of Rib-addi will be heard in the future.”
“With great relief, my lord.” Hani smiled thinly. “But may I ask you one thing? I have a suspicion that Rib-addi’s brother may have cheated him and those repayments that were never forked over might have been for loans Ili-rapikh took out for himself, not on behalf of his brother. Do I have an obligation to investigate and accuse him?”
Ptah-mes shrugged wearily. “Don’t do anything for now. Any advice I give you may be reversed from one day to the next.” He seemed to rouse himself and said with a pale smile, “You didn’t know about Abdi-ashirta’s past, did you?”
“I didn’t, and it really set me back on my heels—although it explains some things. No wonder he found his way to the hapiru. They’re all a band of lost souls, from what I understand.” Hani heaved a sigh. “It’s depressing how today’s quarrels have such deep roots. Why, all that must have happened fifty years ago. Can no one ever forgive anything?”
“I couldn’t tell you, my friend. No one has ever wronged me,” said the high commissioner.
But Hani wondered now about the circumstances that had led to Ptah-mes’s replacement as vizier a few years before Neb-ma’at-ra’s death. The image of this great patrician humbly sitting on a low stool with his long knees up before him had troubled Hani. What was Ptah-mes’s relationship with Aper-el, his former peer? For the first time, it occurred to Hani to ask himself why disgrace had fallen upon the honest and competent Ptah-mes. Having spent so many years in the military, Hani wasn’t used to wondering about such things. Soldiers—even soldiers’ scribes—didn’t ask questions. They just did their jobs. But these days, everything seemed to be up for questioning.
He dared to lay a friendly hand on Ptah-mes’s arm. In a low, concerned voice, he said, “Is all well, my lord?”
Ptah-mes’s dark-painted eyes grew warm; he seemed touched. “Yes, of course. Thank you for asking.” He gripped Hani’s forearm briefly and turned away.
Sunk in thought, Hani left the Hall of Royal Correspondence and made his way home on foot. It was good to traverse his beloved city again after so long. The sky was as clear and blue as glazed frit, a sea upon which puffy white clouds sailed serenely. A flock of ibis flew overhead, their great black-edged white wings rising and falling majestically. They would be breeding soon—the bird sacred to the god of scribes.
Lord Djehuty, he prayed, watch over all of us who practice your sacred art.
CHAPTER 7
Maya joined Hani’s family for dinner that evening. Hani was amused to see how vivacious the little secretary became under the admiring eyes of Pa-kiki and the girls, describing his and Hani’s adventures with broad gestures of the hands and a panoply of expressions. Hani and Nub-nefer watched, laughing, as Neferet undertook to act out his words, crossing the desert, panting and exhausted, and clinging to the mast as storms threatened their ship.
“I don’t remember that,” Hani whispered to his wife.
Neferet windmilled her arms as she mimed Maya fighting off his jealous colleagues and leaving them subjugated by his intelligence.
Ah, youth.
Hani called to his son, “You see, Pa-kiki? Such is the life of a scribe! Don’t I always tell you, ‘Look, no scribe will ever be lacking in food or the things of the House of the King?’”
Maya, unaccustomed to being the center of attention, was as wound up as a child’s top. He pointed at Pa-kiki and couldn’t resist capping the line with “‘Thank God for your father and your mother, who have placed you on the path of life.’ Quick, boy—where is that from?”
Pa-kiki looked panicked, but after an instant of hemming and hawing, he cried out, “The Satire of the Trades?”
Sat-hut-haru patted his back in congratulations and pretended to bow down to him.
“Good lad.” Mery-ra joined the general laughter. “You’ve done your father proud.”
“‘A day in the schoolroom is more useful to you than an eternity of toil in the mountains,’” Hani added, holding up his hands, palms out, as if in awe.
But Pa-kiki said, “Useful? So, do I get a prize or something for guessing right, Papa? I could have gotten it wrong and humiliated you.” He put on a pleading grin that reminded Hani of why they had nicknamed the boy Monkey.
Hani had a moment’s chilling vision of his firstborn, who had gotten his advice so wrong over the last few years. But he pushed Aha from his mind and said with lordly magnanimity, “I think Pa-kiki deserves... a flower. Sat-hut-haru, please crown our young scholar with a water lily.”
The boy’s sister pulled one of the flowers from the wreath in her hair and stuck it under Pa-kiki’s mourning scarf, where it hung in front of one eye. The boy held up a triumphal fist.
“I think Maya deserves one, too. He capped Papa’s lines.” She extracted another flower and worked it laboriously into the young scribe’s scarf. He beamed, a little flushed from the attention and the beer, as Sat-hut-haru gazed at him adoringly.
Hmm, Hani thought, observing their exchange of glances. His second daughter was fourteen—a slim, beautiful girl with soft brown eyes and her mother’s sweet oval face. It shouldn’t surprise him that she had started to notice young men. He watched her circle Maya in evaluation of the effect of the flower, her movements as sinuous as a cat. Where has she learned that innocent seductiveness already? From her mother? Or are girls born to it?
“‘It is greater than any profession; there is none like it on earth,’ eh, Maya?” he said with a wink, but it didn’t make him as happy as it should to see complicity growing between Maya and Sat-hut-haru.
“We have fruit,” Nub-nefer reminded the family brightly. She popped to her feet and handed her middle daughter the basket to pass around with her own hands. Maya selected a dried fig and bit into it with a crunch. It had sand all over it. He controlled his expression of distaste and continued eating the sand-dusted fruit with gusto and a forced smile, which the other adults echoed uneasily.
Mery-ra chuckled. “I don’t think I want one of those pretty balls of sand. Admirable stoicism, my boy.”
Sat-hut-haru slid back to her place, her slight hips waving. Hani managed to shake off the sense of discomfort that had descended upon him. Nub-nefer locked eyes with his, and they laughed. The noise level rose again as jokes flew and Neferet attempted to draw attention back to herself with her repertoire of birdcalls. Before long, Qenyt wandered in from the vestibule.
“Look!” cried Neferet. “She understood what I said!”
“And what did you say?” her mother inquired.
“Graaak. That means, ‘We have food. Come and help yourself.’ She understood my accent.” Neferet took up a piece of uneaten fruit and, squatting, held it out to the bird, who eyed it disdainfully.
“You see how important it is to learn foreign languages?” Hani said to Maya with a twinkle in his eye.
Eventually, the young secretary made his excuses and rose to leave. “I thank you for your hospitality, Lady Nub-nefer,
but I know my mother will be anxious if I come home too late. Lord Hani...” He extended his arms to his host a little shyly, as if this might be a boldness on his part, but Hani, from his seat, embraced the secretary affectionately. Maya finally drew back and nodded to the others, his eyes lingering on Sat-hut-haru. “Everyone. May the lord of the horizon give you all a good night.”
My typical goodnight wish, thought Hani, touched and amused by the emulation. The lad was so transparent in so many ways. He’s everything my own son is not.
After Maya had taken his leave, Nub-nefer hustled the children off to bed and returned. The adults sat back down. Mery-ra heaved a sigh that trickled off into a yawn. “Long day,” he said by way of explanation. “And another one tomorrow. The funeral. The feasting after that...” He stretched his arms luxuriously but didn’t pull himself from his seat.
Nub-nefer shot her husband a look that said, We need to talk.
“What is it, my dear?” he replied, thinking he already knew.
“Did you see how Maya and Sat-hut-haru kept looking at each other?”
“Indeed, I did. It was his evening to shine, after all.” Hani smiled benignly.
“What do you think about that?”
“I think,” Hani said, maintaining his smile with a little effort, “I think she could do far worse. He’s a good boy, hardworking and kind. He’ll do well in life.”
“There’s no ‘but’? You see no negatives?” Nub-nefer pressed. She was concerned, not hostile, he knew.
“He is a dwarf, Hani, in case you can’t see so well at the ripe old age of forty-one,” Mery-ra said.
“I know that. And I’ve spent half the evening trying to decide whether it matters. I guess I’ve decided it doesn’t.” Hani turned to Nub-nefer and caressed her face with a hand. “You may feel differently, my dear, and if so, we should discuss it. Of course, nothing may come of this anyway.”
“I don’t know what I think. I love the boy. He’s like a son to me—more than a son.” Her eyes met Hani’s, and he understood the sorrow that underlay those words. “But...” She broke off with a little noise of exasperation. “Will Sat-hut-haru be happy with him? A husband who is so much smaller than she? And he can be touchy.”