Bird in a Snare

by N. L. Holmes

  “We’ve all fallen short, my lord.” Hani’s thoughts were flickering back in time to the words of the two assassins. They’d spoken only with the servant of the “grandee in the big house.” Perhaps the fellow could fill in the rest of the information somehow. “Which of your men dealt with the assassins of Abdi-ashirta?”

  “My valet, Ipy.”

  “Would you mind if I speak to him when we get back to Waset?” Hani asked.

  “He’s here on the boat. That was he who gave me the water jug. Do you want to talk to him?”

  “Yes, but there’s no rush.”

  But Yanakh-amu—ever eager to please, as Hani now understood—called for the man immediately. Ipy was a sleek, plump fellow in his thirties. Had they been dressed differently, one might have assumed he was the master and Yanakh-amu the ill-fed little servant.

  “Answer Lord Hani’s questions, Ipy,” said the Fan Bearer, lying propped up against his headrest. The servant bowed smoothly, but Hani noticed how his throat constricted with the effort to swallow. His eyes darted briefly across the water and back.

  “You were the one who spoke to the two men your master hired to... deal with Abdi-ashirta?” Hani asked.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “How often did you speak to them?”

  “Three times, my lord. Once to find them in their barracks, once to give them orders, and once to pay them. Only...” The servant’s nervous eyes flicked to his master’s face and away. “Only, there was another time. It wasn’t Lord Yanakh-amu who sent me that time.”

  Yanakh-amu looked up at the servant, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Hani’s heart started beating faster. He’d suspected something like this. “Who was it, then?”

  “I don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him at court. A fat man. Mean, haughty faced. A northerner but speaks Egyptian like a native—as well as you, my lord. Rich and powerful was my impression.” The man glanced at his master. The commissioner’s face had gone pale as if the sun had touched him again. Ipy hastened to explain, his eyes widening with desperation, “I didn’t see any harm. He paid me really well, he did. And I was almost afraid to refuse him.”

  “And what did he have you tell the men?” Hani pursued.

  “To... to kill some dwarf and somebody named... named Hani. And to use a certain knife he gave me.” He ducked his head apologetically.

  Yanakh-amu stared first at Hani then at the servant. “How did he know you were dealing with these men, Ipy?”

  The servant was squirming with guilt. “It’s possible that, uh... one of his servants wormed it outta me, my lord. She and I was—I bet he sent her special to pump me, now that I look back on it.”

  No doubt, Hani thought. Yapakh-addi was a man who knew how to exploit other people’s weaknesses.

  “Those are all my questions, Lord Yanakh-amu,” said Hani. This explains why the knife was different.

  Yanakh-amu dismissed the servant and looked up at Hani, disgust visible in his flared nose and tautly leveled eyebrows. “So, everyone would assume—as you did—that whoever killed Abdi-ashirta was at the bottom of this attempt as well. How not, when the same two sellswords were to blame? And having received their orders from the same person, they, too, would assume I was at the bottom of it. He set me up.”

  “So it seems.” Hani nodded. The deep satisfaction of knowing how things had happened was starting to settle into him. It was a feeling of comfort and relief, not unlike scratching an itch—no matter how unpleasant the truth that was revealed.

  “And I think we know how Yapakh-addi came to know about my involvement with Abdi-ashirta’s death. The same servant girl, wouldn’t you guess?” Yanakh-amu lay back against his headrest.

  “I would indeed, my lord.”

  Yanakh-amu seemed more himself, his bright intelligence clicking away. Hani thought he would have made a good partner in investigation. Hani smiled, profoundly relieved that Yanakh-amu had been cleared of his attempted murder. That he could have been so wrong about the man had rankled him. To be sure, the commissioner had lied to him, but Yanakh-amu had owed Hani no painful revelations about his past.

  “So there’s your case cleared up, my friend,” Yanakh-amu said wearily.

  “There it is, my lord. And I suppose nothing will be done about any of it. Nefer-khepru-ra knows about the assassination of Abdi-ashirta and approves, and no one is likely to touch Yapakh-addi. I just wonder why he wanted to kill me. My only contact with him had to do with Rib-addi’s lawsuit.”

  “Don’t let him win, Hani.” Yanakh-amu looked up at Hani with a smile, but there was bronze in his eyes. “We mustn’t let him win.”

  “I dare not, my lord,” Hani said, his heart leaden with the sudden awareness of it. “My son is in his clutches.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Maya and Mery-ra had become separated from Hani early in the day. They had agreed to meet again in Waset, each making his way back as best he could in the case of such an event, so Maya wasn’t concerned. But he was miserably hot and stifled, standing down among the waists of larger men, being sweated upon and farted at and elbowed in the eye. The air was so clogged with dust from milling footsteps that he could hardly breathe. He decided it wasn’t worth being seen at the jubilee. No one could see him anyway. Unless... He cast an eye at the wall of a garden stretching along the parade route, where several boys sat, their legs dangling.

  “Lord Mery-ra.” He tugged at the old man’s arm. “Could you give me a boost up to that wall? It doesn’t seem to be too high.”

  Mery-ra mopped his forehead with the back of his hand and glanced up at the wall. “I think I can do that, my boy. Let’s give it a try.”

  They squeezed their way back to the wall, to the delight of their neighbors, who thereby found themselves pushed closer to the front. Mery-ra bent and made a step with his hands. Maya took off his sandals and put a foot upon it. With a lurch that sent his stomach into his mouth, Maya found himself rising upward. He kept his hands against the rough whitewashed mud brick of the wall until he could scramble up on his knees and gingerly turn himself around. The boys eyed him with amazed grins. He straightened his wig and saluted them.

  “Thanks, Lord Mery-ra,” he called down.

  Mery-ra chuckled. “I wish I could get up there, too, where there’s some breeze.”

  “There’s a ladder on the other side of the wall,” one of the boys said. “That’s how we climbed up.” He twisted backward and, with the help of one of the other children, drew a long, rickety ladder from the garden and eased it down into the street. It was just a pair of saplings with roughly lopped branches inserted at more or less regular intervals.

  Mery-ra eyed it dubiously. “I’d hate to break your ladder, son.”

  “It’s strong, my lord,” the boy assured him. “Our father uses it to prune the fruit trees. He’s the gardener.”

  Mery-ra scratched his chin, considering, while Maya urged him on. “There’s a nice wind up here.”

  The old man spat resolutely on his hands, tucked his sandals into his waist, and began to climb, while Maya steadied the wobbly ladder at the top. Eventually, despite the groans of the wood, Mery-ra reached the summit, and there came a tricky moment while he straddled the wall and tried to turn his bulky body to face outward. At last, he sat beside Maya and the boys, grinning triumphantly, red in the face and glistening with perspiration. “Haven’t had so much fun since I was your age, my lad,” he said to the boy beside him. “Thanks.” They hauled the ladder back up and slid it down the inside of the garden to avoid attracting a crowd of fellow parade watchers eager for a good place to sit.

  “Now our clothes are all dirty,” Maya said, “but at least we can see.”

  “And breathe.” Mery-ra took off his wig and fanned himself with it. The boys snickered, fascinated by two well-dressed grown-ups so lacking in pomposity.

  The procession began to pass them only moments later—musicians and priests of the Aten, with the great golden barque of the Sun Disk upon their
shoulders but empty of any statue. Then came soldiers and more soldiers, standard bearers, servants with sacrificial animals and offerings, dancers and chantresses and musicians, viziers and commissioners and a whole cadre of highest-level officials, and finally, the royal family and the king and queen themselves, followed by the Fan Bearers. Still more soldiers brought up the rear.

  Maya was frankly dazzled by the appearance of the king in his carrying chair of electrum and the shower of gold flakes and flower petals that fell around him like a celestial rain, tossed by naked children who walked alongside it. He felt a little disloyal, however, thinking that probably Lord Hani wouldn’t so lightly succumb to that spectacle meant to impress and ensorcell. It must be murderously hot down there in the road. He saw Lord Yapakh-addi among the Fan Bearers. A big, gross man like that—at his age, he could drop dead of the heat.

  “Where’s Hani’s friend, the little Fan Bearer from Djahy?” asked Mery-ra, shading his eyes.

  “Lord Yanakh-amu? No idea. I saw Lord Ptah-mes back with the officials. I thought he was a Fan Bearer, too.”

  But Mery-ra growled, with barely suppressed sarcasm, “Not under the present king.”

  Then all at once, Yapakh-addi turned and, as if he’d heard his name spoken, looked right at Maya. The secretary could scarcely control the shiver that rippled down his spine. There was pure malice in that look. He knows I’m still alive. And that doesn’t make him happy.

  “You planning to stay for the heb-sed ceremonies or any of the business at court?” Mery-ra asked after the procession had passed and the two men had climbed carefully down from their perch. He pulled off his wig again and tucked it under his arm.

  The heat was only increasing as the day wore on. It reverberated from the walls of houses along the processional street until Maya felt one could be sunburned just by reflection. “No,” Maya said, still unnerved by Yapakh-addi’s gaze. “I’m catching the next ferry upriver. How about you, Lord Mery-ra?”

  “I’ll go with you. This is awful. Why did the king choose to hold his jubilee at this time of year? He’s got to run around a court with a cloak on, by all the gods.”

  “He’s young. Same age as me. We youngsters are strong.” Maya grinned, but the sweat was dribbling down his face and stinging his eyes. He wanted nothing better than a seat under a shady canopy on the deck of a boat with the wind blowing hard over the water. He was beginning to think the worship of the Aten was a contest of survival—to see who could take the most heat and sun before collapsing. He suspected some players had been eliminated that morning, and perhaps that was part of the king’s plan. He didn’t strike Maya as a person who worried much about the welfare of others.

  He and Mery-ra hadn’t made much headway toward the River, trapped in the crowds that had been released, when a man came forcing his way through the milling bodies. “Are you the secretary of Lord Hani?” he called.

  Maya and Mery-ra exchanged a worried look. Dear gods, surely Hani hasn’t been heat struck. “That’s me,” he forced himself to say calmly.

  The man handed Maya a potsherd, upon which Hani had written a brief message: I’ve taken the boat back to Waset with Lord Yanakh-amu and will meet you at home. If I don’t show up, dredge the River.

  Maya felt a chill run up his neck.

  Mery-ra had the presence of mind to slip the messenger a little something, and the fellow darted away into the crowd. Mery-ra turned to Maya. “Nothing holding us here, then, my boy. It’s homeward bound.”

  “What does this mean, Lord Mery-ra?” Maya, his neck hairs tingling with fear, tipped the shard for the older man to read.

  Mery-ra perused it, his expression growing grim. “I thought he said Yanakh-amu didn’t know Hani knew about him.”

  “That was true. Maybe he’s going to confront him...”

  “Well, we have to trust Hani’s good sense. He’s not foolhardy.” But Mery-ra’s face was puckered with anxiety.

  Uneasy, they set off toward the waterside once more, alternately jostled and penned immobile by the crowd that was surging down the slope. Ferries were pushing off into the stream one after another.

  “By the Sun Barque, I don’t think we’re going to get on board,” Mery-ra cried in annoyance. “Hani needs to buy a boat.”

  “Doesn’t he have boats?” Maya asked, scanning the water’s edge with a hand-shaded eye. The glare from the sparkling River was blinding. At least there seemed to be a breeze on the water—he could see the sails of the boats belly as they eased into the current.

  “Those little things? They’re just for paddling around in the marshes. It would take a year to get to Waset on one of those.”

  They walked back and forth along the baking riverbank until they found a ferry that seemed to be accepting people and made their way up the gangplank. Mery-ra took one of the sailors aside. “There’s something in it for you if you get us back within the week.”

  “Save your gold, my lord,” a passenger leaning his elbows on the gunwales said. “I’ve already paid him.” He was tall and skinny limbed, but with a substantial belly. Maya could smell the beer on his breath from cubits away.

  “Well, get us home in three days, and I’ll add to that.” Mery-ra gave the sailor a conspiratorial wink. The passenger chuckled. Mery-ra turned to him and inquired in a genial voice, “You were here for the procession, my man?”

  “Yessir. I’m in the retinue of Lord Yapakh-addi, but he didn’t need us all on account of having a staff at his place here. So he sent us back.” The fellow grinned. “Serve ’im right if he comes up shorthanded, ’cause we’re long gone. Sutesh take us, it’s hot today in Akhet-aten.”

  Maya rolled his eyes in agreement.

  The servant laughed. “My name’s Min-khaf. I’m steward of Lord Yapakh-addi’s Theban villa.”

  So despite his low-class speech, he wasn’t just a servant but a high official of a noble household. That explains how he’s not ashamed to be so forward with a couple of royal scribes, thought Maya. Smells like he’s been celebrating the king’s jubilee. “I’m surprised he hasn’t made you change your name, Min-khaf. How does Pa-aten-khaf sound to you?”

  Min-khaf made a rude sound with his lips. “Let ’im try. My mother, of blessed memory, gave me this name fifty years ago.”

  “I’m Mery-ra, and this is my grandson-in-law, Amen-mes called Maya.”

  “Pleased to meet you, my lords.” Min-khaf turned to gaze out over the River. They could feel the boat begin to move away from the shore and hear the splash and drip of paddles raised in sequence.

  “Oh, look! There are some hippopotamuses over there. Let’s hope we stay well away from ’em, eh.”

  Gods, does the man never stop talking? Maya groaned inwardly. He was tired out by the heat and wanted nothing so much as a moment of silence. But then it occurred to him that Min-khaf was manager of Yapakh-addi’s household in Waset—that whole impressive quasi-royal estate Maya had seen the day he and Hani had examined the books. Min-khaf had to know plenty of tidbits about Yapakh-addi’s dealings, if only Maya could winkle them out of him. The secretary wished he had another pot of beer to offer the man. Several pots of beer. And at least one for himself.

  “Why don’t we find a place to sit in the shade of the sail, my friend?” he suggested.

  Mery-ra seconded the idea gratefully, and the three men moved a little aft and folded their legs under them. The deck was wet and dirty, but it was a benison not to be standing. Mery-ra leaned back luxuriously, his elbows on a coil of rope. “Well, Min-khaf. You’re virtually the ruler of a small country. My son has visited Lord Yapakh-addi’s estate, and he said it was immense and magnificent. You must be very efficient.”

  Min-khaf laughed modestly, and a tide of soured-beer smell wafted over Maya. He could imagine his wig uncurling under its solvent blast. “It’s a lot of work, even with a hardworking staff. You see before you a self-made man, my lords. I’m just a poor boy who made good in scribal school. But I guess I do a good job, because my master want
ed me along in the capital. Not that he needed me after all.”

  He probably got tired of hearing you chatter, thought Maya wearily. “My employer and I were impressed by the detail of the bookkeeping. And that can’t be his only estate. I know he has holdings in the vassal states of the north...”

  “That’s right. He has a lot o’ land in Kebni now. That’s where he’s from, you know. He’s a prince of some sort in Kebni. And he’s got all sorts of real estate there. And horses even.” He whistled. “They’re worth their weight in gold, those beasts. But he also has land up in A’amu and even over toward the east.” Min-khaf pushed back his scarf and scratched the graying stubble at his forehead.

  “What does he think about the Hittites moving on those territories?” Mery-ra said with the eagerness of someone discussing the latest wrestling match. “That must scare a landowner, to see those sons of crocodiles closing in.”

  “Oh, Lord Yapakh-addi knows how to keep ’em sweet. They won’t bother ’im.” Min-khaf rubbed his forefinger and thumb together, the universal gesture of gold changing hands.

  Maya took up the relay. “What about the hapiru, though? I know their leader is eyeing A’amu. That can’t be good for your master’s interests.”

  The steward chuckled and winked a conspiratorial eye. “He’s in thick wi’ those bastards. They jump when he tells ’em to, believe me. They won’t be attacking his lands!”

  Maya thought of the fate of Rib-addi, traduced by Aziru and thrown into the hands of his enemies. No doubt that had been at the command of Yapakh-addi.

  “Well, being rich certainly has advantages,” Mery-ra shook his head appreciatively. “No wonder the king values him so highly. You’re lucky to work for such a man.”

  Min-khaf pursed his lips and wagged his eyebrows. “He c’n be a hard master, though. You don’t get that rich without bein’ a son of a bitch, if you pardon my saying so. He dismisses servants right and left. You gotta know how to handle ’im.”

  “And you do, I’m sure,” Mery-ra said admiringly. “How long have you worked for him?”