by N. L. Holmes
“Thank you, my lord,” Kalbaya whispered. He kissed Hani’s hand, hanging onto it with desperate gratitude.
“Wait here,” Hani said, disengaging himself. “I’ll be right back.” He set off back through the garden, hardly looking at his duck pond. But instead of going to the strong box where gold jewelry like his shebyu collars and debens of gold and bronze and other valuables were kept, he headed into the kitchen. If Kalbaya tries to barter with a piece of fancy jewelry, everyone will think he stole it.
The cook was just taking bread for the day out of the oven, and Mery-ra was standing over her, sniffing hungrily. They both looked up as Hani swept in and starting shoving the still-steaming round loaves into a bag, as many as would fit.
“That’s quite a snack you’re preparing, my son,” his father said with a twinkle in his eye.
But Hani had no time for badinage. “I’ll tell you later what I’m doing.”
He looked around the room, grabbed a bag of chickpeas and a few strips of dried meat, and swept out in a whirlwind. The two ex-slaves were standing where he’d left them. Bin-addi had his arm around Kalbaya, who sagged on his feet, all the emotion drained from him. They looked up as Hani approached.
“Here you are, my friend. Now, go. If anyone sees you with all this bread, they’ll just think you’re delivering for a bakery.”
Kalbaya murmured, “How can I thank you?” He turned and started as if to run, but Hani stopped him with an outstretched hand.
“Wait. I just had a thought. Go to the villa of Lord Ptah-mes. His wife will give you a job. It’s near the huge temple south of the city. Anyone can point it out to you.”
Kalbaya nodded gratefully and shot off through the service gate and into the street, the sack of food over his shoulder. Hani listened to his footsteps disappearing down the hard earth lane. He was left staring at Bin-addi. “So that’s what everyone was hiding, eh.”
“We didn’t know what had happened until Lord Amen-nefer showed up alive and well the next morning, Lord Hani. And then everybody started talking about how the Babylonian had been murdered.” Bin-addi hung his head. “No one meant any harm to that stranger.”
“No.” Poor Shulum-marduk’s confused ba must have wondered what had happened when it awoke suddenly in the underworld.
As if compelled to explain, Bin-addi said, “The commissioner had raped and killed Kalbaya’s wife, my lord. They weren’t born slaves—they were captives, and Lord Amen-nefer took what he wanted from the captive women and enslaved their menfolk. You can’t blame Kalbaya for wanting to kill him.”
“I don’t. I would have done the same, I’m afraid.” Heavyhearted, Hani started to go back to the house, but he was aware of Bin-addi still standing there staring at him. He turned and asked with a kindly smile, “Is there anything else?”
“Do you want us to go, too, my lord?”
“Not unless you want to. Why would I want you to go?”
“We all knew...”
“You’d sworn on your father’s soul, Bin-addi.”
⸎
When Maya arrived later in the morning, ready for dictation, Hani told him about Kalbaya’s
confession. The secretary’s eyes popped. “You mean it wasn’t Amen-nefer obliterating a witness to his crime after all?”
“Apparently not. Although you might say that the plot those desperate slaves concocted was a testimony to other crimes Amen-nefer had perpetrated.” Hani forced out a sigh of disgust.
Maya blew out a breath. He said, scratching his head, “What I still don’t understand is why Biryawaza wanted to kill him. They both seemed to be in league with the hapiru. That scout saw them together at the attack on the troops, remember?”
“I’m confused about that too. But regarding Kalbaya, I’m not sure whether to say anything or not. If Ptah-mes has told the vizier about Amen-nefer’s escape, then the Babylonians are still expecting us to find the murderer. But I can hardly think of poor Kalbaya as a criminal.”
“And if not?”
“They think we found him and executed him. But Ptah-mes and I could be in bad trouble, depending on the vizier’s mood—or on his digestion perhaps.” Hani’s face split in a cynical smile. “So maybe we need to write the high commissioner a letter and find out where we stand. I guess he’s back in Azzati by now.”
Maya took his pen case off his shoulder, sat down on the floor, and spread his implements around him. He’d just unrolled a piece of papyrus when A’a appeared in the doorway from the vestibule. The outer door was closed because of the morning chill, so he was almost reduced to a voice in the darkness. “My lord, Lord Ptah-mes is here to see you.”
“Here?” Hani exchanged a glance of astonishment with Maya. It’s as if I conjured him up.
“Yes, my lord. He said he’d wait in the garden. Lady Neferet is with him.”
“Neferet? She’s with him?” Too many improbabilities at once. Hani couldn’t take all this in. “Invite them into the salon, A’a. It’s too cold to stand in the garden.”
A’a turned, but Hani had rushed after him, still barefoot. Sure enough, they were standing side by side on the porch—Ptah-mes tall, slim, and elegantly attired and Neferet short, blocky, and clad in a rumpled working-class-looking shift. She rushed forward and threw herself on her father in her usual exuberant way.
He managed to extricate himself enough to say, “Lord Ptah-mes! My duckling! What brings you both here? I thought you were still in Djahy, my lord.”
“I was summoned back to make a report to the king in the presence of the Babylonian ambassador.” Ptah-mes’s lips twitched in one of his bone-dry smiles.
Hani’s heart leaped into his throat. “Did you tell him about Amen-nefer’s escape?”
Ptah-mes gave a crafty smile. “No. As it happened, it wasn’t necessary.”
Hani remembered his manners suddenly, and despite the burn of curiosity that ignited within him, he said, “Please come in and have a seat, my lord. Neferet, dearest, perhaps you could go see your mother while we talk business...”
“I have something to say, too, Papa,” she protested.
Hani shot a questioning look over her head at Ptah-mes. The high commissioner smiled noncommittally, with a twitch of his eyebrows. “Very well, my duckling. But you must never repeat any of what you hear, please. This is very important.” Hani suspected Ptah-mes had no idea of how indiscreet Neferet could be.
“I swear I won’t. May Meret-seger the Lover of Silence bite—”
“All right, my dear. I believe you.”
The two men took the good chairs. Maya had risen to his feet and bowed to the high commissioner, who nodded acknowledgment. Ptah-mes seemed to be in a jaunty mood.
Maya asked, “Should I go, my lord?”
“No, no,” Ptah-mes said. “You know most of this.”
Hani saw Maya staring in surprise at Neferet, an unlikely presence at a diplomatic confab, and he almost laughed. You’re no more astonished than I, my boy.
Ptah-mes began, “There were quite a few developments right after you left, Hani. As you know, Amen-nefer took off to join the hapiru, presumably the renegade bunch. But not long after, Biryawaza sent a letter reporting that the commissioner and some of his men had been seen among the nomads, raiding our cities. It seems that the renegades are the ones giving us the problem. Shum-addi has been working with Biryawaza to decimate the rivals. He wants to be made a king, of course—which the opposition leader apparently refused to let happen—and so he’s playing the good boy.”
“Hah!” Hani snorted. “As if Biryawaza could talk. Remember what that scout told us?”
“I don’t think it’s that simple, though. Biryawaza chronicled a whole long list of contacts and joint raids the commissioner and various vassal kings had made with the hapiru, including the one our scout survived. It went back at least two years. He said he’d pretended to be one of their collaborators in order to get names, and he did just that. A most valuable document. He had more interest than any
one in seeing the hapiru controlled since, as Qidshu’s neighbor, his cities suffered more than anyone’s.”
“That part, at least, is certainly true. I could never figure out why he would be attacking his own territories. As for the rest...” Hani remembered the exaggerated servility of the king at Temesheq, how he’d declined to receive Hani when he went there to meet Aziru, how his groveling exterior could barely close its lips over his angry pride. “That would explain why he tried to have Amen-nefer killed perhaps.”
Ptah-mes’s eyes widened in question.
“I’ll tell you about that in a moment, my lord. Please continue.”
“What Biryawaza particularly wanted to say was that he’d seen Amen-nefer murdered by his fellow renegades. And sure enough—we found the corpse.”
Hani suspected that Biryawaza himself might have had a hand in Amen-nefer’s demise, but he still felt a thrill of satisfaction. The monster who’d maimed his daughter was dead, facing the Judge of Souls.
“Fortunately,” said Ptah-mes with a cool smile that bordered on smug, “I had not yet informed the vizier of our apprehension and intended summary execution of Amen-nefer. So I was able to report that he’d been killed by some of his treasonable confederates before we could accuse him of the Babylonian’s murder. When I spoke yesterday to the king, he was very pleased. And the ambassador of Sangar was even more pleased—with you, in particular, who had discovered the identity of the murderer.”
Hani was washed with relief. The worst had, yet again, been averted, and he wouldn’t have to make the decision he dreaded. He felt he could tell Ptah-mes in confidence about the eventual unmasking. “My lord, it seems Amen-nefer wasn’t the Babylonian’s murderer after all, even though he had a good motive.”
“No?” Ptah-mes lifted an elegant arched eyebrow.
“In fact, just this morning I heard a confession by the real perpetrator, one of the commissioner’s slaves. It seems our friend Biryawaza paid Amen-nefer’s slaves to assassinate him, and since they all loathed their master, they were happy enough to agree. His valet got into the room through a service passage and beat the occupant of Amen-nefer’s bed to a pulp, as only a man with long and terrible grievances could. But then they learned that it had not been the commissioner sleeping in his room.”
“It was Shulum-marduk?”
Hani nodded. “Amen-nefer told me he had vacated his usual chamber so the three emissaries could be near to each other. But it seems no one told his valet.”
“Is that who that man who came to our door looking for work was, Papa? He said you sent him,” Neferet said excitedly.
Ptah-mes looked thoughtful. After a moment, he said, “I see no reason why any of this has to be known, Hani. The murderer has already been found. And you and I have no innocent blood on our hands.”
“Thanks be to all the gods. Much as I hated him and wanted vengeance, he wasn’t guilty of that particular crime. I don’t know if it’s according to ma’at to kill someone simply because they’re bad in general.”
Ptah-mes rose and heaved a sigh of satisfaction. “So your case is solved, Hani. Well done.” He gave Hani a complicit look. Then he said, as if it had just come into his mind, “Oh, you might be interested to know that Mankhate’s territory has been folded back into the commissariat at Kumidi and a new commissioner has been appointed—your friend Pa-aten-em-heb.”
“But that’s wonderful!” Hani exclaimed happily. “He’s upright and competent and well deserves the promotion. Did the vizier name him spontaneously?”
“I named him. But the vizier is probably not yet aware of that. He thinks it was his idea.” The two men exchanged a look of complicity. “He intends to go back to his own name, Har-em-heb.”
“There’s something about the air up there in the north! Everyone seems to change their name!” Hani laughed.
Ptah-mes smiled and turned as if to go, and Hani started after him to show him to the door.
But Neferet, who’d risen out of respect, looked at her father with barely contained eagerness. “Wait, Papa. I have some news too.”
“Should Lord Ptah-mes stay?” Hani asked, exchanging an uncertain glance with his superior.
“Unless I must, I have a few things to see to. Training my new valet among them.” Ptah-mes smiled, real humor in his face, and he clasped Hani’s hand. Then he turned and left, the clopping of his fashionable upturned sandals fading gradually into the vestibule.
As soon as Hani heard the outer door close behind him, his daughter asked breathlessly, “What have you found for Lady Meryet-aten, Papa?”
Hani debated whether he wanted his daughter to be party to the disturbing information he’d uncovered, but as if she could read his mind, she said smugly, “She told me to ask you.”
“Well, my duck, it turns out that the awful man who pushed your sister from the boat was the same one who brought a pregnant servant girl to the palace seven years ago—on the orders of the God’s Father.”
Neferet let out a very unladylike whistle. “A servant girl? The Haru in the nest is the son of a servant girl? Oh, the young queen will be so happy.”
“Why, Neferet? Is she intending to push him out of the succession?”
“Well, of course. Why should they let a commoner on the throne when there’s a real live princess around?”
“What about Ankh-khepru-ra? He’s a genuine brother of the present king, isn’t he? Nefer-khepru-ra made him his coregent after all. How old is he? Surely he’ll live to succeed the Great King.”
She shrugged and said sententiously, “My medical opinion is that no-o-obody knows when someone’s going to die.”
Hani received her medical opinion in silence. Is she aware of something? He would find out, no doubt. For the moment, his case was concluded, and he could rejoice in the company of the family until his next assignment came along. He escorted Neferet to the door, only to find, as they stepped out onto the porch, that there was a chilly north wind blowing.
THE END
DID YOU ENJOY THIS book? Here is a sample of Lake of Flowers, the next volume in the Lord Hani Mysteries:
CHAPTER 1
Hani would forever remember what he was doing the day he learned of the coregent’s death.
He and his father, Mery-ra, were strolling in the garden before dinner, on their leisurely way to the garden pavilion where they would eat on a midsummer evening. As if they were synchronized everywhere on earth, the cicadas roared in rhythmic waves, and the late afternoon sun was a golden liquid, spattering the gravel of the path where it sifted through the leaves of the big sycomore. Hani breathed deeply of the shady air. Despite all the troubles in the world around him, he couldn’t help believe that life was good. Jasmine and lilies were in bloom, and earthy aromatics and white daisies; the air was syrupy with their perfume, as if scent had mass. Could a man ask for more?
“Look, Father,” Hani said with a smile. He pointed to where Qenyt, his pet heron, stood as frozen as a statue on one leg in the shallows of the pool, her gray color making her almost invisible among the reeds that swayed there—a whisper of feathers, a deadly shadow of bird. All at once, her long neck unfurled and her dagger-sharp beak plunged into the water. A moment later, she stood with a twisting silver fish in her bill, which almost immediately disappeared down her throat. “She’s ruthless.”
Mery-ra chuckled, his belly bouncing. “I’ve found that to be true of females generally, son. Haven’t you ever noticed, with all the devious ladies you’ve had to serve over the years?”
Hani joined his laughter. “You have a point. Certainly the royal women are a cutthroat bunch.” But he added with a twinkle in his eye, “Of course, our women are very different.”
“I should think,” said Nub-nefer from behind him. She emerged from among the bushes, a tray in her hands upon which were arranged a variety of cheeses and pickled vegetables and bread cut into chunks. “However, our men tend to get hungry before a meal.” Hani’s wife set the tray down on a little table in the p
avilion. I’ll bring you some beer. The kitchen girls have had it cooling in the well. Dinner will be a while yet.”
“Thank you, my dove,” Hani said fondly. He stroked her coppery arm. As Nub-nefer’s name proclaimed, she was his pure gold, his golden treasure. Even after thirty-six years of marriage, he felt he had yet to plumb her perfections.
The two men settled into their chairs on the porch of the pavilion and stretched out their legs. Mery-ra expelled a big breath with a whoosh. “Hot.” He folded his arms over his head to cool his armpits.
“That shouldn’t surprise you, Father. It’s almost time for the Inundation.”
Without lowering his arms, Mery-ra scrubbed his close-cropped gray hair. “I’m not surprised, but it’s hot nonetheless. These are the Heriu-renpet, the intercalary days. The old year is fast coming to an end. What will the new one bring, do you suppose?”
Nub-nefer and one of the serving girls approached with the beer pot and its stand. “Here you are, my hungry men,” Hani’s wife called from the porch of the pavilion, her voice rich with affection.
Suddenly Hani heard a wild noise of footsteps pounding down the gravel path from the gate, and Neferet burst into the open, red-faced and panting.”Mama! Papa! Grandfather! Ankh-khepru-ra Smenkh-ka-ra is dead!”
Hani and Nub-nefer exchanged a stunned look. Hani struggled to swallow, wondering if he had heard his daughter correctly. The coregent, only in his twenties, had died?
Mery-ra was the first to regroup. “When, my girl? How?”
“The plague, Grandfather. It only just took him off like that.” She snapped her fingers. “It hasn’t even been made public yet.” Neferet, who was a physician of the ladies attached to Ankh-kheperu’s court in Waset, would have been one of the first to know.
“That’s what happens when the king doesn’t perform the Appeasement of Sekhmet ritual,” Mery-ra said in a dire tone. “She gets mad.”
“Today’s the birthday of Sutesh,” Hani murmured. “A day of ill omen.”