City of the Dead

by T. L. Higley

  But I have other matters to attend.

  Axum had remained in the shadows, but he joined me now. He lifted a torch from a post at the edge of the courtyard, and we set out northward toward the harbor.

  My half-built pyramid stood outlined against the night sky, a massive, dark angled platform, with only the pale moonlight to set it apart from the desert. It called to me, begging me to spend my attention only on it, without distraction. I averted my eyes and walked with haste, in part to ward off the chill.

  Another murder. Another mask. What did this peasant woman have in common with Mentu? Who would have reason to kill both the overseer of constructions and a nameless woman from the workmen’s village? Or perhaps there was no connection. Perhaps there was a madman in our midst, choosing his victims at random. The thought chilled me further. A night wind kicked up sand, and I instinctively ducked and turned my head.

  “We walk toward a killer, perhaps,” Axum said, “with heads down and eyes at our feet?”

  I faced the sand and let it punish me. I should have done more after Mentu’s death. Should have focused on finding his murderer. The priest’s words resurfaced. More disorder, because I had been interested in only my own ambition. And now an innocent woman had paid the price for my inattention.

  I quickened my pace, anxious that the murder scene may tell me more about Mentu’s death as well the woman’s.

  With the quarry behind us, the pyramid lay only two thousand cubits ahead to the west, and the harbor with its valley temple just in front. The harbor had been built at the beginning of the project, five years ago. Ships docked just below the temple, where supplies and stones were unloaded. From the dock, a stone wall tapered off to mud and reeds. A canal connected the deep harbor to the Nile. During these months of akhet, when the Nile surged over its banks and swamped the floodplain, the canal all but disappeared, with only a short span separating the flooded farmland from the harbor.

  The slave boy I had sent ahead must have seen our torch. He signaled us with a sharp whistle, and we changed course to join him at the water’s edge.

  The water-logged sand sucked at my sandals, a strange sound in the stillness. The boy stood with the silence of a guardian sphinx beside a tangle of white among the dark reeds. He straightened and threw his shoulders back at Axum’s approach.

  “You have allowed no one to disturb the body?” Axum asked.

  “No, my father. Just as you said.” The boy’s eyes never left Axum’s, and when the older man gave him a quick nod, he lifted his chin and hid a smile.

  I inhaled with eyes closed, strengthening myself for the task. I did not want to miss anything as a result of my weakness in the face of blood. I examined the surrounding scene first, from the water to the dry sand. Papyrus had been planted here years ago and had already grown thick, its stalks reaching higher than my head and ending in fluffed plumes. In the darkness, the reeds and water were black and the half-moon a pale slice of reflection in the harbor.

  “She is here,” the boy whispered. I held up a hand, not wanting to be rushed in my inspection.

  The grasses had been crushed in a path leading out from the water. Trampled by the boy’s feet? Perhaps. Or perhaps the woman’s lifeless body had been brought here. I followed the path to the sand. Scuffled footprints here, as though she had been dragged or had fought with someone along the way, trying to free herself. The trail led in the direction of the quarry and, beyond, the village.

  I returned to the water, again sinking into sandy muck to my ankles. The Nubian and the boy watched silently. My mouth felt as dry as sand, and my blood pounded.

  She was a tall woman. I could sense this even with her body on the ground and curled against itself. She lay on her side, but her head had been turned to the sky and the golden mask placed over it. Her natural hair streamed from under the mask, and the edges of it floated in the shallow water, mingling with the reeds. Her white coarse linen dress was torn and muddied, with dark streaks across her midsection. I bent to one knee in the grass to examine the streaks.

  The memory came unexpectedly, as flashes from the past always do. Though in hindsight the connection was natural. Muddy reeds, tangled hair, a woman at the water’s edge. Dead. I remembered the certainty that Merit lay at my feet, the guilt and relief at discovering it was Amunet. Now it was as if I had stepped into one of my frequent dreams, only this time surrounded by darkness.

  I shook off the memory. I was not a youth anymore. This woman was not Amunet. And I would not shirk my responsibility. I stilled the uneven beat in my chest and looked again at the streaks on her dress. The dark stains were blood. Carefully, I lifted her left wrist from the ground at her side, fearing what I might find.

  The hand was bloody.

  “Her finger has been taken,” Axum said, shock vibrating in his voice.

  I swallowed and lowered the hand back to the grass. I must be methodical about this. Think of it like an examination of the project plans. I must work my way through each section, looking for flaws, for the unusual, or something out of place that might point to the killer. There was no need to involve my heart.

  I started with her feet—bare. Examined her legs—muddy. Her clothing bore no clues but the blood wiped from her hand. Did that mean she was still alive when the finger was cut from her?

  Logic only. No emotion.

  I leaned in to inspect her chest and neck and motioned to the Nubian to bring the torch closer. Blackening bruises covered her bare shoulders, crept up her throat and disappeared under the mask. I steadied myself to examine her neck, expecting the gash I had seen on Mentu. But only bruises marked her skin.

  Had she been choked to death? And if so, what did it mean that her killer had not used a knife this time? Was it the same man who killed Mentu?

  I rocked back on my heels for a moment, pondered the evidence, and found I had only more questions. I looked over my shoulder, feeling the stares of Axum and the slave boy and the weight of the desert solitude pressing in on me.

  Whoever she was, she had died far from anyone who cared. The light of the palace was like a distant star on the horizon, and even torches in the workmen’s village seemed to belong to the night sky. The desolate harbor, with only the pyramid watching over it, was a lonely place to die.

  I ran a finger along the fine details of the mask. It was very similar to Mentu’s, with lapis lazuli eyes painted with kohl and a mouth shaped into a peaceful smile that seemed grotesque in such a place. The gold was hammered smooth, and in the gray shadows it seemed to glow with fire.

  I could put it off no longer. I curled my fingertips under each side of the mask, just above the poor woman’s ears. The gold piece was not attached in any way. It simply lay upon her face, and I noted that it had to have been placed there after death.

  I lifted the death mask slowly, like the god Anubis inviting this nameless woman to live again and join the gods. But I knew as I lifted it that I’d find no life underneath.

  A distant cloud chased across the face of the moon, darkening the sky.

  I set the mask aside. I leaned over the woman’s face. Axum brought the torch closer.

  And then the memories washed over me again. Only this time the nightmare had become truth, and the desert and harbor and pyramid tilted crazily at the edge of my vision and threatened to topple over.

  No, it was not Amunet who lay dead beside me.

  It was Merit.

  SEVEN

  Grand Vizier?”

  The darkness around me shifted.

  “My lord?”

  I looked up from Merit’s body through blurred eyes. “My lord,” Axum said, “is that—is she—”

  I returned my gaze to her face. “It is the Great Wife. Yes.”

  Axum placed a heavy hand on my shoulder in silent sympathy. “I will send the boy with a message for Pharaoh.”

  “No!” I grabbed his wrist. “Not yet. I—I will send word myself. When I am ready.”

  “As you wish.”

&nbs
p; Logic only. No emotion. The words mocked me.

  “My lord—”

  “Leave us!” I turned to the Nubian and the boy beside him. “Leave us,” I said again. “I will bring her body to the temple shortly.”

  The older man frowned but dipped his head and backed away, pulling the boy by the shoulder. And then we were alone.

  I reached an arm under her body, lifted her from the mud, and cradled her on my lap. I felt an intense pressure in my head and body, as though my ka was turning to stone. I breathed through the pain, eyes closed and lips parted.

  I must look at her. The boy had left the torch speared into the sand nearby, and its light played across her features.

  There was something in her mouth.

  I leaned over her and nudged her lips open with the tip of my finger. A papyrus plume? I pulled the grass from her mouth, and found that a pink-petaled lotus flower had also been pushed in. I checked my instinct to thrust the offensive plants from me, and instead laid them in the sand at my side.

  Merit. Oh, Merit.

  With one arm I clutched her against my chest, and with the other hand I brushed the wet hair from her face. The moon emerged from behind the wispy clouds, lightening her pale features. I found I was rocking her, a gentle movement to soothe a crying child. I tried to stop the slow movement but could not.

  All these years of striving to be an honorable man.

  A jackal howled at the newly appeared moon, and I threw back my head and yelled into the night sky as well, a feeble attempt to release the rage. And I realized in that moment that, in some deep part of myself, I had always believed that the gods would reward me for my integrity. That somehow, she would one day be mine.

  But it was never to be. Merit would not be mine.

  Regret, bitter as bile, rolled over me and threatened to gag me. I had not spoken my heart to her in so many years. Had she known that she still held every part of me in her delicate fingers?

  The kohl around her eyes had smeared in the water. I tried to wipe it away, to leave only the fragile lines she would have painted there herself. My hands trembled at her temples.

  I would not look at her disfigured hand, would not even acknowledge that such a thing had been done to her. The physicians would make it right. Do not think of it.

  I cradled her as the night passed, knowing it was for the last time, unwilling to say good-bye.

  She was as lovely in death as she had been in life, as she had been when we were all young. I traced the line of her jaw with my finger, then with hesitation and trembling I drew my face close to hers and touched her lips with my own. Gently at first, then with all the agony that ripped at my heart.

  Merit. Merit, I love you. I love you.

  The words pounded in my chest and kept tempo with the sobbing I could no longer restrain. The moon had risen high above us. The festival was perhaps just ending, and the partygoers would be stumbling back to their estates.

  My stomach curdled at the thought of Khufu, giddy with wine, being brought to Merit’s side. But there was no avoiding it. I could not keep the knowledge of her death from the king until morning.

  With the taste of her still on my lips, I dragged myself to my feet, then lifted Merit’s slight frame in my arms, with the gold mask and the reeds and the flower resting on her belly.

  The valley temple was not far, but it would be the longest walk of my life. I turned my feet toward it, and chose to fill my mind with thoughts of happier times.

  The years have changed us little, I believe. Even then, before Khufu wore the Double Crown, before we were all tainted with the secret of that day, we were much like the selves we were to become …

  * * *

  The summer heat at Saqqara often is unbearable, and the royal family has adjourned northward for a month of playful respite. The Nile flows north like the arm of a man, reaching Saqqara at the wrist, then spreading into a many-fingered triangle in its flow to the Great Sea. In the midst of this marshy triangle, there is much good hunting. And at the edge, near the herds of longhorn cattle kept on the plains for royal use, is the summer estate of Khufu’s father, Sneferu.

  The sun burns hot this day, and the blood in our veins even hotter. We set out from the estate amid the protests of parents.

  “You disgrace yourself, my son!” Sneferu calls after Khufu, who mounts the back of a donkey as if he is a peasant slave. Khufu’s mother, Hetepheres, stands beside her husband, shaking her head and clucking her disapproval.

  The rest of us are also on donkeys, but it is Khufu who draws the attention. “It is not far, Father!” He laughs. “And there is no one but the marsh birds and hippos to see us!”

  My own father, Neferma’at, is there, having brought his family to spend the month with his brother, the king. He spreads his hands toward me. “Hemi, speak sense to your cousin. We can rely on you for decorum.”

  I glance at the others of our party, restless to set out. The pretty and flirtatious sisters, Amunet and Tamit. My brother, Ahmose, and my best friend, Mentu. And Merit, who watches me with a shy but amused smile.

  “We are only young for a short time, Father,” I call out. “Do not consign us so quickly to the boredom of your generation!”

  The rest of our group laughs with me, and I glance at Merit and straighten my shoulders. My father throws his hands into the air, as if to invoke the gods to speak to us.

  “At least take a servant with you,” my mother says.

  I look to Khufu, who shrugs. “Then give us Ebo,” he says. “At least he is not a white-haired grouch.”

  And so we set out for the hunt, but more for the pleasure of being young and doing as we wish. Ebo trails us, driving the donkey that bears our picnic lunch and our bows and spears.

  We skirt the marshland, where the sand is firmer, keeping the swamps to our right. Tamit soon gives up on her donkey and, with much laughter and tossing of hair, climbs up on the front of Ahmose’s animal and tucks herself against my brother’s chest. Ahmose grins at Tamit, at Khufu, at me, and at Tamit’s obstinate donkey, now left to be driven behind us by Ebo.

  Amunet works to keep her donkey close to Khufu’s, and it is not long before the two have taken the lead. We amble along with the leisure of youth. Tamit and Ahmose carry on a private conversation ahead of us, leaving Merit and me to walk quietly side by side, with Mentu our chaperone. The summer-green papyrus seems to wave at us as we pass, and the pale yellow sun rises in the desert-blue sky. It is as if Egypt’s master artists have painted us all in blissful harmony upon a temple wall. It is the kind of day, I muse, when a man feels that life will never be better.

  In many ways, I am correct.

  Khufu chooses the spot where we alight, as we all knew he would. Even now, when he is but a prince of Egypt, we circle around Khufu like moons around the earth.

  He has chosen a plain that inclines sharply upward from the marsh, where the ground is dry but the water near. It is only a short walk to the shelter where the boats are kept, should we decide to venture out onto the water for more serious hunting.

  Tamit throws herself down onto the grass, pulling Ahmose with her. Khufu and Amunet dismount but talk with heads close together.

  Behind us, Ebo will be preparing our midday meal. Merit and Mentu and I find a flat spot on the grass and talk of the weather, of the multitude of geese this year, of anything but our hearts, which are in turmoil over the gap between what is and what must be. We all know that Merit will one day be Khufu’s wife. Yet out here, away from the watchful eyes of our parents, Khufu pays no attention to Merit. And I am glad of it.

  Mentu pulls a flute from his donkey’s pack and begins to play. The rest of us circle around him and clap, until Khufu begins a dance that has us all laughing within moments. Two of the donkeys snort behind us, and we laugh harder.

  Ebo is spreading cloths on the grass, and setting out jugs of beer and platters of warm pomegranates. Khufu grabs a cloth, the rest of us still clapping a beat to Mentu’s flute, and wraps it around
his head in a point.

  “Look, I am Pharaoh Khufu!” he calls, twirling, with one hand on his makeshift crown. “Wearer of the White Crown of Upper Egypt!” He stops and points a finger at Ahmose. “You there, bow down!” Ahmose obliges, laughing, and Khufu turns to me. “You, Hemiunu! Fetch me some beer!” Merit smiles at me and shakes her head. I grab a jug of beer from the ground and think for a moment of tossing its contents on my cousin but instead simply hand it to him with a flourish.

  “Beloved of Horus,” I say, “Drinker of Much Beer!”

  Khufu barks a laugh, grabs the jug with one hand, Amunet with the other, and kisses the girl soundly on the mouth. She pulls away, giggling and covering her lips with her hand.

  We fall to the ground where our meal is spread and dig into the food as though we have not eaten in weeks. Merit sits beside me, her arm almost touching my own. Sometimes, when she reaches for more meat or a juicy pomegranate, she brushes against me, sending needles of heat scorching through my veins. We both pretend that it has not happened, though the air between us is heavy with the unspoken.

  I wear a pouch tied round my waist, and Merit asks me several times what it contains. But I refuse to tell her of the amulet I have brought as a gift to her. Not yet.

  The afternoon rolls over us, and we doze and laugh in the sun as those who believe life will always be kind.

  Do the gods watch us here, knowing what is to come and scoffing at our foolishness? I do not know. I only know that it is the best day of my life, this afternoon in the sun with Merit, with no inkling that it will soon become the worst.

  * * *

  Merit’s body lay in the still dark temple where I had placed her, an alabaster goddess upon a stone table. I had sent word to the high priest, to the physicians, and lastly to Khufu.

  The priest had been pulled from his bed only a stone’s throw from the interior of the temple, where he resided night and day. Rashidi, the dismissed high priest of On, had come also. I did not know how he knew of the death.

  Both priests, with their shaved heads glistening in the lamp-light, now shuffled around the temple, preparing a sacrifice in Merit’s honor and intoning prayers to Anubis, who waited on the other side to weigh her heart against the feather of Ma’at. Thoth, the god of writing, would record her virtue from his seat on top of the balance, and the two would advise Osiris as to her worthiness to enter the afterlife.