by Mike Ashley
“That is quite true,” said Amenhotep.
“Also,” I went on, “the gold was heavy as well as bulky. Minmose could not have carried it away without someone noticing.”
“Again you speak truly.”
“Then unless Wennefer the priest is conspiring with Minmose –”
“That good, simple man? I am surprised at you, Wadjsen. Wennefer is as honest as the Lady of Truth herself.”
“Demons –”
Amenhotep interrupted with the hoarse hooting sound that passed for a laugh with him. “Stop babbling of demons. There is one man besides myself who knows how Senebtisi’s tomb was violated. Let us go and see him.”
He quickened his pace, his sandals slapping in the dust. I followed, trying to think. His taunts were like weights that pulled my mind to its farthest limits. I began to get an inkling of truth, but I could not make sense of it. I said nothing, not even when we turned into the lane south of the temple that led to the house of Minmose.
There was no servant at the door. Minmose himself answered our summons. I greeted him and introduced Amenhotep.
Minmose lifted his hands in surprise. “You honour my house, Amenhotep. Enter and be seated.”
Amenhotep shook his head. “I will not stay, Minmose. I came only to tell you who desecrated your mother’s tomb.”
“What?” Minmose gaped at him. “Already you know? But how? It is a great mystery, beyond –”
“You did it, Minmose.”
Minmose turned a shade paler. But that was not out of the way; even the innocent might blanch at such an accusation.
“You are mad,” he said. “Forgive me, you are my guest, but –”
“There is no other possible explanation,” Amenhotep said. “You stole the gold when you entered the tomb two days ago.”
“But, Amenhotep,” I exclaimed. “Wennefer was with him, and Wennefer saw the mummy already robbed when –”
“Wennefer did not see the mummy,” Amenhotep said, “The tomb was dark; the only light was that of a small lamp, which Minmose promptly dropped. Wennefer has poor sight. Did you not observe how he bent over his writing? He caught only a glimpse of a white shape, the size of a wrapped mummy, before the light went out. When next Wennefer saw the mummy, it was in the coffin, and his view of it then coloured his confused memory of the first supposed sighting of it. Few people are good observers. They see what they expect to see.”
“Then what did he see?” I demanded. Minmose might not have been there. Amenhotep avoided looking at him.
“A piece of linen in the rough shape of a human form, arranged on the floor by the last person who left the tomb. It would have taken him only a moment to do this before he snatched up the broom and swept himself out.”
“So the tomb was sealed and closed,” I exclaimed. “For almost a year he waited –”
“Until the next outbreak of tomb robbing. Minmose could assume this would happen sooner or later; it always does. He thought he was being clever by asking Wennefer to accompany him – a witness of irreproachable character who could testify that the tomb entrance was untouched. In fact, he was too careful to avoid being compromised; that would have made me doubt him, even if the logic of the facts had not pointed directly at him. Asking that same virtuous man to share his supervision of the mummy wrapping, lest he be suspected of connivance with the embalmers; feigning weakness so that the necropolis guards would have to support him, and thus be in a position to swear he could not have concealed the gold on his person. Only a guilty man would be so anxious to appear innocent. Yet there was reason for his precautions. Sometime in the near future, when that loving son Minmose discovers a store of gold hidden in the house, overlooked by his mother – the old do forget sometimes – then, since men have evil minds, it might be necessary for Minmose to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could not have laid hands on his mother’s burial equipment.”
Minmose remained dumb, his eyes fixed on the ground. It was I who responded as he should have, questioning and objecting.
“But how did he remove the gold? The guards and Wennefer searched the tomb, so it was not hidden there, and there was not time for him to bury it outside.”
“No, but there was ample time for him to do what had to be done in the burial chamber after Wennefer had tottered off to fetch the guards. He overturned boxes and baskets, opened the coffin, ripped through the mummy wrappings with his chisel, and took the gold. It would not take long, especially for one who knew exactly where each ornament had been placed.”
Minmose’s haggard face was as good as an admission of guilt. He did not look up or speak, even when Amenhotep put a hand on his shoulder.
“I pity you, Minmose,” Amenhotep said gravely. “After years of devotion and self-denial, to see yourself deprived of your inheritance . . . And there was Nefertiry. You had been visiting her in secret, even before your mother died, had you not? Oh, Minmose, you should have remembered the words of the sage: ‘Do not go in to a woman who is a stranger; it is a great crime, worthy of death.’ She has brought you to your death, Minmose. You knew she would turn from you if your mother left you nothing.”
Minmose’s face was grey. “Will you denounce me, then? They will beat me to make me confess.”
“Any man will confess when he is beaten,” said Amenhotep, with a curl of his lip. “No, Minmose, I will not denounce you. The court of the vizier demands facts, not theories, and you have covered your tracks very neatly. But you will not escape justice. Nefertiry will consume your gold as the desert sands drink water, and then she will cast you off; and all the while Anubis, the Guide of the Dead, and Osiris, the Divine Judge, will be waiting for you. They will eat your heart, Minmose, and your spirit will hunger and thirst through all eternity. I think your punishment has already begun. Do you dream, Minmose? Did you see your mother’s face last night, wrinkled and withered, her sunken eyes accusing you, as it looked when you tore the gold mask from it?”
A long shudder ran through Minmose’s body. Even his hair seemed to shiver and rise. Amenhotep gestured to me. We went away, leaving Minmose staring after us with a face like death.
After we had gone a short distance, I said, “There is one more thing to tell, Amenhotep.”
“There is much to tell.” Amenhotep sighed deeply. “Of a good man turned evil; of two women who, in their different ways, drove him to crime; of the narrow line that separates the virtuous man from the sinner . . .”
“I do not speak of that. I do not wish to think of that. It makes me feel strange . . . The gold, Amenhotep – how did Minmose bear away the gold from his mother’s burial?”
“He put it in the oil jar,” said Amenhotep. “The one he opened to get fresh fuel for his lamp. Who would wonder if, in his agitation, he spilled a quantity of oil on the floor? He has certainly removed it by now. He has had ample opportunity, running back and forth with objects to be repaired or replaced.”
“And the piece of linen he had put down to look like the mummy?”
“As you well know,” Amenhotep replied, “the amount of linen used to wrap a mummy is prodigious. He could have crumpled that piece and thrown it in among the torn wrappings. But I think he did something else. It was a cool evening, in winter, and Minmose would have worn a linen mantle. He took the cloth out in the same way he had brought it in. Who would notice an extra fold of linen over a man’s shoulders?
“I knew immediately that Minmose must be the guilty party, because he was the only one who had the opportunity, but I did not see how he had managed it until Wennefer showed me where the supposed mummy lay. There was no reason for a thief to drag it so far from the coffin and the burial chamber – but Minmose could not afford to have Wennefer catch even a glimpse of that room, which was then undisturbed. I realized then that what the old man had seen was not the mummy at all, but a substitute.”
“Then Minmose will go unpunished.”
“I said he would be punished. I spoke truly.” Again Amenhotep sighed.
“You will not denounce him to Pharaoh?”
“I will tell my lord the truth. But he will not choose to act. There will be no need.”
He said no more. But six weeks later Minmose’s body was found floating in the river. He had taken to drinking heavily, and people said he drowned by accident. But I knew it was otherwise. Anubis and Osiris had eaten his heart, just as Amenhotep had said.
HERETIC’S DAGGER
Lynda S. Robinson
The best-known of all the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, at least to us today, is the boy-king Tutankhamun, due entirely to Howard Carter’s discovery of his tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922. He had in fact been a very minor king and one about whom next to nothing was known until Carter’s excavation. Today you can’t talk about Egypt without mentioning Tutankhamun, even though he ruled for only nine years and died at the age of seventeen. His reign was one of court intrigue and power struggles and is an ideal background for crime fiction. Lynda S. Robinson, who also writes historical romances as Suzanne Robinson, has written a series of novels set during Tutankhamun’s reign and featuring the king’s mentor and investigator, Lord Meren. The books run Murder in the Palace of Anubis (1994), Murder at the God’s Gate (1995), Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing (1996), Eater of Souls (1997), Drinker of Blood (1998) and Slayer of Gods (2001).
Thebes, Year Five of the Reign of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun
There was a right order to things when one accompanied a living god on military training exercises. The first maxim was not to outpace Pharaoh’s chariot. To Meren, confidential inquiry agent and mentor to King Tutankhamun, such rules of conduct were second nature. Thus he reined in his team of thoroughbred chariot horses so that they kept even pace with the 14-year-old boy who rode at the head of a company of Egypt’s finest cavalry.
The rumble of wheels over rock, the stamp of hooves and occasional crack of a whip bounced off the high desert cliffs to their right as they rode south from the palace. Meren glanced to his left past the green fields that bordered the Nile and caught sight of the opposite east bank. There, more fields bordered the river with the city districts perched close behind them and, after that, the eastern desert. This was Egypt, a narrow band of luxuriant life hemmed in on the east and west by vast deserts that were the home of sand dwellers, outlaws, and the dead.
The company proceeded at a walk so as not to tire the horses before the training exercises. Pharaoh, who could hardly contain his impatience to attain the status of seasoned warrior, had brought with him an unusual companion. Sa, The Guardian, a black leopard stalked beside the king’s chariot, tethered to Pharaoh by a gilded leather leash. Meren smiled as Tutankhamun leaned down to stroke the animal’s sleek head. Sa had been with the king almost from birth. Anyone wishing to harm the boy would have to kill Sa to get to him. Sa lifted his giant head and gazed calmly at Meren. Meren bent over the cab of his chariot and made a low trilling noise in the back of his throat, holding his hand out to the big cat.
Sa rubbed his head against the hand, then jerked it away and lifted his muzzle to the sky. Meren heard a loud sniff. Sa dug in his paws. The leash tightened and the king hauled on his reins.
“What ails you, Sa?” the boy asked as the company slowed to a halt behind him.
Meren watched the cat begin to circle, his tail lashing, his nose quivering. Suddenly a low growl made Meren grip the hilt of his scimitar.
“Majesty, he scents something.” Meren signalled to the commander of chariots, and scouts broke from the ranks. At the same time orders were shouted. Chariots wheeled and turned, drove ahead and around the king.
Tutankhamun rolled his eyes. “Meren, it’s probably a dead animal.”
“No doubt, Golden One.”
When Meren failed to recall the chariots, Tutankhamun sighed and tugged on the gilded leash. Sa ignored his master. Just then the north breeze picked up, and Sa gave another rumbling growl. Backing up against the leash, Sa gave a hard tug. The king lost his grip, and Sa whirled, springing past horses and chariots alike.
“Sa, return! Sa!”
“Majesty!”
Meren cursed as Tutankhamun launched his vehicle after the leopard. He slapped his own reins and hurtled after the king. Executing a tight turn, Meren followed the king through the ranks of charioteers. In moments he had broken through the lines and was careening after the youth in the golden chariot that gleamed like the solar orb in the early dawn light. They raced across the rock desert after Sa, their wheels sending grit and sharp rocks flying as they headed west towards the wall of limestone cliffs. Here the land undulated towards the base of the escarpment where the cliffs dropped back to form a small bay. Ahead, Meren saw the black streak that was Sa angled sharply to the north and vanish over a small hillock.
Shouting for the king to wait, Meren watched with dread as the boy vanished over the hillock without slowing. This was danger, a young king rushing into the unknown, heedless of peril. For Tutankhamun ruled over a kingdom in disarray. His brother and predecessor, Akhenaten, had almost brought about civil war with his heretical policies. Obsessed with his god of the sun disk called the Aten, Akhenaten had disestablished the old gods of Egypt who had protected the kingdom from the beginning of time. He persecuted those who wouldn’t follow his precepts, and Egypt suffered. Only now had order been restored, but there were factions in the land who hated anyone who shared the blood of the heretic, even an innocent boy. Other groups wished to restore the heresy, and others lusted for the power invested in this slim youth with the great dark eyes and compassionate nature. All this flashed through Meren’s thoughts as he gained the summit of the hillock. So many lay in wait for a chance to catch this youth alone and unprotected, where a seeming accident could cut short a promising reign.
Meren caught sight of Pharaoh as he plunged down the opposite side of the hillock. The boy was drawing close to Sa, who had stopped at a lump on the desert floor, a smudge of dark brown against the cream of the limestone rock. Vultures flapped their wings and retreated from Sa in an ungainly stumble before they launched into the air. Meren scanned the area for danger as the rest of the charioteers rumbled up behind him. Satisfied that there was no peril lurking nearby, Meren jumped out of his vehicle and walked over to where the king was stooping to grasp Sa’s leash.
“Meren, look!”
The big cat was sniffing a bundle of linen covered with flies. As Meren got closer Sa pawed at something – an arm. The king’s guardian had scented the blood that smeared the rocks in a trail that originated somewhere at the base of the cliffs.
Meren glanced over his shoulder at the commander of charioteers. “Stay back and deploy the guard.”
The body was lying face down and was clothed in a kilt and cloak, both of which were caked with blood. Meren thought briefly of sending the king away, but the boy would see more carnage than this at the head of the army.
“The poor man. Turn him over, Meren.”
Complying, Meren beheld a man of middle years, neither a youth nor an elder, with a wound in the abdomen that must have caused a slow and painful death. Quickly Meren noted the short-cropped hair, the swelling, overfed stomach that seemed at odds with work-roughened hands. His clothing was made of ordinary smooth cloth, the quality used by most Egyptians. It was a much thicker grade of textile compared to the fine royal linen worn by Pharaoh and the aristocracy.
“Do you know him?” the king asked as they stared at the corpse.
“No, majesty, but he’s most peculiar. He has worked hard with his hands like a peasant yet had enough food to get a paunch, something one seldom sees in a farmer.”
“And his nose is red under all that dirt.”
“Yes, majesty, from drink rather than the sun. Do you see those spidery veins?”
“Someone stabbed him, didn’t they?”
“Aye, majesty. I’ll have the city police investigate.”
Tutankhamun handed Sa’s leash to a bodyguard. “But we should follow his trail now.”
; Meren hesitated, knowing the king’s curiosity had been aroused. He chafed at the constraints placed upon him by his position, and Meren couldn’t blame him. To be a living god was to live surrounded by ritual and formality. To govern an empire required exhaustive training in the ways of Egypt’s vast governing bureaucracy, in diplomacy and in military affairs. The boy rarely had a free moment. When he wasn’t reading and interpreting reports of the season’s harvest he was receiving envoys from foreign kings or studying with his tutors. Most important of all, Pharaoh was the mediator between the gods and his subjects, and through him the balance of the world was maintained. The son of the chief god, Amun, the king propitiated the deities of Egypt to hold at bay the forces of chaos and evil when he celebrated the secret rituals in the temples of the gods. Thus Tutankhamun lived with a great burden for one so young. Meren noted the sympathy in the king’s eyes as he gazed at the dead man, and the spark of inquisitiveness. Perhaps this was an opportunity to teach the king something of his methods of investigation and at the same time relieve the tedium of royal duties.
“Thy majesty wishes to follow the dead one’s path?”
“Yes. Are you going to let me?”
“Thy majesty’s will is accomplished.”
Tutankhamun gave him a sceptical look. “Is that so? Then why didn’t you let me go on that raid against the sand dwellers last month? Ha! The whole kingdom thinks I rule unchallenged when the truth is I must obey far too many people. Well this time my wishes shall prevail.”
“Of course, majesty.” Meren bowed before the king.
“Oh, stand up straight, Meren. There’s no use pretending you haven’t already decided to let me do this.”
“As thy majesty wishes.”
“Humph.”
The trail of blood led straight to the base of the cliffs that rose at least thirty cubits high above the desert floor. They formed undulating vertical shafts like pleats in a linen robe, and the cliff face was riddled with hollows and caves. The trail ended abruptly about thirty paces from the cliff base, but Meren was able to discern dragging footprints that took him to a fan of debris. He climbed over the rocks with the king and his bodyguards close behind only to find nothing but a blank wall with a spray of boulders in front of it. They stared at the area for a few moments before Meren noticed a shadow. Walking between two of the boulders, Meren found the mouth of a small cave, and lying in the sand before it was a dagger. The king stooped, his hand outstretched.