The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  “Majesty, no!” Meren thrust his arm in front of the king. “There is contamination here, and evil. Pharaoh must not touch the blade of a murderer.”

  Meren explored the small cave and found more footprints and signs of a struggle between two men. Evidently a fight started in the cave and continued outside. Together he and Pharaoh knelt to examine the weapon. The bronze blade was encrusted with blackened blood, but what surprised Meren was the quality of the object.

  “Majesty, this isn’t the blade of a commoner.”

  “I know. Look at the engraving on the blade.”

  The maker had etched a central grove down the blade that ended in a palmette design. The hilt was dusty and smeared with more blood. A bodyguard handed Meren a rag, and he cleaned the weapon as best he could.

  “The hilt is ebony,” the king said.

  “Aye, majesty, and the pommel alabaster that was once carved and stained with black and red ink to bring out the design.” Meren held the weapon up to the light. “There may be words engraved in the alabaster.”

  Meren called for the scribe of charioteers, who provided ink and water. In a short time he was smearing black ink on the alabaster pommel. Holding the dagger to the light again, Meren read, “The good – something – lord – something – valour, Nefer-khep – something.” Meren looked at the king, who met his gaze in silence, his eyes wide.

  “Meren . . .”

  “I know, Golden One.”

  The king drew closer and lowered his voice. “What is this blade doing here?”

  “I know not, majesty.”

  Meren turned the blade over, but could see no other distinguishing marks. It mattered little, however. The words engraved on the alabaster pommel were fragmentary but more than enough. Both he and the king possessed daggers engraved with similar phrases. In the king’s case, almost identical. The alabaster pommel had been carved with the formal phrase, “The good god, lord of valour, Nefer-kheperu-re.”

  Nefer-kheperu-re was a throne name, the name a king took upon his accession to the throne of Egypt. Tutankhamun’s throne name was Neb-kheperu-re. But this name was slightly different, Nefer-kheperu-re, and that difference was enough to send dread racing through Meren’s body. For Nefer-kheperu-re was the throne name of the king’s dead brother, the reviled and cursed heretic, Akhenaten.

  On the east bank of the Nile in Thebes lay the massive temples of Amun and his goddess consort, Mut. Protected by high walls and pylon gates, within gold and electrum encrusted doors, rested the statues of the gods. On the west bank, between emerald fields of grain and the barren mountains soared the mortuary temples of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs. Within these offerings were made to deceased kings like Thutmose the Conqueror, who had extended Egypt’s empire far to the north and south. In the mountains nearby, in a steep-sided valley, was the Place of Truth, the site of the secret burials of the kings of Egypt. Just south of the mortuary temple of Amunhotep III, the king’s father, sat the glorious palace of Pharaoh. Surrounding it were lesser palaces of the chief royal wife as well as those of the household of royal women. The dwellings of those who served the king and his family clustered close to the walls of the royal enclosure along with barracks and workshops.

  In the royal precinct Meren had just arrived at one of the servants’ houses where Kar, the dead man, had lived. He’d seldom had occasion to go into so modest a dwelling, and for Meren the experience was enlightening. He was in the tiny reception area, no more than an empty space before the living room, and he already felt cramped. This place was less than a tenth the size of his town house.

  Yesterday after he returned to the palace with the king he’d sent his adopted son Kysen to find out who the dead man was and to investigate the circumstances of his death. It turned out that Kar belonged to a family in service to Pharaoh, one of thousands spread throughout the kingdom. Kysen and Meren’s chief aide, Abu, had been investigating all morning. So far no one knew what Kar was doing in the desert last night or how he came to be stabbed with a dagger that had once belonged to the heretic king. Because of the dagger, the death had taken on much more importance that it would ordinarily have had. Meren was by nature suspicious, and the link to the royal family must be followed.

  Walking into the deserted living area, Meren examined his surroundings. Along the far wall there was a low platform upon which rested a table with a water jar and clay cups. Reed mats served as rugs, and the roof was supported by a central column. An interior stair probably led to a bedroom. Meren heard voices, and Kysen walked in with Abu from the kitchen that lay beyond the living area.

  “Ah, Father. You persuaded Pharaoh not to come,” Kysen said.

  “Indeed. I explained that his appearance would cause a riot and impede the investigation. The Golden One was most annoyed.”

  Kysen grinned. “We’ve talked to Kar’s family and friends, what few of them there are. Did you know his brother is assistant to the master of royal unguent makers? What was his name, Abu?”

  “Onuris, lord.”

  “And the parents?” Meren asked.

  “The father’s name is Wersu, lord. He used to be an unguent maker. The mother is Qedet.” Abu nodded towards the kitchen. “They are in there. The woman is weeping, and her husband is staring at her.”

  “I hope you have something to tell me. All we got from the scene at the cave were imprints of palm sandals, and there are tens of thousands of those in the city.”

  Kysen leaned against the central column and sighed. “There’s not much to be learned. The parents were at home all night, and thought Kar was home sleeping too. Since he was probably killed late last night, he must have slipped out unseen. He was a sweeper and doorkeeper with the royal women’s household. The steward had assigned him to watch the garden gate from late afternoon until about three hours past sunset. But the parents say he lost his position there a few weeks ago. Before that he was a tender of animals at the royal menagerie, and before that an assistant to one of the royal unguent makers like his brother.”

  “And what about the dagger?”

  Abu shook his head. “Neither of them know where it came from. They swear they’ve never seen it before.”

  “We were going to talk to Onuris,” Kysen said. “He’s at work in the royal workshops.”

  “Very well. I’m going back to the palace after I’m through here. I’ll talk to the steward who oversaw Kar.”

  Kysen presented Kar’s parents to Meren before he left. Wersu was sitting on the floor in the kitchen at a low table. He was tent-pole thin, with a few wisps of silver hair remaining on his head, and a few brown teeth still left in his head. His wife was younger and retained some of the agreeable features of youth. Her hair was thick and curly, her skin soft from the application of oils. Qedet had a wide face and large, heavy-lidded eyes, and Meren could imagine she had once commanded admiration from many men. At the moment, though, she was squatting on her heels, rocking back and forth and moaning. Her eyes were red, and she kept wiping them with a length of a large piece of linen. Qedet was cleaning the linen by dipping a corner of it in a solution of water and natron salt and rubbing it to get rid of an ink stain.

  Wersu shook his head over and over. “He wouldn’t listen to me, Lord Meren. He just wouldn’t listen. Just wouldn’t listen. Paid me no heed at all. Just wouldn’t listen.”

  “About what?”

  “Work.” Wersu regarded his wife sorrowfully while she rubbed the stained linen furiously “He wouldn’t work. He thought it was owed him, his position. He was an unguent maker like I was. Could have been one of the best. He was apprenticed to the royal workshop. How many can say that? But Kar never saw it that way. Ungrateful, lazy. I tried to tell him, but he never listened. Just wouldn’t listen.”

  Meren leaned against a wall beside the archway between the kitchen and living area. “You’re saying Kar was too lazy to work.”

  “Ohhh,” Qedet moaned and dabbed her eyes with a dry piece of the linen in her hands.

  W
ersu rubbed his forehead wearily. “Forgive me, great lord, but that is true.”

  “What did he do, then?”

  “He drank, lord. He ate, drank and slept.”

  “My poor son,” Qedet wailed as she wrung the soaked linen. “You didn’t understand him. He was sensitive. Not like other boys.”

  Wersu scowled at his wife again. “He wasn’t a boy. He had almost three decades, and he was a lazy sot.”

  Qedet shot her husband a venomous look, then saw Meren staring at her and lowered her gaze to the stain in the linen that was almost gone now.

  “You told my son you could think of no one who might want to kill your son.”

  “Everyone liked Kar,” Qedet said.

  Grunting in disgust, Wersu pursed his lips. Meren lifted a brow, and the old man sighed.

  “Kar was annoying, but that is all.”

  Meren spent a few more unproductive minutes talking to Wersu and Qedet. Then he went on a tour around the house, leaving the parents grieving in the kitchen. They seemed to be much like other parents, the mother doting, the father stern, both disappointed in their younger son.

  He didn’t expect to find anything incriminating in this house, but he liked to get a sense of people from their homes and possessions. Kar lived with his brother and parents in this house all his life; it might have something to say to him.

  Beginning in the living area, Meren noted the only furniture besides the eating table was a stool made of cheap sycamore wood with a woven seat. The kitchen had baskets of food, but not in any great quantity – bread, onions, dates, leeks and a couple of wrinkled cucumbers. Bread and onions were the staples of the commoner class, Meren knew, as was beer. He’d seen no beer jars, but if Kar was a drinker . . .

  Meren took an interior stair down to the cellar. Here he found one jar of dried peas, one of beer and one of fish oil. He opened a small reed basket filled with dates. Onions hung from the ceiling. A dozen or so jars stood empty along with several wicker boxes.

  “No spices,” Meren muttered. “No dried fish.”

  Leaving the cellar, he went upstairs and found himself in the main bedroom. Here sat a wooden bed with a plaited rush base and straw-filled mattress. The sheets were askew and looked as if they were seldom straightened. However, they were of good quality, probably the grade called fine thin cloth, almost as good as royal linen. Evidently unlike the linen in the kitchen, Qedet didn’t wash these delicate sheets, for they had laundry marks. The portable stool that served as a lavatory stood over a pottery jar filled with sand. It hadn’t been emptied. In a corner, rumpled and dirty, were a couple of loincloths and a kilt. Half a dozen empty beer jars stood around the bed. Meren surveyed the room with a frown. It appeared that the drunkard Kar had slept in the large master chamber.

  In the remaining room opposite Meren found three sleeping mats, more clothing in a rickety wicker box, and a tarnished bronze hand mirror in a bag along with a comb and cosmetic set. It was peculiar that Wersu and Qedet shared a chamber with their oldest son. This was Wersu’s house; he should have occupied the larger, better room.

  Mounting the stairs again, Meren went onto the roof where a loom sat under an awning of palm leaves. Nearby he saw a small fireplace over which rested a tripod. Looking over the roof to the courtyard in front of the house Meren saw a beehive-shaped grain bin. One lonely goose pecked at grain scattered on the ground. Beyond the courtyard the street was busy. A herdsman ushered cattle down a narrow road while a man led a donkey loaded with palm fronds the opposite way. A self-important priest wearing a leopard-skin cloak and carrying a walking stick thrashed at a group of boys who danced around and taunted him. Groups of women passed by with laundry in baskets on their heads; some carried water jars. It was a typical busy city street, dirty, noisy and cheerful. Kar’s house was barren, deserted, quiet. The family hadn’t even hired professional mourners to stand about crying and throwing ashes and rending their garments as people usually did. Meren doubted that Wersu could afford them.

  Meren was glad to leave the house. It oppressed his spirits with its air of lost prosperity and strained relationships. The family of Wersu wasn’t a happy one, but there seemed to be no undercurrents of violence that could have led to murder. Meren headed for the royal precinct.

  The main Theban palace occupied by the royal women’s household was called Hathor’s Ornament. The steward who oversaw the running of the household, Lord Peya, sent Meren to the master of doorkeepers and porters, a man of foreign descent called Uthi. Uthi was one of those men who glided when he walked. His hands fluttered when he spoke and he talked with a lisp.

  “Kar?” Uthi’s hands fluttered as he stood before Meren in the lofty reception chamber of the palace. “What would the great Lord Meren want with that lazy donkey?” When Meren didn’t answer, Uthi went on. “Kar worked as a doorkeeper here for almost a year, Great One. But he was never satisfactory. He fell asleep on duty, showed up late. Sometimes he left his post but, worst of all, he was drunk most of the time. The other doorkeepers and porters told me that when he received his ration payments he would at once spend them on more drink.”

  “What finally caused you to get rid of him?”

  Uthi sniffed. “I like to think of myself as a tolerant man, O great lord. But three weeks ago when I told Kar his wages would be reduced because he was sleeping on the job, he abused me and tried to strike me. I fended him off with my staff. Luckily my assistant was with me, and he wrestled Kar to the ground. I think all that beer finally pickled his wits. That’s the thanks I get for trying to serve the royal ladies so faithfully. Why, I only kept him on because he was in Princess Iaret’s favour. If it weren’t for her, he would have been cast out long before. And after all, what did he have to do but stand at a garden gate and open it occasionally?”

  “Princess Iaret favoured a doorkeeper?”

  Uthi must have sensed Meren’s scepticism. “Oh, yes, mighty lord. Princess Iaret is a sweet lady, full of kindness and compassion. She is always giving aid to the lowest servants. She even speaks up for slaves accused of stealing. Her reputation for goodness is well known to the royal household.”

  “Of course.”

  Meren remembered Iaret now. She the half-royal offspring of the heretic Akhenaten and a lowborn concubine. Had Iaret been a male child, she would have had a chance of becoming Pharaoh, but as a woman, she was just one of many superfluous royal children. Most such half-royal princesses lived uneventful lives in the royal women’s household forgotten by the court. Meren asked a few more questions.

  Soon Meren dismissed Uthi and started pacing the reception room. He had a murder weapon that had once belonged to Akhenaten, and now he learned that the dead man had been favoured by one of Akhenaten’s half-royal daughters. Was there a connection? He couldn’t imagine Princess Iaret stabbing a doorkeeper, but perhaps the dagger was an inheritance from her father. Kar might have stolen it. Uthi had denied that Kar was a thief, saying that the man was too drunk to steal most of the time, and at other times he was asleep.

  Meren requested an audience with Princess Iaret, who quickly appeared in the reception chamber carrying her pet cat. Iaret’s mother had been beautiful, as was the case with most royal concubines. Unfortunately the 19-year-old princess had inherited Akhenaten’s horse-face, hollow shoulders and spindly legs. However, Meren hadn’t spent more than a few moments in her company before he understood why Uthi had been so effusive in praise of her.

  “Dear Lord Meren, what a surprise. How are your lovely daughters? Isis is the youngest, is she not? And such a beauty.”

  “All are well, Princess.”

  “And your fine son Kysen?” she asked as she stroked the cat in her arms. “I have heard that he is becoming a skillful warrior like his father.”

  “You’re kind, my lady.”

  “I visited Tefnut and Bener at your town house last month, but you were away. Your daughters were kind enough to give me plant cuttings for the garden. Your house is magnificent.”


  “Thank you, Princess.”

  Iaret indicated two high-backed chairs of ebony and ivory. “Let us sit, my lord. Why insist on stuffy etiquette, eh?”

  Iaret seated herself and settled her cat on her lap. To Meren the creature looked like a miniature Sa – long and lean with shining black fur. This cat’s eyes weren’t green, though. They were tawny gold and as large as olives. Iaret was holding the cat up to her face.

  “My little Miu. You got lost yesterday, didn’t you? Mother was frantic. Yes, she was.” Iaret turned to Meren. “She went out hunting and got lost in the servants’ quarters. She’s the first animal I’ve ever owned, and I love her dearly. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.” Iaret’s eyes grew bright with tears. She buried her nose in Miu’s black fur. “You will think me foolish, Lord Meren.”

  “Soft-hearted, Princess, but not foolish. It is never foolish to give one’s love.”

  Iaret looked at him over her cat and grinned. “They say you’re the consummate royal courtier, and now I know why.”

  “Forgive me, my lady,” Meren said with a smile. “I have a few questions I would like to ask you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you own a bronze dagger with an alabaster pommel?”

  “What an odd question. Why do you ask?”

  “Please, my lady. Do you own such a dagger?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Iaret’s brow furrowed. “I own a few knives, cosmetic implements such as razors and the like. I’ve no need of a dagger.” She gestured widely. “There are plenty of guards with daggers and spears should I need a weapon.”