by Mike Ashley
Roma strolled into the reception hall resplendent in his own jewels and fine linen. He was one of those men who, despite being rather plain, exuded an air of power and confidence. “An invitation from the great Lord Meren. An unexpected honour.” He bowed slightly, the salute of one equal to another.
“Welcome, and may the gods bless you, Lord Roma. May I inquire as to the health of your grandfather?”
“He’s well, considering his great age.” Without being invited Roma sat in a chair near the dais and helped himself from a bowl of dates on a nearby table. “What’s the purpose of your invitation, Meren? I’m due at the temple for the evening ritual. I’m a lector priest, you know.”
“A learned man and a skilled warrior,” Meren said softly. “Admirable accomplishments for one so young. The ladies at court must find you irresistible.”
Something flickered in Roma’s eyes, but he answered easily. “No more irresistible than you, Meren. You should have remarried by now, if you’ll pardon me. You wife has been dead many years.”
“True, Roma.” Meren rose and stepped down from the dais, ending up beside his guest. He bent down and hissed, “But I don’t have a princess besotted with love for me.” As he spoke Meren pulled Roma’s dagger out of its sheath and rested it against the hollow of his throat. Leaning close, he said, “I don’t appreciate being attacked from behind in my own home, Roma. I ought to gut you just for that.”
Roma had frozen when Meren drew his dagger. He met Meren’s eyes, lifted his chin and spat, “So you know. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Corrupting a royal princess, you call that nothing? We shall see what Pharaoh thinks of it.” Meren straightened as Kysen and Abu joined him and took up positions on either side of Roma. “You should have made sure Kar was dead before you left him. I’m surprised you didn’t take him further out into the desert.”
“Kar.” Roma’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “You think I killed that worthless donkey’s arse? I didn’t even know he was threatening Iaret until she confessed to me after you came to see her. She kept it from me because she knew I would kill him. You can ask her.”
“I will, and I’m going to ask her if she gave you a dagger engraved with the name Nefer-kheperu-re.”
“Well, she didn’t,” Roma sneered. “I happen to know that dagger just came in a couple of months ago. It was from a lot of items moved from the royal palace in the Fayuum Oasis. It had been her mother’s. If Kar was killed with it, Iaret gave it to him to keep him quiet.”
Meren realized with admiration that the sweet-natured and seemingly guileless Iaret had deceived him with great skill. He opened his mouth to reply, but shouting sounded at the front door. Something crashed to the floor in the entry hall, and an old priest charged into the hall followed by several retainers.
“What are you doing here, Paranefer?” Meren demanded.
Paranefer stopped and leaned on his walking stick, his scrawny chest heaving. “What are you doing with my grandson?”
“Don’t bore me with this air of injured innocence,” Meren said as he walked away from Roma. “I know the plot, Paranefer. You’re not going to marry your grandson into the royal family. You’ll be lucky to escape this with your life.”
“What?” Paranefer squawked. He rounded on Lord Roma. “What’s this, boy?”
Meren rolled his eyes, but Roma was staring at the floor and turning red. Curious, Meren remained silent while Paranefer continued.
“Is this true? Answer me, you addled colt!”
“Yes,” Roma mumbled.
Paranefer let out a squeal of outrage. “What have you done? Who is it? Who is the woman?” His grandson muttered under his breath. “Who? I didn’t hear you.”
“It’s Princess Iaret,” Meren said as he watched Roma shrink under the molten gaze of his grandfather. His swagger and confidence had vanished.
The old priest’s jaw dropped. He whacked Roma on the head and took his seat, his hands trembling. “A daughter of the heretic! May Amun protect me.” He glared at Roma. “You would taint our blood by allying yourself with the spawn of that great criminal?”
Roma straightened and faced Paranefer. “I love her.”
“What?” Paranefer regarded his grandson with horror.
“I love her!”
“Nonsense. No one could fall in love with one of the heretic’s brood. You’ve betrayed me. May the gods witness my anguish.” Paranefer moaned and spewed epithets at his grandson.
While the two argued, Meren took Kysen and Abu aside.
“They’ve forgotten about us,” he said ruefully.
“Aye, Father. I believe the old man was ignorant of Roma’s doings.”
“Indeed,” Abu said. “His outrage wasn’t feigned.”
Meren shook his head. “Love. I never considered it.”
“That’s what comes of being so jaded,” Kysen said with a grin.
Frowning at his son, Meren said, “Nevertheless, Roma has interfered with a royal princess.” He thought for a few moments. “However, one could view the liaison differently, as an opportunity to form an alliance with an old enemy.”
“Paranefer would hate it,” Kysen said with a bigger grin.
“All the more reason to approach Pharaoh with the idea. I shall consider it.”
Abu cleared his throat. “And what of the murder, lord?”
“Yes, I’m inclined to believe someone else killed Kar with that dagger he got from the Princess,” Meren said. “It’s the simplest explanation.”
Kysen looked at him inquiringly “Who?”
Meren said nothing for a few moments, toying with Roma’s dagger as he thought. “By the mercy of Amun,” he breathed.
“What is it, Father?”
“Abu, my chariot, quickly. We may be too late.”
Meren paced back and forth. Kysen watched him anxiously while Paranefer and Roma argued, oblivious to their surroundings.
“What’s wrong?” Kysen asked.
“I’m probably too late,” Meren muttered.
“Father!”
Meren rounded on his son. “You stay here and watch our two guests, but don’t keep them. They’re not going to flee the city.”
“Where are you going?”
Heading for the door, Meren said, “I’ll take Abu with me.”
Running out of the house, he found Abu careening around the corner of the house driving his chariot. The vehicle swerved so that Meren could jump in, and they rumbled down the tree-lined avenue and out of the gate in the wall that surrounded the estate. Scattering pedestrians, herds of sheep and donkeys, they clattered over the packed earth, down narrow streets and around precipitous corners. They skidded to a halt at a corner occupied by a stall selling fresh beer because the chariot wouldn’t fit between it and the opposite house. Meren leaped to the ground with Abu close behind him and raced around the corner. He hurtled down the street and saw Wersu in his courtyard pulling on the tether of a donkey loaded with parcels. Meren stopped just beyond the courtyard wall, but the old man hadn’t seen him. Wersu’s front door was open, and he was shouting at someone inside.
“Hurry! Leave the rest! I have the valuables already.”
Qedet shouted back. “I’m not leaving my linens!”
“Taking a trip, Wersu?” Meren asked softly.
The old man gasped and whirled around. Seeing Meren, he paled and opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Wersu’s gaze jumped from Meren to the tall, imposing charioteer at his side.
Meren’s fingers ran over the beads of electrum and lapis lazuli in the belt that cinched his robe over his kilt. “How unlike Kar to be so generous as to give you that valuable royal linen. I find myself unable to believe your tale, Wersu. I think Kar kept all his loot to himself. I think you were furious at him for this last and greatest injury. Did Kar threaten to leave and take his wealth with him after all you’d put up with from him?”
Dropping the donkey’s tether, Wersu sobbed and dropped to the ground at Meren’s feet.
Unmoved, Meren continued. “I think if I look in those carefully wrapped bundles on your donkey I’ll find more of Princess Iaret’s possessions. What do you think?”
Wersu raised himself, but he spoke to Meren’s sandalled feet. “I beg mercy, great lord. Kar wouldn’t share anything, not a bead, not a scrap of linen, and Qedet – My wife has always berated me for my lack of ambition and wealth. I thought to myself, at last, here is a chance to please her. She will love me as I’ve always wished now that I can give her the luxuries she craves. But Kar refused. After all I’d done for him, for years. I couldn’t bear it, and Qedet kept complaining and criticizing.” Wersu was quivering. “I was so tired and unhappy. I just wanted her to stop telling me what a failure I was, and Kar wouldn’t help me.”
“So you followed him to his hiding place and confronted him,” Meren said.
The old man nodded. “He was in the cave admiring his newest treasure, that d—dagger. I didn’t mean to kill him.” Wersu was crying now. “He was my son, but he never listened, just never listened. Wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Meren winced at the way Wersu seemed to disintegrate in front of him. At that moment the front door to Wersu’s house banged open, and Qedet backed outside with a long wicker box. She manoeuvred her burden across the threshold, turned and saw Meren. Shrieking, she dropped the box, spilling royal linen into the dusty courtyard.
Glancing at a sheath dress with a hem embroidered in purple and gold, Meren said, “Ah, Mistress Qedet. I think you’ll find that those linens have come at a higher price than even you are willing to pay.”
SCORPION’S KISS
Anton Gill
The reign of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun’s father, had been a turbulent and revolutionary one, and it left in its aftermath, opportunities for others to rise to power, especially during the reign of the young boy-king. Tutankhamun was succeeded by his vizier, Ay, whom some see as a cunning and devious exploiter. Ay may have been Tutankhamun’s great uncle and was not young when he came to the throne. He reigned for just four years (1327–23 BC) and was succeeded by Horemheb, a former military general who instigated a wave of reforms, overturning the changes initiated by Akhenaten. Just who Horemheb was, and how he rose to such power, has remained something of a mystery, though it is believed his wife may have been the sister of Queen Nefertiti, the principal wife of Akhenaten.
Anton Gill’s background has been in stage and radio drama, including working at times on Waggoner’s Walk and The Archers. His first book, Martin Allen is Missing (1984), was a study of missing children in London and he has written on such diverse subjects as croquet, travels in Eastern Europe and the survivors of the German concentration camps. He has also written a series of novels featuring Huy, who was originally a young scribe in the administration of Akhenaten. After Akhenaten’s death and disgrace, Huy and his colleagues were dismissed from their services and Huy was forced to earn a living as a private investigator, working unofficially for the crown. Only three novels have been published in England, City of the Horizon (1991), City of Dreams (1993) and City of the Dead (1994). Three further titles, City of Lies, City of Desire and City of the Sea have so far only been published in mainland Europe.
Huy survives the reigns of Tutankhamun and Ay and the following story is set early in the reign of Horemheb. Huy is in his early forties, a good age for the time but not necessarily old.
Although there was still something of the old disdain in the face, the agony in which he had died had twisted his mouth in such a way as to make Sonebi seem to plead – an expression which would have been unthinkable in life.
The body, too, was contorted, though it was not maimed: it was whole. The Khaibit could enter the Boat of Night without being forced to wander the world looking for any part that was lacking. Looking down at him, the scribe Huy wondered if the beauticians in the royal Per-nefer hall would be able to restore his dignity as they prepared him for the Fields of Aarru.
One thing was certain: few would miss Sonebi. In his professional life, he had done much to make the reign of the Pharaoh secure; the by-product of that was husbands exiled or dead; families bereft.
“When?” he asked the man standing next to him. Huy was short and, despite advancing years, muscular, though the paunch which was the result of his inability to resist red beer, Dakhla wine, and fig liquor gave the lie to that. (It was getting worse. He would have to do something about it.) Neferhotep, by contrast, though not much younger than Huy, was tall and slim, elegant in a spotless white kilt, his head and body immaculately shaved, new palm-leaf sandals on his feet.
“His Chief Wife sent for me before dawn.”
“He died at home?”
“Yes.”
They were standing by a cedar-wood bier in the royal Ibu, the first of the four Houses of the Preparation of the Dead, where the Sahu of Sonebi had been brought. It was now towards mid-morning and, despite the steady breeze from the north wind that blew through the hall, the heat was rising. Neferhotep’s head shone. They were alone and in the silence both of them felt Sonebi’s Ba hovering, not yet called to the Fields of Aarru, yet unable to communicate with them. It was preparing itself for the Judgment and the Boat of Night. The death of Sonebi no longer interested it. It was one of the eight parts that had made him a man. Now they were gone in their separate directions.
Nevertheless for a moment they listened.
“What have the doctors said?”
Neferhotep spread his hands, and Huy glanced from the body, stiff as a carved and painted statue, to the face of the Leader of the Black Medjays, trying to catch his eye, to read or at least glimpse what was in his heart. But Neferhotep’s own eyes remained on the grinning dead face of his former colleague.
Huy persisted. “May I talk to them?”
“I have made all necessary inquiries,” said Neferhotep, turning now to Huy. He was tired. He had been up since before dawn. It was cool, even cold, at night, for it was Shemu, the dry season, the quiet spring after the harvest. From Neferhotep came the scent of dom-palm oil, already stale.
“If I am to help,” Huy began, restraining irritation.
“I will tell you what they told me, but you are here to assist, not lead.”
“I can tell no more from this husk.” Huy gestured towards the naked man on the bier, already gaunt and yellow, the always sharp features sharper, robbing them of the cruel good looks that had existed in life. Soon, by midday, Sonebi would be disembowelled, his brain plucked from the skull using wires on hooks thrust through the nostrils, and laid in a wooden tub and covered with natron salt, to draw out the fluids in the Khat, the first step in preparing the Sahu for eternity.
Huy would not see Sonebi again. There wasn’t a mark on the body; there was only the expression and the racked body to go by. Now the look on the face seemed less beseeching than despairing.
“The doctors think poison,” said Neferhotep.
“Yes.”
Neferhotep was going to give as little information as possible. He did not want Huy to succeed. He did not want Huy to be there any more than Huy wanted to be there himself. Huy looked at his former pupil, and wondered how such a man could have risen so high. Perhaps he had taught him too well, though he had deliberately kept some of the arts of the problem-solver to himself. He had always recognized Neferhotep’s ambition and realized that it needed a curb. But if he had trained the man better, Horemheb would not have sent for Huy so soon.
He had not seen the Pharaoh personally for a long time. It was a year at least since Horemheb had taken him from the dreary post in the Archives to which he had been consigned and given him the nebulous position of problem-solver, to be called upon whenever there was need of him. The rest of the time he read and drank, fighting the boredom of his heart, keeping his Khou alive. Horemheb would not allow him to do any other work, and Huy had begun to long for the day when he would be released from the prison his own accidental talent had landed
him in. He had no idea how to escape it.
The Black Medjay who had summoned him that morning had arrived at his house as the Sun was rising and taken him to Police Headquarters where Neferhotep kept him waiting just long enough to remind him of his subordinate position. Then they had come here.
“It is a problem I can manage,” said Neferhotep. “But in the case of so high an official, no effort must be spared.”
Huy said nothing.
“We had better go back. If you have seen all you want.”
Huy spread his hands. Despite his reluctance to share what he knew, there was something after all new in Neferhotep’s manner – something grudging, as if he were acting against his better judgment. What precisely this was due to, Huy could not guess.
The offices of the Black Medjays were in a wing of Police Headquarters, well-located in the North Quarter of the Palace of the Southern Capital, commanding a vista of the River as it flowed, sluggishly at this season, on its long journey towards the Great Green sea. The elite corps were resented by the ordinary Medjay police, who envied their favoured quarters and regarded them, correctly, as Horemheb’s private troop and bodyguard; but Neferhotep was an investigator, and he had responsibility for whatever serious crimes might have a bearing on state security.
King Horemheb had inherited a country in tatters, its northern borders fractured and threatened. A rule as hard as metal was what was needed to steady the Black Land. Huy did not like being linked with this rule, though he knew that Horemheb was as necessary as bitter medicine to a sick man. Huy would have preferred to keep himself to himself. He had seen enough in his life to want to stand apart. He had read somewhere that of every hundred men, ninety were cattle, nine organizers and one wise enough to keep himself to himself. He didn’t know if he belonged to the last group. He’d never wholly succeeded in belonging to it.