Murder at the God's Gate

by Lynda S. Robinson

  “By Amun’s crown, your blood may be plain, but you’ve acquired the clever tongue and slippery wit of your second father.”

  Ebana turned to point at a dusty spot near the base of a ladder that scaled the statue. “He fell from the top of the scaffolding. There.”

  Kysen knelt and brushed dust and flakes of stone away to reveal dried blood, a few dark hairs embedded in it. Standing he looked across the flagstones, then up the ladder, then back at the blood. All at once, he looked around, scooped up a heavy mallet from a basket of tools, and began scaling the ladder.

  “What are you doing?”

  He ignored the impatience in Ebana’s voice. Reaching the top of the ladder, he mounted the platform. All work on the statue stopped. Two artisans on the scaffold stared at him as he turned to look down at Ebana. More stoneworkers, apprentices, and laborers stared up at him from the ground.

  “You’d better stand back, O Servant of the God.”

  He didn’t wait. Stretching out, he dropped the mallet. The tool plummeted to land almost directly below the ladder.

  Kysen stared at it, then muttered. “A man’s weight. He trips, falls, tries to grab the ladder and misses. Perhaps he hit the rungs going down. Still …”

  Turning, he found the artisans still staring at him. The most senior of the two was eyeing him keenly.

  “You found the priest?” Kysen asked.

  “Aye, lord. I’m Seneb. We found him on his back. His head was split.”

  “Did you see any marks on him?” Kysen asked. “Any bruises, cuts?”

  “Lord, if you mean had he been attacked, no. There were no marks of violence.”

  “And when did you arrive?”

  “Just at dawn, lord.”

  As they spoke, Kysen sensed the suppressed excitement of the stonemason and his assistant. They hadn’t known Unas long, for he’d only recently been assigned to the task of supervising the statue. There were so many priests of Amun, and the royal craftsmen had been at the quarry with the statue until it came to Thebes. As the questioning continued, Seneb became less reserved.

  “We saw no one around the body, so I went to get a priest. I’ll make a wager that the porter was asleep. We talked to the night sentries before they went home. They came to look at the body, you see. They said they must have been walking the circuit on the far side of the temple, or they would have seen Unas arrive.”

  Kysen nodded. He went back to the top of the ladder and stood gazing over the edge of the scaffolding. The stonemason joined him.

  “Seneb,” Kysen said. “No doubt you’ve seen a lot of rock fall in your time.”

  “Aye, lord.”

  “If a stone weighing about as much as a man were to fall from this scaffold, where would it land?”

  “Almost directly below, lord. There.”

  Seneb pointed a cracked and dusty thumb at a spot near the foot of the ladder. Kysen glanced from the spot to the patch of blood.

  “Not where the priest landed?”

  “Too far away, lord, but a man is not a rock.”

  “But if he tried to grab the ladder?”

  “Such a movement might keep him at the foot of the ladder, or thrust him away, to the place where the blood is.”

  “Ah.”

  Kysen tried to estimate the distance between the blood and the ladder—several arm-lengths at least.

  “Um, lord.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve seen men fall from scaffolding. Their wits sometimes riot and they kick out, hit the ladder, and thrust themselves out even farther than this one did.”

  “My thanks, Seneb.”

  He lapsed into silence as a priest emerged from the crowds swelling in and out of the temple. This one, like Ebana, wore a wig over his shaven head and therefore must not be on sacred duty at the moment. He was dressed in cloud-white linen and gold.

  “That’s the one who came when we found the body.”

  Seneb was standing at his shoulder. They exchanged glances, and Kysen knew the man was waiting for encouragement.

  “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t want me to report to the treasury. Said it was the concern of the temple, but this is the statue of the living god. I’m a royal craftsman. Pharaoh—may he have life, health, and strength—pharaoh has been generous to his stoneworkers. We couldn’t allow such an evil to go by without reporting to our chief.”

  Now he understood. “Fear not. Your chief is pleased, as is his superior, and those at the palace who interest themselves in this matter. All will go well with you and your men, Seneb. You can work in peace without fear of the temple.”

  “Thank you, lord. May Ptah, god of artisans, protect you.”

  “And you,” Kysen said as he climbed down the ladder, leaving a much-relieved stonemason atop the platform.

  He joined Ebana and the new priest and was introduced. He’d already formed an impression of Qenamun from observing him from above. The man walked as if his joints were hot oil, smoothly, with a glide that surely would make no sound. Close up he seemed as slender as a walking staff. He had long, thin bones, almond-shaped eyes, and thin nostrils that quivered, thus completing his resemblance to a gazelle. Beside Ebana’s dense muscularity, he appeared almost fragile.

  “So the body was sent to his house,” Qenamun was saying. “No doubt by now it has gone to the embalmers across the river. And of course we’ve given the sad news to his wife.”

  “Of course,” said Kysen. “How quick and attentive of you.”

  Qenamun gave Kysen a chilly smile and bowed slightly. “All diligence is needful in the service of the good god. Have you any other questions?”

  “What of the porter? Where is he?”

  “The man was asleep at his post. He’s been punished and has been set to hauling refuse. Laziness and negligence are an abomination to the god.”

  “I would like to question him myself.”

  “What foolishness,” Ebana said. “The man knows nothing, and he’s not here.”

  “I’ll go to him.”

  “You will not!”

  Kysen only lifted a brow, a gesture he’d acquired from his father.

  Ebana scowled at him. “You’re not dragging us down to the refuse pits. Qenamun will send him to your house around midday to await you.”

  Murmuring his assent, Qenamun executed a sinuous bow and left them. The sun had moved, causing the shadow of the statue to shift. Kysen moved with it and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  “An imposing personage, Qenamun,” he said.

  Ebana said nothing.

  “Are you going to tell me about him, adopted cousin, or shall I bribe servants and humble pure ones?”

  Shrugging, Ebana said, “Qenamun is a lector priest.”

  “You don’t like him.” When this comment was met with further silence, Kysen sighed. “Ah, well. I was hoping to go home to a midday meal, but it seems I must enter the temple and ask questions until nightfall simply because you won’t be agreeable.”

  “You’re an insolent pup.”

  “Who can bribe or coerce what I need to know out of any servant in that temple.”

  Ebana studied him, allowing his hostility to show in his gaze, but he finally spoke.

  “Qenamun is one of our most talented lector priests. He’s learned in magic, a man of power whose spells have aided many in need of help. For a price.”

  “You don’t like him, do you, Ebana.”

  “The man is a scorpion,” Ebana snapped. “I detest him because he creates discord, lovingly, as a spider spins a web. One of my underlings befriended him a few years ago when we were repairing the damage done to the temple by the heretic. They worked together. Then one day I was talking to Qenamun and he mentioned that my underling was repeating heated words about me to others. I was furious and exiled the man to a temple estate in Nubia. Later I found out from a friend that Qenamun had repeated the same story about one of his underlings.”

  “But wh
y?”

  “To eliminate rivals, those who could stand in his way. The usual reasons.”

  Kysen felt the throbbing in his head increase, and heat rose up at him from the flagstones. “Gods, I hate aristocrats.”

  He swore silently at himself as Ebana turned to smile at him.

  “Go home, Ky,” he said. “There is nothing here but dried blood and the death of a careless fool. You’re not going to blunder into the temple and dare to question those of high station and noble blood. Remember, the high priest of Amun comes from the same lineage as pharaoh; his Servants of the God are princes and nobles as well. You don’t belong in there. Go home.”

  “Unas didn’t work among princes and nobles. Oh, don’t get a heated belly, I’m going.”

  Kysen turned on his heel and stalked away from his father’s cousin. Shouldering his way through the crowds streaming in and out of the temple, he looked back only once. Ebana was still standing where Kysen had left him, but he was looking down, his features set and still as he examined the dark patch of blood at the foot of the image of the living god.

  Chapter 5

  Ebana watched Kysen vanish into the throng before the gate of the god. Had he succeeded? He didn’t know.

  Nothing had gone as he’d anticipated in his dealings with Meren today. Knowing Unas’s death certainly would attract Meren’s attention, he had tried to distract and confuse by launching an attack that would put his cousin in the wrong. He’d never expected Meren to set the boy Kysen the task of inquiring into the death of the pure one. Turning, he made his way back into the temple, through the great pillared halls and to the House of Life.

  As he went, Ebana cursed Meren’s ability to twist words against himself into condemnation of his accuser. The stratagem had been to throw Meren off guard; it may have failed.

  And then there was that peasant’s spawn, Kysen. The boy had grown from a cowering, awkward whelp into an aristocratic warrior. With his wide jaw, rounded chin, and half-moon eyes, he didn’t look like his adopted father, except in the straight, severe line of his mouth. In that feature father and son resembled statues of the great king Khafre.

  He’d lost count of the time spent wondering why Meren refused to take another wife and get himself a son. Many women died during childbirth. Sit-Hathor had died in labor, and so had her infant son.

  That had been many years ago, long after the girl had finally fallen in love with her husband. He remembered how he’d thought her a fool not to admire Meren when she first married him. That was long ago, before the heretic brought chaos and death to their family.

  The memory of his own wife, her face streaming with blood, gnawed at him. Pressing his lips together, he forced his thoughts away from the past and stepped over the threshold of the House of Life. He hadn’t realized how great the heat of the sun already was until he entered the semidarkness of the building. Glancing around, he took a moment to drink in the peace offered by this place of knowledge, history, and learning.

  Alabaster lamps gave off cool yellow light in pools where scholar priests studied ancient records. Row after row of columns stood like a forest before him, and beneath them stood chests filled with papyri. Near the door sat a carved basin with a spout at its base through which flowed a trickle of water. Notches in the wall of the basin allowed the telling of time as the water level dropped. He remembered how bloated with pride he’d felt as a boy upon learning how to interpret the markings.

  He nodded at several priests as he made his way past a row of columns, through an open door, and down a corridor to another portal. Two priests flanked the threshold. They’d stirred to alertness upon seeing him, but as he drew nearer, they relaxed their tense stance. He entered the room without speaking to them. The door shut.

  There were many such rooms in the House of Life. It was a small, windowless chamber lined from floor to ceiling with cupboards. In those cupboards lay bundles of papyri stored in leather cases. Ebana loved this room, for it contained some of the oldest chronicles in the kingdom, dating from the time of the great ones who built the pyramids.

  As he entered, he heard a sibilant whispering, as of wind stirring sand grains across the floor of a rock desert. Only one man could hiss like that—Qenamun.

  The lector priest bent gracefully to address an old man in a pleated robe spangled with gold roundels. He glanced up as Ebana came forward, and closed his mouth. Kneeling, Ebana felt Parenefer’s hand on his shoulder. The high priest squinted at him, shoving his head forward in a movement that so resembled that of a vulture.

  “Rise, my friend,” said Parenefer. “Qenamun was just telling me how ably you fended off the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh.”

  Ebana cast a sidelong glance at Qenamun as he rose from the floor. “Was he?”

  Parenefer’s mobile features settled into a scowl. He was one of those men whose appearance benefited from the ritual requirement of shaving. His skull was well-shaped, with no deforming bulges or dents, and his pronounced bones lent strong definition to his face.

  Ebana knew the man to be much older than himself, and yet age seemed only to give him strength. Perhaps it was the splendor and power of his office, or of his lineage: Parenefer’s family had held priestly office since before the time of Thutmose the Conqueror.

  Or it could be, like himself, Parenefer defied time through the remembrance of old wrongs. The old high priest had been cast out of his sacred office by Akhenaten and had almost died in exile, of grief, fury, and lack of food.

  There were times, when recounting the tale of his humiliation, that Parenefer seemed to lose himself in the past. Once, late at night, he’d listened to the story from Parenefer’s wine-slick lips seven times. Each telling grew more malignant than the last. Aye, one could live long on the fatted meat of such rancor.

  “You don’t agree with Qenamun.”

  “Unfortunately,” Ebana said, “Meren twisted the whole matter around on its head. He said that he talked to many priests, which is true. And that all of them couldn’t be spies, which is also true. He’s harder to surprise than a Syrian bandit. I told you he’d be suspicious no matter how we handled the matter.”

  “So long as his suspicions continue to sail on the wrong course, I’m content. Qenamun has warned our friends at court. They’ve taken heed.”

  Ebana went to a cupboard and touched the strap on a document case. “You don’t know Meren as well as I do, holy one. It’s enough that this accident has directed his attention to the temple. Now we must advance with perfect craft. One misstep, the wrong intonation in my voice, an unguarded look from Qenamun, and we’re destroyed.”

  “That’s why you’re handling this cursed pure one’s death,” Parenefer said as he rose from his chair. “We need someone to act as intermediary between the temple and the court. What ill luck that this fool had to stumble off the king’s statue at this of all times. I hope the Devourer eats his soul in the netherworld. Tripping in the dark like that. Who told him to be so diligent and arrive early?”

  Qenamun floated over to stand at Parenefer’s elbow and murmured, “Unas was anxious in his labors for the good god, far too anxious. His agitation made him clumsy at times.”

  “I care not,” said Parenefer as he approached the door. He held up his hand to forestall Ebana from opening it. “Take care of this matter, both of you, for if you don’t, all of us could end up drinking the poison cup of the condemned. All of us.”

  Kysen reached the end of the high wall that surrounded the temple of Amun, turned a corner, and glanced over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been followed. He didn’t want Ebana interfering when he inquired at the house of the pure one, Unas. Several priests seemed headed in his general direction, but they passed him, footsteps quick in the pursuit of temple business.

  Unlike Akhenaten’s planned heretical city, eastern Thebes was a hodgepodge of temples, hovels, noble residences, and workmen’s houses huddling next to each other in noisy confusion. He passed the walled residence of a prince, turned a corn
er, and met a row of much more modest houses. The upper stories were dotted with narrow window slits, and he could see women on the roofs. Before him stretched a line of irregular housefronts broken by thresholds, most with their doors thrown open to allow air to circulate.

  He knew only the street where Unas lived; his house would be the one with mourners and a crowd of relatives. Near the end of the street he saw several people enter a doorway and heard a woman wailing inside the house. There were no professional mourners. Possibly the family hadn’t arranged for them yet, or could not afford them, or would not.

  He had pressed close to the wall of a house as he surveyed the street, keeping out of the way of people, cattle, and donkeys. Now he took a step back into the traffic, only to have a hand come down on his shoulder and pull him to the side again. Kysen whirled, his hand going to the dagger at his side.

  “Abu, damn you, you should have spoken.”

  His father’s aide dropped his hand. Like most charioteers, he was tall. People gave way to him in the streets; no one thwarted the progress of a man wearing leather-and-bronze chest armor with a scimitar and dagger at his side. Especially not a charioteer, who was usually well-born and experienced in battle.

  Abu was almost as giant as Karoya, Tut’s Nubian bodyguard. His build was heavy and his muscles seemed to live a life of rippling activity beneath his skin. A few years younger than Meren, Abu rarely smiled, and when not on duty went on sprees of wine drinking that rivaled any indulged in by warriors half his age. Kysen had never dared inquire as to the cause of Abu’s melancholy or his drinking lapses.

  He scowled up at Abu, who gazed down from his advantage of four fingers’-width of height. “He sent you.”

  “Ky, know you who this Unas was?”

  “I’m not an apprentice at this,” Kysen said. The throbbing in his head was making him irritable. “Father wouldn’t have sent for me if this pure one hadn’t been important. An informer? One of yours, I assume.”