Murder at the God's Gate

by Lynda S. Robinson

  “Such maidenly aversions cost my father his life, and me a throne.”

  Rahotep narrowed his eyes and sneered at Ahiram’s beard, the essence of civilized Egyptian disdain. “Watch your tongue, barbarian. My ancestors were exacting tribute from your kind while your family was still raising goats in the wastelands of Syria.” He made a point of staring at the beard as he said goat.

  Meren edged closer to the group as an abrupt silence fell. Even the king stiffened and dropped his hand to a ceremonial blade in his belt. The air crackled with the threat of bloodshed.

  “You well know Byblos is an ally. Speak not of tribute when you mean trade, fool.”

  Meren darted a glance at the king’s chief Nubian bodyguard, but Karoya was already moving to Tutankhamun’s side. At the appearance of the towering warrior, Ahiram broke off glaring at Rahotep. Danger ebbed from the moment, and Meren glided between the two men.

  “All of us are weary from a long morning of duties, and the divine one still must receive merchant emissaries from the Mycenaeans and the Libyans.”

  “As always, Meren plays the arbiter,” Prince Tanefer said as he smoothly drew Ahiram away from Rahotep.

  “It’s possible we won’t have any peace until we drive the Hittites back into their forsaken mountains and take their children as hostages the way Ahiram was taken,” Rahotep said, almost earning a kick from Meren.

  “My father sent me to Egypt willingly for training. I was never a hostage!”

  Ahiram lurched out of Tanefer’s grip. His hands fastened around Rahotep’s neck. Meren shouldered Djoser aside, grabbed one of Ahiram’s fingers, and bent it backward. Ahiram yelped, his hold broken, and Meren changed his grip so that he could bend the man’s arm backward and pinch flesh and tendons against bones. The whole movement lasted less than a heart’s beat, and then Meren stepped back and smiled lazily at Ahiram.

  “Govern yourself in the presence of the golden one,” he said. “You know better, my friend. It’s not like you to chance rousing Karoya.” Meren jerked his head in the direction of the royal bodyguard.

  Ahiram’s head swiveled around in the same direction. Karoya had drawn a knife. He’d cocked his arm back, the blade gripped in his fingers, aiming at Ahiram. The foreign prince flushed and raised his empty arms away from his body in a gesture of compliance.

  His dark face expressionless, as if killing Ahiram meant no more to him than stepping on a beetle, Karoya glanced at Tutankhamun. The king’s hand made a slight, sideways movement. Karoya sheathed the knife.

  “Divine one,” Ay said. “Lord Meren is right. Duties await thee.”

  “Very well,” Tutankhamun said, and waved his councillors permission to retire.

  Meren spoke under his breath to Tanefer. “Bring everyone to me. We all need a good meal and relief from this heat.”

  Tanefer nodded as he left.

  “Lord Meren will attend my majesty.”

  He was surprised to find the king studying him intently. Ay passed him on his way out and gave him a look of sympathy. Karoya had retreated to his station behind the dais upon which the king sat. Approaching the king’s gold and ebony chair, he dropped to his knees and bent his head.

  “Oh, be done with that,” the king snapped. “What use is it for you to kneel to me when you know well that I am the one who must obey, who must perform and follow tradition and orders?”

  Meren straightened, but didn’t get to his feet. He raised a brow. “What is thy will, divine one?”

  “You’ve been quiet all day. When Ay argued for caution and pointed out how young I was for a campaign, you said nothing. When Horemheb and Tanefer scoffed and spoke of the ravages of the Hittites, you remained silent.” Tutankhamun rose from his chair and threw up his hands. “Curse it, Meren. It’s not like you to straddle a boundary stone. What do you think?”

  Meren sank back on his heels and stared up at the king, who was pacing back and forth like one of his pet lions. At last he shook his head and spoke.

  “It is my misfortune to think two things at once, golden one.”

  The king halted and stared at him. Meren rose.

  “If we allow the Hittite menace to go unchallenged, we invite a powerful enemy to camp at our very borders. Our armies and allies have been neglected. Their faith fails them, for they have seen their pleas for aid ignored and have needlessly shed blood because of it. They need a warrior king to lead them.”

  “I knew it,” the king said. “I knew you understood.”

  “And if you plunge into battle with them before your time and are killed, no victory, no amount of land or tribute, will make up for the evil that will befall Egypt.”

  “But you’ve said my skills are great.”

  “They are, as is your heart and courage,” Meren said. “But have I not also said that the span of a warrior’s training is as the length of the Nile? Consider, majesty. How long is the reach of your arm compared to mine? Try to touch me.”

  The king reached out, and Meren darted forward, arm outstretched as if gripping a short sword. His hand tapped against the gold and lapis beads of the king’s broad collar. He drew back in silence as Tutankhamun’s gaze darted from his chest to Meren’s arm. A flush crept over the king’s cheeks.

  “Damnation to you,” Tutankhamun muttered.

  “Had I been a Hittite, I could have sliced your heart in half.”

  “Get out!”

  Meren bowed and backed away.

  “Wait.”

  Tutankhamun gripped the back of his golden chair Meren cocked his head to the side as the king pressed his lips together.

  “I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

  He had difficulty in concealing his admiration and his surprise. It was as close to a request for forgiveness as he’d ever heard from a living god.

  “Thy majesty is much beset.”

  Tutankhamun came to stand before him. “My majesty wishes you to reconsider your advice.” He touched Meren’s arm briefly. “You of all of them should have faith in me.”

  “I do, majesty.”

  “Then consider well, for I’m not done with this matter, and neither are Horemheb and Tanefer.”

  “As thy majesty commands.”

  “Don’t affect obedience in private, Meren. I know you’re going to do just as you wish.”

  “I give you my promise, majesty. I will ponder long and well.”

  “And before you leave, tell me what mischief your cousin has been spreading. Ah, you didn’t think I knew about his visit.”

  “Thy majesty is all-knowing,” Meren said. He told the king of the death at the foot of the statue. “Such an affront to thy majesty’s image must not go without inquiry.”

  “There’s more,” Tutankhamun said. He walked over to Meren. “Tell me the whole of it.”

  “It seems that Ebana imagines that this pure one was in my pay.”

  “And was he?”

  “Only indirectly, majesty.”

  “Do you think they killed him for it?”

  Meren shook his head. “I don’t know. If Parenefer had the pure one killed, why bring the matter to my attention and risk my conducting an inquiry?”

  “But you will anyway,” the king said. “So perhaps they’re attacking before you do, to distract.”

  “Aye, majesty. I’ll know more after Kysen makes his examinations.”

  “Very well. I can see you wish to go, but don’t forget my words. I want to lead my armies, Meren.”

  He left the king then, relieved to escape without having pushed the boy into fury with his defiance. As he went, he realized that this matter of the king’s campaign was no longer a councillors’ squabble. Now it was a matter of state—an affair of life and death.

  Almost an hour after leaving the king, Meren stepped through the gate in the wall surrounding his town house in the palace district of western Thebes. The charioteers behind him took the path to the left around a reflection pool, through another gate in a wall, and past the house to the offices and
barracks that lay to the rear. The porter closed the gate, leaving Meren standing alone in the shade of the first of a double row of acacia trees that lined the walk surrounding the pond in front of the house.

  As he had left the king, he’d come face to face with the high priest of Amun in the throng outside. After the confrontation with pharaoh, he’d been in no mood to tolerate Parenefer. He could still hear the old man’s high voice grating like a bronze saw against granite.

  “Ah, the lord Meren, in secret conversation with the son of the god as usual. How great is the fortune of the Two Lands that its young lord should so depend upon the council of a servant.”

  He grew cold all over again in remembering the sudden quiet that had settled over the courtiers and government officials. The stares, most of them sly or calculating, none of them revealing the rankling envy and fear Parenefer had taken care to feed. Meren pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.

  Even Horemheb had looked at him strangely. But the damage was done. He had to remember that scorpions like Parenefer were always lurking, and they had yet to sting him fatally.

  Opening his eyes, he shaded them and glanced at the small family chapel, shining white in the sun of the front courtyard, before walking down the path to the house. In the distance he heard the whinny of his favorite thoroughbred from the stables. Kysen might be back from the temple of Amun by now.

  The morning’s confrontation with Ebana still worried him. It wasn’t like his cousin to make open accusations that led nowhere. He speculated that Parenefer had instigated the trouble, perhaps as revenge for the placing of that statue in front of his temple, perhaps for some other evil and obscure reason he had yet to discover. Parenefer would have known that Unas’s death would attract his attention. It could be that the high priest had decided that an attack was better than waiting to be accused of eliminating a suspected spy.

  In the house, Meren gave orders for the preparation of a large meal, then retreated to his apartments. He’d bathed, changed, and gone to his office behind the house by the time Kysen sought him out. He retrieved his juggling balls and was tossing three leather spheres. His hands made soft padding sounds as the balls hit them.

  It wasn’t long before his son came into the room, carrying a pitcher of beer and two goblets. Setting these aside, Kysen picked up a fourth ball and tossed it at him. Meren grabbed for it and missed. Another ball hit his arm while the others fell and bounced at his feet.

  “You still haven’t managed that fourth one,” Kysen said as he poured beer.

  Meren stooped and picked up the balls, storing them in a cedar box. “Not when it’s thrown at me.”

  “Did the juggling settle your temper?”

  “What temper?”

  “Come, Father, I saw your expression this morning. And Ebana always manages to stir you to hornet madness.”

  Meren shut the lid of the cedar box and picked up his goblet of beer. “The inquiries at the temple, what of the death of the priest?”

  “Some day you must tell me about him.”

  Meren took a long sip of beer before speaking. “The priest.”

  “I’m not sure whether he died accidentally or not. Ebana might have been trying to goad you,” Kysen said. “Unas appears to have been an excitable little moth of a man, over-diligent and clumsy as well. Most likely, he missed his step and fell through his own carelessness. There are no marks to betoken a struggle.”

  “However?”

  “However, if someone did discover his connection with you, well, this could be Parenefer’s way of warning you to keep away. And there is a difficulty.”

  “What difficulty.”

  “Unas’s wife said that he went to the statue early because of a message given by a boy from the master sculptor asking for the meeting. Yet the sculptor says he sent no message. I believe him, for he’s the one who brought the accident to our attention, and he has a reputation for straight dealing and honor.”

  “Have you found this boy messenger?”

  “No. He’s vanished.”

  Meren set his cup aside. “It could be that the wife is lying, or she may have been mistaken about who sent the message.”

  “I’ve sent Abu to see her again. He’s good at scaring the truth out of people.”

  “If Unas didn’t fall by accident, the murderer would have to be someone who knew the arrangements for work at the temple, those of the guards, the porters, the priests, and the royal artisans as well.”

  “In other words, someone from the temple, or his wife or her lover.”

  “Lover?” Meren asked.

  “Yes, a man much younger than Unas, who no doubt attracts the attention of many women.”

  “I see,” Meren said. “Yet another example of the delights of marriage.” He went to his chair and slumped into it. “God, I’m sick of questioning everyone’s motives, of suspecting even the slave who pours water over me in the bathing stall.”

  He looked up at Kysen, who was regarding him with surprise. “Even I can grow weary of stratagems and machinations, Ky.”

  “Is that why you took me for your son? To have someone so beholden to you that you could trust him completely?”

  “No.”

  They held each other’s gaze, and Kysen finally lowered his.

  “Forgive me, Father.”

  “You shouldn’t listen to Ebana. His ka is poisoned.”

  “I won’t listen to him if you won’t,” Kysen said with a grin.

  “Insolent colt.”

  “About the priest. The wife, Ipwet, is but a girl, one of spirit and pleasing. And the lover seems to have been on his way to the royal workshops when the priest died. If Unas was murdered, we may never know whether it was because of his family or because of his service to you.”

  Meren was listening to Kysen’s view of the situation when Abu appeared, leading in the porter of the temple of Amun, Huni. The man fell to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor in front of Meren, who backed away as a pungent odor reached him. The man’s hair was greasy and stuck to his scalp. His skin bore a layer of dust matted with grime. Beneath the smell of refuse Meren detected a whiff of cheap beer.

  “Look at me,” Meren said.

  Huni raised his head. The whites of his eyes were discolored with a network of red veins, and he blinked at Meren slowly, as if he’d just swilled a few buckets of beer

  “Did you see the pure one Unas fall from the statue of the king?”

  “No, lor’. Didn’t see nothin’.” Huni’s fingers plucked at his kilt and his hair as if he were trying to repair his disheveled appearance.

  “Because you were asleep,” Kysen said as he walked around to stand beside Meren.

  The porter sat back on his heels and placed his hands on his thighs. Huni’s glance slid away from them as he fell to studying his broken and dirty fingernails.

  “I never,” he muttered “sleep on duty.”

  “I have reports that it’s your most skilled accomplishment,” Kysen said. “I hear that if there were tournaments for sleepers, you would win the gold necklace.”

  “False reports,” Huni whined.

  Meren raised his glance to Abu, who instantly approached the porter, gripped his neck, and pulled him erect. He lifted the man by his throat until he balanced on his toes, gurgling and choking.

  “I have no patience with mewling lingerers,” Meren said. “Admit that you were asleep or tell me what you saw. Raise your right hand if you slept through the whole thing, porter. Ah, you slept. Then you will tell me who allowed you to serve as porter. Release him, Abu.”

  Huni dropped to his knees again and crouched there gasping. Finally he was able to speak.

  “Wasn’ a porter no more’til a few days ago. The chief of porters took me back an’ put me on night duty.”

  “Why?” Kysen snapped.

  “Don’ know, lor’. But now I’m banished forever to the refuse gangs. It’s a terrible punishment. Terrible.”

  A fr
esh whiff of the man’s odor sent both Meren and Kysen back several steps. Meren put his hand over his nose and gestured to Abu. “Get him out of here, and leave the door open.”

  When the two had gone, Meren looked around the office for a fan, but found none.

  “Damnation,” he said. “I’ll have to have the whole chamber freshened.”

  “I think he was telling the truth,” Kysen said.

  “With Abu choking me, I would. By the gods, Mutemwia has been straightening in this room again. No wonder I can find nothing.” Meren left off his search for a fan. “I must order circumspect inquiries about the posting of Huni to the god’s gate at night.”

  “Ebana isn’t being forthcoming.”

  “I should speak to him again,” Meren said.

  Kysen agreed, but neither held much hope of prying anything from Ebana. Had Unas’s death been an obvious murder, Meren would have requested from pharaoh the power to order his cousin’s compliance. Without such power he could only request it, and Ebana’s cooperation was doubtful where Meren was concerned.

  If Meren pushed his cousin too hard, he could incite a quarrel that would embroil the entire court. His position would be precarious in such a battle. And perhaps that was what Ebana had wanted all along.

  Meren and Kysen continued to discuss Unas’s death and how to handle the priests of Amun throughout the afternoon. When a servant announced the arrival of Ahiram, Meren put aside the matter of Unas’s death, for the moment.

  “Come,” he said to Kysen. “You should be thankful you weren’t in the audience hall when Ahiram tried to strangle Rahotep.”

  They met the first of their guests in the pillared main hall, where servants had set out chairs, cushioned stools, and low tables laden with baskets of fruit and bread. A maid was pouring wine from a tall jar into a goblet for their guest. Ahiram barely glanced at them and uttered no polite greeting. Meren could tell he was still angry: when disturbed, he had a distinctive habit of speech.

  “I’m in no mood for revelry, me.”

  Meren laughed. “Then I won’t send for my harpists and singers.”

  “Ahiram, you jackal, how is it that you tried to choke Rahotep?” Kysen asked as he offered their guest a chair.