“A welcome interruption, Mut. But please, no more escapes this afternoon. I’ve much to do.”
“Aye, lord.”
Left alone, Meren again noticed the mirror. He’d forgotten to give it to Mutemwia. When he looked at it, he remembered being fifteen and so in love with his long-legged, untouchable wife that he would scandalize the household by going to her room and watching her use the mirror while applying her cosmetics. At first she’d been furious with him for the intrusion, so furious that she screamed at him. In spite of his hard training at letters and war, her rage at his small transgression had hurt.
Even nineteen years ago, he’d known to conceal his pain behind an emotionless mask that made him feel like one of those figures carved on temple walls, well-made but frozen, inert. And all the while, beneath the facade, the pain hadn’t gone away. Because she hadn’t loved him then, and he’d expected the euphoria that harpers sang of, that he’d read about in poetry.
He closed his eyes for a moment while he drove out the memories. Then he looked for some place to put the mirror. Some place where he couldn’t see it. His gaze fell on Qenamun’s casket resting on the table. He began to lift the lid and stopped, remembering the cobras.
“Fool,” he said to himself.
Still, he tipped the lid so that it opened away from his body. The box was as empty as before, except for the scattering of rush pens at the bottom. His fingers brushed the slim implements as he placed the mirror in the casket. Leaving the lid off, he picked up Rahotep’s dream interpretations again. Line after line of cursive hieroglyphs covered a long rectangular strip of papyrus—the text of the dream in black ink, the interpretation in red.
He perused the contents for some time. On the surface Rahotep’s dreams portrayed him as an unacknowledged hero, but the magical interpretation often contradicted the dream. If Rahotep dreamed of success, Qenamun prophesied increased taxes, the death of a wife, a robbery. Rahotep was a prince, but he disliked parting with his wealth. And try as he might, Meren couldn’t understand why either he or Ahiram would risk their lives by robbing the tomb of the king’s brother.
Vengeance seemed an insufficient motive for either of them, as did the riches contained in the tomb. But what other reason could there be? What other purpose would be served?
Two things resulted when one robbed a pharaoh’s tomb—one got rich, and one deprived the dead of sustenance. Vengeance ended with the destruction of the soul. But the riches lasted longer. And a pharaoh’s riches provided enormous revenues, which could then be used for any purpose. What purpose needed secrecy?
“Crimes,” muttered Meren as he rolled up the dream interpretation. “Secret riches provide funds for deeds one wishes to conceal.” His hands stilled on the papyrus roll. “Like treason.”
He dropped the roll on the table and rubbed the back of his neck. Like a water snake at night, a vague idea slithered through his thoughts, dark, slippery, not quite perceived. Cursing under his breath, he realized he wasn’t going to catch this idea by chasing it. He decided to go to the place where this mystery began, the statue of the living god Tutankhamun.
Meren could hear the rhythmic grinding of stone against stone as he approached the colossus. He’d taken a ferry across the river alone. Abu would scold him for not taking an escort, but he often felt the need to pursue his inquiries by himself His deliberations fared better if he didn’t have a hulking charioteer or an entourage of servants hovering over him.
He knew his friends thought this craving for isolation unusual. Great men walked about the world with servants going before them and trailing after them—the greater the man, the more numerous the gaggle of retainers. But Meren needed no entourage to announce his consequence, no minions to help him look at a statue.
Most of the surfaces of the colossus had been polished now. He stood at a distance watching workers scurry up the scaffolding. At the base, the inscription of the king’s names was complete. A master stonemason seemed to be inspecting the carvings. He was wiping one of the hieroglyphs of the king’s coronation name, Nebkheprure.
The artisan rubbed a cloth over the sign of the reed leaf that resembled a feather. His fingers slipped over the top of the leaf, which formed a raised notch. Then he moved on to the next cartouche. The cloth worked over the top symbol, the curved surface of the disk that rested above the beetle in the cluster of signs that spelled “Tutankhamun.” Then it traced the outline of the oval cartouche just above the disk.
Meren’s gaze traveled up the length of the statue’s leg and beyond, high above the ground, where the platform still surrounded the statue’s head. He estimated the spot where Unas had fallen. Kysen had been right to question the fall, for Unas would have had to throw himself away from the ladder to land on that spot.
Musing over this puzzle, he passed through the pylon gate of the god and worked his way through swarms of priests, laborers, and supplicants to the House of Life. He attracted attention as he approached the building, but he wasn’t surprised. A murder had heralded his last visit, and once here, he’d faced down the high priest. A novice sidled past him and darted into the temple. On his way to one of the prophets, no doubt, with word of this intrusion.
He brushed aside the obsequious attentions of one of the chief scribes of the House of Life, requested a lamp, and went alone to Qenamun’s room. Shoving open the door, he held up the lamp to dispel the darkness. Someone had put the chamber in order.
Scraps of papyrus, broken pottery, and wax figures had been swept away. The documents that had been scattered about the room had been rolled and tied into bundles. Several such bundles rested on end on the floor.
To his left sat the shelves of texts against the wall. Before him lay the table on which Qenamun had died. Someone had placed his scribal equipment there. Meren glanced at pots of ink, a knife used to trim rush pens, the indispensable scribe’s palette. Of wood overlaid with ivory, this palette was a luxurious version of an everyday instrument. A thin oblong box, it bore two hollows in which red and black ink were kept. Thousands of scribes carried humbler versions of such palettes in the city.
A sliding panel covered the slot used to store pens, but it was empty: Ahiram, in his haste to replace the scribal equipment with cobras, had dumped over fifty pens in the bottom of the casket that now resided in Meren’s office.
No one had removed the incomplete wax figure of the Hittite king with its curse. The inscription called down every evil plot, deed, fate, and monster upon Suppiluliumas, whose name was enclosed in a cartouche. Meren set the figurine aside. He glanced at a stack of bowls behind it. They were clean, unused. Passing on, he continued to search the chamber.
He held little hope of finding anything. Qenamun was too clever to leave signs of his guilt where they could be found, and he’d already searched the place once. He was bending over a leather document case when a shadow fell between him and the lamp. He turned to face Ebana.
Closing the door, his cousin placed himself between it and Meren. “I didn’t think you’d come here again after our last encounter.”
Meren straightened and leaned against the table.
“Did you know, cousin, that you’re one of the few people whose first words haven’t been to ask if I caught Ahiram?”
“Would you tell me if I asked?”
It was like balancing on the tip of an obelisk. He couldn’t bring into the open the destruction at Horizon of Aten, and yet he had to know if Ebana was involved.
“Shall I tell you?” Meren asked. “I’ll relate what appears to have happened. Ahiram ran away out of fear that some crime of his had been discovered, and was killed by bandits before I could reach him.”
Ebana didn’t look away. He met Meren’s stare with a lifted brow. “What crime?”
“I’ve given you the surface, upon which lilies float. Are you certain you want the unwholesome substance that sinks beneath?”
“You’ve become accomplished at subtly building suspense and hinting at evil to come,” Eban
a said, “but your artistry goes for naught if the victim understands your strategy.”
Picking up a stone used to smooth the irregularities from sheets of papyrus, Meren sighed. “Very well. Ahiram had committed acts of great evil. He lost his wits and fled when he thought I was nearing the truth.” He tossed the stone in the air and caught it, then smiled at Ebana. “How incongruous that I only discovered the truth through his carelessness and alarm.”
Ebana had always been adept at playing parts in the great plays that told the stories of the gods. His acting skill had served him well in making his way at court and in the temple. Meren couldn’t help admiring it now, when it was used against him. Brows drew together to indicate confusion.
“I still don’t understand,” Ebana said.
Meren kept tossing the stone slowly, as if he intended to remain in this dead man’s room indefinitely. “Wings of Horus is the fastest ship on the Nile, Ebana. I caught up with him before those mercenaries you sent could finish him.”
He watched understanding dawn over Ebana’s face. He stopped tossing the stone; he hadn’t expected to startle his cousin out of his composure. A wave of concern washed over those features that so resembled his, and then was gone. Dread crept into Meren’s soul.
“If you had him, or anything else, to prove that I’d committed some transgression, we both know you’d have taken me prisoner the moment you docked.”
Meren was shaking his head. “Even after all this time, I don’t think I believed you’d go so far. Why? Pharaoh has decreed a restoration so complete that Amun is more powerful than ever.”
“If I were to speculate upon the matter, I might reply with a question. Can evil be erased by one who shares the blood of a heretic?”
“So you believe that an innocent should suffer for the crimes of his brother.”
Ebana came nearer, within a pace of Meren, and spoke in a low voice. “You would pry into my soul? You who served the sun disk that brought blasphemy and plagues to Egypt. That was your statement, not mine. But since we’re speaking of innocents, I would remind you of my wife and son. How would you feel if someone took your son and dashed his head against the flagstones until it burst? Ah, did that frighten you?”
“Are you threatening Kysen?”
“I but asked a question.”
“Damn you, Ebana, if you harm him, I’ll hunt you from here to the netherworld. You’ll wish the Devourer had taken your soul after I’ve done with you.”
“You’re no longer great enough to utter threats, my dear cousin. Everyone knows what happened at the palace, how you’ve angered pharaoh and lost his favor. What did you do to make him so furious, when he dotes upon your words and admires you as if you were the god and not he?”
Meren said nothing. He hadn’t expected the rumors of his downfall to spread so quickly. If they had reached the temple, his power to serve the king was threatened, for no one would respect his authority. Ebana smiled at him and let out a long breath like the hiss of a cobra as it flared its hood. He opened the door and stepped to the threshold.
“You’d better take care, sweet cousin, or pharaoh will send men to murder you and your son and his son in your beds as his brother did to me.” Ebana laughed. The sound reverberated down the hall as he closed the door behind him, leaving Meren alone in the chamber where Qenamun had been murdered. His hand hurt. He looked down to find it strangling the hilt of his dagger. He had to summon his thoughts and dampen his rage before he could direct his fingers to uncurl and loosen their grip.
The walk out of the temple seemed unending, and yet he reached the colossus without hindrance. He’d half expected Ebana to waylay him in some dark corner of the House of Life. He returned home certain that Ebana had had a role in the looting of Akhenaten’s tomb, but with no way to prove it to pharaoh. Not that Tutankhamun needed proof to believe the priests of Amun had committed the evil.
What was he going to do? He couldn’t tell anyone he suspected his own cousin of the crime. What proof did he have? An expression on a face, a silence. Ebana had said nothing to betray himself or anyone else. The only way to get more from him would be by force.
This last thought occurred to him as he entered his office. It was late afternoon, and he felt as if a century had passed since his confrontation with pharaoh. How had it happened, this fall from grace? No, he wouldn’t harass himself with such musings. He found his juggling balls and began to toss three of them.
Casting his thoughts back, he remembered how frightened Unas had seemed when he last saw the man. Unas had been such an earnest little snail, concerned with accuracy, quality, detail. So why would he break a bowl and then try to burn it? Such an extraordinary act for a man who, in his heart, was so very ordinary.
He watched a leather ball as he tossed it in the air. It was of dark leather, almost as dark as those burned shards. He remembered that fragment of inscription on one of them. Which cursive hieroglyphs might they represent? Those curved lines above each fragment of a letter annoyed him for some reason, but he couldn’t think why.
Darting forward, he managed to catch a ball he’d thrown badly as his thoughts moved on to the three dead men. Try as he might, he couldn’t produce a tangible connection between them. That trip to the temple had been useless, and it had exposed him to danger. He’d almost expected Ebana to try to overturn the king’s statue on him. What a fate, to be crushed by the image of the pharaoh he’d worked so hard to serve, to lie beneath the carvings of his names …
Meren continued to toss and catch leather spheres. Carvings. Two cartouches, curved lines encircling hieroglyphs. All at once, two unrelated pieces of knowledge slipped into place—the curved lines on the inscription on the shards, and those carved in relief on the statue’s base. Two curved lines side by side; the encircling ovals of two cartouches. And beneath them, the tip of a reed leaf and a portion of a disk. Two cartouches drawn on the colossus—and on the rim of a bowl.
A bowl inscribed with the king’s name. Pharaoh’s name, on a common pottery bowl found in the house of a dead priest. Why place such an inscription on a bowl?
Oil jars bore the year of the reign, as did wine jars. No, this was a small bowl like those in any common kitchen. Then Meren caught his juggling balls and stood holding them in the middle of his office. He’d seen bowls recently, but not in a kitchen—in a room, Qenamun’s room.
There had been a stack of them next to the wax figure of the Hittite king, the one with the curse on it. The curse! There was a special instance in which bowls were inscribed—when they were to be used as cursing bowls. Of course Unas had no reason to burn a bowl, unless it was a cursing bowl, and then only if the curse were heinous. If it bore the name Nebkheprure Tutankhamun.
Magic. And who of all those involved in this mystery was connected intimately with magic? Lector priests specialized in sacred writings and magic, and Qenamun would have possessed the knowledge necessary to imbue the vessels with magical curses. He must have been making bowls bearing curses against the king. A lector priest would break them to bring about evil and precipitate the magic.
Meren shivered as he held the leather spheres. Those bowls must have been part of Qenamun’s collection of magical implements, to be used for some fell purpose. Qenamun needed those curses to protect himself while he was doing evil, betraying pharaoh.
Had the priests of Amun been protecting themselves against pharaoh discovering their crimes? If Qenamun knew that Unas had found the bowls, he would have killed the priest rather than risk betrayal. But what if the curse against pharaoh was meant for use in a greater, more far-reaching evil?
Placing the juggling balls on the table in his office, Meren sank into his chair, growing more and more uneasy at the direction his thoughts were taking. Qenamun simply might have been protecting the priesthood against pharaoh with these cursing bowls. But such an explanation didn’t account for why Ahiram, who wasn’t a priest but a warrior and courtier, had become involved in the first place. Nor did it necessarily expl
ain why someone had sent foreign mercenaries to kill Ahiram. Unless the looting of the royal tomb served another purpose besides vengeance.
If Ahiram had suddenly become more wealthy, he, Meren, would have noticed, would have made inquiries. He must have wanted the valuables from the royal tomb for some other purpose. Another visit to Ahiram’s house might help him think. Distracted by his deliberations, certain that he’d caught the scent of an unseen and dangerous animal, Meren left without telling anyone where he was going.
Chapter 18
The same porter stood watch over Ahiram’s house when Meren arrived. Since the prince was dead and the place had been examined, there had seemed to be no further need to guard it. Like most houses of the nobility, it was set behind a high wall, with gardens, a reflection pool, and service buildings. Meren was interested only in the places Ahiram might have left signs of his evil acts.
Leaving the porter at the front gate, he went to Ahiram’s chamber again. Once more he rummaged through the covers of the polished and gold-trimmed cedar bed. He kicked aside scattered clothing that had been taken from chests.
He came across a small casket by the bed that contained writing supplies, a palette with rush pens, pots filled with red ocher and black soot, and one for water. An ebony-and-gilt-wood case for spare rush pens rested on top of unused papyri, yet there were no letters, no accounts, no personal writings of any kind. Ahiram must have destroyed any correspondence he didn’t want found.
What had he expected? Kysen was thorough, and he would have found anything significant remaining in this room. Still, Meren eyed the frieze of lotus flowers along the walls near the floor, looking for concealed niches.
Bending over, he moved along the wall, running his fingers over the lotus design, until he came to the recess containing the statue of the goddess Ishtar. His sandal hit a belt. He straightened and kicked it aside. His gaze caught another belt, the one with gold and turquoise beads that Kysenhad left beside the pen holder at the base of the statue.
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