The Assassins of Isis

by P. C. Doherty

  Nadif strode on. He didn’t envy these people, but he did enjoy peeping into their lives. He had been given this part of the riverbank to patrol because General Suten never forgot those who served with him. Nadif was responsible for the area between the North Gate of the city and the Great Mooring Place. He patrolled four times a day whilst his companions filled the gaps. There was very little trouble usually, now and again the odd suspicious character, but Nadif had worked out a clever system. He and his companions carried a conch horn, which they used to raise the alarm. The servants of these great mansions would then gather at the gates to provide any help or support the Medjay needed.

  Nadif paused; soon it would be time to go back. He stared up at the sky, where the evening star had appeared.

  ‘We will walk on a little further.’

  Baka grunted and scratched himself, then paused to look at something he had found on the edge of the path. This turned out to be nothing more than the white skin of a piece of fruit, which the baboon immediately ate. Nadif began to sing softly under his breath. Baka responded with grunts of pleasure. The animal liked to hear his master sing that old refrain, a marching song about how young maidens often sighed at the approach of the Swallows and hid their sloe eyes behind beautiful fingers to disguise their desire for these warriors of Egypt. Nadif knew the words by heart: he had sung them on the parade grounds of Thebes and along the dusty desert roads; he’d chanted them as they camped around fires in lonely oases or on the war barges as they coursed down towards the Third Cataract to bring the Kushites to battle.

  As Nadif recalled the days of glory, he was so absorbed that, at first, he thought the yelling and screaming were part of his memories of the Kushites bursting into the camp and trying to burn their boats. However, Baka was dancing frantically at the end of his chain and Nadif shook himself from his reverie. The hideous screaming was coming from one of the mansions behind their high walls, their gateways masked by clumps of date and palm trees. Nadif hurried across. The screaming was now louder, broken by the sound of a wailing horn and the clash of a cymbal, the usual sign for the alarm being raised. Already the gateways were opening, and porters and servants came tumbling out, curious as to what was happening.

  Nadif broke into a run, going as fast as his damaged leg would allow. Baka was jumping furiously on the end of his chain. The evening had changed. The sun was going down and darkness swirled like a cloak to cover the world. The power of Seth, the red-haired god, would make itself felt. A buzzard screeched overhead, as if it too was hurrying to what might be a slaughter, whilst the smell from the river was one of rottenness rather than sweetness. Nadif noticed that the gateway to General Suten’s house was open, and servants holding torches were hurrying out, one blowing hard at a horn. They were looking for him. Nadif took his own conch horn, put it to his mouth and blew. The servants turned and came hurrying towards him.

  ‘What is the matter? What is the matter?’

  Nadif paused to catch his breath, aware of the sweat running down his face. Baka lunged on his chain and the servants, wary of the creature’s sharp teeth, hung back.

  ‘You must come!’ An old man gestured with his hand. ‘Officer Nadif, you must come now, it is the master!’

  ‘General Suten?’

  ‘You must come!’ the old man gasped. Nadif could still hear that heart-wrenching screaming, as well as shouts and cries from the garden beyond.

  ‘General Suten,’ Nadif repeated. Heart in his mouth, he recalled the general’s face, his sharp eyes, the sunken cheeks, that nose curved like the hook of a falcon. The old retainer, however, was already ushering the other servants back, shouting at Nadif over his shoulder to follow. The standard-bearer strode through the main gate. At any other time he would have paused to admire the beauty of the garden, the tall sycamore trees, the vine trellises, the lawns and flowerbeds, the coloured pavilions and small ornamental lakes. Now, however, grasping Baka’s chain, he hurried along the basalt-paved pathway leading up to the front of the house with its spacious steps, elegant colonnades and porticoed walkways. He was aware of people hurrying around. Inside the house servants were already tearing their garments in signs of mourning. One young girl had clawed her cheeks and thrown dust on her hair. A dog raced up, ready to bite Baka, but the baboon lunged in attack, paws in the air, and the dog slunk back.

  They crossed the small hall of audience with its central fire, past the raised eating area with its beautifully coloured couches and divans and through kitchens smelling sweetly of the recently cooked savoury meats. General Suten’s household, his wife Lupherna, Chief Scribe Menna and his body servant Heby, along with other principal retainers, were clustered at the foot of the steps leading up to the roof terrace.

  ‘What is the matter?’ Nadif shouted, beating his stick on the floor.

  Lupherna, the general’s young wife, came towards him like a sleepwalker. She was dressed as if for a banquet, a beautiful thick oiled wig bound to her head by a silver fillet, her dark sloe eyes ringed with green kohl. The nails on her hands had been painted an emerald green whilst her lips were carmined, yet her eyes were rounded in fear and she played constantly with the necklace about her throat.

  ‘Officer Nadif.’ She put her hand out; the Medjay grasped her fingers, they were ice cold.

  ‘My lady, what is the matter?’

  She gestured at the stairs.

  Nadif brushed by her. Heby and Menna seemed in shock. Heby tried to stop him, but Nadif pushed him aside. The steps were built into the side of the house just beyond the kitchen door. Nadif climbed them slowly, Baka whimpering at his side. He reached the top and stared across the roof terrace, an elegant place with its wooden balustrade running around the edge. He noticed the long couch under its drapes of linen, the beautifully polished acacia-wood tables and chairs. In every corner stood flowerpots. The air smelt sweetly of the exquisite perfume of the blue lotus. Oil lamps had been lit and placed in coloured glasses, and for a while Nadif could see nothing wrong. In the shadows and flickering light from the lamps he glimpsed a writing table, another table bearing a wine jug and goblets. Then, near the couch, he saw the body, tangled in linen sheets. From where he stood, Nadif could make out General Suten, his scrawny arms, the marching boots he always insisted on wearing rather than the sandals or slippers of a scribe.

  ‘Be careful!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Be careful of what?’ Nadif snapped back.

  ‘The snakes.’

  Nadif paused, one foot on the top step. Now he knew why Baka had whimpered. He grasped the baboon’s chain more securely and, recalling his desert training, remained as still as a statue, eyes peering through the gloom. At first he could see nothing, but then one of the linen sheets on the floor moved. Nadif controlled his panic as the horned viper, long and grey, came slithering sideways towards one of the warming dishes placed on the ground. As he watched, he realised that the entire floor of the roof terrace seemed to be covered by these highly dangerous snakes. What he had first thought were shadows now began to move, many of the vipers curling out from beneath the bed.

  Nadif had seen enough. He clattered down the stairs even as he recalled the story about General Suten and snakes, how the old soldier hated them. When he reached the foot of the steps, he tied Baka to a ring in the wall.

  ‘Who’s been up there?’ he asked.

  ‘I have.’ Lupherna had overcome her shock and was crying quietly, the tears coursing down her face, smudging it with paint. ‘I heard his screams.’ She put her painted nails to her mouth. ‘I was going to join him as I usually did. I heard those hideous screams! I came to the steps. Heby was on guard here. I climbed up … well, we both did. My husband was on the edge of the bed, arms and legs flailing like a man trapped in a pool, unable to move. He had a snake here,’ she pointed to her shoulder, ‘and there was another on his leg. He was staring at me, Officer Nadif, and he was screaming.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Nadif turned to the plump-faced scribe.

  ‘I
was in the master’s writing office,’ Menna the scribe replied. ‘I was working by the light of an oil lamp detailing how many jars we had taken from the oil press—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Nadif interrupted.

  ‘Then I heard the screams. Is General Suten dead?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Nadif now turned to Heby, a tall, handsome, middle-aged man. He could tell from Heby’s face and the way he carried himself, that he was a former soldier.

  ‘You are General Suten’s body servant?’

  ‘Aye, in peace and war. I have served him for twenty years.’

  Nadif stared at the man’s hard face, the cheeks slightly pitted, the nose broken and twisted. Heby’s right ear was clipped at the top, whilst the wig he wore only half concealed the ugly scar which ran from the ear down to his neck.

  ‘A Libyan.’ Heby had followed Nadif’s gaze; he touched the scar. ‘Out in the western deserts he cut my ear, but I took his penis along with four others and burnt them as an offering to the god.’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’ Nadif stepped back. ‘But shouldn’t we do something about your master?’

  ‘The snakes,’ Heby replied. ‘If we go on that roof we too will journey into the West. I don’t think my master would want that.’

  Nadif tried to hide his unease. He had met many people who had experienced the sudden death of a friend or relation, and their reactions were often surprising. Some became hysterical, others wept, a few became icy quiet; but these three were acting as if they were half asleep or drugged.

  Nadif became aware of the clamour in the rest of the house. The hall of audience was filling with servants and the curious from other houses along the Nile. He immediately instructed all those not belonging to General Suten’s retinue to leave. He dispatched a runner into the city to inform his superiors what had happened, and tried to impose some order. He ordered a fire to be lit in the hall of audience and organised the servants, telling them to put on heavy boots and gauntlets, anything they could find to protect their feet, legs and arms. From a servant he borrowed some leather leg guards and an apron for his front, wrapping his hands and arms in rolls of coarse linen, then, armed with poles and garden implements, he and Heby led the servants on to the roof terrace. Some were terrified and refused to go, but Lupherna, who now asserted herself as head of the house, promised all those who helped a lavish reward, and Nadif soon had enough volunteers to help him clear the roof.

  It was a grisly, gruesome business. The horned vipers had emerged from their hiding places, attracted by the heat and food. Most of them were sluggish. A few were killed but the servants were superstitious and regarded the snakes as a visitation from a god, so Nadif compromised, and where possible the horned vipers were placed in a leather bag and taken away. Eventually they reached the general’s corpse. Nadif ordered it to be taken below, and it was laid on a divan in the hall of audience. Lady Lupherna knelt beside it. She took off her wig, placing her jewellery beside it, then rent her beautiful robe and, taking dust from the fireplace, sprinkled it over her head and body, staining her face, chest and shoulders. She knelt keening, rocking backwards and forwards, as Nadif laid out the corpse and stripped it of its robe.

  The general had been an old man, well past his sixtieth summer, and his body had been lean and hard. Nadif counted that he must have been bitten a dozen times, each bite mark a dark bluish red, the skin around it deeply discoloured. The general’s face had also become swollen, the hollow cheeks puffing out, the lips full, with white froth dribbling out of one corner. Nadif found the half-open eyes eerie, as if the general was about to look up at him and snap out an order. He had glimpsed Suten from afar in the uniform of a staff officer, his armour glittering, the gold collars of valour and the silver bees of courage shimmering in the sunlight. Now he looked like a pathetic old man caught in a dreadful death.

  A local physician was summoned from a nearby house. He turned the corpse over.

  ‘At least fifteen times,’ he intoned. ‘I’m not an expert; my specialities are the mouth and anus.’

  At any other time Nadif would have laughed at this pompous physician.

  ‘You don’t have to be an expert,’ he snapped, ‘to count how many times a man has been bitten.’

  ‘I’m merely stating,’ the physician retorted. ‘It’s rather strange that General Suten didn’t try to escape. He appears to have allowed himself to sit there and be bitten.’

  Nadif narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘What do you think I am saying?’ the physician replied. ‘Here is a man who, according to you, lay down on his bed and was bitten by a snake. What would you do, officer, if you were bitten by a snake?’

  ‘Run away.’

  ‘But this man didn’t. He sat there and allowed himself to be bitten another fourteen times.’

  ‘How soon would the poison work?’

  ‘A few heartbeats,’ the physician replied. ‘Perhaps he was in shock. That’s what a rat does when it is bitten. It stays still and allows itself to be bitten again. I’ve seen it happen.’

  ‘General Suten wasn’t a rat!’

  Nadif gestured at the physician to join him, and led him to the steps to the roof terrace.

  ‘I’m not going up there.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Nadif retorted. ‘You will be well paid. Anyway, the snakes are gone. From what I gather, they are rather careful about who they bite!’

  The physician’s head came up aggressively.

  ‘I’m only joking,’ Nadif whispered. ‘Follow me.’

  When they reached the roof terrace, Nadif was pleased he had acted so quickly. Heby was now clearing up his dead master’s papers and was instructing a servant to take the remains of the food and wine down to the kitchen.

  ‘Leave those there,’ Nadif ordered. Heby went to object, then shrugged. The servant left the tray on the table. Nadif ordered some oil lamps to be brought. He and the physician scrupulously examined the remains of the fish, bread and fruit, as well as the rich Canaanite wine in both jug and goblet. The physician didn’t know what he was looking for. Nadif took the goblet of wine and poured the dregs on to a napkin, then felt the stain with the tips of his fingers.

  ‘There, there,’ he whispered.

  ‘There, there, what?’ the physician snapped.

  Nadif handed him the napkin. ‘Feel that.’

  The physician did as he was told. ‘Grains,’ he said. ‘Yes, as if some powder has been mixed with the wine.’

  Nadif snatched up the goblet. He detected similar grains around the rim.

  ‘It could be the wine,’ the physician remarked. ‘If it is drawn from the bottom of a cask, there is some silt.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Nadif murmured. ‘Smell the cup, physician.’

  The self-proclaimed guardian of the anus did so. ‘Oh, I know what that is.’ He sniffed again. ‘Any doctor would. I’ve mixed it myself. I served in the army as well, you know. There are certain wounds you can’t heal.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Poppy seed. I would wager my wife’s honour on it. The general mixed poppy seed with his wine to make him sleep.’

  ‘You mean he was poisoned?’

  ‘No, I didn’t say that. Poppy seed, used sparingly, will take away your cares and soothe you into a deep slumber. It will clear any pain you have of heart or body.’

  Nadif turned round abruptly. Heby was looking at them strangely. Nadif waved him over.

  ‘Where is it?’ Nadif asked.

  ‘Where is what?’ Heby retorted.

  ‘The poppy seed. Your master mixed poppy seed with his wine; he must have had a phial or pouch.’

  ‘He never took poppy seed.’

  Menna and Lupherna had also come up on to the roof terrace and joined the officer and the physician. ‘General Suten never took poppy seed with his wine; there is no pouch up here,’ the Chief Scribe declared.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Nadif asked.

  ‘There is no po
ppy seed powder up here,’ Menna repeated.

  ‘Then if General Suten didn’t mix the poppy seed with his wine, who did?’ Nadif asked. He stared around. ‘Let’s search.’

  Nadif went over to the bed. As he pushed aside the drapes, a leather pouch fell out. He exclaimed in pleasure. The pouch was small and tied at the neck, and it bore the insignia of the Temple of Isis. He undid the cord and handed it to the physician.

  ‘Yes, it’s crushed poppy seed,’ the fellow replied. ‘Lady Lupherna, you did not know your husband was taking this?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘He must have mixed it secretly,’ Heby murmured. ‘I knew he had visited the House of Life at the Temple of Isis, but …’

  ‘Did he mix it with his wine tonight, I wonder?’ Nadif asked.

  ‘I have a better question for you,’ Menna hissed. ‘Here we have General Suten, bravest of the brave, a man who hated snakes, who had this roof terrace searched this evening to make sure there were none, and who is suddenly found bitten at least fifteen times whilst his roof terrace is swarming with those vermin.’

  All of Nadif’s doubts and confusions disappeared. He realised why Menna, Heby and the Lady Lupherna had been acting so strangely when he’d first arrived.

  ‘This was no accident,’ he whispered. ‘I remember the stories about General Suten’s fear of snakes. He was murdered, wasn’t he?’

  The physician wiped his hands on his robe. ‘Murdered!’ he exclaimed. ‘Is this the work of the red-haired god Seth? General Suten was a hero of Egypt. May Osiris have mercy on us all. If he was murdered, someone will burn for it.’

  The Temple of Isis was a sprawling compound of storehouses, mansions, living quarters, gardens, orchards and pastures. It surrounded the temple proper, dedicated to the Mother Goddess who worked so hard to bring Osiris to life after he had been slain by his vindictive brother Seth. The Temple of Isis proclaimed itself an oasis of calm, a place of healing, with its Houses of Life and Learning, dedicated to the study of medicine and the care and strengthening of Pharoah’s subjects. Near the House of Life, the academy where the young men studied to be physicians, stood the House of Twilight, a place where those in mortal fear of their lives, attacked by some malignant disease, could receive specialist help and attention. They called it the House of Twilight because those who lived there hovered on the border between life and death, ready to make the journey into the Eternal West to rejoice in the everlasting fields of the green-skinned Osiris. Near the House of Twilight were the mansions and living quarters of the chief physicians and their helpers, men and women of great learning who gathered all the knowledge available on disease and its cure. Nevertheless, the priests of the Temple of Isis believed a dark shadow lay across their temple.