The Assassins of Isis

by P. C. Doherty

  ‘You’re saying the guard, the one who was murdered this morning, was responsible for the death of the assassin? But he was one of my most trusted men.’

  ‘And he also killed the woman Sithia.’ Shufoy muttered.

  Asural found this difficult to accept, so Shufoy insisted they both return to the cell where the assassin had been held. Shufoy, crouching down, peered through the gap at the bottom of the door.

  ‘We wouldn’t have noticed it at night,’ the dwarf exclaimed. ‘Now I do. It’s obvious. Look, the central paving stone even dips a little.’

  Asural fetched the dagger and a peg of wood about the same thickness as the finger. Shufoy showed him how they could both be pushed under and, using his long Libyan dagger, moved them even further so that they fell within the reach of the prisoner.

  ‘The assassin was being warned.’ Asural grasped Shufoy, getting to his feet. ‘That finger was removed from a wife, a sister, a child, a lover. The assassin was not meant to be taken as a prisoner or to be questioned. He was invited to take his own life, and yet,’ he scratched his head, ‘they came back for his corpse, as if that was part of the arrangement, to receive an honourable burial.’

  ‘And the guard?’ Shufoy asked.

  ‘A former soldier. He served in one of the city garrisons and did good work out in the Red Lands. Like me, he was recommended to this post by General Omendap. What’s happening here, Shufoy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The dwarf walked to a side door of the temple and stared at the elaborate carvings on a pillar. ‘I truly don’t know, but I’m sure my master will.’

  Amerotke’s anger at Shufoy’s abrupt departure from the mansion soon disappeared as the little man knelt on a cushion in his writing office and told him all he had learnt. The judge was still angry and disappointed at the assassin’s death, yet he openly wondered if the Sebaus had not made a mistake.

  ‘They killed their comrade,’ he declared slowly, ‘then stole his corpse for burial. They also used that guard.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have been one of them?’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Amerotke shook his head. ‘My impression is that the guard was either bribed or threatened, but later killed because he couldn’t be trusted. We must concentrate on that.’ He patted Shufoy on the head and handed him a goblet of wine. ‘And it was good of you to barter your rock.’ Amerotke smiled. ‘I shall not forget that. Now, let’s go back to the Queen of Pleasure. She’s steeped in villainy and knows what could happen. I agree with her, and the Heret, that those four hesets were not murdered. If they had been, their corpses would have been found. The same is true if they had fled: one of them would have been discovered. So, let’s argue that they were kidnapped. The first question is why, and the answer is simple: a virgin, soft-skinned, well fed and pampered, would command a high price in the flesh market. But a heset is consecrated to the Goddess. If anyone was found selling or buying such a girl, both they and their family would face excruciating and humiliating punishment. The girls would have to be transported to some other city, yet I doubt if they would remain silent. One word and their captor, as well as any who supported them, could face death by impalement or burning alive in a bush.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you believe they were kidnapped?’

  ‘Yes, Shufoy, I do, but why and what has happened to them remains a mystery.’

  ‘And their kidnapper, possibly Mafdet?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Amerotke agreed. ‘He was Captain of the Temple Guard, a man who liked to flirt with the ladies - but how would he get them out of the temple? Why would they go so quietly? Who would receive them?’

  ‘Mafdet may have been a member of the Sebaus,’ Shufoy argued. ‘Again we have no proof. It’s possible they killed him, burnt his house and left that scarab as a signature of their work. But there again we must ask the question, why? More importantly, what would the Sebaus need with temple girls? They are not pimps. Unlike the Queen of Pleasure, they do not run a brothel. They are more interested in the treasures of the dead.’ Amerotke tapped his foot on the ground. ‘And even if it was Mafdet, he apparently did what was asked, so why should the Sebaus kill him?’

  ‘Perhaps his murderer was someone else in the temple?’

  ‘Again,’ Amerotke smiled, ‘the question is, who? According to all the evidence, and I have no reason to disbelieve it, Impuki, Lady Thena and Paser were busy in a meeting the night Mafdet died. Anyone can take a sleeping draught, put it in a jug of beer and wait for the drinker to become vulnerable. We also know that the High Priest, his wife and adopted son were talking to us the night Mafdet’s house was burnt down.’

  Amerotke sipped from his wine.

  ‘Now we come to what you learnt from the scorpion man. I understand his resentment: the Sebaus have attracted the attention of the Divine One and the power of the law, yet they are unlike the other gangs in eastern Thebes. I have revised my opinion of them. They are not a tribe or clan, but men picked by the Khetra, this so-called Watchman. So what binds them together? A society which will force one of its members to commit suicide and yet remove his corpse for honourable burial?’

  ‘We could search for the corpse,’ Shufoy declared. ‘Even send a messenger to the Temple of Isis and other places of healing, enquiring about anyone who has come for a wound to be bound.’

  ‘The corpse will be most difficult to trace,’ Amerotke murmured. ‘Whilst the person with the missing finger could be tended by a local physician. I’m sure it belonged to a woman, and even if she did go to the Temple of Isis, what information would she give about herself? No, what interests me is what binds the Sebaus together. What is the invisible thread? I think they made a mistake over that guard. Yes.’ Amerotke tapped the table top. ‘After court tomorrow, I want you, Shufoy, to discover as much as possible about that guard, his family, his friends, his relations. Do the same for Mafdet. Finally,’ Amerotke gestured at the rolls of vellum on his desk, ‘I want you to go through the lists of all those implicated in the robbery of the royal tombs. They all came from different professions, merchants, scribes, officials; some lived in Thebes, others came from Memphis, but there again, is there some thread which binds them all together? There’s something in this information which the Sebaus do not wish me to discover; that’s why they’ve marked me down for death.’

  Shufoy agreed. Amerotke was about to continue when there was a knock on the door, and his steward entered to say that Chief Scribe Menna and the lady Lupherna were here to see him. Amerotke pulled a face, but asked the steward to bring them in. His guests were rather flustered as they took their seats, apologising loudly for disturbing the judge.

  ‘I came,‘Menna mopped the sweat from his strong square face, ‘to show you something, my lord.’ He glanced quickly at Lady Lupherna, who nodded. ‘I found it difficult to accept the evidence about the sack. However, I was going through the master’s papers when I came across his memoirs.’ Menna opened the leather writing satchel on his lap and took out sheets of papyri closely bound together. ‘They are dedicated to the Divine One. Lady Lupherna believes they should be presented to the palace. Anyway, I wondered how far General Suten had reached.’

  Menna leafed through the book then handed it over, stubby fingers pointing to a passage. The writing was in the hieratic fashion, done in dark red ink, though now and again General Suten had used hieroglyphs for certain names and terms.

  ‘I have studied,’ Amerotke read aloud the passage Menna had indicated, ‘the Book of Crossing Eternity.’ The judge looked up, puzzled.

  ‘It’s a treatise,’ Menna explained, ‘about what happens when a soul travels into the Far West.’

  ‘I have reflected,’ Amerotke continued, ‘on the Eater of Eternity.’ He pulled a face at this rather ancient name for the god Osiris. ‘And when the sun sets,’ he read, ‘confronted by the Watchers of the Night, I go back to that hellish cavern and the vipers curling all about me. The clammy terror of my fears is round my heart yet these nightmares do not leave me when I wake. I cannot
walk through a field but look for a snake. I cannot relax in the shade of a tree, the fear haunts me. I have talked to the exorcists and healers, little help there. I gave offerings to the Great Mother, the blue-skinned Isis, and I have found some comfort. High Priest Impuki has comforted me. He has told me to reflect on the soldier’s way but be careful. I have a demon hunting my soul. I must confront this shadowy swordsman. I must entice him out of the land of shadows. I, Lord Suten, must show, prove there is more to life than the fear of death.’ This section of writing had finished abruptly. General Suten had drawn five hieroglyphs and, beside these, time and again, the word hefau, snake. Amerotke glanced up.

  ‘At first,’ Menna explained, ‘the lady Lupherna and myself found it difficult to accept that General Suten may have brought about his own death.’

  ‘Did your husband talk about this to you?’

  ‘On a number of occasions,’ Lady Lupherna replied. ‘It was a problem he was forever discussing. Last season we went for a walk along the riverside. I was telling him how sometimes I was frightened to cross the Nile, particularly in one of those light skiffs or punts. When I was a little girl I used to scream. My husband put his arm around me,’ Lady Lupherna began to cry, ‘and told me to confront my fears, as one day he must do his. I never realised,’ her voice faltered, ‘what he truly meant.’

  Amerotke closed the memoir and placed it on the table. ‘May I keep it?’ he asked. Lady Lupherna nodded.

  ‘I’ve also spoken to Heby,’ Menna declared. ‘Tomorrow, my lord, he appears in court in front of you. With your permission I would like to act as his advocate.’

  Amerotke agreed to his request, and the two were about to leave when the judge’s hand brushed the seal on the table. He picked this up and called them back.

  ‘Your husband, Lady Lupherna, was a high-ranking general. He was a holder of the imperial cartouche, the great seal of Egypt.’

  ‘But he was retired,’ Menna reminded them. ‘When he gave up his staff of office, the seal was broken and returned to the Divine House.’

  ‘Was your husband on friendly terms with Lord Impuki, the High Priest of Isis?’

  ‘He liked him,’ Lady Lupherna agreed. ‘He would often go to the temple for advice. Now I understand why. Those cramps in his stomach had to be examined. He also studied in the library, gathering information for his memoirs. I suppose he and the High Priest were more acquaintances than friends.’

  Amerotke thanked them and escorted them back to the garden and his waiting steward. He had hardly returned to his writing office, where Shufoy was stealing a peep at the memoirs, when the steward ran back saying that Lady Nethba was at the gate and needed to see the judge on a matter of urgency.

  ‘Bring her in,’ Amerotke sighed. ‘It seems as if the whole of Thebes wishes to see me!’

  Moments later, Lady Nethba, wearing a gauffered robe, with a little maid trotting behind her, swept into the chamber. Without being invited she sat in the great chair before Amerotke’s desk, gesturing at the maid to crouch at her feet. She held up her hands, the nails painted a deep purple.

  ‘I know,’ she gazed at the bemused judge, ‘how busy you are, my lord, but I just had to come and see you. I’ve heard all about what is happening in Thebes.’ She leaned closer. ‘It’s on everyone’s lips, I mean the attack on you, the deaths at the temple. As I used to say to my late husband, although he always claimed to be deaf, matters are going from bad to worse. Now, I know you are very busy—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Amerotke intervened.

  ‘My father—’

  ‘Lady Nethba, I have been to the Temple of Isis. I have talked to the High Priest Impuki and to the Scribe of the Dead. Your father, may he be happy in the fields of Osiris, had a severe malignancy in his stomach which killed him. He was given the best possible treatment, but he died, and his body is now being honourably treated in the House of the Dead. As for his offering to the temple, that is customary—’

  ‘I know,’ said Lady Nethba, eyelids fluttering. ‘But his death was so swift.’ Her face crumpled into a look of sadness. ‘I just wanted to make my farewells properly. Are you sure, my lord judge?’

  ‘My lady, I would take an oath upon it.’

  Lady Nethba patted her maid on the head and got to her feet.

  ‘In which case,’ she extended her hand for Amerotke to kiss, ‘I thank you for your troubles. Perhaps I was too upset.’

  ‘Lady Nethba?’

  She turned, her hand already on the latch on the door.

  ‘Why were you so suspicious about the Temple of Isis?’

  ‘I had an old washerwoman once,’ she pulled a face, ‘one of those ladies who always seem old. Her name was Kliya, she was a freewoman. Two seasons ago she fell ill and left her cottage, which stands just beyond the walls of my house. She said she was going to the Temple of Isis. The months passed, I heard nothing, so I went up to the Temple of Isis. I made enquiries of the Scribe of the Dead but he had no record of her. I thought it was strange, because I was sure she had said she was going there. I mean,’ Lady Nethba opened the door, ‘where else would she go?’

  Djed, the cousin of the guard killed near the crocodile pool at the Place of Slaughter, felt pleased and content. He sat in his coloured pavilion at the far end of the small garden which surrounded his square two-storey house in the north-east of Thebes. A salubrious area, as his wife called it, the avenue outside and the lanes leading to it were spacious, paved with basalt stone and lined with thick-bushed persea trees. A comfortable house, Djed thought, in a comfortable area. He pushed aside the platter of duck and chickpeas and grasped his beaker of Buto wine. He loved the evening, to sit here at the end of the day and peer through the half-open door, let the breeze ruffle his light robe and, when darkness fell, stare out at the stars. The saluki hound who patrolled his garden barked and snarled. The dog would be busy tonight, Djed reflected, driving off the genet and the mongoose which came to poach his ponds or climb the trees hunting for eggs or small birds. Nevertheless, the dog’s snarl pricked Djed’s feeling of serenity. There was something wrong but he couldn’t place it, a danger which couldn’t be marked. Ah well.

  He sniffed at the wine. When he had served in the army, his officers had always said Djed could never think for himself but was excellent at carrying out orders. He shook himself, narrowing his eyes; tomorrow he would work in the garden amongst his beloved beehives. As a soldier he had served in the regiment of Anubis but now considered himself an authority on bees. In fact the bees reminded him of army life, the military organisation of the hive, the unquestioning obedience shown to the queen bee. Djed could tell at a glance the difference between each species by the minor variations in the length of the wing or the colouring of the belly. He knew how to clear the hives with smoke, as well as imitate the call of the queen bee so that he could sift out the honey in order to vary its richness. He considered himself a true ftui, a beekeeper, and one day he hoped to enroll in the Guild of Beekeepers. He had been out to the House of Life at the great Temple of Isis, and had learnt how Pharaohs had once been called the ‘One of the Bees’. He revelled in the story of how the god Ra had wept and the tears from his eyes had turned into bees.

  Djed picked up a small pot of honey and sniffed its delicious aroma. The very sight of this fragrant substance soothed his mind. After he had retired from the regiment, he’d used the little wealth he had gathered to grow vegetables and run a small stall in one of the markets. But the garden had been blighted and Djed and his family had faced a bleak future. At last, he had gone to the Heti — the Guild of Veterans — to seek help for his family. Late at night, soon after, he had been seized by black-garbed figures who’d taken him across Thebes to a lonely place. He’d been questioned closely by this strange group who’d told him his fortune would soon change. At first his new status had shocked him, but a deben of copper here and a deben of silver there had transformed his life. He had grown wealthy. The Khetra had instructed him to tell people that he had benefited fr
om the legacy of a rich relative in the Delta. Djed had told his wife to keep quiet, not to ask questions or pry, but simply tell their neighbours how the gods had smiled on them.

  One task had led to another: messages to be delivered late at night or just before dawn. Mysterious visitors would come, faces masked; they would whisper instructions and flit away like shadows. Djed had met the Khetra in the disused Temple of Khnum, a ghostly place where the Khetra had sat in the shadows as Djed knelt before him, head bowed. He couldn’t distinguish the voice. He couldn’t even tell if the Khetra was male or female. All he remembered was that cloying smell of jasmine. There had been others present but, like Djed, their faces had been masked, their heads hooded, and that was the way it was. If any of them were captured they could not betray their comrades simply because they didn’t know who any of them were. Like the rest, Djed would receive orders, be told to gather here or there, always to be on time, and at the appointed hour, others would join him. Sometimes he was in charge; on other occasions a different leader would issue the orders. At first they had been involved in the robbery of mansions, wealthy houses on the other side of Thebes, but eventually they had turned to the tombs, and the stream of wealth had swollen to a torrent. At first Djed had been terrified as he and the rest poured like bees — yes, Djed smiled to himself — like bees from a hive, silent and formidable, following their leaders up through the rock and shale, the night air freezing their sweat. They’d entered the Valley of Kings, that ghostly place, and climbed up its sides searching for secret entrances.

  On the first occasion Djed had been so terrified he thought he would faint with the biting-cold wind, the hideous roar of the night prowlers and the heart-stopping fear of being caught by the guards. Nevertheless they had been successful. The guards had looked the other way and Djed couldn’t believe his eyes as their guide had led them to what looked like an impassable rock face before disappearing into the cunningly contrived entrance. Once inside that ancient Pharaoh’s tomb, Djed’s fears had grown. There were traps to be avoided, hidden pits with stakes, false doors which led nowhere, trip ropes which would bring down a fall of rocks and, finally, a chamber swarming with asps and snakes. A place of concealed terrors, its darkness broken only by the pinprick light of torches which brought the pictures on the wall to flickering life. Five of his companions had been killed that night, but the Khetra had brought their corpses out; they’d all been promised that, alive or dead, they would be well looked after.