Murder in the Place of Anubis

by Lynda S. Robinson

  To Kysen’s amusement, the pair slowed as they recognized him. He was sure they would have avoided him if he hadn’t beckoned to them as they came toward the gate. When they’d gained the pavilion, Beltis dropped Woser’s arm and smiled at Kysen and Thesh. No blush, no downcast eyes. Kysen frowned at the woman, who seemed amused at encountering three of her men at once. He could see no cause for mirth, and for the first time he glimpsed some of the humiliation many women endured as one of a collection of amusing objects. Kysen dragged his attention back to the pair in front of him as Thesh introduced him to Woser.

  “You seem to have recovered quickly from your illness,” Kysen said.

  “Beltis brought a soothing potion from the city,” Woser replied. “I am much improved.”

  “And I’m told you were cast down by this illness for many nights previously.”

  Woser’s mouth drew down at the corners. There were lines about it, making it apparent that he often wore an expression of discontent.

  “You’re asking where I was when the scribe was killed. I was sick at home. Thesh will tell you how it is with me. No doubt my troubles are due to working in the Great Place on an unlucky day. I found out last week when Thesh showed me his calendar. I’m sure I was beset by a demon of the netherworld. After that day, I began to have trouble in my bowels. The demon was so powerful that none of the village cures worked. I prayed to Isis and Amun, to Bes, and even to Ptah.”

  Kysen jumped in before Woser could catch his breath and begin again. “Yes, yes. I’ve heard of your sufferings, but what took you to the nobles’ cemetery so quickly after you regained your heath?”

  “It was I.” Beltis oozed over to stand beside him and gaze up into his eyes. “After my cure worked, I was anxious to see that the preparations for my lord’s tomb were proceeding. I don’t trust Djaper or Imsety to carry out their duty, despite Hormin’s will.” She smiled sweetly at Woser. “But to my surprise, the wall surfaces are complete. Everything will be ready by the time my lord is reawakened.”

  “And last night, both of you were here.” Kysen’s voice faded.

  He hadn’t really asked a question, for he already knew the answer. No doubt he’d find that Djaper had died after Beltis had arrived in the village and while Woser was still on his sickbed. He wouldn’t reveal the death yet, for he still had to inquire into the movements of his other suspects.

  As he dismissed the two, Thesh touched his arm. Glancing at the scribe, he followed the direction of his gaze to the point where the river path descended into the valley of the tomb makers. The daily supply train was winding its way down the path, and in its wake walked two men. Even at this distance he knew them. His brothers had returned.

  Meren paced in his office. Swerving past a column in the shape of a papyrus bundle, he swept past the ebony chair on which his juggling balls lay and whirled when he reached the wall painted with a mural of his three daughters. The messenger had brought Kysen’s report, reassurance that his son was safe. Still, Meren worried.

  On his trip back past the ebony chair he scooped up his juggling balls. Tossing them in a circular pattern, he sent them high into the air, catching them and tossing them again in a furious burst of activity. When he’d first bought Kysen, he’d thought he wouldn’t worry so much over a son as he had his daughters. Fool.

  Hormin, Bakwerner, Djaper. Was there but one killer? If so, then Bakwerner and Djaper had been killed for what they knew—or what they pretended to know— about Hormin’s death. Everything was connected to that first death. Hormin had been a creature of mediocre wits aided by sly dishonesty. According to old Ahmose, Hormin’s talents hadn’t measured up to the position he’d been chosen to fill. No doubt he had recognized his own mediocrity.

  As his gaze traced the path of the flying balls, Meren realized that Hormin had suffered secret humiliation at the lack of an intelligent heart and had punished those around him for his disappointments and shortcomings. He resented his wife for hanging on to him when he no longer wanted her. He hated Bakwerner for rising in his profession when he was obviously even less able than Hormin himself. He begrudged his eldest son the farm he cared for so well and hated even more the younger for the intelligence and talent the gods had denied his father. The only person Hormin hadn’t hated was Beltis, whose sexual skills were his as long as he provided well for her.

  Meren slowed the pace of his juggling as he ordered his thoughts. Perhaps he would go to the Place of Anubis again. He also would confer once more with his physician about the poison used on Djaper. Then he would most likely summon the artisans mentioned by Kysen as well as Imsety and his mother and Beltis. He couldn’t afford to wait any longer and risk another murder. The beatings would have to begin soon, if only to placate the powerful high priest of Anubis.

  A knock caused him to grab his juggling balls as they fell and thrust them beneath one of the cushions piled in the corner of the room. He hurried to his ebony chair, seated himself in a negligent yet aristocratic manner, and called out his permission to enter.

  To his surprise, Raneb the lector priest was ushered into the chamber. Marching up to Meren, Raneb glanced about the room curiously as he bowed.

  “Most high and revered master, Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, may the guardian of eternity, the lord of mysteries, the god Anubis protect you and guide your ka.”

  “He sent you to spy upon my progress, didn’t he?”

  Raneb was a thin, quick man whose narrow eyes and even narrower lips fostered his resemblance to a sand viper. Those narrow eyes popped open and rounded.

  “No, Lord Meren, no. The Controller of the Mysteries knows nothing of my visit. No, I’ve come because you asked me to think upon the perfume that stained the dead man’s kilt, and upon the heart amulet.”

  “Ah, then you’re most welcome,” Meren said as he inclined his head, giving Raneb permission to continue.

  “I’ve thought and thought, lord. And I must say it’s been hard since the sacrilege. The bandagers and the keepers of natron have been so skittish, chattering among themselves, whispering about evil spirits and the wrath of Anubis.”

  “Your point, priest.”

  “Oh, yes, um, the point. Yes, well, there is no point.” Raneb hurried on when Meren scowled at him. “No point to the heart amulet, that is. It looks like all the rest we keep to place between the layers of bandages. No doubt it was spilled in the fight that killed this pestilence of a scribe.”

  Meren rose. “I’ve no time for self-importance, priest. You say the amulets are kept in a storeroom, not among the embalming tables. That amulet shouldn’t have been in the shed. If you sought to call yourself to my attention in this way, you have, and you’ll suffer for it.”

  “No!” Raneb skittered around to face Meren as he turned away. “No, lord, forgive me. I have never been in a murder before, and I’ve lost my wits. Perhaps one of us left the amulet in the shed by mistake. Not everyone is as careful as I, but I’m so troubled by this sacrilege. Perhaps that’s why it took me so long to remember the unguent.”

  Meren leaned over the priest and snapped, “Unguent? The perfume on Hormin’s kilt was unguent? Quickly.”

  “I’m an old man, lord, which is probably why I failed to remember the smell of this unguent. There are so many cosmetic salves, cheap and dear. Yet this one, this one is rare indeed.”

  Meren studied Ranch’s bright eyes. “Rare or not, everyone uses unguents.”

  “Not this one, my lord. This is no common salve for peasants. Qeres is an unguent made of sweet resins and myrrh from a formula once known only by Pharaoh’s perfume makers in the days of the pyramid builders. The recipe was handed down for hundreds of years. Its value would be beyond the reach of any but princes and great ones such as yourself.”

  “Curse it,” Meren said. “There was nothing like it in Hormin’s treasury hoard. Yet he got into some between the time he slept with the concubine and the moment he died.”

  “Yes, lord, but qeres is too valuable for one such as Hor
min. One finds it only in the palace of Pharaoh, or the manor of a prince, or the temple of a god. I haven’t seen qeres in many years. It was rare in my youth, for the instructions for making it were lost long ago and stores of the salve depleted. Even the wealthiest are no longer buried with a supply of it, as we of the Place of Anubis no longer possess any.”

  Meren nodded absently. Wandering back to his chair, he thanked the priest and lapsed into silence. Raneb bowed himself out of the room.

  A rare unguent, a heart amulet, a scribe wealthier than he should have been. Had Hormin been a thief? Had he taken bribes hi return for falsifying tax records?

  He would send Abu to make inquiries. But the unguent— that inquiry he would pursue himself. If he wanted to know about cosmetic salves and perfumes, he could do no better than to seek the wisdom of the king’s perfume makers in the royal workshops near the palace. His trip to the Place of Anubis and other plans would have to be delayed.

  The Place of Anubis. What a bizarre place to frequent in the darkness. Few went to the Place of Anubis in daylight voluntarily. It was crowded with dead souls waiting for restoration to their bodies. It reeked of decay. The living deserted the Place of Anubis at night. Therefore, if Hormin went there, he must have had a reason of preeminence, a life-threatening reason or one that promised such reward that fear was a small price to pay.

  In either instance, Hormin went in such haste that he hadn’t bothered to change a kilt soiled by a rare unguent. The unguent, it was a sign, a mysterious one, as was the heart amulet and the broad collar. Like the connections between Hormin and his family and acquaintances, they were signs to be read. Like those wedge-shaped jottings the Babylonians used, they seemed indecipherable.

  The unguent. He would need permission from the king to visit the royal workshops and question the chief perfume maker. He went to his bedchamber, readied himself for a call on the palace, and was at the doors to the king’s audience chamber in less than an hour. He approached the royal guards in their bronze and leather corselets, only to pause. He’d been so preoccupied with the puzzle of the unguent that he hadn’t paid attention to his surroundings. Abu and three of his charioteers had escorted him, but had fallen back as he neared the royal audience hall. Now he glanced about and noted the crowds of courtiers milling near the doors.

  “Meren, you harem raider, you.”

  “General of the King’s Armies, Horemheb,” Meren said as he inclined his head at the armed warrior who emerged from a cluster of officials.

  “I’ll stomach no titles and piss-sweet courtesies from you. I’ve had a belly full of them today.”

  Meren studied Horemheb’s scarred face and lowered his voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “I know not.” Horemheb talked through a pained smile that wouldn’t deceive a nursling. “We were listening to the delegation of the Mycenaean Sea Peoples when one of the king’s personal servants sidled into the hall and peeked at his majesty from around a column. The king suddenly dismissed everyone, including the vizier, who is furious.”

  As Horemheb ended, the doors of the audience hall burst open and Pharaoh’s overseer of the audience hall poked his head between them. He whispered to one of the giant Nubian guards. The guard, who like all of the king’s war band revealed less emotion than a votive statue, merely raised an arm and pointed at Meren.

  The overseer of the audience hall started as he caught sight of Meren, then pushed the doors open, came out, and shut them again. Rearranging his ankle-length formal linens, he cleared his throat and raised his voice so that he could speak in his accustomed boom.

  “The living god, the justified, living in truth, Golden Horus, the divine one, son of Amun, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, his majesty Nebkheprure Tutankhamun summons into his shining presence the prince, the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, Count Meren.”

  The doors, heavy with their enormous height and laden with sheet gold, creaked on their hinges as they swung open again. Meren glanced at Horemheb in alarm. Pharaoh never behaved in haste during formal audiences. Divine majesty forbade such unseemliness. A chill settled over him, for a pharaoh had summoned him suddenly once before, and he’d been cast into horror. Abu made a quick movement as if to prevent him, but Meren glared at him, and he stepped aside.

  Meren joined the overseer of the audience hall, who, despite his treasured dignity, grabbed Meren’s arm and shoved him into the hall. Meren gawked at the overseer, who pushed him away from the doors and slammed them in his face. As they shut, Meren whirled around and put his back to them, expecting scimitars and daggers.

  Chapter 12

  Meren pressed his back to the golden doors. His gaze met a sea of columns taller than the tallest trees, their electrum surfaces aglow with the light of thousands of tapers and candles in tall stands. He searched the shadows between the columns, but could see no one. At the end of the long hall, on a high dais, sat the golden throne of the king, but the living god wasn’t on it. He was sitting on the last step of the dais, talking to an ancient man in a short wig and flowing robe. The old man was on his knees, whispering in the king’s ear.

  Tutankhamun shook his head, glanced at Meren, and waved the servant away. The man vanished through a door behind the dais. Meren walked swiftly to the king and knelt, touching his forehead to the floor. He could see a golden sandal.

  “Rise,” the king said.

  Meren straightened. The king wore his formal robes. A cloth of the finest linen covered his head, fastened by the Uraeus diadem. His neck, arms, and legs were laden with gold and lapis and turquoise, but he’d laid aside on the throne the double scepters, the crook, and the flail. The high windows on one side of the audience chamber cast light on the king, and he gave off a glint like his father the sun.

  Tutankhamun sighed and rubbed his temples. He almost smeared the heavy paint on his eyes. Abruptly he stood and walked away from the throne. Meren followed him until they were standing well away from the throne and some distance from any of the columns.

  Catching Meren’s arm, Tutankhamun pulled him close and spoke quietly. “Do you think they can hear me?”

  “Who, majesty?”

  “Anyone who’s listening.”

  “No, majesty.”

  The king sighed again. He winced and rubbed his temple again. “She has betrayed me.”

  Meren felt his heart still. He stopped breathing.

  “The queen?” he asked.

  Tutankhamun nodded, studying Meren’s face.

  Meren became silent again. Ankhesenamun, daughter of the pharaoh Akhenaten, whose royal blood gave Tutankhamun one of his strongest claims to the throne. The girl had worshiped her fanatical, mad father. She’d never forgiven Tutankhamun for returning the kingdom to the old gods. Meren had never questioned Tutankhamun about her, for her relationship with her father had been close. Like her older sisters, she had been married to Akhenaten.

  When he died, it had been Tutankhamun’s duty to marry Ankhesenamun. Five years older than Tutankhamun, she had taken her elevation to Great Royal Wife as her due, yet hated her husband for what she saw as his betrayal. She had fought the restoration of the old gods, fought the return to Thebes from the upstart capital her father had built. All this she had done with a fanaticism and spite that rivaled her father’s.

  And now she had betrayed the king. She surrounded herself with zealots who had served her father in the old solar religion of the Aten. Had she betrayed the king with one of them? Or had she plotted an equally evil crime—the king’s death?

  Whatever the case, Tutankhamun had made a mistake in interrupting his audience. He was adept at intrigue, yet heartbreakingly precipitous when unnerved. His youth was the reason, and his youth endangered him.

  “Sire,” Meren said in as low a voice as possible, “how has she betrayed you?”

  The king met his gaze, and he beheld the suppressed fury of outraged majesty. “She wrote to the Hittite king. The bitch wrote to my greatest enemy and offered to marry one of his son
s if he would come and kill me.”

  “Merciful Isis.”

  Meren found his throat muscles thickening with tension. The Hittites rivaled Pharaoh in power. They nibbled away at the edges of the empire and fostered rebellion among the vassal states of Palestine and Syria. One day Egypt and the Hittites would go to war. If Ankhesenamun had succeeded, the war could have been brought upon them now, when Pharaoh was still a youth and ill-prepared to face the vicious multitudes of the Hittites.

  “What am I to do?” The king drew his ceremonial gold dagger.

  “You cannot kill her.”

  “She has committed the worst sin against me.”

  “She is the Great Royal Wife, daughter of a pharaoh. The kingdom has suffered strife and instability for too long, majesty. The execution of a queen will do great harm and shake the people’s faith in you, no matter how innocent you are, or how strong.”

  Tutankhamun sheathed his dagger. His gold wristband and bracelets clattered with the violence of his movements. He lifted a tortured face to Meren.

  “She hates me,” he said. “She hates for me to touch her—and she has endangered my people. I could forgive her for hating me, but not for the other.”

  “Nor should you, for either. What have you done?”

  “Naught.” The king waved his hand in a gesture of weariness. “I wanted to find her and kill her, but I did as you taught me and waited while I recited a prayer, then I sent for you.”

  “And Ay?”

  “She’s his granddaughter. He loves Ankhesenamun. I haven’t the courage to tell him.”

  He noticed what was not said: that the king had discovered the queen’s treason, not the vizier, not his eyes and ears. It was startling how well Tutankhamun had learned Meren’s lessons in intrigue. Then he remembered the old servant. He was called Tiglith, a Syrian slave who had attended the royal children for longer than Meren had been alive. Tiglith served in the queen’s palace.