Murder in the Place of Anubis

by Lynda S. Robinson

  “Meren, dear cousin. You really shouldn’t be here.”

  It was always the same. He turned abruptly, and felt as if he were looking into the polished bronze surface of a mirror. He faced a man who looked more charioteer than priest—tall, lean, and taut about the shoulders and legs, as though he spent most of his time in the exercise yard rather than the temple. Yet this man wore a finely spun linen overrobe that crossed over his shoulders in pleats and hung to his ankles and a heavy square pectoral necklace bearing the figure of Amun in electrum and turquoise. Heavy wristbands of the same materials matched the bracelets on his ankles.

  “Greetings, Ebana.”

  His cousin leaned on one wall of the niche and gave him one of those priestly smiles from beneath a long, elaborately plaited wig. Meren had been there when Ebana began to practice priestly demeanor. He had been eleven and his cousin but a year older. A glance at Abu caused the charioteer to fade away in search of the Pure One. Meren approached Ebana, who hadn’t moved.

  When he was close enough to speak without others overhearing, he said, “I haven’t seen you at court.”

  Ebana studied Meren quietly for a few moments. “I thought our resemblance would fade with the years, but we still look as if we shared the same womb.”

  “People know our differences.”

  “By the good god Amun, are there differences?” Ebana turned his head so that Meren could see more clearly the scar that ran from his temple, across his left cheek, and down his neck.

  Meren shook his head. “I tried to warn you that night.”

  “So you say, but still Akhenaten set his minions upon me when I was in my bed, sleeping.”

  “We’ve rowed upstream like this too many times,” Meren said. He sighed and threw out his hands in supplication. “I have sworn on my ka. I’ve begged you to believe me. Why can’t you—”

  “Why can’t I believe you?” Ebana thrust himself away from the wall and stuck his face close to Meren’s. “Bloody gods, cousin. Perhaps it’s because I saw my wife and son die that night. No, too light a reason. Perhaps it’s because I spent a few endless nights having my ribs broken. No, I have it. I can’t believe you because I’m stupid. Yes, that’s it”

  Meren placed his hand on the folds of Ebana’s robe where they crossed over his chest and gently shoved him.

  Ebana allowed himself to be moved, but whispered violently as he crossed his arms and gave Meren another of his beatific smiles. “The only reason you’re still alive, dear cousin, is because you interceded for me with the young king.”

  “All I want is peace between us.”

  “I’m a Servant of the God, dear cousin,” Ebana hissed. “I am one of the few who may perform the secret Rite of the House of the Morning. I am privileged to enter the sanctuary of the god Amun. And I remember how it was while you wallowed in perverse sin in the heretic’s court—priests and their families cast out and starving, their retainers and slaves and the workmen who depended upon their patronage, all starving. Weeds grew in the forecourt of the sanctuary. Weeds! So don’t ask me for peace, Meren. You won’t get it.”

  Ebana whirled away from him and stalked down the corridor, his white robes fluttering out to reveal the kilt he wore beneath the transparent garment. Meren clamped his will down on old memories and renewed grief. He must find Abu before word spread to the High Priest that he was inside the temple walls.

  The treasury consisted of a series of long, narrow rooms flanking a central hall. Each room had only one entrance and no windows. Guards lined the hall and the columned entry foyer beyond the antechamber. Abu appeared in the foyer, ushering a priest.

  Shaven head gleaming, his steps dragging, the priest stalled beside a column. Meren watched as the priest muttered to Abu, his hands waving frantically. He shook his head until Meren feared he would make himself dizzy, then scrambled back inside the treasury.

  Abu returned to Meren and they went outside without speaking. Once submerged in the crowds of temple servants and priests, Abu gave Meren a rueful glance.

  “He saw you with Lord Ebana.”

  “And he didn’t want to be seen talking to me,” Meren said.

  “His superior, you see.”

  Meren stopped walking, and the crowd surged around them. “Your Pure One serves under Ebana?”

  “Aye, my lord, for the past three weeks.”

  Meren began to walk again. The Pure One who had received Hormin the day before he died served under Ebana.

  “And the qeres?” Meren asked.

  “Hormin delivered tax-concession documents to the Pure One at the treasury workroom behind the vaults. The Pure One says that he didn’t notice what Hormin did afterward because he was busy reviewing the documents. All he remembers is that Hormin wandered into the vaults and was thrown out by the guards before he could go three steps.”

  “He’s certain Hormin got no farther, not anywhere near the vault containing the qeres?”

  “We visited the one where the unguent is housed. None is missing, although one of the jars is half empty. They use it in the Rite of the House of the Morning when the god is fed and dressed.”

  “And my cousin is a Servant of the God, who may perform this rite.”

  Abu said nothing as they approached the chariot.

  Meren glanced back at the temple complex. The setting sun turned painted and gold-covered surfaces into yellow fire. He knew that the brightness without contrasted with the cool blackness inside the sanctuary. The temple still bore scars where Akhenaten’s soldiers and heretic priests had gouged out the names of Amun and any other god but the Aten.

  Ebana wasn’t the only priest who couldn’t forgive. The High Priest and his allies, they could be behind the queen’s latest treason. If it could be proved that she’d tried to bring the detested Hittites to the throne, the king would suffer, perhaps lose power to the priesthood of Amun.

  As they drove toward the riverbank, Meren examined the possibility that somehow Hormin had been linked to the priests and to the queen. Yet however much he disliked the coincidence of the unguent, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that so lowly an official as Hormin could be of use to either the queen or Ebana. He would have to learn more to be certain.

  By the time he returned home, he was weary. He’d spent the day searching for details, had obtained them, and yet felt no nearer a solution to this murder. He felt as if he’d dropped a faience vessel and tried to put it back together, only to discover none of the pieces fit.

  He discussed the reassignment of the queen’s servants with Abu. Then Remi insisted upon a game of hunt-the-lion, so it was dark by the time he’d sent the boy to bed and had his own evening meal. Meren summoned his body servants and tried to take his thoughts from the murder by indulging in a shower. As a woman poured water over his shoulders in the bathing chamber, he deliberately thought of the letter from his eldest daughter, Tefnut, that had cheered him. It had been waiting for him when he came home.

  She expected a child in the winter. At last. A child of his oldest child. Perhaps now Tefnut wouldn’t resent Kysen so much. He’d tried to explain to her about sons, but she’d been so young when he’d brought Kysen home. Now Bener, the middle one, she had liked Kysen at once, for he climbed palm trees with her and stole dates and pomegranates for her. And the youngest, Isis, had never felt threatened by a son, for she assumed that everyone loved her, and they usually did.

  He donned a kilt and robe and went to his office to receive a report from the men watching Imsety and his mother. One of the men on duty still hadn’t reported, although he’d been due to arrive since sunset. Annoyed at the delay, Meren sent a messenger before settling down to some serious juggling. He bolted the door to his office and rummaged in a cedar and ivory box set in a niche in the wall. He withdrew four balls of stuffed leather decorated with gold and silver gilding—his newest set.

  If he didn’t juggle, he wouldn’t be able to allow his mind to rest. The only way he was going to solve this mystery was to perm
it his thoughts to germinate like barley seeds. Trying to juggle with four balls instead of three would require the concentration of his entire heart. He’d consulted with the royal jugglers in secret, and knew he had to keep two balls juggled in only one hand. He grasped a pair in each hand.

  Sending the balls in his right hand bouncing, he tossed and caught, tossed and caught. Then he began all over again with his left. After a while he tried it with both hands at once, and dropped all of them. Then he remembered to stagger his starts as the jugglers had instructed, and began again. He’d just managed to juggle two balls in each hand without dropping them when he heard someone running outside.

  A gilded ball bounced off his nose. “Curse it.”

  He grabbed the balls and threw them into the cedar casket. As the steps neared his door, he opened it. Abu saluted carelessly and gulped in a deep breath.

  “Lord, they’re gone.”

  “Imsety and the woman?” Meren barely noticed Abu’s confirmation. Wrath snaked into his belly. “How!”

  “I’m not sure, lord, but the guards are—they’re—”

  “Say it, damn you.” Meren braced himself for what he might hear.

  “They’re sleeping.”

  He stared at Abu. “My charioteers are asleep?”

  “Some sleeping potion, lord. In beer, we think.”

  It was one of the few times in his life that he bellowed. The household burst into action at the sound. Meren strode around his office, unable to keep still in his fury. The captain of charioteers rushed in, wiping the crumbs of his evening meal from his mouth.

  Meren barked out orders for a search, directed the physician to attend the drugged men, and generally made sure his men would never take beer from a suspected murderer again. When he was finished, everyone but Abu retreated, thankful that they still possessed their skins and their heads.

  “Abu, set a watch on the river in the direction of the artisans’ village.”

  “But lord, surely even Imsety wouldn’t be foolish enough to sail by night. The sandbars, the hippos—”

  “A while ago I was sure my charioteers wouldn’t allow themselves to be put to sleep by a possible murderer.”

  “Aye, lord.”

  “If they’ve gone to the village and they find Kysen—”

  Meren lapsed into silence. He wrapped a hand around the back of his ebony chair and squeezed until it appeared as if the bones of his knuckles would push through the skin of his hand. “If they find Kysen—”

  Chapter 15

  The only confessions Kysen forced out of Thesh that afternoon were hundreds of minor transgressions involving tomb paintings, coffins, and statues for unreported customers. To his surprise, once Thesh admitted one sin, he burst forth with the others as a breached dike leaked water. Unfortunately, the scribe seemed to consider the wrath of the vizier a greater threat than Kysen had anticipated. When he threatened to reveal the villagers’ dealings if Thesh didn’t confess to the murder, the poor scribe burst into tears but remained stubbornly silent, and Kysen withdrew the threat before Thesh fainted.

  So now here he was, back at his perch on the roof of Thesh’s house, sitting up all night hugging his newfound views on the villagers in hopes of spying some illicit activity. He still suspected Thesh—and would until he proved who’d done the murder—but his view of the situation had changed after he’d overheard that conversation with Useramun.

  Laying his head on the wall top, he closed his eyes for a moment. He’d been watching since the village had quieted for the night. No one stirred, and he was weary of looking at blank walls and listening to the screeches of the village cats. He heard a creak and lifted his head. Below, someone left the shelter of a doorway and glided around a house, Useramun’s house, to the side stairs. That walk, that rolling glide. It was the painter.

  Useramun crept upstairs to the roof and walked to the back of the house, which rested against the village wall. Kysen strained to see what the man was doing, but moonlight only aided his vision so far. Then he saw movement.

  Useramun vanished over the wall. Kysen burst into quiet flight. In moments he was on Useramun’s roof, creeping toward the wall. He reached it, cautiously peered over, and found a ladder. Beyond the foot of the ladder Useramun stumbled in the darkness after a distantly retreating light—a torch. Kysen waited for a count of twenty, then scrambled down the ladder after the painter.

  Keeping the painter in sight and yet following at enough distance not to be heard when he stumbled over rocks proved difficult and painful. He heard Useramun grunt as he stepped on a jagged stone. Dropping behind a boulder, Kysen waited for his quarry to adjust his sandal. Then he crept after him once more. The torch climbed the hills that surrounded the village and descended again, following the northern path to the nobles’ cemetery.

  Kysen hated every step. Spirits roamed the western desert at night. Everyone knew that. So Useramun must have a powerful reason to venture forth, as did whoever he was following. Kysen’s foot slipped on the loose rock at the base of a cliff. Pebbles clattered, but Useramun didn’t turn. Kysen waited anyway, and as he waited a breeze whipped around the cliff, moaning and whining.

  The sound filled the void of night and made Kysen shudder. Angry souls roamed the deserts—starving fiends, ancestors of those whose families had ceased to provide sustenance for them in the afterlife. Kysen gripped the dagger at his belt, knowing that it would do him no good should a spirit attack.

  Best keep his mind on his quest. Useramun had rounded the base of a hill. Kysen staggered after him. As he skirted the slope, he expected to see the vague outline of the painter’s kilt, but didn’t. Cursing, he sped along a strip of flat land that turned into a track. It climbed another hill. Near the summit, Kysen dropped on his belly and crawled so that he could look over the side without revealing himself. No Useramun. Over the next hill he spied the bobbing torchlight, headed for a small cliff.

  Useramun must still be following it. Kysen hurried down the hill after the light. On the floor of the valley he began to encounter rubble cast into hillocks and mounds. They were at the edge of the ruins of a temple from centuries ago in the time of the Pharaoh Sesostris. He walked more quickly now, for he couldn’t see the light in the next valley, or Useramun. He walked past a broken limestone block, then slowed and turned back, drawing his dagger.

  Resting against the base of the block was something white. Kysen sheathed his dagger and dropped to his knees beside Useramun. The painter lay still, his head lolling to the side, his legs splayed. Kysen could see something dark and wet on his head. He sniffed the coppery bitter smell of blood and leaned close. There was a gash in the back of the painter’s head. Nearby lay a rock spattered with more blood.

  Cursing, Kysen shifted the painter’s body until it was supine, then bent over it to feel for the beat of life at his neck. Useramun groaned and opened his eyes. His arms came up, and he thrashed wildly at Kysen, who raised his own arm in defense.

  “Damn you, be still.”

  “Seth?”

  “Can you walk?”

  “Don’t know. They thought I was dead.”

  Kysen rose and dragged the painter upright. Useramun protested with a whimper, but remained standing.

  “You listen to me,” Kysen said as he steadied the painter. “Find a place to hide. I’m going on, but I’ll be back to help you.”

  “You know? Be careful. They’re not far ahead, at Hormin’s tomb.”

  “Gods, you’re a fool to come after them alone.”

  “And you?”

  “Shut your mouth and hide, painter.”

  Useramun’s teeth flashed in the moonlight. He grimaced as he started toward a V-shaped indentation in the hillside caused by an ancient flood, but swayed and would have fallen if Kysen hadn’t caught him. Kysen thrust his shoulder under the painter’s arm and walked him toward the shelter. Useramun clung to him, and Kysen swore again.

  “If you weren’t bleeding all over me, I’d think you’d done this ju
st to get me to touch you.”

  Useramun laughed and then gasped. Kysen lowered him to the ground so that he nestled in the arms of the V. Tearing the painter’s kilt, he pressed the scrap of linen to the wound.

  “Hold that and stay still.”

  He left Useramun cradling his head and pleading not to be left behind. He risked running to make up time, but needn’t have worried. The torch was still in sight. It had nearly reached the small cliff, and had stopped by the time Kysen slipped behind a fallen boulder a few yards away from the sheer face of limestone.

  A tomb entrance had been cut into the cliff, a rectangular opening roughly knocked out and ready to be smoothed by stoneworkers. The torch had been stuffed into a pile of rubble near the entrance, and beside it, her shift rippling in the desert wind, stood Beltis. As he watched, the concubine bent and picked up a sack at her feet before entering the tomb shaft. Vague light flickered from the entrance, indicating that lamps had been lit inside.

  Priding himself on his insight, Kysen slithered out from behind his rock and over to the entrance. Rough steps had been hacked into the side of the cliff. He slipped inside. Putting his back to a wall, he edged down a few steps, then stopped as he heard Beltis.

  “It was madness to light our way with that torch.”

  A man answered her in a slightly hysterical voice distorted by the echo off the tomb walls.

  “I tell you I’m not chancing an encounter with demons,” the man said. “Not again. Not after what I’ve done. I’ve suffered enough.”

  The voices retreated, still squabbling. Kysen eased down the stairs, past a supply of torches left by the tomb’s excavators, until they graded into a steeply sloping downward walk. He stopped in a shadow when the shaft widened into an antechamber, a rectangular room that connected with the burial chamber through a recently cut entrance. Debris from the cut still lay in hastily made piles on either side of the opening.