by N. L. Holmes
Hani pushed in and said to the guard, “That will be all. Lock us in, if you must, but these men are not desperadoes.”
It was a small, ill-lit room with high, barred windows shedding the only light. Pirissi had grown a beard during his detention. Both men looked scruffy, their sleepless eyes wide with what might have been fear or hope. They smelled unwashed, and their fine woolen clothes were rumpled and dirtied as if they had been lying on the floor.
“Lord Hani!” cried Tulubri in relief, surging toward him. “Thank the gods you’ve come! They wouldn’t let Keliya in to see us.”
“I hope this means they’re going to let us out,” Pirissi said, clasping Hani’s hands in turn.
“They haven’t mistreated you, have they?” Hani drew a deep breath. How painful it would be to raise their hopes and then say, I’m, sorry. You’re guilty and have to stay. “Before we do anything, I would like to request something of you, Tulubri. Have I your permission to shave off your mustache?”
The young man raised his eyebrows in surprise, nothing in his reaction suggesting the fearfulness of the guilty. “But of course,” he said, confused. Hani perceived in the poor light that his eyes were a greenish brown—not exactly pale but not as dark as most people’s.
Hani pulled the razor from the waist of his kilt. “I hope this won’t scrape too badly. I have no soap.”
Tulubri tilted up his head with no gesture of reluctance, and Hani began to shave his lip. He took the hair off the right side first and then, dreading what he was going to find, began to shave the other side. Tulubri didn’t flinch.
He had a mole.
Hani’s heart dropped. He stared at the young man, who returned his gaze innocently. Tulubri was nervous, but anxiety would be normal, given the circumstances. He seemed to have no fear of being exposed. Perhaps he doesn’t know the witnesses have described him.
He looked up at Hani with questioning eyes. “Is that all, Lord Hani?”
Hani found breathing difficult all at once. He sat down and gestured to the two Mitannians to join him. “My friends, I must tell you this. Tulubri, you match perfectly the description given of the leader of the tomb robbers.”
Tulubri looked horrified. He stared first at Pirissi, who had gone quite pale, then at Hani. “I, my lord? But Pirissi and Keliya can vouch for my whereabouts.”
“You have a turquoise tunic, do you not?”
“I do, my lord.”
“You have light eyes, dark brown hair, and a mole on your lip—”
“A mole?” He looked at Pirissi in confusion. He put a finger to his lip. “You mean this?” he picked the dark spot off with a nail. “It’s a scab. I poked myself in the face with a stick—it sounds inane, I know—”
But Hani heard no more. Relief washed over him like a cool shower on a hot day. That same scab couldn’t have been there months before, when the tomb robberies would have been organized. Tulubri must be innocent. He can’t be the only man in Naharin with a blue-green tunic.
“Then, you don’t match the description, and we need to get you out of here as quickly as possible, before Mahu returns.”
Hani stood up and went to the door. He and the two prisoners were indeed locked in. “Guard!” he called. Sandaled footsteps came clapping up to the door, and the bar slid back with a rumble. The wiry policeman stood before him. “Are you ready to leave, my lord?”
“Yes. And these men are leaving as well. They’re unquestionably innocent.”
The policeman looked startled and reluctant. He started to say something, but Hani flashed his official papyrus at the man, pointing to a line the medjay could, no doubt, not read. The man scratched his head uncertainly.
“I’ll answer to your superiors. This order comes from Lord Aper-el.”
“Very well, my lord,” the policeman said, still not wholly convinced.
To the two Mitannians, Hani murmured in their language, “Get out of town as quickly as you can, and hole up in Mane’s house.”
They wasted no time in hustling away.
Hani turned back to the guard. “I’d like to see the prisoner Bebi-ankh now, my good man.” His heart was pounding and his stomach tight at the thought that Mahu could walk in at any minute.
The policeman led him into a courtyard surrounded by high walls, where the five incarcerated men sat or crouched along the shady side, squeezed together to stay out of the murderous sun. Hani could see from their bruised faces and tattered kilts that they had not been treated gently. Bebi-ankh had his broken leg stretched out in front of him. His broad face, which had begun to heal at Hani’s, was once more swollen and purple. Hani felt a mixture of pity and guilt. “Bebi-ankh,” he called.
The workmen all looked up, wide-eyed with fear. It’s my fault they’re here, Hani thought with a dull pang in his middle. Or at least, that’s how they will see it.
Leaning on his crutch, Bebi-ankh struggled to his feet and limped over, his eyes puffy and suspicious. “You again, my lord.”
Hani lowered his voice so the others couldn’t hear. “Why did you flee, my friend? You were safe at my house.”
“I heard... I heard men talking. It sounded like the foreigner. I was afraid you were in cahoots with him.”
“Did you recognize his voice, or was it just the accent that scared you?” Hani pressed.
Bebi-ankh shrugged. “It sounded like him is all. Maybe it was just the accent; maybe it was the voice. Spooked me good.”
Hani said, still speaking barely above a whisper, “I promised you protection, and I’ll be faithful to my word. Get out of here and hide. Send word for your family at my house later. But hide right now, understand?”
Bebi-ankh nodded, hope beginning to come alight in his swollen eyes.
Hani turned to the policeman and said more loudly, “This man is wanted for questioning in the vizier’s office. I take him into my custody.” He put on his most authoritative tone, hoping the fellow wouldn’t be too suspicious.
“Shall I shackle him for you, my lord?” the medjay asked.
“No, no,” Hani said dismissively. “He can’t run.” With all the aplomb in the world, he turned and, taking Bebi-ankh roughly by the elbow, marched him out of the station.
The two men made their limping way just far enough down the street to be out of sight, then Hani turned to the painter. “Here is some silver for the ferry. Go now.”
Still, no doubt, in a state of shock, Bebi-ankh mumbled his thanks, and he set off as fast as his splinted leg permitted.
Hani heaved a huge sigh of relief, like a man who’d just escaped death. The ebbing of his tension started to allow him to think about what he’d done. He said to himself, “You’d better hide, too, my friend. As soon as Mahu gets back, he’ll know immediately who has relieved him of his prisoners.”
⸎
When Hani reached Waset five days later, he headed for Ptah-mes’s house to report on what had happened since they last spoke. There was a heavy quiet over the estate that made a seepage of unease rise in Hani’s gut—for precisely what reason, he couldn’t say. The gateman was slow responding to his knock. Then Hani saw with a shock that he wore a white mourning scarf around his curly hair.
“Has there been a death in the household, my friend?” Hani asked in alarm.
“That there has, my lord,” the gateman said in a quivering voice. “Lady Apeny has crossed to the West.”
Hani’s stomach clenched in horror. “May the Lady of the West have mercy on her and give her safe passage to the Field of Reeds,” he cried. He sank to his knees, picked up a handful of dirt, and threw it over his head in the age-old gesture of the mortal in solidarity with the dead. “Lord Ptah-mes... how’s he taking it?” He climbed heavily to his feet.
The gateman shook his head mournfully. “Hard, my lord. Very hard.”
The relationship between Ptah-mes and his wife had been strange. He had decided to continue working for the present regime, while she, an employee of the Ipet-isut, had refused all cooperation w
hatever. But Hani appreciated that the commissioner had acted in conscience as surely as his wife. This loss had to fill Ptah-mes with guilt as well as sorrow.
“He’s in the garden, my lord. He might well be glad to see you,” said the gatekeeper.
With a heavy heart, Hani crunched over the gravel paths and made his way to the sheltered arbor where Ptah-mes was accustomed to sit. The new spring leaves were appearing on the grapevine, a sweet-smelling cloud of pale green. Beneath the vines, a figure was slumped over a small table, a ewer of wine at his elbow. At first, Hani didn’t recognize him. Then the man looked up, fixing Hani with unfocused eyes, his thin cheeks streaked with tears and melting kohl. Hani gasped. Ptah-mes’s whole face was smeared with dirt from the dust of mourning, and he wore no wig. Hani saw for the first time his balding head of short-cropped graying hair.
“Hani?” Ptah-mes said in a wavering voice. He tried to rise but fell unsteadily back into his chair.
Dear gods. He’s drunk, Hani thought in pity and a kind of scalding embarrassment. Ptah-mes was always so magnificently in control of himself, so proper and elegant. It seemed almost obscene to see him this way, in his full human vulnerability—as if Hani had come upon him naked.
Hani hurried to his superior’s side and laid a hand of comfort on his back “My lord, they told me at the gate. We’ll make offerings for her. I’m... I’m so sorry for your loss.” He could feel tears mounting to his own eyes under the onslaught of Ptah-mes’s contagious grief. “Do your children know yet? I’d be happy to notify them if that would save you some trouble...”
“They know,” the commissioner murmured, his speech slurred and weak. “They’re in the house, seeing to things.” He looked up with unfocused eyes. “But thank you.” His head dropped again to his arms. “Thank you.”
Hani’s heart was knotted with almost unbearable pain for his superior and friend. Ptah-mes was not the cold and haughty man he seemed to many, Hani knew. And he loved his wife in spite of everything that had come between them. Her contempt had driven a dagger into his soul.
“Sit down, Hani. Have a drink,” Ptah-mes mumbled, catching at Hani’s arm. “Oh, there’s only one cup...”
“It’s all right, my friend. I’ll gladly sit with you. I just wish there were something I could do for you.”
“It was the plague,” Ptah-mes said, his voice starting to harden. “She had a cold—that’s all it was—and then suddenly, she had the plague. Where did she get the plague? Did I bring it home to her from that accursed place we call the capital?” He looked up, his bloodshot black eyes burning through their tears. “Did I kill her, Hani?”
A ripple of fear made its way up Hani’s spine. Plague in Waset? “No, my lord. Of course not. Lady Sekhmet takes whom she will, and there’s nothing we can do.”
A blast of hatred darkened Ptah-mes’s desolate face. “Then it’s him. It’s his fault. The gods have turned their backs on Kemet because of his impiety. I can serve him no more.”
Ptah-mes collapsed, his face down once more on his folded arms. Hani saw his back shaking and realized he was weeping. “I loved her, Hani. I loved her. I loved her even after she stopped loving me. And I let some stupid high-minded principle come between us. We were never reconciled. She died hating me.”
Hani writhed within. He could never in a million years have imagined Ptah-mes coming unstuck like this. “She didn’t hate you, my lord. She understood your struggle, and she admired you.”
But Ptah-mes, for once without inhibitions, shook his head. “She was my cousin, four years older than I was. I worshiped her, even as a child. She was the perfect woman—beautiful, smart, well-bred. I was sixteen before I got up the nerve to ask for her hand in marriage. She bore me seven children, Hani.” He lifted his head and repeated loudly, his voice raw. “Seven children. Doesn’t anyone understand? I have seven children. If I let the king strip me of my property, what would I leave to them? I had no choice.”
“You did the right thing, my lord. Nefer-khepru-ra already had it in for you precisely because you were honest. You had no choice.” Hani felt helpless before the man’s self-contempt. He shook his superior’s shoulder with a little grip of solidarity and wished he dared do more, but Ptah-mes wasn’t a warmly demonstrative person, and even in the man’s present condition, Hani wasn’t sure what would be welcome and what would be seen as an intrusion.
“Shall I leave, my lord? Perhaps you want to grieve alone...”
Ptah-mes groped for the cup and ewer and tried unsuccessfully to pour himself more wine. Hani gently steadied his superior’s shaking hand but couldn’t keep the wine from sloshing over the front of Ptah-mes’s expensive shirt. Ptah-mes managed to get some of it down, then the cup fell from his hands with a clang as he slumped bonelessly back upon the table. The commissioner was fast sinking into a drunken stupor.
“I’ll go, my lord. Let me know if there’s anything you need. We’ll join you for the funeral, for sure. My condolences to you and your family.”
Hani left Ptah-mes sprawled over the table and headed to the street as precipitously as he could, his face burning. This is no time to bother him with work.
⸎
When Hani arrived home, Nub-nefer greeted him with happiness written in her every gesture. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could, as if his body could protect her from harm. He murmured in an intense voice that reverberated with all the sweet swelling of his heart, “I love you, my dove. Whatever happens, know that that is true.”
She drew back from him and smiled, curious. “What is it, Hani? Why this sudden passionate declaration? I had no doubt in my mind that you love me as I love you.” She caressed his face with a slim hennaed hand.
“Lady Apeny has just died, and Ptah-mes thinks she didn’t love him.”
Her smile gave way to a look of grief and horror. Apeny had been her much-appreciated superior as a chantress of Amen. “Oh no! What happened?”
“Plague,” Hani said grimly.
Nub-nefer’s eyes grew wide in horror. “Here? We must take Baket-iset to the farm, then.”
Hani remembered that his sister-in-law and her family were still living in hiding at his country estate while Nub-nefer’s brother, the renegade priest, lay low. Apeny had been one of their go-betweens. “It will be a full house, but do it, my love.”
Nub-nefer dropped her eyes. “If only we could get Neferet to safety too. Aha’s managed to get an assignment traveling around to the various estates of the Aten.” She looked up again, anger whitening the wings of her nose. “Which those thieving Aten priests have stolen from the Hidden One.”
“If it keeps our firstborn safe, I’m inclined to forgive the usurping bastards,” said Hani with a dry smile.
Hand in hand, they drifted toward the salon. “I’m devastated to hear about Lady Apeny,” Nub-nefer murmured. “I so admired her. She was a djed pillar, a pillar of strength, for all those of us who—”
“Resist?” Hani finished under his breath.
Before she could answer, Mery-ra called from the inner doorway, “Ah, Hani. There you are, son. I have some information for you. Although I don’t know how helpful it will be.” He came toddling toward Hani, his face eager.
“What is it, Father?”
“Pa-aten-em-heb has reported back about the arrow. He says it was made for the Glory of the Horizon company of cavalry.” Mery-ra raised an eyebrow. “Although that only limits the number of suspects somewhat. How many men in a company, by the face of Ra?”
“Well, better to have to examine two hundred men than an indefinite number. If only we knew who ordered the murder and why.” Hani heaved a sigh and sank into his chair. “Ptah-mes’s wife has died. He’s come completely undone. I couldn’t even tell him the latest in our investigations. Perhaps I should talk to the vizier.”
“Is it that urgent, my love?” cried Nub-nefer. “You just got back.”
Hani chuckled darkly. “Yes, well, I committed some pretty egregious sins ag
ainst the medjay in Aper-el’s name.”
“Tell! Tell!” Mery-ra pressed avidly. He lowered himself to a stool at Hani’s side.
Hani told him about the setting free of the Mitannians and the “escape” of Bebi-ankh. “Mahu will hang my hide up on his wall when he finds out. But Ammit take it, Tulubri is innocent. It wouldn’t be according to ma’at to hold him.”
Mery-ra looked uneasy. “No, it wouldn’t. But I’d be careful with Mahu.”
“From Akhet-aten, I’ll go on up to Hut-nen-nesut and arrest that Talpu-sharri. He’s the only suspect left. Then hopefully we can wrap this case up.”
“What about the murder of Djau?”
Hani stifled a curse. “I keep forgetting about the poor man. Maybe if we beard Talpu-sharri, he’ll tell us why he did it. If he did it.”
“How did he get hold of a cavalry arrow?”
Hani shot him a wry glance. “Someone would ask.” He slapped his father companionably on the back. “That’s what we have to find out.”
Nub-nefer said, “If you’re planning to go back to the capital tonight or tomorrow, Hani, my love, it won’t do you any good. Everyone will have dispersed for the harvest festivals.”
“You’re right. Everything will be closed.” To himself, Hani thought, And poor Ptah-mes will have a little time to pull himself together before he’s expected to be back on the job.
“I hope Neferet will come home.” Nub-nefer sighed. “Well, let’s go out to the pavilion and eat. Baket-iset has been waiting out there all the while.”
⸎
Hani, pleasantly stuffed after a midday meal of bread, cucumber salad, and fresh cheese, was heading to the staircase, preparing for a siesta, when he saw Bebi-ankh’s wife, with her children clinging to her skirts, tiptoeing toward the vestibule.
“Mistress!” Hani called. “Has your husband called for you?”
She whipped around, wild-eyed, then relaxed when she saw Hani. “Yes, my lord. We thank you for your kindness. He told me what you did for him.” She was halfway to prostrating herself and kissing his feet, but Hani lifted her up.