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 just 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.
From the burial chamber he could hear scraping and chipping noises, as if someone were hard at work excavating in the next room. When the noises started, Beltis and her ally had stopped arguing. Silence fell, and Kysen strained to hear anything at all. To his surprise, the light inside the burial chamber dimmed. He waited, but heard nothing further.
He was about to investigate when more scraping noises echoed in the chamber and the light there brightened again. Next he heard a clatter and more scrapes, this time coming toward him. He bolted for the ramp, scrambled up the stairs and into the open. Racing for his boulder, he dropped behind it and peeped over the top in time to see Beltis pop out of the tomb entrance, dragging her sack as if she'd stuffed it with rocks.
Behind her came a man, his arms laden with several boxes stacked on top of each other so that his face was hidden. He set them down in the pool of light cast by the torch, but he was too tall, and the light didn't reach his shoulders and head. Kysen cursed silently at the man for not offering him a clear view. He returned his gaze to the boxes and caught a glimpse of alabaster, sheet gold, and ebony. No Egyptian could mistake the sight.
The man picked up the boxes again while Beltis went ahead, grasping the torch, and dragged her sack. Again the man stayed just outside the pool of light. They set off down the trail by which they'd arrived, heading in the direction of the village.
Kysen watched them leave. Burdened as they were, he could catch up with them. He had to examine Hormin's tomb. There shouldn't have been anything in it to be removed. A dead man's possessions weren't placed in his eternal house until the day his body was brought for burial. He returned to the entrance and again lit one of the torches Beltis had stuck in a basin of sand. Whipping back down the shaft, he entered the
burial chamber.
Undecorated, the chamber would soon hold the dead man's mummiform coffin. What caught Kysen's attention was the rectangular sarcophagus into which the coffin would be placed. Normally a scribe might expect to afford a wooden sarcophagus. Hormin had one of red granite—carved on all sides with images of the gods and inscribed with sacred texts.
Taking a moment to light three lamps, Kysen examined the sarcophagus. He ran his hand over the cool, polished surface of the granite. His fingers dipped into the grooves of the outline of a figure of a god. Shifting the lid would take the strength of at least four men. His hand skimmed over the rounded top of the lid as he walked around the container. He wondered if the objects Beltis and her companion had taken from the chamber had come from the sarcophagus. As he walked, his sandal slipped on the dusty floor. He tottered and glanced down to find he'd stepped in white grit at the base of the wall behind the sarcophagus.
Chunks and flakes of plaster lay scattered at the base of a hole in the wall. He'd found what he was looking for. He remembered that Hormin had decided to enlarge his tomb many days ago, only to abruptly change his mind again. Now he knew why; the hole, wide enough to admit a kneeling man, had been knocked into what should have been virgin rock. Instead, it cut into a cavity.
Kysen grasped one of the lamps, knelt before the hole, and eased it inside. The light touched metal and blazed. Kysen winced, squinted, and gasped. He breathed in a whiff of old ak dust, and the faint smell of wood and resin. He backed up, sat on his heels, and stared.
"Osiris protect me."
He shivered, licked his lips, and gathered his courage. Bending to prop himself on all fours, he stuck his head into the hole again and held the lamp out in front of his body. Gold shone back at him—a wall of gold. No, it was the side of a tall, gilded shrine of archaic design, one used to house coffins of royalty.
Kysen swallowed and leaned out. The hole had pierced the wall of an old tomb. The floor of the chamber lay several feet below, and Kysen levered himself inside to stand in front of the shrine. Around the chamber lay stacks of boxes that would contain food and clothing. He spotted a disassembled chariot. A bed stood nearby, its lion's-head finials grimacing at him. He saw stacks of weapons—spears, lances, bows, arrows. A man's tomb. He returned his gaze to the shrine.
The seal on the shrine had been broken and its doors stood ajar. Holding the lamp high, Kysen approached them. Within lay a sarcophagus of wood covered entirely in engraved sheet gold. Twisted and broken debris lay around its base. Its lid lay askew, exposing a nested set of coffins with the lids removed.
Kysen hovered in the threshold of the shrine and looked over the edge of the sarcophagus. He sucked in his breath as his gaze fastened on torn garlands, a blackened shroud. Beneath the torn shroud he glimpsed, inside the innermost of three coffins, an arm. A bandaged arm, torn from its crossed position over the breast, coated in solidified unguent.
His breathing had grown shallow and rapid, and as his glance flicked to the end of the arm, he backed up, for the hand had been partially torn from the wrist. He knew why. In a burial so rich, the most portable and valuable objects lay on the body itself—rings, bracelets, necklaces, amulets. Kysen shook his head, his stomach roiling at the sight of the desecrated body.
As he retreated in horror from the shrine, he felt a rush of air at his back. He turned, but not in time. Pain burst in his skull. For a moment he felt suspended in chaos. He dropped to his knees, fighting to remain conscious. His last sight was of the gold sarcophagus as he fell at its base.
Meren stood over the cowering figures on the floor of his office.
"May the gods curse your names," he said. "How far did you think to get in a skiff?"
He listened to Selket babble for a moment, then signaled to Abu to fetch a whip. Meren's patience had run out, and Imsety had yet to speak except to plead for mercy. Abu returned with a chariot whip and handed it to Meren.
Letting the lash uncurl to the floor, Meren gave it a preliminary flick. The leather snaked out, almost touching Selket. The air cracked.
Selket shrieked. "No!" She turned on her son. "This is your fault. If you hadn't been caught with that necklace—"
"But Djaper said the necklace was the answer to everything," Imsety whined.
Meren went still and snapped, "Why?"
Imsety ducked his head, stared at the ground, and said, "I don't know, lord. Because of its value? Please, I beg of you, believe me."
"Those were his very words? He said that the necklace was the answer?"
Imsety nodded and moaned.
"Be quiet."
Meren strode to his worktable, where he'd laid out the obsidian knife, the amulet, the empty
qeres
unguent jar, and the necklace.
He glanced up at his prisoners, who were still whimpering. "Take them to a cell."
Abu left with Imsety and Selket. Meren picked up the necklace and let the rows of beads trail from his fingers.
Red jasper, gold, lapis lazuli—
a
rich prize. Now that he'd found Imsety and his mother, he could take the time to have a royal jeweler examine it. The rows of beads alternated in bands of red, gold, and blue to form a collar that would fasten in the back. From the missing end pieces would hang a counterweight to balance the necklace and hold it in place.
Djaper had valued this necklace for more than the wealth it represented. He'd told Imsety it was the answer. The answer. Yet Beltis claimed that the necklace was hers.
Of course, the woman had lied about not awakening when Hormin had left her. Imsety had babbled about seeing her take leave of her master that night. No doubt Beltis also knew where Hormin was going the night he died. And she'd fled to the village of the tomb makers. Both she and Hormin had been at the village the day of his death. They'd visited his tomb.