As he finished, Abu entered and stepped aside to allow the concubine Beltis to come in. A guard behind the woman shoved her into the room and shut the door while Abu took up a scribe's kit from a shelf and squatted on the floor so that his kilt stretched tightly across his lap. Placing a piece of papyrus on this surface, he inked his reed pen and waited.
Beltis hadn't noticed Abu. She was glancing from Meren to his son and back again, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Meren let the silence stretch out. This woman had almost killed Kysen, and he was having a difficult time restraining the desire to strangle her and cast her into the desert for the vultures and hyenas to devour her flesh.
He noted with satisfaction that her upper lip was sweaty. She toyed with a bracelet at her wrist with quick, jerky movements. At last she burst out in speech.
"Woser forced me to come with him!"
Meren only lifted one brow and continued to stare at her.
"He planned it all," she rushed on, "days ago, he planned it all. Hormin wanted another room in his house of eternity, and when the laborer began cutting the back wall to test the strength of the rock, he knocked through the side of another tomb. But I knew nothing of this until Hormin told me, the day before he died."
Kysen glanced at Meren. "That, at least, is probably true."
Meren tapped his fingers on the worktable, ignored Beltis, and mused, "I seem to remember that a laborer fell to his death in the Great Place recently."
Beltis skewed her gaze away from him, but he waited.
After another few moments, Beltis's endurance broke again. "Hormin told me he made Woser kill him. He didn't trust the laborer, and anyway he didn't want to—"
"Share?" Kysen asked.
"Yes." Beltis cast a sideways glance through eyes that had almost closed. "But I knew how great a sin he'd committed. I knew it was wrong, and all along I urged my master to relent and seal the old tomb. But he wouldn't listen to me. I prayed day and night to the gods, but he wouldn't listen. Woser was to take jewels and other valuable things from the tomb and bring them to Hormin at the Place of Anubis."
"He went, but never came back with the jewels," Kysen said. "You must have been furious to find him dead and the riches gone."
"But I didn't kill him," Beltis said, her face lighting up with triumph. "You know who did. I'm innocent."
Meren laughed and shoved himself away from the worktable. He walked around Beltis, inspecting her dirty shift and dusty hair. She pursed her lips. He knew she wanted to spit at him and dared not.
"Innocent of Hormin's death, perhaps."
"I don't understand," she said.
"I see you've forgotten that Bakwerner and Djaper are also dead."
"Also killed by Woser in his mad efforts to conceal his guilt," Beltis said smoothly.
Meren glanced at Kysen, who leaned back in his chair and smiled at Beltis. The woman stirred uneasily at this sign of contentment.
"Father, do you know how active our Beltis has been at the village?"
"No," Meren said. "Do tell me."
"Our Beltis is a locust. She hops from man to man. And she wanted me to see her do it. She flaunted her relations with Useramun the painter and with Thesh and Woser. And then she came to me."
Meren lowered his lashes so that he didn't reveal his anger to the concubine. The thought of that woman interfering with Kysen fed his wrath and disgust with her.
"Possibly," Kysen went on, "possibly she thought I would wilt like a plucked lotus once she'd bedded me. A stupid presumption, but then her experience is limited."
"It is not!"
"For after she'd gone and I overheard Useramun and Thesh, I began to think about all of us—all of us favored by the concubine." Kysen listed the names on his fingers. "Hormin she used for what he could provide. But the others, Useramun and Thesh, they are men of appeal, each in his own way. When she went to the tomb-makers' village, she could enjoy herself with men of much greater beauty than her master. Even I am more pleasing than Hormin."
Beltis gave them a complacent smile, which vanished at Kysen's next words.
"But not Woser."
Meren laughed as he perceived Kysen's reasoning. "Not Woser indeed. Skinny, beak-nosed, lacking in wealth."
"Yes," Kysen said. "If you were to stand us in a line, we who have been favored, Woser alone does not belong. I knew Beltis tolerated Hormin because of his possessions rather than his appearance. She favored Useramun and Thesh for their beauty, for they offered her no wealth. Woser certainly wasn't going to change his looks." Here Kysen paused to watch Beltis wipe perspiration from her chin. "But perhaps he offered something else."
"Your head
is
broken," Beltis said with a sniff. "These are fancies of sickness."
"After I realized how solicitous you'd been to a man you ordinarily wouldn't allow near your rubbish heap, I decided to watch you more closely. But you slipped out of the village last night without me seeing you. Perhaps with the aid of a ladder as did Useramun. But I did see the painter, who suspected you of killing Hormin. He followed you. I followed him."
"I told you," Beltis said, her voice rising. "He forced me to come with him."
"You forget," Kysen said. "I saw you, and more importantly, I heard you. You were the one giving the orders. Looting that tomb was your idea. And in any case, I'm sure he told you about the tomb when he gave you the broad collar."
Beltis shook her head. Kysen stood up and faced her.
"Hormin had promised you more riches, and you weren't going to let a small detail like his death separate you from them. Woser feared demons more than scorpions or the plague. But you didn't, and you browbeat him and cajoled him and threatened him until he consented to help you steal from that tomb."
"I didn't."
Meren joined Kysen in standing over Beltis.
"Odd," he said. "Kysen, didn't you tell me that Woser said as much while he was in the tomb with you?"
Kysen nodded, then winced as the movement pained him.
Meren folded his arms over his chest and mused. "Didn't you tell me that she threatened to reveal that Woser killed Hormin?"
"Yes, Father."
"Which made Woser feel most ill-used, considering that he hadn't meant to kill Hormin in the first place."
"Lies!"
Kysen sneered at the woman. "Woser was too frightened to lie. Every moment in that tomb was agony to a man as terrified of spirits and demons as Woser."
Meren began to stalk Beltis, sensing her fear and slipping control. She backed away from him, protesting her innocence.
"Woser was puke-scared. So puke-scared that he couldn't leave his bed the last few days—especially after his fight with Hormin at the Place of Anubis. Which means he couldn't have gone to Hormin's house and killed Bakwerner or Djaper. He didn't even know that those two were a threat. That leaves you, Beltis. You knew Bakwerner made a scene and said that he knew things. He wasn't speaking of the old tomb, but you panicked and killed him in case he'd discovered something."
Beltis backpedaled as Meren came at her, shaking her head.
"Woser was sick," Meren said as he moved toward the concubine. "He didn't know that Djaper had discerned the significance of that broad collar. Djaper found out, didn't he? Clever, clever Djaper reasoned it out. He knew the collar was made incomplete on purpose for inclusion in a burial."
Beltis backed into a shelf on the wall and edged away from Meren.
"He wanted a share, didn't he?" Meren asked. "He told you he knew about the necklace, and that he wanted a share. Did he want too much? Or couldn't you stomach sharing at all once you realized Hormin was gone?"
Meren said this last as he backed Beltis into a corner.
She yelped. "No!"
Kysen sighed and carefully reseated himself in Meren's chair. "I grow weary and bored, Father. Let us stick hot brands on her face until she bleats out the truth."
Both he and Meren covered their ears at the shriek that issued from Beltis's red lips. In a heart's beat Abu was recording the true tale of the death of Hormin the scribe.
That evening Meren left the barracks where Beltis was imprisoned, weary and yet relieved. He had most of the truth now, and the woman had confirmed his suspicion that neither she nor any of the others were in the service of the queen. He went to Kysen's room, where he found his son saying good-night to Remi.
Kysen lay on his bed, to which he'd been sent once Beltis had broken, with Remi sitting beside him. The child made roaring noises as he marched a wooden hippopotamus up Kysen's stomach and pulled the string that moved the creature's mouth open and closed. Meren saw Kysen wince as Remi shrieked, and scooped the child up in his arms along with the toy.
"Time for bed."
"Aaaaarrrrrrgh."
Remi poked Meren's nose with the hippo. Mutemwia appeared with a tray of wine and bread, set it down, and took Remi.
"Bid your father and the lord good-night," she said to Remi.
The child jumped from Mutemwia's arms, wobbled, then executed a precarious bow.
"Peaceful sleep to you."
Meren tried not to smile as Kysen accepted this courtly behavior with solemnity. He inclined his head at the boy.
"A fine bow, Remi."
The boy grinned, then roared again and toddled out of the room.
Meren dragged a stool to the bed and sat beside Kysen. He poured wine for himself, but Kysen refused, saying that the physician forbade him to drink anything but water for two more days. His bed, like Meren's, sat within a shelter made of a delicate gilt wood frame set upon a dais. He lay back on the cushions and stared at the filmy hangings that billowed out from the frame in the evening breeze coming through the doors, which lay open to the veranda and the garden beyond.
"Have you gotten the truth from her?" he asked Meren.
"Most of it, I think."
"Then tell me, how did poor, terrified Woser ever manage to kill Hormin?"
Meren sighed and sloshed his wine around in its bronze goblet. "Only Woser and that laborer were in the tomb when Hormin insisted upon testing the rock for another chamber. When they broke into that tomb, Woser wanted to seal it back up at once, but Hormin persuaded him that they could use magic to protect themselves while they looted it. They began on the body, tearing away the amulets and spells that protected the owner from harm."
"Woser lived in fear of spirits and demons," Kysen said. "He seemed to think they reserved their most horrible punishments for him alone."
"Yes, and even though they tried to destroy the dead man's ability to avenge himself, Woser remained terrified of his wrath. Hormin, with his usual lack of pity and love of tormenting those weaker than himself, taunted Woser with his fears. He would tease him that the dead prince was going to leave the tomb and come after Woser. Beltis heard him do this more than once the day he took her to see his tomb and his secret hoard."
Kysen rolled his eyes. "A stupid thing to do since he needed Woser to help him hide the valuables when they removed them. They were going to put them in Woser's family tomb, weren't they?"
Meren nodded as he tore a piece of bread from a loaf and bit into it. Swallowing, he continued. "The day he died, Hormin and Beltis fought as she said. He made the mistake of giving her that broad collar and thinking she'd be satisfied with it. But she wasn't, and they quarreled. As was her custom, she fled to the tomb-makers' village. When he came for her, she threatened to leave him. To keep her, he allowed her to see the old tomb and its treasure. She stayed, of course. But Woser was growing more and more terrified. So terrified that he became ill.
"Anyway, to keep Beltis satisfied, Hormin decided to give her a few more of the dead prince's baubles. Then he told Woser to meet him secretly that night at the Place of Anubis and bring the unguent, which Beltis had admired, and some gold rings that were on the prince's fingers."
"We found no gold rings at the Place of Anubis."
"Because Woser couldn't bring himself to touch the body again. Each time he went to the tomb, he suffered torments, fearing that the dead man would cast him into the underworld at any moment. He was certain that the Devourer would eat his soul. So he took only the unguent. Beltis got the truth from him when she returned to the village after Hormin's death. When Woser arrived at the embalming shed, Hormin was furious that he hadn't brought the rings. With his usual lack of judgment, he told Woser he was a coward and an ass."
"Hardly cause to stick a knife in a man."
"But Hormin went further," Meren said as he stared into his wine. "He knew that Woser feared the protective spells and curses on the dead prince's amulets and the coffin and the tomb walls."
Meren set down his goblet, pulled a folded piece of papyrus from his belt, and handed it to Kysen. "To protect himself and distract the wrath of the gods and the dead man, he left that in the coffin. It's a letter to the prince. In it he names Woser as its desecrator."
Kysen opened the letter and read. When he finished, he dropped it and whistled. "By all the gods, what an infernal bastard Hormin was."
"Aye. There's nothing more dangerous than a frightened and cornered animal. I don't understand why Hormin didn't realize what a risk he took. That night at the Place of Anubis, the fool told Woser about the letter—there in the place of the dead. Poor Woser went mad with fear and finally killed his tormentor."
Kysen shook his head in disbelief. "And all along, Beltis has been trying to preserve the secret of the prince's tomb. That's why she killed Bakwerner when he blundered into Hormin's house that day saying he knew things."
"She slipped out of the house while Bakwerner was fighting with the family and my men were distracted. She followed him to the office of records and tithes and killed him. Probably all Bakwerner really saw was the brothers watching Hormin depart for the Place of Anubis. His real aim must have been to get rid of the talented Djaper."