The Assassins of Isis (24 page)

Read The Assassins of Isis Online

Authors: P. C. Doherty

‘Where's your captain?' Nadif snarled.
‘Don't you talk to me like that.'
Nadif slapped him across the face. ‘I'm a standard-bearer in the Medjay; fetch me your officer.'
The guard hurried away and Nadif followed, walking down the garden path. On any other occasion he would have stopped to admire the well-dug flowerbeds, the coloured garden pavilion and the pool of purity. He paused as the guard returned, his officer running behind trying to make himself look presentable.
‘What's this?' The officer was young and tried to bluster.
Nadif gestured at the wall. ‘One of your men is dead.'
‘What!' The officer would have hurried away, but Nadif grasped him by the arm.
‘How many guards do you have in the house?'
‘Two, one in the entranceway, one in the hall of audience.'
Nadif pushed him along the path around to the front of the house, up the steps and through the porticoed entrance. The door of terebinth wood was off the latch. Nadif shoved it open with a crash. The guard sleeping on a cushioned bench where visitors would wait jumped to his feet.
‘What's wrong, sir?'
Nadif waved him away. The hall of audience lay silent; the dining area on the dais at the far end was deserted, its gauze curtains drawn back. Nadif noticed with distaste the empty wine jug resting against the plinth bearing a statue of Montu, the god of war. The guard there was also half awake, stripped to his loincloth and so much the worse for ale he could only mutter that there was nothing wrong.
Nadif ran deeper into the house. He reached the general's quarters, but a heavy-eyed maid said that her mistress, Lady Lupherna, was still asleep. Nadif withdrew.
‘Where was Heby held?' he demanded.
They hurried out of the general's quarters, down a narrow corridor with chambers on either side.
‘Shouldn't there be a guard here?' Nadif demanded.
‘He was only placed under house arrest,' the officer protested. ‘To leave he would have to—'
Nadif ignored him and threw open the door. The chamber was empty, but he noticed robes had been taken off the clothes pegs and the lids of coffers and caskets were pulled up.
‘He could be in another room,' the officer stuttered.
‘He better be,' Nadif retorted.
They searched the other chambers. As they reached the
far one, Nadif heard a groan. The chamber was hot and rather stuffy; the windows had been completely shuttered, the drapes pulled across as if a sandstorm was expected. As he stood in the doorway, letting his eyes become accustomed to the gloom, he made out dark shapes. One seemed to move. The officer had found a lamp and brought it back in. Nadif snatched it from his hand and lifted it. He glimpsed staring eyes and a balding head, a gag across the mouth, and realised it was Chief Scribe Menna. He thrust the lamp back into the officer's hand and hurried across to open the windows. As the light flooded in, the captain was already squatting on a stool, staring in disbelief at poor Menna. He had been securely lashed to a chair, a tight gag around his mouth. Nadif cut this away.
‘It was Heby,' Menna gasped. ‘He came here just after dawn.'
Nadif sliced the ropes. He noticed how well and securely the knots had been tied. Menna got to his feet. Like an old man on the verge of tears he hobbled across to his bed and sat on the edge rubbing his arms and legs.
‘You stupid ox!' Menna shouted at the officer, tears brimming in his eyes. ‘Your men were half asleep.'
‘We were told to guard the house,' the officer retorted. ‘Not every chamber. You know that. He was allowed to wander around.'
‘What happened?' Nadif demanded.
‘Heby came in here not long ago, just after dawn. He wanted to see me, he was all agitated. He said he was finished. He wouldn't be given a fair trial but would end his life on a stake. I tried to reason with him.'
Menna turned his fat head and pointed to a bruise on his right temple. ‘Heby said he would flee, he would try his luck elsewhere. I tried to reason with him but he wouldn't listen. He struck me here and I fell against the floor. I was dazed. Heby pulled me up, a dagger to my throat. He tied my hands and ankles with two leather belts. He acted like
a man crazed with the sun, chattering to himself. He left my chamber and came back with a rope.' Menna pointed to the belts lying at the foot of the statue of the household god Bes. ‘He took those off, bound me with the rope and raided my treasure casket.' The Chief Scribe put his face in his hands. ‘Then he fled. Perhaps he did kill General Suten.' He lifted a tear-streaked face. ‘I don't know and I don't care.'
Nadif walked carefully around the room. He could see signs of disturbance and noticed how the small ebony-lined caskets and coffers had been thrown open and emptied.
‘What has happened?' Menna asked.
Nadif was about to reply when he heard voices in the corridor, and Lady Lupherna, hair billowing down like a black cloud, clothed in a night shift, an embroidered shawl around her shoulders, hurried into the chamber.
‘Heby!' she whispered. ‘One of the guards told me! Chief Scribe Menna, are you well?'
Menna waved her away. She sat down in a high-backed chair, stared at the cut ropes, the open caskets, and turned heavy-eyed to Nadif.
‘He did do it, didn't he? He murdered my husband, and now he's fled. We were working so hard to prove it was a lie.'
‘My lady.' Nadif smiled at her. ‘Did you hear anything untoward?'
‘Ask my maids.' Her fingers fluttered. ‘I couldn't rest. I mixed a sleeping draught in my wine. I slept until I was woken; my maid said you had tried to enter our quarters.'
Nadif apologised and explained what had happened, how he had found Heby's necklace, the blood-stained dagger and the guard with his throat cut. Menna took up the tale and pointed accusingly at the captain of the guard.
‘Your men could have been more vigilant. Well?' he shouted. ‘Shouldn't you be pursuing Heby? You, sir,' he pointed to Nadif, ‘I thank you for your vigilance. I would be grateful if you went down and informed the Lord Valu;
proclamations have to be issued.' He put his fingers to his face. ‘Such woes,' he moaned. ‘Such troubles.'
The officer of the guard was only too pleased to leave.
‘I can't go immediately sir,' Nadif explained. ‘I must question your servants and yourselves. Lady Lupherna, did you see anything suspicious?'
‘I've told you,' she retorted. ‘Ask my maid.'
‘Chief Scribe Menna?'
‘Ask the servants.' Menna waved his hand. ‘They will tell you that yesterday, morning evening and night, I stayed here.' He pointed to the writing table strewn with papyri and blunted styli. ‘I was trying to defend Heby, I wanted to question that snake man. I thought he was telling a lie.' Nadif nodded understandingly. ‘I slept for a while and rose just before dawn. Heby came in, the rest you know.'
Nadif thanked them and went back into the hall of audience, where he asked the steward to assemble the servants: the maids, the kitchen boys, even the gardeners. They all told the same story: how Lady Lupherna and Chief Scribe Menna had kept to the house. No one had seen Heby go. Nadif thanked them. He walked out and sat on the steps and recalled what he had been thinking earlier and the argument he had had with his wife. He closed his eyes. That young guard, his flesh so cold, lying in the undergrowth! Nadif reflected carefully. He was tired, he would have to go away and think very prudently before drawing up his report.
AMAM: ancient Egyptian, ‘the eater of the dead'
Amerotke decided to leave the Temple of Isis. He and Shufoy returned to the guest house to pack their few belongings. Their guards gathered, quite delighted to be assigned this light duty of trailing the solemn-faced judge across fragrant temple gardens, or lounging in the cool orchards around Amerotke's house. The judge thought they were too relaxed, so he decided to keep them busy and sent them to search for Paser, as well as offer his farewells to Lord Impuki. Paser came hurrying across to the guest house. He still seemed anxious and wary-eyed, clearly relieved that this inquisitive judge was leaving.
‘I meant to tell you,' Paser declared hastily, ‘that although General Suten came to consult our manuscripts, he was thinking of leaving his family archives to our House of Life. I thought,' he glanced away, ‘perhaps, you might find such records more interesting than ours.' He bowed, then strode out of the chamber and down the stairs.
Amerotke collected their belongings and put them in a leather sack. Shufoy was chattering like a monkey, so his master, more to distract him than anything else, told him to go to the House of Twilight.
‘What do you want there?' Shufoy gripped his parasol as if it was a staff, standing on one leg as he had seen a holy
travelling man
do outside the Temple of Min. The fellow had
managed to stay like that for three days without moving. Shufoy often wondered whether he could pass himself off as a holy man; after all, he did serve in the Temple of Ma'at.
‘That old man Imer,' Amerotke paused, ‘the one I met last time I was there, they said he was close to death. I would like to know.'
Shufoy hopped to the door. Amerotke heard him laughing with the guards outside. He picked up his cloak and the sack and went down and made himself comfortable in the shade of an acacia tree. A short while later Shufoy, his scarred face lugubrious, came striding back with all the sombre majesty of a chief mourner.
‘Master,' he intoned, ‘Imer has died, shortly after you visited him. He has gone into the Far West. He now rests in the cool green fields of Osiris.'
‘Ah, well.' Amerotke rose to his feet and walked across the lawns to the precincts near the great temple. He went down the steps, across another courtyard and down into the wabet, which he had visited when he had first come to view the corpses of Mafdet and Sese. He skirted the priests and acolytes, busy over their funeral rites, walking quickly round the death slabs with the corpses sprawled there, and across to the scribe at the far door who kept the tally of the dead.
The scribe lifted his head. ‘My lord?'
‘Do you have the body of Imer? He died a short while ago in the House of Twilight. I would like to pay my respects and hire a chapel priest to sing some prayers and hymns for him.'
The scribe lifted a hand and methodically went back through his records. Then he looked up and shook his head. ‘I'm sorry, my lord, there is no entry. You must be mistaken, perhaps you were given the wrong name?'
Amerotke was about to protest when he recalled the Lady Nethba. He thanked the scribe and went outside to where his guard was waiting. He sat on a bench and tried
to resolve the problem. Shufoy, fascinated by the funeral priests, their faces covered by hawk and jackal masks, drifted back towards the wabet. He stood in the doorway oblivious to the pungent odours of perfume and natron, studying the various inscriptions carved into the lintel of the door, particularly the one about snakes, which he read out to entertain the guards.
‘Go back, dusk crawler, go back into the dark.'
‘Shufoy!' The little man groaned and went back to his master. ‘Shufoy … no, never mind.'
Instead Amerotke beckoned over one of the guards and whispered an order to him; the man pulled a face but nodded and went into the wabet. He returned a short while later shaking his head.
‘I'm sorry, my lord.' He spread his hands. ‘There was no record of her.'
Shufoy was now fascinated at what was going on. Amerotke waved away the guard.
‘I can't believe it!' the Judge whispered. ‘The lady Nethba talked of Kliya, an old washerwoman who came to the Temple of Isis to die. Lady Nethba later made enquiries about her only to be told they had no record. Now …'
‘Is that why Lady Nethba was upset about her own father?' Shufoy asked.
‘Precisely,' Amerotke agreed. ‘She became all anxious. So what do we have here, eh, Shufoy? Two old people who come to the Temple of Isis, one of whom I met, I saw with my own eyes, yet now they have no record of them. I wonder if they were buried?'
‘My lord judge!'
Amerotke glanced up. A white-garbed temple acolyte, dressed in a sheath-like linen robe, stood on the edge of the lawn. Behind him, some distance away, was a woman, apparently in mourning by the dirty, dishevelled robes she wore and the dust covering her head and face.
‘My lord?' The acolyte waggled his finger fastidiously
towards the woman. ‘This, er, this lady presented herself into the Chapel of the Ear. She has come to see you. She says the chief steward of your house told her you were here. She claims to have information for you.'
Amerotke waved the woman over. The temple acolyte almost jumped aside, as if she was infected with the plague. She was quite young and kept her head down. Amerotke could glimpse the blood-scarred cheeks where she had scratched herself with her nails; her skin was now the colour of dust. At first he suspected some form of attack and his hand went to his dagger while he beckoned a guard over. The woman, however, fell to her knees and began to keen, rocking backwards and forwards.
‘What is it?' Amerotke asked, crouching down and tipping her gently under the chin. The woman glanced up. Amerotke narrowed his eyes. ‘I've met you before, you are Djed's wife?'
The woman nodded. ‘I came to thank you,' she whispered hoarsely. ‘I thought, because of what my husband had done, I would be punished, but you are compassionate. You returned his corpse, and no punishment has been inflicted upon me or mine.'
Amerotke tried not to flinch at the smell of her unwashed body.
‘I will observe the period of mourning,' she continued, ‘that his Ka finds some peace in the Underworld. Perhaps if I pray, fast and make offerings to the priests …' Her voice trailed away.
‘What is it that you've come to tell me?'
‘I came to thank you for your kindness, and to help. I never knew what my husband did, who he met or where he went, or who provided such wealth. Only once did I become curious. A visitor came late at night, his face all masked. I saw him come to the side gate; my husband was busy with his beehives and he'd lit lamps. I was curious, so I stole across. I heard only one phrase,
the Temple of Khnum.'
‘The Temple of Khnum?' Amerotke asked. ‘But that lies at the centre of Thebes. What would your husband …'
‘No, no.' The woman shook her head. ‘I don't think they meant
that
temple, but the other one; its ruins lie to the north of Thebes, an old temple.'
‘Ah yes, I remember.' Amerotke nodded. ‘Abandoned because the Nile broke its banks. It stands on an island or a large sandbank.'
‘That's the one,' the woman nodded. She got to her feet and backed away. ‘I thought you should know.'
She shuffled back to where the acolyte was waiting. Amerotke grasped his leather bag.
‘Where to, Master?' Shufoy asked.
‘To the river.'
They left the temple precincts through the soaring pylons, past the huge stelae proclaiming the Great Deeds of the Divine Mother, or boasting about the exploits of previous Pharaohs, and crossed the square of obelisks, soaring pillars of gleaming red sandstone, capped in gold, silver, bronze or electrum, so as to dazzle in the blazing sun. The heat was like the blast from a fiery oven, the sun a tormenting demon above them. Shufoy offered to open the parasol, but Amerotke said he was in too much of a hurry and lifted his linen shawl above his shoulders to cover his head. He was fascinated by the problem which vexed him; perhaps there was no path through this maze of puzzles.
Shufoy was about to act as herald, to shout at the crowds that the lord Amerotke was approaching, only to realise that his master wished to draw as little attention to himself as possible, so he merely grasped Amerotke's hand as the judge strode across the square. The dwarf almost had to run to keep up. Amerotke often fell into these trance-like moods, apparently oblivious to the crowds milling about and the various scenes in the streets and squares. The smell of incense as priests, clapping their
hands, shuffled towards some shrine; the mercenaries from a dozen different nations, gathered eagerly round a group of sinuous Syrian dancers who swayed provocatively to raucous music. Only on one occasion did Amerotke stop. A snake charmer was performing his tricks under the spreading shade of a palm tree. He hurled what looked like a stick to the ground but it abruptly moved, head up, throat swollen: a hooded cobra, deadly and menacing.
‘How do they do that?' Amerotke asked.
‘Very easily,' Shufoy answered, gasping for breath. ‘There's a point on the back of the snake's head. If you press it firmly you paralyse it; throw it to the ground and it breaks free from the spell.'
Amerotke shook his head in disbelief.
‘I've tried that trick myself,' Shufoy declared.
‘And?'
‘It only half worked so I gave up all hope of becoming a snake charmer!'
Amerotke continued on his way until they reached the bustling quayside. The place teemed with people from many nations: merchants from the Great Green; blond-haired mercenaries from the islands to the north of the Great Sea; Nubians, black as night; dour-faced traders from the land of incense; Phoenicians, Syrians, Canaanites, even Hittites with their strange parrot-like faces, hair piled high on their heads and trailing down the back like a horse's mane. A dozen tongues babbled and everything was for sale: ivory from the jungles in the south, precious stones from the mines, creatures and birds of every kind. Sharp-eyed pimps touted for trade amongst the sailors, the women they offered trailing behind, resplendent in their gaudy finery, bangles jingling. Some of them were almost naked, others cloaked mysteriously. Barbers and pedlars shouted for trade and boatmen jumped up and down offering ‘the safest boat on the Nile.'
Amerotke hired a small barge with a look-out in the prow, a steersman at the stern and six burly oarsmen.
‘Where to, Your Excellency?' The captain, naked except for a loincloth, was delighted with Amerotke's deben of silver.
‘Upriver to the ruins of Khnum, then across to the Necropolis.'
The smile faded from the captain's face.
‘What's the matter, man?' The judge pinched his nostrils. The smell of dried fish was overwhelming; the captain must hire the boat out to those who fished at night along the river.
‘Here, Your Excellency.' The captain pushed a sponge soaked in perfume into Amerotke's hand. ‘Why do you want to go to Khnum? Nothing there except ruins.' He pulled a face. ‘And crocodiles. I mean, it's …'
Amerotke's escort walked closer, fingers going to the swords hanging in their leather sheaths.
‘If His Supreme Excellency wishes to visit Khnum …' The captain bowed and sighed. ‘Then Khnum it is.'
The captain waved Amerotke to a seat in the middle of the barge where he could sit under the ragged awning, some protection against the sun. He also served, in carved beakers, surprisingly delicious ale. The order was given to cast off, and the barge left the busy quayside, threading its way deftly through the various punts and skiffs which congregated as thickly as water beetles. The smells of the city gave way to the marshy, fishy aroma of the river, but there was a breeze to cool their sweat. Amerotke closed his eyes, listening to the rhythmic chant of the rowers as they bent over their oars.
‘I knew a girl soft and sweet …'

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