The Crocodile Makes No Sound

by N. L. Holmes

  Kha-em-sekhem mumbled a thank-you and then said in a faint voice, “Can I go now?”

  “Of course,” said Hani kindly. “If you learn anything else, please let me know. It’s in your own best interest. By the way, do you know any Mitannians?”

  Kha-em-sekhem made a grunt of ignorance and lifted a shoulder, barely visible in the darkness. He unfolded himself from the bench.

  Hani accompanied the sculptor to the gate and saw him out then drifted back through the garden, heading for the house. Kha-em-sekhem had given him a version of the affair that was rather different from Kiya’s. Hani’s ideas were as tangled as a ball of thread Ta-miu had gotten her claws into, his thoughts twisting and flapping and trying to make connections. So he started when a voice spoke his name quietly from out of the dark garden.

  Lord Ptah-mes’s long white garments appeared against the deep twilight. “I’m sorry, I heard that conversation, Hani. I apologize.” He stepped to Hani’s side, and they walked back toward the house elbow to elbow. “I was sitting in the dark when you started to talk, and I was afraid it might shut your man up if I rose and left at that moment.”

  “Ah,” Hani said resignedly. “Perhaps I should have told you about this from the start, my lord, but I didn’t want to put a strain on your conscience, considering what it deals with.”

  “My conscience has been under a strain for some years,” said Ptah-mes acidly. He and Hani entered the house, which was lit up unto extravagance, as if for a party. “I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted darkness or if I was afraid of it. Have you eaten?”

  “A bit.”

  “Something light, then.” Ptah-mes clapped for a servant, who brought them a beaker of wine and cold thighs of waterfowl in a spicy sauce, thickened with ground walnuts. The two men sat in silence while the servant arranged their little tables and poured their silver cups full of bloodred liquid. When he’d left, Ptah-mes said quietly, “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Hani unfolded the events as best he could, starting with his own visit to the maru. Ptah-mes listened gravely, giving an occasional nod or lift of the eyebrow. Then he sat for a long space of time cogitating silently, a bird thigh in his fingers, his handsome face expressionless.

  At last, he said, “If this unpleasant business can be resolved before it comes to the king’s attention, it would spare him a lot of worry. There are other, better ways of encouraging him to take action to support Naharin. I find it hard to believe that Tushratta would have anything to do with this. He would never endanger his own daughter in such a way.”

  “No. If there are Mitannians involved, other than the messengers or emissaries or whatever those two veterans were, they must be acting on their private behalf.” Hani dipped his fowl in its sauce and nibbled off the flesh with his teeth. “What puzzles me is that Kiya is done for no matter what happens. If she tries to influence the king, he’ll be angry and put her aside. If she does nothing and the mysterious blackmailer isn’t satisfied, he’ll probably expose her indiscretion, and she’ll be finished in earnest.”

  “I can think of no scenario that will save her except to strike the blackmailer first.” Ptah-mes took a sip from his cup. “How likely do you think it is that you can do that?”

  “I can’t say, my lord, without knowing who he is.” Hani smiled but without humor. “She didn’t say if they had given her a deadline.”

  “You know, Hani, this is a very dangerous business for you. Undoubtedly, the king is aware you’ve visited his Beloved Wife already. You can’t be seen to be going there regularly without some good excuse, or they’ll start tailing you, and the game will be over.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Hani said grimly as he turned his goblet in his hands.

  “As for myself, I mustn’t be seen to be involved in this in any way. I give you as much time as you need to work on it, but my name must never come up, even as being aware of what’s going on. If I’m questioned, I’ll plead ignorance.”

  “Of course, my lord. And you wouldn’t know except through an accident.”

  “But to have found out as I did and not have reported it...? I am in ignorance, Hani. Is that clear?”

  Ptah-mes looked tired and ill at ease. He was several years away from fifty still, but there were times when he looked much older, with his sharp features and narrow lips and the beginnings of bags under his fine black eyes.

  Hani said with conviction, “You know absolutely nothing.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Hani was tired, too, by the time he made it back to Waset. The Flood had just begun, and the current was swollen and fierce. Even with paddles, the ferries were slow heading south. It occurred to him that he needed to invest in a nice, small yacht if he was going to be making the trip back and forth this frequently. He opened his mouth in a jaw-cracking yawn as he pushed aside the mat over the front door.

  “It’s a hippopotamus!” cried Pipi from within. “Look at that sinister mouth full of tusks as the great beast emerges from the waters of the River! Be afraid at the sight of its massive belly that—”

  “You no-good rascal!” Hani growled. “Look who’s talking about massive bellies!” He lunged at his brother and clamped him in a headlock. The two of them struggled and flailed, thudding heavily and knocking aside the stools, until both of them had fallen to the ground, weak with laughter. He looked up to see his father standing in the inner door with his arms folded.

  “I thought that might have been Hani home from the capital, but it seems to be some six-year-old who made his way through the gate.” Mery-ra grinned.

  “It’s another hippopotamus! Catch it!” Hani rushed his father, but instead of flipping him to the ground, he enveloped him in a jolly hug.

  “Easy,” cried Mery-ra, cringing. “I’m still sore from our dance lesson.”

  “That was weeks ago, Father,” Pipi pointed out, picking his wig up off the floor and fanning himself with it.

  “Dance lesson?” Hani asked.

  “Yes. When Neferet was here before. She showed us how to be dancing girls.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry I missed that.” Imagining the spectacle, Hani shook his head in merriment.

  “But you didn’t miss me!” Neferet came pelting in from the porch and hurled herself on her father, who swung her around delightedly.

  “Either I’m older or you’re bigger, but this isn’t as easy as it used to be.” Hani blew out a breath. “So, when did you get home, my duckling—and Pa-kiki, too, I assume?”

  “Yesterday, Papa. It took foooor-ever.”

  “I wish I’d known. I would have had you stay another day and come back with me.”

  “That would have been fun.” She tugged at Hani’s sleeve. “Come out to the pavilion, everybody. Baket-iset and Pa-kiki and Mut-nodjmet and I are out there.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “With Aunt Anuia,” the girl said as she led the way outside.

  Hani shot his father an uneasy glance. “Still no word about Amen-em-hut?”

  Mery-ra shook his head, his eyebrows raised significantly.

  Pipi, who was trailing his brother, hissed, “Did you find out anything about this sculptor fellow, Hani?”

  “Yes. I’ll tell you soon.”

  They found the young people under the shade of the grapevine, laughing and talking. “Papa!” Baket-iset and Pa-kiki simultaneously cried, sending Ta-miu scurrying for cover. Hani kissed them each in turn and Mut-nodjmet, too, and seated himself on the edge of his eldest daughter’s couch. “Everything all right on the home front, Baket?”

  “Uncle Amen-em-hut’s still gone,” Baket-iset said in a subdued voice. Then her tone grew more cheerful. “Lord Aziru and his men show up every so often, stomping around unhappily. One of them is very nice. I’m teaching him Egyptian.”

  “Oh,” said Hani, biting back his reservations. No doubt, his lovely daughter enjoyed the attentive company of the man—even if her limbs were immobilized, her heart was as warm and yearning as any girl’s—but H
ani had no idea who or what the fellow was. He might even be a slave. Hani needed to talk to Aziru.

  “And as Grandfather told you in one of his letters, they play a lot of Hounds and Jackals.”

  “Do you feel uneasy with them around all the time, my dear?”

  “No, they mostly stay upstairs or go out. It’s just the evening when we can hear them walking around.” Baket-iset was never bothered by anything.

  “So, everyone’s home for the holidays, eh?” Mery-ra asked, his hand on Pa-kiki’s shoulder. “Wepet-renpet’s over. Now the Wag Festival, then our special feast day in honor of Djehuty, and—”

  “Why is that our special feast day, Grandfather?” asked Mut-nodjmet, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor like Neferet.

  “Patron god of lunatics,” said Pipi.

  “Of scribes,” Mery-ra corrected, clapping a hand over his younger son’s mouth. “And then the Feast of Drunkenness.”

  “That’s our patronal feast,” Pipi declared between his father’s fingers.

  “Get ready to be woken up in the middle of the night by drums again,” warned Pa-kiki with a big smile that suggested he couldn’t wait.

  Hani looked around. “I haven’t been home much in recent years. Do we... do we still celebrate all these feasts of Osiris and Hut-haru?”

  “Well, people do,” said his father. “I don’t think the mayor or the king or anyone official does—although you’ll notice they gave the chancery the period off. You’re not going to stop people from putting little boats at their loved ones’ tombs or sending them down the River.”

  “We’re already making the boats.” Neferet held up one she’d folded from a piece of papyrus.

  “I hope that’s no important document you girls have cut up,” Hani said, raising a warning finger. “Not the deed to the house. Not Father’s Book of Going Forth by Day for our tomb.”

  Pipi pretended to gasp. “It’s the will of our rich uncle!”

  Through the laughter resounded the boom of the gate clanging shut.

  “Mama’s back,” Neferet cried, surging up and galloping to greet Nub-nefer before she had reached the door.

  Hani heard the beloved footsteps crunching on the gravel as she approached, and he intercepted her with open arms. “My beautiful dove! It’s so good to be back.”

  She clung to him so tightly that he feared he’d see her in tears when she drew back, but her face was calm. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, my love, but Anuia was in a bad way.”

  “Any news?”

  “They’ve found Amen-em-hut’s little boat washed up downriver somewhere. The Flood carried it off from wherever it had been.”

  “Why, that’s probably good, isn’t it? If he set off in a boat, he’s probably hiding.”

  She smiled, and Hani could see how drawn her face was under the mask of good cheer. “Let’s hope it was tied up and not just overturned in some reeds somewhere for a month until the floodwaters dislodged it.” She looked around at the gathered family. “Well, I’ll go see what we have for dinner. It’s like feeding the army these days.”

  One at a time, the children drifted off to their activities, and Hani was left with Baket-iset and his brother and father. Ta-miu came sauntering back in and jumped on Hani’s lap.

  “All right, Pipi,” Hani said, stroking the cat’s fur. “Here’s what I found out. This Kha-em-sekhem is not an altogether bad man, but he has a little womanizing problem.”

  Pipi groaned.

  “And he runs through his silver as if it were water.”

  Mery-ra groaned.

  “And he’s involved in something that may really come down on his head in a terrible way.”

  “Ammit take the bastard,” Pipi moaned. “It’s just as we thought. He’s totally unsuitable.”

  “What’s the bride price all about?” Mery-ra asked. “That always seemed particularly odd to me.”

  “He apparently feels he has to buy people’s friendship. It seems to be a pattern. He throws silver and grain and what have you at everyone as if he fears no one will accept him otherwise. He’s actually a nice-looking man and enormously gifted, but... well, he doesn’t have confidence in himself, I guess. He’s not the sort of person to whom you’d want to entrust a young girl who doesn’t have any self-confidence either.”

  Pipi hung his head, cursing under his breath.

  “Poor Mut-nodjmet. She’ll be so disappointed. She’s done nothing but talk about her handsome fiancé,” murmured Baket-iset.

  “I’m afraid she’ll run off with him without waiting for my permission,” Pipi said, glancing behind him as if she might be tiptoeing down the path as he spoke.

  Hani shook his head. “You’ve got to convince her, Pipi. Make her understand for herself how unsuitable he is. I don’t advise taking her to see him; it might just inflame her. Although I think he might not be so keen to have her at this point. He’s in deep trouble.”

  Mery-ra looked avid. “What’s he done, son?”

  “I can’t tell, but it’s certainly a capital offense.”

  Mery-ra and Pipi stared at one another, eyes wide. Pipi heaved a big sigh. “I guess I have to go give her the paternal talk.” He hauled himself up and dragged himself off into the house.

  “I forgot to ask Neferet how her first days as an apprentice sunet went. And Pa-kiki—his first job,” said Hani after his brother had lumbered away.

  “Oh, you’ll hear all about it at dinner, I’m sure, Papa,” said Baket-iset, her voice full of merriment. “They’ve already started to regale us in great detail. It’s lucky Lord Aziru and his men weren’t at table last night.”

  Hani rose, dumping an indignant Ta-miu from his lap. “Do you want to stay out here, my swan, or shall I have the servants take you into the salon?”

  “If she wants to remain outside, I’ll stay and talk to her,” offered Mery-ra. “It’s such a nice evening after such a hot day.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather. I’ll stay until dinner, then.”

  “Oh, son,” Mery-ra called after Hani as he started down the path. “They brought a diplomatic pouch last night. I think it must be letters for Aziru.”

  “Thanks, Father.” That decided Hani’s next action for him. He needed to read the Amurrite’s correspondence and report on anything that might be of interest to the vizier. He didn’t think he had the energy to undertake it that evening, though. Several nights sleeping on a boat tied up somewhere along the riverbank weren’t very restful. That made him think of Amen-em-hut. Dear gods, what’s happened to the man? Is he even alive anymore? If so, where can he be?

  Although they were so different, Hani was fond of his brother-in-law. Amen-em-hut always made Hani think of a fussy little bird, handsome and diminutive as well as anxious and intense. But he was a good man and fastidiously upright. If anything had happened to him, he was a martyr to his conscience, faithful to the Hidden One he served.

  Great lord of heaven. Has there ever been such intolerance in our fair and inclusive land? Has anyone ever gone around shutting down temples and denying gods their meat and drink? We’ve always welcomed everyone and their gods with them and made them part of our own, because you can never tell whose help you may need.

  In the shadows of the salon, he saw his own little shrine. Someone—Nub-nefer, no doubt—had put the Aten stele at the back, behind the statue of Amen-Ra. He had to admit that what bothered him was not the Aten, who had been an object of worship at least since Neb-ma’at-ra’s first jubilee. Nor was it that strange way of showing him without a body—just a disk, like the sun in the sky, and little rayed hands coming down. It was the idea that only the royal family really approached the Aten. Hani looked down at the stele, at the image of the king and queen in that disturbing, exaggerated style with locked knees and bulging thighs. What about our prayers? All those priests? Do we—do they—count for nothing? And what happens when the king dies?

  Hani let out a heavy breath. Too many deep thoughts for one night. He looked forward to the n
ext few days of holiday. Time to get out in the marshes in my boat and see the birds. Then he remembered that the River was in Flood, and an inundation of disappointment rose in him as it used to do when he was a little boy and his mother said he couldn’t have the treat he had been promised after all because he’d been naughty. He laughed at himself. Dinner would restore his good humor.

  ⸎

  Aziru and his men were seated at their little tables with the family that night. The hapiru leader made an effort to be his more charming self rather than the bitter, bored self who was apparently his habitual guise lately.

  “How are things in the capital, Hani?” he asked without letting the implied meaning beneath his words baste them too liberally with sarcasm.

  “Hot, my lord. You’ll cool your heels much more successfully here.”

  Aziru flashed a pinched smile, his eyes bright. For all that Egyptian wasn’t his native language, he was quick to catch word play. “Your wife has been a charming hostess. I apologize for the disruption this must have caused.”

  “Not at all, Lord Aziru. I just regret that you’re kept away from your own family so long. Perhaps you and your men would like to go hunting in the next few days. Everything will be closed because of the festivals.”

  The Amurrite looked genuinely pleased. “I’d like that.” He leaned over to the good-looking young man at his side and said in his own language, “He says we can go hunting in the next few days. Sounds like fun, eh?”

  “A welcome diversion, my brother,” the youth replied, his bored face brightening.

  “He’s really another of your brothers?” Hani asked.

  “He is. His name is Abdi-urash. He said your daughter is teaching him Egyptian.” Aziru bared his white teeth in a smile. “The other fellow is my secretary, Binana.”

  “The day after tomorrow is the Wag Festival, and we’ll all go over to our family tomb to put, er... paper boats on it.” Hani knew that must sound quaint to a foreigner. “You’re more than welcome to come, if you like. But after that, there’s a day before the Festival of Drunkenness. That might be a good time to go.”