Year of the Hyenas

by Brad Geagley

  “When will it be ready?”

  “So many pieces here, my own business being so full—I’ve no assistant, you know—”

  “How long?”

  “A few weeks.”

  Semerket took a gold piece from his belt and laid it on the counter. “I’ll match this if you can make the repair faster,” he said.

  But the potter let the gold ring simply lie there, not looking at it. “I’ll get to it when I can, friend Semerket,” he said, “as I’ve told you.” He turned his attention back to his wheel.

  When Semerket left the workshop, the potter took the gold into his palm and sniffed.

  ACROSS THE RIVER, in Eastern Thebes, the smoke of sacrifice twined silkily into the sky, rising in a thin black smudge from Sekhmet’s temple. It was early morning and the temple fires blazed, hungry for the first of the sacrificial victims to be offered.

  Nenry’s wife, Merytra, waited at the edge of the crowd of acolytes, clutching a piece of crumpled papyrus in her hands. She shifted her weight nervously from side to side, her myriad bracelets jingling each time she did. Her eyes found her great-uncle, the Lord High Priest Iroy, as he prayed silently to Sekhmet.

  The acolytes drew apart as the first bull was led to the altar. The beast walked placidly up the stairs to where Iroy and his priests waited. There, the animal nodded its head, signifying that it went willingly to its death. Merytra knew this to be an old trick caused by the priests flicking holy water into the bull’s ears.

  Just as one priest stunned the bull with a hammer blow to its skull, her great-uncle deftly slit its throat with a large bronze knife. The bull fell to its knees, emptying its bowels convulsively upon the altar, its steaming blood coursing over Iroy’s hands. The salty, ferrous smell of blood and the acrid smell of shit rose in his niece’s nostrils. At the altar Iroy cupped the blood in his hands; he then carried it to the goddess’s garments, patting them down. The robes clung redly to Sekhmet’s stone breasts, picking out the goddess’s nakedness beneath.

  The sun glistened on the altar of white marble, suffusing the temple with a bright, blinding light, and Merytra was momentarily stupefied by it. She began to feel faint. Sickly haloes vibrated at the periphery of her vision, and the reedy music of the piping priestesses screeched eerily in her head.

  She stood mutely as Iroy drizzled roasted barleycorns over the lifeless bull, which was the tradition. His attendants began to expertly flay the black hide from its flesh, then hacked the beast’s haunches from the carcass with glinting silver axes.

  The fatty thighbones were handed to the high priest, who set them upon the sacred fire, when they sizzled and spat as the flames leapt to devour them. The oozing blood ran over the marble altar to pool in a specially contrived font in the ground.

  Merytra fainted.

  She awoke in her uncle’s sanctuary, nauseous, with the taste of bile in her mouth. “What…?” she asked.

  She was answered by a long, low growl. A lioness stood over her, sniffing at her suspiciously. She screamed. The cat took a step back, uncertain of this shrieking thing before it, and cowered behind the legs of the man who held its leash.

  “There, there, Tasa,” the man said in low comforting tones to the beast, scratching its head. “It’s only my silly niece.”

  “Take it away!” Merytra pleaded.

  “I would advise you to stop screaming, Grandniece. Tasa will begin to think you’re just something to play with, and it’s difficult to stop her when mischief is on her mind.”

  The high priest resembled his niece, down to his wide nose and slanting eyes. But where such features made her seem ungainly and mannish, her great-uncle was handsome, still virile and strong despite his age, though he had begun to run slightly to fat.

  Iroy’s sanctuary was a small room located behind the Holy of Holies where the goddess resided. On the walls, skins of lions stretched taut. A profusion of votive statues depicting the lion goddess were placed around the room, some cast in gold and other precious metals, some carved in stone, donations of warriors anxious to curry the war goddess’s favor.

  “So why have you come to see me today?” her uncle asked indulgently. He handed Tasa’s leash to a junior priest, with tender instructions for her feeding, and the lioness was at last removed from the sanctuary.

  “It’s Nenry!” Merytra’s words came out in a petulant wail. “He struck me!”

  Iroy sat on his throne, cleaning the blade of his sacrificial knife with a soft cloth. He chuckled. “Good for him. You should be struck often, my dear. I told him that when he married you.”

  She hid her face behind her arm, great tears oozing from her eyes. Her head pounded.

  Iroy sighed. He had always been a trifle embarrassed by his dead nephew’s offspring, preferring to keep Merytra from his sight. He settled back on his chair, bored by her trivial marital concerns. But his niece’s next words made him sit up at attention.

  “I know his brother, Semerket, is behind it,” she said.

  His usually languid voice became very clipped. “What of him?”

  “He’s investigating the murder of a priestess, over in Western Thebes—”

  “I’ve heard of it. Go on.”

  “A message came from him last night—this one—” She handed her uncle the wrinkled sheet of papyrus. “He’s trying to get Nenry involved in something he shouldn’t. When I tried to intervene, Nenry hit me. For the first time in our marriage.” Her tears flowed in earnest now. “This morning after he left, I stole the note to show you. I want you to stop him, Great-uncle! I know whatever that madman asks him to do, it will somehow threaten us.”

  Quickly Iroy scanned the letter, running a hennaed thumbnail over the glyphs as he read.

  To my brother, Nenry, health and life be yours! From Semerket, clerk of Investigations and Secrets, greetings:

  Brother, I need the help you promised. Go into the marketplace. Wear a noble’s disguise. Put it about that you seek royal jewels. Assure them that you care not from where they come. Buy one or two if they are offered. When you have done so, bring them to me across the river. I will explain the rest in person. Semerket, your own brother.

  Iroy put the papyrus aside. “Do you know what this says?” he asked in his clipped, harsh tones.

  “N-no.” She did not know how to read.

  “Has Nenry departed from his usual routine?”

  “Yes! Yes, he has! He sent a message to the mayor saying he was ill. Then he hired rich robes and went into the bazaar—but I don’t know why.”

  A foul oath escaped Iroy’s lips. Oddly enough, when he next gazed at his grandniece it was with an expression that bore traces of appreciation. “It could mean nothing; in any event, it’s better if you don’t mention to Nenry that I’ve seen this.” He held the letter out for her to take. “Put it back where you found it. Say nothing to him.”

  “Yes, Great-uncle.”

  His expression eased a bit. “You’ve done well.”

  She smiled gratefully. If she had done as well as her uncle had said, perhaps she could venture to ask him…

  “Great-uncle?”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you news of my son?” She swallowed. “Does he thrive?”

  “Your son?”

  She nodded.

  His irritation was now full-blown. “I have adopted him as my heir. Nenry was given a worthy post for him. It does no good for you to ask after the child—he certainly doesn’t ask after you. Leave him alone. The child has a different life now.”

  She felt both hot and icy at once. Her heart was palpitating. Her viscera churned. For a moment she felt she was going to faint again. Then a sudden warm flush between her legs explained to them both the reason she had fainted that morning. She looked down in dismay to see a small red stain spreading on her sheath.

  The shame on her face was evident, and she blushed to see her uncle staring. But he burst out laughing. “Do you think me so naïve concerning the tides of women?” He laughed again. “Y
ou’re lucky it didn’t happen when Tasa was here. The scent of blood makes her remember her wild ways. Now wrap something around you and come with me.”

  Together they made their way to a pavilion across the temple compound. Iroy begged an urgent and private audience with the seeress of the temple, and both he and Merytra bowed their arms to knee level when she entered the pavilion.

  In whispers Iroy told the woman of Semerket’s letter. For a long while the seeress said nothing.

  Then in a voice that was a magical instrument of many strings, she spoke. “Bad dreams are no longer enough, it seems. We will require something stronger. A cutting of his hair will do.”

  She looked at Merytra then. “Come near to me, my dear. Let us discuss this situation between your husband and his brother. We women know how to manage these things, don’t we?”

  Overwhelmed by the woman’s majesty, yet curiously attracted to her all the same, Merytra crept forward.

  OPEN YOUREYES

  “NO ONE HERE WOULD WANT TO HARM HER,” the painter Aaphat said as Semerket sat cross-legged before him, writing notes. “Her body was found on the other side of the river. Why do you question us?”

  “She was beloved by everyone,” softly echoed his wife, Teewa.

  “She was kind,” murmured their daughter.

  They sat together in their small reception room, which Aaphat had vividly decorated with portraits of his neighbors at work. The figures crowded together on the walls, so lifelike that Semerket half-expected them to voice their own opinions about the murder.

  Aaphat rose and pointed to the likeness of Hetephras herself, whom he had painted as she made offerings to the moon god, Khons. “Tell me—does she look like a woman with enemies?” he asked.

  Semerket examined the portrait closely. Hetephras had been in her prime when the painting was made. Though she wore a wig of bright blue in the painting, Semerket recognized her from her pectoral and the style of the linen sheath she wore, the kind he had seen blood-drenched and crumpled in the House of Purification.

  “Nevertheless,” said Semerket, “she is dead and someone murdered her.”

  “Perhaps a foreigner or a vagabond. No one here. We loved her.” Aaphat and his wife lowered their heads to indicate they had no more to tell him.

  A quick surveillance of Aaphat’s studio told Semerket that whatever tools the painter used, they were not made of the hard blue metal that matched the small chip he kept always in his sash. He never mentioned the chip directly to the tomb-makers—to do so would ensure the axe’s quick disposal, if indeed it still existed. But his eyes were ever on the alert for anything made of the same dark metal.

  The morning after Hunro told him of the elders’ consent, he began his investigation. From home to home he went, always uninvited, asking questions of even the children. But however he phrased his words, however deeply he probed, the villagers made their eyes into blanks and their answers seemed always the same. Nevertheless, he pressed on, believing that if any villager knew something about the murder, he would find it out through simple persistence and repetition.

  The sculptor Ramose was chipping at a small statue of diorite when Semerket came upon him in his workshop at the back of the village. From the figure’s distinctively shaped wig Semerket saw at once that it was Hetephras, and he said her name aloud.

  “Do you recognize her?” asked Ramose, pleased, holding it up so that Semerket could see how finely detailed the figure was.

  Semerket nodded, making a note to himself that Ramose sculpted with only copper chisels.

  “It will be placed in her tomb, an offering from her neighbors. She was a great lady.”

  Behind Ramose an immense stone circle of limestone was being smoothed by his sons, Mose and Harach, who also supervised a host of village men-servants. The stone wheel lay on the ground, taking up most of the workshop’s length. From time to time, the sons glanced at Semerket from beneath their eyelids coated in fine dust.

  “Had she any enemies?” Semerket asked. “Did she indulge in feuds—exchange unpleasant words with anyone?”

  “No.” Ramose shook his head firmly. “She was kind.”

  “We loved her,” said Mose from across the yard.

  “If you ask me,” Ramose said, his voice so low and conspiratorial that Semerket had to bend to hear him, “it had to be someone of foreign birth. Or a vagabond. You’re wasting your time here in the village asking all these questions. Why don’t you go to the other side of the river? She was found there, after all.”

  “Do you agree with your father?” Semerket barked suddenly to Mose and Harach. They jumped.

  “Hetephras was loved,” Mose repeated.

  “A vagabond or foreigner,” seconded Harach.

  The young men returned to their task of polishing the wheel; the pumice scraped against the stone like a scream caught in a woman’s throat.

  Yunet, the woman who embroidered shrouds and robes for the royal court, plied her needle while she answered him, her eyes cast modestly downward. Her three nieces sat beside her in their reception room, clothed in the same intricately pleated white linen their aunt wore, starched so stiffly they seemed to be wearing egrets’ wings. The nieces embroidered on the cloth, too, and Semerket found himself staring fascinated as their bronze needles, fine as hair, quickly stitched a constellation of five-pointed stars along its border.

  “Hetephras? Enemies?” whispered Yunet. She was a widow, though young-looking. Her many knotted braids were discreetly drawn back into a heavy ebony cluster at the nape of her neck. She wore no jewelry, but her features were even and her lips red. “I had known Hetephras since I was a girl… not so very long ago, though you may not think it. No one was kinder or more beloved.” Her voice was a gentle breeze.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Yunet pricked herself suddenly, and sucked the blood from her finger. She gazed at Semerket, considering. “The last time…?” She looked about in pretty distress. “That would be at the Festival of the New Moon, wasn’t it?” All of her nieces nodded their agreement. “Just a day or so before her… disappearance. She loved the moon god, Khons, above all the others.”

  “Can you remember what you said to one another?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t seem to…”

  Her niece Thuya spoke up clearly, “I remember, Aunt. You sought her advice about Uncle Memnet.”

  “I thought you said you were a widow.” Semerket again checked his notes.

  Yunet blushed to the roots of her hairline. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Uncle Memnet’s ghost comes to Aunt Yunet at night,” Thuya continued in the same forceful tone. “He takes the form of a… of a…” Even she could not go on and solemnly rose from her seat to whisper to Semerket. The word she uttered into his ear sent him into a sudden fit of coughing. One of the other nieces inexpertly stifled a giggle.

  Yunet glanced at Semerket with embarrassment. “I believed that after he was in his tomb, he would make no further demands on me. Yet, alas, the women in my family are desired even by the dead.” She leaned forward and placed a tender hand on Semerket’s knee to emphasize her earnestness.

  Semerket abruptly raised his head from his notes to find Yunet and her nieces gazing at him with limpid eyes. None of them any longer stitched at stars. Quickly he rolled up his papyrus scroll, rising from the brick bench.

  “We seldom see men from outside this village,” breathed Yunet. “It’s very… stimulating… to us poor provincials.” Her nieces’ heads bobbed with enthusiasm.

  “Do you think,” Semerket asked in a croaking voice, “…er… do you suppose that Hetephras could have been the victim of some vengeful ghost, then? An unhappy ancestor?”

  One of the nieces spoke up hesitantly. “I hear,” she began softly, “that is, it’s been said in the village…”

  Semerket held up a hand to stop her. “Yes, I know—that a foreigner or a vagabond killed her.” He nodded his thanks and hurried out of the
house before they could invite him to sample their beer.

  In the alley Hunro waited for him. She had listened, and laughed to see him undone. “Are you ready now to pay my price?” she whispered to him. “Do you see now that you can learn nothing from these villagers—that I alone can help you?”

  He spoke more harshly than he intended. “I might have the soles of your feet beaten with sticks if I thought you were really hiding something,” he said. “I have only to command it.”

  Her reply was the papery rasp of her jeering laughter.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK, Semerket found himself outside the northern gate. He stepped into the sunlight, and followed the path around the village walls to where the tomb-makers’ tiny temple stood. He had no purpose for going there, other than to flee the oppressive atmosphere of the village, for its smallness was beginning to grate on him. That, and the fact that every one of his interviews had yielded the same unshakable opinion that a foreigner or vagabond had slain Hetephras. As he drew near the temple, he realized that Sukis had joined him. Tail erect, she led him in the direction of sounds that he realized came from a classroom in session.

  Curious, he followed the children’s voices to the rear of the temple. In the open air the village children sat cross-legged before a young priest, each clutching a wax tablet and stylus. They were reciting from a text that Semerket recognized—the story of the Snake King and the Lucky Peasant.

  As he watched the students, he was glad to see the young priest was not overly fond of using his stick on the children. Nevertheless, like any good teacher, he followed the ancient maxim that a student “learns through his backside,” and occasionally lightly whacked a child who flubbed the lesson.

  Hearing the noise of the priest’s reed cane slashing through the air brought Semerket instantly back to his own school days, for he had often heard the same sound. There had come a day, however, when the teacher had raised his stick once too often and brought it across Semerket’s face, breaking open his cheek. A few minutes later, the neighbors were drawn to the schoolroom by the man’s plaintive cries, to find the thirteen-year-old Semerket thrashing the man almost to death. It was the first time that he had been called a follower of Set, and his formal education was over. Soon thereafter Semerket became Metufer’s assistant in the House of Purification.