The Poisoner of Ptah

by P. C. Doherty

  ‘Why?’ Amerotke turned on the standard-bearer. ‘Why do you think this was murder?’ The judge paced up and down. He felt angry, yet at the same time guilty, as if he was forcing Nadif, for the sake of peace, to concede that these two deaths might be an unfortunate accident. However, he wryly concluded, that was not the same as the truth.

  He paused and stared at Nadif. The standard-bearer was of medium height, his narrow face a mask of respect betrayed only by those eyes, sharp and full of questions. He stood fingering the chain of office round his neck, the Medjay bracelet and ring on his right arm and hand winking in the light, the coloured sash around his waist pulled tight. In one hand he held a walking cane, in the other his war belt. Amerotke could not sustain the standard-bearer’s cool glance and turned away. Nadif, he knew, was an excellent officer, the pride of the Medjay, rigorous and incorruptible, thorough and painstaking. Amerotke closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He must not irritate this man; he was an officer simply doing his duty.

  ‘What do you think of Hotep and his guards?’ he asked, not turning round.

  ‘Good men,’ Nadif replied calmly. ‘They did excellent service in the Medjay before leaving some years ago. Once they wore the ring and the bracelet on their right hand; now, as retired veterans, they wear it on the left, but I would hope they have kept their integrity and served Ipuye well.’

  ‘So why,’ Amerotke turned, ‘do you think, Nadif, that their master and mistress were murdered here, drowned in this pool?’

  ‘Lord Judge,’ Nadif took a step forward, ‘I can see that you are angry and for that I apologise. I haven’t the slightest shred of proof, the most meagre crumb of evidence to establish my case, except for one thing.’ He lifted his walking cane, pointing it at Amerotke. ‘I just do not, Lord Judge, believe in such coincidences.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Amerotke gestured towards the door, ‘when you arrived here, what did you find?’

  ‘Nothing really: some linen cloths, pots of perfume opened, a flask of oil, a lamp burning, one of those fragrant types that exudes perfume. The corpses had been taken from the pool and laid here on the floor. I questioned Saneb, the guard who found them; he said Khiat was floating at one end of the pool, Ipuye at the other.’

  ‘So?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘Lord Judge, let us say it was an accident that Khiat was in difficulties, or alternatively Ipuye; one or the other jumps in to go to his or her aid. Again an accident occurs, a seizure, I don’t know what. To put it bluntly, Lord Judge, if that was the case, why weren’t their bodies floating together? They were found apart. I just don’t believe two people can accidentally die at the same moment in the same pool. Of course,’ Nadif shrugged, ‘if you write to the Divine One and report it as an accident I’ll accept that, but I tell you this,’ he stepped closer, ‘if you took me to the Temple of Ptah and asked me to swear on its most sacred shrine that this was an accident, I would refuse. Lord Judge, I believe Seth, the God of Murder, visited this house. He swept through that beautiful paradise and visited this pool. Ipuye and Khiat were murdered.’

  ‘Yet we do not know what happened here,’ Amerotke retorted. ‘The best we can do, Standard-Bearer Nadif, is try to re-create events, and that is exactly what I intend to do.’ He patted Nadif on the shoulder and walked out of the pavilion. The sun was growing stronger, so he told Shufoy to open the parasol he carried, then he summoned Hotep and told him exactly what he wanted him to do. The Kushite gazed back in amazement.

  ‘Are you sure, my lord?’

  Amerotke beckoned Hotep’s men to draw closer. ‘Look,’ he declared, ‘you were all once members of the Medjay?’

  They nodded in agreement.

  ‘Once you wore the ring and bracelet on the right hand; now, as former veterans, you wear them on the left?’

  Again they grunted in agreement.

  ‘Well, what I want you to do,’ Amerotke continued, shading his eyes against the sun, ‘is to re-create what happened here. Two of you will swim in the lotus pool. You, Hotep, and one of your men will try to climb that blackthorn fence without being detected. The rest of you will occupy the same guard positions you did yesterday.’

  At first this caused some consternation, even amusement. Nadif made to object, but Amerotke held up his hand. ‘It’s the least we can do,’ he declared. ‘We might find out exactly what happened.’

  Amerotke went and sat on the lawn beneath Shufoy’s parasol. Two of Hotep’s men stripped and without any encouragement dived into the pool, swimming and splashing around. Maben and Meryet stood in the shade of the pavilion and watched the drama unfold. At last Amerotke imposed some sort of order. The two Kushite bodyguards swimming in the pool grew tired and waited. Beyond the palisade Amerotke could hear Hotep and Saneb trying to climb the fence. Eventually the wicket gate opened and a shame-faced Hotep, followed by Saneb, came through.

  ‘My lord,’ Hotep stood at the edge of the pool, staring across at Amerotke, ‘it’s impossible.’

  The judge got to his feet and came round the pool. ‘What do you mean, it’s impossible?’

  ‘Come,’ Hotep replied, ‘I’ll show you.’

  They left through the wicket gate and went along the side of the fence to a place near the corner. Hotep nodded at Saneb, who tried to climb; however, the way the fence had been constructed, a latticework of intertwining branches, made any chance of securing a foothold virtually impossible.

  ‘It’s also prickly,’ Hotep explained, ‘and it bulges out slightly so you cannot get a grip. Lord Judge, nobody could have climbed that fence.’

  ‘And if they had,’ Amerotke mused, ‘they would have had to drop to the other side, surprise Ipuye and Khiat, then kill them without raising the alarm.’ He gestured at the trees. ‘As well as make their way back through these without being noticed by any of you, which, by the Lords of Light, they would also have had to achieve before they even reached the fence in the first place.’ Amerotke shook his head. ‘Nadif,’ he turned to the standard-bearer, ‘unless you produce more evidence, this must be judged as an accident.’ He made to walk away, but stopped when he heard the shrill call of a bell. He paused and glanced back. Nadif was holding a small handbell which he shook vigorously. Amerotke walked towards him.

  ‘A tortoiseshell bell, my lord.’

  Nadif turned the dark brown cup up so Amerotke could see the clapper inside.

  ‘Khiat always carried it with her. I found it here next to the pool. Khiat was rather imperious; she rang this bell to summon servants. It never rang that day.’ Nadif stepped closer. ‘Think, Lord Judge,’ he hissed fiercely, ‘two human beings dying immediately in the water, impossible! If Ipuye had had a seizure, Khiat would have rung that bell. If Khiat had got into difficulties, Ipuye would have done the same or called for help.’

  ‘Let us say,’ Amerotke retorted, ‘for sake of argument, that someone did scale that fence, though to do so they would have needed a ladder: they’d plunge into the pool, they’d become soaked, they would cause an affray which would raise the alarm. The bell would definitely have been rung.’ Amerotke shook his head and stared across at the pavilion where Shufoy sat joking with one of the Kushites. ‘Saneb!’ he shouted.

  The young Kushite rose to his feet and hurried across.

  ‘Hotep.’

  The captain of the guard, standing near the wicket gate, joined them. Amerotke beckoned them closer. ‘On the afternoon your master died, what were you doing?’

  Hotep shrugged. ‘As always, Lord Judge, we took up position in the trees around the palisade. Well, you’ve seen it; we watched that and the wicket gate. For the rest,’ he grinned shyly, ‘we drank our jugs of beer and gossiped. We drank again, dozed and rested. But there again, Lord Judge, this was my master’s paradise, not some lonely outpost or a war camp in the Redlands. We relaxed, we heard nothing wrong. We saw no one we could challenge. Only when Saneb opened that gate and went into the enclosure did we even suspect anything was wrong.’

  ‘My lord!’ Maben and Mer
yet hastened across. ‘What will you say to the Divine One?’

  ‘What can I say?’ Amerotke retorted. ‘Before I leave, I must see Ipuye’s private chambers.’

  Meryet agreed. She led Amerotke back through the house and into Ipuye’s quarters just beyond the central hall. Amerotke quickly appreciated the merchant’s wealth; this luxurious enclave comprised a central bedroom with adjoining chambers for archives and stores, a bath place, toilet, everything being well furnished and clean. The central chamber, Ipuye’s and Khiat’s personal room, was tastefully decorated and filled with carefully fashioned furniture. Amerotke was immediately distracted by the frescos on the walls, which described a topsy-turvy world where donkeys dressed as priests sacrificed to gods; cats fanned mice at meals, served them food and carried baby mice in shawls; foxes and jackals played the double pipes: smiling crocodiles strummed lutes; lions herded geese: blackbirds gathered figs in baskets whilst hippopotami nested in the branches of palm trees. He studied these carefully and realised that he and Ipuye had a great deal in common. The dead merchant seemed to be mocking the gods and the Osirian rite of journeying into the Far West. Amerotke gnawed his lip. He’d secretly confessed to his wife Norfret how he believed that the stories of Seth, Amun, Ra, Horus, Hathor of the Sycamores and the other gods and goddesses of Egypt were just that, figments of man’s imagination. Ipuye had certainly believed this.

  Amerotke walked away from the paintings and began to study the chamber in detail. Nothing was out of place, it was all beautifully decorated and elegantly furnished. Ipuye and Khiat had lived a leisurely, rich life. He went into the archive chamber, a square, whitewashed room with two window vents high in the wall. He opened the linen bags and began to sift through the records. The day wore on. Shufoy came in and demanded to know when they were going to leave. Amerotke murmured his apologies, now fascinated by Ipuye’s records and letters. He found nothing significant: bills of sale, agreements, purchases, a vast array of evidence to show how Ipuye was exploiting the markets to the east, opening a rich and prosperous trade with Punt and islands in the Great Green. One item caught his attention: Ipuye’s movements four years earlier when his first wife had disappeared. Amerotke called both Maben and Meryet back into the chamber and interrogated them carefully on the date Ipuye was supposed to have left Thebes for Memphis. After some difficulty they provided this and Amerotke went back to the records. The more he studied, the deeper his unease become, because according to the itinerary based on purchases made and agreements reached, Ipuye had journeyed no further than Thebes. He had visited the Temple of Ptah, as his list of expenses showed, before moving to a dwelling he called his Place of Pleasure, very close to the precious stonemakers’ quarter. Amerotke called Maben and Meryet back again and questioned them closely, pointing out that, according to the records, Ipuye had never journeyed to Memphis. Both seemed highly embarrassed by Amerotke’s find, though he suspected they had known of it, regarding it as a family scandal, clear evidence of Ipuye’s womanising.

  ‘It certainly proves my argument.’ Meryet rubbed her cheeks, eyes bright with excitement. ‘If Ipuye didn’t leave Thebes for Memphis, why did he lie? He stayed in the city to make sure his wife was dead!’

  Amerotke could not answer her. They left and he continued his searches but found nothing else. He was about to call Nadif to meet him in the central hall when Maben burst into the chamber.

  ‘My lord Amerotke,’ he gasped, ‘a messenger from Thebes sent by the Lord Ani. You must come! A temple girl, Hutepa, a heset, a former friend of the Rekhet, has been found poisoned.’

  ‘When?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘Late this morning,’ Maben replied. ‘She was supposed to attend a ritual in the temple but never appeared. Only later, when a servant went to discover why, did they find her sprawled on the floor of her bedchamber. My lord Amerotke, she’s been poisoned! Minnakht himself has brought the news.’

  Amerotke met the Chief Scribe out in the garden under the shade of a terebinth tree. Minnakht looked agitated.

  ‘My lord Amerotke, you have heard the news? Hutepa is dead.’

  ‘She was a friend of the Rekhet?’ Amerotke asked.

  Minnakht pulled a face. ‘According to some evidence, a man was seen near her chamber late last night, but due to all the visitors to our temple, no one paid much attention to him.’

  ‘Were they close friends?’ Amerotke asked.

  Minnakht shrugged.

  ‘And why should he poison her?’ Amerotke insisted.

  ‘Perhaps he visited her to ask for help,’ Minnakht offered. ‘Perhaps she refused, so she had to die?’ He nodded towards the house. ‘My lord, my apologies, you seem to have troubles enough.’

  Amerotke smiled grimly. ‘That’s the way of the world, isn’t it, Chief Scribe? When your woes come, they tend to arrive in baskets rather than one by one.’ He asked Minnakht to wait, hurried back into the house and told Nadif and Shufoy the news. They made their farewells of Maben and Meryet, then left the House of the Golden Vine, taking the route along the Nile which would bring them back into the city through the Lion Gate. Amerotke walked quickly; Shufoy was full of chatter and gossip, eager to question Minnakht about what had happened, and what was going to happen. Nadif kept his own counsel, whilst Minnakht, happy to find a fellow spirit, gossiped back as if he and Shufoy were old comrades.

  SEBA: ancient Egyptian, ‘to act as an enemy’

  CHAPTER 4

  The prisoner who had escaped from the Oasis of Bitter Bread moved from beneath the cluster of palm trees. He lifted the bundle of sticks on to his shoulder, then, head down, waited for Amerotke and his party to pass before mingling with the crowds streaming along the thoroughfare. On their right rose the mansions and palaces of the rich and powerful; on their left was the rich ooze of the Nile with its papyrus thickets, clumps of bullrushes and clusters of trees alive with the whirr of insects and the constant chatter of birds and monkeys. Now and again beneath all these the crash and roar of the hippopotami echoed like a roll of thunder, whilst the crocodiles, still sluggish, sprawled in the mud warming in the strengthening sun. The former prisoner watched his quarry carefully as they threaded their way through the crowds. Amerotke walked ahead, swinging his walking cane, Nadif slightly behind as if the two men had recently quarrelled. Minnakht and the dwarf Shufoy followed on, chattering incessantly without pausing for breath or really listening to what the other was saying. The escaped prisoner smiled grimly to himself. Minnakht hadn’t changed, still as garrulous as ever! He wondered if he could approach him: the scribe had a kindly heart and was well known for his humanity, unlike the other arrogant ones, but not for now; he would simply follow Amerotke and see what path he followed.

  The escaped prisoner adjusted the bundle of sticks on his shoulder and fingered the Canaanite dagger thrust into the cord that served as a belt round his waist. He kept a vigilant eye on those he passed. He carried a dagger and, thanks to Hutepa, something more deadly. He was determined not to be taken alive. Thankfully, it was an auspicious day, holy to Hathor, Lady of the Sycamores. The markets along the great thoroughfares and in the dusty squares would be busy. Everyone was going to Thebes. A group of Shardana mercenaries, armed with swords and clubs, swaggered by in their strange helmets, rough short tunics, and penis-sheaths, their feet and ankles protected by heavy sandals. These were followed by a group of Medjay police with their distinctive curled hairstyles, the jewellery of office glittering on their right hands and wrists, leather kilts flapping, studded baldrics fastened across their chests. Each man carried a club, which they were only too ready to use at any sign of disturbance. Carts full of produce lumbered slowly by, oxen straining at the yoke, the air above them infested with black hordes of buzzing flies which disappeared at the crack of the whip only to mysteriously gather once again. The litters and carriages of the rich desperately tried to push their way through only to be met with raucous abuse and outright defiance.

  The air was stiflingly hot and reeked of ooze, d
ung, sweat, fish and cheap perfume. Children screamed and yelled. Water-sellers stood either side of the road with stoup and bucket promising ‘the best and the coolest from a new spring recently found outside the city’. Barbers had set up shop beneath palm trees; these were quickly joined by fruit-sellers and cooks, their portable stoves already fired. Gazelle, antelope and quail meat was cut and sliced, doused in oil, chopped into manageable portions and placed across makeshift grills. The air grew thick with the odours of burning meat. People clustered hungrily around, mouths watering, waiting for the meat to be turned and poked before being doused in more herbs to hide its rancid taste, then placed in palm leaves. Other enterprising traders were also setting up business. Scribes touted for trade, nestled in the shade, ready to barter their services, be it drawing up a document or copying a letter. A group of priests belonging to some alien cult had erected a temporary altar around a grotesque statue that was half man, half monkey, and were offering it macaroons and strong palm brandy: they waved these before the sightless eyes of their god before eating and drinking them themselves amidst roars of laughter. The music of pipes played by a blind musician echoed stridently; his milky stare terrified some children, who ran screeching away. A scorpion man tried to sell the former prisoner an amulet and a scarab of Meretseger the Goddess of Silence, who watched from her soaring peak overlooking the Necropolis. Crocodile men from the City of the Dead had already swarmed across the Nile, offering visitors and pilgrims safe passage across the river to visit the embalming and coffin shops. City prostitutes, garish in their cheap flashing jewellery and ostentatious flowery wigs, bartered for custom. They offered to lie with clients under some shady awning, share wine and satisfy their customer’s every desire. The former prisoner drove all these away, eyes intent on Amerotke and his group.

  At last they reached the Lion Gate. Amerotke’s pursuer kept his head down. Hutepa had already warned how his description had been posted and proclaimed all over the city. An imperial chariot squadron, the electrum of their carriages shimmering in the sunlight, horses restless in their gleaming black harness, sheltered under a cluster of palm trees. Nearer the gate, on each side of its approach, mustered the Medjay police and a cohort of auxiliaries in their garish armour. These proved no threat to the former prisoner, as they were more concerned with the clouds of dust, the hovering flies, the bray of donkeys, the din and clamour of hundreds of people eager to reach home, a market shrine, a temple, a shop or just to escape from the noisy hustle and bustle of the city. Amerotke and his party went under the great gate, their pursuer following, on to the broad, basalt-paved Avenue of the Sphinx. The escaped prisoner relaxed. The crowds were now fanning out, going off down roads leading to the various markets, where the perfumers, linen merchants, fruit-sellers and geese and duck traders plied their trade. Amerotke, however, continued on the avenue which would take him up to the Temple of Ptah. His pursuer stopped to shift his bundle from one shoulder to the other, only to realise that two men had abruptly flanked him. They were both dressed in the striped robes of desert wanderers, faces blackened by the sun, bushy haired, bearded and moustached. Their clothes were dirty but they were well armed: each carried a sword and a club, with a dagger thrust through his belt. They came in close, and their hot breath upon the prisoner’s face reeked of onion and spiced meat.