The Poisoner of Ptah

by P. C. Doherty

  They reached the western bank, left the quayside and went up the wretched, narrow streets of the Necropolis. They walked cautiously past the midden heaps, children screaming, dogs barking. A place of danger. The shadows lurking in doorways and on corners slid away at the sight of Standard-Bearer Nadif, who was greatly feared throughout the City of the Dead. They made their way gingerly up alleyways past shabby wine booths and beer shops; the customers recognised Nadif and shouted abuse, but slyly so that the officer could not trace the person responsible. There were no shops or stalls here; traders simply piled their goods high on reed mats before them or shouted from shadowy recesses what they had to sell, most of which Amerotke suspected was stolen from somewhere else. They entered the Abode of Twilight, which was slightly quieter and cleaner, though the walls of the houses were flaking, dirty and drab. At last they approached the mansion of the Lady of the Dark. It stood enclosed by a high curtain, entered through a narrow wooden gate. Nadif pounded on this; a shutter at the top was pushed back and a pair of eyes glared through.

  ‘Go away!’

  ‘Either open the gate,’ Nadif replied, ‘or I, Nadif, standard-bearer in the Medjay, will force it.’

  Locks were hastily turned and the gate swung open. An evil-looking character, squint-eyed, unshaven and dressed in a dirty linen robe, waved them through. Once inside, Amerotke exclaimed in surprise, for instead of some shabby courtyard, he had entered a small garden beautifully laid out, with bushes, trees, herb plots and flowerbeds. A lawn circled a pure white alabaster fountain carved in the shape of a dolphin, water spouting in the air from its gaping mouth.

  ‘She is not what you think,’ Shufoy whispered. ‘Honestly, master.’

  They went under a flower arbour and along a path, the brickwork neatly laid. A woman was sitting in a small sun pavilion, just before some steps leading up to a smart-looking doorway. She rose and came down the path to greet them, still plaiting a flower chain. She was of medium height, her long white hair, parted in the middle, fell down to her shoulders, and her face was serene with strange blue eyes, her skin the colour of ivory. Amerotke realised that she must have once been a great beauty. She was graceful and elegant in all her gestures. She wore a lovely gauffered robe with a fringed shawl about her shoulders, her feet covered by silver-edged sandals, and smelt fragrantly of some herb mixture which, Amerotke was sure, was very similar to kiphye, the rare and very expensive juice of crushed poppies.

  ‘My lord Amerotke.’ She stretched out a hand.

  Amerotke clasped it; her touch was cool.

  ‘Standard-Bearer Nadif and you, Master Shufoy, I heard you were coming.’

  ‘How?’ Amerotke asked.

  The woman smiled to herself. ‘News carries on the breeze in the Abode of Twilight. You have your ways, and we have ours. You have come to talk to me about the poisonings, haven’t you?’ She waved them forward into the sun pavilion. The inside was ringed with a soft-cushioned bench and she gestured at them to sit. Amerotke felt as if he was back in a schoolroom. This serene-faced lady was dressed so chastely, yet she enjoyed the most sinister of reputations. As if she could read his thoughts, she laughed merrily. ‘What did you expect, Lord Judge, some night-hag? Some witch in black robes, swirling in evil vapours? I do what I do. I am not Egyptian, hence the colour of my skin and eyes. My mother came from an island in the Great Green. I am a physician, my lord Amerotke. I know the power of powders and potions. I can tell you the effect of this herb or that.’

  ‘And these poisonings,’ Amerotke asked, ‘in Thebes?’

  ‘At one time,’ she replied, ‘people thought I was responsible.’ She laughed behind her fingers. ‘But I was not. There is no great secret, Lord Judge, about poisons. They work like many things. Let me give you an example. You can take the most poisonous snake in the desert. Did you know that if you drink its venom, you suffer no ill? Nevertheless, God help you if you drink it and there is a cut to your lips or your mouth, for then you are dead. Or there are seeds you can swallow and, provided you do not chew, no harm will be done. Chew them, break them up and you will be dead within a few heartbeats. Or honey – there is poisonous honey, Lord Judge, that would give you the most horrid death. Why? Because the bees themselves feed on poisonous flowers, then weave their honeycombs with a juice deadly to the taste. There are poisons that can kill within a few heartbeats, poisons that, taken in small amounts, can do you a great deal of good. Poisons exist that you administer little by little; those take months to kill. Poisons you could drink at noon and suffer no ill effect, but three hours later you are writhing in agony. You take the simplest flower and mix it with another and you have a deadly concoction.’ She paused to admire her flower chain. ‘Those three scribes poisoned on the temple forecourt: they drank wine?’

  ‘It wasn’t tainted!’

  ‘No, but did it mix with something else? Those scribes had been fasting, yes? Well,’ she continued, ‘an empty stomach and wine never mix. Once those scribes tasted and swallowed that wine, the juices of the belly would become more active. Each poison is unique in its nature and effect: powders you might rub on the thick, hardened skin of your feet may do little. Apply the same powder to where the skin is much thinner, around your eyes or wrist, and the effects are devastating. The secret of poisons is to know their potency and their effect. Take the almond seed: in itself it is innocuous, yet it is the source of a poison most chilling in its effects. Arsenic is another. Across the Great Green there are mounds of it. Taken in small quantities, it can be very good for the stomach, and is even used as an aphrodisiac; in great quantities it can kill, yet it doesn’t corrupt the body but preserves everything in a sort of waxen fashion.’

  ‘And the Rekhet of Ptah?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘Whoever it is,’ she replied, ‘is most skilled.’

  ‘It is a man?’

  ‘Yes, probably, one who owns the key to a source of great knowledge on which he draws.’

  ‘And his heart?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘The heart is a different matter, Lord Judge. We human beings kill for many reasons: love, lust, greed, envy and hatred. Now and again, well, there are people who kill just because they love it. It allows their pain to come out. I have carefully studied the doings of the Rekhet.’ She paused. ‘He just liked to watch other people die; it gave him a sense of unlimited power.’

  ‘And why are you telling me this?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘For the same reason.’ She laughed sharply. ‘Power. You are Amerotke, Chief Judge in the Hall of Two Truths – who knows when I’ll need your protection or help? So, ask me any question you want, Lord Judge, though I suspect I have answered them already.’ She leaned forward and laughed again. ‘I would offer you something to eat or drink but I doubt whether you would be comfortable.’ She did not wait for a reply but pushed away the hair from her face and leaned back. ‘If you are dealing with poisons, Amerotke, rid yourself of illusions. Think of a poison as you would a wine. Reflect on how many stages you go through when you drink a goblet: a sense of happiness, exhilaration, the heart sings, yet a few hours later the belly is disturbed, the head thick, the throat dry. So it is with poisons. What you must look for is someone with the inclination, the skill and the means to cause such effects. Once you have established that, the actual potion or powder used is immaterial…’

  Amerotke made his farewell to the Lady of the Dark. He returned home and busied himself talking to Norfret and playing a game of skittles with the boys, who screamed with delight when their father confessed he’d been trying to cheat all the time. Shufoy accompanied Nadif back to the standard-bearer’s house. He had now brought all his learning to bear, informing the bemused standard-bearer that he was an expert, skilled in the treatment of all kinds of animal ailments. They both acted as if the visit to the Gerh had been merely interesting. In truth, Amerotke sensed that they, like him, were fascinated by what that strange-looking woman had told them, each quietly applying the information to the mysteries that clung around them as t
hick and blinding as sand in a desert storm. Shufoy left, solemnly promising to join Amerotke and Norfret for the evening meal.

  Amerotke decided it was time to reflect on what he himself had learnt. While the boys decided to chase a mongoose they’d glimpsed in the orchard, he retired to his favourite place in the garden, a shady nook under stout holm oaks, their leafy branches a thick screen against the sun. He loved to sit on the bench specially fastened to the base of the trunk of one of these magnificent trees. He watched the boys race off, then relaxed, breathing in deeply as he tried to recall all the little pieces, what he called ‘glimpses of unfinished pictures’. Norfret came over with some chilled wine and a basket of cut fruit. Amerotke thanked her absentmindedly.

  ‘Ah, I forget.’ She came back and smiled down at her husband. ‘You had a visitor early this afternoon.’

  ‘Who?’ Amerotke immediately tensed.

  ‘A stranger, well at least to me. He said his name was Qennu, an old acquaintance of yours when you studied at the Houses of Life in the temples of Karnak.’

  Amerotke shook his head. ‘I cannot recall him. What was he like?’

  ‘Pleasant faced, skin very dark, lithe bodied, soft spoken. I think he served as a soldier. I told him you were away. He replied, “Of course,” but promised he’d return.’

  ‘He left no gift?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Norfret smiled. ‘Why should he? Oh, those boys!’ She hurried across to quell the screaming from the orchard.

  Amerotke wondered about the identity of his visitor before returning to his nagging doubts about the various little mysteries: Hinqui falling ill, Hutepa’s soiled bed, her tidy chamber. Abruptly he sat up: that was what had been missing from the dead girl’s belongings! There was very little silver, gold or precious stones. Hutepa must have been a wealthy woman, and yet he’d found little evidence of that. Had she been robbed as well as murdered? He went back to Hinqui. Where had he been when the poisonings had taken place? Amerotke wasn’t sure, but he had a vague memory of Hinqui attending one of those scribes as he died. And the burning of the library? What was the killer trying to hide? Surely other records and libraries would hold similar information? He recalled what the Gerh had told him and felt a tingle of excitement. He sipped at his wine and thought of Ipuye and Khiat floating face down in that lotus pool whilst their guards lounged and dozed. Maben and Meryet had been absent at the Temple of Ptah. He thought about that palisade as well as the ladder the Amemets had used to scale the walls of the House of Horus the Red-Eye. What had happened at the House of the Golden Vine? Ipuye had risen late; he and Khiat had eaten and drunk before going across to the pool to meet their deaths. All the time Patuna’s corpse was hidden in that midden heap with her skull staved in. Did Ipuye, whilst he was enjoying himself, know that only a short distance away the body of his first wife was rotting like a piece of rubbish? And the merchant’s Place of Pleasure, that scroll giving his mysterious lady visitors their pet names as well as describing their lovemaking skills … Ipuye was certainly lecherous, yet Amerotke had discovered nothing amongst his records to depict him either as a murderer or a traitor. The judge chewed on a piece of fruit, his dry mouth relishing the juice. He smiled. He was not only very much aware of what he ate or drank, but firmly believed that food and drink held the key to these mysteries. The Gerh had told him the danger of poisons, as had the mercenary at the House of Horus the Red-Eye, with his story about pursuing the Sea People.

  Amerotke watched a swallow dart from the trees, circle, then sweep away. I must look for the constant, he reflected; there must be something that links all these. Except, he sighed, for the Libyans! He sipped at his wine cup. That path remained truly blocked, so he went back to those mysterious deaths at the House of the Golden Vine. He was beginning to speculate, though it really amounted to nothing, empty theory with no hard evidence. The absence of lapis lazuli on the feet of Ipuye and Khiat was a case in point, significant but hardly proof, not yet. Or Saneb’s strange behaviour before his abrupt disappearance. Why move that ring and bracelet back to his right hand or talk about his loincloth and riches? A sexual joke? He rose to his feet and moved behind the trees, where he took off his robe and undid the folds of his loincloth, then quickly retied them. He did this again, amused at how he rarely considered what he was doing. The same must be true of Saneb, so why jest about it?

  Amerotke finished his wine and returned to his writing chamber. He busied himself making list after list of names and places before writing a series of short letters demanding information on this person or that. Shufoy returned, declaring confidently that Baka the baboon was now as bright as a sparrow and would remain so if Shufoy’s advice was strictly followed. Amerotke grunted his agreement, so Shufoy hastened off to tell Norfret that her husband had returned to the land of Resei, the Realm of Dreams.

  And so it proved. During the evening meal on the roof of the house, Amerotke sat like a sleepwalker, grunting and nodding, lost in his own world. At last he kissed Norfret and said he would retire. Shufoy jokingly remarked how Baka the baboon hoped to become a judge. Norfret laughed when Amerotke blinked and said that Baka had all the requirements for such a post before going absent-mindedly down the steps.

  The next morning Amerotke rose long before the brilliant hour. He went on to the roof top to feel the Breath of Amunn on his face, and knelt for a while praying, face in his hands, before going back to his chamber, where he washed, shaved, donned fresh robes and returned to his writing office. Shufoy joined him, only to be immediately dispatched to Nadif with orders that the standard-bearer and three of his best Medjay must wait upon the judge at their earliest convenience.

  When the four men arrived, Amerotke would not answer any questions but begged them to take letters to various people in the city and collect certain information. For the rest of the day Shufoy, Nadif and the Medjay scurried backwards and forwards to this part of the city and that, and even across to the Necropolis. The same thing happened for the next two days. Norfret became exasperated but resigned herself to her husband’s strange moods, going in to talk, serve meals or just watch him walk over to the shade of the oak trees and sit, arms folded, on the bench, staring at the ground as if he’d lost something.

  On the fourth day, an imperial messenger arrived at the house demanding that Amerotke send any information about what he had discovered to the Palace of the Eternal Sun. Amerotke crossly replied that he had nothing to send but that when he did, the Divine One would be the first to know. He went out into the garden and was cradling a cup of fruit juice and nibbling at a plate of glazed walnuts when he heard his name called. Norfret came across the grass leading a man carrying a parasol which shaded his face.

  ‘Amerotke,’ said Norfret, ‘this is Qennu your visitor. He’s returned and wishes to have words with you.’

  Amerotke glanced up, shading his eyes. ‘I would see you better,’ he said, ‘if you removed the parasol.’

  The man did so immediately. He was of medium height, with sallow skin, his head completely shaven. A ring in the lobe of his left ear gave him a priestly air, though his lithe body and quick movements reminded Amerotke of a soldier. He was dressed in a white linen robe, reed sandals on his feet, and despite the heat, he looked cool and calm as if used to the rigours of the sun.

  ‘Your name is Qennu?’ Amerotke watched Norfret walk away, then moved back to the bench and patted the seat beside him. ‘Sit down. You say you were with me in the Houses of Life at Karnak, but I cannot recall your face or name.’

  The man made himself comfortable, placing the parasol on the ground, folding his arms across his middle, one hand beneath the folds of his gown. Amerotke immediately felt suspicious. It was just the way the man sat, slightly turned to face him, eyes watchful. The more he studied that face, the more Amerotke’s suspicions deepened.

  ‘I do not know you,’ he said.

  ‘Lord Judge, you do. You know me very well, though you have never met me.’

  Amerotke went to stand, but the
man placed a hand on his arm.

  ‘Please.’ He leaned forward. ‘I mean you and yours no harm. My name is Qennu. I was a priest physician at the Temple of Ptah until I was condemned as the Rekhet and sent to a prison oasis.’

  METUT ENT MAAT: ancient Egyptian, ‘for words of truth’

  CHAPTER 12

  Amerotke felt a cold prickle of fear. The way the man was sitting, his calm voice, his intent gaze caught his attention. Undoubtedly Qennu’s right hand, hidden under the folds of his robe, was not far from the hilt of a dagger. Amerotke glanced at the parasol lying on the ground.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he said. ‘I could fight. I could shout. I could protest!’

  ‘What’s the use, Lord Judge? Why do that? I mean you no harm, or the lady Norfret or your boys. I swear on Hutepa’s soul.’

  ‘You murdered her.’

  ‘No I did not, Lord Judge. No one’s blood is on my hands, I swear that, except for the lives of those two villains who tried to seize me.’