The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  “Someone must’ve mentioned that such was the law at one time or another. We traders talk among ourselves, you know, especially when we’re far from home, surrounded by people whose tongue we don’t speak.”

  “You’ve travelled often to the land of Kush?”

  The trader shook his head. “This was my first journey south. Always before, I’ve earned my daily bread as a craftsman, a metalsmith.”

  Bak formed an admiring smile. “Your work must be much in demand to allow you to purchase sufficient wares to make such a long trek worthwhile.”

  “The objects I make are much admired, yes,” Thutnofer said, his chest swelling with pride. “I toil in a workshop of the lord Ptah, and each and every piece is accepted with high praise before it’s taken into the god’s storehouse.”

  Noting Imsiba’s raised eyebrow, a reflection of his own puzzlement, Bak asked, “If the lord Ptah supports you and your household, where did you get the wealth to invest in trade goods?”

  A sudden reticence entered Thutnofer’s voice. “Ben-Azan brought to my wife a modest inheritance from their parents. He said I could increase its value ten times over if I accompanied him to the land of Kush.”

  “And did you return a wealthier man?” Bak asked, pretending not to notice the change in attitude.

  “I did well enough,” the trader said in a voice bereft of the enthusiasm one would have expected.

  “What kind of man was Ben-Azan?”

  “A fine man, the truest of friends.” Thutnofer’s voice shook and he turned away to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand. “One who would give his very life for those he cared for.”

  Bak glanced at Imsiba, who raised an eyebrow. “You last saw him where?”

  Thutnofer cleared the roughness from his throat. “We left him at the door of the place of business in which we celebrated our return to a land less savage than Kush.”

  “How do you account for his presence in the tomb?”

  “Someone lured him there, lieutenant. Probably one of the women he took up with at that house of pleasure, the establishment of that hideous old woman Nofery.”

  Bak exchanged a look with Imsiba. Both knew Nofery well. She could be greedy, yes, but would never condone murder.

  “If Thutnofer hoped his journey into the land of Kush would make him a man of wealth, he was doomed to disappointment.” Imsiba dropped onto a mound of soft and supple cowhides and scowled in the general direction of the bags and bundles beyond the deckhouse. “I’ve no idea what he took south as trade goods, but what he accepted in return is very ordinary. Lengths of ebony and other rare woods, not of the best quality. Many cowhides, none nearly as lovingly cured as these on which I sit. Horns and teeth from animals from far to the south. The best of the lot: ostrich eggs and feathers.”

  “Ben-Azan certainly wouldn’t have gone home a poor man.” Bak tapped the edge of a basket filled with lumps of resin, used for incense, and pointed to a chest of spices and a rough linen bag filled with chunks of precious stone.

  Imsiba flung a sour look towards the ship’s bow. “I’d be willing to bet my newest pair of sandals that I’ll find Aper-el’s merchandise to be no better than that of Thutnofer.”

  Bak ran his fingers along the smooth, cool side of an ivory tusk, not large but of exceptional beauty and value. “How could the two of them come north with nothing when Ben-Azan returned a wealthy man? Was he so skilled a trader?”

  They sat in silence, mulling over the problem.

  Imsiba spoke at last. “I can see Thutnofer and Aper-el slaying him somewhere south of the Belly of Stones, while still in the land of Kush, and taking his trade goods as theirs with no one the wiser. But would they slay him here, knowing full well you’d confiscate these fine objects for the royal house and they’d go home with close to nothing?”

  “I’ve asked myself that question time and time again, Imsiba.” Bak eyed a dog loping along the quay, a half-grown rat in its mouth. “We’ve missed something, but what?”

  “I admired him more than any other man.”

  Aper-el could not seem to stop sniffling, whether saddened by his uncle’s death or from some malady carried on the air, Bak could not begin to guess. No more than 18 years of age, he was of medium height and plump. His beard was black and thick, his curly hair held off his face by a vivid green band. He wore a tunic similar to that of the dead man, but brightly dyed with entwined circles of green, yellow, red, and black. “My father, Ben-Azan’s brother, died when I was but a babe, and he took it upon himself to care for my mother and I as if we were his own.”

  Bak rocked forwards to examine a basket filled with chunks of amethyst. “Is this the first time you’ve travelled with him?”

  “Yes, sir.” Aper-el sniffed. “He thought I should make more of my life. I was a merchant, you see, tending the small shop my father left and living with my mother in the rooms above.”

  “Is she caring for your business while you’re away?”

  Aper-el shook his head. “Ben-Azan urged me to sell it, to invest everything in the trade goods I took with me to Kush.”

  Imsiba, sitting nearby, listening, made an unintelligible sound Bak took to be condemnation. He had finished looking through Aper-el’s acquisitions and had reported that the young man had fared even worse than Thutnofer in his dealings with the Kushites. Which meant that all he had had in his homeland had been thrown to the four winds. Bak thought of the young man’s mother, no doubt dwelling in Ben-Azan’s household as scarcely more than a servant, awaiting her son and freedom. Pity filled his heart.

  Noticing that the basket containing the amethysts had been placed inside another similar container, Bak picked them up and placed them on his lap. “Your uncle appears to have been a very successful man, his skill as a trader unparalleled.”

  “Yes, sir.” Aper-el wiped his nose with a square of red fabric, then clasped his hands tightly together on his lap. “Would that he’d lived longer so he could pass on to me the knowledge he possessed.”

  The words were so trite Bak dared not look at Imsiba. “I’ve been told he was equally able with the ladies.”

  “He was tireless – and most inventive, so they say.”

  “Was he also adept at games of chance?”

  “Whatever he turned his hand to, he succeeded, sir.”

  Another banal statement, this delivered with an outward display of pride undermined by a touch of resentment. Bak lifted the inner basket carefully, expecting chunks of rock to drop through a damaged bottom. Nothing happened; the container was in good condition. Why bring along the outer basket, which was clearly not needed? He noted the design, common to a nomadic tribe east of the river, and the seed of an idea entered his heart. Praying the basket would verify the thought, he turned it one way and another, probed it with his fingers. A bright speck fell out from between the woven fibres.

  Fervently thanking the gods for smiling upon him, he palmed the tiny granule. “While you were in Kush, Aper-el, did you spend all your time in Kerma?”

  “No, sir, we often travelled to towns and villages far from the city, where we traded with headmen and tribal chieftains.”

  “Such journeys must at times have been long and difficult.”

  Aper-el nodded, wiped his nose. “A thankless task it was, but Ben-Azan would ignore no opportunity.”

  Imsiba, walking beside Bak up the quay, asked, “What now, my friend?”

  “Make them our prisoners, Imsiba.”

  “All of them?” the Medjay asked, surprised.

  “Tjay, Thutnofer, Aper-el. None must be allowed outside the walls of Buhen.”

  “Captain Tjay could slay a man, I’ve no doubt, but resentment for having to quickly transfer goods from donkeys to ship seems too small a reason for taking a man’s life. Thutnofer and Aper-el have good reason, but I’m convinced they’re both too weak to raise a hand in anger.”

  Bak nodded at the sentry standing in a thin slice of shade cast by the twin-towered gate at the end of
the quay. Holding out his hand, palm open, he revealed the small golden kernel. “We must get some men into the hold of Tjay’s ship. I’ll wager a jar of the finest wine from northern Kemet that a thorough search will turn up more than ballast down there.”

  * * *

  “You can’t do this!” Captain Tjay, his hands, like those of his companions, manacled behind his back, glared venomously at Bak. “I’ll complain to your commandant, to the viceroy, to the vizier himself.”

  “Why make me a prisoner?” Aper-el sniffed. “I’ve done no wrong.”

  “If you truly seek Ben-Azan’s slayer, you’ll look closer to home,” Thutnofer said. “To that old woman Nofery and the women who toil in her house of pleasure.”

  Bak rested a shoulder against the doorjamb and eyed the trio his Medjays had brought to the guardhouse. The entry hall seemed full to bursting, with Imsiba and Hori, the prisoners, the four policemen who had brought them in, and the two Medjays currently on duty all crowded together at the near end. The latter pair, their curiosity aroused, had gone so far as to interrupt the never-ending game of knucklebones that went on night and day as the shifts changed.

  “I see no need to look any farther than the three of you.”

  “Why would any of us slay a man we so greatly admired?” Thutnofer scoffed.

  “Admired? Or envied. The one oft times supplants the other.”

  “I’ll have your baton of office torn from you,” Tjay snarled. “You’ll be lucky to remain in the army a common spearman.”

  Bak signalled the men on duty to return to their game and dismissed two of the Medjays who had brought in the prisoners. Entering the room he used as an office, he ordered the captives to sit on the floor against the wall and the remaining Medjays to stand guard outside. Hori lit three oil lamps to supplement the light coming through the door and sat cross-legged on a floormat facing the bound men, his writing implements close to hand. Imsiba sat on a mudbrick bench built across the back of the room, while Bak dropped onto a low three-legged stool.

  “The three of you together slew Ben-Azan.” Bak waved off a ribbon of smoke drifting up from a lamp. “One man plunged the dagger into his breast. Tjay, I’d guess – the leather wrapping around the hilt is the mark of a sailor. No less than three men could carry a man so heavy from the place where he was slain to the ancient cemetery.” He saw defiance on their faces, added, “We found his blood under a patch of loose sand near the outer city.”

  “No!” Aper-el cried. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Silence, you witless fool!” Tjay snarled.

  Bak exchanged a satisfied look with Imsiba. The prisoners would shortly be at each other’s throats. “How long ago did he entice you into playing games of chance? After you crossed the border at Semna, I’d guess, and were shown on the records as having returned from Kush. While you travelled north along the Belly of Stones, where he believed he’d be safe.”

  The three men threw accusatory looks at each other.

  “Did he cheat? Or were you so eager to give away all your wares that you made unwise bets?” Bak heard no clatter of knucklebones in the entry hall, no betting. The men were eavesdropping. “And as the days passed I suppose you wagered again and again to recover your losses, only to lose more.”

  “How did you know?” Aper-el whimpered.

  Tjay swung towards him, hissed, “Not another word, you fool!”

  Bak eyed the captain. The traders, he suspected, had eliminated one man to take up with another who would in the end have been no more honest or fair than Ben-Azan had been. “What happened last night? Did he constantly boast of his success as a trader, all the while needling you about how stupid you’d been? Ultimately pushing you too far?”

  Aper-el opened his mouth to respond, but a harsh grunt from Tjay cut off whatever he intended to say.

  “I’ve never known a trader to come back from the land of Kush impoverished. Nor have I known one to return with enough for three – as did Ben-Azan.” Bak bent over and flung a knucklebone, which rattled across the floor and came to rest near Thutnofer’s feet. “One of you lost this near his body.”

  “All right! He stole from us.” Thutnofer spat out the words in fury. “But what good would it do us to slay him? We knew all he possessed would go into the coffers of the royal house. With him alive we might sooner or later get the better of him; dead we’re left with nothing.”

  Bak doubted they would ever have got the better of Ben-Azan. “So you would have us believe.” He glanced at Imsiba, who lifted a lumpy, dusty, and obviously heavy leather bag from a basket sitting on the bench beside him. A bag the Medjays had found hidden among the ballast stones.

  The three men seated on the floor turned a mottled, sickly grey.

  Imsiba untied the knot at the top of the bag and slowly poured out the contents. Rough nuggets, glittering in the light cast by the lamps, clattered into the basket in which Bak had found the golden fragment. Nuggets fused by nomadic tribesmen from granules found in dry watercourses or washed out of quartz dug from the earth. The ragged unformed pieces produced when molten gold is slowly poured into water.

  Enough gold to have made the three prisoners wealthy for life.

  THE LOCKED TOMB MYSTERY

  Elizabeth Peters

  We are still in the Eighteenth Dynasty but have moved on a few kings to the time of Amenhotep III, also called Nebmaatra. He was the father of the renegade king Akhenaten. During his mighty and prosperous reign Amenhotep had a famous namesake, Amenhotep Sa Hapu (meaning son of Hapu), who was the director of all the King’s works. He was responsible for many of the major building projects at Thebes, including the famous Colossi of Memnon and the Temple of Luxor. Although he was of relatively common birth, he became the king’s favourite and, after a long and much venerated life, was accorded a tomb amongst the royal necropolis. Like Imhotep, a thousand years before him, he was later worshipped as a god.

  Elizabeth Peters scarcely needs any introduction. Starting with The Jackal’s Head (1968), which had a contemporary Egyptian setting, she followed in the footsteps of Agatha Christie in developing the archaeological mystery. With Crocodile on the Sandbank (1975), set in the late Victorian period, she introduced Lady Amelia Peabody and her future husband, archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson, who meet in Egypt. Later books include The Curse of the Pharaohs (1981), The Mummy Case (1985), Lion in the Valley (1986), The Deeds of the Disturber (1988), The Last Camel Died at Noon (1991), and others, following through the years and allowing us to watch the Emersons’ son, Ramses, grow into a precocious teenager. Lord of the Silent (2001) brings the series up to the First World War. Although Elizabeth Peters has not written any short stories featuring the Emersons, she has written the following delightful, and slightly tongue-in-cheek, ancient mystery.

  Senebtisi’s funeral was the talk of southern Thebes. Of course, it could not compare with the burials of Great Ones and Pharaohs, whose Houses of Eternity were furnished with gold and fine linen and precious gems, but ours was not a quarter where nobles lived; our people were craftsmen and small merchants, able to afford a chamber-tomb and a coffin and a few spells to ward off the perils of the Western Road – no more than that. We had never seen anything like the burial of the old woman who had been our neighbour for so many years.

  The night after the funeral, the customers of Nehi’s tavern could talk of nothing else. I remember that evening well. For one thing, I had just won my first appointment as a temple scribe. I was looking forward to boasting a little, and perhaps paying for a round of beer, if my friends displayed proper appreciation of my good fortune. Three of the others were already at the tavern when I arrived, my linen shawl wrapped tight around me. The weather was cold even for winter, with a cruel, dry wind driving sand into every crevice of the body.

  “Close the door quickly,” said Senu, the carpenter. “What weather! I wonder if the Western journey will be like this – cold enough to freeze a man’s bones.”

  This prompted a ribald comment fro
m Rennefer, the weaver, concerning the effects of freezing on certain of Senebtisi’s vital organs. “Not that anyone would notice the difference,” he added. “There was never any warmth in the old hag. What sort of mother would take all her possessions to the next world and leave her only son penniless?”

  “Is it true, then?” I asked, signalling Nehi to fetch the beer jar. “I have heard stories –”

  “All true,” said the potter, Baenre. “It is a pity you could not attend the burial, Wadjsen; it was magnificent!”

  “You went?” I inquired. “That was good of you, since she ordered none of her funerary equipment from you.”

  Baenre is a scanty little man with thin hair and sharp bones. It is said that he is a domestic tyrant, and that his wife cowers when he comes roaring home from the tavern, but when he is with us, his voice is almost a whisper. “My rough kitchenware would not be good enough to hold the wine and fine oil she took to the tomb. Wadjsen, you should have seen the boxes and jars and baskets – dozens of them. They say she had a gold mask, like the ones worn by great nobles, and that all her ornaments were of solid gold.”

  “It is true,” said Rennefer. “I know a man who knows one of the servants of Bakenmut, the goldsmith who made the ornaments.”

  “How is her son taking it?” I asked. I knew Minmose slightly; a shy, serious man, he followed his father’s trade of stone carving. His mother had lived with him all his life, greedily scooping up his profits, though she had money of her own, inherited from her parents.

  “Why, as you would expect,” said Senu, shrugging. “Have you ever heard him speak harshly to anyone, much less his mother? She was an old she-goat who treated him like a boy who has not cut off the side lock; but with him it was always ‘Yes, honoured mother,’ and ‘As you say, honoured mother.’ She would not even allow him to take a wife.”

  “How will he live?”

  “Oh, he has the shop and the business, such as it is. He is a hard worker; he will survive.”

  In the following months I heard occasional news of Minmose. Gossip said he must be doing well, for he had taken to spending his leisure time at a local house of prostitution – a pleasure he never had dared enjoy while his mother lived. Nefertiry, the loveliest and most expensive of the girls, was the object of his desire, and Rennefer remarked that the maiden must have a kind heart, for she could command higher prices than Minmose was able to pay. However, as time passed, I forgot Minmose and Senebtisi, and her rich burial. It was not until almost a year later that the matter was recalled to my attention.