The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  Huy noted the snobbery in her voice. Sonebi should have married an aristocrat. But his career had not been harmed by his choice.

  “Why do you think the marriage was unhappy?” he asked.

  “It was barren. I was sorry for her, too, but it would have been better for them to part.”

  Huy looked into his heart before asking his next question. “Do you know Meryt, the daughter of Pashed?”

  Bakmut’s eyes flashed. “She was Sonebi’s mistress.”

  “Did he speak of her?”

  She hesitated before replying. “Sonebi said he could not decide between her and Senen. I do not blame him for that. They were alike. They wanted to use him. But his proper place was here, with us. Now at least he will go to the Fields of Aarru and live in peace.”

  Hearing the vehemence in her voice, Huy looked at the thin woman, but it was already too late to read her face. She had withdrawn into herself again. The face itself was dry and cold, and the lines that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth were deeper now than they had appeared before. Her make-up was clumsily, uncaringly applied. Her eyebrows were unplucked; coarse wisps of hair spiralled from them, and one or two more emerged from her nostrils. She had taken her hand away and now stood stiffly by the gate, arms folded across her narrow breast. Remembering Sonebi in death, Huy now imagined how he might have been in life.

  The Sun was halfway to its zenith when Huy took his leave. He drew his shawl over his head to protect it. The red earth found its way into his sandals and he had to shake his feet to free them of it. Despite the growing heat he wandered aimlessly for a while. He thought hard about Sonebi and the lack of children. He turned the envy and jealousy of the mother and sister over in his heart. Was their possessiveness as straightforward as it seemed? The old aristocracy had little time for Horemheb, a parvenu who had seized the throne when his predecessor had died without an heir, taking to wife a sister of Akhenaten’s Great Wife, Nefertiti. Queen Nezemmut, once Horemheb had persuaded her to marry him, legitimized his claim to the Golden Chair; but there were those who would like to see him fall among the old families. The problem was how to get to them and preserve the discretion imposed on him. And there was another problem: why kill Sonebi? The walls of secrecy that secured the palace were high; and if nothing was lost to the agents of the north – something which the Pharaoh’s spies searching through Sonebi’s offices would soon establish – Sonebi could go to the crocodiles in peace. He was an implement. No one would miss him, as long as policy was secure. His function was important but he himself was not. As an official he could be replaced. He had been efficient, but there were plenty of efficient administrators eager for advancement in the palace. His removal would inconvenience Horemheb, but do no serious damage otherwise. The only true motivation for such an action was revenge; and what relative, lover or friend of one of Sonebi’s victims could ever hope to get close enough to him to destroy him?

  Huy called Meryt into his heart, trying to imagine what she must be like. Often men’s mistresses were like their wives. Huy had been married twice; but he had never had a mistress. He thought of the lies that would become routine, the excitements that would become dull, the hopes that would become blunted with time. Senen knew about Meryt; so did Sonebi’s mother and sister: were they the others to whom Senen had referred? Did anyone else know? It seemed unlikely that it would be common knowledge, and yet in a world as small as that within the encircling walls of the palace it was possible. But Huy rejected the idea: Sonebi would not have been a man to allow weaknesses in the fortifications of his life.

  The question was how to see Meryt. Senen knew she had been her dead husband’s mistress: but was Meryt aware of that? Huy did not know where Meryt lived; but that was something he could leave to Neferhotep. Within the palace’s network of spies there were men who knew much about everyone who lived in the Southern Capital, and Huy’s former student had access to them.

  He made his way back to the small house near the quays where he had lived since his return from the City of the Sea two Seasons of the Flood earlier. He unpegged the lock and walked through the narrow living room to the dark kitchen beyond, where he drew a beaker of red beer from the urn. It was long since he had kept even one body-servant. He considered his next move: could he trust Neferhotep? Sitting alone in the cool of his house Huy knew that if he applied to Neferhotep for help it would be delayed. It was in his student’s interest that Huy should fail. He had been given five days. He partly wanted to fail, in the hope that Horemheb would think him less acute than he had been and let him go; but his heart urged him to succeed, because a direction was emerging, and he knew he had to follow it.

  Suddenly he was alert. In the gloom of the house behind him he had heard a noise, so slight that it might have been nothing more than a mouse. He rose cautiously, aware of the noise he himself was making, and made his way back towards the kitchen. The door that led into the yard was ajar and he could see the brush he used to sweep it standing in the corner where the high white walls met. He reached for his knife but the person at his back was quicker. An arm was flung round his head, covering his eyes, and another covered his mouth. He was lifted off his feet and carried, unable to see or breathe, through the house towards his front door. It was the time of day when the Sun was at its height: only the scarab beetles would be abroad. He lashed out and heard a stool fall and be kicked aside. He tried to open his mouth to bite but the salt-tasting arm was clamped too tightly round his face. Outside he was released but there were others there. Someone held his neck firmly where the great artery was. Before he passed out, he saw a heavily-curtained litter, carried by two men, approaching.

  When he awoke, Huy was lying on an ornate bed in a large room. His head was clear and his heart felt no grogginess from what had gone before. Only he had no idea of what time of day it was, nor even whether it was the same day. The dim light that came through the windows set high in the wall was that of the late hours of the Seqtet Boat. The room contained little furniture, but the paintings on the walls suggested a place of wealth. A man perhaps ten years older than Huy sat on a chair by the bed, regarding him.

  “There is water for you, and honeycomb,” he said. “If you wish.”

  Huy swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat upright.

  “I am Pashed,” said the man.

  Huy looked at him. “You could have sent a servant. I would have come.”

  “It was difficult. You have been told not to speak to me. I am being watched. You are not.”

  Huy let the man’s illusion pass. He knew that Neferhotep, in forbidding him to speak to the doctor, had tried to exercise power that he did not have. It had grated with him severely to have to pass on Horemheb’s carte blanche to Huy.

  “How do you know?” asked Huy.

  Pashed spread his hands. “The palace trusts you, they do not want any attention drawn to you; and Neferhotep hopes in his heart that you will fail. It is an irresistible combination.”

  “And you?”

  “I am favoured; but Horemheb trusts no one. Anyone close to Sonebi, however obliquely, is being watched.”

  “Then what of the men who brought me here?”

  “Cousins. Loyal cousins. I cannot guarantee that they were not seen, but I am sure enough to take this risk. The house you are in belongs to them, not me.” Pashed stood up and walked to the door. “The evening air will do you good. And walking will clear your heart further. I regret that you were handled roughly. I had no guarantee that you would come. I did not want you to be able to identify this place. I am still uncertain that I can trust you.”

  “Why take the risk?”

  Pashed did not answer immediately. He led Huy into a long gallery, open on one side, that ran along the house on an upper floor. The view to the north was similar to that from Neferhotep’s office, except that here one could see across the River to the west bank. The vast red orb of the Sun seemed to rest on the jagged red clifftops there.

  “You
did not know Sonebi,” said Pashed.

  “No.”

  “He was a man whose desires would not let him rest. He would do anything to rise, take any job the king gave him and do it well. But he had no ideas of his own. He was good at climbing ladders to platforms, but once he’d arrived on them, he had to be told what to do. The kind of man Horemheb favours.”

  “You should not tell me this.”

  “In the end, Huy, no one would take your word against mine. That must answer your question about risk.”

  Huy remained silent. Pashed was a man used to being in command. It was not up to Huy to disabuse him. Pashed was taller and more heavily built than Huy, though the fine linen kilt and shawl edged with gold that he wore hid a frame that was more muscular than fat. A heavy necklace of turquoise and gold hung round his neck, a golden Eye of Horus suspended from it. The make-up around his eyes was immaculate, even at this late hour of the day, but his eyes themselves suggested weariness, deep lines cut his face from nose to mouth and across his forehead. Huy could not read his thoughts, but he wondered if Pashed had ever doubted his own invulnerability.

  Pashed leaned on the low wall of the gallery’s open side, grasping it with strong brown hands, and breathed the warm, dusty air of the evening, smelling the smell of distant spices which you could never escape in the Southern Capital.

  Huy wondered if the doctor knew about his daughter’s affair.

  “Sonebi was successful not just because he was ambitious, but because he was charming,” said Pashed. “It was hard for me to be healer to a man whose victims I had seen. It was harder to understand how such a cultivated shell could harbour such cruelty. But the sophistication, as I came to learn, was a veneer. I could see through it, but I could not teach others to. If people do not wish to be persuaded, they cannot be.”

  “Sonebi was obeying orders. He kept the Black Land secure for Horemheb.”

  Pashed spread his hand impatiently. “Already there is talk of his successor. There were plans for such a contingency before he died. A post like that cannot be left vacant for a moment under a king like Horemheb. The water will soon close over his head and your investigation will not matter at all.” He paused, but when he spoke again it was with intensity. “Sonebi enjoyed what he did. The physical cruelty he left to others, but he loved to manipulate – to turn one suspect against another, to make them so unsure even of themselves that confession and death came as a relief from doubt. And he would promise a man a soft death, but give him a hard one.”

  Huy did not answer at once. All this may have been true, but he was still interested to see how anyone could have got close enough to kill the man. Something else interested him: Pashed seemed like a man eager to unburden himself. Was he just speaking to Huy because he thought it could go no further? He had gone to great lengths just to have this conversation. Huy would have interviewed him anyway, but he was not to know that.

  “Someone like Sonebi is always open to murder,” said Huy at last. “However well he is guarded. The work is the enemy, not the man who does it.”

  Pashed inclined his head.

  “Why did you want to see me?”

  “To tell you how he was killed.”

  “Neferhotep has already told me. You told him,” said Huy.

  Pashed ignored him. “No one close to Sonebi knew what he was like. To his family, to all who knew him privately, he was a civil servant, like any other, but in a delicate and important job. The way he duped people became intolerable to me.” Was it Huy’s imagination, or did Pashed stumble over his last words?

  “When it affected those you loved?”

  The doctor looked away towards the River. “I do not know what you are speaking of,” he said at last, but his look was shrewd. “I gave Neferhotep no details. It was scorpion’s venom in wine, but with a certain herb in it too. It had to be something that ensured he would feel something of the pain he had caused.”

  Huy thought of the old saying, that when you enter politics you leave conscience at the door. Hadn’t this man compromised himself too? Hadn’t he done so himself?

  He waited in the silence to see what else Pashed would say.

  “I am growing old. Meryt’s mother was my Chief Wife and she is dead. I have no son.”

  “You took a great risk.”

  “The work that had to be done is done.”

  Huy did not speak. Pashed would not help his daughter by this confession. If he took the information he had just received to Neferhotep, Pashed’s family would be disgraced and Meryt would inherit nothing. But Pashed believed that Huy’s word could not stand against his own. Nevertheless Huy was not satisfied. Beyond this curious confession, what was there that was made of stone? If Pashed had killed Sonebi, how had he done it?

  “Why have you told me?” he asked.

  “Because I know of your tenacity,” replied the physician simply. “There is no more to know, and there is no need for you to follow paths that lead nowhere.”

  Huy allowed his eyes and mouth to be bound and his ears to be blocked with wax before they took him from the house. He had no choice, and he did not see the men who took him, but he was resigned. In the litter that carried him away he felt no panic. He was strangely relaxed. He knew this came from him alone: he had eaten and drunk nothing in Pashed’s company so he could have taken no concealed drug. He was detached from himself. His heart prompted that nothing could prevent them from killing him; but he did not think they would: Pashed was not a man to kill without need, and believed Huy presented no threat to him.

  The route they followed was long, and when the litter stopped and he descended one of the men sat him on the ground and told him to wait. Then there was nothing, though one of the earplugs had worked loose and he could hear them moving away. When all was silent he removed the plugs and the blindfold. It was dark, but he could see that they had left him outside the walls of the city, though not so far that he could not reach them in a short time. It was not good to be outside the walls at night. He hurried towards the nearest gate, which was still open. It was not as late as he had feared.

  He made his way home. Someone had pegged both his front and back doors locked. Inside, there was the usual untidiness, but nothing had been disturbed or taken. He lit a lamp and drew a book towards him, unrolling it to where he had left a marker. There was nothing else to do that evening, and he needed to distract his heart. Reading did not work. Soon he set the book aside and sat staring at the lamplight. And it was not until he was sure that he knew how Sonebi had met his end that he grew tired. There were still questions, but they were few, and he knew whom to ask them of.

  In the end he slept.

  He left it until late the following day before he set off for Sonebi’s house again. He had sent no message ahead, but Senen showed no surprise when she saw him. She greeted him in the courtyard of her house, as before. She wore another white dress, and the same jewellery. She looked at him for some time before she spoke.

  “You know,” she said.

  “Yes.” He paused. The guardian of the fish crouched by the pool. “Send him away.”

  She did so.

  “What is to be done?” she asked when he had gone.

  “Is Meryt here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which of you did it?”

  “Meryt took the poison from her father’s room. She knew what was needed. But we did not know how much pain it would cause.” Huy knew she did not mean to cry, but now she did, silently.

  “No. He prepared the poison specially. He knew whom it was for. He gave it to Meryt. That was Pashed’s revenge. For his daughter, and for all Sonebi’s victims.”

  Senen looked away, towards the interior of the house. From its shadows a woman emerged, and as she approached Huy could see that she and Senen might have been sisters, though Meryt was perhaps ten years younger than her rival, and the set of her mouth was stronger. They took each other’s hands. “I gave it to him in wine when he came home,” Senen continued. “
Meryt was already here. We watched him die together. He made no noise. It was too late to help him. We could do nothing about the pain.”

  Huy turned to Meryt. “Senen has tried to protect your father. There is no need. He tried to protect you. That is how I know.”

  The women exchanged glances. “It was too much for either of us to bear any more,” said Meryt, with defiance in her voice. “Sonebi toyed with us. He wanted neither of us, but he enjoyed the game. And we became so tired of it; but it did not release us from love.” She paused. “My father knew. I asked him to give me something that would take Sonebi from us without pain.” Her heart was drained. She spoke the last words without expression.

  “If we could count the time again,” Senen said, “we would not do it. But for five Seasons of the Flood we were tortured. The thorn had to be drawn out at last. It is not something you can live with forever.”

  “But now you must,” said Huy.

  He imagined the lives they now faced, and the fear they would be in. And there were no children. Sonebi would never be blamed for that – only the women. No one would take Senen as a wife again; and Meryt would be condemned by Sonebi’s mother as soon as she attempted to marry. All they had done was remove somebody loathsome to the Boat of Night. What would happen when Sonebi’s heart was weighed in the Hall of Truth? Would Ammit seize him in his teeth? Would Shesmu throw him into the lakes of Fire?

  Whatever happened, these women would have punishment enough. Huy would not add to it.

  They stood in silence as the waterfall pattered. A fish jumped in the pond. Senen watched it with a look of relief. Everything had been told, and it had taken so little time.

  “What will you do now?” Meryt asked Huy.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  The office of the Black Medjays was empty on the evening that Neferhotep finally sent for the scribe. Huy had delivered a report of sorts, and knew that between its reception and this summons it would have been read and considered by Horemheb as well. He expected Neferhotep to be furious, since the Leader of the Black Medjays would have been rebuked because of Huy’s failure. Neferhotep’s manner was curt, though Huy was not surprised to detect a note of triumph hidden in it.