by Mike Ashley
The crowd swelled from the gutters on each side of the Avenue of Rams, and came menacingly towards Khnemes. All of them were . . .
No. One man was running away from Khnemes, and the sunlight gleamed against bright scar tissue on his right shoulder. Now that his hawk-mask was gone, Khnemes saw that the murderer had long shaggy dark hair: most unusual for an Egyptian. Khnemes turned from the oncoming barge of the sun-god, and ran after this man. Behind him came shoutings and curses, but he dared not turn to see if any of the mob were pursuing him . . .
Ahead loomed a high redstone pylon: the sentry-gate Kheft her-en-Nebset at the west edge of Thebes. “Seize that murderer!” Khnemes shouted to the sentries as the killer rushed past them. But the sentries merely stared blankly. The western quarter of Thebes was the temple district, and the Theban priest-guilds paid these sentries a daily wage of bread and beer to guard the western gate and protect the temples from vandals: those were their tasks, and none other. No Theban sentry would abandon his post, and leave the portals of the gods unprotected, for the sake of catching a mere murderer.
With a sudden inspiration, Khnemes shouted: “Ehi! That man attacked the Barque of Amun-Re! Seize him! Kefaythen ef!” As Khnemes ran through the gate, three sentries picked up their pikestaffs and joined the pursuit. Now Khnemes glimpsed a familiar kilt of coarse grey linen. He saw the sunlight gleaming on bronze-tipped truncheons, and he knew that several constables had joined the chase.
The sharp-scented tang of the Nile became strong in his nostrils as Khnemes reached the sixteen-step staircase Redu ni-Temi. The annual flooding of the Nile had begun, for already five steps were underwater as Khnemes hurried down the Nile-stairs. If the killer had a boat ready for his departure, then Khnemes would never find him. The number of barges and ferries on the Nile must be . . .
No! Thank the gods . . . or thank the calendar, for the stretch of river between Thebes and Karnak had been kept clear today for the Barque of the Sun-God. As Khnemes scanned the riverbank, he saw the entire vast Nile clear of vessels, except . . . ahai! . . . just north of the river-stairs, one desperate little washtub of a boat was moving away from the quayside.
“There he is!” Khnemes shouted. Several dockmen with gaff-hooks came forwards. The boatman had cast off, but now a long gaff-pole snaked out from the shore and caught his prow, as several constables arrived.
Khnemes came running up just as the dockmen were hauling their quarry ashore. He was a small rat-like man, with dark hair nearly to his shoulders and a scraggly beard. Yet he was well-dressed, in new-made sandals and a new kilt of white linen. Who is this man, and who is he to Perabsah? Khnemes wondered.
Two constables held fast the squirming bowman, while Khnemes sheathed his dagger and straightened his anhu wig. “Has this fellow committed a crime, Nubian?” someone asked.
The assassin’s bearded face quivered in rage. “Enuk Atur’meh!” he protested. “I am a free citizen of Lower Egypt!”
“Tu ma nikeh: you are a murderer, that’s what you are,” said Khnemes.
“One moment, Nubian.” From behind Khnemes, a constable strode forwards. He wore an armband displaying a docket of rank – he was a chief constable, then – and his tone was respectful as he examined the echelon curls of the short-naped wig that Khnemes wore. “You wear the wig of the Medchay, yet I have never known their bowmen to wield such a poor weapon.” The chief constable pointed: Khnemes was still holding the murderer’s discarded longbow. It was a crude weapon, made from several lengths of carved cassia-wood, splinted together and poorly balanced.
“The weapon is not mine: it is evidence,” said Khnemes, saluting this man while he unstrung the bow. “And I was of the Medchay. Enuk Khnemes, master bowman of the Chaut Sefekhnu: the Twenty-Seventh light infantry division, garrisoned at Per Nebes, near the Nile’s second cataract. At least, that is where I served longest.”
The policeman seemed impressed. “The Twenty-Sevens, you served with? Enuk Peth. I was a charioteer, Third Light-foots, the Encirclers. We fought alongside you in the Wauat uprising.” Chief Constable Peth saluted Khnemes, then jerked his thumb towards the rat-faced criminal. “Here, now: what’s all this, then?”
Khnemes took a deep breath. “This man has slain my lord sovereign, Perabsah. Or he has attacked him, at least: I gave orders for a physician to be summoned.” Khnemes scowled at the prisoner. “I would question this man, but first I must see to my master’s condition. I pray you: hold this prisoner against my return. He may have committed crimes against Thebes.”
“We will hold him for one day, at least . . . but then he must either be charged, or thrown back into whichever gutter spawned him.” Peth nodded to his subordinates. One constable seized the prisoner’s wrists, yanking them behind his back while another constable stepped forwards with a set of twist-cuffs. The prisoner’s hands were shackled, and Peth gestured northeast, towards the central courthouse of Thebes. “Take him away.”
Qesf stood at the entrance to the lodging-house. “It is all as you ordered, emir per. I sealed the doors with your khetem, front and back, while Huti summoned a physician. The doctor’s name is Hefren, and he is tending our master even now.” Qesf gave Khnemes a long cylindrical object with a handle at each end, like a baker’s rolling-pin. This was the khetem, the cylinder-seal which Qesf had taken from the sling-bag flung to him by Khnemes.
Khnemes reached the entrance to the lodging-house. The front doors were open, but the doors to the antechamber were tightly shut, and a slathering of clay had been smeared across the join between the doors. Three symbols were deeply pressed into the clay. Uppermost was the image of a man in a nobleman’s headcloth. Below this was the rectangular hieroglyph depicting a house. Lowermost was a picture of a bowl emitting rays of sunlight: this was the hieroglyph nubu, the symbol of gold. These three glyphs formed the crest of the house of Perabsah, whose family fortune was made in the Bendet goldfields. This unique sequence of symbols was produced only by the khetem seal of Khnemes when it was rolled into clay or soft wax. If another cylinder-seal were carved with these same three images, the impression would not be identical, and Khnemes would know it instantly for a counterfeit.
Khnemes inspected the clay seal. There were two impressions of Perabsah’s house-mark in the clay, one covering the other but not quite precisely aligned. The deeper impression – the one made first – was split at the top and bottom. So these doors had been opened after the first seal was made, then closed to receive the second image. “Qesf, you sealed these doors immediately after I pursued the murderer?”
The slave nodded. “Indeed, emir per. No one entered nor left. I broke the seal to admit the physician, then I resealed the doors. I have stood guard here ever since. Huti came for your khetem whilst I stood guard, and he brought it to Djeb at the other door.”
Leaving Qesf at his post, Khnemes circled round to the oxen-yard behind the lodging-house, then he entered the inn through the rear entrance. From upstairs came the sounds of female weeping: Merytast was lamenting amid her maidservants. Djeb was on guard at the stairs, and he pointed to the closed doors leading into the main hall. These too were sealed with the unique khetem-mark of Perabsah’s estate. Khnemes satisfied himself that this mark was unbroken. Now he inserted the blade of his dagger into the join between the doors, and broke the seal. He stepped into the scene of the crime.
Four men were in the central hall. One was the priest-scribe Uaf, squatting in a corner and looking impatient. At the far end of the room was the doorkeeper. In the centre of the room, slumped on the floor, were two men: the man unknown to Khnemes must surely be the physician Hefren.
The other man was Perabsah. The broken shaft of an arrow protruded from his chest. He lay in a puddle of blood, and his breath came in loud hawking gasps. Perabsah’s flesh was ash-pale, and his eyes were closed, but he was still alive.
Khnemes ran towards him, and knelt at the edge of the blood. “My lord sovereign! Doctor, how is he? And why do you not remove the arrow?”
/> Hefren scowled, and reached for a tool from the medical-case on the floor beside him. “If I remove the arrow, his wound will open. This man should be carried on a swift sledge to the nearest healing-house, where I have means to suppress his bleeding. Ehi, that reminds me.” Hefren gave Khnemes a golden earring. “Your master wore this. He no longer requires it.”
“Can I go now?” whined Uaf. “This is nothing to do with me. I only came here to read some cartonnage.”
“You will be paid for your time,” Khnemes vowed, as he went back to the physician. Perabsah’s chest wound was swathed in several strips of bloodied linen, with the arrow still protruding between them. “Can I help?” Khnemes asked.
Hefren shook his head. “Only the gods can help this man now. When your master fell, he struck the back of his head on the floor.” Hefren lifted his right hand, with two fingers coated in dark blood. “Your master’s gama – the temporal bone of his skull – has been fractured, and there is an injury to his brain. You see this?” With his clean left hand, Hefren gently skinned back the lids of Perabsah’s right eye, then his left. The pupil of Perabsah’s left eye was twice as large as the other. “When the kem of one eye is wider than its brother eye, the brain is filling with blood on that side,” Hefren explained. “This man’s chances are . . .”
“Khnemes!” cried Perabsah, opening both his eyes and trying to sit up.
“I am here, neb-i,” said Khnemes. “Sir, lie still. You must rest.”
“I will have centuries to rest,” said Perabsah, in slurred tones. “Khnemes! My wife becomes my heiress now; I die without a son. And I desire . . .” Perabsah coughed up a gobbet of blood, then continued: “. . . I desire that she bring home with her the broken mummy of my great-grandfather’s servant, for reburial on my lands.”
“It will be done, neb-i,” said Khnemes, genuinely moved by this dying request. Khnemes had always observed Perabsah to be a selfish man, yet now – on the threshold of death – Perabsah was concerned not only for his wife, but also for the restless soul of the murdered man Teknu: the mummy from the Plain of Loaves.
“Khnemes!” screeched Perabsah, trying to sit up yet restrained by the physician. “I hear the beating of wings: my death comes! But do not let me vanish!”
“ ‘Vanish’, my lord?” Khnemes asked.
Perabsah nodded heavily. “My life, my estates, and all the living souls who knew me . . . all of these are in Aneb Hetchet, in northern Egypt. Yet now I die . . .” – he coughed again – “. . . now I die in southern Egypt, as a foreigner.”
Perabsah was right, and now Khnemes understood the full horrible implications of Perabsah’s death in this place . . . in the wrong Egypt, where he was unknown.
“When no one remembers my name, I will vanish,” harshed Perabsah, his voice growing weak. “I will die here in Thebes, among strangers who will swiftly forget me. To die once is a certainty, Khnemes . . . but to die and be forgotten is the second death, the fate of the damned. I had always planned . . . ahuk! . . . I had planned to be buried with my father and grandfather, in the tomb on my estate, where those who knew me will see my name after my death.” Perabsah trembled now, and he clutched at Khnemes. “Faithful steward, you must make certain that . . . ahauk! . . . that my body is made ready for the afterworld . . . and then you must convey my mummy to my home in northern Egypt.”
Do I owe this man so much? Khnemes wondered. Must I make this last promise, and bind myself to his flesh even after his death?
“Khnemes!” said Perabsah in a whisper. “Fetch me home . . . ahuk! . . . to northern Egypt: the true Egypt of the pharaoh, not this festering cult-nest of the southern priests. Do not let my soul die in this place. Do not murder my soul!”
“I will do what must be done, heri sa’ur,” Khnemes answered. But he was thinking of his duties to the flesh-world, not the afterlife. Silently, Khnemes vowed that he must bring justice to Perabsah’s murderer. And, into the bargain, solve the ancient murder of Teknu.
Perabsah’s eyes rolled upwards in their sockets, and his eyelids closed. He fell back, with the arrow’s broken shaft protruding from the centre of his chest. Hefren caught the dead man, then placed him gently on the floor.
From abovestairs, Khnemes heard the sound of female wailing: the widow Merytast and her maidservants. The mourning had begun.
Perabsah’s shent kilt was disarrayed at his loins. Khnemes adjusted the garment . . . then he saw that the pouch at Perabsah’s waistband hung limp and empty. The emerald was gone! “Have you taken anything from my master?” Khnemes asked Hefren.
“Only his headcloth, which I tore into strips to make bandages,” said the doctor, calmly repacking his instruments into their case. “Is anything . . .”
“An emerald is missing,” said Khnemes. “It was the dead man’s property: under Egyptian law, it now belongs to his widow. It is missing. Djeb! Huti! Enter this room at once, through the back way.”
The two slaves entered, and Khnemes explained. Quickly, the scant items of furniture in the hall were examined: the emerald had not fallen behind any of these.
Qesf entered, as Huti and Djeb herded the physician, the sem-priest and the doorkeeper into the centre of the room. “A precious jewel has vanished from this room while the exits were sealed,” Khnemes told them. “Whoever took the emerald has probably conspired in my lord’s murder. Forgive the indignity, but all three of you must be searched. If you are innocent, you will be compensated for your time and for the liberties which I must take.”
“You dare suspect me?” Hefren asked. “I’m a doctor, not a jewel-thief! I gave you back his earring, didn’t I?”
“You did,” said Khnemes. “But sometimes a large crime is concealed behind a small honesty. The emerald is far more valuable than the earring. Please disrobe.”
“Tread carefully, Nubian,” said Hefren. “You are in Thebes now. I am more powerful in this city than you are.”
“Yes,” said Khnemes patiently. “You are a sunu, a respected surgeon and healer, whilst I am merely a retired soldier. You are better-known than I am in Thebes. And in the world beyond death, too: you are surely better known in the afterlife than I am, doctor . . . for between us, in our two professions, you have probably killed more men than I did. But in this room, at this moment, I am more powerful than you. Please disrobe.”
The doctor glared at Khnemes, while Qesf and Huti and Djeb flexed their arms. “Have your look, then.” Hefren took off his headcloth and kilt, and flung these angrily to the floor, keeping only a scrap of linen to wipe Perabsah’s death-blood off his fingers while he stood naked in his sandals. “Perhaps you will claim that I swallowed this precious stone?”
“The stone was as large as a man’s fist,” said Khnemes. “You are a sunu, not an unu: a doctor, not an ostrich. But might I examine your medical case?”
Hefren nodded angrily. With great interest, Khnemes examined the medical kit of an Egyptian surgeon. It was a rectangular cassia-wood case, with a shoulder-cord. Four rows of neat compartments filled the case. The first shelf held several white alabaster pots, with a line of black hieratic scrawled upon each: Khnemes could not read these, but his nostrils told him that these pots contained camphor-root, juniper, meadow-sweet, garlic, henna, liquorice and turmeric. The second shelf held copper knives, an obsidian drill, and a bone-saw. The third shelf contained an incense-lamp, some pastilles, a mortar and pestle. The last shelf held a balance scale, forceps, tweezers, and a pair of shears. Khnemes discovered that the entire set of shelves lifted out of the case to reveal another compartment beneath. This contained several papyri – probably medical texts – as well as linen dressings and a lacquered box slightly larger than a man’s fist. Hefren’s face reddened as Khnemes hefted this box and raised its hinged lid. Inside the box were a mes amulet to assist in childbirth, a bright red Isis-knot to ensure fertility, an utchat Horus-eye, a priapic charm and several other talismans.
Hefren looked embarrassed. “I don’t put much faith in those trinkets,
but my patients expect a bit of magic with their medicines. Are you satisfied?”
Khnemes nodded. “My apologies to you, doctor, and my compliments to the craftsman who fashioned your medical kit.” Khnemes turned towards Uaf. “You are next.”
The unkempt sem-priest had already taken off his garments, proving that the emerald was not on his person. Gesturing at him to clothe himself, Khnemes examined the man’s Thoth-case: the proudest possession of an Egyptian scribe.
Uaf’s scribe-case was shiny with a bright coat of lacquer: the smudge-faced sem neglected his own appearance, yet he clearly took impeccable care of his writing-case. Like Hefren’s medical kit, the interior of the Thoth-case had several partitions. There were reed pens of various lengths and diameters, as well as uncut reeds and a flint blade. A drawstring bag contained a piece of sandstone and a scrap of pumice, worn smooth from their frequent use as erasers. The scribe’s ink-blocks were next. These consisted of ground pigments mixed into acacia-gum: a small ink-block of red ochre and a much larger one of black charcoal. Khnemes had observed that hieratic script was often written entirely in black letters, with red used only to mark the beginning of key texts, so it made sense that this scribe carried a much larger supply of black ink than of red. A small clay pot, for mixing the pigments in water, was here also. At the bottom of the scribe-case was a long wooden palette with slots and depressions, and a figurine of the ibis-headed god Thoth, inventor of writing.
Khnemes nodded to the scribe Uaf. “My apologies to you, also. Doorkeeper, you are next.”
The doorkeeper had already disrobed, revealing that he had only the door-seal of this house and two bronze keys on a chain. “I too should be suspected,” Qesf pointed out. “I was in this room after the murderer struck, and I administered the seals.”
“But you had time to hide the emerald elsewhere, so there is no point in searching you,” said the practical Khnemes. Yet this was very strange. The main hall was on the ground floor, so of course there were no windows. All the doors were sealed immediately after Perabsah was attacked . . . so, the emerald had vanished from this room while all the exits were sealed.
