by Mike Ashley
Khnemes looked up sharply. In his haste, he forgot not to look at the shun-priest: Khnemes saw Besek’s eyes, and now suddenly Khnemes grasped the truth.
“The docks!” Khnemes said. “Quickly! What is the swiftest route to the harbour of Thebes?”
This question caught Besek unawares. “Ehi? Well, usually the Avenue of Rams, but today it is thronged with Opet-revellers, and . . .”
“Your barge!” Khnemes seized the shun-priest’s arm, no longer caring if anyone witnessed this. “You said you live on the canal? Prepare to cast off your vessel! I must return to the uabet for a moment, but I will join you. Be ready!”
A few brief atu later, both men were in Besek’s quarters: a flat-decked canal barge, with a single enclosed cabin. Khnemes seized a bargepole while Besek cast off, and then the barge drifted west towards the Nile. Only when the craft was underway, with both men poling rapidly, did Khnemes explain himself. While Besek navigated the canal, shouting at bathers and laundry-maids to keep clear, Khnemes described the basic facts of the mystery while he worked his bargepole furiously. After the preliminaries, he continued:
“The wealth of Perabsah’s house began a hundred years ago, with his ancestor Rekhseth,” Khnemes explained. “But Rekhseth was an overseer in the goldfields. How did a humble overseer become wealthy?”
“Some of the gold stuck to his fingers,” suggested Besek.
“No; there were sentries at the work-camps to prevent this. But each day, Rekhseth came into the camp with a raven in a cage. Each night he sacrificed it in a secluded place, and left the work-camp with his cage empty. The next day, another. Did Rekhseth have enough bird-nets to snare a steady supply of brown-necked ravens?”
“Ahai!” Besek smacked his forehead. “They were all the same raven! Do not ravens steal shining objects? I see it now: each night, Rekhseth gave his raven a gold nugget, and . . .”
“No. Gold nuggets are heavy. But I have learnt something recently: in the goldfields near the Red Sea, emeralds have been found. A small uncut emerald is far more precious than a large gold nugget . . . and lighter, too.” Khnemes shifted course as a swimmer darted in front of their barge. “Rekhseth used a trained raven to smuggle emeralds out of the work-camp. His raven was trained to fly overhead, beyond the sentries, to a secret place outside the work-camp where Rekhseth could accumulate one emerald each night.”
“A hoard of emeralds would attract attention,” said Besek.
“Indeed. The bandits on Egypt’s roads will waylay travellers and search them for valuables. That is why Rekhseth murdered Teknu . . . or arranged his murder. Rekhseth hid the emeralds in Teknu’s corpse. The insect bites proved that Teknu’s corpse was kept unmummified for several days. One of the scribes in the work-camp wrote something on a papyrus: something about Teknu’s death, that might incriminate Rekhseth. Plastered papyrus – utau – is a cheap way to wrap a mummy, so Rekhseth thought of a scheme to destroy the evidence and use that same evidence to keep anyone from examining Teknu’s corpse: he stole the scribe’s papyrus, turned it into a shroud of cartonnage, and then stitched the shroud around Teknu’s body. After Teknu’s corpse was taken out of the work-camp and past the King’s sentries, the dead man was cut open and eviscerated, and then his chest cavity was filled with Rekhseth’s uncut emeralds. The emeralds were safe inside Teknu’s body; few Egyptians would dare to profane a corpse. Even tomb-robbers shun a mummy who seems too poor to possess any death-wealth.”
“But if Teknu’s corpse was stuffed with emeralds,” Besek asked, “why didn’t Rekhseth ever reclaim them?”
“He did reclaim them,” said Khnemes. “Rekhseth’s wealth came from the stolen emeralds. Then he arranged for Teknu’s burial in the Plain of the Loaves . . . in a labourer’s tomb that would attract no attention, yet plainly marked in case Rekhseth needed to return later.”
“I don’t understand,” said Besek, poling faster. “After Rekhseth got the emeralds past the King’s sentries and the bandits, why would he still need Teknu’s mummy?”
“Let us set that aside for now,” said Khnemes. “Think upon this: Perabsah’s household contains many papyri, never properly archived. Recently, the household scribe Seshem began to catalogue these documents. He died suddenly, and soon thereafter Perabsah made plans to journey to Thebes. Somewhere in Perabsah’s jumbled archives, his scribe Seshem must have found a document which revealed the facts of Teknu’s murder . . . and the reason why his mummy was preserved.” Khnemes paused. “In the Plain of the Loaves, I mentioned that the child-coffin was strangely heavy, and Perabsah at once became tense when I said this: he knew that something heavier than a man was inside the coffin. When his slaves opened the coffin, Perabsah flung his hand in front of my face. There was a reason for that. He did not know precisely what was inside the coffin: he did not want me to look until he had seen for himself. But when his slaves tore the cartonnage, Perabsah knew that something important might be written on its fragments. When the wind scattered the papyri, Perabsah shouted at us to gather all the pieces . . . yet he flung away one scrap when he saw that it was blank. He didn’t want the papyrus; he only wanted the writing on it.”
Now the barge reached a sluice-gate: this quarter of Thebes was far from the Street of the Four Sons, and no resident here would recognize Besek as a shun-priest. He drew his monk-hood away from his face, and he poled more rapidly, while Khnemes took up a new thread:
“I met many people in Thebes. Some of them recognized me for a Medchay when they saw the short nape of my wig. From the front, the anhu of the Medchay looks identical to many wigs of Egypt: only the bowman’s nape is different. But one man identified me as a Medchay when he saw me only from the front. He was a fekhet-monk, named Nask.”
Besek looked up sharply. “A fekhet? A monk of Hathor? He must be quite busy during the Opet festival, then. This year, it falls within Hathyr: the month consecrated to Hathor.”
This news startled Khnemes so much that he nearly dropped his bargepole. “No, ‘Hathor’ is your Egyptian name for our Nubian goddess Athrua. The Egyptian month of Hathyr is named for Heru, the hawk-god Horus: ‘Hathyr’ means ‘Chamber-of-Horus’.”
“Aye, Nubian,” said Besek. “But ‘Chamber-of-Horus’ is another name for our goddess Hathor. A true fekhet-monk would be busy in Hathor’s temple all that month.”
Khnemes regained his bargepole. There were so many deities in Egypt, no one could know all their intimate secrets. “That fits my evidence,” he said. “Nask was no priest of Hathor: he told me that the fekhet-monks would be idle during Amun-Re’s festival, yet he did not reckon that this year the Opet fell within Hathor’s month. But he knew me for a Medchay, without seeing my nape. He knew me, and he knew why I had come to Thebes. He knew that Perabsah might find ancient documents – important ones – in Teknu’s tomb. Nask was waiting for me outside Perabsah’s lodging-house . . . ready to offer scribe-services to a man who had found a papyrus.”
“Who is this Nask, and how does he know these secrets?” asked Besek.
Khnemes bent over the side of the barge as he worked his long pole. “Nask is no one: he invented himself. When he stood up, he seemed strangely tall in proportion to his arms and body. Sandals are made of leather or sedge . . . but Nask’s sandals made a clattering sound against the tiles, as if his shoes had soles of wood. Then he lost his balance, as if unaccustomed to standing so tall . . . and he put his hand to his fekhet-tonsure, as if it might fall off.”
“The tonsures of the fekhetu never fall off,” said Besek. “They grow their hair long all round, and shave it bare at the top.”
“Nask was a disguise, not a man,” said Khnemes. “He wore wooden soles to increase his height, and draped himself in a long kilt and a longer monk-cloak to conceal that his stature was false. His tonsure was a wig: the clean-shaven pate was pigskin, or warm beeswax smoothed over his scalp, or some other falsehood to conceal that his head was not recently shaved. He only needed to deceive me for a few minutes in the dark. But he had
to deceive me, because he was someone I had seen before . . . or would meet again. Nask only needed to deceive me for a few minutes while he read the cartonnage, and he gained from it one secret which he kept back when he read the papyrus to me: there were still emeralds inside Teknu’s mummy.”
Besek shook his head. “If Rekhseth went to so much trouble to steal emeralds, why would he leave some of them inside a dead man?”
The barge changed course here, to avoid a squadron of washerwomen, and Khnemes gave only an indirect answer: “I have lately learnt that mica is found wherever emeralds are mined. Perabsah lied when he said he bought that emerald in the marketplace. He found the emerald – and probably many more uncut emeralds – inside Teknu’s mummy, with some stray mica among them. Teknu’s belly was less distended the second time I saw him, because Perabsah had removed some emeralds from the dead man’s body.”
They were reaching the westward terminus of the canal now, but Khnemes never slackened the pace of his bargepole as he continued: “On the morning of Perabsah’s murder, a scribe came to him named Uaf. He was shorter than Nask. Nask kept a tray of incense burning; when I moved towards him, he held the smoking tray near his face so that I could not see his mouth plainly. I did not realise that the pungent incense was meant to conceal another odour. When Nask read the cartonnage, he held it under his nose to hide his mouth. Uaf, also, kept shielding his face from me. He had not expected me to meet him in both his disguises . . . but I saw that he had wretched teeth and foul breath. Uaf claimed to be a sem, but the priests of Ptah are not the only men of Egypt who grow a long sidelock. Uaf could have wrapped his sidelock round the back of his head, to tuck it inside the tonsure-wig he wore when he was Nask.”
Besek gasped. “This grows astonishing, Nubian.”
“It grows more so. Uaf was filthy and unshaven: he needed to be, so that Perabsah would not recognize him. Uaf knew Perabsah: knew him well enough to expect that Perabsah would be half-drunk on a festival day, drunk enough not to recognize a disguised enemy. Uaf was slovenly, but his Thoth-case was freshly lacquered. Few scribes are wealthy enough to afford two scribe-cases. Uaf and Nask were the same man, with the same Thoth-case: Uaf had to paint his case a new colour, so that it would not be recognized as Nask’s.”
Khnemes poled a bit harder, then went on: “I paid scant attention to Uaf’s face, as his breath was so hideous. He was chewing something black: I saw it dribble from his mouth.”
“That cannot be right,” said Besek. “If the scribe’s breath was foul, he must have been chewing natron. There is netra – spiced natron, which is white – or deshret: red natron. There is no black natron.”
“This wasn’t natron, because it failed to cleanse his breath,” said Khnemes. “Uaf’s fingertips were black: I thought those stains had come from his scribe-ink. They did . . . but I had not reckoned why.”
“Wait a bit,” said Besek, nearly dropping his bargepole. “Black ink: are you saying . . .”
Khnemes nodded. “The false monk Nask knew that Perabsah had found a hoard of emeralds . . . might even be carrying one or more on his person. The next day, as Uaf, he deliberately stumbled against Perabsah, touching him at the waist where a man of wealth might keep a treasured acquisition. Then Uaf stepped away from the doorway – so that Perabsah could be seen from the courtyard – and he made a strange gesture. That was the signal for the archer Secheb to strike.”
Besek whistled in astonishment. “And then Uaf stole the emerald . . .”
“Uaf stole the emerald while Perabsah was dying,” said Khnemes. “Before Secheb fired his arrow, Uaf was chewing beeswax mingled with charcoal: the mixture used by scribes to fashion bricks of black pigment. After the emerald vanished, Uaf’s Thoth-case contained a small brick of red pigment, and a very large brick of black pigment. It had to be large, because . . .”
“The emerald!” shouted Besek. “The scribe Uaf moulded a small amount of waxed charcoal around the emerald, to disguise it as a scribe’s ink-brick! But you still neglect my question: if Rekhseth went to so much grief to hide stolen emeralds, why did he leave them inside Teknu’s corpse?”
“A fair question,” said Khnemes. “Let us set it aside for now, and consider the murdered man’s wife. I suspected Merytast for a time: it is not unknown for a wife to conspire in her husband’s death, and Merytast lied to me. Perabsah engaged a new scribe after Seshem’s death. The new man is unknown to me, for Perabsah took pride in hiring this man without my assistance. When I tried to meet him, I was told that this new scribe was busy organizing Perabsah’s archives, continuing Seshem’s task. This scribe must have found a papyrus revealing Rekhseth’s secret: namely, that there were still emeralds to be gleaned, in the Plain of the Loaves. The papyrus probably mentioned Rekhseth’s brown-necked raven, and this inspired the murderer’s revel-disguise. Seshem must have lived long enough to read the same papyrus, and he divulged its contents to Perabsah or Merytast. That is why they came to Thebes: to steal Teknu’s mummy and the remaining emeralds. Perabsah could not guard the mummy every moment, so he enlisted the only person who had his full trust: his faithful wife.”
It was nearly sunset now as Khnemes shipped his bargepole, and the barge approached the final sluice-gate on the eastern bank of the Nile. “I do not know the murderer’s true name, but I know who he is. He is Perabsah’s new scribe. He learnt of the emeralds, and came to Thebes on his own, without Perabsah’s knowledge. He disguised himself as a monk to offer scribe-services. When I gave him the scraps of the utau, he knew that we had found Teknu’s tomb . . . and the emeralds. He could have made up a false text when he read aloud to me the words of the cartonnage, but he apparently told me their true contents: out of arrogance, perhaps, or to allay my suspicions. The next day, disguised as a Ptah-scribe named Uaf, he touched the pouch at Perabsah’s waist . . . just long enough to verify that something heavy was in it. One emerald, of so many, was enough for Uaf to steal. One emerald can buy any Egyptian a long life of comfort . . . and a comfortable afterlife as well.”
Now the barge scraped against the retaining wall at the end of the canal. Khnemes clambered off, and danced impatiently while Besek tied up his barge. “Then the murderer is gone,” said Besek. “Whoever he was, the scribe took his stolen jewel and ran off to a new life.”
“No,” said Khnemes. “He may not have escaped yet. Quickly!” Khnemes turned, beckoning Besek to follow him, as he ran west . . . towards the harbour, and the sunset.
Hurrying through the streets, Khnemes explained while he ran: “An emerald might bring a man twenty years’ worth of luxury, but it can only do so all at once . . . not one day at a time. A single deben of gold can be melted down into ten separate qed’tu, and each golden qed’t may be bartered for many debenu of copper, and so on down . . . as the wealth is spent gradually. But not so for a gemstone: to break it into smaller pieces is to risk losing all. The murderer needed to keep the whole emerald safe until he could get a fair barter for it. He is from northern Egypt, so he likely intends to return to a place where he would not arouse attention. In a light boat, he can swiftly catch up with the heavy barge which carries Merytast’s retinue. He can pass her in the night, and reach Aneb Hetchet before she arrives, and she might never know he was gone. But he dares not keep the emerald on his person for the hazardous journey north from Thebes. A lone traveller would be prey for the robbers in the borderland between the two Egypts.” As he spoke, Khnemes put his right hand into the pocket of his kilt. “It is sacrilege, yes, to profane a mummy . . . but I have done so, to avenge Perabsah’s murder, while you were readying your barge. Perabsah’s chest cavity has not yet been closed by the embalmers. In the uabet, I found what I was seeking . . . and then I purified his mummy again, with amulets and incense, after I had tarried within.”
Now Khnemes drew forth his hand, clutching something green that caught the last rays of sunlight as he ran. “Earlier today, while Perabsah’s chest cavity still lay open, I saw a patch of papyrus on his heart, and stitc
hing to repair a cut: it was placed there this morning, by a man who may still be in Thebes. I thought the injury to Perabsah’s heart was caused by Secheb’s arrow, when it pierced his chest . . . but an arrow to the heart would have killed Perabsah instantly. No; Perabsah’s heart was cut open after his death by the false priest who bribed his way into the embalming-room. The murderer knew that Perabsah’s mummy would be escorted back to his estate. If looters opened the coffin, and unwrapped the mummy, they would find no jewels . . . unless they weighed Perabsah’s heart.”
As Khnemes ran westwards, he opened his fist for an instant . . . just long enough to show Besek the emerald. It was large, and a near-perfect cube. But the cube was flawed with cracks and veins. “I recognized the scent of Perabsah’s vanity-oil when he showed me this jewel,” Khnemes told the shun-priest. “Now here is something else I recently learnt: most emeralds are flawed, but the flaws can be disguised for a few days by soaking the stone in oil. The oil seeps in and conceals the flaws, long enough for a dishonest trader to barter a flawed emerald as a perfect one. Perabsah oiled this emerald; he probably intended to sell it dishonestly. The murderer thought this stone was perfect when he stole it, and when he concealed it inside Perabsah’s heart . . . but the natron-bath of the embalming-chamber has absorbed the oil, and exposed the truth.”
Khnemes repocketed the stone. “Even a flawed emerald is worth something. Rekhseth knew that too much wealth, acquired too suddenly, might bring him unwelcome attention. So he kept the best emeralds from his hoard, and concealed the flawed ones . . . where they could be found later. He left a scroll in his archives, the scroll that Seshem found. If Rekhseth’s descendants squandered his wealth, the scroll would tell them where more emeralds were hidden: in Teknu’s tomb, in the Plain of the Loaves.”
