The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  Besek spat as he ran, following Khnemes towards the redstone sentry-gate. “Your master was flawed, like his emerald . . . but he must have had some good points, since he earned your loyalty. I am a shun-priest, so I dare not judge anyone. When Perabsah meets his judgment in the afterworld, in the Weighing of the Heart, I do not know if the scales will fall towards innocence or guilt.”

  “That was the final clue,” said Khnemes. Now they reached the pylon arch at the western border of Thebes. In the torchlight here, the sentries were conversing with three constables – one of them wearing a rank-docket – and Khnemes snatched a torch from its bracket while he beckoned the policemen to follow him. “Before Perabsah’s mummy is placed in its tomb, he must first undergo . . .”

  “. . . the Opening of the Mouth!” cried Besek as he ran. “The household scribe will stand over Perabsah’s mummy with a ritual knife. The ritual is conducted before witnesses . . . but the scribe will have some time alone with the mummy beforehand. Time enough to cut into the chest cavity, retrieve the stolen jewel, and then conceal the damage to the mummy-linens.”

  One of the constables tried to interrupt, but the chief constable gestured with his tipstaff and nodded at Khnemes to continue while they ran: “Perabsah’s murder was arranged by his new scribe,” panted Khnemes, nearly out of breath now. “I suspected that Merytast conspired with him, but she did not. The flawed emeralds are now Merytast’s property: if she and Uaf were partners in crime, she would have shared them with him . . . either willingly, or because he could blackmail her. Yet the scribe – Uaf, or Nask, or whatever his true name – went to great trouble to steal one emerald for himself, and to conceal it in his master’s coffin, where only the scribe of Perabsah’s household would be able to reclaim it. If he had expected Merytast to share the emeralds with him, he would not have gone to such lengths for one stone. Merytast is innocent.”

  Now they reached the Nile-steps on the riverbank. The annual inundation was underway; in the torchlight, Khnemes saw that nine steps of the staircase were already underwater. “Our quarry has had a head-start,” said Khnemes, peering into the Nile’s currents. “But he came here at leisure, not suspecting that we were on his heels. Constable, is that a boat?”

  A large hulk loomed in the shadows to the south, upriver. The Barque of Amun-Re had made its daily sojourn to the Temple of Mut, and now the sun-god and his retinue were returning to Karnak. The rest of the Nile had been kept clear of vessels tonight, so the god might proceed without hindrance. To east and west, either side of the Nile, ferries waited in the quays until the sun-god had passed. Now Khnemes swept his torch in the other direction. Just north of Thebes, against the white limestone bulk of the Isle of Amunhotep, a small black shape could be discerned: a single barge, journeying downriver.

  The chief constable shook his wooden rattle, and beat his staff against the flagstones. At once, from the docks just north of Thebes, several ferries cast off. The bargeman tried to elude them, but his craft was unwieldy and he showed no river-wisdom. The experienced ferrymen swiftly encircled him, and their bargepoles nudged his unwilling craft towards the eastern shore.

  “Do you know what this means, Nubian?” said Besek, as he followed Khnemes and the constables along the riverbank. “Because I have helped you catch a murderer tonight, the gods may favour me enough to lift my shun-burden. I can be a priest again!”

  Two ferry-pilots held the struggling bargeman, and snatched away his bundle of provisions. As Khnemes ran forwards, he saw that the man had no weapons, but something dangled from a cord across his shoulder: the Thoth-case of an Egyptian scribe. This scribe looked like Nask but was shorter; he resembled Uaf, but he was cleaner and his scalp was newly shaven. He was dressed as Khnemes was, in sandals of sedge and the garb of an apprentice-priest of the uabet. Now the constables closed in, and in the flickering light of the torch which Khnemes held in his right hand, the scribe whimpered.

  Khnemes brought his left hand down upon the man’s shoulder, and spoke: “Netek nikeh. You are a murderer, forever.”

  CHOSEN OF THE NILE

  Mary Reed & Eric Mayer

  Six hundred years have passed since the last story, scarcely a season in Egyptian history, but enough to bring us into the Hellenic period. Egypt’s civilization has continued to decline until much of its past remains a mystery to many, except perhaps a privileged few in the priesthood. Egypt’s past was held in awe by the new civilizations growing around the Mediterranean, not least the Greeks, whose thirst for knowledge took explorers to the boundaries of the known world. The greatest of these was Herodotus, the father of history. Born in Halicarnassus in Asia Minor in about 484 BC, he was in his mid-30s when he travelled through Egypt, exploring as far south as Aswan. By now Egypt was under Persian control but the country’s life and tradition continued in much the same way as before. Herodotus is an ideal detective because of his inquiring mind and because, as an outsider, he would take nothing for granted.

  Mary Reed and Eric Mayer have written a number of historical whodunnits, and are best known for their series featuring John the Eunuch set during the early years of the Byzantine empire. In addition to several short stories he has appeared in the novels, One for Sorrow(1999), Two for Joy (2000), Three for a Letter (2001), with others planned.

  During my travels in Egypt there transpired certain events I would have judged too fantastic to believe, let alone recount in my History, had I not myself participated in them.

  It would not be fitting to identify the large village I was visiting at the time, except to say that its inhabitants worship the crocodile. Do not think that the place may be easily discovered from this practice. The scaled god Sobek is sacred to many living along the River Nile. Strange, perhaps, but then the Egyptians are a people whose men crouch to make water while the women stand, or so I have been informed.

  As it turned out, the religious procession I had returned to the village to see did not, unfortunately, rival the sacred celebrations of such great centres as Heliopolis or Bubastis. It was brief enough. Shortly after night fell, a number of bald-headed priests dressed in plain linen robes and papyrus sandals bore several mummified crocodiles on elaborately carved wooden litters from the temple to the Nile and then returned the same way, there being only one wide dirt road that did not meander off into some closed way. Certain of these priests chanted prayers, while others jingled sistra and villagers sang loudly, the sound of their rhythmic clapping echoing off mud brick house walls and up into a starry vault which seems of a greater height in those regions than anywhere else in the world.

  In truth, however, I believe the onlookers’ enthusiasm arose more from consumption of festive barley beer than from their observation of the pious spectacle. From the little I could discern through the thick, smoky veil laid over the proceedings by the priest’s few torches, the sacred mummies were rather shabby specimens, even if one could believe the remarkable antiquity the head priest Zemti had attributed to them on my first visit, which I did not.

  The most interesting sight was the temple’s one living sacred crocodile, borne along in a cage on a donkey cart. But the beast lay so motionless as to resemble a mummy itself and the glittering baubles decorating its leathery body made the creature appear more ludicrous than ferocious. Disappointed, I started back to my lodgings but found my path barred by a man I had not seen before. His aspect was made remarkable by the extreme length of his hair. The gauntness of his features, starkly highlighted by the terracotta lamp he carried, gave his face a passing resemblance to the features of an unwrapped mummy.

  “You are Herodotus, are you not?” he asked. “The traveller to whom even our priests reveal their deepest secrets?”

  I advised the stranger that he was correct, at least regarding my identity.

  “You must help me. I have lost my wife!” was his astonishing reply.

  I did not take his meaning at first. Then I recalled that the Egyptians, contrary race that they are, do not cut their hair to signify ber
eavement but rather allow it to grow. Yet, as I began my commiserations, I noticed that he had not grown a beard, as was also customary in his country when mourning a loved one.

  “I am not certain what you mean by lost,” I therefore said instead. “For your scalp proclaims one thing, your chin another.”

  The man smiled, his sunken eyes glittering like torchlight reflected from the bottom of a well. “It is just as they say, you overlook nothing! My appearance is thus because there is a part of me which believes Tahamet still lives in this world while another believes she has passed into the next.”

  Amasis, for that was his name, began to recount his story as we walked back along the road where the heavy odour of incense hung in the still night air, not quite masking the loamy presence of the unseen river behind us.

  Before long I interrupted his account. “You say that anyone whose life is claimed by the Nile, whether by drowning or by the attack of crocodiles, must be treated as more than human and further that such a person may only be buried by your priests? But if your wife suffered such a fate and the rites were properly carried out, why do you seek my assistance?”

  “It is true that the head priest told me that Tahamet was found in the River,” Amasis answered, “but as I was just telling you, in keeping with custom I was not allowed to touch her body or approach it closely. However, I have good reason to suspect that the woman they buried was not my beloved.”

  We reached the end of the road but rather than continuing on to the temple causeway we walked out into the desert. Soon I felt sand shifting beneath my sandals and after a while I made out the indistinct shapes of a squat structure hemmed in by thorny acacia trees.

  A torch flared luridly and a figure bearing a lance emerged from between pillars at the front of the low building and challenged us. Amasis quickly trotted forwards and conferred with the guard in an animated fashion.

  Finally he called out. “Our friend here knows your reputation for scholarship, Herodotus. Though few are given the privilege, he will permit us to enter the tomb of those whom the River has taken.”

  Never one to refuse an invitation to visit a forbidden place, I quickly followed Amasis inside. The accommodating guard gave me a wide grin as I went by.

  “When you write about these adventures, be certain to mention the name of Montuherkhepeshef,” he said.

  It is remarkable how often men and women seem to consider ink a better preservative even than natron, aromatic spices and linen wrappings, and just as remarkable what they will offer in return for fame. I remember the men and try to forget the women and their blandishments.

  The single chamber to which the guard allowed us admittance was however too commonplace to bear description other than that it was stone-walled with small drifts of sand piled in its corners. The walls were obviously very thick, being punctuated by deep niches holding uncoffined mummies. However, the trembling light of a lamp on a pedestal gave the sacred place an underwater appearance, reminding me that each person resting so peacefully around us had suffered an especially horrible death beneath the Nile’s suffocating torrent or in the crushing jaws of a crocodile. Perhaps, I surmised, that was why their bodies had not been interred in the more usual fashion. Since they had already been buried once in the sacred waters of the Nile, it might well have been considered blasphemous to bury them a second time under the sands.

  “Here is the one said to be Tahamet.” Amasis reached into a niche and before I could caution him pulled its resident towards him and began to tear at the linen wrappings. He let out a groan. A quick glance revealed the reason for his distress. The embalmer’s arts could not conceal the fact that most of the deceased’s face had been destroyed. There was no doubt it had been the work of a crocodile.

  “I see none of the trinkets I gave her.” Amasis’ voice verged on a sob. “She deserved adornment fit for a queen. Her hair was lapis-lazuli, her fingers lotus blossoms. I was happy to indulge her. She loved necklaces, hairpins and ivory combs and other such dainty things but she was especially fond of a pair of earrings I had specially made for her. They’re yellow topaz in the form of acacia blossoms, and she was wearing them the day she disappeared. Not that the priests can be relied upon to leave such valuables with the deceased, blasphemous though that sounds.”

  I asked him what had made him suspicious about the head priest’s insistence that this was the body of his wife.

  “The circumstances.” He moved his attention further down the neatly swathed figure and I prayed the guard would not suddenly decide to enter the chamber. “For some time, as a safety precaution I’ve had my servant Mose follow her about the village. On that day, he swears that she entered the temple at dusk and never emerged.”

  “How can he be certain?” I asked.

  “The temple complex has only one gateway and Mose is a very patient and observant man. Furthermore, he’s exceptionally loyal to Tahamet. As you can imagine, when she did not return home that evening, I became extremely alarmed. I searched the streets but she was gone. At dawn I went to the governor, useless lout that he is, and demanded he investigate immediately.”

  He continued speaking as he freed what remained of an arm which even in the lamp’s fitful light displayed further ravages of the ferocious creature this strange people worshipped. “Not two days later this half-consumed body was found in the river. But it’s certainly not my Tahamet, Herodotus. She had a pale patch on the back of her right hand where she burnt it while cooking me a duck last year. Look closely and you’ll see there’s nothing like that here.”

  Grabbing the now revealed thin arm by the elbow he shook it, causing the dead hand to beckon me. I stepped away, willing to take him at his word.

  Because I am always interested in discovering a fascinating tale to recount (and, I will admit, also from simple curiosity) the next morning I visited the temple where Amasis said his wife had last been seen.

  Its exterior walls were constructed of the same modest mud-brick as the village houses but here the mud symbolized the marriage of sky and land. As soon as I passed between the unimpressive stone pylons flanking the temple gateway and into the open courtyard beyond, I was approached by a man of such girth that he resembled one of those lumbering beasts the Egyptians call river-horses.

  It was Nahkt, attendant to the Sacred One. I had made his acquaintance on my first visit.

  “Herodotus! Have you penned your account of our temple and its holy occupant yet?” He gestured towards the large, serene pool in the centre of the courtyard. “I’m sorry to say, however, that the Sacred One has not yet appeared today. He is still resting after last night’s exertions.”

  I explained I had come to speak to the head priest, Zemti. Nahkt chattered breathlessly as he led me through the pillared Hall of the Crocodiles, where the Sacred One’s predecessors – the mummified participants in the previous evening’s festivities – now again rested on their high pedestals, awaiting worshippers.

  After passing though a series of ever smaller and darker chambers, all filled with a thick fog of sickly-sweet incense, I was ushered into the presence of Zemti, who was entirely naked and seated on a three-legged stool beside a stone basin, shaving his legs. He put down his bronze razor and greeted me warmly as Nahkt waddled away.

  “I trust you’ve been enjoying your visit, Herodotus? Wasn’t our procession everything I promised? The villagers say they’ve never seen its equal.”

  It seemed to me that the villagers obviously did not venture far abroad but tactfully I did not say so.

  “Is shaving some ordeal your beliefs require?” I inquired instead.

  I could see there was not a hair anywhere on his body, which was considerably fairer of skin than those of his fellow countrymen, many of whom I had seen labouring in the fields, equally naked. Zemti stood to pull on a tunic lying on a sandalwood chest beside him. Several spots of blood immediately bloomed on the white linen garment, revealing where his skin had been cut.

  He sighed. “I have to find a
keener razor. I imagine this one is as old as the temple. I did mention the great antiquity of the temple during your last visit, didn’t I? But to answer your question. Priests must constantly be on guard against uncleanliness, Herodotus. We bathe four times a day, you know. Were lice to be on us as we perform our sacred rituals, it would be an intolerable insult to Sobek.”

  He dabbed at a small cut on his chin and I offered him the cloth I carry at my belt for similar purposes.

  “No, no.” He recoiled from it. “It’s nothing.”

  To me there was something incongruous about this fervour for cleanliness in a place where the choking miasma of incense did not entirely disguise the odours emanating from the embalming chambers. But then, other races do not necessarily think as we Hellenes and often attach fanciful notions to the commonest of events. Their priests, for example, cannot bear to so much as glance at a certain type of pulse they regard as grossly unclean, nor will they permit swineherds to set foot in holy places, the pig being considered an abomination.

  Tucking the cloth back into my belt I couldn’t help but wonder if Zemti had flinched away from my offer because he realized that during my travels I have on occasion been both unclean and unchaste, devourer of pig meat and romantic adventurer that I am.

  I questioned him concerning Tahamet. Zemti looked distressed. “A terrible tragedy indeed. Amasis is naturally distraught. He keeps insisting her body wasn’t hers and that she was hidden somewhere in the temple. We were not offended, of course, knowing only too well that at times grief deprives men of reason and they grasp at whatever they want to believe. I tried to tell him it would be best to be content that the River had chosen her, but he would not be consoled.”