Murder at the God's Gate

by Lynda S. Robinson

  Meren shoved a basket of fruit into his son’s hands and said, “Not now, Ky. We’ve just spent most of the day quarreling. This meal is for the respite of my friends.”

  “Respite!”

  They all looked up to find Tanefer parading to the threshold, a cup of wine in one hand, a flagon in another He moved loosely, with abandon and ease. As was his habit, he wore his dagger in a scabbard on his upper arm.

  “Respite indeed,” Tanefer repeated as he came in and looked back over his shoulder. “They’re in here, Djoser.”

  Soon they were all seated and being served roast goose accompanied by new-baked bread. Rahotep joined them last of all, taking a seat well away from Ahiram. Servants passed among them, refilling goblets with wine or beer from jars whose necks had been decorated with garlands of lotus flowers. Meren kept Ahiram distracted while Tanefer entertained Rahotep and Kysen. As usual, Djoser listened quietly to everyone and said little himself.

  As dusk approached, a wine-heavy somnolence came over the group. Kysen engaged Rahotep in a game of senet.

  “I’ll beat you,” Rahotep said. “I beat everyone. I’m the best senet player in the Two Lands.”

  Meren saw Kysen press his lips together to prevent a retort. He’d warned Ky long ago about Rahotep’s bragging. Rahotep considered himself the best at everything from swordplay to breathing, and saw to it that the entire kingdom knew it. Meren felt that his bragging covered an utter lack of faith in his own merit. And somehow he couldn’t become annoyed with Rahotep for long. His rudeness and clumsiness were so childlike that when he offended someone, he was often bewildered at how he’d managed to offer insult.

  Djoser, too, seemed indisposed to listen to Rahotep’s blustering. He requested that musicians be summoned. When they arrived, he settled on cushions with a basket of pomegranates and grapes and listened to the harp, flute, and sistrum.

  Tanefer left him to join Meren and Ahiram. The conversation drifted from the hunt to speculation about a newly widowed noblewoman, Lady Bentanta, who had taken an interest in Meren. Meren endured Tanefer’s gentle teasing while his own thoughts pursued a different course. He didn’t like the conjunction of the controversy among the king’s advisers and this sudden death of a priest, and the currents of dissatisfaction at court seemed more disturbing than usual. This was one reason he’d invited Tanefer and the others to his home. Due to their station and birth, these men had great influence on those of lesser rank.

  In addition, Ahiram commanded the Bows of Ra, an elite regiment of two hundred royal archers, and Tanefer’s regiment of charioteers, the Golden Leopards, was second only to the king’s own war band. Djoser nominally headed a squadron of infantry. No one expected him to remain its commander for long. Rahotep, however, had just persuaded the king to allow him a regiment of charioteers and supporting infantry. For these he was recruiting native and foreign soldiers, especially Mitanni, of whom he seemed to have acquired a good opinion while in Syria.

  All of these men reported to General Horemheb. Any one of them, except possibly Djoser, possessed the knowledge, wealth, and skill to menace pharaoh should he choose. Meren’s task was to know the character of each. Only in this way could he guard the safety of the king.

  “Am I right, Meren?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t fall asleep,” said Tanefer. “Brother of my heart, I’ve just wagered this gold ankle band that you’ve refused to favor the Lady Bentanta.”

  Meren held out his hand, and a maid placed a silver dish laden with his favorite figs in it. He rose and went to a couch. Lowering himself to a half-reclining position on its cushions, he bit into a fruit.

  Unfortunately, Tanefer and Ahiram followed him. Tanefer dropped on a leather cushion near his elbow, plucked a fig from Meren’s bowl, and took a bite.

  “He won’t answer, Ahiram. What say you? Has he let her into his bed?”

  “I would, me,” said Ahiram between gulps of wine. “A widow—gods, think of her experience, and she’s still young enough to—”

  “Ahiram,” Meren said softly. “You really should learn not to flap your tongue about women.”

  “Then settle our wager,” Ahiram said.

  Meren lay back on the couch and stared up at the plastered ceiling and green-and-white frieze of papyrus fronds that bordered it. “I regret that you’ve been reminded of the loss of your father by this whole question of a new campaign next harvest.”

  He glanced at Ahiram, but the Syrian was staring at Tanefer as if the younger man held the secrets of the underworld. Tanefer studied his fig, then took another bite.

  Meren had expected to provoke a string of complaints, Ahiram’s forte. His laments at his ill fortune were well known at court, and he could spend an entire evening listing injustices done to him, reasons why his plans for achievements hadn’t succeeded (always someone else’s fault), slights received. Meren often learned interesting things from these tirades.

  “I know the old king abandoned your father to those rebels and bandits,” Meren said.

  “Dung-eaters in the pay of the Hittite king.”

  Meren tried again. “How it must sting to have been raised as an Egyptian, to be trained to take your father’s place and continue in friendship with the empire—and then have those who promised so much fulfill nothing.”

  Ahiram looked away and shrugged. “That was long ago.”

  “Not so long,” Tanefer said. He was staring into the pool of wine in his goblet.

  Meren watched the way the corners of his mouth drooped, and for once regretted the necessity of probing old hurts. Tanefer’s mother had been a princess, daughter of the king of Mitanni, who came all the way from the banks of the northern Euphrates to wed pharaoh’s father and vanish into his palace as one of several lesser wives.

  He remembered Gilukhepa. A woman, like many in the household of pharaoh, dissatisfied with her allotted place in the shadow of the great Queen Tiye. Over the years, her dissatisfaction had putrefied. She had tried to bathe Tanefer in that putrefaction, but her son possessed a merry and magical ka that could no more live upon misery than a crocodile could walk like a man.

  He surrounded himself with beauty, having built one of the most gracious and largest houses in Thebes. He kept entire workshops of artisans who decorated his houses, created his jewelry, armor, and weapons, designed his tomb. Tanefer had a gift for beauty. Most of the young men around pharaoh envied him his easy yet regal manner, his brilliance in battle, his barbed wit.

  “You could have been king,” Meren said.

  Tanefer set his goblet down on the floor and began tossing a fig in one hand. “My uncle is dead, murdered by one of his cousins no doubt, and my relatives vie for what is left of Mitanni. Think you I wish to leave the font of civilization to lie in a bed of serpents?”

  “Byblos is a magnificent city, and rich,” Ahiram said. “I wouldn’t refuse to rule it, me, should the empire find its testicles again.”

  “That kind of campaign would take years,” Meren said. “Think of the cities that lie between Egypt and Byblos.”

  “We wouldn’t have to fight if the old king hadn’t—”

  “Peace! We’re here to enjoy Meren’s food.” Tanefer slapped Ahiram on the back and whispered a lurid jest.

  Ahiram barked his laughter. Having won his game of senet, Kysen came over to join in their merriment. Meren was left free to approach Djoser and Rahotep, who were listening to the musicians. Words of the song floated up to him as he took a chair beside them. My beloved rules my heart. Oh how long is the hour since I lay with her.

  The harp’s music rippled through the air, and Meren could see that its tranquility was at odds with Djoser’s thoughts. Evidently Rahotep was trying to amend his friend’s poor spirits in his clumsy way and hadn’t succeeded. Djoser’s foul mood contrasted with his fine raiment. Of all of them, he was the one most attentive to dress. At the moment he was contemplating his sandal, a rich object of gilded leather. Djoser liked sandals. Meren once estima
ted he had a pair for each day of the year.

  Rahotep was still trying to cheer his friend. He was generous; for once he’d found someone to whom he could compare himself easily and always rank himself the better.

  “It isn’t every man’s fate to be a warrior,” Rahotep said. “Many of the great of Egypt weren’t. Remember the architects Amunhotep, son of Hapu, and Imhotep, who was also a sage and magician. Why, Imhotep designed the great step pyramid and is revered as a god.”

  Djoser downed half a goblet of beer, then wiped his mouth. Even this much drink couldn’t seem to quell his agitation. His eyes darted from side to side, and he appeared to shrivel inside his skin as he spoke.

  “You didn’t puke on the battlefield. You didn’t drop your own scimitar. You didn’t lose governance of your horses and have to be rescued from your own chariot.”

  Djoser gulped down the rest of his beer and slurred his words. “I have to prove my worth. Everyone is laughing at me, but I’ll kick their laughter back in their throats. No one should laugh at a prince …”

  Meren exchanged glances with Rahotep.

  “I’ll see that he’s taken home,” Rahotep said.

  Meren nodded. “Has your humor restored itself?”

  Rahotep began to store the senet tokens in compartments inside their box. “Ahiram wouldn’t have dared put his hands on me if I had full royal blood.”

  “His temper will be his downfall,” Meren said. “I’ve seen him so maddened that I thought he’d touch pharaoh himself.”

  He could see that Rahotep didn’t believe him. He’d known these men for most of his life, but Rahotep was the only one who bore common blood, and was the only one who constantly remembered it. His mother had been a peasant who caught the eye of pharaoh. And with every breath he drew, Rahotep regretted that she’d never been anything more than a concubine. He even hated his appearance, for he’d inherited his mother’s wide, flat face and spreading nose, which he deemed to be peasant traits. Kysen had often remarked that Rahotep would appear far more princely if he weren’t constantly digging his little finger in his ear.

  Meren listened to Rahotep discounting the concerns of Djoser, consigning them to insignificance beside his own burdens, and knew that he’d been right to invite his friends home. There was much fuel here to heat the cauldron of strife that was the court. To keep it from bubbling over, he needed to listen to howls of discontent, to keep his ear alert for the sounds of hounds metamorphosing into jackals and hyenas.

  Chapter 7

  North of Thebes, at the edge of the eastern city, the waters of the Nile had cut deep into the bank, causing eddies and slowing the current of the river. Here lay a small marsh, between the river and the beginning of cultivation. Ebana guided his chariot carefully along a road made of the back dirt produced by digging canals.

  The going was slow, for it was late, and only the moon’s light illuminated his way. Finally he pulled up and dismounted. He removed a spear from the case attached to the chariot and walked down a dike to the marsh, where a papyrus-stalk skiff awaited him.

  Stepping into the boat, he shoved off, using the oar that lay within the vessel. Water rippled around him, obsidian-black and cool. His entry disturbed a hen-bird, who scrambled out of the water to the cries of her nestlings. Ebana glided between the tall papyrus fronds, taking care not to go too near the thick stands. The way his fortune had been going, he might disturb a crocodile or nudge a hippo.

  The skiff slowed, then stopped. He sat quietly, listening to frogs and insects and the slap of water against the boat. He tightened his grip on his spear. If the need for secrecy hadn’t been so great, he would never have risked crocodiles and drowning, not for the man he was to meet here.

  A hazy dash of pink caught his eye—a rose lotus. Moments went by, and as they did, it felt as if rats were doing a feast dance inside his gut. A curse wafted toward him over the water. Backstroking with his oar, he turned the skiff to meet another, sliding into the marsh from the river. The two craft drew alongside each other.

  The newcomer spoke without preamble. “He knows!”

  “Absurd,” Ebana said. “Don’t let him drive you like a frightened ox, or you’ll betray yourself and us.”

  “I was with him today, and I tell you Meren knows something. Why is he so vigilant? He doesn’t dabble in every accident and abrupt demise that comes to his notice.”

  “Because he can smell intrigue as a hound scents the oryx. It’s his way, and I have prepared for it.”

  “He hasn’t smelled me,” the other said, his voice rising. “I swear it. The fault isn’t mine.”

  “What are you speaking of?”

  “Naught, naught. By the wrath of Set, I hate marshes. Too many creatures of the night.”

  Ebana studied the newcomer, whose head jerked from side to side as if he expected to be swallowed by a hippo at any moment. The fool was losing what mettle he possessed, and for so little reason—unless he had something to conceal.

  “Hark you,” Ebana said in a quiet, precise voice, “if your fear-blind haste has exposed us, I’ll kill you myself.”

  That swiveling head twisted back to face him.

  “No, no. No. Don’t disturb yourself. I’ll deal with the matter.”

  “Just keep yourself haltered, you fool. We were counting on the king and the others being distracted by this Hittite quandary, but with Meren sniffing the air, the high one thinks we should bide a while.”

  “Too late.”

  “Why?”

  A hand came out to grip the side of Ebana’s skiff.

  “Too late. I got word early this morning. The work has begun.”

  “Curse it.”

  “Now do you see? By the time I could reach them, the acts will already have been committed. I expect shipments within a few weeks.”

  Ebana glanced down at the hand strangling the bundles of papyrus stalk that comprised the edge of the skiff. He could feel the tautness in the other’s arm through the fabric of the boat. Infusing his voice with calm, he leaned over and unfastened the hand from his craft.

  “Nothing has changed. Go about your affairs as is your habit. That’s all you must do. And don’t let my cousin’s machinations make you flinch. He knows nothing. Nothing at all. Now go. We’re in greater danger from the river than from Meren.”

  Ebana watched his ally disappear through a screen of reeds. Something was wrong. Something more than just the inconvenient death of a priest. Whatever it was, he was beginning to think that this particular ally must be dealt with—but not until after he’d accomplished the task to which he’d been set.

  They had climbed out of the wide ribbon of green that was the Nile Valley, high onto the desert floor, and then into a valley formed by steep limestone cliffs. Meren climbed down from his chariot and handed the reins to Abu, who led the team away to be watered. Behind him came Kysen and Tanefer, Djoser, Rahotep, and several others.

  The morning had been spent downing ibex, ostriches, and deer. Tanefer had found this deep valley where enough moisture gathered to favor the growth of vegetation around a minute pool. By the end of harvest, the water would evaporate. Tanefer’s hunters had erected a net at one end of the valley, and the hounds had driven the game in from the other end.

  Meren took refuge beneath a portable sunshade. A body servant came forward with a water bottle. He poured some over his face, which was covered with a layer of fine sand grains and dust, before drinking. He wiped his mouth and watched Kysen and Tanefer direct a hunter who was lashing a gazelle to a carrying pole.

  Tanefer had organized this hunt, and Meren was grateful for the distraction; he’d managed to extract a period of grace from the king. A fortnight to decide whether to risk allowing pharaoh to fight the Hittites. Had it been so long since the day the priest had been discovered at the foot of the statue at the god’s gate? Meren gulped down more water as Kysen left his host and joined him.

  Tanefer was busy directing servants, hunters, and hounds. Kysen took a water
bottle from a servant, dismissed him, and dropped down on a reed mat at Meren’s feet. They swigged water and watched the preparations for the return to the city. Not far off, other men retreated to the shade of canopies, joking and laughing.

  “Where is Ahiram?” Kysen asked.

  “He discovered that Rahotep was supplying a brace of hounds and refused to attend,” Meren said. He wiped gritty sweat from his forehead, then touched a cut on Kysen’s inner forearm. “You’re holding your bow too close.”

  Kysen grunted. “My right wheel hit a rock and I lost my balance.”

  Meren nodded, and they lapsed into silence as a breeze riffled down the length of the valley and cooled their skin.

  “Has nothing come of your conversation with the lector priest yesterday?” Kysen asked.

  “Naught. Qenamun’s manner is as deft as his reputed skill with magic.”

  “Ebana dislikes him.”

  “So you said. However, being a schemer hardly distinguishes Qenamun from the rest of us.” Meren waved his hand toward a group containing Djoser, Tanefer, and Rahotep. “Who among our friends does not indulge in stratagems and maneuvers? Rahotep is jealous of Tanefer—though he spouts accolades to his own perfection—and seeks advancement over everyone from pharaoh. Djoser’s blood is turning to bile as his envy of us all increases.”

  “But they’re outmatched in scheming by Parenefer and Ebana.”

  Meren gave his son a glance of sympathy. Kysen had spent the last few days attempting to inquire among Unas’s fellow priests about his work, movements, and sympathies, only to have Ebana insist upon being present at each exchange. Thus he’d learned nothing of consequence.

  Their only progress had been Abu’s discussions with Ipwet and Nebera. At the time her husband died, Ipwet was in the company of several other young wives making barley bread. Inquiries at the royal workshops resulted in Abu concluding that Nebera had arrived there too early to have made a side trip to meet and kill Unas.

  “It may be that I’m seeing evil and scheming where there is none,” Meren said.