Murder at the God's Gate

by Lynda S. Robinson

  With one of his loose, easy movements, Tanefer plucked a lotus flower and twirled it in his fingers. “I think we’ve let whole cities perish in our blindness while we’ve grown fat and moribund on the fruits of the Nile.”

  “I’m not blind,” Meren said.

  Tanefer gave him a sad smile. “No—no, you’re not.” He tossed the lotus to Meren and laughed in an abrupt change of mood. “Come, old friend, have you not promised to feed me? Give me some wine, and I may be able to help you decipher this puzzle of the murder of the magician priest.”

  Chapter 12

  Before dawn the next morning, Kysen sat beside the royal oarsman in the king’s boat, shivering in the cool dampness of a marsh. Two priests had been murdered, but neither he nor Meren could neglect attendance at the hippo hunt arranged for the king by Tanefer. Pharaoh was whispering excitedly with the chief of the royal hunt, while all around them, hidden in the tall reeds and papyrus plants, noblemen and hunters steadied their skiffs. The boats were arranged on either side of a break in the reeds at the riverbank that marked the place where hippos came ashore.

  The king’s craft was wooden, larger and much more ornate than the skiffs, but Kysen wished he was in the one that held his father and Tanefer. The skiffs were far more maneuverable and would close in first on their quarry, but much less safe. The king would only be allowed to approach once the hippo had taken a few harpoons.

  In truth, Kysen had never accustomed himself to being pharaoh’s companion. He’d been born the son of a common artisan, and hunting with a living god was not something he did as easily as his father.

  He watched Ahiram pole his float by and take up a position on the opposite side of the marsh from Meren and Tanefer. On shore a hunter signaled to Tanefer, and word was passed from boat to boat. The man next to Kysen began to whisper.

  “Divine one, there’s a group of three headed this way. They think the rogue follows them.”

  Quiet settled over the hunters as they waited. Hippos came ashore at night to do their grazing and caused great damage to crops in their wanderings. Kysen gazed over the black water and could barely make out the lighter shadows that indicated the kilts of Meren and Tanefer They had dropped to a crouch, the long shafts of their weapons thrusting out over the edge of their skiff.

  He glanced at the king, a slight shadow in a gold-and-lapis broad collar, but he couldn’t make out the boy’s expression. Tanefer had voiced the hope that this hunt would relieve the king’s strain. Kysen doubted it would prove more than a temporary respite. The court still seethed with contention between those who advocated war and those who favored diplomacy. He’d seen the cost of this division in his father’s face.

  Meren hated war. He hated violence. When Kysen was much younger, he hadn’t understood how a man so skilled with dagger, lance, and bow could detest their use except for the hunt. Then he’d grown old enough to assist Meren in his capacity as one of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh.

  Now, finally, he understood that Meren commanded warriors in order to prevent violence. In the last couple of years Kysen, too, had had his fill of blood. There was no glamour in death, only waste. And it was this knowledge that separated Meren and Kysen from many men at court.

  Meren was disturbed. Kysen could sense this, although he’d refrained from questioning his father. When Meren grew distant and sat staring at nothing while he rubbed the brand on his wrist, he was deeply troubled. He knew his father refused to believe that Unas’s and Qenamun’s deaths were unrelated. He also knew that Meren’s confrontation with the high priest of Amun threatened to cause an open breach between the temple and the court.

  Parenefer had complained to the vizier Ay and to the king. Ay was furious with Meren for causing more trouble than was already brewing at court. The king, always touchy when his authority was questioned by Parenefer, had insulted the high priest. And he refused to placate the old man. Now courtiers were jostling each other in their attempts to align themselves with whoever they thought would be the winner.

  Meanwhile, Tanefer continued to press for a military campaign of monumental proportions. He advocated marching across Palestine and as far north as the upper reaches of the Euphrates to the homeland of Mitanni. Horemheb partially agreed.

  What surprised Kysen was that Parenefer also agreed with them and threw his influence behind a new campaign. Meren said that the old jackal had caught the scent of plunder—the slaves, the rich estates, the booty that would flow into the coffers of Amun from conquered territories. Kysen had thought of another reason as well. If there was war, pharaoh would leave Egypt, and so would Meren.

  Shifting his weight, Kysen settled into a more comfortable position. The sky was growing light, and still the hippos hadn’t reached the bank. Soon the hunters would lose the cover of darkness. Tanefer must have been thinking the same thing, because he signaled across the water to Ahiram. The two craft bearing his father, Tanefer, and Ahiram skimmed out from the reeds and toward each other.

  As the gap between the skiffs closed, the water beneath the king’s boat churned. From shore he heard a hollow, buzzing noise that sounded like a laugh. Hippos. Kysen glanced over his shoulder, but he saw nothing that could have caused the shifting beneath him. He looked over the expanse of water toward Meren, who was saying something to Ahiram.

  Without warning the Nile took solid form. The black waters churned, and a mudlike mountain with eyes rose up and growled. Kysen shouted an alarm. A hippo’s yawning jaws gaped open to reveal pale, fleshy vastness and tusks as long as a child’s arm. The maw snapped the prow of Ahiram’s skiff in two.

  Ahiram soared into the air and then dropped into the water. He sank, only to bob to the surface in front of the animal. Over his head, the mouth opened again.

  At that moment, Meren hurled his harpoon. It jabbed into the hippo’s shoulder, but not before the creature snapped at Ahiram, who cried out as a tusk gashed his arm. Meanwhile, everyone punted rapidly toward the fray. Kysen had snatched a pole and joined the royal sailors in stabbing deep into the riverbed, aiming the king’s boat at Meren’s.

  Wounded and maddened, the hippo sank beneath the water again, only to hurtle to the surface once more, slamming Ahiram with its body. The violence of the wave it caused hurled Meren’s skiff away from the fight and into another boat. The crash sent Meren plummeting into the waters. Kysen shouted at Tanefer, but the prince was already diving after his friend.

  The king’s boat gained on a skiff. Kysen recognized Horemheb and Maya, called to them, and poled himself down onto their craft. They skidded toward Meren, who had gone underwater and hadn’t reappeared. As he strained to see in the dim light, he saw Meren and Tanefer break the surface near Ahiram, who was bleeding and trailing a useless arm in the water.

  Kysen felt a stab of fear when the blackish gray bulk of the hippo twisted and rammed downward under the water. Suddenly, tiny protruding eyes and flared nostrils appeared just above the water in front of the three men. Skiffs crashed into the hippo’s body, but the animal ignored them. Its head rose out of the water. Those powerful jaws opened so wide a man could have fallen in and vanished. Kysen cried out again as a jagged tusk poised over Meren.

  Ahiram flailed and thrashed with his good arm, but couldn’t move quickly enough. The jaws began to descend even as Kysen grabbed Maya’s harpoon and hurled it. The weapon hit the animal’s neck but failed to sink into the thick flesh.

  Then Meren lunged upward and grabbed for his harpoon, which still protruded from the hippo’s shoulder. Tanefer cried out and threw himself at Meren. As he did so, his feet struck out and hit Ahiram, causing him to slide farther into the path of the raging animal. Tanefer collided with Meren, and his weight plunged them beneath the surface.

  At the same time, the hippo snapped at Ahiram, and Kysen’s skiff rammed into it. Harpoons and spears flew from the other skiffs as well. The hippo let out a bellow that sounded like a combination of a woman’s scream and the trumpet of an elephant. With a last rumbling squeal, the cr
eature dove under the boats and swam rapidly for the open river. Kysen shouted his father’s name and searched among the litter of broken skiffs and floating weapons.

  A dark head bobbed up out of the water; a second followed. Kysen lowered himself over the side as Horemheb and Maya slid the skiff in the swimmers’ direction. He reached Meren, who was out of breath and shaking from exhaustion. Together Kysen and Tanefer managed to shove him up and aboard the skiff. Maya and Horemheb lifted Ahiram onto their skiff, where he lay cursing and fighting all efforts to attend him.

  The king’s boat drew alongside the skiff, and Tutankhamun ordered Tanefer, Meren, and Kysen to be brought aboard. Kysen scrambled up the side of the boat and dropped onto the deck beside his father. Meren lifted his head, chest heaving, and gave Kysen a wry smile.

  “Outsmarted by a great, floating ball of lard.”

  Kysen said nothing, but his gaze scoured over Meren in unsmiling scrutiny.

  “I fare well, Ky. Just a few bruised ribs.”

  Letting out the breath he’d been holding, Kysen refrained from any expression of relief. The king, who had been kneeling beside Tanefer, rose and approached them.

  “What a fight,” he said. “The cursed creature was in the water all the time. Tanefer says the hunters must have mistaken another male for the rogue.”

  Tanefer joined them, shoving wet hair back from his brow. “What a mischance.”

  “Divine one,” Meren said. “What of Ahiram?”

  The king stepped aside so that they could see Maya pressing a wad of cloth to Ahiram’s arm. “They’re taking him ashore to a physician, but he’s furious.”

  “Aiieee!” Ahiram jerked his arm from Maya’s grasp. “You’re worse than the hippo.” In the dim light, the whites of his eyes gleamed as he stood up and snarled. “I’ve no intention of becoming fodder for hippos and crocodiles, me.” He gasped, clutched his arm, and sank to his knees, still glaring at them. “No creature, beast or man, catches me unaware and lives. Do you hear?”

  The skiff continued on its way to shore, Ahiram glaring at the king’s boat until the two craft passed out of viewing range. Around them nobles were retrieving weapons and preparing to sail back to the city as well.

  “Why is he so furious?” the king asked.

  Tanefer chuckled as he squeezed water from his short kilt. “You know Ahiram, majesty. Always taking offense where none is offered. He’s ashamed at the way the hippo bested him, and fears that we’re laughing at him.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault,” the king said. “The rogue outwitted us all.”

  Meren sighed and grimaced as he got up from the deck with Kysen’s assistance. “Thy majesty is possessed of logic and a sense of balance that Prince Ahiram has always lacked.”

  Tutankhamun frowned as he glanced over the drenched forms of his councillors. “What foolishness. It was but the luck of the hunt. I shall tell Ahiram so when he comes for guard duty tomorrow. If he’s well enough to stand his watch.”

  “He’d rather stand guard than remain home within reach of a physician,” Kysen said.

  Ahiram’s cowardice in regard to medical treatment was well known. The king smirked, then lost the battle to refrain from laughing. A little contrite, Kysen couldn’t help but smile. Meren, however, seemed to feel no guilt about laughing at his absent friend, nor did Tanefer. As the sun blazed into radiance over the eastern desert, the sound of merriment floated over the water and lapped gently at the banks of the river.

  The morning after the hippo hunt, Meren lay among the cushions of a couch set beneath the low-spreading branches of a fig tree in his orchard. His physician had wrapped bandages around his ribs so tightly he had a difficult time breathing. And they itched.

  He scratched beneath the linen while Kysen read the reports on the inquiry into Qenamun’s death that had come while they’d been in attendance upon the king.

  “Qenamun’s wife and five children are visiting her parents on their farm near Edfu,” Kysen said as he paced in the shade of an incense tree. “The only person at his house except for servants is his aged mother, who’s sick with grief.”

  “And those clients Qenamun went home early to meet?” Meren asked.

  “One was Princess Hathor, who worries about being barren, and another is an overseer of royal surveyors, who suffers from swollen joints. Both have sought the aid of numerous physicians and priests beside Qenamun.”

  Meren maneuvered himself to a sitting position, waving Kysen away when he would have helped. “I’m only sore, Ky, not dying. Ah, here’s Abu. I told him I wanted to review that report listing those who were at the temple and who also carried objects in which cobras could be hidden. What have you found, Abu?”

  The aide sat down on a mat before Meren’s couch and crossed his legs so that his kilt stretched out as flat as a table. On this surface he spread a roll of papyrus.

  “A wealthy farmer from Abydos stopped at the House of Life before presenting a casket full of offerings at the sanctuary. He wanted to visit with his son, a scholar priest training under Qenamun.” Abu pressed his palms down on the paper to hold it flat. “Three relief painters were in and out of there all day carrying boxes and baskets of brushes, plaster, paint, other tools.”

  Abu paused and glanced up at Meren. “Both Prince Rahotep and Prince Ahiram visited Qenamun. To talk about dream interpretations. And their servants carried boxes containing offerings. Of course, no one looked in the boxes.”

  “Of course,” Meren said as he got up and lifted his face to the breeze that had whipped up abruptly. “Now go on and say it, Abu.”

  Kysen looked up from his own reports. “Say what?”

  Abu released the papyrus roll and began gathering it into a tight cylinder. He said nothing.

  “There are at least two more names on that list,” Meren said. He paused and glanced at his son. “One of them is Ebana, who brought numerous documents to the House of Life late in the day before Qenamun was killed—in great leather document cases. And he was busy in one of the record chambers until after dark.”

  Meren carefully spread his arms wide in a stretch as Kysen appeared to think over the implications of this news. He smiled at his son.

  “I knew you’d be interested. Can you guess the other name?”

  “Parenefer,” Kysen said at once.

  “Very good.”

  “You thought I wouldn’t consider a high priest?”

  “The first prophet of the king of the gods,” Meren said. “I wouldn’t blame you for failing to consider him.”

  “Oh, I’d consider him, but what good will it do?”

  Meren poured water into a cup from a jar suspended from the fig tree and drank. “You’re right, Ky. Parenefer lives within the temple complex. He could have had someone put those cobras in Qenamun’s casket. But why?”

  “That’s the difficulty with both deaths,” Kysen said. “There seems to be no reason for either.”

  “Aye,” Meren said, “and it seems that the only way to make progress is by force.” He sat down on the couch again and gave Abu and Kysen a pained grin. “Do either of you look forward to attempting to put priests to the cane and whip?”

  They lapsed into silence at the suggestion, for no one had ever done such a thing. Priests disciplined their own. And if the high priest or other high functionaries of the temple were involved, the only power that could bring them to account was that of pharaoh.

  “There is one other,” Abu said as he tied his papyrus roll. “Prince Tanefer was there on that day, but he carried nothing and came to visit your cousin, lord.”

  “Curse it,” Meren said. “I should have asked who did not go to the temple. The list would have been shorter.” He rubbed his chin. “I’m going to have to ask pharaoh for a special commission that enables me to question the princes and the priests of high rank.” Such a commission would mean that he could force Parenefer, Ebana, and Rahotep to answer questions they didn’t want to answer.

  “I have another message,
lord.” Abu rose. “Cook waylaid me on my way here and said to tell you if you don’t break your fast now, she’s going to throw her spiced roast ducks in the river.”

  Meren jumped up from the couch and headed for the house with Kysen and Abu close behind. “By my ka, I spend my life rushing to and fro trying to please everyone—visiting royal statues, attending water tournaments, archery practice, dinners, murders at temples, hippo hunts, and now my cook commands my presence at my own table.”

  Tables awaited them on the loggia that stretched along the back side of the house. Meren had just finished half a duck when a royal guard arrived with a summons from pharaoh. He met Kysen’s gaze.

  “Don’t look so amused,” Meren said, “or I’ll take you with me.”

  “Someone has to remain here to supervise the Qenamun and Unas inquiries.”

  “Very well. But if the king has found some bandits to hunt, I’m sending for you. I’m not riding into the desert after criminals in the heat of the year without sharing the experience with you. Come along, Abu.”

  His aide insisted upon an escort, so Meren arrived at the palace with Abu, four other charioteers, and several personal servants, as befitted a man of great consequence. From the moment he neared the royal residence, he noted the presence of more guards than usual.

  A troop of charioteers raced by him as his chariot clattered down the long, wide avenue leading up to the palace walls. Growing more and more uneasy, Meren snapped his whip above the heads of his thoroughbreds. They galloped between arching palm trees and swung the chariot around in front of a line of royal guards.

  Leaving his men and servants before the palace gates, he sought out the king in the chamber next to the privy apartments where Tutankhamun conducted many of his day-to-day government affairs. Rahotep stood outside the room talking to the chief of the city police and an officer of archers who served under Prince Tanefer. They stopped talking as Meren entered the king’s office and stared at him.

  Inside, Tanefer was gazing out at the city from a balcony. A great map of the delta was spread out on a table. Maya and Ay were pointing out survey lines to the king when Meren entered and bowed.