Map of the Dead: A mystery thriller that's a page turner

by Murray Bailey

  He found a couple of wooden batons on the ground, snapped each in two and placed them almost pyramid-like over the paper to keep it in place. Then he lit the bottom of the pile. A tower of flame rapidly developed and then a host of floating ashes. When he was certain the papers were substantially destroyed, he scooped most of the remains into the briefcase and flung it into the ground works.

  He walked back to Edgware Road and headed for the Circle line station. On the tube, he looked at his hands. Grey from the ash, he sniffed them absently and thought about Ellen’s and Marek’s work. Developed over months, destroyed in seconds.

  The Third

  THIRTY-THREE

  On the secure site, the story that Ellen had called the first part had been written in sequence. There were gaps in the history that Alex didn’t fully understand until much later. The clay tablets that were known as the Amarna Letters were from a library that had been the pride of the great ancient city built by the pharaoh Akhenaten. The sensitive sections had been coded and written by a different person who told the story of a boy who became a man of great significance. But his legacy had lain hidden for over three thousand years.

  Although there was dispute amongst academics about exact dates of events, according to Marek, the story began about three thousand three hundred and fifty years ago.

  1336 BCE, thirty miles south of Luxor

  The boy heard the laughter before he saw the boat. A royal barge, he guessed. Certainly not a merchant—there was never jollity amongst the many cargo boats that passed silently along their poor stretch of the Nile. Yanhamu remained hidden on the bank as the majestic craft slid towards his position, its golden prow flashing in the morning sun. A giant blue pennant, almost as long as the barge itself, fluttered in the wind like a hunter’s arrow, pointing the way downstream.

  When she was close, Yanhamu counted fifteen oars on his side that dipped in and out of the water with slow, casual grace. And yet the noise from above deck rose and fell with shouts and screams and a melodic noise made by men with instruments. To Yanhamu’s peasant ears it was like music, but without the banging and clacking. The laughter came mostly from girls, who he could now see dancing in clean white skirts, their breasts jiggling between necklaces of gold, emerald, turquoise and lapis.

  Never in his nine years had Yanhamu seen anything so rich; it was a life of music and happiness that was alien to his own world in the village. Perhaps this was a glimpse of the afterworld where his mother now lived. He smiled at the thought of her dancing with the other women and wondered whether she was able to laugh now. She surely knew he was well and strong and that his elder sister, Laret, cared for him since their father had left two seasons ago. He’d gone with the other men to find work, as all men did when the floods were due. There could be no farming during flood season and so he had gone. When he didn’t return, their aunt said he was working in the great city to the north. When he had made his fortune, he would come back and get them and they would never be hungry or want for anything again.

  At the time, Yanhamu hadn’t understood, and Laret said he was too young, but now he knew. What he wanted more than anything was for them to be a family again, to hear the beautiful music and laughter.

  Yesterday, Laret had seen another royal barge. She had chattered all night about it, saying that something big was happening. She wondered whether it explained why the soldiers had been in their village. It was the wrong time of year for taxes, and a scribe with them took note of everyone’s name, age and patron god.

  “Who is my god?” Yanhamu had asked his sister.

  “Anhuris,” she had said, smiling. “You are strong and good and above all you are a protector.”

  “But I am so small and it is you who looks after me.”

  Again she smiled and held him close under their blanket. “One day, my Yani, one day you will be my protector.”

  When the barge had gone, the river became still once more. The duck he had spied at sunrise returned to the reed bed Yanhamu had been watching. He waited another fifteen minutes, barely breathing, watching the reeds and picturing the duck as it found its nest and settled. He felt the sweat prickling the exposed back of his neck. A black insect crawled up a stem close to his nose, but he didn’t move. Then he saw it, the twitch of a reed that told him the duck was settling. Still careful, in case he was mistaken, he eased himself into position and pulled two sticks from his belt. With the smooth motion his father had taught him, he parted the reeds. “Imagine you are the breeze, Yanhamu,” his father had said, and he heard his voice now. He breathed to calm his beating heart and pressed on. And there she was, a golden duck squatting low over her nest, unaware she had been found.

  The need for stealth over, Yanhamu thrashed at the reeds. With a jump, the bird scurried into the undergrowth and seconds later burst through the far side, skittered across the water and into the air.

  Yanhamu stepped into the silt and waded to her nest. Seven eggs. He knew the rule of ma-at: always leave three eggs behind so that Het would not be angry. He reached through the thicket and picked up the first, warm with life. He looked at it, studied its perfect form before placing it carefully into the satchel slung by his side. He did the same with the next and the next. When he placed the fourth in the bag, he found himself reaching for the fifth, the sixth and then the seventh. He held the final three, cupped in his hands.

  His stomach growled. It had been a long time since he had eaten anything other than bread and onions. Surely the goddess would understand. He wondered whether She made the rule to protect the bird. If all eggs were taken, birds wouldn’t reproduce and so there would be no future birds to give them eggs. It made sense although he knew other animals took the eggs and sometimes the duck produced another batch.

  He said a prayer then to Het asking her to understand his family’s need and to grant the bird great fertility and many offspring. Satisfied, he stood, scraped the Nile dirt from his legs and hastened back to the village.

  “Laret, Laret,” he called as he neared the outskirts. Then he pulled up and stared. There was a soldier standing at the main hut. He was talking to the matriarch and Laret was by his side. As Yanhamu neared, he spotted a tether around Laret’s wrist.

  And then the soldier handed something to the matriarch and walked away, Laret a step behind, her shorter legs hurrying compared to the big man’s stride.

  “Laret!” Yanhamu choked back the fear and began to run. Laret had been arrested! It must be a mistake. What could his beautiful, caring sister have done wrong?

  By the time he reached the gate, his sister was over sixty paces away, heading for the river. Yanhamu caught hold of a cousin’s tunic. “What has happened? What did she do? Where is he taking my Laret?”

  The boy, older than Yanhamu by three harvests, tried to shrug off his grip and pull away, but Yanhamu’s grip was desperate.

  The boy grunted, “She’s going to be trained.”

  “Trained?”

  “As a palace dancer.”

  “But, she would never… I need her!”

  The boy finally jerked out of Yanhamu’s grip and laughed. “You simpleton, Hamu. She will be much better off… and the family is better off too.” He nodded towards his mother, the matriarch still standing in the doorway.

  Yanhamu guessed that she weighed a purse in her hands.

  The boy said, “Since your mother died and your father left, you should think yourself lucky.” He laughed again. “I myself would have sold you both as meat to the butcher.”

  Yanhamu barely heard this last remark. He was already running, his desperate feet kicking up dust like a sand viper.

  He pulled alongside her. “Laret, don’t leave me!”

  She looked at her brother with tearful eyes but didn’t stop. “I have no choice.” She forced a smile. “But, my clever brother, I will be happy. There is a big festival and I am to be a dancer! I will dance like a princess at a palace.”

  Yanhamu continued to half walk, half jog beside the
path. As they neared the river, he saw a boat with more soldiers and a gaggle of young girls on board. Desperate now, he rushed ahead and stood directly in the soldier’s path. The man stopped and glowered.

  Swallowing, Yanhamu looked into the big man’s eyes. He wanted to tell the man to let his sister go, that she wanted to stay with him, that it was only the silver he had paid to the family that had persuaded her, but the words wouldn’t come.

  The man’s face was like chiselled granite, his eyes almost as cold. He spat, “Stand aside you insolent pup or feel the lash of my staff across your peasant face.” He raised his stick so suddenly that Yanhamu flinched in expectation of a blow, but he stood his ground.

  The soldier snarled and then lunged, snatched Yanhamu around the waist and flung him out of the way.

  “No!” Laret jerked her leash from the soldier’s grasp, dived to her brother’s side and helped him to his feet. She brushed dirt from his face and kissed his forehead. “Take care, little brother.”

  “Laret!” Tears sprang from his eyes and stung his cheeks then.

  “Promise me you will think of me and pray for me. One day perhaps you will see me dance.” She kissed him again and rushed along the path.

  Yanhamu gaped in shocked silence as his sister stepped onto the gangplank and onto the boat. Immediately the granite-faced soldier barked an order and the boat was pushed from the bank. Forty oars were lowered into the water and, with the precision of a many-legged creature, the boat pulled smoothly away. Yanhamu noticed symbols on the side and he knew this represented the boat’s name. He memorized them so that he could recall them later.

  He began to run along the bank, following the boat, but his heart and legs were not strong enough to keep up and he was soon forced to walk. Gasping for air, the fear of never seeing his sister again pulled tight around his heaving chest. And then the oarsmen did something unexpected. In unison, they stopped and raised their oars to the sky. A low chanting began that raised in pitch and volume. At the front a man in a flowing white gown raised his arms. Yanhamu looked up and saw that the edge of the moon had turned a dusty orange. As he watched in horror the moon began to shrink as though a cloud of locusts swept across its surface, devouring all life. Then, when the whole surface was covered, the moon was dark mud-red.

  Instinctively he felt for the satchel hanging at his side. He had broken the rule. Het was angry with him and had destroyed the moon. He knew then that his sister had been taken away from him as a punishment by the gods. He had defied them and there would be no Field of Reeds in the afterlife for him. On Judgement Day, before the great god Osiris, his heart would fail the test and be tossed to Ammut—to be eaten by the Devourer.

  He clenched his teeth. A strength coursed through his muscles as the realization struck him: without Laret his earthly life meant nothing either. Breathing in deeply, Yanhamu tensed his young muscles and forced himself to walk again, and then, as fortitude returned, he began to run.

  The redness of the moon faded, to be replaced by orange once more—the swarm of locusts seemed to be moving away. A noise from the river bank made him look. A small merchant vessel had been moored and the two men on board began to move, dropping their raised arms, ending their supplication to the moon.

  Without considering dangers, Yanhamu made a decision and rushed into the water, to the boat’s side. He called up to the man at the tiller. “Passage, my good man.”

  The sailor looked over the side, surprised, and then waved the boy away. He called to the man at the front who poled the bow away from the bank.

  Yanhamu jumped and held onto the side, pulled himself up, but not onto the boat. “I can pay you!”

  The first man looked thoughtful as he steered into the river. From the corner of his eye, he watched Yanhamu clinging to the side. “You can’t hold on for long, and when you are finally weak you will drop and be food for the crocodiles.”

  “I’m strong. I won’t let go,” Yanhamu replied.

  The man nodded. “So how much can you pay me, urchin?”

  “I have seven large duck eggs.”

  The man waved him to climb on board. Yanhamu opened his satchel and stared with horror at the mess. Only two eggs remained unbroken. He handed them over and showed the snotty residue of the rest.

  The man shook his head and took the two eggs. “If you are strong, can you also work?”

  “I work very hard. By Horus, I am the hardest worker for my size!”

  “Good, because you may have passage as long as you work. Stop working and you are over the side and may Sobek protect you.”

  Yanhamu began work at once by scrubbing down the timbers. After two hours in the sweltering sun, the sailor handed him a gourd of water and told him to go below and check the fruit, polishing and removing any which were rotten.

  “Mind that you don’t eat any, urchin. It is all counted and even the rotten fruit must be accounted for.”

  “I would rather work in the sun.”

  The sailor frowned. “Has the heat made you lose your senses?”

  “I need to follow the soldiers’ boat, the one with the forty oars. My sister is on board.”

  The sailor waved towards the hold. “I know the boat. It is called The Heliopolis Black Bull. Go below and I will watch for it. Don’t worry, I won’t pass without telling you.”

  Yanhamu read the man’s face and knew he was honest. He nodded his thanks and scurried out of the cruel sun.

  When he was eventually called to the deck, the sun had set and its parting still touched the encroaching night with a gentle light like a mosquito bite on pale flesh. Nedjem—for that was the sailor’s name—had steered to the bank and told Yanhamu to jump ashore and tie them up. When he had finished, Nedjem patted him on the shoulder like a man. “The Heliopolis Black Bull is two hundred paces that way, after the merchants’ quay.”

  “Where are we?”

  “The City of a Thousand Gates.”

  Yanhamu shook his head. The name meant nothing, but then he knew very little of the places outside his village. Then he bowed his thanks, first touching his knees and then reaching out.

  This made the sailor laugh. “Good luck, urchin, and Horus protect you.”

  Yanhamu ran along the public quay. People were tying up boats for the night and closing up warehouses. The first section smelled of beer and then there was a cattle enclosure followed by a timber yard and pottery warehouse. The final section was a storage area for wheat and barley. Men looked at him suspiciously as he hurried past and a few called lewdly with the tones of drinking men.

  Beyond the public wharf there was a grove of bushes and then a long quarried-stone quay. Five boats were moored, and in the rapidly fading light he realized three of them looked like the one his sister had been taken on. Just as he recognized the symbols on the side of The Heliopolis Black Bull, a man called out. He swivelled and saw a watchman with a fearsome beast on a chain rushing towards him. Yanhamu backed away but then stood his ground.

  “Clear off, urchin!” the guard shouted as he stopped a couple of paces away with his animal straining at the leash. “Run now or my baboon will bite off your manhood.” The creature showed its wicked yellow teeth as though it understood its master’s warning.

  “I don’t have a manhood,” Yanhamu said, straightening his back. “I’m only a child.”

  The watchman’s face mellowed and he jerked the baboon back so that it sat obediently at his side. “You are brave for one with no manhood.”

  Yanhamu did his bow—hands to the knees and then out.

  The guard laughed. “What are you doing here?”

  “The Heliopolis Black Bull.” Yanhamu pointed to the ship. “Has everyone gone?”

  “Disembarked? Yes. Why do you—?”

  “Where is the palace dancing school? My sister has been taken there.”

  The guard laughed again. “All right, all right,” he said when he could get his breath back, and then he gave directions.

  As Yanhamu ran off,
the watchman called out, “Since you don’t have a manhood, if I see you on the military quay again, I’ll let my baboon have his way with you!”

  Once off the quay, Yanhamu made his way through narrow streets. The sky was fully dark now, for the moon had been awake during the day. However, this was an artisan section lit by torches. Inside buildings and sitting at tables on the street he saw men of supreme skill working glass and pottery and painting pictures that made him gape at their beauty. But he did not dally. He ran along the side of a long wall and at the end turned right past a temple. He noted that the way seemed to lead away from the centre of the town, and at first he thought he was heading for the residential area, but then he found himself on the outskirts, faced by another long wall. He worked his way around until he reached a wooden gateway with braziers burning on either side. The great Pharaoh Ahmose was said to have been more than twice the height of a normal man and even he could have walked without ducking his head through this entrance. Two soldiers knelt by the closed gates and leaned on their spears.

  Yanhamu approached one. “Sir, is this the palace dancing school?”

  The man laughed. “Some call it that. Now piss off!”

  “But, sir…” A stone struck him. He looked at the other solider and saw he was about to let another fly.

  The other soldier said, “You heard him. Piss off, dung heap!”

  Yanhamu stood his ground and let the second stone strike him without flinching. The first soldier took a step forward and lowered his spear.

  Yanhamu said, “Please… what do you mean by some people call it that?”

  Both guards laughed. “It’s the bloody garrison, isn’t it!”

  “But my sister… I was told she was here!”

  “Oh she’ll be here all right,” the second soldier said, and he made a rude gesture and laughed again.

  Yanhamu staggered backwards into the darkness. He felt the night close in as though Nut herself had come down and swallowed him whole.