‘I know nothing of him!’ Menna shouted. ‘What proof do you have?’
‘Heby’s my proof, he became hysterical with fear. What could you do, assassinate Hefau? No, too suspicious. It was much easier to murder Heby. What went wrong? Did Heby accuse you of betraying him? Did he blame you, threaten you?’
‘He attacked me,’ Menna replied coolly. ‘Bound and gagged me, rifled my treasures and fled.’
Amerotke stared at this fat, square-faced clerk. He quietly conceded he had made a mistake, overlooked something. Menna was a wily schemer; he appeared too calm, and kept looking intently at the Pharaoh Queen. Hatusu was unnaturally tense and Senenmut was whispering to her. Amerotke felt a prickle of unease. How dangerous, how cunning was Chief Scribe Menna? Yet it was too late now, he had no choice but to proceed.
‘Heby did not attack you,’ Amerotke declared. ‘You killed him, you hid his body somewhere in that house, you bruised yourself and then Lady Lupherna came slipping along to your chamber to gag and bind you. No one thought of looking for Heby in the house. In a mansion that size, a corpse can be hidden away for a short while.’
‘Ridiculous!’ Menna snorted with anger, looking to Valu as if for protection. ‘If I did all this, then who killed the guard? Who left the dagger and trinkets in the undergrowth near the path?’
‘Why, you did!’
‘I never left General Suten’s mansion, nor did Lady Lupherna.’
‘No, that’s not true. The guards left at the house were rather lax. You made them even more so. You’re a soldier, Menna, you know a lazy sentry when you see one. Moreover, those men were concerned with Heby, not you. On that particular morning, long before dawn, garbed and masked, you left the house, scaled the wall, entered the grove behind the house, came up behind that sleeping guard and sliced his throat. You then hastened along the trackway to throw down Heby’s dagger and the jewellery you yourself had taken. It was a lonely time, in a deserted place, with very little risk. After all, you had every right to leave the house. You would have escaped attention,’ Amerotke gestured at Nadif, ‘if it had not been for the sharpness of this officer.’
He paused.
‘When Nadif first freed you, you declared that Heby’s attack had taken place only a short while earlier. Nadif was intrigued, because the guard who was killed was stone cold, his blood caked, whilst the blood on the dagger was also dry. More curiously, when Nadif studied the grove behind the house he could see that someone had stolen through there, but when he found the trinkets and dagger the undergrowth around was hardly disturbed. No one had passed through there, forced a way. It looked as if they had just left the path, dropped the dagger and. jewellery and returned, which, of course, is what really happened. You’d arranged for those trinkets to be found, just as the day before you’d organised information to provide false reports about Heby being seen in the city or along the Nile.
‘Nadif was also curious about the guards; they were not only sleepy but very heavy-eyed, and that troubled me. You would have been responsible for the food and drink given to them. Did you mix powders with their wine? I expect you did. During the night you invited Heby to your room, killed him, and hid his body. You left before dawn and returned to continue the deceit. Lady Lupherna came to your chamber to finish the web of lies.’
Amerotke closed his eyes and quickly prayed to Ma’at, then he leaned forward and opened his eyes.
‘Lady Lupherna, Heby did not flee! My manservant Shufoy and his fellow searchers have found his corpse near General Suten’s mansion.’
‘You couldn’t have—’ Lupherna spoke before Menna could intervene, a ringing shout which proclaimed their guilt. Menna tried to grasp her arm, but she pushed him off as the guards pulled them apart. ‘You couldn’t have,’ she moaned. ‘You couldn’t have.’ She was staring fixedly at Amerotke. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’ She abruptly recalled where she was. ‘Mercy!’ she shrieked.
Amerotke sat fascinated. Lupherna was apparently broken, but Menna remained resolute. The judge started as Senenmut appeared behind him and dropped a small scroll into his lap. Amerotke quickly unrolled it and read the short phrase: If the order is silence then it is silence. He glanced up. Hatusu sat unmoved, although her breathing was rather quick and abrupt. Lupherna, her hands to her face, was rocking backwards and forwards.
‘My lady, Divine One,’ Menna bellowed like a bull, ‘I know nothing of this. I swear by the Book of Secrets I—’
‘Silence! Gag him!’ Hatusu screamed.
Amerotke sat in amazement as Senenmut sprang to his feet, shouting at the guards. Lupherna, crying hysterically, was bound, gagged and dragged from the hall by the Silent Ones, the deaf-mutes who guarded the House of Adoration. Menna was still shouting something about proclaiming the truth whether he was alive or dead, before he too was seized, a cloth stuffed into his mouth and his hands quickly bound. The Chief Scribe struggled like a bull; tables were kicked over, cushions flung across the slippery floor. A guard hit Menna full in the face but the scribe still resisted, and the High Priest of Isis, together with Valu and Nadif, moved quickly out of the way. Senenmut shouted for the hall to be cleared.
Hatusu rose majestically, slapping Amerotke on the shoulder and gesturing to him to lead her across to his own private shrine and chamber. Once inside, she drew the clasp bolts across, tore off her headdress and sandals, the jewelled Nenes from around her shoulders, and slumped down into the high-backed chair. The judge went to kneel before her but she snapped her fingers.
‘Sit where you want!’ She pointed to the serving table. ‘I’m thirsty, some watered wine.’
Amerotke poured this and handed it to her. There was a knock on the door; Amerotke opened it, and Senenmut almost threw himself into the room. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it, gasping for breath.
‘So he did find it!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes,’ Hatusu sighed. ‘He must have. They must be kept in silence, total silence.’
‘They have been taken below to the House of Chains; each will be guarded by Silent Ones.’
‘They will have to die!’ Hatusu whispered. ‘Whatever happens, they must go to the wood. Did you hear what Menna was shouting? Alive or dead. Alive or dead, the Book of Secrets will be known.’
Amerotke curbed his own angry impatience and sat silently. Senenmut, still leaning against the door, glanced sharply at him as if only now becoming aware of the judge’s presence.
‘Ah! My lord judge.’
‘My lord judge,’ Amerotke shouted, ‘is angry, his court has become a travesty. On reflection I am beginning to suspect the truth behind two questions which have occurred to me before but which I unwisely dismissed. First, why was the Divine One so angry at these thefts? Oh, I understand the blasphemy and sacrilege,’ he added hastily, ‘but the robbery of royal tombs has occurred before and undoubtedly will happen again.’
‘Secondly?’ Hatusu snarled.
‘Something Shufoy noticed. How your rage spilled out after the robbery of the tomb of Rahimere, Grand Vizier under your late husband.’
Hatusu was not listening to him but staring at Senenmut with some unasked question which he answered with a nod of his head.
‘As you know,’ Hatusu turned back to Amerotke, ‘my late, glorious husband was assassinated by a faction in the royal circle who then tried to oust me. Rahimere was the leader of those criminals. He’d hated me since I was a little girl, and kept a close eye on me, much closer than I thought. He drew up a Book of Secrets about me, scandal and gossip.’
‘Straws in the wind,’ Amerotke scoffed.
‘No, no, much more serious.’
‘Such as?’
‘That my birth was not divine.’
‘Only the gods know that,’ Amerotke replied. ‘What else?’
Hatusu drew a deep breath. ‘That whilst my husband was still alive and involved in the House of War, fighting the People of the Nine Bows, Lord Senenmut and I became lovers, and whilst my husband was away
on campaign I was secretly delivered of a female child.’
‘Lies, of course!’
Hatusu gazed back serenely.
‘Lies, Divine One,’ Amerotke repeated.
Hatusu’s glance fell away; Senenmut stared at the floor.
‘In the struggle for power,’ Hatusu’s voice was just above a whisper, ‘Rahimere died. Well, you know the truth, Amerotke.’
‘In which case he didn’t die, he was invited to take poison.’
‘He was a traitor, a murderer and a rebel!’ Hatusu snapped.
‘Never mind that,’ Senenmut intervened. ‘His corpse was handed back to his relatives for burial. Those were frenetic days, Amerotke, we were concerned with the living, not with the dead. To come to the point, he was buried secretly in the Valley.’
‘You had the power to discover where his tomb was.’
‘We didn’t care where he was rotting,’ Senenmut jibed. ‘He was dead, gone into the Far West, and that was the end of the matter, until about three months ago, when we discovered that Rahimere had kept this Book of Secrets, contained in a sealed casket, which was buried with him. Not just in the tomb but in the coffin casket itself.’
‘Who told you this? Ah!’ Amerotke took the rings from his fingers. ‘The only person who could, Rahimere’s wife. She wouldn’t have known what to do with the Book of Secrets. Out of respect for her husband she wouldn’t destroy it, so she had it buried with him. When I was in the Temple of Isis I heard that Rahimere’s widow had gone there for treatment and died. She must have told Lord Impuki, and he reported it to the palace.’ Amerotke shook his head. ‘Mysteries within mysteries,’ he whispered. ‘That’s why the disappearance of the four hesets was treated so sensitively. Any other temple would have been ransacked by troops from the Sacred Band. No wonder Lady Thena felt confident enough to take the law into her own hands and execute Mafdet; you are in their debt.’
‘Of course I am!’ Hatusu scratched her arm, a nervous gesture she made whenever she was angry. ‘Lord Impuki was most gracious. He heard the dying woman’s confession as if he was a chapel priest, yet he still told me. He and his household were sworn to secrecy. I owe them a great debt. Rahimere’s widow, however, did not tell him where the tomb was. We searched for it but it was too late. We thought,’ she grimaced, ‘she would be buried with her husband, but she was too cunning for that, and her corpse rests with her own kin.’
‘So the tomb robbers discovered it?’
‘Of course they did! When Rahimere was Grand Vizier, a lord of Egypt, he knew the Valley of the Kings. He’d already chosen a lonely spot, a place where the crags of the valleys create a shadow, an illusion.’
‘Those robbers found it,’ Senenmut came away from the door, ‘like all such discoveries, by accident. They must have done.’
‘No they didn’t.’ Amerotke smiled. ‘One thing I did discover, but dismissed at the time, was that Mafdet had been captain of Rahimere’s guard. When the Vizier fell from power Mafdet retired. General Omendap recommended him for the post at the Temple of Isis. Menna too may have had a hand in his appointment, but secretly, through General Suten. Mafdet also became a member of the Sebaus. He would have known about the secret of Rahimere’s tomb and, like the mercenary he was, gave the information to the Khetra, hoping to share in the plunder. Indeed,’ Amerotke shrugged, ‘Mafdet would have known about the Book of Secrets. A treacherous villain, he would have deserted Rahimere just in time, played the role of the loyal veteran for his superiors and, when approached by the Khetra, divulged what he knew. Like the blackmailer he was, he nursed the whereabouts of Rahimere’s tomb and its contents as a miser would some secret treasure.’
‘Once Rahimere’s tomb was violated,’ Senenmut continued, ‘it was no longer a secret. Officials who investigated the robbery found items which led them to the entrance. The tomb had been ransacked, its coffin casket opened, and beside it was a leather case. This was brought to the palace. It was the sort of leather case in which you keep a book or manuscript. You can imagine our concern. If the treasures of other tombs were sold abroad—’
‘Why not the Book of Secrets?’ Hatusu drank greedily from the goblet clenched in her hands. ‘Can you imagine, Amerotke, the damage such a book could cause in the possession of my enemies, either here or across the Horus road? I would have been depicted as an adulterer, perhaps even my late husband’s murderer.’ She stretched out her hand and brushed Amerotke’s face. ‘I listened to you in court, a brilliant attack. I could tell from Menna’s eyes that he hoped to negotiate, but this is a fight to the death. As you talked I wondered how much General Suten had known. Did Menna even approach him to join the Sebaus? Ah well,’ she sighed, ‘we will never know. You must find that book, Amerotke, you are my saluki hound, and both the prisoners must die. Do not approach Menna.’ Hatusu’s smile faded. ‘You must not be infected, polluted by what he has read in the Book of Secrets. Offer the woman a merciful death. She must know something. Mercy now and honourable treatment for her corpse.’
‘And Menna?’
‘Nothing,’ Hatusu snapped back, ‘but horror after horror.’
The Pharaoh Queen held Amerotke’s gaze, and the judge wondered about the Book of Secrets and the truths behind the mysteries it contained.
A short while later Amerotke went down to the House of Chains. The temple guards, apart from Asural, had been withdrawn, their places taken by the Silent Ones who prowled the narrow, ill-lit passageways like wolves, hardened men in their imperial headdress, leather belts and kilts. They even insisted on searching the judge. When Amerotke gestured with his hands that he needed to question the prisoners, their officer smiled serenely, pointed to a cell door and shook his head. Again, through signs, Amerotke asked if he could at least see Chief Scribe Menna. The officer agreed. They approached the door and he pulled back the high wooden flap. Amerotke peered through. Chief Scribe Menna, stripped of everything except his loincloth, a mask over his face, squatted against the far wall, his arms and legs laden with manacles secured to the stone behind him. Looking down, to his right and left, Amerotke glimpsed the guards sitting either side of the door. Even though Menna’s face was veiled, Amerotke could sense the malicious strength of this most cunning of men. He moved to the next cell, where Lupherna, her robe all soiled, her wig removed, slumped sullenly, her face dirty and stained with dried kohl. Amerotke made signs for the door to be unlocked, and this time his escort agreed. In the next cell Menna must have heard the noise.
‘No use going in there,’ his powerful voice bawled. ‘The stupid bitch knows nothing! She’ll only mislead you. Is that our noble judge? I can smell your body sweat. I prefer jasmine, the most fragrant of perfumes.’
Lupherna stirred as Amerotke came into the foul-smelling cell with its slop buckets and dirty basins. She was beyond tears now, and just stared at him, lips moving soundlessly. Amerotke crouched down before her.
‘I speak with true voice,’ he declared. ‘I cannot mislead you. You are to die.’ Lupherna blinked, tongue going out to wet dry, cracked lips. ‘What you must decide,’ Amerotke continued, ‘is how you die and how you prepare your soul for the journey into the Far West. Pharaoh is inclined to mercy, at least for you.’
‘What form of death?’ Lupherna whispered, as if fearful that Menna might overhear.
‘A goblet of wine with the juice of a marsh plant added, a feeling of tiredness, of falling asleep. Your body will go to the wabet and the House of Beauty. The priests will chant their prayers, your heart will be covered with the sacred scarab. Sacrifices and prayers will be offered for you, and before you drink the wine a chapel priest will purge your sins.’
Lupherna stared down at the ground.
‘Wickedness is like a flower,’ she replied slowly. ‘First the root, then the stem and the branches shoot out before you even know. I come of good family. My marriage to General Suten was most honourable, but my eye wandered and my heart followed. I became involved with Heby, and Menna discovered us. He had the proof w
hich could have destroyed us; he offered us another reality. We became part of the Khetra. It’s all there, you know,’ she continued, as if speaking to herself, ‘in the family archives, all the information about the Valley of the Kings and the tombs. General Suten didn’t know what Menna was doing! He could go into the House of Books and read what he wanted. He used to ride out to the valley. He would tell us what he had seen and found. We became aware of how busy he truly was. Veterans would come to the mansion begging for favours. Often Menna would drive them away or refer them to some other scribe in the army, but secretly he would note their names, the places where they lived. He covered his tracks so well, nothing could be traced directly back to him, not even the assassins he sent against you.’
‘And he met the Sebaus at the Temple of Khnum?’
‘There and other places. He would cloak himself in black and douse himself in jasmine perfume. He liked that, did Menna.’
‘And General Suten suspected nothing?’
‘Yes, he did. He suspected something was very wrong but couldn’t believe it. Menna grew rich. Search the house, judge, you’ll find treasures hidden in wells, beneath the soil, in the rafters of the roof. Go down to the goldsmiths of Thebes; Menna would use different names to hide his wealth there. He had Heby and me in the palm of his hand. At first we were reluctant, but then Heby too began to enjoy the wealth. My husband was no fool, he was watching us, so he had to die. Menna conceived the plot. He declared suspicion would fall on Heby, but that wouldn’t last.’ She sighed. ‘Then that snake man appeared. Did you really find Heby’s corpse?’
The Assassins of Isis Page 26
