Murder in the Palace: A Nikolas of Kydonia Mystery

by Iain Campbell

  Tears were streaming down Pamose’s face, dripping from his chin onto the body.

  Nikolas turned Pamose slightly and they hugged face to face kneeling by the corpse, its blood soaking their knees and they rocked backwards and forwards in shared grief. Kiya and Lorentis joined them kneeling beside Tutu, and Kiya reached out and gravely closed the staring eyes.

  A small noise came from downstairs by the main entrance.

  Nikolas thought for a moment that the assassins had returned, but on rising saw that it was the first of the servants, who he had dismissed each night to improve security, returning to prepare for the start of the new day. Nikolas saw Djau, the major-domo of Netjerikhet’s house peering fearfully at the two bodies lying near the front door before edging away, clearly about to take flight. “Djau!

  Halt!” called Nikolas commandingly. “We had some visitors in the night. They were assassins trying to kills us and we have many dead and some wounded. The house has been ruined and its ka damaged. I’ll arrange today for the removal of the dead and have the priests of Amun perform a cleansing ceremony, but you must gather the servants and slaves to clean up this mess. I’m sorry, but it’s even worse upstairs. They came in the dark of the night and butchered us!”

  Djau paused and gathered himself. He reminded himself he was the major-domo of a fine household and thus part of one of the Two Kingdom’s great families. By now about ten servants had gathered outside. He sought to control both his fear and his rebellious stomach and show his control of a difficult situation. The family had in the past had guests who created a mess, but without a doubt this was a first not only for Netjerikhet’s family but all of Thebes. He brusquely ordered one servant to remain by the door and direct those servants who had still not arrived to proceed upstairs, and the others to start to clean downstairs.

  With the door-keeper, Djau proceeded up the stairs to the first-floor, and promptly lost his battle with his stomach, turning to vomit in a corner. “Oh! Horus protect us!” he whimpered as he cast an eye over the scene of devastation and carnage before him.

  By now Nikolas had run out of both patience and sympathy. Djau may be a eunuch, but it was time to show himself a man. “Djau, control yourself and get a grip, man!” Nikolas snapped.

  Nikolas and Pamose left to go to the temple of Luxor just a hundred paces away from the house. There Nikolas demanded to see the High Priest of Amun. Frowns were cast in his direction, due to his dirty, bloodstained appearance and wild manner. Pamose, now dressed in more traditional garb than assassin’s black, quietly presented Ramesses’ Seal for inspection and the way inside was clear. Ramesses’ Seal could still not prevent a delay of nearly an hour, until after the morning religious Offices were complete.

  Nikolas and Pamose were eventually shown into a starkly utilitarian office near the temple itself. A small, bald, wizened old man sat on a chair next to a small side-table on which were several papyrus scrolls. He was carefully but soberly and conservatively dressed. A large golden ankh with a sun motif hung from a chain at his neck. A scribe sat in the corner at a small table, making notes with the pallet of ink and pens in front of him on a sheet of papyrus. Addressing Pamose, the priest said, “You have presented Pharaoh’s Seal and I grant you audience in respect to that Seal.”

  Nikolas replied, without waiting for Pamose. “Honoured High Priest, as you are now aware we’re here in Thebes on Pharaoh’s business. We need the assistance of this temple today! Last night, not a hundred paces from your gates, Pharaoh’s men were set upon by vile assassins. Fourteen of our men lie dead, three are seriously wounded and need to stay securely and safely within your Infirmary. The dead require preparation for the Afterlife in accordance with the Ritual of Soldiers. The other survivors need to cleanse, eat and rest themselves before leaving. We also need to have the house spiritually cleansed before its owners return. In Pharaoh’s name, we call on the assistance of your Temple.”

  The priest replied, “Pharaoh’s needs are always pre-eminent in our thoughts. He is a wise and generous master. It shall be as you say. I’ll instruct my servants and the Temple guards. From what you have said this is not a simple matter and thoughts of further security arise.”

  He clapped his hands and the scribe rose to show them out, the audience clearly being over.

  “What was the purpose of all that?” asked Pamose.

  “We have to look after both our wounded and the dead who gave their lives to protect us,” replied Nikolas. “The wounded will be safer here than anywhere else I can think of and receive the best of treatment. The dead are beyond help but we need to fulfil the expectations of the living as to how the dead are treated. This way, both the living and dead receive the best treatment available in Thebes – and at Ramesses’ expense!”

  Pamose pulled a wry face but nodded his agreement.

  Shortly afterwards, stretchers carrying both the living and the dead began to move between Netjerikhet’s house and the temple.

  Unavoidably, a small crowd gathered at the Temple gates. The survivors entered the temple complex through a small side door. They bathed, ate and retired to bed by midday to rest after their exertions of the night.

  Nikolas rose in the late afternoon and after obtaining a further interview with the High Priest of Amun at Luxor arranged details for their departure the next day. He also met with Pamose, who agreed that they needed to head for a place of safety until loyal troops could secure the city, and reported that through his contacts with the garrison he had arranged for them to be joined by two junior officers named Kysen and Sabni who were familiar with the area, with an escort of eight men trusted by them. They would join their four remaining original guards. Pamose also reported the rumour from the barracks that Pharaoh was marching on Thebes with a large army at his back and suggested that they flee Thebes for safety until order was restored.

  Afterwards Nikolas returned to his bed chamber and there devoid of passion but seeking solace he and Kiya clung together.

  CHAPTER 9 – KHARGA OASIS & BEYOND

  Year 53. Month Pa-en-ipet, 2nd Akhet.

  Early September 1223 BC

  Next morning in the faint light of the false dawn they prepared for departure. Kysen and Sabni had been asked for their opinion as to a safe location, and it had been agreed that the villages on the river and in the desert on the east bank would be too dangerous.

  Nikolas had arranged for ten donkeys with loads of cheap but tradable goods, mainly foodstuffs. They were to depart for the safety of the Kharga Oasis, four days of hard travel through the desert to the west. Once again posing as a merchant and his entourage, they crossed the river on a private ferry, joined the animals on the West Bank and moved quickly towards the forbidding arid hills rising above them. Lorentis and Kiya had their own donkeys; Lorentis was usually astride and Kiya usually walking alongside and leading the animal, only riding when she was tired. The men walked and led the other beasts.

  They soon reached the largely flat and sandy desert beyond the hills and trudged slowly on through the blistering heat of the day, pausing frequently to drink and to water the animals from the numerous water skins that they carried; fully a third of their load was water. The sun beat down unmercifully from above and reflected back fiercely from the sand under their feet. They all wore the loose and enveloping dress of the desert nomads, in grey or white, to protect them from the sun. They were plagued not only with the heat, but also clouds of the ubiquitous Egyptian flies that tormented the travellers by constantly attacking their eyes and mouths. Nikolas had already found this was usual as soon as a person stepped outside in Egypt, but the desert flies seemed more tenacious than their city or river cousins. Thin cloths drawn across the mouth and nose provided some protection.

  The path was clearly defined by cairns of stones at regular intervals and a reasonably well-worn path. Occasionally there were pathetic piles of bleached bones where a donkey had expired on the track. Every few hours they met travellers passing in the opposite direction and occa
sionally caught up with travellers who were also moving west but at a slower pace. On meeting travellers going east, there was a brief pause when as usual news of the path and conditions of the roads ahead were exchanged.

  Nikolas walked with Kysen and Sabni and tried to engage them in conversation, but they were very reserved, and answered his questions and comments regarding the political situation with little more than single words. As dusk was starting to fall on the fourth day Kharga Oasis loomed before them. By the time they arrived darkness had fallen but there was some small amount of light cast by the new moon and the stars.

  When they approached the gate in the low stone wall that surrounded the settlement they found it was closed and they had to call to the guards for admission. Two guards slipped out to check their bona fides, which were presented as travelling merchants, before they were allowed in after paying a suitable ‘toll’ for the late opening of the gate.

  Nikolas had asked the guards for the name of a suitable hostel to stay. Apparently there were only three to chose from and the best was known as the ‘Oasis Reeds’. Having received directions they approached the hostel and entered after a brief delay in seeking to have the doors opened late to such a large group. There was a large common-room, which was nearly empty with just two reasonably well-dressed men drinking together in one corner. Nikolas arranged for the donkeys to be cared for at the caravanserai and with the supervision of his men the loads removed and stored, and for refreshments for the group.

  Tired after four days of strenuous exertion on the journey, they retired early for the night.

  T T T T

  Nikolas woke abruptly. It was completely dark; a knife was pressing against his throat. Nikolas thought he could sense several men standing in the room. A light was struck and an oil lamp lit. As he squinted in the sudden light Nikolas could see four other men in the room standing behind the man holding the cold bronze knife to his throat. One of these men was Kysen.

  “So, the Greek has arrived as we were told!” said the man standing just behind the knife-wielder. He was a large dirty man with a bad haircut and rotten teeth. He wore a robe in the style of the desert nomads, filthy and smelling strongly of urine and sweat.

  Nikolas was starting to get thoroughly tired of people trying to kill him in the night. As this group had shown themselves more adept than the previous attempts, he lay still. ‘Perhaps I need a large fierce dog,’ he mused. He couldn’t nod his agreement with his captor’s comments without cutting his own throat.

  The blade was moved away slightly, and Bad Haircut indicated brusquely for him to sit up. Kiya lay huddled on the bed, whimpering piteously. Nikolas thought that this was good acting, considering her previous fierce response to interlopers in the night.

  Bad Haircut asked Kysen, “Does he know anything of use?”

  “If he did, Pamiu, we wouldn’t have had to follow him all the way to Kharga. He’d be in Thebes or Aswan! I think they were just running like gazelle from a lion, trying to find safety.”

  “Well, they certainly are safe now,” said the man who Nikolas could now name as Pamiu, as he grinned hideously. The blackened gaps in his teeth stood out clearly in the lamplight. He flicked the sheet of the bed revealing Kiya, who curled up and attempted to hide her nakedness with her arms.

  “A choice piece of meat! You, slut, get dressed and be ready to leave with the other bitch!” he barked at Kiya, before half turning to Kysen and continuing, “The Assyrian will be leaving in the morning for Quesir on the east coast. He’ll certainly pay a pretty fee to take them both to the slave market in Damascus!”

  Kiya moved clumsily from the bed and started to hurriedly don the enveloping garb worn on the desert trip. Nikolas drew the attention of the group to himself by pretending to bend over and dry-retch with fear, noticing from the corner of his eye as he did so that Kiya palmed the small throwing-knife lying on the floor under the bed and slipped it under her dress.

  “Rather than finishing off these filth now, we’ll sell the men to Rewer at the mines. He’ll soon work them to death!”

  Pamiu swiftly ran his hands through Nikolas’ clothes, removing the heavy purse hidden there, before throwing the clothes at Nikolas for him to put on; his hands were then bound behind his back with a leather rawhide thong. When he was roughly pushed through the door into the hallway he saw Pamose and the four surviving guards from the ‘Night of the Knives’ being similarly treated. Sabni and the army guards stood nearby, unbound and with their expressions ranging from disinterest to malicious delight. Clearly they’d been set up.

  In the half light of the false dawn Nikolas saw Kiya and Lorentis being led towards the caravanserai nearer the nearby oasis.

  The men were roped together at the ankle, hands bound and forced to march towards the south.

  T T T T

  After a half day’s march they approached the alum mine from the north. Smoke from wood and charcoal fires drifted in the wind. The hot sun beat down fiercely as they entered the low hills surrounding the mines. Nikolas thought longingly of both his hat and water flasks. This was the hot season, a time of year that few men willingly chose to enter the desert.

  The mining village stood in a small depression to the east of the low hills that contained the mines. There were several mud-brick houses, some tents and several areas where large awnings had been placed to create shade. There was a stone-lined well in the middle of the village and perhaps two hundred people were in or near the village itself. In the open area to the west of the village several huge fireplaces smouldered where the ore was being softened; lines of women and old men sat or crouched over mortar-stones, grinding cooled softened ore into powder. The ground was stained red with the powder from the burnt ore. A line of donkeys, women and old men led from the hills, each carrying baskets of ore towards the village, with a parallel line back towards the hills carrying containers of water drawn from the well.

  Nikolas and the others were made to sit in the sun outside the hut at the centre of the village, each given a cup of water by slaves.

  Nikolas briefly cursed both the cloth dyeing and tanning industries without which the mine would not exist, alum being essential to the fixing of dyed colours.

  Pamiu entered the hut. Shortly afterwards he exited, accompanied by a short fat man Nikolas later learned was named Rewer. Rewer quickly examined the six captives, conversed briefly with Pamiu and had the men taken to a nearby fire. There a branding iron was produced. As both Pamose and Nikolas protested volubly, the six men were each branded on their right shoulder with the sign of a slave belonging to Pharaoh. Their cries of pain and stench of burnt flesh rose in the clear blue sky to join the pungent fumes from the ore fires.

  T T T T

  Next morning each of the prisoners was issued with a slave’s loincloth made of grey rough and coarse material. They retained their own sandals as most of the slaves walked barefoot. They were then separated and each shackled at the ankle to another slave by a piece of thick rope two arm-lengths long. Nikolas was shackled to a small weedy individual with a rat-like face who was named Edfu, after the city from which he originated. Pamose was partnered with a huge Nubian called Umtau. The other four prisoners and their new partners were led away.

  Obeying the shouts of the overseers and the cracking of whips, Nikolas, Pamose and their new partners joined a group that was twenty strong. They were each given a large water-skin or a large woven basket filled with charcoal before being marched off towards the low hills to the west. After a walk of a little over a mile they reached a rock-face on a low hill where the grey shale containing alum ran in a thick band near the base of what had become a cliff due to the mining operations.

  Nikolas quickly learnt that Edfu’s disreputable appearance did not hide a heart of gold and that he was the human rat he appeared.

  He freely admitted he was a thief, sentenced some six months ago to five years labour in the mines after being apprehended. In a constant stream of foul and obscene language he blamed his
plight on the merchant whose stall he had been robbing when caught red-handed, the judge who heard the case, who was corrupt and ‘would get his comeuppance’ once Edfu was released, the foreman with the whip, and most of all the insufferable turd to whom he had now been tied by rope.

  Nikolas told Edfu an abridged version of his own story. “I was with a caravan passing from Thebes to Kharga. After we arrived at the Oasis and were sleeping at the hostel we were set upon by bandits and seized. The men were sent here. I know not where are the women.”

  Edfu laughed with either delight or derision and said, “You got what you deserved, you idiot! Your woman will no doubt have been raped many times - probably the first time she’s felt a real man between her legs!” Nikolas instantly swung a fist, taking Edfu in the jaw and knocking him to the ground. Edfu rose, spitting blood from a cut lip. “Bastard! I’ll get you for that! Just you wait!.

  The mine site was about a mile from the village. The sandstone over the shale was being laboriously removed on one section of the cliff; in another section, where the metal-bearing shale had been exposed, workers were removing the ore. In areas where the rock was softer this was done by use of copper chisels and large hammers with round heads made of hard basalt or porphyry stone attached to wooden handles by animal-gut bindings, both types of stone being much harder than the sandstone bedrock or ore-bearing shale. In several sections, where the rock was harder and more difficult to work, fires had been lit using charcoal to heat the rock, which was then doused with water to cause the rock to soften and crumble.