Scepter of Flint

by N. L. Holmes

  “Yes, my duckling.” Hani was tempted to say nothing further and simply get her home and keep her there. But he caught the sunet’s stern eye and added hesitantly, “Perhaps it would be a good thing for you to stay home for a while, Neferet. There’s plague in the palace. Your mama and I want you to stay safe.”

  Neferet drew back from him, shocked and suspicious. “Do I have to, Papa? Is this an order? Because, you know, it’s when people are sick that they need a doctor.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Hani replied with a glance at Djefat-nebty. “I think it would be good, my duckling. Afterward, you can come back if you want to.”

  Neferet thrust her lip out in the stubborn expression Hani knew too well. Her little brown eyes flickered with flame. “I don’t want to go. I mean, I’ll go home for the holidays, but I don’t want to stay. Lady Djefat-nebty relies on me, and there’s a new girl who needs me to help her learn our ways. No. I won’t stay.”

  Hani was torn between admiration and vexation. He locked eyes with Djefat-nebty over the girl’s head, but she remained expressionless, her arms crossed like a man. Help me here, by all the gods, he willed her silently. But she said nothing.

  “My love, I think you need to let older and wiser heads make this decision for you—’’

  “I won’t, Papa.” Neferet crossed her arms in angry imitation of her teacher and drew away from her father. “If you try to make me stay, I won’t ever come home.”

  Hani’s voice rose in exasperation. “Neferet, think about what it would mean if you infected Baket-iset or Sat-hut-haru’s or Pa-kiki’s children.”

  “I can’t abandon my post,” she said, adamant. “If the plague spreads, there won’t be enough doctors to take care of everyone.”

  Hani thought he would explode with frustration. He replied, nearly shouting, “You foolish girl. Are you putting the king’s women ahead of your own family?”

  A look of wavering guilt flickered over Neferet’s face. Then she rallied to her cause. “I’m putting the sick over the well.” There was no sign of compromise in her outthrust lip.

  Hani drew in a long breath through his nose. It would be a strategic mistake to lose his temper altogether. He looked at Lady Djefat-nebty and said in a carefully controlled voice, “I don’t suppose we could look to you for a helpful word, my lady?”

  But she said in her stern way, “The girl is legally an adult, Lord Hani. Nothing I could say would bind her—nor anything you could say, evidently.”

  If I force her, we’ll lose her. We have to honor her choice of life work. “Very well,” Hani said flatly, hoping it didn’t sound like an admission of defeat. “Lady Djefat-nebty is right. You’re not a child anymore. You’ve chosen what you want in life, and we respect that.”

  “Then, if you’ll let me come back, I’ll go home with you.” Her big grin, with the lovable space between the front teeth, opened wide again. She threw her arms around her father, and Hani embraced her hard, as if his body could defend her from the harm that crept invisibly through the halls and slipped from person to person without a sound.

  We mustn’t drive her away over this, he told himself again. It’s a generous and courageous thing she wants to do.

  “So I’ll see you again in two weeks, Neferet?” asked the sunet in a neutral tone.

  “Yes, my lady. Without fail. If I have to swim. And may Sekhmet turn my nose green and pull out my navel if I don’t.”

  To Hani’s surprise, Djefat-nebty burst out in a bark of laughter. “She’s quite a person, your daughter, Lord Hani. Congratulations.”

  The two of them took their leave, Hani torn between pride in his youngest child and desperate fear for her safety. This won’t make Nub-nefer happy.

  After picking up Pipi and Maya at the gate, father and daughter tramped in uncomfortable silence toward the embarcadero, Hani afraid that anything he said might precipitate another argument. Up the gangplank they marched, the boards bouncing beneath their feet. Hani found the four of them a place to sit on the deck, and they stayed there, unspeaking, for a long time as the ferry swung out into the current and the sailors heaved up the wide sail. It caught the wind with a clack, and the boat jumped forward against the flow.

  Hani shot a sideways glance at his daughter. She was sitting cross-legged, staring fixedly out at the River, sunk deep in thought. In spite of himself, Hani’s heart warmed to the girl. This thoughtful, silent Neferet wasn’t the little hoyden he knew. She was growing up and not just physically. May the Great One watch over her, he prayed with painful fervor.

  At last, Neferet said in a casual tone, as if there had been no disagreement between them, “Papa, the new girl is a wonderful person. She was studying with the wab priests of Sekhmet at Sau until the temple was shut down. She knows a lot already. Her father is a sunu, too—a friend of Lord Pentju.”

  “Then what is it you have to help her with so urgently, little duck?” Hani said tartly. Then he regretted his tone. He wanted to support her wholeheartedly.

  But she replied without rancor, “Oh, the way we do things at the palace. There’s protocol, you know. And Djefat-nebty has lots of rules. And sometimes, the priests taught Bener-ib a little differently than Djefat-nebty teaches. You know.” Neferet shrugged.

  Hani sighed.

  Maya said sourly, “Why couldn’t you have wanted to train baboons or something normal?”

  As she had so often done in her childhood, Neferet began immediately to imitate a baboon, squinching her mouth and eyes and hunching her shoulders. The three men burst out laughing, and Neferet joined in.

  “I love you, Papa,” she said, planting a big kiss on his cheek.

  “And I love you, my duckling. That’s why I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He put his arm around her. They sat that way until it grew chilly on the deck, then they all went inside the curtained shelter where other passengers had taken refuge. Before long, the boat put in to shore to wait out the night, and father, daughter, brother, and son-in-law slept, rolled up in their cloaks.

  ⸎

  When they finally reached Waset, Hani found he didn’t have the courage to tell Nub-nefer that Neferet insisted on going back after the holidays into the teeth of the plague. Let us enjoy these sacred days without arguments, he told himself wearily.

  Pipi’s wife and three younger children, who ranged in age from eight to thirteen, were there, a jovial presence. Nedjem-ib’s contagious brays of laughter broke out over the talk from time to time, and her youngest—twins—spent much of their time chasing one another in and out of the garden. Sat-hut-haru and her children were also in the house when they arrived, and Neferet immediately swooped down on her nephew and niece. She proceeded to fall on her knees and act like a cat, arching her back, rubbing the children’s legs with her shoulders, and purring. The children reacted with squeals of laughter.

  “That reminds me, Papa,” said Baket-iset from her couch. “Ta-miu had her kittens. We shut them away so the baby wouldn’t pull their tails.”

  “Good for her.” Hani wondered again what Neferet was thinking when she said she didn’t want to bear any children. She clearly loved little ones. “Anything else of interest while I was gone?”

  “Your friend Keliya was here with two young men he wanted you to meet,” Nub-nefer said, her arm linked through Hani’s. They stood beside Baket-iset, surveying their grandchildren.

  “He’s in Waset?” Hani cried.

  “He said he was staying with Mane’s family. Mane has apparently gone back to Wasshukanni.”

  “Oh, he’s left, has he? He wanted me to talk to Lady Kiya before he took her home, but I never got to Hut-nen-nesut. I’ll tell you why later.” A pall fell over his happy mood at the thought of what was going on in court. He hoped fervently that Aha had received his message and taken it to heart.

  “No, no, she hasn’t left yet. It’s these two men who are supposed to accompany her back, Keliya said. This Tulubri and Pi... Pa...” Nub-nefer looked to Hani for rescue.

&nbs
p; “Pirissi, I believe, my love.” Hani’s voice fell. “How are our guests in the kitchen?”

  Nub-nefer stared at her husband, aggrieved. “Hani, those poor people need some privacy. The man can’t walk yet, and he has to use a bedpan. And I’m afraid the children will hurt themselves on the hearth or the oven. Where else can we put them?”

  “Ptah-mes offered to put Pipi and his family up at his house.”

  “How generous,” Nub-nefer said in relief. “He and Lady Apeny are true grandees, deserving of the title weru.”

  “Perhaps we can send Bebi-ankh and his crew to the farm,” Hani said but then remembered that he’d encouraged Aha to send his family to the country place. He couldn’t see Khentet-ka—or Aha either, for that matter—willingly sharing their quarters with an artisan.

  Maya came and stood beside Hani, hands on his hips, as he looked out over his family at play. “Will we be doing any work over the holidays, my lord?”

  “Probably not, except to visit Keliya’s friends.” I have to inform everyone sooner rather than later, Hani urged himself firmly. “Nub-nefer, my dear, I need to tell you something. Maya already knows. But where is Father?”

  “He’s at his lady friend’s house.” Nub-nefer smiled slyly. “He took your litter.”

  “Ah. I’ll tell him when he gets back.” Hani’s voice dropped. “Lord Ptah-mes said there was plague breaking out at the palace. Someone brought it from Djahy.”

  Her eyes widened with horror, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

  Hani cautioned her, “Try to act normal. We don’t want to scare the children.”

  Maya managed an offhand expression, but his face was a shade paler than usual. “Do you think we’re exposed, my lord? Dear gods, if I thought I’d brought it home to the little ones...”

  “I doubt it. Neither of us has been to the palace recently.”

  “Aha,” murmured Nub-nefer in a hollow voice. “He keeps company with the king and his young friends.”

  “I left him a message and told him to go up to the country place. Let’s hope he takes me up on it.”

  “And Neferet.” She gasped, a look of realization dawning on her face. “Why, she works at the palace. We have to keep her here.”

  Hani felt his face grow hot with discomfort. There’s nothing for it. I have to tell her. “I, er... I talked to her about that. She insists she wants to keep working. She takes her duties as a sunet very seriously.”

  “You talked to her about it? You had a conversation?” Nub-nefer expostulated, her kohl-darkened eyes growing wide with outrage. She drew away from Hani as abruptly as if he himself had the plague. “You didn’t just order her to stay here? You’re her father!”

  “She’s legally an adult, my love,” Hani murmured uneasily.

  “Well, I’m going to tell her, then.” She turned and moved toward the children. Neferet was crawling around on all fours with little Tepy perched on her shoulders, laughing, his feet dangling around her neck.

  But Hani held her back. “Please don’t. We don’t want to drive her away over this. You know how stubborn she can be. ‘Speak gently that you may be loved.’”

  Nub-nefer turned on him, eyes flashing with scorn. “Hani, don’t quote aphorisms to me. You’ve spoiled her appallingly. I don’t care how old she is—if her father gives her an order, she should listen.”

  “Well,” he said mildly, “her father didn’t give her an order. And I hope her mother won’t either, because then she’ll run away and never see us again—unless you plan to tie her up someplace.”

  Nub-nefer stood, her face red and her lips compressed as if she were struggling with herself. “It’s that Djefat-nebty,” she muttered. “She’s putting rebellious ideas in Neferet’s head.”

  “I rather think our daughter has enough rebellious ideas of her own, my dove. We have to respect what she’s chosen to give herself to. We can’t be less brave than she is.”

  Nub-nefer fell silent, but she clearly wasn’t convinced. After a moment, she sat down on the edge of Baket-iset’s couch, and her face relaxed as she began to talk to their eldest girl.

  Love will win out, he thought, a wave of relief washing over him.

  Maya, at Hani’s side, exchanged a glance of male commiseration with him. The secretary called out to Sat-hut-haru, “My love, perhaps we should go. It’s getting late, and I don’t want us to be out after dark.”

  She gathered the baby and a giggling Tepy, who was engaged in some kind of mock pillow battle with Pipi’s younger sons, and they moved in a block toward the door. “Goodnight, Mama and Papa,” Sat-hut-haru called. A moment later, the outer door closed, and their voices died away.

  Hani made his way to the kitchen, where Bebi-ankh and his family were camped. The black-line man was sitting up on the edge of the cot next to the oven, watching his two older children play while his wife nursed the youngest. He looked up and, seeing Hani in the doorway, tried to rise, but Hani motioned him back down with a smile.

  “I promise your living conditions will improve, my friend. My brother is moving out tomorrow, and you’ll have real rooms.”

  “You’re very good to us, my lord. I’m not sure I deserve such kindness,” Bebi-ankh said humbly. He was a big man, as Djau had indicated, with a broad face—now, no doubt, scarred forever—and thick muscles. But his fingers were long and unexpectedly fine.

  Hani said lightly, “You made a mistake, but you’ve redeemed yourself as far as I’m concerned. Tomorrow, I’m taking troops to arrest the others. They should all still be at work on Ptah-mes’s tomb, shouldn’t they?”

  “I guess they will be,” Bebi-ankh murmured. He and his wife exchanged an uneasy look. “They’re not bad men, most of them. They just couldn’t resist such a temptation—any more than I could. If you have any pull with the higher-ups, my lord, don’t let them be impaled, I beg you.”

  “I don’t have any control over what the judges will decide, my friend. But I’ll do what I can.” Just let me get to them before Mahu does, he thought with a stab of anger.

  ⸎

  The next morning, early, Menna showed up at the gate as arranged, a small contingent of ten men with him. They were armed with swords and bronze rods, and one or two carried bows. Hani made sure he had the vizier’s letter with him in case anybody questioned his authority. Everyone on his list should be at work inside the tomb, with no possibility of escape, and they would certainly be unarmed—except, perhaps, for rocks or pots of paint. Hani wondered if young Khawy would be there even though his uncle had moved on to a new project.

  As they were organizing their plan, Mery-ra arrived in Hani’s litter. He dismounted and eyed the gathered troops with Menna at their head. “Hani, what’s going on here? Have we declared war on the neighbors?”

  “We’re going to arrest the tomb robbers, or at least the less guilty part of them,” Hani said grimly. “Whether any of them know who the leader of their little game is, I couldn’t say. Ironically, he may get away free.”

  Mery-ra shook his head. “May Ma’at guide you, son. It would be nice to think that once in a while, justice was actually done.”

  His father passed on up the graveled walk toward the house. Hani turned to Menna. “Ready, my friend? Let’s go. To the Mountains of the West.”

  Menna rallied his men, and the little procession started out the gate with the measured shuffle of sandals and a clinking of weapons. I hope we all come back alive, Hani thought with a sigh.

  ⸎

  The soldiers had their own boat, and they crossed the River expeditiously. Hani led the way into the arid valley in the cliffs where Lord Ptah-mes’s half-finished tomb stood.

  Menna was in good spirits; he didn’t seem to share Hani’s fears about the encounter. “A bunch of artists and stonecutters?” he scoffed. “We’ve had worse opponents, my lord.”

  They marched in their own cloud of dust through the rocky defile, and Hani saw ahead of them the dark opening of the tomb, with its whitewashed pyramidal chapel
at a remove. Men were coming and going. A small fire was built just outside the opening, where something seemed to be heating in a clay pot, although it had a caustic smell that suggested it wasn’t food. Hani approached the entry a little ahead of the soldiers, but the workmen in the courtyard before the door looked beyond him to the troops. Most stopped to stare; others went philosophically about their tasks. No one, Hani observed, ran away.

  One older man with a club in his hand came stalking purposefully toward them. “I’m the guard here,” he called out. “What’s going on?”

  “King’s business,” Hani said evasively, flashing his letter from the vizier at the man, who was undoubtedly illiterate anyway. For all Hani knew, the guard himself was complicit. The man fell back, and Menna marched his troops to the entry. Hani approached the few workmen who remained outside. “You, there—into the tomb, please.” They hustled inside, dropping their tools on the ground, their eyes wide with alarm.

  Within, torches bracketed to the plastered stone every few cubits provided dim, smoky illumination for the painters. Soldiers crowding in the doorway blocked the one shaft of bright sunlight, casting long sinister shadows onto the smoothed floor of the corridor. A number of men were standing high on wooden scaffolding against the walls, paintbrushes in hand, where they were laying color on the nearly finished murals.

  Heads turned. A voice murmured from somewhere, “What’s going on?”

  “These are the king’s troops. I want the following men to step forward, please.” He began to call the names of the collaborators Bebi-ankh had furnished him, scanning the faces of the stunned crewmen for signs of guilt or panic.

  One man staggered forward, trembling, and fell at his feet. “Spare me, my lord,” he cried. “I have eleven children to feed.” Another swung down from the scaffold and tried to run deeper into the tomb, but Menna darted after him before he could reach the stairs and jerked him back.