Scepter of Flint

by N. L. Holmes

  “Tie them up,” Hani ordered. “There must be other men down there at work on the burial chamber.” He and five of the soldiers made their way down the steps, while the remainder bound and gagged the two painters.

  Between the flickering cressets, the lower corridor was terrifyingly black. Hani tried not to think about the mountain over his head. He and the men debouched into the burial chamber, where stonecutters were still smoothing one corner with echoing blows of the chisel while plasterers came in just behind them. On the opposite wall, the gridded red-ocher sketches for the paintings and texts had been finished under Djau’s meticulous hand and awaited Bebi-ankh’s black final outlines. Scaffolding stood along both sides, and the beautiful life-sized ka statues of Lord Ptah-mes and his wife, Lady Apeny, sat serenely in their niche, covered with dust and soot from the torches.

  The workmen, who were removed enough from the antechamber to be unaware of what had taken place there, looked around in surprise.

  “Will the following men please step forward?” Hani’s voice echoed hollow in the enclosed space. He could feel the tension increasing around him, the men staring at one another, wild-eyed, starting to fidget. Most of them would have no idea what this was about and had, no doubt, begun to imagine the worst.

  As Hani called their names, each trembling suspect crept forward or was pushed, screaming and pleading, by his fellows. A voice shouted, “Bebi-ankh was in on it too.” The soldiers apprehended each man and manacled his arms behind his back in a painful posture. A sudden reek of urine betrayed someone’s fear.

  “Heqa-nakht,” Hani called finally. Frightened silence fell. No one stepped forward. “Where is he, people?” His voice had become a stern growl.

  A quaking youth with a pot of plaster still clutched in his hand cleared his throat and said in a wavering voice, “He went outside for a leak, my lord.”

  Hani nodded, trying not to reveal his disappointment. If someone had gotten away, he would almost certainly alert their chief, and the mysterious foreigner would go to ground. “The rest of you are free to go on with your work,” he said, but he knew it would be difficult with members of their closely coordinated team missing. Bebi-ankh’s absence had already held them up.

  Breathing heavily in the stale, smoke-filled air, he mounted the stairs into the entry corridor. Some of the released workmen milled about uncertainly. The soldiers had tied the uncomfortably bound culprits into a line.

  “What is more despicable than a tomb robber?” Hani said to them in a loud contemptuous voice. “For a little silver, you’ve deprived someone of the things he’ll need in the Duat. The dead can’t help themselves, you wretches. They depend on the living.” He thought guiltily of the artist with eleven children. He knew how poor many of these men had to be since the royal tombs had left the Great Place nearby, but he decided to act stern rather than compassionate. Perhaps when he questioned them one by one, he would change tactics.

  Hani, the soldiers, and the bound men emerged, blinking, into the bright morning light. In place of the satisfaction he should have felt, Hani experienced a dull sense of gloom. He only hoped one of these poor misled sods could provide him with the name of their ringleader and that he could get the rest of them off with a mild punishment—the loss of nose or ears.

  They shuffled down the sloping scree and across the rock-strewn path toward the River. Behind Hani, someone was weeping quietly. Hani walked next to Menna, who looked pleased with the day’s catch.

  “Well, my friend,” Hani said, “I thank you for this. You’ve discharged any debt you had toward me.”

  “Never, my lord,” the officer said cheerfully. “We were just doing our duty. I’m forever in your debt. A life isn’t bought so easily.”

  Hani chuckled, but he couldn’t help thinking of the artisans they had arrested, who would lose their own lives if the judge felt inclined to severity. He wondered how close to the king the men whose tombs had been violated had been and how much that would play into the culprits’ sentencing. We’re none of us any better than crass sycophants, he thought bitterly. But somehow, that thought seemed disloyal to his friend Lord Ptah-mes, whose tomb they were leaving. The commissioner had paid for his loyalty to the throne—whoever its occupant was—with the loss of respect from his wife and children. Hani knew he was suffering daily from the rent in his conscience.

  Hani was in a dark mood as they mounted the little military boat and swung out into the current, heading back to the land of the living.

  CHAPTER 5

  HANI REACHED HOME AROUND midday, weary but more cheerful. A trip on the River, even the short one from bank to bank, always restored his sense of proportion. He’d seen a flock of geese—lots of them—rising into the air, their powerful whistling wingbeats and joyful honking the most beautiful music to Hani’s ears.

  Nub-nefer greeted him calmly, although her eyes were red.

  “No more arguments with Neferet, I hope?” he whispered, stroking her hair.

  She shook her head. “But I can’t help worrying, Hani. You’ll never convince me it’s safe for her to tend the sick at the palace with plague on the loose.”

  “No, my dear. It’s not safe. But there are many things in life that are dangerous, and we can’t protect her from them all.”

  She sighed and straightened her shoulders, saying more brightly, “Your workmen in the kitchen have now moved into Pipi’s rooms. Pipi has taken his family to Lord Ptah-mes’s villa, but he left his baggage and furniture here. No point in inflicting that on your friend, who is being kind enough already.”

  “Good, good,” Hani said with a fond smile. “Things are returning to normal.” He caressed Nub-nefer’s face. “I don’t suppose Maya showed up to work this morning?”

  “Oh, he did. He’s in the salon now. I think he’s a little peeved that you didn’t take him to the arrest.” A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

  Hand in hand, Hani and Nub-nefer made their way into the salon, where Maya sat cross-legged on the floor, writing on a roll of papyrus across his lap. He looked up and scrambled to his feet at Hani’s approach. Mery-ra was seated not far away—he, too, scratching away with concentration. He called out to his son, “How did it go at the tomb?”

  “Fairly successfully. We got all but one of the culprits, and then there’s that Khnum-baf who had fled earlier. I’m just afraid that one of them has gone to warn their leader and now the foreigner’ll hole up somewhere, out of sight.”

  “The jubilee will be over soon,” said Maya. “Then all the diplomats will go home, and this business will surely be finished.”

  “Not for several weeks. There’s still time for our unknown friend to gather a new group of accomplices and make an attempt on Neb-ma’at-ra’s tomb. That would be a huge disgrace.”

  “Do you think he’ll dare, knowing we’re onto him?” asked Mery-ra.

  Hani shrugged, with a wry twitch of the lips. “You’ll be relieved to know I have no insights into the criminal mind, Father.” He squatted beside Mery-ra and peered over his shoulder. “What are you working on?”

  Mery-ra indicated his papyrus with a spread hand. “It’s my Book of Going Forth by Day for our tomb. Since you keep pointing out how old I am, I felt I needed to be sure I finished it quickly.” He held back the curling ends of the scroll with his fingers so that Hani could see the work more clearly.

  Hani bent over and read his father’s sure, graceful sacred signs: “What did you find there on the shore of the pool of Two Truths?” A scepter of flint, whose name is Breath Giver. “What did you do with the firebrand and the faience column?” I lamented over them.

  He grew thoughtful. It’s all about knowing the right answers—about knowing the names of the demons who block your way, because that gives you power over them. “Rather like being an investigator,” he said aloud.

  “What’s that, son?”

  “The interrogations in the afterworld. It’s all about making ma’at known, despite opposition.”


  “I never thought of it that way,” Mery-ra said.

  Changing the subject, Hani said with genuine admiration, “This is a beautiful book, Father. Your eyesight must still be perfect.”

  “Well, I may have to rear back farther and farther to do it, but I can still see.” Mery-ra looked a little smug. “I need to find an artist to illustrate the later parts of it. The man who did the earlier pages has died.”

  “Perhaps our little Khawy can help. He comes from a talented family.” Hani looked over his shoulder at Maya. “That reminds me—where is he? He never showed up. Do you think something has happened to him?”

  Maya said offhandedly, “Maybe Djau has changed his mind.”

  But a little worm of concern niggled Hani in the pit of his stomach. Between Mahu and the betrayed tomb robbers, Djau was the target of too many enemies. “Maya, why don’t you pay a visit to the Place of Truth and see what’s going on? I told the boy how to get to the house, but maybe he didn’t remember.”

  Maya tipped his head in acknowledgment. “I’ll go right after lunch, my lord.”

  “I’d better go with him. He’s never been to Djau’s place,” said Mery-ra, climbing heavily to his feet and beginning to arrange his writing tools.

  “And I,” said Hani, stretching, “am headed to Mane’s house to meet those two young diplomats Keliya has brought in.”

  ⸎

  Mane didn’t live far. Since he was so frequently in distant Wasshukanni, he hadn’t felt any urgency to build a place in the new capital. Hani went on foot, having no need to prove his status to an old friend like the ambassador to Naharin.

  He was greeted at the door of the vestibule by Mane’s wife, a round, cheerful little woman who resembled Mane to a remarkable degree. “Come in, come in, Lord Hani. My husband has spoken of you often,” she cried, beaming. “What brings you to our house? Mane is in Naharin, you know.”

  “I had hoped our friend Keliya was here, since the offices of the foreign service are closed for the holidays. He wanted me to meet his new adjutants.”

  “Ah, yes. Delightful young men. I’ll call Keliya.”

  She scurried out and emerged from the corridor a moment later with Hani’s old friend from Naharin, who was grinning broadly. Keliya was younger than Hani by a good ten years, but—a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered fellow with a retreating hairline—he could have passed for Hani’s senior. Keliya, Hani, and Mane had together brought Princess Taduhepa—now known as Kiya, the little monkey—from Naharin to be the bride of Neb-ma’at-ra. The months-long journey had forged strong brotherly bonds among the three.

  Keliya and Hani embraced affectionately. Keliya said in Hurrian, “Permit me to introduce my two colleagues, Tulubri and Pirissi. They’re here for the jubilee, then they’ll conduct our girl back to her homeland.” He shot Hani a significant look. They both knew what that meant for her.

  The young men trailing Keliya stepped forward and bowed respectfully. Like all the Mitannians, they were tall and light skinned. The one who introduced himself as Pirissi was getting portly, even though he couldn’t have been thirty years old. His fellow, Tulubri, was wiry and quick, smiling through his mustachioed beard, with long laughter lines scoring his cheeks. He, too, was scarcely out of his twenties.

  “We’re honored, my lord,” Tulubri said warmly. “Keliya and Lord Mane have told us all about you. What a friend you are to our land.”

  Pirissi, who was clean-shaven except for a collar of beard, added eagerly, “Perhaps you can help us convince your king not to send Lady Kiya back to Wasshukanni. Things are pretty dangerous there.” He and his companion exchanged a sorrowful glance.

  “I wish I could promise you that, Pirissi. But I am afraid I am not exactly the confidant of Nefer-khepru-ra, whatever Mane has told you. Have you had your audience with the king yet?”

  “No, my lord,” said the good-humored Tulubri. “We and Lord Keliya are going to present the gifts of Naharin in the great ceremony. We’re hoping the audience will happen before the end of the jubilee so we can go home.”

  Hani remembered only too well how the royal audience of Aziru, the vassal king of Amurru, had been delayed for over a year. “May it be so,” he said neutrally. “But this I can promise you—dinner at my house tomorrow night. Can I count on you? You are invited, too, of course, Keliya, my friend.”

  The three Mitannians looked at one another, brightening with pleasure, and Keliya spoke for them. “We’ll be there most gladly, Hani. It will be wonderful to talk again, like old times.” He clapped Hani gratefully on the upper arm. “You clearly haven’t forgotten your Hurrian—fluent as ever, my friend. You sound like you just stepped off the streets of Wasshukanni.”

  Hani’s face grew hot with embarrassment. It seemed to him that the language, which he had used rarely in the last six or seven years, was rusty enough. “Well, I’ll see you gentlemen tomorrow. Keliya, you know the way.”

  ⸎

  Maya trudged through the dry, dusty streets of the workmen’s village, thanking all the gods that the pleasant weather was holding. He could imagine how unpleasant this treeless hole must be when the summer sun baked it. At his side, Lord Mery-ra strode gamely along with his rocking gait.

  “Here it is,” said the older man, stopping in front of a gate in the whitewashed wall. He knocked, and Maya could hear footsteps scurrying toward them. After a moment, the gate swung open with a creak. Before them stood an elderly servant with a white mourning scarf around his head. Maya’s heart dropped into his stomach. He shot a quick, concerned glance at his companion.

  “How can I help you?” said the old man lugubriously.

  “We’re here to see if young Khawy is ready to come to Waset to study with me,” said Mery-ra with his most affable, grandfatherly smile. “Is Djau home?”

  The old man’s face crumpled, and he said with polite outrage, “Djau has flown into the West, my lord. He is in his eternal home.”

  Maya’s jaw dropped, and he saw the same shock on Mery-ra’s face. Hani had said the man was sick, but this seemed, nonetheless, unexpected. “Was it sudden, my good man?” he cried in horror.

  “That it was, my lord. He was murdered.” The old man eyed them with bitter suspicion.

  Maya and Mery-ra sank to their knees and, bending to the street, gathered handfuls of dust, which they strewed over their heads in respect.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. We had no idea. Is Khawy available? We’d like to offer him our condolences,” Mery-ra said soberly, hauling himself to his feet with Maya’s help.

  The old gateman retreated into the house while Maya and Mery-ra stood staring at one another awkwardly. “This isn’t good,” Mery-ra murmured.

  Khawy stood before them all at once, a sturdy boy but still soft muscled and smooth skinned, with only a smudge of beard, his childhood Haru lock surmounted by a mourning scarf. His tear-ravaged face had taken on a sad, set look that made him appear only too grown-up. “My lord,” he said, bowing to Mery-ra. “Thank you for coming, but I don’t think I’ll be able to take you up on your kind offer now. My sister and my grandmother depend on me.”

  Dear gods, thought Maya. On a paint boy’s salary? They’re going to starve. “When did this terrible thing happen?” he asked in a compassionate tone. “Do you know who did it?”

  “It was last week. Who did it, I don’t know, my lord. Ankh-reshet, our overseer, found him dead on the path to the tombs. Somebody had shot him with an arrow.”

  “Was no one else around to see what happened? Surely all the men go up from the camp together?” Mery-ra said.

  “Usually, my lord. But Uncle hadn’t been well that morning, and he said he’d follow when his faintness got better. So he started off alone after everyone had gotten to the workplace.” The boy fought back tears that threatened to collapse his features and, wiping his eyes, added, “He never showed up. Someone told Ankh-reshet, and he went back to look for him. And... and he found him lying on the path with an arrow in his back.”

  M
aya didn’t know what to say. He stared in damp-eyed pity at the boy until Mery-ra asked, “Did anyone keep the arrow that killed him, son?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Khawy said earnestly. “Do you want it? I’d rather not have it around. It’s a vile thing.”

  “I do, my boy. It may help us find your uncle’s killers.”

  Khawy scampered off and soon returned with a long, thin, reed-shafted arrow fletched with goose feathers. Its head, carved from flint, was shaped like a spear blade whose point had been cut off straight and the resulting edge sharpened—a head meant to inflict as large a wound as possible. The bindings were still stained with Djau’s blood. Maya could feel his lunch rising in his gullet.

  Mery-ra took it in his hands and turned it over and over. He murmured, “This is a military arrow. It could sever a hand or nearly decapitate someone. There’s no way a direct hit in the back wouldn’t kill a person.”

  Mucus began to run from Khawy’s nose, and he dashed at it futilely with a fist. Looking both miserable and furious, he shouted, “Why? Why, my lord? Who would want to kill a draftsman?”

  “That’s what we need to find out. My son, Hani, will investigate and ferret the criminal out of his lair, you may be sure.” Mery-ra laid a heavy hand on the lad’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “We must believe the gods have a reason for letting this happen, my boy. Be strong for your family.”

  Something occurred to Maya—the houses were all government issue, allotted according to the job of each head of household. “Are they going to turn you out of your house now that there’s no chief draftsman here?”

  “Ankh-reshet said we could stay for a while, but eventually, we’ll have to leave, when he finds a replacement for Uncle. I’m trying to find my sister a husband who has a good position,” Khawy said hopelessly.

  “How old is she?” Maya asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Twelve, my lord.”

  Maya couldn’t control a noise of disgust.

  “We’ll have offerings made for Djau,” Mery-ra promised.