Scepter of Flint

by N. L. Holmes

  “We’ll meet her later, with a healthy baby in her arms,” Nub-nefer said graciously, laying a wreath around his neck. “Let’s go sit in the garden and enjoy some beer until Pa-kiki gets here. Our eldest daughter has eaten and gone to bed early. I do hope you’ll excuse her. It was a tiring journey back yesterday.”

  She seated them all, and the serving girls passed the basin and towel and affixed cones of perfumed wax to their wigs. The two men sat at their ease while the mistress of the house excused herself to oversee preparations. Hani was mildly disappointed that Baket-iset wasn’t present. He would have liked to have heard her take on the personable young officer.

  “Before the others get here, Pa-aten-em-heb, I have some questions I’d like to ask of your friend in the cavalry,” Hani began quietly.

  “Yes, my lord?” Pa-aten-em-heb leaned forward, all courteous attention.

  “What can he tell me about Lord Ay? What is Ay’s real attitude toward the... changes in our kingdom? Is there any chance he might be involved in any kind of machinations behind the king’s back? Could he—would he—tell me things like that?”

  Pa-aten-em-heb smiled with an unreadable expression that might have been rueful or bitter. “I doubt if he could, my lord. But I could. Lord Ay is my father-in-law.”

  Hani gaped. He found himself speechless, partly with shock but also with embarrassment. At last, he managed to say apologetically, “Forgive me, my friend. I didn’t mean to impugn him...”

  “You can impugn him all you like, as far as I’m concerned. He’s an unscrupulous fox of a man who has treated his own daughters shamefully.” The officer’s face was flint. “I’m glad Mut-nodjmet isn’t here to hear me say it, because she seems to feel obliged to defend him in spite of how he has hurt her, but that’s the truth.”

  Hani remembered his own sole meeting with the God’s Father and his firstborn, the queen. How charming—and dangerous—the man had struck him as being, quietly giving signals to Nefert-iti to guide her in her actions.

  “Do you think he’s loyal to the king?”

  Pa-aten-em-heb snorted. “He’s loyal to Ay. Everyone else he uses to advance himself. You’ll ask me how much he believes in this Aten business. I can’t read hearts, but I’d wager my ka on the fact that he’ll change sides immediately when the wind blows in a different direction.”

  Hani nodded slowly. “That lines up with my own observations. But of course, I don’t know the man at all well.”

  “I do. And I tell you the truth.”

  Hani fixed the young officer with a hard stare. “I’m going to reveal to you something about why I have asked these questions. Needless to say, it must remain between us.”

  “On my honor as a standard-bearer. On my mother’s ka,” Pa-aten-em-heb said fervently.

  In an undertone, Hani filled him in on the basic lines of the tomb-robbing case and his suspicions about the deaths of the four grandees. He described the involvement of Ay and his cavalrymen—what little he knew of it—and the possibility of the king’s patronage, for which there was still no apparent motive.

  “Ay might be plotting against the king, then,” Pa-aten-em-heb said thoughtfully when Hani had finished. “But I don’t understand why all these Mitannians are involved. Why should they care who’s on the throne?”

  “That’s what we need to find out. I think the rest will fall into place after that.”

  “I thank you for these confidences, Lord Hani. I’ll keep my ears open for anything that sounds relevant.” Pa-aten-em-heb squared his shoulders, and his jaw tensed as if he were preparing for battle. But it was only the first course, which Nub-nefer brought in, smiling, dressed in her broad collar of flowers.

  “We’re starting without Pa-kiki and Mut-nodjmet?” Hani asked with a lift of the eyebrows.

  “They’re in the salon, washing their hands as we speak.” Nub-nefer took her seat as the servant handed around the bowl of dates wrapped in fat smoked pork, swimming in a tangy pomegranate-juice sauce.

  Before it had made the rounds, the young couple entered and greeted everyone, kissing their hostess. Pa-kiki looked surprised and a little embarrassed to see his commanding officer at table with the family. “My lord,” he cried, his earnest face alight. “What an honor! I feel terrible that I’ve kept you waiting for me.”

  “Not at all.” Pa-aten-em-heb’s face softened with his attractive smile. “In fact, as you see, we haven’t waited.”

  Everyone guffawed, and before long, they fell upon the savory dishes with much laughter and conversation.

  ⸎

  Less than two days later, a loud, jolly voice from the vestibule told Hani that Neferet had arrived. He braced himself to see Bener-ib in her wake and was not disappointed. The girl entered smiling broadly, but as soon as she saw Neferet’s family, despite their warm greeting, she grew as solemn and closed off as before.

  Why is the poor woman so uncomfortable around us? Hani wondered. Does she have a guilty conscience?

  Mery-ra, who was sitting on the floor, working on his Book of Going Forth by Day, said, “Your father has some medical questions to ask you, Neferet, my child.”

  “You’re not sick are you, Papa?” the girl asked, seating herself on his lap.

  “No, no, my dear. I’m investigating a case. Can you tell me whether someone could provoke an apoplectic fit, or something that appears to be one, artificially?”

  Neferet and her friend exchanged a considering look. Neferet finally said, “Bener-ib is more advanced than I am. What do you think, Ibet?”

  The girl looked as if the effort to speak were impaling her. “I think they could. There are drugs that could do that to a person. There’s a flower that comes from the islands of the Great Green.” She dropped her head.

  “You see how smart she is?” Neferet beamed, and Hani felt a pang of tenderness for her because he knew what it was like to worship someone—although this rat-faced little slip of a female would not have been his choice. “Why, Papa? Are you wanting to kill the suspect?”

  “No, my love. Some people have recently died of what appears to be natural causes, but I have my doubts.” Hani hesitated. “So let me ask you this, my young oracles—could a person deliberately give someone the plague?”

  “Oh, yes. If you touch the sick person’s spit or the pus from their carbuncles, you could infect someone with it. You could wipe their plate or something.” Seeing her mother’s expression of horror, Neferet added quickly, “That’s why Lady Djefat-nebty tells us to wash our hands, with special prayers to Lady Sekhmet, before and after we examine anybody—and I mean re-e-eally wash. It’s like a propitiation of the demons inside the person so they don’t enter us.”

  “Be sure you follow her directions, my love,” Nub-nefer said anxiously.

  “How long would it take for them to get sick?” Hani persisted.

  Neferet pursed her lips pensively and stared at Bener-ib. “What do you think, Ibet?”

  “A few days,” mumbled the girl in her babyish voice. “You get it in less than a week. Half a week or less.”

  A chill ran up Hani’s back. What a terrible, inhuman weapon. And completely untraceable. Except some maladroit oaf left behind that cup. “Thank you, my wise ladies,” he said. “You have helped to reestablish ma’at in the world.”

  Neferet slid off his lap. “We’re going upstairs to put our things away, Mama. We’ll come back down soon.”

  Hani smiled distractedly, his thoughts roiling. They now had a method but no motive.

  Pipi was the next one to arrive, with Nedjem-ib and the children. The house suddenly seemed very small, echoing with their cheery laughter and the thudding about of the undisciplined twins.

  “Nub-nefer. Hani, my brother,” cried Pipi, holding out his arms. “Here we are, back for the holidays. The children want to see the Wadjet Festival, and you can be sure no one is celebrating it in Akhet-aten.”

  “No, just the king parading back and forth every day. What fun,” said Nub-nefer tartly. />
  Hani’s lip drew up in a dry smile. “The rising and setting of the Shining Sun Disk, my love. You’re missing the symbolism here.”

  Nedjem-ib laughed raucously, and the two women went off to the guest apartment to set Pipi’s family up while Hani and his brother took their places under the angled ventilator in the ceiling. There they sat, enjoying the slight breeze that made its way in.

  “Where’s Father?” Pipi asked after a moment, staring around.

  “Sleeping late. We’ve been keeping watch over Lady Apeny’s tomb every night.”

  “Any action yet? How is Lord Ptah-mes holding up? He looked embalmed at the funeral.”

  Hani sighed. “It’s hard to say. He’s functioning, but I think he’s only staying together by effort.” He leaned forward. “I wanted to ask you, brother—who was the soldier you talked to about the ‘son of Ah-hotep-ra’?”

  Pipi looked up from under his eyebrows, ashamed. “I’m sorry, Hani. I didn’t know he was part of the gang.”

  “He may not be. But he apparently told someone who is. I want to find him.”

  “By the balls of the Hidden One, I don’t know his name,” Pipi said defensively.

  Hani was growing exasperated. “Where did you run into him? Is he an officer or an enlisted man? What made you pick him? I’m not berating you, brother, I just want to find the fellow.”

  “A charioteer. I saw him crossing the courtyard at the barracks and followed him into the mess.”

  “Someone noble, then. Do you know what company he’s in?”

  “The Glory of the Horizon... or something.”

  Hani pondered this news. Djed-ka-ra’s unit. “I wonder who the standard-bearer is of that company. It seems his whole troop is up to no good.”

  “Hani,” Pipi said tentatively, “can I help you and Father keep watch at the tomb?”

  Hani’s first instinct was to say no, but there was really no reason why Pipi couldn’t. Assuming he could spend a night without talking. “I suppose so, Pipi. We’ll leave just before dusk. Better bring a gourd and a blanket—we’ve found it gets cold at night.”

  Pipi’s face brightened in childlike delight. “Thanks, brother.” He reached across and squeezed Hani’s leg. “You’re the best brother ever!”

  Hani laughed. “You may not thank me after you’ve spent a night on the rocky ground.” He rose and went to pick up his father’s Book of Going Forth, which lay on the floor where Mery-ra had been working on it. Hani unrolled it with careful fingers and held it out toward Pipi. “Look how beautiful this is. Father has a masterful hand with the Speech of the Gods. That must be where Pa-kiki gets it.”

  “Father’s been working on it for sixty years; he should be good,” Pipi said fondly, leaning over the book. He read aloud, “‘I have witnessed acclaim in the Land of Fenkhu’—that’s you, Hani, heh heh!” Hani smiled at him, and Pipi continued. “What did they give you? ‘A firebrand and a column of faience.’ What did you do with them? ‘I buried them on the shore of the pool of Two Truths.’”

  Something rattled in Hani’s memory.

  Pipi continued, “What did you find there on the shore of the pool of Two Truths? ‘A scepter of flint whose name is Breath Giver.’”

  “It’s that passage again!” Hani cried. “Everywhere I go, I keep finding it. What’s it supposed to mean?” Perhaps it is finding me.

  Pipi looked alarmed at his brother’s outburst. “It’s magic, Hani. It’s something that happens in the Duat. It doesn’t mean anything here.”

  But Hani wasn’t so sure. As far as he was concerned, a man lived out the Weighing of the Heart every day. And sometimes the strangest, most anodyne things awoke connections in his mind. The scepter of flint...

  ⸎

  That evening, the little troop set out, as had become their custom, for the City of the Dead, each with a blanket and drinking gourd for the chilly watch in the desert. Fortunately, the nights were at their shortest at this time of year.

  By the time Hani’s party had climbed up to the tomb opening, darkness had fallen, and they’d lit their torches, which flickered and flared in the dry wind, loosing sparks into the blackness of the sky. Hani stared up at the pulsing stars, the souls of those who now rowed the Sun Barque with Ra himself. A black shadow flitted past, obliterating the stars for a moment, and its buzzing cry told him a nightjar was hunting. Ptah-mes was already there, as before. He welcomed the men grimly, and they dispersed to their posts.

  Hours passed. Hani huddled in his blanket, trying to stay awake. He thought about the investigation. He thought about his children. He thought about the wrath of the gods that had fallen upon the Two Lands. He’d just begun to drift off in spite of himself when a sound came to his ears, soft but louder than anything else around it—a disorderly shuffling as of many feet making their way stealthily across the rocky scree. He stared into the darkness below him but could see nothing except the darker lumps of the litter bearers in the court of the tomb. At his side, he caught the whites of Ptah-mes’s eyes. Barely visible by starlight, Ptah-mes laid a finger to his lips and got silently to his feet, hefting his ax. Hani followed suit, lifting his club quietly from the ground beside him.

  This is it, he thought, his heart starting to beat harder. We’ll get them now for sure. He wished he could signal Maya, Pipi, and his father on the other side of the tomb, but he didn’t even know if they were awake. Don’t let them be caught off guard, unable to defend themselves, he prayed.

  The brighter court was filling now with shadows, and Hani concluded in dread that the four stalwarts posted there were all asleep. He longed to cry out to them and had almost made up his mind to do so when Lord Ptah-mes yelled in a loud, authoritative voice, “Who goes there?”

  One of the dark figures uncovered a lantern, and Hani saw, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, that it was Mahu. As other lanterns began to be uncovered, the litter bearers sprang awake at the sudden light, and from above the tomb, Hani and his men started skidding down.

  As soon as Mahu saw Hani, he chuckled without humor. “Why am I not surprised? What brings you to a rich tomb at midnight, Lord Hani? The foreign service not paying as much as it used to?”

  “They are guarding my wife’s burial place at my request.” Ptah-mes stepped forward. He was livid, his nostrils pinched and his mouth murderous, but he maintained his haughty posture, and his gestures were controlled. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” he demanded in a contemptuous voice.

  “The police are doing their duty, my lord. We had word that a robbery was going to be committed tonight, so we came to apprehend the malefactors. And look who we found?” Mahu smirked at Hani.

  Hani forced down the snarl of rage that had begun gurgling up within him. “You heard Lord Ptah-mes. We’re here at his request. Your services are not needed.”

  “Nor are they welcome,” Ptah-mes added pointedly. “Please be so kind as to leave my property immediately.”

  “Not so fast, my fine lord. Hani here has been obstructing our investigations for a long time. I think it’s time he left”—he cast a sneering look around at Pipi, Mery-ra, and Maya—“and his toy soldiers with him. You, of course, are free to stay.”

  “How generous of you,” the grandee said scornfully. “Off my property now. Your master will hear of this.” Ptah-mes’s tone had grown threatening, beyond his usual cool control. Hani thought that if Mahu realized how close to losing himself Ptah-mes had become, he might be less antagonistic. Hani just hoped that his superior wouldn’t finally fly at Mahu with drawn ax.

  “Have it your way, Ptah-mes. But don’t be surprised if I come for all of you for obstructing the king’s justice.” Mahu turned and swaggered into the darkness, his men at his heels, shadows against the bobbing light of their lanterns. “Happy hunting,” he called over his shoulder. Hani could hear him laughing as he disappeared.

  “As if the robbers are going to come now, after that troupe of dancing cows tromped through,” grumbled Mery-ra. “T
hey’ve probably wakened the dead as far away as the Great Place.”

  Hani’s anger had begun to give way to bone-deep disappointment. How close they had come to apprehending the guilty party. He had so many questions to ask them, and if Mahu got to them first, Hani would never even have a chance.

  Ptah-mes pinched the bridge of his nose as if to dispel a headache and looked up at Hani. “I’m sorry about this.”

  “It’s certainly no fault of yours, my lord,” Hani replied, growing grimmer. “That Mahu has to be stopped. I’m surer than ever that he’s covering up for someone.”

  “You think he purposely disrupted our watch?” asked Maya, looking fierce.

  Hani snorted. “I find it impossible not to. Who do you suppose ‘told’ him that there would be an attempt tonight? If he’s not openly in league with our robbers, they have a go-between.”

  “And who is that?” Lord Ptah-mes murmured pensively.

  “Who is that indeed, my lord?” Hani said. They milled about for a bit, picking up torches and the blankets the police had kicked around, then Hani turned to his men. “We’ll stay out the night, boys. There won’t be any ferries till daybreak anyway.”

  “You don’t think the robbers will still try tonight, do you?” Pipi looked both dubious and hopeful.

  “I doubt it. I don’t even know what time it is. Dawn may already be near.”

  Lord Ptah-mes stared up at the stars. “Not so late, I think. Let’s go back to our posts and see if Mahu’s source was telling the truth.”

  They took up their watch once more. Hani found he was wide-awake, his thoughts churning, throwing themselves against all the things that didn’t fit together. The intervention of Mahu complicated matters even further. I need to complain to the vizier.

  The noise began so softly that at first he wasn’t sure he heard anything more than the usual sounds of the desert at night, but Ptah-mes reached out and put a tense hand on his shoulder. He hears it too.

  They rose silently and tightened their grip on their weapons. The noise drew closer, a rhythmic crunching—as of feet moving quietly, Hani realized. Is that Mahu come back to devil us? He hoped none of the others would uncover their lanterns, and he thought to warn them. His heart had begun to pound in anticipation; he was holding his breath, straining his ears.