Death of an Eye

by Dana Stabenow

  Once they were walking back up the wharf Tetisheri said, “Those guards are not there to keep Laogonus from escaping. They are there to guard his life.”

  “Yes.”

  “You might have mentioned how high he stands in the queen’s trust.”

  Apollodorus seemed to choose his words carefully. “She would prefer that I did not.” And then he changed the subject. “Where to next?”

  “Do you know where Khemit lived?”

  “Over the shop.”

  “Then we go there.”

  4

  on the evening of the Tenth Day

  of the Second Week at the

  Tenth Hour…

  The loft above Khemit’s workshop was light and airy and almost spartan in its lack of furnishings. There was a couch, a bed, a cupboard with one shelf for sheets and towels and another for a small collection of garments. Two pairs of sandals, plain but of good manufacture, were lined up to one side of the cupboard. A long, high table pushed against one wall held a pitcher and a basin made of glazed clay, and one cup and one bowl made of red clay. It appeared that Khemit hadn’t entertained much.

  There were two other items only in the room. One was a small loom, the top pegged to the wall, the rods and shuttles placed as if Khemit had only just set them down. The weaving she had been working on was barely begun, the threads dyed in rich colors, one gold. The weaving showed two feet clad in jeweled sandals and above them what was logically the hem of a kilt or a tunic. “Did she always work from the bottom up?”

  “Not always, but often enough not to occasion comment. She told me once that it was like solving a mystery, working upwards to discover the faces.”

  Tetisheri wondered if weaving from the bottom up worked as a metaphor for the work Khemit undertook for the queen. It wasn’t a bad one.

  Near the door was an ebony altar, small but beautifully carved and gleaming with polish. The stub of a candle sat in front. Arranged in a semicircle around it were the miniature figures of Maat, Bast, and a third god Tetisheri did not recognize. She pointed. “Who is this?”

  Tarset, Khemit’s chief assistant, was a woman in her forties who held herself erect, hands clasped tightly in front of her. “That is Nit. The goddess of weaving. See the shuttle in her hands?”

  Looking more closely at the little figure, the lines of the shuttle became clearer. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  Tarset’s face relaxed for a moment. “Not so surprising given that we Egyptians have been inventing new gods for four thousand years.”

  Tetisheri smiled. “True enough. Was Khemit so devout, then?”

  “Well.” Tarset frowned, considering. “She was a very private person, and one did not see much of her outside the shop. But, yes, she attended the public functions at the temple of Isis on Pharos. The entire staff did, and then would return here for wine and cakes. All at her expense, I might add.”

  “She was a good mistress then.”

  “Very.”

  “She had no family?”

  “She never spoke of any, and none came to visit in the fifteen years that I’ve been here.”

  “Who inherits the shop?”

  “She left it to me and to the other workers.” The older woman’s eyes filled with tears and she looked away, taking deep, measured breaths. “We’ve all been with her for years, and her scribe came today to tell us the news.”

  “How did the scribe learn of her death?”

  “I stopped at his office on my way to you,” Apollodorus said. “At the queen’s command.”

  A tear rolled down Tarset’s cheek. She wiped it away with a corner of her robe. “He said she wanted to provide for us, for our continued support.”

  “I’m glad for you, Tarset, and for all the women here.”

  “If there is an afterlife and Nit does truly exist there, Khemit will sit at her right hand for all eternity.” The other woman’s expression seemed to say that the goddess would do well to heed Tarset’s wishes.

  “No doubt.” Tetisheri paused. “Did Khemit have any unusual visitors over, say, the past week?”

  “Unusual?” Tarset looked taken aback. “Do you mean other than people coming to buy? No.”

  “Did she have any enemies that you know of? Anyone who took her in dislike? An unhappy customer, perhaps?”

  Tarset drew herself up to her full height and did her best to look down her nose at Tetisheri, who stood a full hand taller. “Certainly not. Khemit’s Fine Linens always provides perfect satisfaction.”

  “Of course,” Tetisheri murmured. She saw a shift in Tarset’s expression. “Yes?”

  “Well.” Tarset hesitated. “There was the one gentleman who came in on, oh, Seventh Day of last week? I didn’t catch his name but he was a Greek.”

  “Did you recognize him? Was he a regular customer?”

  Tarset made a face. “It is sometimes difficult to tell one Alexandrian noble from another. From the moment of their births everything has been given to them, and they have no reason to expect everything will not continue to be given.” Her lips tightened. “This one was much the same. He marched into the shop as if he owned it and demanded to speak with Khemit in private that very moment. She wanted no fuss made in front of the other customers—there was a rich Roman who was placing a large order of fine linens to be shipped to Rome—so she took him into the back room.”

  “What was his complaint?”

  Tarset made a dismissive gesture. “We could hear their voices from the shop but not the words.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like? Can you give us a description?”

  “Young, slim, arrogant.” Tarset dismissed him with a shrug.

  “Nothing else?”

  “I can certainly describe his attire.” Tarset made a face. “Gaudy. No style or taste. Fah.”

  “How so?”

  “He wore bracelets from wrist to elbow on both arms, a gold inlay collar that reached to his breastbone, and earrings that will stretch his earlobes to his shoulders before he is thirty if he’s not careful. His tunic was heavily embroidered in gold and silver thread and I don’t know how he managed to walk in sandals so encrusted with gemstones.”

  “Would you recognize him again?”

  “I would certainly recognize those sandals,” Tarset said, rolling her eyes. “We all would. But Atet might remember his face. She admitted him.”

  “Atet?” Tetisheri said, surprised and pleased. “Atet is still with you?”

  “No.” Tarset smiled. “She has now married and moved out of the city.”

  “Did she! I wish I had known, I would have sent a gift.”

  “It was very sudden.”

  “Sudden?”

  “She left us only two days ago.” Tarset smiled, only to have it fade. “It was good that she was gone before the news came of Khemit. They were very fond of each other. Atet is very talented. Khemit was teaching her some of her special weaves.”

  “Who is this man, and when did she meet him?”

  “He is Ineni, a flax farmer. One of our suppliers. They met some time after you placed Atet with us. One look at each other, and…” She shrugged.

  “Sometimes it happens like that.” Apollodorus said, and both women jumped at the sound of his voice.

  Tarset recovered first and inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Sometimes it does. She told us they waited only on the next crop, and then suddenly Ineni came to her and said he had received a rich gift from a patron and they didn’t have to wait any longer. So we fetched a priest and had the wedding here.”

  “Who was this patron?”

  “Ineni didn’t call him by name. I’m not sure Atet knew it.”

  “Do you know where Ineni lives?”

  Tarset’s brow creased. “Not far. It wasn’t as if he was taking her to some backwards little village upriver. Busirus? I could ask the other women.”

  “Would you, please? And send me word if you have any from Atet. I would like to see her again.”

&n
bsp; Tarset left them and Tetisheri and Apollodorus looked under and inside and behind everything in the loft once more, and found nothing that hinted at what Khemit might have discovered in the short time she had had left to her to investigate the theft of the new coins.

  And nothing at all to hint at the role she played for the queen.

  But when they left, Tetisheri had Apollodorus bundle up the unfinished weaving from the lap loom and stow it in his satchel.

  *

  “And who is Atet?” Apollodorus said once they were back out on the street.

  “A girl from upriver.”

  “One of your rescuees?”

  “Yes. She was skilled in weaving, so I placed her with Khemit.”

  “And you want to talk to her because…”

  “She may remember something Tarset doesn’t, and she will talk more freely to me than to Tarset or any of the other women.”

  “Their grief seems genuine.”

  They had left behind a room full of women weeping in each other’s arms, none of whom had been able to confirm the name of Ineni’s village. “I don’t doubt their grief, but they were loyal to Khemit and will be doubly so now. If she had any secrets they won’t tell them to me.”

  “You think this dissatisfied customer, if that is what he was, has anything to do with Khemit’s murder?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but I’ll know more after I talk to Atet.”

  The sun was sinking rapidly into the west, casting long shadows along the Way. Vendors were closing up their carts and shops, looking pleased or not as the case might be at the end of the day’s business, and ready to discuss the latest rumors from abroad over a cup of wine at their favorite taverna. Housewives scurried home followed by slaves laden with bags and bundles and boxes. Scholars with that ever so slightly panicked expression of those who had lately been challenged by the radical concept of critical thinking walked smack into anyone who didn’t get out of their way first, although through long practice Alexandrians were adept at doing so.

  “I’m hungry and my feet hurt,” Apollodorus said. “I have to check in at the gymnasium, and then I’ll buy you dinner.”

  Tetisheri’s stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since snacking with the queen herself, and there was no one else with whom she could discuss the events of the day, which she wanted desperately to do. “All right,” she said.

  “Good.”

  He smiled down at her, and her idiot heart skipped a beat.

  *

  The Five Soldiers was located near the Palestra, on a side street across the Canopic Way from the Great Library and the Museum. It was a solidly built, single story building made of stone, with a double wooden door located in the center of the wall facing the street. A frieze of open cutouts in a repeating Greek key design lined the walls beneath the eaves, the doors were unadorned, and the only sign of what business the building might be housing were two life-size bronze statues on marble plinths: one of a man crouched over the beginning of a discus throw and the other of a man in the act of hurling a javelin.

  “These are new,” Tetisheri said.

  Apollodorus spared them a glance. “Yes, just last month. We were replacing some of our equipment and Isidoros convinced the rest of us that we needed to dress up the outside.”

  “They aren’t overdone like so much of that old Greek statuary you see in the Museum.”

  “Yes, all thick necks and improbable muscles. Dub said if Isidoros insisted on tarting up the place that the tarts had to look like real people.”

  Tetisheri laughed. Dubnorix, one of Apollodorus’ partners in the Five Soldiers, was Alemanni and never held back on an opinion, but then ex-soldiers were not famed for their tact, especially those ex-members of the Roman Army who weren’t Roman.

  The door opened as they came up to it and a group of Egyptian boys tumbled through, sweaty and laughing and shoving and nudging each other in an excess of high spirits. They saw Apollodorus and came to an abrupt halt. “Good evening, sir,” they said, almost in chorus.

  He gave them an amiable nod. “Good practice?”

  “Very good, sir!”

  “Excellent.” Apollodorus smiled. “Now go home and tell your parents so they’ll keep paying our outrageous fees.”

  The boys blushed and laughed and lingered, hoping for more from the great man, but he stood back to let Tetisheri precede him into the building, nodded goodbye, and closed the door firmly. A sudden increase in chatter and laughter tapered off as the boys moved off down the street.

  “Do you teach boys that age yourself?”

  “I take the advanced students.”

  She came to a sudden halt. He stopped, too, and looked at her, brow raised. “What?”

  She said, almost accusingly, “You’re not the queen’s bodyguard anymore, are you?”

  He considered his reply. “She has other uses for me now.”

  “Since when?” When he didn’t answer she said, “You are hiding something from me, Apollodorus.”

  He smiled down at her. “Many, many things, Tetisheri.”

  Before she could respond shouts went up from all over the room.

  “Cat!”

  “Ho, the little Cat is back!”

  “Tetisheri, my beautiful little maiden of the Nile!”

  A man who looked like Silenus minus the hooves and horns trotted over to sweep up Tetisheri in his arms and swing her around. “It has been so long I almost don’t recognize you! Did you forget the way here? Alexandria is not so big a town as that. For shame!”

  He was elbowed to one side by a second man who looked like an Alemanni Hercules. He had red hair and blue eyes and a long face that was sad only in repose. He flicked her nose and grinned down at her, even farther down than Apollodorus had to. “You have been away from us too long, Tetisheri, but I am too glad to see you to be angry with you.”

  A man who could have been his twin flipped her Bast pendant so it hit her nose and laughed at her protest. “Our Cat always comes home, Castus, you know that.” He fixed her with a stern eye. “Have you been keeping up your practice, Tetisheri?”

  “Of course she has, Crixus, you can tell by the way she moves.” A fourth man strolled up, matching Apollodorus in height but dark of hair and eye with swarthy skin. They all looked like the veterans they were but Dubnorix looked as if he’d retired from the front lines to a soiree with the Nomarch of Ka-K’am, with an expensive stop at his tailor’s along the way.

  Dub, Crixus and Castus looked to be the same age as Apollodorus while Is was older by ten or even twenty years. As with Apollodorus it was difficult to tell his true age. All five bore scars that told of front line service under arms and they carried themselves with the same easy confidence she had seen once already that day in Caesar’s man Cotta, moving with the same swagger that was almost but not quite arrogance. Called upon to serve they would offer discipline, focus, intelligence and ability.

  But, as she looked around the beaming circle, not necessarily allegiance. They were their own men. Even Apollodorus, she realized with a slight sense of shock, the queen’s longest serving staff member to date, would choose to whom he bowed his head.

  It was as if accepting the queen’s commission had opened her eyes where once they had been closed, at least to the true nature of these five men, all of whom had been a part of her life since she was ten years old.

  Before she could come to terms with this new awareness Dub took her hand in both of his and smiled into her eyes. “Ignore these ruffians and come away with me to Santorin. I’ll take up farming and we will feed on cheese made from the milk of our own goats and on olives grown on our own trees, and we will watch the sun set on the Middle Sea as we drink of wine made from our own grapes.” He kissed her hand.

  Apollodorus looked at the ceiling and sighed as the rest of them dissolved into hoots and catcalls. “I’d buy your passage just to see if you could bear to get your dainty hands dirty,” Isidoros said with a grunt of laughter.


  Dub winked at Tetisheri and released her hand, saying with lofty scorn, “I meant, of course, a gentleman farmer.”

  Tetisheri laughed, her slight unease vanishing. “I see that during my allegedly long absence nothing has changed.”

  Nothing had. The room was still high and square and open. One corner was covered with mats devoted to practicing pankration and wrestling. A boxing ring stood next to an armory featuring every hand-held weapon from the Roman gladius and the Thracian sica to the pilum, the peltast, and the Scythian bow. The central area was strewn with more mats for individual training and, as Tetisheri well knew, an area outside as large as the interior was reserved for group tactics and target shooting.

  All four walls were hung with shields featuring the insignia of armies from every nation touching the Middle Sea and more from the north, some very old and probably very valuable. Some were made of wood, some of boiled leather, some were reinforced with crossed strips of metal. Some were round, some were oval, one was an elongated rectangle made of bronze almost green with age. Pride of place was taken by a Thracian double cutout with brass studs ringing a double-headed eagle. There were dents beneath the many applications of polish, but then none of the shields looked as if they had been made merely for show.

  Between the shields and the windows was a border of illustrations depicting every Olympic event since Coroibos won the first footrace and featuring male figures whose bodies were so obscenely well muscled their heads and penises looked tiny by comparison. “That’s new.”

  Apollodorus followed her gaze and sighed. “Yes.”

  “Isidoros again?”

  “Dub, alas, was out of town at the time.”

  She bit down on her lower lip, hard, to remind herself that Is was still in the room and would be mortally offended if she burst out laughing. “Pity.”

  “As you say.” He raised his voice. “Any problems, boys?”

  Crixus barred the main door as Castus and Isidoros made neat piles of the mats and slung used towels into large baskets. “None,” Dub said, observing all this activity with a critical eye. “Membership is up significantly over last year, though.” Crixus moved to help Is and Castus stack weapons. “The new recruits to the Queen’s Guard, the more serious ones at any rate, are showing up in large numbers. That subsidy the queen gave them for extra coaching, well—” He rubbed his nose and grinned. “Much of it is finding its way into our pockets, bless her.”