"Blood has soaked into the earth. You can see the stains beneath the footprints, and some of it splattered on the legs of the table. The evil one couldn't remove all the markings in the darkness. I think Hormin was killed here and put on the nearest table that contained enough natron to cover him."
"Very well. Shall we dig Hormin out of his nest?"
Meren stood at the head of the natron table while Kysen supervised the removal of the body. Hormin was lifted onto a carrying board, and two assistants began dusting crystals from the corpse. Kysen withdrew the knife to the accompaniment of a prayer by Raneb. Meren stopped the priest from carrying the blade away.
"Lector, you may have the body after my physician sees it, but I will take the possessions and this blade."
"But it must be purified," Raneb said.
"After I have found the one who killed this man."
The priest bowed, and Meren turned back to the natron table. The two men were shoveling natron away from the darkened remains of Lady Shapu. Kysen jumped down from the table, and Meren shoved an arm in front of his son.
"Don't move," Meren said. He bent down and picked up something from beside his son's foot. He held it out in his palm.
Raneb came over to them and looked at the small stone in Meren's hand. "An
ib
amulet. We have hundreds of them. This one is carved from carnelian. Some are of lapis lazuli, and some are of gold. One of the bandagers must have dropped it."
Meren closed his hand over the amulet. Such talismans were vital to both living and dead, for they protected the wearer's heart, the seat of emotions and intellect. This amulet wasn't made to be suspended from a necklace. Perhaps Raneb was correct, and it was one that belonged in the Place of Anubis.
Meren gave the amulet to Kysen. "Put it with the possessions of Hormin. Don't worry, priest, it will be returned. Lighten your heart. After all, I'm giving the body back to you."
"That is of no comfort, my lord. We will have to say spells and prayers for weeks to rid the area of evil."
Four men lifted the carrying board and body. As they passed Meren lifted a hand to stop them. Meren sniffed. He bent over the corpse, lifted a fold of the man's kilt, and sniffed again. Through the mingled smells of natron and body waste released at death he detected a faint, sweet odor—perfume. On the linen there were light yellow smears. Dropping the kilt, Meren touched the signet ring on Hormin's right hand. It bore engraved hieroglyphs that spelled Hormin's name. Meren straightened and waved the bearers on.
"Kysen, see that they remove everything from the body. I'm going to the offices of the vizier, and then to the house of Hormin. I'll see you after I've finished there."
Meren received his son's respectful inclination of the head. Unspoken was the knowledge that each of them looked forward to their end-of-the-day talk, when they would go over each event, every conversation, winnowing through contrived and honest appearance in search of Maat—order and truth. Leaving Kysen to harry the unhappy Raneb and his fellow priests, Meren and his men drove back to the palace district, away from the realm of the dead.
When a man was murdered in a sacred place, it was the concern of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh. When that man was also a servant of the king, the crime merited the scrutiny of the hereditary prince, master of secrets of the Lord of the Two Lands, privy councillor and Friend of the King, Meren, Lord of the Thinite Nome. And because the evil touched the business of the king, Meren went first to the office of the vizier.
Instead of looking for the records and tithes office where the man Hormin had worked, Meren went first to a room filled with stacks of papyri and swarming with clerks. At a table on a raised dais sat an elderly man whose hands were swollen at the joints. The skin of his palms and fingers was soft and permanently stained with red and black ink. Meren approached, sending clerks scurrying out of his way by walking steadily forward without looking to see if anyone was in his path.
The old man looked up from a papyrus when Meren routed three of the men hovering over his table. The old man returned to his papyrus and barked at Meren, "Quick, boy, what is immortality?"
Meren smiled and said, "A book, for though a man's body is dust, and all his kin perish, his words make him remembered through the mouth of the storyteller."
"Adequate," the old man said. He shoved his papyrus at one of the clerks. "Come here, lad, and tell me what brings the Friend of Pharaoh to his old teacher."
A chair appeared in the hands of one of the scribes. The man set it near his master, but Meren only leaned on its back. "Master Ahmose, there is trouble."
"And there is sand in the desert and water in the Nile. Your
ka
draws trouble as a whore attracts sailors."
"I don't seek out trouble."
"Your father was of like spirit, and that's why the Heretic killed him. At least you learned from his example."
At the mention of his father, Meren lowered his eyes. Removing a hand from the chair, he touched the tips of his fingers to the bronze dagger in his belt. The cold metal eased his
ka,
and he lifted his eyes once more.
Ahmose was watching him. "You've learned much."
"I'm not a youth anymore. Master Ahmose, I would speak with you about one of your officials. Hormin, a scribe of records and tithes. He has been murdered in the Place of Anubis."
"I know. One of the priests came to tell me."
Ahmose got up and stepped down from the dais. Meren joined him, and they walked out into a courtyard. Ahmose took refuge from the sun on a stool under a sycamore beside a reflection pool. Meren sat at his feet.
"Well, boy, why are you looking for the killer? Hormin was a contentious man, a plump goose stuffed with hatred and basted with rancor. There's no need to search out one who has relieved so many of a vicious annoyance."
Meren shook his head and studied a yellow fish in the reflection pool. "Murder is a sin against Maat, the divine order of justice and lightness. You taught me about Maat, and now you want me to allow an offense against the harmony of Pharaoh's kingdom?"
"Hormin was an offense in himself," Ahmose said. "I know you, Meren. You won't stop until you've conducted inquiries, pursued the lion into the desert, brought down the waterfowl with your throw stick. But think on this. No matter how many rebels you subdue or criminals you banish into the desert, you'll never right the injustice done against your father."
Meren rose and faced Ahmose. "Are you going to tell me whom I should question, or will I have to spend days speaking to each man in the office of records and tithes?"
Using a black-smudged finger, Ahmose traced the hieroglyph of the
ka.
"Hormin's skin was always shining," Ahmose said. "As if he were a sack into which someone had poured oil that leaked out. He had a habit of digging his smallest finger in his ear when he talked, and he didn't bathe enough. For these faults alone I would have dispatched the man. Here, boy, don't go away. I'll tell you what you need to know. His younger son, Djaper, works as his apprentice. Quick as a leopard is that one, and has the tongue of a courtier. Though where he got it, considering his sire, I don't know."
"Where is the son?"
Ahmose picked up a sycamore leaf from the ground and crumpled it between his fingers. "Sent word he'd be late this morning. He didn't say why, but after the Anubis priest came, I understood. As for the rest who worked with Hormin, there's one man who fought with him all the time. Came to blows, they did. His name is Bakwerner, and he's in charge of the scribes of the fields of the Lord of the Two Lands. Take my advice, lad, you don't want to know any more about Hormin than you already do."
"Master, I'm going to find this criminal. Was Hormin here all day yesterday?"
"A waste of your time." Ahmose glanced at Meren's shuttered features. "You always were tenacious, like a crocodile. Yesterday? I sent Hormin on an errand to the temple of Amun, more to get rid of him for a while than for any real need. And later someone told me he had to go to the village of the tomb makers to hunt that concubine. Stupid man. Concubines cost, and they make trouble."
Meren was standing beside Ahmose with his thumbs stuck in his belt. "The village of the tomb makers." He hoped his voice was steady. It wouldn't do to reveal his apprehension at the master's words. "I'll find out what he did while he was away. Thank you, master."
"It's nothing, boy. You're going to have a time sorting out Hormin's enemies. Pharaoh's enemies now. I understand you must hunt them, or spar with the Hittite ambassador. This other is unimportant."
"Murder is never unimportant."
Ahmose snorted, and Meren gave up justifying himself to his former teacher. Even the squabbles of three daughters never troubled his
ka
as did this man who refused to see that he was no longer a youth to be chastised and guided. From Ahmose he had learned the art of writing, of manipulation of numbers. It was from his old tutor that he caught the obsession with the writings of the ancestors, and it was Ahmose's fault that Meren quoted texts as a judge spouts law.
"Sit down, boy, and I'll tell you more of Hormin."
Sighing, Meren gave up the idea of trying to get Ahmose to stop calling him "boy," and sat down as he was ordered.
The office of records and tithes was in a separate building not far from the vizier's domain. In front of it was a survey team consisting of scribes, inspectors, measurers, and their boy assistants. It was near the season called Harvest, and Pharaoh's scribes scoured the land assessing taxes.
Meren stepped out of the sun and into the cool shade of the porch that surrounded the records office. On the floor sat five boys grinding pigment, mixing ink, and smoothing the surface of fresh papyrus sheets. Until Meren appeared, they had been laughing and joking among themselves. As Meren walked by, grinding stones rubbed faster, smoothing stones pressed harder. His assistants stopped at the door.
Inside, Meren came upon an unusual scene. In the middle of a room lined with shelves from floor to roof clustered a group of men. Each held a pottery cup, and one of them was pouring from a wine jar. Meren stopped inside the door and listened to the man pouring the wine.
"I know we all prayed to the good god Amun for deliverance, but who among us has had his supplication answered so quickly?"
"Do you think master Ahmose will take Djaper as his assistant now?" another man asked. "We've all seen how much he favors him."
A third laughed and nearly spilled his wine. "The only reason Djaper wasn't favored before was because the master would have had to elevate Hormin. Watch yourself, Bakwerner, Djaper is free of the carrion that was tied to his ankle."
"You're a pig, Montu," said the wine pourer. He looked up from his task, saw Meren, and shut his mouth. The others joined him in staring. At once they all splintered in different directions and left the wine pourer to face Meren. Setting the jar on the floor, the man approached, bowed, and muttered a greeting that acknowledged Meren by name.
"I would see the man called Bakwerner," Meren said.
"I am he, my lord."
Meren strolled over to a shelf, and Bakwerner was forced to follow him. Taking out a papyrus, Meren unrolled it and studied the cursive hieroglyphs that covered the paper.
"Why would you want the scribe Hormin dead?" Meren prided himself on his skill at flushing waterfowl from a marsh.
Bakwerner turned vermilion and stuttered. He found his tongue. "My lord, it is a lie someone has told you. I never did him harm. We fought, but Hormin fought with many. We've all heard someone killed him, but none of us has left the records all morning. I'm innocent—we're all innocent."
"You tried to strangle Hormin three days ago," Meren said. He rolled the papyrus roll shut and studied Bakwerner. "I am not a judge or a governor. I don't listen to petitions or excuses. Loosen your tongue unless you'd rather sing to the accompaniment of the whip or the stave."
Bakwerner fell to his knees and babbled. "Have pity, excellent lord. I am innocent. It's true that Hormin and I exchanged blows, but you don't know what he did. Three days ago I put the records for the taxes of the city of Busiris on a shelf belonging to Hormin. It was a mistake, my lord, an innocent mistake. But Hormin threw the records away in my absence. The whole of the taxes of Busiris, Gone. He said he didn't look at them, that they didn't belong in his shelf, so he threw them away."
"So you killed him."
"No! No, my lord. That is, I became possessed. He did it deliberately because he was jealous. He knew I was the better scribe. No, my lord, after we fought, I was drained of the fiend that possessed me, and I never touched Hormin again."
"Then if you didn't kill the man, tell me what you know of those more capable of murder."
Bakwerner sat back on his heels. His glance slid from the hem of Meren's kilt to the floor bedside him. "My lord, no one had more cause to desire Hormin's death than his own family. Look to the wife and sons of Hormin."
"Yes?"
"Hormin was a man risen from the people, the son of a butcher who caught the eye of a scribe of the fields. He rose to a great height for so humble a man, yet he kept his wife instead of putting her aside and taking a woman of breeding. But Hormin kept his wife plainly, without costly jewels or robes, and he doled out little of his possessions to the sons, though they are grown." Bakwerner swallowed and lowered his voice. "And he was jealous of his own son. Djaper feeds upon knowledge the way a crocodile feeds on fish. The lad is twenty, but he already knows far more than Hormin did at twice the age."
Meren walked around Bakwerner until he was directly behind him. He let the man sit on the floor waiting for him to speak. Bakwerner wiped beads of sweat from his upper lip.
"Where were you during the night, Bakwerner?"
The scribe almost turned his head, but stopped himself in time. "At home, my lord."
Meren turned quietly away from the office of records and tithes, leaving Bakwerner sitting on the floor in front of the shelves. Once outside, he set out in the direction of the house of the dead scribe along with the two charioteers who were his protection and his shadows. He liked walking. It gave him a chance to think without risking interruption from servants or courtiers.