In spite of his much-practiced control, Meren started when Selket's voice rose abruptly and she beat one fist into her palm with a force that would leave a bruise.
Clasping her hands together, Selket leaned toward Meren. "My lord, Hormin was an unhappy man. He told me that Bakwerner was jealous because he knew that Hormin was a better seribe." As she went on, Selket's voice got louder. "It was unfair that my husband wasn't preferred. He waited for so long. Why, if he had been given his due, he would never have taken Beltis. What is she but a burden?"
"A burden?" Meren asked. Selket gave her head a little shake and appeared to remember with whom she was talking. She quieted.
"She is lazy, my lord. She does no chores. She doesn't help with the cooking. All she does is tend to herself. She bathes and arranges her hair and puts on lotions and ointments and cosmetics. And then she goes to the courtyard and lies in the shade or walks to the market to purchase trinkets for herself." Selket lowered her voice. "And she opens her legs for other men. She is a fiend; she doesn't even tend to her little son. Hormin purchased a slave girl to do that."
Meren rose and went to an alcove that held a statue of the god Toth, patron of scribes. He contemplated the man's body and ibis head while he waited for Selket to continue. When she remained silent, he glanced back at her. She was chewing on her lip and eyeing him. He'd seen that look of apprehension before in those who suspect that they have said more than they should.
"Beltis wanted to supplant you?" Meren said this while he resumed his stroll about the room. Avoiding the scattered contents of a jewel box, he stopped to run his fingertips over the lid of a casket.
"But my lord," Selket said. She smiled with the open grimace of a monkey. "Beltis never understood Hormin as I did. If she had, she would have known he would never divorce me. Our marriage agreement provides for a generous settlement for me if we part. Hormin and I, we know what it is to work, and to need. We don't give up what is ours."
Contemplating Selket's expression of pleasure, Meren nodded. "One thing more. When I arrived you were all fighting about a robbery. You say someone has taken objects from this room. What is missing?"
"I'm not sure. Hormin never allowed anyone in here by themselves, and he kept the valuables under his own hand. Djaper says he saw his father place a broad collar in that casket." Selket pointed to an ebony and ivory container. "He said it had beads of gold, lapis lazuli, and red jasper. I've never seen it, but then, Djaper often worked here with his father, and the piece was new. He promised it to her."
Selket glanced around the room. "There is an inventory somewhere. Djaper also says there are copper ingots missing. She probably stole them."
Meren turned around to face Selket. She was angry at the loss of such rich pieces, but there was no sign of apprehension, or awareness that it was odd that Hormin owned a necklace of gold and precious stones and hadn't given it to her. It was as if she were long used to her husband's miserliness. Perhaps she was. In any case, he couldn't believe she didn't covet such a beautiful piece of jewelry as the missing broad collar.
He was about to dismiss Selket when a crash made the woman jump. He was out of the room and bounding down the stairs before Selket got to her feet. Meren rounded the corner of the dining hall in time to dodge a ceramic lamp that sailed past his head and crashed against a wall.
Barely missing the wooden lampstand, Meren rushed into the hall to see the concubine Beltis lift a wine jar from its pedestal and hurl it at her younger brother-in-law. Djaper was bending over Imsety, who was curled up on the floor nursing his groin. Meren shouted at him, and he ducked. The wine jar bounced off Djaper's shoulder and hit the ground. Pottery cracked, and wine sloshed over the groaning Imsety.
Meren ran to Beltis and caught her before she could lift a stone vase from a table. Knocking the vase aside, he grabbed the woman by the waist and lifted her off her feet. Beltis let out a scream. She kicked backward, catching Meren on the shin.
"Abomination." Meren grunted under the impact of an elbow to his ribs.
"Dung eater!" Beltis screamed at Djaper. "Lover of boys, I curse your fea."
Djaper sprang at Beltis. Meren saw him make a fist and draw back his arm. Swinging so that Djaper missed Beltis, he blocked the punch with his free arm. It was a blow of the force one used only on another man. Djaper fell back as soon as his arm touched Meren.
Beltis was still shouting curses at her brothers-in-law while she clawed at Meren's arms. Losing what patience was left to him, Meren hoisted the woman on his hip. When she tried to bite his thigh, he shifted her weight to both arms and threw her to the ground. Beltis landed on her buttocks with a howl and looked up for the first time. Panting, she brushed aside strands of her wig and caught sight of Meren. The panting stopped. Her eyelids climbed high and disappeared. Beltis whimpered and began to crawl toward Meren.
In no mood for groveling, Meren halted the concubine with one word. He looked around and spotted a charioteer near Djaper and Imsety. The man was on the floor nursing a cut above his eye. In the doorways of the hall servants hovered, uncertain and curious.
Surveying the wreckage, Meren beckoned to the porter. "Put the woman in her room and see that she doesn't leave it."
"Lord, her
ka
is inhabited by fiends," Djaper said.
Meren straightened the folds of his robe. "What happened?"
"I told her to go back to her parents' house. We don't want her here."
Meren surveyed the face of Hormin's youngest son. Clean-shaven, with small features, it was the face of a youth on the body of a man in his breeding years. Djaper met his gaze openly, and Meren was sure that he was meant to see the ingenuous candor of a boy.
"You may both retire to your rooms."
The men bowed to him, and Meren was left to the ministrations of the household servants. A maid offered cool water and beer. Another brought moist towels and salve for the cuts on his arms. The furrows weren't deep, but they stung. Meren tended to them himself, downed a cup of beer, and headed for the room occupied by the woman called Beltis.
She was waiting for him. Meren was surprised at how quickly she had recovered from the battle and shock of having lifted her hand to him. She was wearing a fresh shift, a costly one of transparent drapes and folds that fastened below her breasts.
Meren stalked into the chamber and seated himself in an armchair. Beltis walked toward him, and he realized that she had oiled and rouged her bare breasts and lips and applied fresh eye paint. She held her arms to her sides, but she pressed them inward so that her breasts pointed forward and the nipples danced as she moved.
He almost laughed. He would have, but Beltis reached him, dropped to her knees, and flung her arms about his legs. She began whispering abject regrets. Slick flesh pressed against his legs, and her hand fastened on his bare ankle. It slid up his calf. Fingers reached his inner thigh, and Meren caught them.
"Remove yourself from me."
Beltis sat back on her heels and clasped her hands in her lap. Meren noticed that she still held her arms close to her breasts. Her chest heaved, and to his surprise, she appeared unable to lift her eyes from his legs. No, they had moved. By the gods, the woman was staring at his groin.
It had been many seasons since he'd been shocked by a woman. He was shocked by this one. Her tongue laved her lips as once more she studied the brown flesh of his thigh visible through his robe. Suddenly Beltis bent low. Meren felt moist lips on the top of his foot. Hot breath tickled his skin as she whispered to him.
"Forgive me, great lord. I was driven to madness by those cruel men, and now I behold the virility of a lion, such beauty."
"Get up," Meren said. Beltis raised her head. Her lips were slack. He supposed their open readiness had brought rewards before. "I said get up. One would think the death of a generous master would have you weeping with the mourners outside."
Beltis sat up and regarded him as a scribe regards a schoolboy. "Great lord, I served my master according to a contract freely made. If you could speak to him, he would tell you how I pleased him. But the master was cursed with an ungrateful, selfish wife and sons. They are his family, but they don't grieve. Do they abstain from meat and wine? Do Djaper and Imsety fail to cut their hair and beards? Selket still bathes and paints her face. And none of them have gone to Hormin's mortuary chapel to weep for him."
"I'm not interested in weeping. I'm interested in what Hormin did on the night he was killed. Mistress Selket says he spent the night with you."
"Indeed." Beltis smirked at him. "Hormin craved me as a bull lusts after his cows. I gave him much pleasure, with my hands and—"
Meren spoke with deliberate slowness and clearly pronounced words. "When did Hormin leave your bed?"
"I don't know, my lord." Beltis sighed and lifted her shoulders. "I was exhausted from our play and slept heavily. I woke after the sun was up, and the master was gone."
"He told you nothing of where he might go?"
Shaking her head, Beltis cast her eyes down. "I am only a concubine."
"Yes." Meren rose and went to stand behind the chair. "So you heard nothing during the night, even though your master's office isn't far from this room."
Beltis's head shot up. "I didn't need to hear anything. I know one of them robbed my master. They were taking his possessions, and he caught them." The concubine narrowed her eyes. "They fought with my master, lord. Those two sons wanted his farm all to themselves. I heard them yelling at each other."
"How is it that you heard what must have been a private talk?"
"I listened at the door, Lord Meren. I have to protect my son, and you can see why after what happened today. And now they want to blame me for all the evil. They hate me, Selket and Imsety and Djaper. They would like to see me condemned for his death. If he'd lived, Hormin would have given me more of his wealth, and entered my son in his will."
"You witness against all three. Yet you say you slept the night." Meren traced the carving on the back of the chair and waited.
Beltis pursed her lips. "My slave girl, she says the brothers went out after the evening meal and didn't return until almost morning. If my poor lord was killed in the Place of Anubis, they could have set upon him."
"All the servants will be questioned," Meren said. "I'll find out where each of you was during the night. Each of you." When Beltis appeared undisturbed, Meren continued. "You were screaming about a necklace being taken when I found you all in Hormin's office."
"Yes, lord, I tell you Djaper took it, or Imsety, or Selket. They all hated it that the master bestowed gifts upon me. This was a broad collar of great beauty and cost. It was of gold and lapis lazuli and red jasper." Beltis chewed on her lower lip and scowled. "The master promised it to me, but it's gone."
Meren said nothing. His men would take inventory of Hormin's possessions and question the household to confirm the family's claims. He resumed his seat, taking care to move the chair so that he was too far away from Beltis for her to pounce on him again. Having basked in the favor of ladies far more sophisticated, intelligent, and lovely than Beltis, he had no desire to be mauled.
"You fought with your master," he said. "On the day of his death you quarreled with him and ran away to the tomb makers' village on the west bank."
Soft laughter bubbled up at him, and Beltis laid her head to one side. "A quarrel between lovers, my lord. We had many, and always my master begged me to forgive him. He needed me. Why, if he had to do without me for even one night, he was as engorged as a stud ox."
"Spare me your stories of Hormin's lust. What was the quarrel about?"
"I wanted matching bracelets for my new broad collar, and he wouldn't have them made." Beltis tossed her head. "I am a woman of great beauty, and I deserve jewels and fine robes. Hormin made me so angry. He could have given me twenty bracelets if he weren't so greedy. I was angry, so I went away. After all, he is— was so much more generous after a few nights without me."
Meren began to think that Hormin was not only a hot-bellied man, but a fool as well.
"You see, lord, my father is a sculptor in the tomb- makers' village, so it is not far for me to go. I went there yesterday after Hormin slapped me, and I waited for him to come for me. He did, and we made up our quarrel. He even took me to see his tomb before we left. It's on the edge of the nobles' cemetery. Then we came home."
"And during all the time you were together, Hormin never spoke of going to the Place of Anubis, or of anyone who had threatened him?"
"No, great lord." Beltis raised her voice. "But I'm sure that Selket has accused me. She hates me for being beautiful while she is ugly and old. The brothers are the same. Imsety is stupid, and Djaper hates me."
The concubine's rancor swelled as she related her trials. "They will all tell you lies about me, but I'll tell you the truth. Djaper hates me because I spurned him when he would have lain with me and because my son displaced him in the heart of Hormin. I tell you they killed my master so that my son and I wouldn't take their place in his will."
"Enough."
Meren shoved himself out of his chair. He took Beltis's hand and helped her rise. As soon as she was up, he dropped her hand and went to the door. While he was opening it, he spoke again.
"While he was with you, did Hormin spill perfume on himself?"
Beltis furrowed her brow. "No, my lord."
Meren stepped out of the bedchamber. He looked back at Beltis, and saw that she had resumed her posture with her breasts pressed forward. Determination seemed to be a great part of her character. Meren surveyed the gleaming nipples, then let his eyes slowly drift to Beltis's face.
"You say the wife and sons of Hormin are guilty of this murder. Over and over you have complained that they hate you. If they hate you so, Beltis, tell me why it wasn't you who was found buried in natron with a blade stuck in your pretty neck?"