Deadly Flowers

Day 8 of month Menkhet in Akhet, season of the inundation

Flabbergasted, Nakhtmin dropped the papyrus. “How could I have missed this! That’s what I couldn’t grasp yesterday.” He so wanted to wake Ameny and talk things over with him, but the priest had gone to sleep hours earlier. Although he’d rowed across the river, he hadn’t really expected to find a reply from Hori in their cranny. What could he possibly tell them? There wasn’t much he could contribute to the investigation behind walls, or so Nakhtmin had thought. How wrong he’d been! If it weren’t so exhausting to stay awake so late, he too would check for news every night like Hori did.

Still tempted to tear Ameny from his slumber, he imagined Lady Isis’s puzzlement if he knocked on their bedchamber. No, he had to ponder things on his own. Had they really found a clue?

He sank onto his bed and watched Shepses scamper through his thoughts. Why should the vizier’s son kill his bride? That made no sense. If he didn’t want to marry, surely nobody would force him. Gradually, Nakhtmin drifted off to sleep but these questions haunted his dreams.

The next day, Hori’s suspicion caused Ameny to ruminate as well. “The vizier is the highest official in the Two Lands. Until now, I thought him and his family above any doubt, but this truly is…” He rested his chin on his folded hands. “I find it hard to believe in such a coincidence.”

“Shepses is a womanizer so it surprised me he wanted to get married. That would put an end to his escapades. Maybe his parents are pressuring him? After all, Shepses is their oldest now.”

The prophet regarded Nakhtmin with a thoughtful look on his face. “We should examine this connection closely. In the process, we might dig up more to further our investigation. But how? Mutnofret doesn’t visit Nebit’s house since the man has no daughters of her age, only one child who has lived maybe six seasons of inundation. And lady Sitamun is too old for her to consort with.”

Nakhtmin smiled. “For once, I can help out. Shepses and I are both doctors and studied together. Although I’m currently employed as Mutnofret’s personal physician, I still have access to the House of Life. Shepses isn’t exactly a friend of mine but I could visit him there without anyone finding it strange that I talk to him. Let’s see what I can glean. I’ll ask Mutnofret if she can dispense with me later in the day.” He rose and was walking toward the door when he remembered something. Terror made him trip, but he caught himself before he fell. “The House of Life!”

Ameny stared at him with a blank look.

“Hetepet used to pick you up there every afternoon. I often saw her, even when she still had her lock of youth.”

A wistful smile spread over the priest’s face. “Before I leave, I always go to Inpu and ask if he needs anything for teaching students or treating patients. She used to wait nearby.”

Nakhtmin nodded. He’d noticed Ameny’s daily conversations with the head of the House of Life. “Sometimes I talked to her or joked with her, while she waited for you. I still regarded her as a little girl, I guess, although she’d blossomed into a woman. Maybe I wasn’t the only young doctor who noticed her. And maybe not all of them overlooked her feminine charms?”

First Ameny’s face had paled, now it glowed red with rage. “Shepses! You think he could have seduced my little girl? The miscreant, that…”

Nakhtmin had trouble calming down the raging father. Except for Shepses’s boasting, he had no evidence the vizier’s son really conquered as many young women as he claimed. Did the guy look attractive? Nakhtmin found it hard to judge the appeal of another man. He admitted to himself that he disliked his colleague too much to find his exterior agreeable.

Of course, his plan to simply tell Mutnofret he’d be absent in the afternoon didn’t quite work out.

“Oh, and where are you going?” she asked immediately.

She kept at it until she’d pried everything out of him. Could she see it in his face when he tried to hide something from her?

“Hetepet in love?” Her features distorted with conflicting emotions. “But she was still a child! I never—I mean—I couldn’t see her interested in a man. A short time ago, she was still playing with dolls and loved to annoy me no end…”

Nakhtmin couldn’t suppress a grin. “You mean your little sister couldn’t possibly get ahead of you in something? Maybe you underrated her.”

Mutnofret’s eyes glistened in the gloom. He couldn’t interpret her expression. “What makes you think she’d have been the first to open up to a man?” The tip of her tongue slid over her lips. She leaned toward him.

“Stop it. We both know you’ll just laugh at me if I fall for it.”

She hissed. “All right. Go. Get lost. Play with your tweezers and knives.”

Darn, what a difficult woman! He took flight under taunting laughter. On the way to the House of Life, images of her rosy tongue swirled through his mind. Last thing he needed was getting seduced by the little minx.

He caught Shepses between two patients and cast stealthy glances around at the furnishings. He’d never been allowed to treat people in these elegant rooms. Obviously they were reserved for very rich patients.

“Hey, Nakhtmin! What are you doing here?”

Nakhtmin cringed. “Um…” He should have thought of a reason for his visit instead of contemplating Mutnofret’s charms. Fortunately, Shepses wasn’t one to take much interest in what others might have to say, so the vizier’s son didn’t even notice the lack of a reply.

“I guess you want me to speak to my father, put in a good word for you. Forget it.” The slender brown fingers played with elegant medical instruments laid out on a leather wrap.

Grateful for the plausible pretext Shepses had provided, he almost nodded with enthusiasm. Just in time, he caught himself and tried for a crestfallen expression. “Too bad, I’d really hoped… It’s been awhile and I didn’t harm anyone, only spoke the truth. Does it really warrant a lifelong grudge?”

Shepses laughed. With derision or bitterness? Nakhtmin couldn’t tell.

“My mother isn’t someone to easily forget or forgive,” he squeezed out between clenched teeth.

That moment, Nakhtmin noticed what had bothered him about the medical instruments, which gleamed dully in the rays of the low sun. He reached for a puncture needle and studied it. The bronze pin stuck in an ornate handle formed like a blossom.

Shepses flashed a wide smile. “Classy, isn’t it? A graduation gift from my mother. A doctor without his own instruments isn’t really a doctor.”

Nakhtmin ground his teeth since he couldn’t afford his own kit yet. “It’s the doctor who heals, not the tools. And not everyone handling a knife does so to help people.” Then he realized he’d said too much and bit his tongue.

Shepses granted him a puzzled look before he laughed out loud. “Oh, Nakhtmin, you’ve always been envious.” He splayed his fingers. “To think you could have had everything if you’d done my father’s bidding. But you’ve always been an ass.”

Nakhtmin wanted to punch the arrogant grin from his face but restrained himself. Excitement over his discovery made him antsy. He couldn’t get into a fight with Shepses now that he knew what the murder weapon was and who owned it. No time for mistakes! If Shepses was the killer… If? No doubt he committed those heinous crimes! But he couldn’t let on that he knew. So far, only unsuspecting girls had fallen prey to him, but if cornered, Shepses might kill him. He had enough weapons at hand. Nakhtmin headed for the door. “Never mind, Shepses. I just thought I should ask. Farewell.”

“Wait.”

Nakhtmin spun around, his hands sweating.

“I heard you had a streak of luck after all. Mutnofret’s personal physician?” Shepses clicked his tongue and closed his eyes. “If she’s as passionate as her little sister, you must be having a lot of fun with her.” Laughing, he replaced the puncture needle in the leather wrap.

Nakhtmin was glad Shepses had turned his back on him. He didn’t think he could have maintained a straight face. Uncontrollable rage boiled up in him, almost an urge to kill. Another word and he might have lunged at the creep. With trembling shoulders, he walked through the door, then ran as if demons were chasing him down the deserted hallways. At the temple of Amun, he paused to catch his breath. The extent of what he just learned made him dizzy. How to break the news to Ameny?

Listening to Nakhtmin’s report, the second prophet of Amun grew very upset indeed. Fists clenched, he paced his study. “I’ll get the mangy mutt!”

“The problem is we can’t prove anything. Not even that Hetepet and the other girls really were murdered. He’d been too clever. Nobody suspected anything but a natural cause of death.” Finishing the sentence, he thought Shepses wasn’t really that clever. His boastful, flamboyant behavior didn’t fit well with a cold-blooded, deliberate killer. Still…the connection was right there. Hetepet seemed to have been one of Shepses’s playmates, and the physician had the murder weapon. “I doubt anyone else in the Two Lands owns instruments with a similar handle,” he verbalized his thoughts. “But somehow I don’t think him capable of performing the crimes.”

Ameny stopped in his tracks and knitted his eyebrows. “What do you mean? Why do you defend the son of a bitch? He practically confessed!”

Nakhtmin shrugged. “I don’t know. Just doesn’t seem to go with his personality. Shepses likes to brag about his deeds, display them openly. Our murderer acts in the shadows, furtive like a snake’s sudden attack. And he seemed a bit too candid for someone who has much to hide.”

“I don’t understand you. Sounds like you’re trying to get him off the hook when we only need to reel in the fish now.”

“What if someone else has access to Shepses’s instruments? We have to be absolutely certain before we press charges at the pharaoh’s court. The king…” Nakhtmin darted a quick glance at his benefactor. “The king—life, prosperity and health—has already shown once that he is not inclined to prosecute obvious misdemeanors of his vizier.” He took a deep breath and braced himself for an outburst to wash over him.

Ameny’s eyebrows formed one stormy line, his face turning a threateningly dark color. All of a sudden, pent-up air escaped from his mouth, and with it, all rage over Nakhtmin’s insinuations seemed to evaporate. He said, “Today I read the protocols of your friend’s trial. You’re right, the verdict is a scandalous injustice. Witnesses had been bribed, and everyone should have noticed that. Unfortunately there are no records of what was said during consultation. I assume Hori’s father stood up for his son, but Nebit’s wish to see the young man convicted must have carried more weight. I can’t imagine why the pharaoh—life, prosperity and health—” He scrunched up his face. “…turned against Maat like that.”

“Yes,” pondered Nakhtmin. “I got the impression the vizier had a hold over the king. How could the pharaoh be put under such pressure? What offense could be so grave?”

Ameny burst into bitter laughter. “It might not even seem serious to us. Senusret is a young man of great sincerity and high moral values. I really wonder how he could have become entangled. The house of Nebit appears to be the center of all evil, like a swamp from which putrid odor rises.”

Scenes of that fateful night flashed in Nakhtmin’s mind. Lady Sitamun mounting her own son. He shivered. “My mother isn’t one to easily forgive,” Shepses had murmured. And that although they’d been talking about Nebit holding a grudge. “Nebit has another brother, Hotep, and he really is a strange one,” he said. “The gods have bound his tongue. He accompanied us to the tavern that evening, and I’ve rarely seen such hatred.”

Ameny listened intently. “Hatred for whom?”

Nakhtmin could only shrug his shoulders. “His brothers, his mother, himself—hard to tell. I can’t shake off the feeling something that happened during the banquet is the key to solving the murders. Unfortunately, I can’t remember events very well. I drank too much, and then…” His tongue shied from revealing what the vizier’s wife had done.

“I think it’s time to meet your friend. Tonight I’ll cross the river with you to discuss the situation with Hori. First I want to give you something I acquired a few days ago. Regard it as part of your payment. I feel more at ease if my resident doctor has all the tools he needs to perform his profession.” He handed him a leather bundle.

Nakhtmin’s fingers caressed the material before he unrolled the instrument kit. “Thanks,” he squeezed through his clogged throat. “You have no idea how much this means to me!”