We move on a hundred years to the time of the great pyramid builders and the reign of king Khafre (called Chephren by the Greeks). His name is associated with the second pyramid at Giza, only slightly smaller than that of his father, Khufu (or Cheops). Khafre’s image is also said to have been the original face of the Sphinx.
Claire Griffen is an Australian who has been both an actress and a dramatist. She has written several mystery and fantasy stories.
On a barge made of cedar from Byblos, Baki, Chief Physician to Pharaoh, lay under a canopy on a couch with jackal-headed armrests and watched the river slide past to the deep sweep of the oars. His destination was the summer palace of Metjen-hotep, Chief Architect to Pharaoh and designer of his tomb at Giza. Metjen’s ka had stretched out the hand of generosity to his friends, fellow imakhu, those permitted to kiss the feet of Pharaoh and not merely the dust before him.
Baki had been glad to escape Pharaoh’s city of Memphis. On certain days a humid wind blew from Giza the stench of the Mortuary Temple and the latrines of the countless builders, craftsmen, overseers and labourers.
Yet he wished Metjen’s summer palace was in the Ta-meh, the Ostrich feather-nome for instance, where a fork of the Nile flowed into the sea and cool breezes wafted across the marshlands.
This was a long journey he was undertaking, one made by Pharaoh only every second year when he inspected his kingdoms and the reports of his nomarchs. Baki would have to spend some nights moored to the riverbank, listening to the croaking of the Nile frogs.
To Ken-hotep, Metjen’s adopted son, the palace was ideally situated across the river from the city of Abydos, where he could indulge his carnal urges in the houses of pleasure, and between the Nile where he could hunt hippopotami and wildfowl. Beyond was the desert where he hunted lion and leopard and sought the legendary monsters of sag and sphinx. And down river was Aswan where Metjen could check on progress at the granite quarries, although this was a somewhat perilous foray since it brought him close to the warlike Nubians, who harried the quarry workers.
To one who rarely left Memphis, the river held a fascinating vista. A crocodile sacred to Sepket glided past, its snout barely above water. Storks, nesting along the bank, preened their new-sprung feathers ready for flight. Fowlers knotted webs and spread them for the unwary water-fowl, fishermen in frail boats speared the water in hope of prey, launderers washed garments in the same water where oxen drank and children played among the reeds.
In the fields it was the Time of Shemu – harvest, and the mertu, the lowliest in rank, were harvesting the barley and emmer to be threshed by oxen and carried by donkeys to the Granary House. Baki reflected what a hot summer it had been. Like all who dwelt in the Land of Kem, he was anxious about the Time of Ahket when the Nile would flood its banks and deposit on the fields a fertile black silt. In the time of Pharaoh Djoser, the Land of Kem had experienced seven years of drought and famine. The Two Kingdoms relied on the annual flooding of the Nile for its prosperity.
When the barge rowed into the Serpent-nome, the Red Land where the desert stretched to the Red Sea, Baki grew tired of the unchanging scene and played Hounds and Jackals with his sandal-bearer Paser. He listened to the songs of his harper, who beseeched him to follow his heart and forget the past, an exhortation the physician viewed somewhat cynically.
When the pillars of Metjen’s palace appeared he was glad to alight and stretch his legs. Downriver a skirmish was taking place, a group of youths trying to snare a hippopotamus with ropes. The animal bellowed its fury as one more daring or more foolhardy than the rest climbed upon its back. Baki recognized him as Ken-hotep, the Chief Architect’s son, his face alive with the joy of the struggle, his half-naked body gleaming with oil and sweat.
As he walked barefoot up the slope, with his sandal-bearer following, Baki glimpsed a woman borne in a gilded chair watching Ken-hotep. The physician stepped behind a palm tree to observe her. It was Iras, the wife of Metjen-hotep, and she was watching the primitive struggle with shining eyes and moist lips.
Another man stood on the bank above her, also observing her. When he saw Baki he approached him and stretched out his uplifted palm in deference. “Lord Baki, Chief Physician to Pharaoh, we all know your fame.”
Baki could not have said why he disliked this young man’s greeting. Was he embarrassed at being caught spying on his friend’s wife or was the youth too subservient? He pretended not to remember his name.
“Horiheb, Chief Scribe to Lord Metjen-hotep, Chief Architect to Pharaoh, High Priest of Ptah.” The youth flushed slightly, recognizing the insult. “My lord Metjen awaits your coming in his pleasure garden.”
The small garden was shaded by trees of olive, sycamore, fig and date palms, adorned with lily, iris and acanthus and cooled by pools of ornamental fish and water-lilies. Metjen lay on a couch under a fringed canopy, but rose as he entered. With him were two servants, one with a fly-whisk, the other with a fan of ostrich feathers. He greeted Baki enthusiastically.
“Baki, Physician to Pharaoh. May you live and flourish forever! How do you stay so lean? Your ribs stick out like bleached bones on the Sinai Desert, while I resemble nothing so much as the hippopotamus Ken-hotep is out hunting.”
“And has snared. I saw him just now.” Baki returned the greeting. “It is our natures to be what we are, fat or thin, ugly or beautiful. Speaking of beauty, how is the Lady Iras, your wife?” He refrained from mentioning the glimpse he had had of her.
Metjen sighed. “Ah, if only Ken-hotep was the son of my loins, but it has never been granted me from my wives or concubines to have a child. When I adopted Ken-hotep, I chose him for his beauty and his spirit. I should have chosen a plainer, more studious youth. His wildness flourishes rather than declines with the coming of manhood. He is bored with the study of architecture, he grows surly if he has to accompany me to the site of Pharaoh’s tomb. He lives only to hunt in his papyrus boat on the river or to cast his spear in the desert at lions and leopards, or feast and get drunk and lie with the hand-maidens. He is yet to take a wife.”
“He has the spirit of a child even if he has the form of a man. Be patient.”
“I will heed your advice, you who saved the sight of my left eye, with the concoction you poured in my ear and by making me sit in my chair night and day with charms of rotten fish and herbs tied to my person.” Metjen-hotep pretended to grumble.
From the experience of long years, Baki believed it was the prolonged sitting that had drained the blindness from Metjen’s eye. But he had known that the architect would not be satisfied without medicine, so he had ground together a mixture of honey, red ochre and pig’s eye and twice chanted a spell while he poured it in Metjen’s ear. In his gratitude, the architect had brought Baki to the attention of Pharaoh and his present exalted state.
“If you continue to visit the quarry, your god Ptah may decide to teach you a lesson and not even my skill can save your sight.”
“Yes, I’m aware the granite grit blinds most of the workers.”
“Small wonder they have to be conscripted. Between the grit and sand, the blistering sun, the whips of the overseers and the Nubians over the border it’s a wretched existence.” Baki halted abruptly. He had often wondered where Metjen had found his young wife. There was a touch of the Nubian in her features and her colouring, nothing definitive, almost an illusion.
The architect shrugged off the warning. “As for the Lady Iras, her beauty blooms forever.” He looked at the sun. “Soon she will go to her chamber and spend hours enhancing that beauty.”
Baki could imagine that preparation, without closing his eyes. Iras, dusky-skinned, gazelle-eyed, narrow-waisted, narrow-loined, bathing in a pool where the blue lotus floated after purifying her body with senna and fruit, lying on a stone slab while her handmaidens shaved her skin with copper razors and anointed her with perfumed oils. Her robe would be sprinkled with myrrh and frankincense, her hair braided and coiled, her eyelids coloured with blue from copper sulphate, and encircled with kohl of crushed lead, her lips reddened with ochre, her nails and the soles of her feet painted with henna. Her robe would be white linen tied under one breast and swathed in folds to make her figure both angular and seductive, her jewellery copper and turquoise from the mines of Sinai. All this she would observe in her hand-held bronze mirror and smile.
Metjen studied Baki. “The journey from Memphis is a long one; no doubt you prepared your attire and cosmetics on board your barge. Allow my servants to freshen your clothes with perfumed water and your breath with honey pills. I too must prepare myself for my guests.”
Baki wore a loin-cloth and ceremonial skirt. Paser had dusted his feet and inserted them into papyrus sandals. His clean-shaven chest was bare beneath the elaborate jewelled collar bestowed on him by a grateful harbour master for bringing his wife through a difficult childbirth. His body, while not as cadaverous as had been described by Metjen, did not boast the leopard-like sinewy grace of Ken-hotep. It was his eyes, green as the Nile, that gave him a hungering, almost wistful look that some mistook for naiveté.
He followed Metjen to his chamber and submitted to the administrations of his servants with a rueful smile. It was the horror of all nobles that they might not smell fragrant during a feast, which was why their plates were strewn with flowers and their heads adorned with incense cones to gradually melt onto their shoulders during the long summer night.
Metjen sighed again as his servants settled his wig over a shaven head anointed with a preparation of gazelle dung. He surveyed his reflection in his mirror mournfully. The cosmetics that enhanced the beauty of others only served to make more obvious his slightly grotesque features. Under his priestly leopard-skin, he wore a garment that covered his body and upper arms, but did nothing to conceal his paunch. While Baki was being tended, his host picked up a flute and began to play.
The physician had heard him play many times before, for recreation or to soothe his troubled spirit. “Like a mertu in the fields who tootles to inspire his fellow workers and remind them that Osiris was once cut into pieces by his wicked brother Seth yet restored by Isis, his sister and wife,” Metjen said whimsically.
“You should take care, my friend, you’ll be luring all the serpents in the nome to your chamber,” warned Baki flippantly.
“Or be thought a hired musician at your own feast.” A dry voice came from the doorway.
A shadow crossed Metjen’s face. “I did not hear you announced, Horiheb.” He glanced mischievously at Baki. “My chief scribe disapproves of my playing.”
“It does not befit my lord Metjen-hotep’s high degree.” Horiheb extended his raised palm in praise of Pharaoh’s Architect. He was a slightly built youth with sallow skin and an unsmiling mouth.
Metjen snorted softly, but laid down his flute. Baki wondered at his tolerance of the young man’s criticism, until he remembered a rumour he’d heard that Horiheb was the architect’s son by some dancing girl. If that were so why hadn’t he acknowledged him or even adopted him in place of Ken-hotep?
“Is there anything my lord requires of me before or during the feast?”
“Only your presence.”
Horiheb bowed and withdrew.
“Your flute has already lured one serpent to your chamber,” murmured Baki.
He was surprised that the architect would invite his chief scribe, a man of inferior rank, to his table; it only added dried grass to the fire of rumour.
Metjen ignored his jest. “Shall we go down to the feast hall? I should be on hand to greet the Chief Judge, Lord of the Treasury and the Granary, Ramose and his wife the Lady Meret. With so many duties, one wonders Ramose can tear himself away from Memphis.”
Baki glanced about the hall with its limestone pillars painted with symbols of lotus and papyrus and images of the god Ptah. Jars of wine, light and dark, waiting to be mixed, stood against the walls. Each guest was presented with a white lotus flower to hold in the hand and an incense cone by the Chief Anointer.
Iras, attended by two handmaidens, was already waiting. Curled about her arm was a small monkey. Her eyes flashed when she recognized her husband. “You are late, Metjen.”
“My beloved.” He touched his nose to each of her cheeks, then eyed the monkey dubiously. “My beloved, should you bring your pet to the feast? It may create a disturbance leaping from table to table.”
Iras shrugged her shoulders under the heavy turquoise and copper collar. “It was a gift from your son.”
From Ken-hotep emanated not only the perfume of oils, but an aura of challenge and high mettle. He wore a loin-cloth and lapped skirt of sheerest linen, arm rings and collar studded with lapis lazuli. In defiance of custom he did not shave his head, but wore it in small, tight, oiled braids. He was staring at Iras; although she disdained his glance, she smiled as if her mouth had a secret she had hidden from her eyes.
Baki, surveying the guests, felt the Pharaoh must be bereft of most of his friends, since he counted many Imakhu there, ministers in charge of trade in the Lands of Punt and Cush, or in charge of Pharaoh’s army. Some had summer palaces at Abydos, others would return to Memphis in the morning; it was not wise to be too long from Pharaoh’s sight lest his favour should fall on another.
A tall, angular man with cheeks so sunken they made dark triangles on his face in the torchlight acknowledged Baki. This was the Tjati, spoken of by Metjen, long-time friend to them both.
Baki greeted him with mock deference. “Ramose, Chief Judge in Memphis, Lord of the Treasury, Lord of the Granary and so on.”
“How is the living god you serve? Will you be able to preserve his life indefinitely?” murmured Ramose.
“At least until his tomb has been cased with the white limestone of Tura and the red granite of Aswan and the capstone set in place.”
“I understand sculptors are busy carving an outcrop of rocks into a giant sphinx, its human head bearing the features of our beloved Pharaoh.”
They both hid a smile. Khafre was the first Pharaoh to assume absolute power and to call himself “the great god, the son of Re”. In imitation of the gods he had taken as consort his sister Khame-re-nebti.
“No man is a god to his physician,” muttered Baki.
Ramose raised his brows, but said no more. Jealous ears were everywhere and to speak against Pharaoh was high treason and carried horrendous penalties.
A gong summoned guests to the tables. Men and women sat apart from each other. Serving girls, naked but for the leather pouches that concealed their private parts, brought exotic dishes to the tables. Onyx, basted in balsam honey, antelope and goose flavoured with herbs and spices, lumps of fat served with cumin, radish oil and juniper berries. Metjen served his guests no fish for to him as a priest it was traditionally unclean, but he denied them nothing else. Beer was flavoured with figs, mint and honey. Duck from the Nile was served with celery, parsley and leek. Brown beans, wild sedge roots in olive oil and lotus seeds were set out in bowls. Girls danced to the music of lutes, zither and sistrum.
True to Metjen’s prediction, the little monkey made a nuisance of itself, chattering, screaming, leaping along the tables, snatching food off plates and clawing at wigs. Horiheb rose from his place at the end of Metjen’s table and beckoned one of the guards. The monkey eluded capture, creating more havoc among the guests and screaming defiance, but was eventually seized and carried away by the guard, not before it had sunk its teeth into Horiheb’s hand.
“You must let me look at that,” offered Baki. “A monkey’s bite has been known to hold a latent poison.”
From her place among the women Iras glared at Horiheb, her expression more poisonous than any monkey bite.
As the feast progressed she frequently summoned the wine steward, laughed and talked loudly and even hummed while a male harper urged the guests in song to enjoy the pleasures of the hour and have no regard for the morrow. The Lady Meret was shocked. Not only were they guests of Metjen-hotep but of the gods and should behave with decorum.
As the last course was being served, dates, grapes, honey cakes and jujubes accompanied by palm juice, the dancing girls again performed their slow, stately dance. To everyone’s embarrassment, Iras rose and joined them, her body twisting sinuously, seductively. The buzz of conversation abruptly shut off and all eyes turned to Metjen. He smiled indulgently, but clapped his hands. The music dwindled away, the dancers fled, leaving Iras alone. The Lady Meret tried to persuade her to rejoin the other women, but Iras stalked out of the hall.
“Your wife compromises your dignity, my lord Metjen-hotep,” murmured Ramose.
“What should I do? Have her beaten? She is young. Sadly, the cure for that will come all too soon.”
Ken-hotep rose and left the hall. No one marked his going; with so much wine and beer flowing the latrines were in constant use. No one but Horiheb, who presently followed him. Why this aroused Baki’s curiosity he could not say, but he too excused himself from the table.
Out on the terrace, the night winds were sultry and the Nile sparkled darkly in the distance. Peering over Horiheb’s shoulder as the scribe hovered in the doorway, Baki saw the pale glimmer of a woman’s dress, the glitter of jewels on dusky skin, suddenly concealed by a tall shape. As his eyes became accustomed to the night he saw Ken-hotep and Iras pressing their bodies fervently together, nuzzling each other’s cheeks and throats and whispering words of passion.
“I think we should leave,” advised Baki. “This is not our concern.”
Horiheb started at the sound of his voice, but said, “It is my lord Metjen-hotep’s concern. They have spat on his honour.”
Iras, looking over her lover’s shoulder, saw them in the doorway and hastily pushed Ken-hotep away. Horiheb strode back to the hall, Baki following.
“I beg you will say nothing to Metjen.”
“You must have witnessed Ken-hotep wrestling the hippopotamus. You must have also seen the lady Iras as I did. When I saw her eyes I knew she had spat on Metjen’s couch.”
“If you must run to him with your tittle-tattle, wait until he is alone.”
“No, he should learn of her betrayal before all his friends.”
By this time they had reached the feast hall. Seeing the expressions on their faces, Metjen rose abruptly. Again, the chatter among the guests broke off.
“My lord Metjen-hotep, Chief Architect of Pharaoh, High Priest of Ptah.” Horiheb extended his upraised palm. “Allow your scribe to speak.”
Metjen frowned in irritation. “What is it, Horiheb?”
“As Lord Baki, Physician to Pharaoh, is my witness, just now I saw your wife and your so-called son in lewd embrace. They spit upon your name and on your house in the presence of your friends . . .”
“You lie, Horiheb.” The woman’s imperious voice cut across his. “My lord and husband, I speak the truth. I went out onto the terrace to cool my brow. Ken-hotep came upon me and tried to lie with me by force. I fought him off . . .”
Baki, glancing instinctively at Ken-hotep, saw him recoil in shock.
“Is this true, my son?” demanded Metjen tremulously.
“Should I refute the lady’s virtue?” Ken-hotep’s gaze scorched his erstwhile lover’s face, his naked chest rose and fell in panting breaths, the melted incense gleamed on his shoulders. “Should I say her tongue is forked like a serpent’s fang, one fork dripping honey, the other poison?”
“Is it true?” Metjen rapped out.
“Think what you will,” muttered the youth.
Metjen glared from one to the other, at their smeared cosmetics, at the rent in his wife’s robe. His face darkened.
“Go from this house, Ken-hotep. You are no longer my son. If your shadow falls across my threshold again, my servants will beat you away with rods. Hand-maidens, walk behind him as he leaves, brush away his footsteps with your whisks, so there will be no trace left of him in the house of Metjen-hotep.” He turned to Horiheb. “Come to my chamber tonight, bring your implements. I wish to change my choice of inheritance.”
Again, the scribe extended his palm. “All men can see how righteous you are.”
As he backed away Baki murmured in his ear. “Don’t gloat. He will not love you for this deed.”
In compassion and deference, the guests continued their feasting and drinking but in a more subdued manner. Iras disappeared and reappeared with a fresh robe and her cosmetics restored. Her behaviour was faultlessly decorous for the rest of the evening.
When Metjen was retiring he drew Baki to one side. “What did you see? Who was the seducer: Ken-hotep or Iras? Or both?”
“I would not hurt you for all the wealth of Kem,” Baki said reluctantly.
Metjen nodded as if satisfied by the reply. “I will need to play my flute long hours to ease my soul.”
In the chamber allotted to him, Baki divested himself of his finery and washed away his cosmetics. He tossed restlessly on his couch. Metjen was not a man to make enemies, but what if news of this scandal should reach Pharaoh’s ear? He could lose his exalted position. No man could bear such humiliation. He would serve himself well if he put away his errant wife.
He was drifting into sleep when his door burst open. Iras appeared beside him, her hair hanging down her back, her face distraught.
“Come quickly, my lord physician. My husband loses blood.”
Baki threw on his clothes, seized his box of medicines and followed her.
“I went to his room to humble myself before him, to beg him to take me to his bed in token of forgiveness. ‘I found him lying on the floor, face down, blood spreading from beneath his body. I pray to Isis he still lives. Use all your skills, physician.”
When Baki turned the body over he saw at once that Metjen had embarked on his journey to the Afterlife. He was still fully dressed in wig and leopard-skin, his cosmetics intact. His limbs were convulsed, his eyes protruding. Imbedded in his breast was a dagger with a gold hilt in the design of a sag, half-hawk, half-lion. He glanced from the peculiar contortion of the limbs to the stain of blood on the antelope skin on the floor.
“Whose dagger is this?” he asked, although he felt he already knew the answer.
“Has my lord Metjen-hotep’s soul fled?” whispered Iras.
He nodded. “Have your handmaiden fetch Lord Ramose.”
Servants drawn to the hall outside were already wailing and tearing their robes.
“Go to your chamber, my lady Iras,” Baki requested. “We will bring you the results of our investigation.”
She stole a glance at the body before she left the chamber, but did not meet his eyes. Her lips, devoid of ochre, had an ashen, almost bluish tinge.
When Ramose, stern and stately, even in just his loin-cloth and without his wig, entered, Baki was scanning the floor. The Tjati took in the situation with a glance. “That dagger belongs to Ken-hotep. It was a gift from his father because the youth was always hunting the sag in the desert, but in vain.”
He walked out onto the terrace and looked over the wall. “A man as young and agile as Ken-hotep could climb this wall, commit the deed and then escape the same way.”
“Leaving behind a dagger that would incriminate him?” Baki made a wry mouth.
“Perhaps the knife caught in Metjen’s breast-bone, or he could have heard someone coming.”
“Like the lady Iras. Why not avenge himself on her?”
“It’s possible that that embarrassing scene was concocted between them to delude us all, while all the time the lady Iras was conspiring with Ken-hotep to murder Metjen for his wealth.”
“She hated Ken-hotep. It was on her lips and in her eyes while she watched him wrestling the hippopotamus and hoped he’d die.”
“You are always cynical about women.” Ramose came back into the chamber. “What are you seeking?”
“Metjen’s flute. He always played it before he went to his couch. I can’t find it.”
“Is it under his body?”
“I’ve already looked. He’s not wearing his sandals.”
“He may have kicked them off for comfort.”
“Or . . .” He drew up Metjen’s robe. “Look there. A tiny nick above his ankle, a slight trickle of blood. His sandals were removed in case they were stained and drew attention to the wound.”
“What does that signify when the dagger in his breast killed him?”
“If the nick had been on his arm, nothing. It could have been a defence wound. But on his ankle, that signifies something else. It explains why Metjen did not see the serpent that killed him.”
“But the dagger . . .?”
“Was placed there by someone who wanted to disguise that he had been bitten by a serpent and to incriminate Ken-hotep. See, the dagger comes out quite easily and the wound bleeds little.”
“It was opportune for someone that the serpent chose to invade Metjen’s chamber this very night.”
“Not so opportune. Not by chance. If it hasn’t been removed, I think you will find its basket below the terrace wall.”
“And the serpent?”
“Has curled up in a corner somewhere.”
Baki was amused at the nervous glance the dignified Tjati cast about the room.
“Don’t be alarmed. A flute player will draw it out presently.”
“Are you saying the serpent was deliberately loosed on Metjen?”
“And lured by his playing,”
“By whom? Ken-hotep?”
“Ken-hotep had already left the hall when Metjen announced his intention of changing his will. We have both heard, my lord Judge, of husbands adopting their young wives as daughters to ensure they will safely inherit. I think we should talk with Scribe Horiheb, who claims to be Metjen’s son.”
“A foolish piece of tittle-tattle. Metjen tolerated it because it amused his pride that other men might think he was able to procreate.”
“I thought as much. Metjen came to me many times for a cure for his infertility.”
A second, wholly unexpected shock awaited them in the scribe’s room. Horiheb too lay sprawled on his sleeping mat with a dagger thrust through him.
“You cannot tell me this is not Ken-hotep’s revenge,” said the Chief Judge, grimly. “Or will you search his body for a serpent’s bite?”
Baki was silent for a several minutes, utterly disconcerted by this new turn of events. “Is this also a dagger belonging to Ken-hotep?”
“I don’t know,” replied Ramose reluctantly.
“I shall examine his body, more precisely his finger. See the black smudge. He wrote to Metjen’s dictation last night. Where is the roll of papyrus, where the changed will of Metjen-hotep, Chief Architect to Pharaoh, High Priest of Ptah? Search the room, my lord Ramose. I trust you will not stumble across the serpent.”
Ramose dealt him a sour look, but complied. The physician continued to examine the body, noting traces of vomit on the pillow beside the mouth. The scribe’s lips, usually flesh-coloured and barely discernible on his face, were blue.
The Tjati suddenly summoned him in an altered tone. Lying in a corner was the monkey, dead, a dark fluid issuing from its mouth.
“That explains the vomit on Horiheb’s pillow and the colour of his lips. I thought it might have been occasioned by the knife thrust, but I was mistaken. I would refrain from partaking of the dates in that dish beside Horiheb’s sleeping mat.”
“We must return to Metjen’s chamber and see if we can discover the scroll.”
“I fear it will have already been stolen.”
Again, he was mistaken. Beside Metjen’s body knelt one of the two servants who always attended him. He was rocking himself with grief and smearing his face with ashes.
“Where is your friend?” Baki asked him, gently.
“He has gone across the river to Abydos with a letter for Lord Ken-hotep.”
“From whom?”
“From Lord Metjen-hotep, dictated before he died. When Ken-hotep quarrelled with his father he always sought out a certain house of pleasure in Abydos to burn away his rage. My friend was sent to seek him in this house with the letter.”
“Do you know what the letter held?”
“No, but I can guess. My lord would have offered Ken-hotep reconciliation and begged him to return.” He gave a wan smile. “This has happened before.”
Baki and Ramose exchanged glances. Of one accord they went to the chamber of the lady Iras. With her hand-maidens she was on her knees, wailing and strewing her hair and garments with ashes.
“Lay aside your grief, my lady,” said Ramose, quietly. “We know it is false.”
Her eyes flew open. “Have you arrested Ken-hotep?”
“Ken-hotep did not kill your husband,” intervened Baki. “Your other lover Horiheb instigated his death.”
“Horiheb!” She shrank from him.
“After he had written the letter to Ken-hotep for Metjen, offering reconciliation instead of the change of will removing his son’s name and leaving you, his wife-daughter, all his wealth, which you had promised to share with Horiheb. It had been planned long before, Horiheb had the serpent to hand, the humiliation scene was played out before Metjen’s friends, Ken-hotep banished. How galling it must have been to Horiheb when Metjen dictated the letter begging him to return. When Metjen began playing his flute, his scribe vindictively released the serpent. You were waiting in Horiheb’s room, eager to hear of the change of will. Why did you bring your monkey? To jest with him about the game you’d played at the feast to make everyone think you hated him. When he told you what he’d done you were furious. He had prematurely engineered a murder that no one would have suspected yet Ken-hotep’s name had not been removed from the will.
“You didn’t just bring your monkey to his room. You had long plotted to remove Horiheb from your path. Your own weapon was to hand. You brought the poisoned dates and wine to his chamber. Did you feed him death with your own fingertips between your caresses? Push dates into his mouth with your tongue? Is that why your lips are blue. When he was dead you put the dagger in his breast. It was a mistake to leave the monkey in the room.
“You realized Metjen suspected you, so you did nothing to prevent his death. It was clever of you to disguise the serpent-bite with a nick of the blade, clever too to plunge into his breast the dagger you had stolen from Ken-hotep. Not so clever to remove the flute, since its absence drew attention to the possibility that we were being deluded as to the real cause of Metjen’s death. You should have left well enough alone – no one would have suspected it was not an accident – but you wanted to incriminate Ken-hotep of both murders and be Metjen’s sole heir.”
Iras had sprung to her feet, panting, her eyes darting from side to side, like those of a trapped wildcat.
“You will be taken to Memphis bound with cords and tried before me,” pronounced Ramose. “If you do not confess you will be beaten with rods. When you do confess, such was Pharaoh Khafre’s love for his Chief Architect, his wrath against you will be mighty. You will be entombed alive with Metjen-hotep and there enjoy your portion of his treasure.”
Later, Ramose joined Baki on the terrace where he stood gazing at the flamingo-coloured clouds on the horizon that heralded the sun-god’s boat. He handed the Tjati the dagger he had picked up from the floor in Metjen’s chamber.
“The sag, half-hawk, half-lion. The Sphinx, man, lion and eagle in one. Will Ken-hotep ever find them? Do they really exist?”
“Do you doubt the gods, Baki?”
The physician shook his head with a whimsical smile. “Only love, my friend, only love.”