THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

We are now at the end of the twentieth dynasty in the reign of Rameses XI, in the year BC 1073 to be precise. Once again Egypt was heading for another period of decline (what became the Third Intermediate Period) with a rise in the defiant power of the priesthood and increasing strength of Egypt’s southern neighbours in Kush. It was a time of unrest with an outbreak of tomb robbing, which meant more work for the courts.

This is the background to F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s story. MacIntyre is perhaps best known for his science fiction and fantasy, including his novel The Woman Between the Worlds (1994), but he has a wide knowledge on a vast variety of subjects and has appeared in several of my anthologies. He has a particular fascination for ancient Egypt as the following story shows.

“A dead man speaks the truth.” Khnemes uttered the words of the tongue-twisting proverb that was popular among Egyptian schoolboys and apprentice scribes: “Medu m’at mai ma’at mety” . . . or, more formally, “speaks a mummy in straightforward truth.” The phrase was merely a writing-exercise, but on many occasions Khnemes had thought that there was wisdom in these words. For a living man may utter falsehoods, but a m’at – a corpse, or a mummified man – can only speak the truth.

This was one such occasion. Khnemes had accompanied his employer Perabsah on the journey upriver from Aneb Hetchet to Thebes, along with Perabsah’s wife Merytast and a retinue of servants and slaves. While Merytast and her attendants took lodging in Thebes, Perabsah had brought Khnemes and three sledge-bearing slaves across the river, to the Village of Labourers on the western bank of the Nile. As night fell, they made camp here by torchlight. Then, at dawn, they proceeded beyond the workmen’s village, into the foothills further west.

Perabsah led his attendants into a landscape stippled with crude mud-brick domes shaped like giant breadloaves. This was a village of the dead. Khnemes had heard of this place: the Plain of the Loaves. Few tomb-robbers ever tarried here, for only lowborn peasants were buried in this place. A few of the domes displayed crude hieroglyphs etched into the clay above their lintels: daubed by a finger when the bricks were still wet from their moulds, and left to bake hard in the Egyptian sun. Now Perabsah pointed to the inscription above the lintel of a dome that seemed no different from its neighbours. Khnemes was unscribed, and could not read, yet above this dome’s sealed entrance he recognized the familiar glyphs identifying the ancestral household of his master Perabsah. So this dome had been built here by order of one of Perabsah’s forefathers.

At a nod from Perabsah, his trio of slaves raised sharpened adzes and broke the mortarwork beneath the lintel. Bricks which had lain undisturbed for a century were now seized, torn loose from their mortar, and flung aside by the slaves.

Khnemes cringed at his employer’s sacrilege. Khnemes was Nubian-born, yet he had lived in Egypt long enough to know the customs of this land. To defile a grave was always a serious crime . . . and made even riskier now, due to the recent political upheavals caused by the long famine known as the Year of the Hyenas. Officially, this was Year Eight of the Repeating of Births in the reign of the aged king Re’s-Abiding-Truth . . . but the old king’s power had dwindled, and now Egypt was divided into two kingdoms ruled by rival god-cults. Perabsah owned property and wealth in Aneb Hetchet . . . but that was in Lower Egypt, and now here he was across-river from Thebes, defiling a grave in Upper Egypt, where Perabsah’s titles and estates were too distant to protect him.

Khnemes glanced round nervously as Perabsah’s slaves enlarged the hole in the broken dome, and now Perabsah spoke a challenge to Khnemes:

“Most excellent servant, you have often impressed me with your cleverness. Let us see if your wisdom extends into the realm of the dead.” Perabsah’s three slaves downed their tools and clambered over the heap of shattered bricks, while he continued: “Within that residence sleeps a bondsman of my household, entombed here more than a century ago. I know nothing about him, save the fact of his existence. I challenge you, Khnemes, to unriddle the stranger who is entombed here. Let us see if you can read the pattern of his life . . . or the chapters of his death.”

“I accept your challenge, heri sa’ur,” said Khnemes, flattering his employer. Perabsah preened at this compliment, and daubed himself with a few drops of scented oil from the vanity-phial he always carried. Khnemes often addressed Perabsah as heri sa’ur, or “wisdom-master” . . . not because Perabsah was wise enough to deserve this title, but because Khnemes was wise enough to know that there is more than one way to oil a conceited man.

As the slaves emerged from the shattered loaf, Khnemes was astonished to see them bearing an earthenware coffin. The Plain of the Loaves was a burial-ground for paupers: most of the dead in this place were not even properly embalmed. How came this one corpse to possess a coffin? When the grunting slaves set down their load, Khnemes was astonished again: for this was a child’s coffin in the sands before him. A coffin too small to contain a grown man.

The coffin was oval-shaped, unglazed, with no inlays or inscriptions. “Whoever this coffin contains,” observed Khnemes, “he received only the most meagre of death-rites. His mourners were swift to send him on his journey.”

Perabsah tucked the small white alabaster vanity-phial back into its pouch on the waistband of his shent kilt, and rubbed his hands eagerly. “Because the coffin is unadorned, you mean?”

Khnemes shook his head in the still air, feeling no breeze among the tight rows of echelon curls in his wig. The Mehut – the prevailing wind from the north which usually sang through the Nile valley – was strangely absent today. “No, heri sa’ur,” he told Perabsah. “Even unwealthed peasants can honour their dead. This coffin betrays not only an absence of wealth, but also a poverty of time: there are no luck-marks, no death-charms. See? The coffin is boat-shaped, to transport its passenger along the River of the Underworld . . . yet the ritual utchati Eyes of Horus are missing from the coffin’s prow. If the dead man was too paupered to equip his coffin with golden utchati, his mourners could still have applied the sacred Eyes by drawing charcoal images on the coffin’s prow. Yet that was not done.”

Perabsah’s eyes gleamed beneath his headcloth. “Excellent! What else?”

Khnemes circled the earthenware cask. “This is a child’s coffin, yet your three strongest bearers exerted themselves whilst carrying it a brief distance, so this coffin contains something heavier than a child.” Perabsah stiffened at this, and Khnemes quickly continued: “Mayhap this small coffin’s occupant is a deng: a dwarf or pygmy, who served as a jester in your ancestors’ household.”

“Let us see the wisdom of your guesses, my servant.” Perabsah beckoned to the tallest and brawniest of his three slaves, who rejoiced in the name Qesf. This man came forwards with his adze. Khnemes saw what was intended, and he raised one arm to protest the sacrilege, but Perabsah anticipated him: “Turn your head aside, then, if it bothers you to see this.” Perabsah flung his own hand towards Khnemes, masking the Nubian’s eyes while the adze descended. Khnemes heard but did not see the impact of obsidian blade against earthenware. By the time that Perabsah had lowered his hand so that Khnemes could see again, the slaves had picked away the fragments of the coffin’s lid. Some sort of pliable material was underneath: this too was pierced now by the slaves, and Perabsah’s eager hands tore at this. Only when several pieces of the flexible covering had been ripped away did Perabsah step aside.

A mummy was inside the coffin: a fully-grown man. His arms and legs had been broken, then bent back upon themselves, and the shattered man had been crammed into this too-small coffin. The dead man’s face was contorted into an expression of hideous agony.

Khnemes approached the coffin slowly. The mummification was a crude one: the corpse’s broken limbs were shrivelled and thin, while the dead man’s belly was distended. The mummy’s odour was surprisingly pleasant, like a mixture of pickled fish and black pepper. Whoever this dead man was, the embalmers had taken care to preserve him with mummy-resins. Khnemes expected to see the familiar black seepings of bituminous repnen oozing from the mummy’s shattered limbs, but there was no sign of leakage.

Now Khnemes noticed something. “This man was a slave, or the servant of a cruel master. See? Here and here on the shoulders and arms, and across his chest, there are marks where flails and whips have visited his flesh.”

Perabsah arched one eyebrow. “Have a care, Nubian. Do you accuse my ancestors of cruelty? No lord of my house would ungentle his servants.”

Khnemes frowned, and Perabsah’s three slaves looked up sharply. The faithful Qesf was well-treated, but his bond-brothers Huti and Djeb had not been so favoured: their naked backs and shoulders bore testament to their master’s cruelty. Khnemes shook his head again. “The flesh of this mummy clearly shows scars. They are partially healed, so he received these scars long before his death. Yet look here.” Khnemes pointed to some small discolourations near the dead man’s nostrils and eyelids. “These are flea-bites . . . in places where a corpse, not yet mummified, would leak the body’s natural contents. This man probably died during Shemu, the harvest-season, when fleas are most plentiful. And he was left for some time dead – outdoors, in hot weather – before the embalmers worked their craft upon him. If the mummification had come swiftly after his death, the resins used in the embalming process would have repelled the hungering insects.”

“Excellent, my servant!” said Perabsah. “What else do you see?”

“It is what I do not see that puzzles me,” Khnemes confessed. “This coffin contains no death-honours. Even the lowliest citizen of Egypt owns a few delight-beads, or a clay amulet, to bring with him into the afterworld. But I see none here. This man was entombed in a hurry, by someone who had no time to give him the proper death-rituals. Observe his broken limbs: they must have been intact during the embalming process, or else the mummy-salts would have leaked from his body. His arms and legs were deliberately broken after his mummification . . . so that his corpse could be compressed into the smallest and cheapest coffin available.”

Perabsah raised one hand to his face to adjust his headcloth. “And you discern nothing else of this man, then?”

Khnemes shook his head once more. “I have told all I see, heri sa’ur. Only the gods can reveal more.”

At that moment a sudden wind sprang up from the north, filling the Plain of the Loaves with a shrill distant howl. The Mehut had returned.

The wind snatched several yellowing objects which Perabsah had torn from the coffin and placed aside. Now Perabsah bellowed: “Kefaythen sen! Seize them! Capture them all! Haqythen er cher sen!” and at once his three slaves hurried to thwart the wind. Something sailed past Khnemes, and he caught it: a large flake of ancient papyrus, torn at its edges, and strangely stiff; the fibres of the papyrus were glutted with a substance which had stiffened the material. Khnemes turned over the papyrus, to see if anyone had written on it. No; it was blank. But . . .

“Give me that!” Perabsah snatched the stiffened flake of papyrus, turned it over, then flung it aside. “Help them, quickly!” Perabsah nodded at his slaves, who were scrabbling to capture other pieces of the wind-torn papyrus. Just then, in the sands near his feet, Khnemes saw a large fragment of papyrus, covered with dark lines of hieratic script from some lost century. He reached for this . . . but the wind from the north snatched the fragment, and swept it whirling away into the deserts beyond. Whatever was written on that page, only the wind knew.

“Mamu Mehut ma’at,” Khnemes whispered to himself, inventing an impromptu wisdom. “The north wind knows the truth.”

Now Khnemes learnt why Perabsah had instructed his slaves to bring a sledge with them. “This man served my ancestors faithfully, and I would have him conveyed to a burial-place more dignified than this,” Perabsah announced, gesturing at the shattered clay loaves on every side.

The child-coffin was grunted onto the sledge by the three slaves, while Khnemes inspected the draught-lines. The brawny slave Qesf had brought along a dozen tarred wineskins, filled with water. Djeb and Huti had brought a dozen oxen-horns, filled with flaxseed-oil and carefully sealed. Khnemes collected these now, while Qesf and his two bond-brothers manned the sledge’s tow-ropes.

They began. Khnemes unstoppered a horn, and poured forth a thick gobbet of its oily contents into the sands in front of the sledge. Before the thirsty sands devoured this offering, Khnemes opened a wineskin and poured a drizzle of water on top of the oil. The two liquids beaded, briefly forming an ooze. Quickly, the three slaves dragged the sledge forwards. It slid across the oiled sand easily. Keeping pace with the slaves, Khnemes continued to pour his oil-carpet ahead of the sledge as their journey progressed: first the oil, then the water on top of it. Khnemes took care to ration both liquids: they had a long distance to go.

They made their way eastward, Perabsah watching from the rear to satisfy himself that his servants gave their full efforts. The sledge-procession reached the Village of Labourers, the work-camp of the tombmakers who lived among the cemeteries of the Nile’s western bank. Several workmen left their kiosks to stare at the child-coffin . . . but they saw Perabsah’s headcloth and his shent kilt of fine linen, and the workmen knew better than to challenge the retinue of a wealthy man.

Beyond the Village of the Labourers, on a hillock to the left as Khnemes trudged eastwards, was the temple Per-Reshtu, erected twelve decades ago by Rameses God-King. Beyond this, two giant figures loomed in the path. Twin sentinels, nearly four times a man’s height, had guarded this place for three centuries: the sandstone statues commemorating the reign of Lord-Re’s-Truth Amunhotep. Long ago, these two awesome colossi had flanked the largest building ever erected on the west bank of the Nile: now Amunhotep’s mortuary temple lay in ruins, yet the sentinels endured. Khnemes was reluctant to approach these silent stones, but he knew that Perabsah would prefer to strut along the wide clear avenue between the twin colossi rather than stumble among the uneven pathways to either side. “Forgive me, centuries,” Khnemes whispered as he stepped between the pair of ancient sentinels, and led the way towards Thebes.

At noonday they reached the cane fields on the western bank of the Nile. Here the sledge and its coffin tipped forwards, as if eager to hurtle down the slope. Khnemes helped the slaves hold the sledge back, easing it down the riverbank instead of allowing it to tumble headlong.

The Nile’s crossing at Thebes is always attended with ferrymen, to transport passengers from the living city of Waset on the eastern bank to the realm of the dead among the cemeteries on the western bank . . . and sometimes back again. Near the marketplace of the burial-hucksters on the western bank, Khnemes hailed a ferryman. Perabsah called out as the ferry approached: “What will you bargain for conveying myself and this sledge? Akhi! I have my manservant and these other men as well, but they are only slaves . . . and the manservant is merely a Nubian.”

The ferryman made the appropriate gestures: right hand to heart, to demonstrate respect for Perabsah; left hand to kneecap, to signify submission. “All men are equal aboard my boat, sir,” the ferryman answered, “for it tasks me the same effort to convey a living prince or a dead slave.” At length it was agreed that the ferryman would be paid one deben of copper to transport the lot, if Perabsah’s three slaves lent a hand with the bargepoles. The sledge was loaded onto the deck, and the crossing began.

Perabsah seated himself on the ferryman’s bench, placing the papyrus fragments in the lap of his kilt. “Mah’ek! Behold thee, Khnemes: see what this is.”

“I behold, neb-i: sovereign-my-lord,” said Khnemes, “but I do not comprehend.”

Merabsah held up a stiffened shred of papyrus. “This material is utau: plastered cartonnage. A century ago, embalmers often used cartonnage to enswathe the mummies they fashioned. Pieces of scrap papyrus, no longer needed by the scribes, would be soaked in wet gypsum plaster to strengthen their fibres, and the plastered sheets glued together to fashion a shroud. The soaked papyrus was moulded round the face and body of the mummy, and sewn together at the back. When the plaster dried, the shroud hardened . . . and the cartonnage formed a protective shell encasing the mummy’s remains.” Perabsah brandished two more fragments of the stiffened fabric. “Usually the cartonnage was painted by the embalmers, but this one was not. See! There is writing on these utau.”

Khnemes glanced at the dark lines of hieratic script on the dusty papyrus: cryptic black symbols, randomly speckled with a few symbols in red. For the thousandth time, Khnemes wished that he knew how to read. “These words, heri sa’ur . . . they are death-texts for the soul of the dead man?”

“Probably not,” said Perabsah. “The embalmers likely used any papyrus at hand, discarded by the archivists. Before we leave Thebes, I must engage a scribe to translate these lines. But I can read a few words myself. See? This word here is ‘Rekhseth’: the name of my thrice-tef.”

“Your tefteftef?” Khnemes asked. “Your grandfather’s father? So we are closer to knowing the year of this man’s death. If he was a servant of your great-grandfather Rekhseth, then this man lived during the reign of Amun’s-Beloved . . . when Egypt was strong and the throne undivided, and even the lowest people prospered.”

From a pouch at his waist, Perabsah took a twist of linen containing a chunk of spiced natron. He tore off a pinch of this, popped it into his mouth and chewed furiously, talking with his mouth full: “What was it like, do you suppose, to have lived in the golden noon of Egypt’s prosperity? I dislike our modern times, with proud Egypt torn into halves.”

“Egypt has always been two separate nations: the realm of life and the realm of the dead,” said Khnemes. Just now the ferry came abreast of the Isle of Amunhotep, the white limestone crag just north of Thebes which marked the midpoint of the Nile’s breadth. Beyond the ferry’s prow stood the eastern bank of the Nile: the land of fertile soil and swarming cities. Astern of the ferry’s rudder lay the Nile’s western bank: the land of the dead, where the pyramids stood vigil among the cemeteries which Egyptians of grim humour have nicknamed “the plantations”. The few living people who dwelt on the Nile’s western shore were mostly funeral-workers . . . who sometimes called themselves “farmers” because of the crops which they tended.

“You know my meaning, Nubian,” said Perabsah. “For the past three years, Egypt has been sundered north and south, and the parts squabbled over by covetous priests and false kings. There is violence in the provinces, from bands of rebels who would carve Egypt into splinters.” Perabsah shuddered, and drew his kilt more closely round his loins. “The sooner my wife and I are gone from Thebes, and we return downriver to our sweet northern home in Lower Egypt, the happier I will be.”

“All parts of Egypt are north to me, for I am a Kushite of Nubia,” said Khnemes. “But if I remember rightly, you have told me that your forebears were from southern Egypt.”

“Your memory speaks truth,” said Perabsah as they neared the eastern riverbank. On the quayside, several labourers ran forwards with gaff-hooks, eager to assist the arrivals and hopeful of receiving gratuities. “My grandfather’s father Rekhseth was an assistant overseer in the goldfields of Bendet, near the Red Sea. Rekhseth worked long and well, and it was he who built the proud estates which have prospered and grown under the guidance of my grandfather and my father. Ahai, and I too have done all I can to continue my family’s tradition of honour and dignity.” Perabsah bent across the ferry’s portside strake and spat a gob of natron into the Nile as he spoke. Khnemes shuddered at this vulgarity, but he knew at least that the natron had its benefits. Perabsah had wretched teeth and diseased gums, and he relied on frequent chewings of “holy-mouth” – netra, or some other spiced natron – to sweeten the stink of his breath.

Now the ferry was brought to the quay. Khnemes assisted Qesf and the other slaves in the unshipping of the sledge and the coffin, while Perabsah barked orders and acted important.

The eastern bank of the Nile, at its crossing near Thebes, is the place of the Redu ni-Temi: the sixteen-step staircase which serves to measure the Nile’s water-level. Just now, the Nile was at low ebb, so the ferry rode low against the riverbank and only the lowermost step of the staircase was underwater. Raising the sledge to their shoulders, Khnemes and the three slaves conveyed their burden uphill to the high redstone pylon arch of Kheft her-en-Nebset, the sentry-gate at the western entrance of Thebes.

It is said that a man can walk across Thebes in an hour. Beneath the weight of the coffin and sledge, this seemed impossible to Khnemes. Even with three strong slaves to assist him, the sledge and its contents tallied a considerable weight.

Perabsah led the way eastwards along the edge of the Kamur, the main canal of Thebes. The western district of Thebes holds the royal temples, and so the pathways here were cobblestoned. But the cobbles dwindled into a rude footpath as Perabsah and his attendants reached the market-district. Here the canal was filled with its usual obstructions: nude bathers, men watering their cattle, and women washing their children and laundry.

The coffin’s progress was encumbered by a whim of the calendar. By chance or design, Perabsah had brought his wife and attendants to Thebes just in time for Opet, the festival of the Nile’s annual rebirth, lasting 24 days. Today was Arqi Paopi, the first day of the festival, and the revelries were in full cry. As Khnemes proceeded through the greasy streets of Thebes, his way was repeatedly blocked by masked celebrants, while musicians plucked their harps and rang their ankle-bells. A squadron of acrobatic girls, clad in loin-belts but otherwise naked, flung themselves into handsprings and backward walkovers directly in Perabsah’s path, whilst older women shook rattles and drums, and beckoned for alms. “You see, Khnemes,” chuckled Perabsah, “the streets are filled with starveling beggars, and rebellion is everywhere, yet the people are kept happy with drumming and acrobats.”

Three attractive young women, with fishnets draped across their nakedness to indicate their profession, and wearing cowrie shells to symbolize their female organs, made gestures of enticement. “Lay down your burden, wanderers,” purred the comeliest of the net-maidens. “Come with us, and be refreshed.” Qesf growled beneath his corner of the sledge, and the net-wenches withdrew. But now the path was blocked by a crowd of shouting men. Mindful of his duties as Perabsah’s bodyguard, Khnemes lowered one hand from the sledge and reached for the dagger in his belt’s scabbard. But now he saw that these men were seeking employment. As part of the Opet festivities, a local priest-guild intended to stage a mock battle between the armies of Good and Evil, and strong men would be paid a day’s ration of bread and beer to act as soldiers in this counterfeit battle.

And now, thank the gods, Perabsah turned off the main road and down a side-lane, leading into the Padmai district of Thebes. Khnemes was greatly relieved when Perabsah reached the crossroads of the Sedge and the Two Plumes, for here was the lodging-house where Perabsah’s wife Merytast and her attendants were waiting.

“Manu! Excellent!” said Perabsah as the coffin was set down in the house’s antechamber. “Qesf, bring the mummy to my sleeping-quarters. I wish to inspect his person, so that I can deem which anointments and amulets will be suitable for his reburial. Khnemes, I shan’t need your services until tomorrow morning. You other lot, help my wife’s attendants. Merytast and I will be joining the revels this evening.”

*  *  *

“Can you read hieroglyphics?”

The scribe had been peering at a scroll which he held open to the starlight; now he looked up in reply to this question. He wore a long kilt and was wrapped in an even longer rhetu monk-cloak, and the flickering light of the festival-torches gleamed against the top of his bald head: only the top of it, for the scribe wore his hair in a fringe all round his scalp, with his ears exposed and a clean-shaven tonsure above. He sat hunched against the glazed tiles along the threshold of the lodging-house. His Thoth-case of writing-implements was on the tiles beside him, tethered to his waist. A pastille of incense smouldered in a brass tray nearby.

The scribe squinted into the darkness, then saw Khnemes standing over him. “Greetings, Nubian. I nearly failed to see you in the dark: your black skin mingles with the night. Yes, I can read hieroglyphics . . . and I can also read men. You are a long way from Kush. What can I do for a former bowman of the King’s troops?”

Khnemes was impressed by this deduction, but he sensed the flow of its logic. His service in the Medchay infantry had ended two years ago, yet Khnemes still wore a wig of the anhu style favoured by the foot-soldier bowmen of the Medchay: rows of tightly-sewn echelon curls, long at both sides to cover his ears, yet tapering hindwards so that his nape was left bare. The padded anhu of brown hair protected an infantryman’s scalp from the sun. In the hot weather of Egypt, where it was difficult to keep natural hair clean and free of lice, most men shaved their heads and wore wigs of the same tight-curled style that Khnemes wore . . . but only the archers of the Medchay regiments kept their hairpieces short at the back of the neck, so that the wigs would not catch against a longbow or a bundle of arrows. At this moment, Khnemes carried the leather sling-bag – his kha’ai – which he always wore across-shoulder as he had once carried his arrows. As for clues that Khnemes was a former infantryman . . . well, he was in civilian garb now, and at 30 years of age he was rather old for active duty.

“So you can translate a man by his haircut?” Khnemes asked. “Yes, my skin proclaims me as a son of Nubia, and my accent tells you that I am a Kushite, and I boast that I stood eleven years’ service in the garrisons of the Medchay. But I have dwelt in Egypt long enough to learn the symbols of its professions . . . and I believe that your trade leaves you idle just now.”

“Ehi?” the scribe’s tone was mocking. “This is the first night of the Opet festival. Unless you were blinded by one of your own arrows, archer, you see that I am a priest . . . and even a farmboy from Kush must know that the priests of Thebes are busy during Opet.”

Khnemes pointed at the scribe’s tonsure. “Your hair is barbered in the fekhet style, worn only by priests who serve Hathor and the lesser goddesses. Opet is the festival of Amun-Re and his bride-goddess Mut: even Egyptians who favour other deities will give homage to Amun-Re while there is some chance of receiving Opet-gifts from the sun-god’s priests. But the goddess Hathor takes no part in Opet’s rituals . . . so you and all the Hathor-monks may be caught idle for the next few days.”

“You know much about Hathor, Nubian.”

“I should. Under her older name Athrua, she was the war-goddess of Nubia . . . before the priests of Egypt abducted her northwards, changed her name and countenance, and deemed her a goddess of Egypt.” Khnemes appraised the monk again. “You are younger than I am, but your kilt is of a length more typical for an older man . . . so you have advanced in your profession, and you are respected. These signs reveal that you are qualified for the task which I offer, and the Opet has not made your time heavy with priest-tasks.”

The scribe-priest rose to his feet, passing one hand through the looped cord of his Thoth-case as he stood. His other hand raised the incense-tray towards his nose, and he sniffed the sharp fumes. Khnemes was slightly surprised that the scribe-priest stood nearly as tall as himself; he had seemed shorter. “You intrigue me, Nubian,” said the scribe. “I am Nask, a fekhet-priest of Hathor.”

Khnemes made the traditional Egyptian male’s greeting, touching his hand to his chest and then extending his cupped fingers as if to offer his heart while he introduced himself: “Enuk Khnemes.”

The priest nodded slightly but did not repeat the gesture of the heart-cup: a subtle reminder that his social rank was above that of Khnemes. “Now give us a look of those hieroglyphics.”

From his sling-bag, Khnemes took the fragments of cartonnage. He had taken them from Perabsah’s offering-table while Perabsah was busying himself with a skinful of tamarind-wine. “These belong to my sovereign lord, who requires a scribe to decipher them,” said Khnemes. Three weeks ago, Perabsah’s longtime scribe Seshem had died of river-sweats, in the midst of the long-delayed task of reorganizing Perabsah’s family archives. Perabsah – with no assistance from Khnemes – had personally engaged a new scribe for his household in Aneb Hetchet. But Perabsah had chosen not to bring the untested scribe on this long journey upriver to Thebes. Earlier today, Perabsah had declared his intentions to find a scribe in Thebes to translate the cartonnage . . . but Khnemes knew that tomorrow’s sunrise would find Perabsah fuddled with wine, and unfit to interview journeymen scribes, so Khnemes had taken it upon himself to engage a scribe. Now he showed Nask the scraps of papyrus. “Can you read these?”

Nask took the fragments, raising them to his face and moving nearer to the portal of the lodging-house so that he could borrow some light from its flickering lantern. “You told me, Nubian, that these were hieroglyphs.”

“Are they not?”

“These are not god-words. They are book-words: hieratic text. But they are fragments, not a complete text . . . and the places where red ink was used, to mark the first word of each new passage, have faded badly.” Nask squinted at the uppermost flake of papyrus, scanning its marks from right to left. “Here is something: ‘The new overseer Rekhseth is cruel to myself and to all of the mine-workers.’ ”

“Miners?” Khnemes accepted this as proof of Nask’s ability to read the text, for it verified Perabsah’s boast: his tefteftef Rekhseth had overseen the labourers in the goldfields of Bendet. “Yes, that must refer to the gold-mine. Continue, please.”

Nask gave the translated fragment back to Khnemes, and raised another scrap of cartonnage to his face before speaking again: “ ‘Each morning, Rekhseth passes through the sentry-posts and brings into the work-camp a birdcage containing . . .’ Hmm! This next word is obscure. It’s pronounced ‘bai’, and I think it means a brown-necked raven. That’s all it says.” Nask gave the fragment to Khnemes. “Here’s another: ‘Every night at sunset, Rekhseth goes alone into the hills beyond the mines. He sacrifices the raven to an unknown god, before returning to us and . . .’ No more there.” Nask started to read another piece of cartonnage, but now the fekhet-priest suddenly stiffened: “Gods and infidels!” cried Nask. “This speaks of murder!”

Khnemes instinctively felt for his dagger as he stepped towards Nask. “You are certain?”

“Indeed.” Nask raised his incense-tray again and fortified himself with another draught of its billowing smoke. His other hand thrust the cartonnage towards Khnemes while pointing a forefinger at two hieratic symbols, ligatured together one atop the other in a scrawl resembling a coiled snake. “This word is pronounced ‘nik’.”

Khnemes was unimpressed. “Many words of Egypt’s tongue have more than one meaning. ‘Nik’ has several meanings . . . only one of which is ‘murder’.”

“Aye, Nubian. But see you this after-mark?” To the left of the coiled snake, Nask indicated a hieratic sign resembling a triangle with three appendages. “This means ‘enemy’. The word ‘nik’ followed by the enemy-sign means ‘murder’.” Before Khnemes could examine it closely, Nask passed the papyrus fragment directly underneath his nose as if he was reading its scent. “This says that a man named Teknu was murdered at moonrise.”

“By whose hand?” Khnemes asked the monk Nask. “And why?”

“I can’t tell. It speaks here ‘nik-en’f ma tep Teknu’ . . . so the papyrus says that he murdered Teknu, but ‘he’ could mean any man. Each of these scraps has several lines of text, but I’m getting only the middle bits of each.” Nask turned away from Khnemes towards the light, and read aloud from several papyri: “ ‘. . . has slain our work-brother unjustly’ . . . ‘vengeance of the gods’ . . . ‘sacrifice of the raven at sunset . . .’ That’s the lot, I think.”

“Then I thank you, priest Nask.” Khnemes reclaimed the cartonnage. “What barter do you ask for your efforts?”

Nask appraised Khnemes carefully. “You served eleven years in the Medchay, you said? The Medchay are ill-known for never paying their debts.”

Khnemes frowned at this familiar accusation. The bowmen of the Medchay had reaped a dark reputation for accumulating long tallies of debts at one outpost, then departing for another garrison without squaring accounts. Gazing steadily into Nask’s eyes, Khnemes murmured evenly: “Smaa-i ma’at shes ma’at. I pay my debts . . . always.” From his sling-bag, Khnemes produced a small bar of copper weighing five qed’tu, which he tossed towards the priest. Nask lunged to catch the bright ingot. His sandals clattered hollowly against the tiles beneath his feet, and he tottered uncertainly for an instant. Nask was adjusting his long monk-cloak and his tonsure as Khnemes turned and strode into the night.

The next day was Tepi Hathyr, the second day of the Opet festivities. As the rays of dawn touched the portals of the sun-god’s temple Opet-Uret in Karnak, the priests of Amun-Re entered their sanctuary to waken the statue of their god. When the statue awakened, the priests would dress their sun-god’s effigy in his sacred robes. He would then be anointed and fed, after which the priests would convey the statue of Amun-Re to his seat in the Barque of the Sun. Atop the shoulders of twoscore priests and acolytes, this sacred ship would then be borne through the streets of Thebes to the Nile’s quayside, thence towed southward upriver along the Holy Mile to the Temple of Mut, where the sun-god would claim his bride-goddess. This was a day of high sanctity and holiness for all true believers, in which the people of Thebes would devote the hours from dawn until sunset to the sacred task of becoming stinking drunk.

When Khnemes knocked discreetly outside the upstairs sleeping-quarters of his master, the only replies from within were the sounds of Perabsah and Merytast snoring in tandem. Swiftly, Khnemes restored the borrowed fragments of cartonnage to the offering-table outside Perabsah’s bedchamber. Then he noticed something strange.

On the surface of the table, and the floor beneath, were several tiny mounds of dark glittering powder. Khnemes touched the nearest mound, then examined his fingertips: the stuff gleamed like gemstones. It seemed valuable, but Khnemes knew his master well enough to suspect otherwise. In recent days, Perabsah’s estate had lost much of its value, and Perabsah – who had always been covetous – had lately become more wealth-thirsty than ever. If Perabsah had permitted this glittery sand to pass the night unguarded on his table, then the sparkling dust was clearly worthless. Khnemes shrugged, and transferred several pinches of the stuff to a small drawstring pouch from his kha’ai, hoping to learn its nature later.

Downstairs, as Khnemes entered the main hall of the lodging-house, he saw the loyal slave Qesf standing vigil. Several porters and chambermaids, attendant to this lodging-house, were busied with their tasks. Beyond the main hall’s outer doors stood the antechamber. By now the sunrise was well past; through the closed outer doors, Khnemes could hear the streets of Thebes ringing loud with cries of revelry.

As Khnemes approached, Qesf gave the traditional greeting which a slave of Egypt offers to a free citizen: he extended both arms, with his wrists crossed as if bound in invisible shackles, his palms upturned and open to show that he carried no weapons. “Meden-i, emir per,” Qesf’s deep voice rumbled. “I obey thee, steward of my master’s house.”

Khnemes greeted Qesf with the gesture of the cupped heart, even though Qesf was not a free citizen of Egypt. “Did you sleep well, friend?”

Qesf grunted. “I slept as a slave always sleeps: with one eye open. Djeb and Huti and I took it in turns to guard the house last night, emir per. Between vigils, I had a few hours’ sleep.”

Khnemes brought forth his pouch, and shook some grains of the dark sparkle-dust into his open hand. “Do you know this powder?”

Qesf took a brief glance. “It is tahn, sir. That is to say, mica: a glittery dust of no value.”

“Has it any purpose?” Khnemes asked.

“Only one, sir, to my knowledge. It is an ingredient in eye-paint. The apothecaries, when blending their wares, sometimes add a bit of mica if the eye-paint is destined for a lady’s eyelids. Some women of Egypt believe that a sparkle of mica in their eye-paste will increase their beauty. I am certain that this dust has no other use.”

Just then a shout erupted from abovestairs: “Ahai! Landlord! Send a eunuch to my wife’s room with two portions of breakfast!” With a belch in his voice and a lurch in his step, Perabsah came downstairs and through the inner doorway to the main hall. Perabsah’s steps were unsteady, his headcloth was askew and his shent apron-kilt was more clumsily knotted than usual. A gold ring glittered in his left ear. Now he belched again, and gestured at a nearby porter. “You there, boy! Give us some air, will you? Open the doors!”

The porter bowed, and flung open the antechamber’s doors to reveal the lodging-house’s doorkeeper on duty in the vestibule. This servant saw Perabsah, and made haste to open the outer door leading to the Street of Two Plumes. The second day of Opet was in full cry, and as Khnemes looked through the doorways, he could see some portion of the festivities.

Outside the house, a crowd of revellers had assembled. Some of the men and women wore revel-masks of linen and papyrus, painted and shaped to resemble the heads of various animals. At the centre of the crowd, two women were performing a mirror-dance. They stood facing each other, so that Khnemes beheld them both in profile: they were dressed identically and wore matching wigs. While several female minstrels played flutes and six-stringed harps, the two women swayed in unison: approaching each other, then backing away. Each dancer’s movements and steps were a perfect copy of the other’s, but reversed right and left: as if each woman was her counterpart’s reflection in a mirror. Khnemes was vastly impressed: these two women were so skilled in their art, it was impossible for him to tell which was leading the other.

“Do the ladies entice you, Khnemes?” Near his elbow, Khnemes scented Perabsah’s foul breath, seasoned with sour tamarind-wine. “Forget those wenches, my servant: their favours grow stale. Let me show you a beauty that is eternal.” Perabsah dug into a pouch at his waistband, and brought something forth. “Mah’ek! Behold thee!”

Perabsah was clutching a huge emerald, nearly the size of his fist. The emerald was raw and uncut: a bright green six-sided prism, in the shape of a near-perfect cube. Sunlight from the open doorway lit the emerald, filling it with a quiet deep glow like green sea-water. Green, the colour of rebirth: the colour of life beyond death. Perabsah smiled proudly, turning the precious stone one way and then another: Khnemes could see no flaws within it. But now he noticed a familiar odour, in unfamiliar quantities: the scented oil from Perabsah’s vanity-phial. Was Perabsah anointing himself more liberally than usual?

“I bartered for this in the marketplace last night, from some jackal of a tomb-robber who failed to reckon the worth of his own plunder.” Perabsah smugly pouched the green stone as he spoke. “When the fool plucked this bauble from an unknown tomb, he likely thought that he was snatching a pretty piece of coloured glass. Naturally, I indulged his misbelief.”

Khnemes was scandalized. “Heri sa’ur! That jewel belongs to the dead.”

“The dead own nothing except their own dust.” Perabsah slapped the bulging pouch at his waist. “Should I search all the tombs of Egypt, and ask the dead to claim their property? If any corpse owns this bauble, I shall keep it safe for him until he meets me in the afterworld.”

Suddenly, from the courtyard came the sounds of battle, and Khnemes drew his dagger. There was civil war within the provinces along the border between the two Egypts; had this warfare now reached Thebes?

Khnemes stepped into the antechamber as the women finished their mirror-dance and gathered the trinkets flung to them by the crowd. As the dancers’ audience dispersed, Khnemes saw what he had overheard: the mock battle between Good and Evil had begun.

In the public square outside the lodging-house stood two armies, arrayed with wooden swords and leather shields. On one side, their bodies painted red, stood proudly the gallant Companions of Horus. At the far end of the square, hunched and lurking in their yellow-painted stealth, stood the insidious Accomplices of Set. The outcome of this war was preordained, of course . . . but first the crowd would be treated to some spirited fighting. At the edge of the throng stood two tall men, wearing kilts of coarse grey linen, and clutching tipstaffs with heavy bronze knobs. Recognizing their uniforms, Khnemes was grateful that the constables of Thebes were on duty. The Opet festival was notorious for its violence . . . but for now, at least, the violence was counterfeit. With a loud clack-a-kack of wooden swords, the mock battle began.

“Does the battle arouse you, Khnemes?” asked a female voice nearby. Merytast was here, clothed in an elaborate gown and her favourite wig. Perabsah’s wife stood by his side in the antechamber, both of them watching Khnemes as he sheathed his dagger and observed the staged battle. At a discreet distance, two of Merytast’s handmaidens awaited her command.

“Yes, neb’t-i: sovereign-my-lady. The battle indeed arouses me,” Khnemes answered, carefully studying the eyes of his mistress. Merytast’s eyes were brightest green, like smaller versions of Perabsah’s stolen emerald. The lady’s eyes were rimmed with black smedyt, yet her dark eye-paint showed no glitter of tahn. Khnemes continued: “I mean of course the true war between Good and Evil. Not the struttings of these soldier-dolls.” Khnemes gestured scornfully at the counterfeit warriors while he peered over Merytast’s shoulder at the faces of her two maidservants. Their eye-paint was plain black as well: it is unwise for a maid to be more gaudy than her mistress.

“We leave for home today, Khnemes,” said Perabsah, stepping towards the doorway and spitting a gobbet of natron into the streets, then turning away without bothering to see if his offering had spattered any human target. “You recall the dead man who served my tefteftef Rekhseth? We must convey him and his coffin to my estate, and give him a respectful burial. Summon all the slaves and porters of my retinue, and bid them to prepare for our journey downriver.”

Merytast beckoned to her handmaidens. “Attend me, vessels of my whim. Let us go abovestairs, to make ready for the journey home, and leave these men to their busy cleverness.” Merytast patted her husband’s arm affectionately, then led her attendants away. The obedient Qesf, overhearing his master’s words, had already gone off to notify the other slaves.

Khnemes turned towards Perabsah. “Is a river journey wise just now, neb-i? The course of the Nile between Thebes and Karnak must be kept clear during the Opet festival, so that the barge of Amun-Re can have free transit through the Holy Mile. Each morning, the god’s barge is towed upriver so that Amun-Re can visit his goddess-bride. Then, each evening until the last night of Opet, the barge of Amun-Re goes downriver to Karnak again, and . . .”

“Would you prefer that we journey overland, by camels or chariots?” Perabsah straightened his headcloth. “The borderlands between Egypt’s torn halves are filled with bandits and violent factions of the civil war. I would rather see my wife ungentled on the turbulent Nile than place her within range of a bandit’s arrows. After we pass downriver from Karnak, the Opet rituals need not concern us. We will . . .”

“Pardon, my sir.” A doorkeeper of the lodging-house came pattering towards Perabsah, and made an obsequious gesture. “A visitor asks for you.”

“Ehi! Yes, that must be the scribe I sent for.” The shouts of the mob grew louder as the mock battle neared its climax, while Perabsah turned towards Khnemes: “Did you think, my steward, that I wasted all the first night of Opet in drunken revelry? Last night, after you left, Qesf informed me that a scribe-priest from one of the local guilds was offering his services to anyone who might give a donation to his temple. I wish to have those cartonnage fragments read before we leave Thebes, so . . . ahai! Here he comes now.”

Khnemes assumed that this scribe must be Nask, and he was about to tell Perabsah that the fekhet-priest’s services had already been rendered. Yet now a man came through the portals, carrying a Thoth-case on a loop of cord, and Khnemes looked up, expecting to see once again the tall monk of Hathor’s temple. But, nan’t: this was some other man.

This scribe was shorter than Nask, and the pattern of his hair was different from Nask’s tonsure as well. This man was a sem: above his right ear, he wore the long braided sidelock of the semu scribe-priests of Ptah, whose scalps are otherwise shaved bare. This particular sem had a week’s worth of stubble on his head, and his sidelock was poorly braided: these signs told Khnemes that this sem was probably a less scholarly man than Nask. Indeed: the sem’s kilt was short, and had no apron, which showed that his priestly rank was not especially high. His face was smudged, too. Egypt has indeed fallen, Khnemes thought, if the priest-guilds of Ptah are recruiting men such as this.

The sem made the heart-cupping gesture of greeting, and introduced himself: “Enuk Uaf,” he said, with his mouth full, revealing the worst set of teeth Khnemes had ever seen. His breath conveyed the stench of the tombs. This scribe Uaf was chewing a large wad of natron, yet the powerful desiccant failed to perform its traditional task, for the odour emerging from Uaf’s diseased gums made Khnemes want to retch. A trickle of black drool formed at the corner of Uaf’s mouth; he wiped this away with the back of one hand.

Khnemes was on the brink of telling Perabsah that Uaf’s services were unwanted, because the cartonnage-text had already been deciphered by Nask. But this sem-scribe might be useful after all. Although Khnemes was illiterate, he knew that hieratic text could conceal many subtle layers of meaning. If Uaf’s reading of the cartonnage fragments resembled Nask’s version, Khnemes would be confident that both scribes had read the papyri truly. “Wait here, sem,” he said now to Uaf. “I will go upstairs, and fetch your study-text.”

Khnemes stepped past Uaf and towards the staircase. But Uaf stepped forward at the same instant. The two men collided, causing Khnemes to lose his balance and jostle Perabsah. “Take care, sir!” cried Uaf, dropping his scribe-case and reaching forward to catch Perabsah’s waist.

“Touch not my master, you of Ptah!” Khnemes doubled his fists, but the slovenly sem-priest let go of Perabsah and extended his hands – palms empty and upraised – to show he meant no harm. Uaf’s fingertips were stained black from the ink of his scribe-tasks, with a few flecks of red ochre. Uaf stepped away from the outer doors leading to the antechamber, to let more sunlight into the main hall while he shielded his smudged face with one hand and gestured broadly with his other arm. “I only meant to help . . .”

“Really, Khnemes,” said Perabsah. “The scribe touched my person, but he did not diminish me. In fact, I . . .” Perabsah’s eyes widened in panic. He touched the bulge at his waistband, then he sighed with relief. “Praise be to Osiris, god of green things: my prize is still safe.”

A sudden roar of triumph from the courtyard made Khnemes turn. The Companions of Horus were about to defeat the Accomplices of Set. Through the open doors of the antechamber, Khnemes saw one warrior break free of the battle and rush towards the lodging-house. This man wore a revel-mask resembling a bird of prey. It made him seem like a hawk-headed god, and Khnemes had a sudden recognition: Today is Tepi Hathyr, the first day of the month named Chamber-of-Horus, honouring the hawk-god. This man must be one of the Companions of Horus in the priests’ mock battle.

But something was wrong. The hawk-headed man clutched a longbow, with its arrow already nocked: a strange weapon indeed for a staged battle. Khnemes had just time to shout a warning as the hawk-headed man raised his longbow and let the arrow fly. Something whistled past Khnemes, and then Perabsah screamed and fell, with an arrow piercing his chest.

“Rehan tu! Stop, assassin!” With his dagger drawn, Khnemes ran towards the antechamber. The doorkeeper came forwards, but the hawk-masked slayer swung his bow and sent the doorman sprawling. Khnemes helped this man to his feet while keeping his frantic gaze on the figure of the fleeing bowman. “You! Seal the doors of this hall from within, with yourself inside to guard my master!” Now Qesf came running, and Khnemes shouted to him: ‘Qesf! Seal this door from without, and the hall’s other entrance as well, and summon a physician! Keep the doors sealed while you stand guard. Hurry!” Khnemes shrugged off his sling-bag and flung it to Qesf, then raced down the steps of the lodging-house, into the street.

The assassin was running into the Street of Two Plumes: this was a wide straight avenue, giving Khnemes a clear view of the archer as he fled. As Khnemes ran into the courtyard with his dagger drawn, suddenly he was surrounded by masked men with swords. They attacked him, and Khnemes had just enough time to see that he had blundered into the mock battle between the forces of Good and Evil: each set of warriors had mistaken Khnemes for a soldier on the other side of the battle. The legions of Horus and the legions of Set were all thwacking at Khnemes with their wooden swords, and he had to defend himself without harming these play-warriors who thought this was a game. “Sebenthen! Away, fools! Give me room!”

Harp-pluckers and flute-toodlers scattered as Khnemes rushed on down the Street of Two Plumes. He kept one eye towards the fleeing back of his quarry while he searched the crowds for the familiar grey kilts of the city’s constables. There’s never a policeman around when I need one, Khnemes thought angrily. He could see the assassin ahead, running westwards, with his longbow clutched fast in his left hand, and a bundle of arrows slung over his back. The masked bowman had a considerable start, but Khnemes swiftly narrowed the distance until he was close enough to observe a distinctive scar on the right shoulder of the hawk-masked assassin. Suddenly, at a crossroads ahead, the murderer turned leftwards and fled down a side street.

Khnemes cursed as he ran. Now he turned at the same crossing, and was met by two women in fishnets, who blocked his path while gesturing enticingly. “Tarry with us, proud Nubian,” said a wigged harlot, beckoning at him with her fingernails dyed in bright henna. “Does your dagger seek a sheath?” Khnemes lowered his weapon, and held his other hand empty to show these harlots that he had nothing to barter for their services. “Eunuch!” “Boy-lover!” the net-wenches cursed him as Khnemes rushed past.

In a street ahead, the bowman stumbled. His bundle of arrows came loose and scattered. He turned to face his pursuer, and Khnemes saw the eyes of the hawk-mask peering into his soul as the killer raised his weapon and flung it at Khnemes. The longbow fell into a puddle, as from round the corner a crowd of half-naked Egyptians in carnival masks came rushing towards some unseen revel. Up ahead, Khnemes heard distant drumbeats: Doom! Doom! The hawk-headed predator changed course, and vanished into the crowd.

Khnemes reached the puddle and snatched the longbow as he ran, hoping it might yield some clue to the killer’s identity. The crowd was moving towards the drumbeats. The murderer had vanished in the wave of celebrants . . . but his sudden invisibility meant that he was moving in the same direction as the crowd, or else his movements would be seen against the current of the mob. Khnemes ran along the edge of the throng, searching the sea of bright masks.

A face rolled past him in the gutter, and Khnemes recognized the hawk-faced mask of Horus: lost or flung away by the fleeing assassin. Khnemes reached to claim the mask, but a ragged boy snatched it and clapped the mask over his own head, then ran away whooping in triumph: “Enuk Heru! Mah’ethen! I am Horus! Behold ye all!” With an oath, Khnemes plunged into the throng, and the drumbeats grew louder as the mob of revellers reached a crossroads.

The crowded streets of Thebes became suddenly empty, and Khnemes felt a dark dread as he saw where he was: the killer had fled directly into the Avenue of Rams, the broad concourse of western Thebes leading to the docks of the Nile. The central portion of the avenue was clear, for the mobs had stepped back to make way for their god.

Forty chanting priests of Amun-Re came striding towards Khnemes, bearing on their high shoulders the immense golden Ship of the Sun while they intoned in unison the Hymn of Opet. From the prow of the sacred barque, a massive effigy of Amun-Re glowered down at his lowly disciples. Doom! Doom! Doom! beat the oncoming drums. At the head of the procession strode a tall man in the robes of a priest, his height made even more imposing by the high bottle-shaped headgear he wore: the Stethta, the White Crown of southern Egypt. Khnemes felt his heart turn cold with awe, for this man could only be Piankh-Himself, the High Priest of Thebes who had taken advantage of the civil wars to declare himself king of Egypt’s southern lands.

Doom! Doom! Doom!

Nine thousand citizens of Thebes stared at Khnemes, as he stood in the middle of the bare street with his dagger in one hand and a longbow in his other hand, while the Ship of Amun-Re came striding towards him.

“Seize him!” shouted someone in the crowd, and Khnemes saw a thousand outstretched hands pointing directly at him, while a thousand tongues cried sacrilege. “Seize the Nubian! He seeks to murder Amun-Re!”

The crowd swelled from the gutters on each side of the Avenue of Rams, and came menacingly towards Khnemes. All of them were . . .

No. One man was running away from Khnemes, and the sunlight gleamed against bright scar tissue on his right shoulder. Now that his hawk-mask was gone, Khnemes saw that the murderer had long shaggy dark hair: most unusual for an Egyptian. Khnemes turned from the oncoming barge of the sun-god, and ran after this man. Behind him came shoutings and curses, but he dared not turn to see if any of the mob were pursuing him . . .

Ahead loomed a high redstone pylon: the sentry-gate Kheft her-en-Nebset at the west edge of Thebes. “Seize that murderer!” Khnemes shouted to the sentries as the killer rushed past them. But the sentries merely stared blankly. The western quarter of Thebes was the temple district, and the Theban priest-guilds paid these sentries a daily wage of bread and beer to guard the western gate and protect the temples from vandals: those were their tasks, and none other. No Theban sentry would abandon his post, and leave the portals of the gods unprotected, for the sake of catching a mere murderer.

With a sudden inspiration, Khnemes shouted: “Ehi! That man attacked the Barque of Amun-Re! Seize him! Kefaythen ef!” As Khnemes ran through the gate, three sentries picked up their pikestaffs and joined the pursuit. Now Khnemes glimpsed a familiar kilt of coarse grey linen. He saw the sunlight gleaming on bronze-tipped truncheons, and he knew that several constables had joined the chase.

The sharp-scented tang of the Nile became strong in his nostrils as Khnemes reached the sixteen-step staircase Redu ni-Temi. The annual flooding of the Nile had begun, for already five steps were underwater as Khnemes hurried down the Nile-stairs. If the killer had a boat ready for his departure, then Khnemes would never find him. The number of barges and ferries on the Nile must be . . .

No! Thank the gods . . . or thank the calendar, for the stretch of river between Thebes and Karnak had been kept clear today for the Barque of the Sun-God. As Khnemes scanned the riverbank, he saw the entire vast Nile clear of vessels, except . . . ahai! . . . just north of the river-stairs, one desperate little washtub of a boat was moving away from the quayside.

“There he is!” Khnemes shouted. Several dockmen with gaff-hooks came forwards. The boatman had cast off, but now a long gaff-pole snaked out from the shore and caught his prow, as several constables arrived.

Khnemes came running up just as the dockmen were hauling their quarry ashore. He was a small rat-like man, with dark hair nearly to his shoulders and a scraggly beard. Yet he was well-dressed, in new-made sandals and a new kilt of white linen. Who is this man, and who is he to Perabsah? Khnemes wondered.

Two constables held fast the squirming bowman, while Khnemes sheathed his dagger and straightened his anhu wig. “Has this fellow committed a crime, Nubian?” someone asked.

The assassin’s bearded face quivered in rage. “Enuk Atur’meh!” he protested. “I am a free citizen of Lower Egypt!”

“Tu ma nikeh: you are a murderer, that’s what you are,” said Khnemes.

“One moment, Nubian.” From behind Khnemes, a constable strode forwards. He wore an armband displaying a docket of rank – he was a chief constable, then – and his tone was respectful as he examined the echelon curls of the short-naped wig that Khnemes wore. “You wear the wig of the Medchay, yet I have never known their bowmen to wield such a poor weapon.” The chief constable pointed: Khnemes was still holding the murderer’s discarded longbow. It was a crude weapon, made from several lengths of carved cassia-wood, splinted together and poorly balanced.

“The weapon is not mine: it is evidence,” said Khnemes, saluting this man while he unstrung the bow. “And I was of the Medchay. Enuk Khnemes, master bowman of the Chaut Sefekhnu: the Twenty-Seventh light infantry division, garrisoned at Per Nebes, near the Nile’s second cataract. At least, that is where I served longest.”

The policeman seemed impressed. “The Twenty-Sevens, you served with? Enuk Peth. I was a charioteer, Third Light-foots, the Encirclers. We fought alongside you in the Wauat uprising.” Chief Constable Peth saluted Khnemes, then jerked his thumb towards the rat-faced criminal. “Here, now: what’s all this, then?”

Khnemes took a deep breath. “This man has slain my lord sovereign, Perabsah. Or he has attacked him, at least: I gave orders for a physician to be summoned.” Khnemes scowled at the prisoner. “I would question this man, but first I must see to my master’s condition. I pray you: hold this prisoner against my return. He may have committed crimes against Thebes.”

“We will hold him for one day, at least . . . but then he must either be charged, or thrown back into whichever gutter spawned him.” Peth nodded to his subordinates. One constable seized the prisoner’s wrists, yanking them behind his back while another constable stepped forwards with a set of twist-cuffs. The prisoner’s hands were shackled, and Peth gestured northeast, towards the central courthouse of Thebes. “Take him away.”

Qesf stood at the entrance to the lodging-house. “It is all as you ordered, emir per. I sealed the doors with your khetem, front and back, while Huti summoned a physician. The doctor’s name is Hefren, and he is tending our master even now.” Qesf gave Khnemes a long cylindrical object with a handle at each end, like a baker’s rolling-pin. This was the khetem, the cylinder-seal which Qesf had taken from the sling-bag flung to him by Khnemes.

Khnemes reached the entrance to the lodging-house. The front doors were open, but the doors to the antechamber were tightly shut, and a slathering of clay had been smeared across the join between the doors. Three symbols were deeply pressed into the clay. Uppermost was the image of a man in a nobleman’s headcloth. Below this was the rectangular hieroglyph depicting a house. Lowermost was a picture of a bowl emitting rays of sunlight: this was the hieroglyph nubu, the symbol of gold. These three glyphs formed the crest of the house of Perabsah, whose family fortune was made in the Bendet goldfields. This unique sequence of symbols was produced only by the khetem seal of Khnemes when it was rolled into clay or soft wax. If another cylinder-seal were carved with these same three images, the impression would not be identical, and Khnemes would know it instantly for a counterfeit.

Khnemes inspected the clay seal. There were two impressions of Perabsah’s house-mark in the clay, one covering the other but not quite precisely aligned. The deeper impression – the one made first – was split at the top and bottom. So these doors had been opened after the first seal was made, then closed to receive the second image. “Qesf, you sealed these doors immediately after I pursued the murderer?”

The slave nodded. “Indeed, emir per. No one entered nor left. I broke the seal to admit the physician, then I resealed the doors. I have stood guard here ever since. Huti came for your khetem whilst I stood guard, and he brought it to Djeb at the other door.”

Leaving Qesf at his post, Khnemes circled round to the oxen-yard behind the lodging-house, then he entered the inn through the rear entrance. From upstairs came the sounds of female weeping: Merytast was lamenting amid her maidservants. Djeb was on guard at the stairs, and he pointed to the closed doors leading into the main hall. These too were sealed with the unique khetem-mark of Perabsah’s estate. Khnemes satisfied himself that this mark was unbroken. Now he inserted the blade of his dagger into the join between the doors, and broke the seal. He stepped into the scene of the crime.

Four men were in the central hall. One was the priest-scribe Uaf, squatting in a corner and looking impatient. At the far end of the room was the doorkeeper. In the centre of the room, slumped on the floor, were two men: the man unknown to Khnemes must surely be the physician Hefren.

The other man was Perabsah. The broken shaft of an arrow protruded from his chest. He lay in a puddle of blood, and his breath came in loud hawking gasps. Perabsah’s flesh was ash-pale, and his eyes were closed, but he was still alive.

Khnemes ran towards him, and knelt at the edge of the blood. “My lord sovereign! Doctor, how is he? And why do you not remove the arrow?”

Hefren scowled, and reached for a tool from the medical-case on the floor beside him. “If I remove the arrow, his wound will open. This man should be carried on a swift sledge to the nearest healing-house, where I have means to suppress his bleeding. Ehi, that reminds me.” Hefren gave Khnemes a golden earring. “Your master wore this. He no longer requires it.”

“Can I go now?” whined Uaf. “This is nothing to do with me. I only came here to read some cartonnage.”

“You will be paid for your time,” Khnemes vowed, as he went back to the physician. Perabsah’s chest wound was swathed in several strips of bloodied linen, with the arrow still protruding between them. “Can I help?” Khnemes asked.

Hefren shook his head. “Only the gods can help this man now. When your master fell, he struck the back of his head on the floor.” Hefren lifted his right hand, with two fingers coated in dark blood. “Your master’s gama – the temporal bone of his skull – has been fractured, and there is an injury to his brain. You see this?” With his clean left hand, Hefren gently skinned back the lids of Perabsah’s right eye, then his left. The pupil of Perabsah’s left eye was twice as large as the other. “When the kem of one eye is wider than its brother eye, the brain is filling with blood on that side,” Hefren explained. “This man’s chances are . . .”

“Khnemes!” cried Perabsah, opening both his eyes and trying to sit up.

“I am here, neb-i,” said Khnemes. “Sir, lie still. You must rest.”

“I will have centuries to rest,” said Perabsah, in slurred tones. “Khnemes! My wife becomes my heiress now; I die without a son. And I desire . . .” Perabsah coughed up a gobbet of blood, then continued: “. . . I desire that she bring home with her the broken mummy of my great-grandfather’s servant, for reburial on my lands.”

“It will be done, neb-i,” said Khnemes, genuinely moved by this dying request. Khnemes had always observed Perabsah to be a selfish man, yet now – on the threshold of death – Perabsah was concerned not only for his wife, but also for the restless soul of the murdered man Teknu: the mummy from the Plain of Loaves.

“Khnemes!” screeched Perabsah, trying to sit up yet restrained by the physician. “I hear the beating of wings: my death comes! But do not let me vanish!”

“ ‘Vanish’, my lord?” Khnemes asked.

Perabsah nodded heavily. “My life, my estates, and all the living souls who knew me . . . all of these are in Aneb Hetchet, in northern Egypt. Yet now I die . . .” – he coughed again – “. . . now I die in southern Egypt, as a foreigner.”

Perabsah was right, and now Khnemes understood the full horrible implications of Perabsah’s death in this place . . . in the wrong Egypt, where he was unknown.

“When no one remembers my name, I will vanish,” harshed Perabsah, his voice growing weak. “I will die here in Thebes, among strangers who will swiftly forget me. To die once is a certainty, Khnemes . . . but to die and be forgotten is the second death, the fate of the damned. I had always planned . . . ahuk! . . . I had planned to be buried with my father and grandfather, in the tomb on my estate, where those who knew me will see my name after my death.” Perabsah trembled now, and he clutched at Khnemes. “Faithful steward, you must make certain that . . . ahauk! . . . that my body is made ready for the afterworld . . . and then you must convey my mummy to my home in northern Egypt.”

Do I owe this man so much? Khnemes wondered. Must I make this last promise, and bind myself to his flesh even after his death?

“Khnemes!” said Perabsah in a whisper. “Fetch me home . . . ahuk! . . . to northern Egypt: the true Egypt of the pharaoh, not this festering cult-nest of the southern priests. Do not let my soul die in this place. Do not murder my soul!”

“I will do what must be done, heri sa’ur,” Khnemes answered. But he was thinking of his duties to the flesh-world, not the afterlife. Silently, Khnemes vowed that he must bring justice to Perabsah’s murderer. And, into the bargain, solve the ancient murder of Teknu.

Perabsah’s eyes rolled upwards in their sockets, and his eyelids closed. He fell back, with the arrow’s broken shaft protruding from the centre of his chest. Hefren caught the dead man, then placed him gently on the floor.

From abovestairs, Khnemes heard the sound of female wailing: the widow Merytast and her maidservants. The mourning had begun.

Perabsah’s shent kilt was disarrayed at his loins. Khnemes adjusted the garment . . . then he saw that the pouch at Perabsah’s waistband hung limp and empty. The emerald was gone! “Have you taken anything from my master?” Khnemes asked Hefren.

“Only his headcloth, which I tore into strips to make bandages,” said the doctor, calmly repacking his instruments into their case. “Is anything . . .”

“An emerald is missing,” said Khnemes. “It was the dead man’s property: under Egyptian law, it now belongs to his widow. It is missing. Djeb! Huti! Enter this room at once, through the back way.”

The two slaves entered, and Khnemes explained. Quickly, the scant items of furniture in the hall were examined: the emerald had not fallen behind any of these.

Qesf entered, as Huti and Djeb herded the physician, the sem-priest and the doorkeeper into the centre of the room. “A precious jewel has vanished from this room while the exits were sealed,” Khnemes told them. “Whoever took the emerald has probably conspired in my lord’s murder. Forgive the indignity, but all three of you must be searched. If you are innocent, you will be compensated for your time and for the liberties which I must take.”

“You dare suspect me?” Hefren asked. “I’m a doctor, not a jewel-thief! I gave you back his earring, didn’t I?”

“You did,” said Khnemes. “But sometimes a large crime is concealed behind a small honesty. The emerald is far more valuable than the earring. Please disrobe.”

“Tread carefully, Nubian,” said Hefren. “You are in Thebes now. I am more powerful in this city than you are.”

“Yes,” said Khnemes patiently. “You are a sunu, a respected surgeon and healer, whilst I am merely a retired soldier. You are better-known than I am in Thebes. And in the world beyond death, too: you are surely better known in the afterlife than I am, doctor . . . for between us, in our two professions, you have probably killed more men than I did. But in this room, at this moment, I am more powerful than you. Please disrobe.”

The doctor glared at Khnemes, while Qesf and Huti and Djeb flexed their arms. “Have your look, then.” Hefren took off his headcloth and kilt, and flung these angrily to the floor, keeping only a scrap of linen to wipe Perabsah’s death-blood off his fingers while he stood naked in his sandals. “Perhaps you will claim that I swallowed this precious stone?”

“The stone was as large as a man’s fist,” said Khnemes. “You are a sunu, not an unu: a doctor, not an ostrich. But might I examine your medical case?”

Hefren nodded angrily. With great interest, Khnemes examined the medical kit of an Egyptian surgeon. It was a rectangular cassia-wood case, with a shoulder-cord. Four rows of neat compartments filled the case. The first shelf held several white alabaster pots, with a line of black hieratic scrawled upon each: Khnemes could not read these, but his nostrils told him that these pots contained camphor-root, juniper, meadow-sweet, garlic, henna, liquorice and turmeric. The second shelf held copper knives, an obsidian drill, and a bone-saw. The third shelf contained an incense-lamp, some pastilles, a mortar and pestle. The last shelf held a balance scale, forceps, tweezers, and a pair of shears. Khnemes discovered that the entire set of shelves lifted out of the case to reveal another compartment beneath. This contained several papyri – probably medical texts – as well as linen dressings and a lacquered box slightly larger than a man’s fist. Hefren’s face reddened as Khnemes hefted this box and raised its hinged lid. Inside the box were a mes amulet to assist in childbirth, a bright red Isis-knot to ensure fertility, an utchat Horus-eye, a priapic charm and several other talismans.

Hefren looked embarrassed. “I don’t put much faith in those trinkets, but my patients expect a bit of magic with their medicines. Are you satisfied?”

Khnemes nodded. “My apologies to you, doctor, and my compliments to the craftsman who fashioned your medical kit.” Khnemes turned towards Uaf. “You are next.”

The unkempt sem-priest had already taken off his garments, proving that the emerald was not on his person. Gesturing at him to clothe himself, Khnemes examined the man’s Thoth-case: the proudest possession of an Egyptian scribe.

Uaf’s scribe-case was shiny with a bright coat of lacquer: the smudge-faced sem neglected his own appearance, yet he clearly took impeccable care of his writing-case. Like Hefren’s medical kit, the interior of the Thoth-case had several partitions. There were reed pens of various lengths and diameters, as well as uncut reeds and a flint blade. A drawstring bag contained a piece of sandstone and a scrap of pumice, worn smooth from their frequent use as erasers. The scribe’s ink-blocks were next. These consisted of ground pigments mixed into acacia-gum: a small ink-block of red ochre and a much larger one of black charcoal. Khnemes had observed that hieratic script was often written entirely in black letters, with red used only to mark the beginning of key texts, so it made sense that this scribe carried a much larger supply of black ink than of red. A small clay pot, for mixing the pigments in water, was here also. At the bottom of the scribe-case was a long wooden palette with slots and depressions, and a figurine of the ibis-headed god Thoth, inventor of writing.

Khnemes nodded to the scribe Uaf. “My apologies to you, also. Doorkeeper, you are next.”

The doorkeeper had already disrobed, revealing that he had only the door-seal of this house and two bronze keys on a chain. “I too should be suspected,” Qesf pointed out. “I was in this room after the murderer struck, and I administered the seals.”

“But you had time to hide the emerald elsewhere, so there is no point in searching you,” said the practical Khnemes. Yet this was very strange. The main hall was on the ground floor, so of course there were no windows. All the doors were sealed immediately after Perabsah was attacked . . . so, the emerald had vanished from this room while all the exits were sealed.

“This riddle must wait a while longer,” Khnemes said aloud. “I caught a fish in the river, but he has not been grilled yet. Qesf, give these men some honest barter for their time and their indignities. Gentlemen, please tell Qesf the names of the crossroads nearest your dwelling-places in Thebes, in case I need to speak with you later. Now I must interview a murderer.”

The central police-court of Thebes is where many journeys reach their endings, and where darker journeys begin. This red adobe building adjoins the Kamur, the central canal which runs west-to-east through Thebes . . . in fact, the hind section of the police station overhangs the canal’s southern wall. Some criminals of Thebes have speculated that the police-court has a trap door above the canal, so that the Theban police can dispose of inconvenient guests.

Khnemes was sitting on a stool, in a room that was otherwise bare except for two oil-lamps placed in niches in the wall. The lamps were needed for their light, because this room was underground. Above the lamps was a chimney-flue, admitting air from the street level above. The brickwork floor was ramped, tilting slightly southwards to the edge of the room nearest the canal. At this wall, the floor’s adobe bricks terminated in a drainage gutter.

Khnemes was facing north. From beyond the red adobe wall directly in front of him, he heard the nearby sounds of screaming, and the irregular rhythm of wood against flesh. Through the wall to his right, he heard someone sharpening a tool. From the room above him, there came through the brickwork the noises of sobbing and prayers to unnamed gods.

A door opened in the wall to his left, and Chief Constable Peth entered with his prisoner. The shaggy bowman’s hands were shackled behind his back. The prisoner’s linen kilt was stained. His feet were bare, and he walked painfully. In the lamplight, Khnemes saw bruises on the prisoner: clearly, the policemen’s batons had forced this man to play the grim sport which Egyptian criminals have named “smelling the stick”. Peth seized the bowman’s shoulders and pushed downwards, forcing him to kneel in front of Khnemes.

“Thank you, chief,” said Khnemes. “Remove his handcuffs, please.”

Peth arched an eyebrow at this breach of procedure. “Softly-softly, Nubian. If you weren’t a former Medchay – and serving the interests of a wealthy house – I wouldn’t let you see the prisoner at all. Well, it’s your lookout if he gets violent.” Peth tried to unbuckle the prisoner’s handcuffs, but the buckle was snagged on the stiff leather shackles. Peth took his dagger from his scabbard and used this to unbuckle the cuffs.

“We questioned him before you got here,” Peth went on, while the prisoner rubbed his chafed wrists. “He says his name’s Secheb, a humble fisherman from down north in the Prospering Sceptre district . . . and his accent’s northern, right enough. We can’t verify the rest.”

“Then let us see what can be verified.” Khnemes appraised the man’s beard and unkempt hair. “In Egypt’s hot climate, most men keep their heads shaven. Yet this man does not.” Khnemes thrust his hand into the bowman’s matted locks. “Ehui! What’s this?” Khnemes withdrew his hand quickly, cracking a sand-louse between his fingertips. More carefully this time, he probed the murderer’s greasy tresses again. “Here is something, chief . . . or a lack of something. Bring that lamp closer, please.” Peth fetched an oil-lamp from its niche, while Khnemes pulled back the bowman’s lanky hair.

Secheb’s right ear was missing. A thick whitish scar had formed where, long ago, the ear had been neatly sliced off. “So! You have one previous conviction, serious enough to bring a sentence of disfigurement,” Khnemes deduced. “But still a minor offence, as you have kept your other ear and your nose.”

“He’s probably a leg-stretcher,” said Peth, using the slang of the criminal world. “Takes his exercise climbing up and down the shafts of tombs. Sooner or later, all the grave-robbers in northern Egypt get word of the riper pickings in the tombs near Thebes, and they slime their way into our precinct. This likely lad must have got himself nicked for selling stolen burial-goods: that’s a lesser offence than getting caught in the act of tomb-robbing.”

Khnemes glared at the suspect. “Your ear-lack marks you as a thief, so you grow your hair long to conceal it . . . and you wear a beard so that your long hair seems to be the result of neglect rather than intent.” Khnemes reached for something on the floor behind his stool. “Here, catch!”

Khnemes flung something at the prisoner’s face, and Secheb instinctively raised his left hand to protect himself and catch the object. He found himself holding a cassia-wood longbow.

“That is the murder weapon. You see the hatrit?” In the lamplight, Khnemes pointed to the bow’s leather handgrip, which also served to support the arrow while it was nocked and aimed by the archer. “This hatrit shows a great deal of wear on the left side of the bow, where many arrows have rubbed against the leather, but the right side of the leather is scarcely worn. This longbow has been drawn, and used often, by a smehi: a left-handed man.”

Secheb had caught the bow with his left hand; now he dropped it as if it had river-plague. He tried to stand up, but Peth kept him kneeling. “All right, I’ll admit it: enuk smehi,” said Secheb. “But just because I’m left-handed doesn’t mean I’m an archer. I’m a fisherman, coming up-Nile to Thebes from the delta.”

“We found no nets or reed-traps in his boat,” Peth told Khnemes. “His boat didn’t stink enough to be a fishing-boat. Especially not from the delta, where all those foul marshlands are.”

“From the delta, you say?” Khnemes frowned. If this man was indeed from the Prospering Sceptre – the administrative district at the apex of the Nile’s delta – then Secheb and Perabsah might have met in northern Egypt. “Did you know my master?” Khnemes asked.

“I don’t know anyone in Thebes,” Secheb whined, in the flat nasal accent and pinched vowels of northern Egypt. “I’m from downriver. I was just coming up south to Thebes when your men grabbed me, and . . .”

“That’s a lie,” said Khnemes, leaning forwards. “A mast and a sail were in your boat: I saw them. But the mast was stowed beneath the thwarts, and your sail was furled. So you were travelling north, not south.”

This logic was merciless. The Nile’s great gift is that it enables transport in both directions. Northbound vessels strike their sails and stow their masts, allowing the Nile’s steady current to bear them downriver. Southbound vessels raise their sails, and allow the prevailing northerly wind of the Mehut to carry them upriver. Caught in his falsehood, Secheb said nothing.

“Why did you kill Perabsah?” Khnemes asked.

“I never met him,” said Secheb.

“That is an answer to a different question,” said Khnemes. “You are clearly unwealthed, for your speech and your bearing proclaim you are a labourer. Yet, when you were arrested, I saw that you wore expensive sandals, of new leather. Your kilt is new, and made of good white shent linen: I would expect a labourer to wear brown muslin. You dress well for a fisherman, especially one who has no nets.”

Secheb looked desperate. “Right, Nubian. I’ll tell all I know. Yesterday, during the revels, I met a man outside a wine-kiosk near the Street of the Sedge. He offered me three copper debenu if I would shoot someone with my longbow. He told me where to find the victim, and he kept a boat ready at the quay for my escape.”

Khnemes and Peth exchanged glances. A single qed’t of copper was an excellent day’s pay for an unskilled labourer; three debenu would buy many months of comfort. “Who was this man?” Peth asked the prisoner. “Describe his face.”

“I can’t!” Secheb whimpered. “He wore a revel-costume, with a mask. A bird’s face, it had: some sort of carrion-bird. He made a joke about robbing the tombs. He said tomb-robbers were like vultures or carrion-feeders. I think his costume was meant to resemble a bai.”

Khnemes looked up sharply. “A bai? A brown-necked raven?”

Secheb nodded mournfully, and began to weep.

“I’ll give you reasons to cry, you bastard,” said Peth. “I’ll see you go on the wood for this.” But Secheb was already crying, and Peth’s threat of a death-sentence by public impalement on a sharpened stake made no difference.

Khnemes felt hollow inside. This man had clearly slain Perabsah, but he was only an agent of the true murderer: a man in a raven’s disguise. One hundred years ago, Perabsah’s ancestor Rekhseth had sacrificed a brown-necked raven every night, in the goldfields. The bai was a very obscure bird in Egypt, not a totem in any cult known to Khnemes: surely, the murder of Perabsah and the murder of Teknu – a century apart – were somehow intertwined.

The language of Egypt is subtle, and it comprehends two different forms of time: the momentary, and the infinite. During Secheb’s arrest on the quays of the Nile, Khnemes had said to him: “Tu ma nikeh: you are a murderer.” It was true at that time and that place. Now Khnemes said the same thing, but the rules of Egyptian grammar compelled him to use different words to speak a different truth. “Netek nikeh: you are a murderer,” he told Secheb, “and this fact is truth for all eternity. It is your shadow now: it will follow you through all your days of life. It will travel with you on your journey to the afterworld, and it will stand alongside you in the Hall of Judgment. No matter where you go, your shadow cries ‘murderer’. One million years hence, this truth will endure: netek nikeh.”

Khnemes rose from his stool. “I have more questions, but the answers are elsewhere. Please take this killer away, chief constable.” Khnemes strode towards the door.

There was a clatter and a shout. Khnemes turned to see Secheb snatching at Peth’s dagger. Peth’s foot struck the oil-lamp beside him, snuffing the wick, and he cursed as hot oil splashed his leg. Khnemes rushed to aid the constable, just as Secheb broke free, with Peth’s knife in his left hand and ran across the cellar towards the chimney-flue. The light and shadows in the room swung madly as Secheb snatched the second oil-lamp from its niche with his right hand, and flung this at his pursuers. Khnemes saw Secheb raise the stolen dagger to his own throat . . . then the lamp struck the brick floor, and shattered. The cellar went dark.

“Don’t do it, man,” said Peth, in the darkness.

Khnemes heard a sharp gasp, then a gubbling sound . . . then a thud.

From somewhere in the dark came a howl through the walls: the voice of a criminal screaming a confession. But it was in another room, another crime. Nothing to do with the murder which Khnemes must solve. In the darkness, he felt his way towards the door.

At the lodging-house, Khnemes found Merytast garbed in mourning. Her finery and wig were put away: now she wore her plainest dress, with its hem torn picturesquely in three places. Her face-paint and smedyt were gone: her cheeks and hair were now daubed with a few discreet traces of mud.

When Khnemes entered the upstairs bedchamber where Perabsah and his wife had slept, several of Merytast’s attendants were gathering the belongings of their mistress for her journey downriver. Near the door, Khnemes saw the coffin-boat from the Plain of the Loaves. The broken mummy – surely he was the murdered labourer Teknu – was still crammed into his too-small coffin. The mummy looked more at peace now than when Khnemes had last seen him: his face seemed rather less distorted than before, and the distension of his belly had lessened.

“I am surprised, my lady,” said Khnemes to Merytast, “to find this mummy cloistered in your private rooms.”

“This is a lodging-house, not my boudoir,” said Merytast. “My husband desired to bring this mummy home to our estate, to be entombed respectfully. This man served Rekhseth faithfully, and so he merits honour. Perabsah was Rekhseth’s sasasa – the son of his son of his son – and so he inherited that debt of honour . . . which now passes to me, as his widow and the mother of his son.”

“My lady?” asked Khnemes, who knew that Perabsah was childless.

“I had not yet told my husband that I bear his child. You see this vessel?” Merytast beckoned to one of her maids, who fetched a clay pot filled with earth containing brief sproutings of grain. “Here are seeds of barley and wheat. Each day when I awaken, I pass my morning-water over this soil. The barley has languished, but the wheat has prospered . . . so I know that the child in my womb is a son, not a daughter.”

This womb-wisdom was of no matter to Khnemes. “Neb’t-i, can you think of anyone who wished your husband slain? Is there a grudge . . . possibly going back to the time of Rekhseth?”

Merytast shook her head. “My husband had wealth, and such men always have enemies. In recent days, our estate’s wealth has dwindled, yet my husband’s enemies endure. Beyond that, I know nothing.”

Khnemes gestured towards the mummy. “If Perabsah felt a blood-debt to retrieve this mummy, why did he wait so long? Ten years ago, when your husband was wealthy and Egypt was not yet divided, Perabsah might have ventured to Thebes in safety. Why did he make this quest now? The civil wars along the border between the two Egypts have made our journey perilous. Why did Perabsah risk his own life and yours to honour a debt to the dead? I knew your husband, neb’t-i. Perabsah was not inclined to honour his own debts . . . much less the obligations of his ancestors.”

“Think you?” Merytast’s tone became suddenly less gracious. “Then you knew not my husband at all. Perabsah’s heart brimmed with charity and honour. Now he begins his journey to the afterworld. The god Anubis will escort him through the doorway Khersek-Shu and usher him into the Hall of Judgment, the coffin-shaped room where Osiris reigns as Lord of the Underworld, sitting in counsel with the forty-two demons who are the Judges of the Dead. While the demons bear witness, Perabsah must undergo the Weighing of the Heart. Anubis will take my husband’s heart from his reborn and transformed body, and place it on the balance scales . . . weighing it against Ma’at, the goddess-feather of Truth. If Perabsah’s heart weighs heavy with sins and unpaid debts, then it will be thrown to the monster Amemit, who will devour it and cause Perabsah’s damnation. But I tell you, Khnemes, that my husband’s heart will be weighed in the balance with Truth, and judged to be feather-light and virtuous . . . and the doors to the afterworld will swing wide to admit him. And now, steward, I have a task for you.”

Khnemes nodded. “It is begun, my lady. I seek your husband’s murderer.”

“What? No; something more important. Perabsah’s earthly remains – his kha’t – must be conveyed down-Nile for entombment on his family’s estate. But the journey to Aneb Hetchet takes three days by barge, and Perabsah’s flesh would be corrupted by then. I have arranged for a guild of embalmers here in Thebes to prepare my husband’s body for the journey home . . . and for his longer journey to the afterworld. Faithful steward, I require that you tarry here in Thebes and oversee the process of my husband’s mummification, whilst I and my retainers go home with the mummy of this servant Teknu. After my husband is properly embalmed, it will be your task to escort Perabsah’s mummy homewards to our estate.”

To the mind of Khnemes, the task of finding Perabsah’s murderer was more urgent than the readying of his mummy. Khnemes began to protest, but Merytast silenced him: “Yes, my steward, I sense your concerns. I lack the wealth to pay your wages during the seventy days of Perabsah’s embalming. Fear not, Khnemes: I have arranged for you to enter the priesthood of a local uabet, as an apprentice embalmer.”

This was not at all to his liking: Khnemes had been suddenly stripped of his livelihood. But a thought occurred to him: by remaining in Thebes, he might perhaps be able to find Perabsah’s killer . . . if the villain was still in Thebes.

Khnemes bowed, reluctantly. “It will be done, sovereign-my-lady.”

“Excellent. Then report to the uabet in the Street of the Four Sons. In six weeks’ time, when the embalming-rituals are nearly completed, I shall send a messenger to Thebes with arrangements for your return downriver with my husband’s mummy. Have you any questions?”

“Two, my lady.” Khnemes studied Merytast’s face intently. “Do you know of any sect in Egypt which sacrifices a brown-necked raven?”

“A bai?” Merytast frowned. “I am quite certain there is no such cult. The death of a bird is an omen of doom, in all corners of Egypt. Birds are the emissaries between the earth and the heavens. Some cults worship specific birds, and will mummify a bird if it has died a natural death. But to kill a bird wilfully, for the whim of a god?” Merytast shook her head. “Non wun mun’et-ef: there is no such thing. You had another question for me?”

“Aye, my lady,” said Khnemes. “When did you learn how to read?”

Merytast gasped. “How did . . .”

Khnemes pointed to the mummy. “You knew that this man’s name is Teknu. That name comes from the cartonnage which your husband found, and which he left on the offering-table where you have seen it. But Perabsah could not read the name: he sought to hire a scribe to read the fragments. Perabsah would never have paid a single deben of copper for any scribe’s hire if he knew that his own wife possessed scribe-wisdom.”

Merytast seemed impressed. “You are clever, my steward. You recall that our household’s scribe Seshem died recently, midway through his long task of unjumbling the archives of my husband’s ancestors? Before his illness, Seshem had taught me some of the scribe-truths, without my husband’s knowledge. I have the scribe-wit of a third-year apprentice. Yes, I did read the cartonnage last night. Now, go: prepare my husband for his journey.”

The Street of the Four Sons – in the eastern quarter of Thebes, near the canal – was far from the Opet festivities . . . so the streets were nearly deserted when Khnemes came in search of the embalming-house. He was caught unaware by a shout from behind him: “Ho, Nubian!”

Khnemes turned. He was alone, except for a few stray geese. Behind Khnemes stood a bare wall of dressed granite, with four oracle-masks sculpted into the stone. So this place was a temple, then: the temple for which this street was named. The masks depicted a falcon, a jackal, a baboon and a man with a plaited beard . . . the faces of the mesu-Heru: the four sons of Horus, the patron gods of embalming who also represented the four quarters of the world. All four faces hung silently with their eyes and mouths closed. The human-faced deity Masety ruled the south, so here in Thebes and in all of southern Egypt he was the most favoured son of Horus. Khnemes stepped towards the man-faced mask: “Did you speak, lord?”

The god’s eyes opened, and regarded him, and a deep voice rumbled from within the wall: “I know your mission, Nubian. You served the murdered northerner, and now you are charged to shepherd his remains on their journey.”

Khnemes had seen oracle-masks used before, but never so effectively as this. A priest was standing on the far side of the wall, his face within the concave inner surface of Masety’s mask. Some trick of indirect lighting – a candle, a mirror – threw a bright glow between the priest and the wall, lighting the oracle-mask from within and making the priest’s eyes seem truly to inhabit the eyeholes of the god-mask. Some trick of acoustics magnified the priest’s voice, and sent it rumbling from the oracle’s mouth. Even Khnemes, who knew this for a priest-trick, felt a shudder of awe as he stood before this artificial god. “Yes, Lord Masety. I was told to offer myself at a uabet in this street.”

“Then hear me, Nubian. You can trust no one in Thebes except a man named Besek. He will help you find the answers you require.” The god-voice spoke in the sibilant accent and broad vowels of southern Egypt: an appropriate choice for an actor depicting the god of the south.

“Are you Besek?” Khnemes asked.

The god’s eyes shifted in their eyeholes. “Do not utter Besek’s name to any man, for he is shunned. He will proclaim himself to you, within the temple.”

The god’s eyes went dark, and the god’s mouth fell silent.

Khnemes presented himself at the temple’s front door, proclaiming his own name in Merytast’s service. The tall doorkeeper did not deign to look at him, but made a rude gesture over one shoulder. Khnemes understood, and went round to the rear entrance.

Behind the main temple was the uabet: the embalming-house of this particular cult. Khnemes spoke his name again to a less imposing doorman, who permitted him to enter. Two shaven police-priests of Amun-Re stood in the vestibule, flanking a statue of the reigning god of Thebes. “Hold, Nubian,” said one police-priest, brandishing the staff of authority which was also his cudgel. “If you soul kindles any spark of rebellion, turn and depart. If you accept the disciplines of Amun-Re, step forth and enter.”

I’ve lost my job, and I have no other prospects, Khnemes thought. I might as well do this, if it offers the chance to find Perabsah’s murderer. He stepped over the threshold.

“You will remove – here and now – all keepsakes of your former life.” The second police-priest pointed to the scabbard Khnemes wore at his belt. “That weapon, to begin with. Your sandals: leather, are they? Animal flesh is unclean, and cannot be purified. And your wig: it is Medchay, I think? Yes, the wig is short-naped: we do not tolerate such military trophies here. Your garments too: come, give them up. When you have surrendered your past life, and been cleansed, you will be given fresh clothes.”

An hour later – scrubbed and shaved – Khnemes stood naked before three teacher-priests, who gave him his indoctrination. The temples of Egypt are closed at all times to everyone except for high royalty and the priests themselves. There is one exception: on the feast-days of any specific god or goddess, worshippers may enter the temples consecrated to that particular deity. “It is only because you come to us during the sun-god’s festival Opet that we will tolerate your presence in this house of Amun-Re,” said one teacher-priest, in a tone suggesting that Khnemes should faint with gratitude.

“You will assist in purifying the temple and the embalming-chamber,” said the second teacher-priest. “You will be given vestments suited to your role, and a place to sleep. You may eat of such foods as are rejected by Lord Amun-Re, and disdained by all the priests above you.”

“Normally,” said the third priest, “applicants to our priesthood must submit to a long period of discipline and education. Yet we know that in seventy days’ time you will return to northern Egypt with the mummy of your sovereign. So, you will undertake only such training as required to fulfil your tasks among us. When your employer’s mummy is ready, we will give you back your possessions, and send you on your way.”

And now it began. Khnemes was required to swear loyalty to Nebwenen’f, the heri uab: the high priest of this mortuary. He was then given a kilt of coarse muslin to wear, and sandals woven from fibres of sedge. Khnemes was assigned to sweeping the floors, scouring the incense-burners, rinsing the toilet-pots of the priests, and other rituals of purification. He was also tasked with expunging the constant flow of messes in the embalming-chamber.

In the embalming-room, Khnemes beheld the dirty underside of Egypt. He learnt, for instance, that most corpses to be mummified were brought to the uabet as swiftly as possible . . . except for the mortal remains of women and girls who died reasonably intact: these are kept in their families’ households, and not brought to the embalming-house until their corpses have begun to moulder. Even the priests of Egypt are known to have profane urges.

Thrice daily, the priests fed the statue of Amun-Re. Banquets of food, supplied by the faithful, were set before the large effigy of the sun-god in the temple’s main hall. The god’s essence inhabited this graven image whenever it suited Amun-Re’s purpose. After the god consumed the essence of the food, the priests were entitled to eat the mortal shell of the food itself. The highest priests ate first, then the acolytes, then lastly the temple’s menials. Khnemes ate whatever remained when all the others had eaten. By day, Khnemes was kept busy scrubbing and scouring: this technically made him a “priest” of the lowermost grade. By night, he slept on a pallet in the priest-barracks.

The gods speak to men while they sleep. At night, Khnemes beheld fitful dreams in which he stood naked in front of a high wall inscribed with hieroglyphics . . . god-texts, which he knew not how to read. Carved figures moved across the wall in profile, mocking him through sidelong mouths: Perabsah, the mummy Teknu, the dead bowman Secheb. A weird figure capered before Khnemes, taunting him: a raven’s head on a man’s body, clutching an emerald. Khnemes awoke, shuddering and perspiring, certain that all the clues to the crime were before him . . . like fragments of papyrus from an incomplete scroll, which could never be rejoined.

Khnemes performed all his tasks in the uabet, and learnt all that he could from his fellow priests. At night, in the priest-barracks, his guild-brothers told him of their own experiences before they entered the priesthood. One acolyte of this temple had formerly laboured in Egypt’s goldfields. A lector-priest knew some facts about ravens. Another acolyte had some knowledge of gemstones. All of these wisdoms, Khnemes hoarded . . . as the many skeins of the mystery began to form a tapestry.

On the third day after Khnemes began his priesthood, there was a commotion in the uabet. Khnemes was cleaning a fouled natron-tub when several embalmer-priests clustered round the table on which was placed a m’at: a cadaver made ready for mummification. Khnemes recognized the dead man. Perabsah’s corpse had been washed and anointed, but there was a stark wound in the centre of his chest: the dark puncture where the murderer’s arrow had struck him.

One priest held a scribe’s reed-brush dipped in black ink. The other priests made room as he approached the mummy-table. An acolyte held a basket filled with stones, and several priests selected some of these. Khnemes noticed one priest, dressed more shabbily than his fellows, who stood aside from the rest. This man skulked past Khnemes, and whispered: “Enuk Besek.”

The scribe-priest approached Perabsah’s corpse. His eyes appraised the dead body while he intoned several ritual prayers, then he extended his brush and painted a black Eye-of-Horus on Perabsah’s lower abdomen, to the left of his navel. This priest swiftly withdrew.

Now the man named Besek approached the corpse, and all the priests made a great show of averting their gaze, hissing, and holding their noses. “The shun-priest!” said one man, in tones of contempt. “The ripper!” cried another.

From the folds of his robe, Besek drew a curved obsidian knife. He raised this high, and then . . . stabbed the corpse, his blade piercing the eye of Horus.

“Faugh! Away!” Shouting curses and insults, the priests flung their stones at Besek, who pulled his robe over his face, then turned and fled. As soon as Besek was gone, the priests gave their full attention to Perabsah’s corpse. Swiftly, Khnemes gathered his scouring-implements and went after Besek.

The shun-priest had run to the temple’s rear portal. “Away with you, ripper! Never return!” said the doorkeeper, aiming a foot at Besek’s backside as he departed. The doorkeeper eyed Khnemes suspiciously, but Khnemes pretended to be scouring the temple’s outer wall. When the doorkeeper’s back was turned, Khnemes hurried down the Street of the Four Sons.

He found Besek outside a chariot-yard, near the Kamur canal. “Each time, they tell me never to return,” said Besek bitterly. “What they mean is, I must never return until the next time they need me.”

“What is your place in all this?” Khnemes asked.

“I am the shun-priest, the ripper,” said Besek. “Nubian, do you not know the taboos of Egypt? To debase a corpse – even for high reasons – is the deepest profanity. When a cadaver is readied for embalming, no priest dares to pierce the corpse’s flesh . . . so I must make the first incision. The embalmers shun me and stone me for this, and call me unclean. After I make the first cut, the mummy-priests can then hack the corpse to their hearts’ content. I have the dirty job that no man wants . . . yet none can fulfil their holy tasks until I first profane the dead.”

“My master died with a hole near his heart,” Khnemes said. “Perabsah’s chest was already penetrated by an arrow; the mummy-priests could have widened that cut without your help.”

Besek shook his head. “Never argue with rituals. The first incision into the m’at is always made to the left of the navel. The scribe-priest is honoured, for he paints the protective symbol of the Horus-eye on the corpse where the first cut must be made. But then I, the ripper, I am cursed and stoned by the priests . . . because I make the necessary cut. Take heed, Khnemes: if you are seen with me, the priests will call you by filth-names, and evict you from their mummy-shop.”

“You know me. How?”

“Your name precedes you, Nubian. It is known that you seek a murderer.”

Khnemes nodded. “Do you know who hired Perabsah’s assassin?”

“I know not, brother.”

“Was it you who spoke to me through the face of the god Masety?”

Besek nodded. “I wanted to warn you: the priest-guild which controls this mummy-house is corrupt. On the same day that a servant of your mistress Merytast arranged for your employment in this uabet, another man came here with a similar mission. For a small bribe, he persuaded the guild’s priests to admit him to their order and apprentice him in the arts of embalming.”

“What did he look like? What is his name?”

“I know not,” said Besek again. “I stood at the threshold of the uabet when I chanced to hear this man conversing with the teacher-priests. I heard his voice, distorted through the wall: he spoke in the accents of northern Egypt, but I would not know his voice if I heard it plainly.”

“Thank you, brother,” said Khnemes. “Why do you help me in this?”

Besek spat angrily. “Do you know what it is to be a shun-priest? No landlord grants me a lodging-place, no taverner lets me drink beneath his roof. I sleep in a filthy barge in the Kamur canal. The high-nosed embalming-priests sneer at my profane task, yet their own sacred deeds would be impossible if I did not precede them in their procession of the dead.”

“Why did you take such a job?” Khnemes asked.

“Someone must always be the shun-priest,” said Besek. “I entered this priest-guild with hopes for myself. I did as I was told: I cursed the man who was shun-priest before me, and I helped to throw stones at him. One day, assisting in the mummification of a highborn lady, I overstepped myself. The other embalmers had cut out her liver and lungs, to be cleaned and then placed within ritual urns. In my zeal to assist, I cut out her heart. That was a mistake. As penance for my error, I was offered a choice: expulsion from the priest-guild, or shameful service ever after as the shun-priest.”

“I know little of Egypt’s mummies,” said Khnemes. “When the entrails are removed for embalming, is not the heart also removed with its brethren?”

“In older centuries this was done, but no longer,” said Besek. “The heart is the dwelling-place of the soul: it must be kept intact within the kha’t of the deceased. If the embalmers damage the mummy’s heart, it must be repaired before the mummy’s chest cavity is closed. The heart of a dead man – or woman, or child – is kept safe within the mummy’s body until the deceased has crossed over into the afterworld and reached the Hall of Judgment . . . where the god Anubis then places it in the Scale of Truth, to be reckoned in the Weighing of the Heart.”

Khnemes said nothing. He had left the farmlands of Kush long ago, yet many of Egypt’s beliefs still seemed alien to him.

“I will help you catch this killer, if I can,” Besek told him. “And I am shunned, so any scraps of friendship – even a few atu of time spent with a despised Nubian – are like a long cool drink for me. But take care that you are not seen with me, or the shunning will consume you as well.”

Besek drew his priest-robe across his face, and hurried away.

Khnemes had many duties in the embalming-chamber: he was the janitor-priest, and this room was the messiest in the uabet. He observed the faces of the mummy-priests, wondering which of them was the false acolyte who had bribed his way into this temple. In the constant god-gabble of chants and prayers in the embalming-room, Khnemes strained to hear one voice which spoke in northern accents.

Perabsah’s corpse had been cleaned and anointed. The shun-cut – the first incision, leftwards of the dead man’s navel – had been widened and enlarged. Khnemes was present when Perabsah’s entrails – his liver, gall bladder, lungs, stomach, intestines and colon – were removed. With appropriate rituals, these organs were washed, preserved in mummy-salts and swathed in linen. For many centuries, Egypt’s embalmers had traditionally stored their subjects’ entrails in four jars, representing the sons of Horus and the four quarters of the earth. Yet in the past three years, because of the schism of Egypt into two separate nations, this custom had changed. Neither half of Egypt comprised both north and south: therefore, it was now deemed dangerous to consign any person’s entrails to four separate quarters. The bundled viscera were placed in a trough of natron to become desiccated and purified: later, they would be returned to Perabsah’s chest cavity along with figurines of the appropriate gods.

Errors were made in the embalming. Perabsah’s gegtui – the two large bean-shaped organs in his lower back, which produced his bladder-water – were supposed to remain in his corpse, undisturbed, as was his heart. Khnemes was present in the early morning when an apprentice embalmer – intending to remove Perabsah’s lungs – accidentally nicked Perabsah’s right kidney with his copper blade. The sliced kidney was stitched shut again with cotton thread, while the priests intoned prayers and god-apologies, and a patch of papyrus was then applied. Late in the forenoon, Khnemes noticed between tasks that similar stitching and patching had now been applied to Perabsah’s injured heart, and the arrow-wound in his chest was now cosmetically repaired. Khnemes watched as linen bags, filled with natron, were packed into Perabsah’s chest cavity to absorb his body fluids.

In early afternoon, Khnemes contrived to leave the temple without arousing attention, and once again he met Besek at the chariot-yard. Pretending not to know each other, the two men walked between two separate rows of chariots, never meeting each other’s eyes while they spoke in hushed tones.

“Are you any closer to catching your criminal?” Besek asked.

“No,” said Khnemes. “He was in the temple, I am certain . . . but now he has probably left Thebes. And gone where?” Khnemes doubled his fists bitterly. “There are as many hiding-places in Egypt as there are sands in the desert.”

“Why do you remain in the uabet, then?” asked Besek.

“I have no other livelihood. Since I have failed to catch Perabsah’s killer, I should at least give my lord sovereign one final dignity: I will stay in Thebes until Perabsah’s mummy is made ready, and then I will convey him northwards to his estate.”

“Ehi. Of course.” Besek’s tone implied that he was nodding in agreement, but Khnemes dared not look towards the shun-priest’s face. “You are taking him home for the Opening of the Mouth.”

“The what?” Khnemes very nearly did look up. “You mean the Weighing of the Heart.”

“No, Nubian. The Weighing of the Heart is a myth, a superstition. It supposedly takes place in the afterworld, under the watchful eyes of Osiris and Anubis in the Hall of Judgment . . . if you believe that sort of thing.” Besek’s voice suggested that the shun-priest did not believe the rituals of his own temple. “The Opening of the Mouth occurs here, in the world of the living. It is a death-ritual, known in Egypt for centuries, but only royalty and wealthy families can arrange it for their deceased. It requires a ritual blade, forged of bi’a nepet: iron that fell from the sky in a meteorite. The Opening of the Mouth is so elaborate a god-charade, I do not wonder that you have never witnessed it.”

“Describe this Opening of the Mouth,” said Khnemes, speaking from the side of his own mouth so that no passing witness might see him conversing with the shun-priest.

“When your master Perabsah has been fully mummified, his mummy must be conveyed to the tomb where his body will rest eternally,” Besek explained. “At the tomb’s entrance, a priest and a scribe will perform certain rituals. The eyes of the mummy will be opened – symbolically, not truly – and his mouth and ears and nostrils will be symbolically opened as well . . . so that the dead man will be able to speak and retain all his senses in the afterlife. Just before the mummy is entombed, the priest with his knife makes a pretend-cut to a cord above the mummy’s navel, as if the dead man were a newborn baby . . . thus betokening his rebirth in the afterworld.”

Khnemes looked up sharply. In his haste, he forgot not to look at the shun-priest: Khnemes saw Besek’s eyes, and now suddenly Khnemes grasped the truth.

“The docks!” Khnemes said. “Quickly! What is the swiftest route to the harbour of Thebes?”

This question caught Besek unawares. “Ehi? Well, usually the Avenue of Rams, but today it is thronged with Opet-revellers, and . . .”

“Your barge!” Khnemes seized the shun-priest’s arm, no longer caring if anyone witnessed this. “You said you live on the canal? Prepare to cast off your vessel! I must return to the uabet for a moment, but I will join you. Be ready!”

A few brief atu later, both men were in Besek’s quarters: a flat-decked canal barge, with a single enclosed cabin. Khnemes seized a bargepole while Besek cast off, and then the barge drifted west towards the Nile. Only when the craft was underway, with both men poling rapidly, did Khnemes explain himself. While Besek navigated the canal, shouting at bathers and laundry-maids to keep clear, Khnemes described the basic facts of the mystery while he worked his bargepole furiously. After the preliminaries, he continued:

“The wealth of Perabsah’s house began a hundred years ago, with his ancestor Rekhseth,” Khnemes explained. “But Rekhseth was an overseer in the goldfields. How did a humble overseer become wealthy?”

“Some of the gold stuck to his fingers,” suggested Besek.

“No; there were sentries at the work-camps to prevent this. But each day, Rekhseth came into the camp with a raven in a cage. Each night he sacrificed it in a secluded place, and left the work-camp with his cage empty. The next day, another. Did Rekhseth have enough bird-nets to snare a steady supply of brown-necked ravens?”

“Ahai!” Besek smacked his forehead. “They were all the same raven! Do not ravens steal shining objects? I see it now: each night, Rekhseth gave his raven a gold nugget, and . . .”

“No. Gold nuggets are heavy. But I have learnt something recently: in the goldfields near the Red Sea, emeralds have been found. A small uncut emerald is far more precious than a large gold nugget . . . and lighter, too.” Khnemes shifted course as a swimmer darted in front of their barge. “Rekhseth used a trained raven to smuggle emeralds out of the work-camp. His raven was trained to fly overhead, beyond the sentries, to a secret place outside the work-camp where Rekhseth could accumulate one emerald each night.”

“A hoard of emeralds would attract attention,” said Besek.

“Indeed. The bandits on Egypt’s roads will waylay travellers and search them for valuables. That is why Rekhseth murdered Teknu . . . or arranged his murder. Rekhseth hid the emeralds in Teknu’s corpse. The insect bites proved that Teknu’s corpse was kept unmummified for several days. One of the scribes in the work-camp wrote something on a papyrus: something about Teknu’s death, that might incriminate Rekhseth. Plastered papyrus – utau – is a cheap way to wrap a mummy, so Rekhseth thought of a scheme to destroy the evidence and use that same evidence to keep anyone from examining Teknu’s corpse: he stole the scribe’s papyrus, turned it into a shroud of cartonnage, and then stitched the shroud around Teknu’s body. After Teknu’s corpse was taken out of the work-camp and past the King’s sentries, the dead man was cut open and eviscerated, and then his chest cavity was filled with Rekhseth’s uncut emeralds. The emeralds were safe inside Teknu’s body; few Egyptians would dare to profane a corpse. Even tomb-robbers shun a mummy who seems too poor to possess any death-wealth.”

“But if Teknu’s corpse was stuffed with emeralds,” Besek asked, “why didn’t Rekhseth ever reclaim them?”

“He did reclaim them,” said Khnemes. “Rekhseth’s wealth came from the stolen emeralds. Then he arranged for Teknu’s burial in the Plain of the Loaves . . . in a labourer’s tomb that would attract no attention, yet plainly marked in case Rekhseth needed to return later.”

“I don’t understand,” said Besek, poling faster. “After Rekhseth got the emeralds past the King’s sentries and the bandits, why would he still need Teknu’s mummy?”

“Let us set that aside for now,” said Khnemes. “Think upon this: Perabsah’s household contains many papyri, never properly archived. Recently, the household scribe Seshem began to catalogue these documents. He died suddenly, and soon thereafter Perabsah made plans to journey to Thebes. Somewhere in Perabsah’s jumbled archives, his scribe Seshem must have found a document which revealed the facts of Teknu’s murder . . . and the reason why his mummy was preserved.” Khnemes paused. “In the Plain of the Loaves, I mentioned that the child-coffin was strangely heavy, and Perabsah at once became tense when I said this: he knew that something heavier than a man was inside the coffin. When his slaves opened the coffin, Perabsah flung his hand in front of my face. There was a reason for that. He did not know precisely what was inside the coffin: he did not want me to look until he had seen for himself. But when his slaves tore the cartonnage, Perabsah knew that something important might be written on its fragments. When the wind scattered the papyri, Perabsah shouted at us to gather all the pieces . . . yet he flung away one scrap when he saw that it was blank. He didn’t want the papyrus; he only wanted the writing on it.”

Now the barge reached a sluice-gate: this quarter of Thebes was far from the Street of the Four Sons, and no resident here would recognize Besek as a shun-priest. He drew his monk-hood away from his face, and he poled more rapidly, while Khnemes took up a new thread:

“I met many people in Thebes. Some of them recognized me for a Medchay when they saw the short nape of my wig. From the front, the anhu of the Medchay looks identical to many wigs of Egypt: only the bowman’s nape is different. But one man identified me as a Medchay when he saw me only from the front. He was a fekhet-monk, named Nask.”

Besek looked up sharply. “A fekhet? A monk of Hathor? He must be quite busy during the Opet festival, then. This year, it falls within Hathyr: the month consecrated to Hathor.”

This news startled Khnemes so much that he nearly dropped his bargepole. “No, ‘Hathor’ is your Egyptian name for our Nubian goddess Athrua. The Egyptian month of Hathyr is named for Heru, the hawk-god Horus: ‘Hathyr’ means ‘Chamber-of-Horus’.”

“Aye, Nubian,” said Besek. “But ‘Chamber-of-Horus’ is another name for our goddess Hathor. A true fekhet-monk would be busy in Hathor’s temple all that month.”

Khnemes regained his bargepole. There were so many deities in Egypt, no one could know all their intimate secrets. “That fits my evidence,” he said. “Nask was no priest of Hathor: he told me that the fekhet-monks would be idle during Amun-Re’s festival, yet he did not reckon that this year the Opet fell within Hathor’s month. But he knew me for a Medchay, without seeing my nape. He knew me, and he knew why I had come to Thebes. He knew that Perabsah might find ancient documents – important ones – in Teknu’s tomb. Nask was waiting for me outside Perabsah’s lodging-house . . . ready to offer scribe-services to a man who had found a papyrus.”

“Who is this Nask, and how does he know these secrets?” asked Besek.

Khnemes bent over the side of the barge as he worked his long pole. “Nask is no one: he invented himself. When he stood up, he seemed strangely tall in proportion to his arms and body. Sandals are made of leather or sedge . . . but Nask’s sandals made a clattering sound against the tiles, as if his shoes had soles of wood. Then he lost his balance, as if unaccustomed to standing so tall . . . and he put his hand to his fekhet-tonsure, as if it might fall off.”

“The tonsures of the fekhetu never fall off,” said Besek. “They grow their hair long all round, and shave it bare at the top.”

“Nask was a disguise, not a man,” said Khnemes. “He wore wooden soles to increase his height, and draped himself in a long kilt and a longer monk-cloak to conceal that his stature was false. His tonsure was a wig: the clean-shaven pate was pigskin, or warm beeswax smoothed over his scalp, or some other falsehood to conceal that his head was not recently shaved. He only needed to deceive me for a few minutes in the dark. But he had to deceive me, because he was someone I had seen before . . . or would meet again. Nask only needed to deceive me for a few minutes while he read the cartonnage, and he gained from it one secret which he kept back when he read the papyrus to me: there were still emeralds inside Teknu’s mummy.”

Besek shook his head. “If Rekhseth went to so much trouble to steal emeralds, why would he leave some of them inside a dead man?”

The barge changed course here, to avoid a squadron of washerwomen, and Khnemes gave only an indirect answer: “I have lately learnt that mica is found wherever emeralds are mined. Perabsah lied when he said he bought that emerald in the marketplace. He found the emerald – and probably many more uncut emeralds – inside Teknu’s mummy, with some stray mica among them. Teknu’s belly was less distended the second time I saw him, because Perabsah had removed some emeralds from the dead man’s body.”

They were reaching the westward terminus of the canal now, but Khnemes never slackened the pace of his bargepole as he continued: “On the morning of Perabsah’s murder, a scribe came to him named Uaf. He was shorter than Nask. Nask kept a tray of incense burning; when I moved towards him, he held the smoking tray near his face so that I could not see his mouth plainly. I did not realise that the pungent incense was meant to conceal another odour. When Nask read the cartonnage, he held it under his nose to hide his mouth. Uaf, also, kept shielding his face from me. He had not expected me to meet him in both his disguises . . . but I saw that he had wretched teeth and foul breath. Uaf claimed to be a sem, but the priests of Ptah are not the only men of Egypt who grow a long sidelock. Uaf could have wrapped his sidelock round the back of his head, to tuck it inside the tonsure-wig he wore when he was Nask.”

Besek gasped. “This grows astonishing, Nubian.”

“It grows more so. Uaf was filthy and unshaven: he needed to be, so that Perabsah would not recognize him. Uaf knew Perabsah: knew him well enough to expect that Perabsah would be half-drunk on a festival day, drunk enough not to recognize a disguised enemy. Uaf was slovenly, but his Thoth-case was freshly lacquered. Few scribes are wealthy enough to afford two scribe-cases. Uaf and Nask were the same man, with the same Thoth-case: Uaf had to paint his case a new colour, so that it would not be recognized as Nask’s.”

Khnemes poled a bit harder, then went on: “I paid scant attention to Uaf’s face, as his breath was so hideous. He was chewing something black: I saw it dribble from his mouth.”

“That cannot be right,” said Besek. “If the scribe’s breath was foul, he must have been chewing natron. There is netra – spiced natron, which is white – or deshret: red natron. There is no black natron.”

“This wasn’t natron, because it failed to cleanse his breath,” said Khnemes. “Uaf’s fingertips were black: I thought those stains had come from his scribe-ink. They did . . . but I had not reckoned why.”

“Wait a bit,” said Besek, nearly dropping his bargepole. “Black ink: are you saying . . .”

Khnemes nodded. “The false monk Nask knew that Perabsah had found a hoard of emeralds . . . might even be carrying one or more on his person. The next day, as Uaf, he deliberately stumbled against Perabsah, touching him at the waist where a man of wealth might keep a treasured acquisition. Then Uaf stepped away from the doorway – so that Perabsah could be seen from the courtyard – and he made a strange gesture. That was the signal for the archer Secheb to strike.”

Besek whistled in astonishment. “And then Uaf stole the emerald . . .”

“Uaf stole the emerald while Perabsah was dying,” said Khnemes. “Before Secheb fired his arrow, Uaf was chewing beeswax mingled with charcoal: the mixture used by scribes to fashion bricks of black pigment. After the emerald vanished, Uaf’s Thoth-case contained a small brick of red pigment, and a very large brick of black pigment. It had to be large, because . . .”

“The emerald!” shouted Besek. “The scribe Uaf moulded a small amount of waxed charcoal around the emerald, to disguise it as a scribe’s ink-brick! But you still neglect my question: if Rekhseth went to so much grief to hide stolen emeralds, why did he leave them inside Teknu’s corpse?”

“A fair question,” said Khnemes. “Let us set it aside for now, and consider the murdered man’s wife. I suspected Merytast for a time: it is not unknown for a wife to conspire in her husband’s death, and Merytast lied to me. Perabsah engaged a new scribe after Seshem’s death. The new man is unknown to me, for Perabsah took pride in hiring this man without my assistance. When I tried to meet him, I was told that this new scribe was busy organizing Perabsah’s archives, continuing Seshem’s task. This scribe must have found a papyrus revealing Rekhseth’s secret: namely, that there were still emeralds to be gleaned, in the Plain of the Loaves. The papyrus probably mentioned Rekhseth’s brown-necked raven, and this inspired the murderer’s revel-disguise. Seshem must have lived long enough to read the same papyrus, and he divulged its contents to Perabsah or Merytast. That is why they came to Thebes: to steal Teknu’s mummy and the remaining emeralds. Perabsah could not guard the mummy every moment, so he enlisted the only person who had his full trust: his faithful wife.”

It was nearly sunset now as Khnemes shipped his bargepole, and the barge approached the final sluice-gate on the eastern bank of the Nile. “I do not know the murderer’s true name, but I know who he is. He is Perabsah’s new scribe. He learnt of the emeralds, and came to Thebes on his own, without Perabsah’s knowledge. He disguised himself as a monk to offer scribe-services. When I gave him the scraps of the utau, he knew that we had found Teknu’s tomb . . . and the emeralds. He could have made up a false text when he read aloud to me the words of the cartonnage, but he apparently told me their true contents: out of arrogance, perhaps, or to allay my suspicions. The next day, disguised as a Ptah-scribe named Uaf, he touched the pouch at Perabsah’s waist . . . just long enough to verify that something heavy was in it. One emerald, of so many, was enough for Uaf to steal. One emerald can buy any Egyptian a long life of comfort . . . and a comfortable afterlife as well.”

Now the barge scraped against the retaining wall at the end of the canal. Khnemes clambered off, and danced impatiently while Besek tied up his barge. “Then the murderer is gone,” said Besek. “Whoever he was, the scribe took his stolen jewel and ran off to a new life.”

“No,” said Khnemes. “He may not have escaped yet. Quickly!” Khnemes turned, beckoning Besek to follow him, as he ran west . . . towards the harbour, and the sunset.

Hurrying through the streets, Khnemes explained while he ran: “An emerald might bring a man twenty years’ worth of luxury, but it can only do so all at once . . . not one day at a time. A single deben of gold can be melted down into ten separate qed’tu, and each golden qed’t may be bartered for many debenu of copper, and so on down . . . as the wealth is spent gradually. But not so for a gemstone: to break it into smaller pieces is to risk losing all. The murderer needed to keep the whole emerald safe until he could get a fair barter for it. He is from northern Egypt, so he likely intends to return to a place where he would not arouse attention. In a light boat, he can swiftly catch up with the heavy barge which carries Merytast’s retinue. He can pass her in the night, and reach Aneb Hetchet before she arrives, and she might never know he was gone. But he dares not keep the emerald on his person for the hazardous journey north from Thebes. A lone traveller would be prey for the robbers in the borderland between the two Egypts.” As he spoke, Khnemes put his right hand into the pocket of his kilt. “It is sacrilege, yes, to profane a mummy . . . but I have done so, to avenge Perabsah’s murder, while you were readying your barge. Perabsah’s chest cavity has not yet been closed by the embalmers. In the uabet, I found what I was seeking . . . and then I purified his mummy again, with amulets and incense, after I had tarried within.”

Now Khnemes drew forth his hand, clutching something green that caught the last rays of sunlight as he ran. “Earlier today, while Perabsah’s chest cavity still lay open, I saw a patch of papyrus on his heart, and stitching to repair a cut: it was placed there this morning, by a man who may still be in Thebes. I thought the injury to Perabsah’s heart was caused by Secheb’s arrow, when it pierced his chest . . . but an arrow to the heart would have killed Perabsah instantly. No; Perabsah’s heart was cut open after his death by the false priest who bribed his way into the embalming-room. The murderer knew that Perabsah’s mummy would be escorted back to his estate. If looters opened the coffin, and unwrapped the mummy, they would find no jewels . . . unless they weighed Perabsah’s heart.”

As Khnemes ran westwards, he opened his fist for an instant . . . just long enough to show Besek the emerald. It was large, and a near-perfect cube. But the cube was flawed with cracks and veins. “I recognized the scent of Perabsah’s vanity-oil when he showed me this jewel,” Khnemes told the shun-priest. “Now here is something else I recently learnt: most emeralds are flawed, but the flaws can be disguised for a few days by soaking the stone in oil. The oil seeps in and conceals the flaws, long enough for a dishonest trader to barter a flawed emerald as a perfect one. Perabsah oiled this emerald; he probably intended to sell it dishonestly. The murderer thought this stone was perfect when he stole it, and when he concealed it inside Perabsah’s heart . . . but the natron-bath of the embalming-chamber has absorbed the oil, and exposed the truth.”

Khnemes repocketed the stone. “Even a flawed emerald is worth something. Rekhseth knew that too much wealth, acquired too suddenly, might bring him unwelcome attention. So he kept the best emeralds from his hoard, and concealed the flawed ones . . . where they could be found later. He left a scroll in his archives, the scroll that Seshem found. If Rekhseth’s descendants squandered his wealth, the scroll would tell them where more emeralds were hidden: in Teknu’s tomb, in the Plain of the Loaves.”

Besek spat as he ran, following Khnemes towards the redstone sentry-gate. “Your master was flawed, like his emerald . . . but he must have had some good points, since he earned your loyalty. I am a shun-priest, so I dare not judge anyone. When Perabsah meets his judgment in the afterworld, in the Weighing of the Heart, I do not know if the scales will fall towards innocence or guilt.”

“That was the final clue,” said Khnemes. Now they reached the pylon arch at the western border of Thebes. In the torchlight here, the sentries were conversing with three constables – one of them wearing a rank-docket – and Khnemes snatched a torch from its bracket while he beckoned the policemen to follow him. “Before Perabsah’s mummy is placed in its tomb, he must first undergo . . .”

“. . . the Opening of the Mouth!” cried Besek as he ran. “The household scribe will stand over Perabsah’s mummy with a ritual knife. The ritual is conducted before witnesses . . . but the scribe will have some time alone with the mummy beforehand. Time enough to cut into the chest cavity, retrieve the stolen jewel, and then conceal the damage to the mummy-linens.”

One of the constables tried to interrupt, but the chief constable gestured with his tipstaff and nodded at Khnemes to continue while they ran: “Perabsah’s murder was arranged by his new scribe,” panted Khnemes, nearly out of breath now. “I suspected that Merytast conspired with him, but she did not. The flawed emeralds are now Merytast’s property: if she and Uaf were partners in crime, she would have shared them with him . . . either willingly, or because he could blackmail her. Yet the scribe – Uaf, or Nask, or whatever his true name – went to great trouble to steal one emerald for himself, and to conceal it in his master’s coffin, where only the scribe of Perabsah’s household would be able to reclaim it. If he had expected Merytast to share the emeralds with him, he would not have gone to such lengths for one stone. Merytast is innocent.”

Now they reached the Nile-steps on the riverbank. The annual inundation was underway; in the torchlight, Khnemes saw that nine steps of the staircase were already underwater. “Our quarry has had a head-start,” said Khnemes, peering into the Nile’s currents. “But he came here at leisure, not suspecting that we were on his heels. Constable, is that a boat?”

A large hulk loomed in the shadows to the south, upriver. The Barque of Amun-Re had made its daily sojourn to the Temple of Mut, and now the sun-god and his retinue were returning to Karnak. The rest of the Nile had been kept clear of vessels tonight, so the god might proceed without hindrance. To east and west, either side of the Nile, ferries waited in the quays until the sun-god had passed. Now Khnemes swept his torch in the other direction. Just north of Thebes, against the white limestone bulk of the Isle of Amunhotep, a small black shape could be discerned: a single barge, journeying downriver.

The chief constable shook his wooden rattle, and beat his staff against the flagstones. At once, from the docks just north of Thebes, several ferries cast off. The bargeman tried to elude them, but his craft was unwieldy and he showed no river-wisdom. The experienced ferrymen swiftly encircled him, and their bargepoles nudged his unwilling craft towards the eastern shore.

“Do you know what this means, Nubian?” said Besek, as he followed Khnemes and the constables along the riverbank. “Because I have helped you catch a murderer tonight, the gods may favour me enough to lift my shun-burden. I can be a priest again!”

Two ferry-pilots held the struggling bargeman, and snatched away his bundle of provisions. As Khnemes ran forwards, he saw that the man had no weapons, but something dangled from a cord across his shoulder: the Thoth-case of an Egyptian scribe. This scribe looked like Nask but was shorter; he resembled Uaf, but he was cleaner and his scalp was newly shaven. He was dressed as Khnemes was, in sandals of sedge and the garb of an apprentice-priest of the uabet. Now the constables closed in, and in the flickering light of the torch which Khnemes held in his right hand, the scribe whimpered.

Khnemes brought his left hand down upon the man’s shoulder, and spoke: “Netek nikeh. You are a murderer, forever.”