Cruel Deceit lb-6 Read online

  They were awaiting the initial procession of the festival, soon to make its way from Ipet-isut, the great northern man sion of the lord Amon, to the smaller southern mansion of

  Ipet-resyt. The long parade of gods, royalty, priests, and dig nitaries offered the best opportunity through the eleven-day festival not only of adoring at close hand the lord Amon, his spouse the lady Mut, and their son the lord Khonsu, but of seeing the most lofty individuals in the land of Kemet.

  The muted sounds of night had been torn asunder by the marching of the soldiers who had appeared at daybreak to spread out along the route. The soft sporadic laughter of a few half-awake individuals seeking the ideal spot from which to view the procession had become a roar of excite ment. Now, as the lord Khepre, the rising sun, attained his second hour in the morning sky, the few had swelled to many. The multitude of people jostled for position along the broad, slightly raised causeway, which was paved with crushed white limestone. Clad in all their finery, whether the rough linen of the poor or the most delicate of fabrics worn by the nobility, and wearing their most elegant jewelry, they stood shoulder to shoulder, all equally intent on sharing this most wondrous of occasions with the greatest of gods, his divine spouse and son and his two earthly children.

  Acrobats and musicians performed, entertainers sang and danced, among temporary booths erected along the pro cessional way on ground still damp from the ebbing flood.

  Hawkers walked back and forth, calling out their wares: dried meat and fish, fruits and vegetables, sweet cakes, beer and water, perfumes, oil for rubbing on the skin, flowers for the hair or to throw in the path of the gods, trinkets to re member the day, and amulets for protection. The smells of cooked meats, perfumes and flowers, and fresh bread vied with the odor of manure dropped by chariot horses held by grooms in a nearby palm grove, awaiting the time when, led by their noble masters, they would join the procession.

  While soldiers held the crowd off the causeway, police walked among the spectators, searching out thieves and troublemakers, returning lost children to their parents, haul ing off beggars and men besotted by too much beer.

  The hot breath of the lord Khepre and the receding flood waters, which lingered in immense low-lying natural basins all across the valley floor, filled the air with an uncomfortable heat and dampness. Not the slightest breeze stirred. Sweat col lected beneath broad collars and belts, wilted the ringlets on wigs and naturally curled hair, and made unsightly splotches on dresses and kilts. Hawkers gained more in a day than in a month, trading sweet-smelling flowers and perfume to over power the stench of sweat, water and beer to ward off thirst.

  The mood of the spectators was light, forgiving, expec tant. All looked forward, each in his own way, to eleven days of piety and merrymaking.

  “Lieutenant Bak.” Amonked, Storekeeper of Amon and cousin to Maatkare Hatshepsut, laid a congenial hand on

  Bak’s shoulder and looked with approval at the company of

  Medjays standing beside the barque sanctuary of the lord Amon. “You’ve a fine-looking unit of men, a credit to the land of Kemet.”

  Bak smiled with pleasure. “I wish to thank you, sir, for ar ranging for us to participate in today’s activities. Never would I have expected such a splendid position along the processional way.”

  The sanctuary, raised on a platform above the earth on which it sat, was long and narrow. A square-pillared portico open on three sides stood in front of a small enclosed chapel.

  When the procession reached this point, the barque of the lord Amon would be placed upon the stone plinth inside the portico, where it would be visible to all who stood nearby.

  This was the first of eight similar way stations where the di vine triad would rest on their daylong journey from Ipet-isut to Ipet-resyt.

  The Medjays, though relaxed while they awaited their gods, stood tall and straight and proud. They wore their best white kilts and held black cowhide shields so well brushed they glistened. Spearpoints, the bronze pendants hanging from their necks, the wide bronze bands that formed their armlets and anklets were polished to a high sheen.

  Amonked gave an unassuming smile. “If a man has a bit of influence and can use it for a good cause, why shouldn’t he?”

  He was rather plump, of medium height, and his age somewhere in the mid-thirties, but he looked older. He wore an ankle-length kilt made of fine linen, an elegant broad beaded collar, and matching bracelets. The short wig cover ing his thinning hair gleamed in the sunlight, testifying to the fact that it was made of real human hair.

  “Shouldn’t you be in the mansion of the lord Amon, sir?” asked Sergeant Pashenuro. “Are you not to be a part of the procession?” The short, broad sergeant, second among the

  Medjays to Imsiba, had come to know Amonked several months earlier.

  “I’m on my way to Ipet-isut now, but I’m in no hurry. I’m not serving as a priest this season, so I can’t go into the inner chambers, nor can I help carry one of the gods’ barques.”

  Amonked took a square of linen from his belt and patted away beads of sweat on his face, taking care to avoid the black galena painted around his eyes. “I saw no reason to stand in the outer court for an hour or more, waiting, while our sovereigns make offerings and pledge obeisance to their godly father.”

  Bak offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon that, even on an occasion as important as this, ordinary sol diers and police were not expected to wear wigs and large amounts of jewelry. The heat was close to intolerable and would worsen as the day went on. “Must you join the pro cession as it leaves Ipet-isut? Can you not wait here and join your lofty peers when they reach this sanctuary?”

  Amonked smiled. “A most thoughtful suggestion, Lieu tenant, one I accept with gratitude.”

  Bak exchanged a glance with Pashenuro, who hurried be hind the sanctuary and returned with a folding camp stool, one of several brought for use by Maatkare Hatshepsut,

  Menkheperre Thutmose, and the senior priests while the deities rested.

  Ignoring the curious glances of the spectators standing on the opposite side of the processional way, Amonked settled himself on the stool. After inquiring about Bak’s father, a physician who dwelt across the river in western Waset, he talked of the southern frontier and the fortresses along the

  Belly of Stones, of the people he had met several months earlier. He played no favorites, speaking with officer, ser geants, and ordinary policemen with identical good humor and respect.

  When the gossip faltered, Bak asked, “Have you heard anything of Maruwa, the man we found slain at the harbor last week?” He knew Amonked would have no official reason to be involved, but he also knew the Storekeeper of Amon was one of the best-informed men in the southern capital.

  “Nothing.” Amonked lifted the edge of his wig and ran the square of linen beneath it. “According to the harbormas ter, Lieutenant Karoya has diligently questioned every man on Captain Antef’s ship and anyone else he could find who might’ve seen or heard anything out of order. Either all who were near the vessel were blind and deaf, or the slayer took care not to be noticed.”

  “The more time Karoya allows to go by, the less likely he is to snare the wretched criminal.”

  “Evidently he’s well aware of the truism.”

  Bak smiled at the gentle reminder that he had verged on pedantry. “He may already be too late. If the slayer is a man of Hatti, he may well be on his way to his homeland.”

  “Karoya shares your fear. He claims never to have reached so dead a dead end so early in an investigation.”

  “He believes, then, that Maruwa was slain for a political reason?”

  “So far he’s found no sign that the merchant was the least bit interested in politics. But he wouldn’t, would he, if

  Maruwa was some kind of spy?”

  Bak’s eyes narrowed. “Spy? Where did that idea come from?”

  Amonked shrugged. “I’m not sure. Karoya perhaps?”

  “I doubt he’s the kind of
man to garb another man in bright, sensational colors without due consideration-or some kind of proof. I admit I don’t know him well, but he seemed far too cautious, too sensible. As is Mai. No, I’d look somewhere else for the source of that tale.”

  The sharp blast of a distant trumpet pierced the air, an nouncing the lord Amon’s departure from his earthly home.

  All eyes turned north toward Ipet-isut, and the many voices grew quiet, anticipatory. Movement could be seen at the large, south-facing pylon gate being built by Maatkare Hat shepsut into the tall, crenellated wall that surrounded the sa cred precinct. About half completed, the two towers rose slightly above the lintel recently placed over the doorway.

  The facades of both towers were hidden behind long, broad ramps made of mudbricks and debris up which materials were transported.

  Bak spotted the glint of gold and the white kilts of several men exiting the distant gate, holding high the royal stan dards. Musicians followed, the beat of their drums and the harsher sounds of sistra and metal clappers setting the slow, measured pace of the procession. A dozen or more priests came next, some perfuming the air with incense while the rest purified the way with water or milk. A breath of air stirred the long red pennants mounted atop tall flagpoles clamped to the front of Ipet-isut’s entrance pylon, much of which was concealed behind the enclosure wall. The hush broke and voices rose in expectation.

  Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre Thutmose walked through the gate side by side. Bak noted the glitter of sun light on gold, garments as white as a heron. Priests sprinkled aromatic oils on the path before them, while honored ser vants waved ostrich-feather fans over their heads. The crowd went wild, cheering the royal couple whose task it was to stave off chaos and preserve the stability of the land.

  “Ah, yes.” Amonked sighed. “Now the long day has truly begun.”

  The music grew louder, fueling the spectators’ excite ment. A dozen priests followed their sovereigns, golden cen sors glittering through clouds of incense, crystal drops of water flung from shining lustration vessels to purify the earth over which the greatest of the gods would be carried.

  The lord Amon appeared in the gateway, enclosed within his golden shrine, which stood on a golden barque carried high on the shoulders of priests. The long arms of the lord

  Re reached out, touching the shrine, blinding the eyes of all who glimpsed its far-off radiance.

  The procession slowly approached the sanctuary.

  Amonked rose to his feet and, taking the stool with him, stepped off to the side, out of the way. Bak ordered his men to stand at rigid attention, checked to be sure all was as it should be, and pivoted to face the processional way, stand ing as stiff and straight as they.

  Following the standard-bearers, the musicians, the priests,

  Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre Thutmose walked up the processional way in all their regal majesty. The regent who had made herself a sovereign wore a long white shift, multicolored broad collar and bracelets, and a tall white cone-shaped crown with plumes rising to either side above horizontal ram’s horns and the sacred cobra over her brow.

  She carried the crook and the flail in one hand, the sign of life in the other. She looked neither to right nor left. Too far away to see well, Bak imagined her face set, an emotionless mask.

  Beside her, walking with a youthful spring in his step, was Menkheperre Thutmose. The young man wore the short kilt of a soldier, which displayed to perfection the hard mus cles of his well-formed body. His jewelry was similar to that of his co-ruler. He wore a blue flanged helmetlike crown adorned with gold disks. The royal cobra rose over his brow, and he carried the crook and the flail and the sign of life.

  Bak imagined eyes that never rested; a young Horus, very much aware of his surroundings.

  Behind the priests who followed, and wreathed in a thin cloud of incense, came the golden barque of the lord Amon, balanced on long gilded poles carried high on the shoulders of twenty priests, ten to a side. A senior priest walked before the vessel and another followed behind. Golden rams’ heads, crowned with golden orbs and wearing the royal cobra on their brows, were mounted on stern and prow, with elaborate multicolored broad collars and pectorals hanging from their necks. A gilded shrine stood on the barque, its sides open to reveal a second, smaller shrine mounted on a dais. This con tained the lord Amon, shielded from view within its golden walls.

  Spectators shouted for joy and threw flowers, showering the causeway with color and scent. Bak felt a tightness in his throat, the same awe he had felt as a child when his father had brought him to a long-ago procession, holding him high on his shoulders so he could see his sovereign and his god.

  Farther along the processional way were more priests with censers and lustration vessels, followed by the gilded barques of the lady Mut and the lord Khonsu, both smaller than the barque of the lord Amon, but impressive nonetheless.

  Musicians followed the magnificent glittering vessels, playing drums, clappers, sistra, and lutes. Singers clapped their hands and chanted. Dancers and acrobats, their ges tures often much alike, swirled around, turned somersaults, arched their backs to touch the path behind them.

  The standard-bearers-noblemen chosen especially for the task-approached the sanctuary. Bak raised his baton of office in salute and heard the soft rustle of movement indi cating the Medjays behind him were shifting into a fighting stance, right leg forward, shields in front of their chests, spears tilted forward at a diagonal.

  “Sir!” Bak heard off to his side where Amonked stood. “A priest has been found dead inside the sacred precinct. Mur dered. Will you come, sir?” Bak looked half around and saw the messenger, a youth of twelve or so years, glance at the procession. “If you can,” he added in a thin, hesitant voice.

  Amonked looked appalled. “Not inside the god’s man sion, I pray!”

  “Oh, no, sir. In a storehouse.” Looking apologetic, the boy added, “I tried first to find User, Overseer of Overseers of all the storehouses, but I had no luck. When I saw you and you weren’t in the procession… Well, I thought…”

  Amonked glanced toward his royal cousin, uncertainty on his face. The musicians were turning toward the sanctuary, followed by priests preparing to usher the two sovereigns and the lord Amon to their first place of rest. His mouth tightened in a decisive manner and he waved off the youth’s bumbling words. “Very well.” He turned to Bak. “You must come with me, Lieutenant.”

  “Sir?” Bak eyed Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre

  Thutmose walking in lofty splendor not twenty paces away.

  “What of your cousin? Will she not miss you?”

  Amonked flung another quick glance her way. “With luck and the help of the gods, we’ll find that the dead man was truly murdered and of sufficient importance to warrant our leaving.”

  Bak stepped aside, beckoned Imsiba to stand in his place, and hurried after Amonked and the messenger. He might never get another chance to stand before his men on so aus picious an occasion, and was sorry he had to leave. He would have to be content with catching up with the pro cession later, hopefully in time to watch the dual rulers make offerings to the gods before they entered the southern man sion of Ipet-resyt.

  They hastened northward, passing behind the almost de serted booths and the crowds watching the procession with much oohing and ahing, clapping and shouting. Nearing the unfinished gate out of which the procession was filing, the boy led them down a lane between the westernmost construc tion ramp and a residential sector off to the left, avoiding the building materials piled well out of the way of paraders and celebrants. They turned to hurry along the base of the mas sive mudbrick wall that enclosed the sacred precinct of the lord Amon, passing its alternating concave and convex sec tions, gradually leaving behind the shouts of rejoicing.

  “Through here, sir,” the boy said, turning into a small, unimposing doorway.

  They stumbled along a dark passage that took them through the thick wall. Beyond, bathed in sunlight
, lay the sacred precinct, an expanse of white-plastered buildings.

  Crowded around Ipet-isut, which was painted white with brightly colored inscriptions and decoration, were shrines and chapels, housing, office buildings, and row upon row of storehouses. Unlike the great warehouses built outside the enclosure walls and closer to the river, most of which con tained bulk items such as grain, hides, and copper ingots, too heavy and ungainly to carry far, these held smaller items of higher value.

  The youth ushered them down a lane between two rows of long, narrow, interconnected mudbrick buildings whose elongated barrel-vaulted roofs formed a series of adjoining ridges. Doors, most closed and sealed but a few standing open, faced each other all along the lane. Near the far end, a dozen men hovered around the open portal of a storehouse in the storage block to the right. Included among them were shaven-headed priests, scribes wearing long kilts, and three guards carrying shields and spears. A guard spotted them, and they pulled back from the door, making way for the new arrivals. Drawing near, Bak noticed the smell of burning and saw smudges of soot on most of the men.

  Amonked’s eyes darted around the group. “A man is dead, the boy told us. Murdered.”

  All eyes turned toward a priest, a tall, fine-boned man no more than twenty years of age. His kilt was as dirty as all the rest. Clearly distraught, he clutched the bright blue faience amulet of a seated baboon, the lord Thoth, hanging from a chain around his neck and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Yes, sir. Of that there’s no doubt.” He gulped air and clung to the amulet as if to life itself. “I was finishing a task before going out to watch the procession. I smelled smoke and came to look. When I opened the door, I saw him lying on the floor, the flames around him.”

  “The rest of you came to put out the fire?” Bak asked.

  “We all had a hand in it, yes.” One of the guards, an older man, pointed at the young priest. “Meryamon called for help and we came running. Thanks to the lord Amon, it hadn’t yet gotten out of control and was confined to the one small room. On the floor mostly, burning some scrolls and…”