Eater of souls (20 page)

Picking up the lamp, she shut the door. "Hunero, I got inside, so there's no use hiding."

Holding the lamp aloft, she directed the light around the room. More tunnel than chamber, it held the furnishings with which Hunero had absconded. On a raised ledge around the room sat beds that could be used at night, reed boxes filled with utensils, tools, and linens. Several low stools had been arranged around a table bearing a senet game box. Two columns supported the roof, and beyond this living chamber lay the kitchen. That's where Hunero would be.

Satet marched into the kitchen, and there, kneeling before the small oven in the back corner, was her sister. "Ha! You thought I'd go away, but I found you. I'll wager you were surprised to hear my voice when you thought I was still in…"

Hunero hadn't turned around. She hadn't moved at all. Satet held the lamp out and walked over to the oven. Something was crawling on her sister's back. Flies. The dim yellow light spread over Hunero's back and landed on a blackened spot surrounding a hole in the linen of her shift. More flies darted in and out of the wound, and other insects. The lamp began to shake, distorting the light.

Satet gripped it with both hands and continued to stare at her sister. Hunero had been kneeling before a ledge that formed a work surface in front of the oven. Her face was buried in a thick slab of dough. All Satet could see was the side of her cheek, sunken, dried, discolored with flour. Backing up, Satet continued to stare.

Her thoughts slowed to the speed of the Nile current in a year of drought. Then they grew even more sluggish, like the mud slurry in a desert wadi after a storm. Loud buzzing to her left caused Satet to turn her head. Against the wall, a stairway led up to the second floor from the kitchen. Bay sprawled facedown, as if he'd fallen on his way up. He too bore a hole in his back and dark, clotted stains on the skin surrounding the wound. His body failed to hold her attention for long.

Satet looked back at her sister. "Well, look at this place. Is this the kind of life you prefer to the farm?" She rocked back and forth on her heels while holding the lamp in both hands. "Don't prattle excuses at me, dear sister. And don't expect me to come here to stay with you. I'm taking some things for myself back to Lord Meren's house."

Looking around the kitchen, Satet found a basket with a lid. "No, I'm not going to stay. You may have wanted to seek your fortune in the great city, but I'm the one who's gotten a place with a fine nobleman." Satet cocked her ear in Hunero's direction. "I always said Bay was lazy. Make him wake up and fetch fresh fuel for that oven. I'll come back tomorrow and help you clean this mess. And get rid of these cursed flies!"

Turning her back on Hunero and her brother-in-law, Satet bustled into the living chamber. She filled the basket with two shifts, a pair of hardly used sandals, a faience eye-paint pot, and a wooden comb with long teeth, the top of which had been carved in the shape of a gazelle. After placing the lid on the basket, Satet picked up her lamp and went to the door.

Extinguishing the light, she tossed a comment over her shoulder. "I won't take morning meal with you tomorrow.Lady Bener's cooks will fix me a fine one before I come to see you."

Without waiting for a reply, Satet hefted the basket on her hip, stepped outside, and shut the door behind her. Night had come, but darkness wasn't complete, and lamplight glimmered from windows up and down the street. Humming a feast song, she began the walk back to Lord Meren's house.

Once he'd left the palace, Meren had gone home, where Abu and Kysen met him. They, along with the watchman Min, spent the remainder of the day and the hours since nightfall assessing what details were known of Mugallu's death and the other killings. Min had brought two white feathers with him. They lay in a bronze tray on top of a chest, their white purity spoiled by stains that had once been red. One was from the body of the farmer, the other from the tavern woman. Min had filched the one on the farmer's body. When he'd heard of the tavern woman, he'd gone to the village and retrieved the second feather.

Meren had decided to call these ugly crimes the heart thefts. It was a term they could use openly without having to name victims or refer to the butchery enacted upon the bodies. If citizens discovered the exact nature of these murders, fear would spark an inferno of violence against anyone perceived as a threat—petty thieves, the addlewitted, the cantankerous, the mean, even some helpless foreign slave.

Reviewing the fool Sokar's notes and reports for the last six months had taken a long time. Abu and Kysen were still working, with Min, who could not read, serving as interpreter of events and decipherer of Sokar's euphemisms. Meren had just finished reading the reports on Mugallu's death and writing his own account. Periodically the silence that prevailed was broken when one of them asked Min a question.

Meren felt groggy from so much writing and sitting.

He should have gotten up an hour ago, but Bener had prevented him. She had invaded the office with an entourage of servants bearing food and drink. As she refused to leave until they ate, Meren had realized how limited his choices were. After the meal his daughter sent the servants away—and remained. He'd argued with her previously about how unsuitable it was for her to concern herself with his affairs, but weariness and a respect for Bener's intelligent heart had prevented him from trying to get rid of her tonight. So she stayed, read reports, and eased the burden of the work.

Bener shifted her position on a stool and murmured a question to Min. "What is this note? There is no explanation other than the phrase 'no settlement in the matter of the two hyenas' and a date two months ago."

"Lady, Sokar uses the—the phrase to refer to a house boundary dispute between the temple trader Penne and the overseer of the magazine of Prince Rahotep. They have been arguing about it for many years. Their fathers quarreled over the same boundary, as did their grandfathers. Sokar said their sons will continue the custom because the two families produce nothing but weakwitted laggards who haven't the sense to stop wasting means and time on such a useless quarrel."

"I remember," Meren said. "There has been a case in the vizier's court on the same dispute for generations. By the patience of Amun, I wish the worst troubles I had were like that."

Handing his account of Mugallu's death to Bener, Meren rose, wincing at the stiffness in his knees and ankles. He hadn't been able to go to the royal practice field, or even to drive his chariot in the desert, lately. He began to walk about the room to ease his discomfort. There were similar offices in his mansions in Bubastis and Heliopolis in the delta, at Thebes, and in his country estate near Abydos. Yet he preferred this one.

It was larger than the others, running almost the length of the reception and central halls above which it was built. The walls were plastered, painted pale blue, and decorated with a simple frieze of reed bundles at the top and bottom. The windows set high in the walls bore grilles of gilded wood. The six slender columns set in two rows had been carved in the shape of tall green lotus plants, the petals of which spread out at the top, as if reaching for the sun. The stems of the flowers had been painted with alternating bands of gold and blue at the base and just beneath the petals. As had been intended, the decoration of the room imitated a reflection pool dotted with lotus plants and surrounded by the sundrenched blue of the sky.

Only in the last few years had he been able to enjoy his Memphis office this way. He and his wife had shared too many private moments here. After she died, he hadn't been able to remain in this chamber for long, because Sit-Hathor had filled it with gifts to him. Leaving the master's dais, Meren went to a long cabinet set against the wall. There rested the last of Sit-Hathor's gifts, an alabaster lamp carved in the shape of a chalice cup sitting on an open, rectangular base.

When not in use, the lamp appeared a simple object of the valuable, cream-colored stone. When lit, a scene appeared as if by magic, illuminated by the gold flicker of the oil and floating wick. A close-fitting alabaster lining had been affixed within the chalice bowl. It was on the outer surface of the lining that the scene had been painted. Meren studied the glowing chalice, upon which he could see an image of himself and Sit-Hathor. He was sitting in his ebony chair with the legs carved to imitate a leopard's and claws fashioned of ivory. Sit-Hathor stood before him, smiling and offering him a lotus flower. This pose had been a private joke, for Sit-Hathor had been a woman more likely to pelt his face with the blossom than offer it meekly.

It was growing late. The office was illuminated by a dozen alabaster lamps,
but
reading in such light wearied the eyes. The strain worked against alertness, and everyone had to be alert with an unknown killer abroad in Memphis. Meren turned to face the room. His fingers traced the fluted shape of the chalice lamp as he began.

"The hour grows late. We should review and then take our rest. Kysen, you said Prince Mugallu's killer also dispatched a slave and the sentry posted at the garden."

"Aye, Father. I surveyed the places where the bodies lay, but the Hittites had swarmed all over. If the criminal or creature left any signs, they're gone. But the guard and the slave were killed with a simple knife in the back."

"So this evil one reserves the ax and the—whatever made those rows of slices on the throat and face—for special victims."

Abu looked up at him, startled. Kysen nodded without surprise while Min gripped an amulet of protection he wore as a necklace. Meren glanced at his daughter, but Bener didn't seem disturbed. She was rolling up a papyrus and inserting it in a leather document case.

Without looking up, she said, "If they were killed by the same evil one, man or demon."

Everyone looked at her. She rolled her eyes and gave an impatient sigh.

"Which is the greater amazement? That I had the wits to consider the possibility, or that I had the temerity to say it?"

"Neither, daughter," said Meren.

He frowned at her, which failed to evoke anything but a little smile. Thrusting his hands behind his back, Meren abandoned his position beside the lamp and walked a circuit that took him down the rows of columns and back.

"Pharaoh has alerted the royal bodyguard, the infantry companies stationed in the area, the naval patrols, the city police, the desert patrols. But no one knows what to look for, or whom."

"General Labarnas tried to send a messenger after I left," Kysen said. "The men I set to watch the house stopped him and sent him back. His message wasn't written, so we don't know what Labarnas wants to say to the king of the Hittites."

On the return leg of his circuit of the office, Meren gave a bitter laugh. "No words of praise, I'll wager." He stopped between the first pair of columns, unclasped his hands, and began toying with the thick hinged bracelet that covered the Aten scar on his wrist. "Very well, let us review what we've learned."

"We know of at least three heart thefts," Kysen said. "There was the farmer ten days ago, the one Sokar listed as the death of a farmer, 'not of the city,' with no other description." He said this last with contempt. "Then there was the—what was she, Min?"

"A tavern woman, lord."

"Yes, Anat, the tavern woman in that western village."

"And her cat," Bener said.

"And the cat," Kysen replied. "And Tcha's friend Pawah, but we only have Tcha to tell us what he saw. His veracity isn't the stuff of which great men write advice for their sons." Kysen glanced at Meren. "Has he been with you?"

"No. I thought he went with you," Meren said. They stared at each other.

Abu spoke up. "I last saw him in the alley where we found Prince Mugallu."

No one said anything for a while. Then Meren turned to Abu. "Send someone to look for him when we're finished."

"I have to go to Ese's," Kysen said. "I'll look for him there. Most likely he has burrowed under a rubbish heap somewhere to hide from danger, and from us."

Bener shut the lid on the document case she'd been using. "If you find him, don't let him in this house. The servants had to burn incense for hours to get rid of the stench." Setting the case aside, she said, "Three heart thefts? But what of those two entries in Sokar's reports of several weeks ago?"

"We don't know that those were heart thefts," Kysen said. "Min wasn't present when they were discovered."

"But Sokar described them as he did the others. He wrote 'a death' and 'not of the city,' or 'a wretched slave.' I've looked at most of his reports, and he seldom becomes so sparing of words or so vague unless there's something he wants to avoid."

When Kysen's brow furrowed, and he began to rock back and forth on his heels, Meren knew it was time to interrupt.

"It may be nothing, but I want to be sure. Min will ask the watchmen involved about these early entries."

Min answered hastily as Bener opened her lips. "Yes, lord."

Before either of his children could pursue their disagreement, Meren continued. "Returning to what we know of these killings. All began with a disabling blow, followed by a slice to the throat by some weapon, or claws." He set his back against a column, folded his arms, and stared at the floor while he thought for a moment. "The cuts are too clean."

"What do you mean?" Kysen asked.

Meren looked up at him. "You've seen the gashes left by a lion's claws, or a leopard's. The edges aren't nearly as clean. Mugallu's throat looked like someone had sliced it with a freshly sharpened butcher's knife."

"Perhaps the evil one has some strange weapon," Kysen replied. "A knife with several blades."

Bener walked over to Meren and spoke quietly. "The claws of Eater of Souls, are they not as sharp as the gods demand? If the Devouress eats the body of the dead, heart and bones and tendons, her claws would have to be sharper and harder than any metal."

Again no one spoke. Min clutched his amulet. Kysen and Abu exchanged uneasy looks while Meren stared at Bener.

"By the gods, daughter. The image you devise makes my bones cold."