Nefertiti (13 page)

He looked at me, whistled and shook his head slowly, as if this information just proved his theory of the way of the world. Then he stood up abruptly and gestured to the door. 'Come.'

The crowds parted swiftly along the narrow lanes to let us pass; this man was respected and feared. He was the Overseer, with the power to give and take away privileges, work and justice. He was as powerful as Akhenaten himself in this, his own domain. We came to the village's only open area, covered by colourfully decorated linen shades that threw patterns on the hard dirt floor and the benches that ran the length of the space. Hundreds of workers from all over the Empire, from Nubia to Arzawa, from Hatti to Mittani, sat talking, yelling and even singing in their own languages. All were eating quickly, helping themselves from large bowls placed along the benches. The sentry boys at the boundary stone were missing out on all this. Women moved up and down serving thick barley beer in bowls. The noise and heat were incredible.

The Overseer stood at the head of the central bench. He knocked his staff of office on the wood three
times and the place was immedi
ately silent. All heads turned in his direction, attentive but keen to get back to the business of eating.

'We have an important visitor,' he announced, 'and he wants to know if anyone's missing a girl.'

There was a brief ripple of laughter, but it died fast when the Overseer slammed his staff down hard again. Everyone looked at me to see who was asking this question, and why. I knew I needed to speak.

'My name's Rahotep, Thebes Medjay. I'm investigating a mystery.

No-one here's done anything wrong, but it's important to me to find the family of a girl who's missing. I believe she worked in the city but that she came from among you. All I'm asking is, does anyone know of a family who might be concerned about their daughter or sister?' The men stared at me. 'Anything anyone wants to tell me will be confidential.'

There was a total, hostile silence. No-one moved. Then a young man at the back slowly stood up. I led him to a space on a bench away from the crowd. The Overseer left us to talk, saying, 'I want him back at work in no time.'

We sat down opposite each other. His name was Paser. He had the hard, precise, honed physique of a skilled labourer, his hair locks white with dust, his hands already callused by the harshness of the stone that will be the most familiar thing - more than his wife's body, more than his own children - he touches all his life. But he looked back at me with eyes that seemed intelligent; perhaps not clever, exactly, but thoughtful and independent.

'Tell me about yourself, please.'

He looked suspicious. 'What do you want to know? Why are you here asking questions?'

'Why did you respond to my question?'

He looked down, his thick fingers crossed into each other. 'I have a sister. Her name is Seshat. We grew up in Sais, in the western delta, but the town was falling apart; nothing to do all day but sit around waiting for work that was never going to come again. So we all travelled here praying we could find employment. We were lucky. When we got here father and I found construction work because my father's a cousin of the Overseer, and Seshat went to the Harem Palace.'

Khety and I exchanged a glance. At last, an interesting connection. 'When did you last see her?' 'I'd rather not say.'

'Why?'

He hesitated.

'Nothing you say will go beyond these walls.' You are Medjay. Why sh
ould I trust you?' 'Because you
must.'

He had little choice, and eventually he spoke. 'I've been working on new offices within the Harem Palace. Sometimes we were able to speak to each other. We'd find a quiet corner for a few minutes...' He paused. 'We used to see each other several times a week. We made an arrangement. But the last time she didn't appear. I thought she might just be busy. She always sends my parents something every week. But this week
...
' He
shook his head. 'Where is she?'

He took me to his parents' house. They shuffled about, uncertain of the seating or standing protocol, awkward in my presence. In the back room, the grandparents worked. They nodded politely, and returned to their tasks. I was glad to notice the old gods were still displayed in the family shrine: amulets of Bes and Taweret, and statuettes of Hathor - the old protecting deities of the family, fertility and festival. The new religious iconoclasm had not yet conquered this little home.

The father, a middle-aged man, began talking about his daughter, his treasure: how well she was doing, the way her beauty and grace had given her a new opening in life in the Harem Palace. His pride. His joy. Their bright future. And all the time, although I could not yet be sure, I sensed in my bones that this man's daughter was lying dead, brutalized, destroyed for eternity, on a slab. I saw the mother at the curtain, her face confused with worry at my presence, and at these questions. But I had no proof, and that was what I was here for. I could not be swayed by arguments of emotion, not now.

'And you haven't heard from her for some little time now?'

'No, but she's busy, you see. We can't expect it. No doubt working too hard! They do work them hard, I know.' The father smiled uncertainly.

'I have to ask you a personal question. Does she bear any birth marks? Any marks on her body?'

The father looked puzzled. 'Bir
th marks? I don't know. Why are
you here, asking all
these questions? Why is a Medjay officer sitting in my home asking questions about my daughter?' He now looked frightened.

'I hope to find her.'

'If you want her, why don't you go to the Harem Palace and ask for her there?'

'Because I am afraid she is not there.'

The truth was beginning to dawn on them. The mother stood, struck silent and still as a statue, at the entrance to the room. Slowly she pointed to her belly.

'She has a scar, like a little star. Here.'

I left that house in a silence from which I knew it would never recover. The father's gentle face had broken open as surely as if I had smashed it with a rock, wondering why I should have come into his home to ruin the contentment of his old age. The mother's refusal to believe any of this was real. The son's bitterness would refine itself, over time, into a pure hatred of the gods that had permitted the vicious destruction of an innocent life. I told them only that she had been murdered; I failed to find the courage to tell them the rest. But I promised to have the body returned to them for proper burial. All I could leave them with, besides this agony, was the scarab. I could only hope it would cover the costs of a good burial and all the necessary rituals. And after all, as far as I was concerned it belonged to the girl. The least I could do was help to make sure she would not be left to rot in some desert grave, not after what she and her kin had suffered already.

We drove away from the now silent village. Eventually I broke the silence.

'At least we have an answer, Khety. Something we know we know.' 'The dead girl's connection with the Harem Palace.' 'Exactly. Take me there right now. I'll need to interview everyone.' 'We have our authorities, but we'll have to inform the Office of the Harem first.'

I sighed. Was nothing simple?

'There's no time to waste. Come on, let's go.' Khety squirmed like a child caught lying.

'What?'

'Perhaps you've forgotten? The invitation?'

And then it struck me. From Mahu. To a hunt. This afternoon. I cursed my stupidity in accepting.

'Here I am, with the first decent lead we've had in days, and you think I am going to waste time on a hunt? With Mahu, of all people?'

Khety shrugged.

'Stop shrugging! We're going directly to the Harem Palace.' Khety looked uncomfortable, but did as I ordered and drove back into the city.

We were just entering the outer precincts when suddenly from a side street, out of nowhere, Mahu appeared driving his own chariot. His ugly dog, as obvious a symbol of a man's soul as ever I saw, stood with its paws up on the sill beside him.

I turned to Khety, furious. 'Did you tell him where we were going?'

'No! I don't tell him anything.'

'Well, you work for him, and here he is, just as we're on the trail of something at last. It seems like a strange sort of coincidence, doesn't
it?'

Khety was about to bite back when Mahu yelled over at me, 'Just in time for the hunt. I'm sure you hadn't forgotten.' He jerked his reins viciously, and charged ahead.

17

The hunting party gathered at the main jetty of the river - a long, narrow construction of newly laid timber boards on supporting piles of stone and wood built out perhaps fifty cubits from the land, and perhaps five hundred cubits in length. A few cargo barges carrying stone blocks were being unloaded, and a squat, crowded ferry was setting sail across the river with its cargo of men, children, animals and coffins, between the east and west banks. But otherwise at this hour of the afternoon there were just pleasure-boats - one particularly elegant, with a double-storey cabin, which I had not seen before - with their masts down and resting on their stands. Among these drifted a number of skiffs with small linen sails dyed vivid blues and reds. The chimes and peals of cultivated conversation and laughter tinkled and lilted on the travelling waters.

The sounds coming from the hunting group were different. The voices were assertive, masculine, testing themselves against a kind of underlying silence, a palpable tensio
n. A typical group of young men
from elite families, together with a handful of Medjay officers. All swagger and machismo, all standing on their hind legs, the mood hyped up and belligerent.

Khety tried to insist again that he had had nothing to do with Mahu's intervention. I could not credit it. 'I had begun to trust you,' I said, and walked off towards the group of men. My feet felt as heavy as river mud. I was trapped by protocol, just when I needed to follow the new lead.

Mahu introduced me. 'Glad you could join us,' he added, with heavy sarcasm. Here was a man who made everything he said sound like a threat.

'Thank you for the invitation,' I said with as little enthusiasm as possible.

He ignored me. 'I hear you've been scratching around in the workers' village. You've a missing woman and a dead officer on your hands. Time is ticking.'

I wasn't going to give him anything. 'It's surprising how things apparently unrelated to each other are in fact deeply connected.'

'Is it? Perhaps you can deeply connect your aim with a flying duck, if nothing else.'

A condescending ripple of amusement rang out from the other men. I looked around their gathered faces. They all wore imitations, more or less successful, of Mahu's lion grin. All dressed up in pristine hunting outfits, they looked like they were going to a fancy dress party. Their muscles had the appearance of vanity, not work. Hunting for them was a pastime, an amusement. Necessity, that simple and true god, had never visited them. The angle of the sun exaggerated the shadows of their haughty faces. Here were heads of offices, scions of Great Families, all members of the power elite.

Although I have made clear my hostile opinions about the Great Changes, even I must admit that one of the consequences is the way they have opened up new possibilities of advancement to a wider social spectrum. People such as myself. I am from a so-called 'ordinary' family. Yet how inadequate that word seems to the truth it contains: people caring for each other, improvising ways to get by, to enjoy their pleasures, to live well. These elite families, son after father, father after grandfather, have held on to the offices of earthly power and the locked stores of riches of our land for as long as time has trickled through the water clock. They have held on to it as if it could protect them from everything. And in truth it does - from poverty, from most kinds of fear, from want, from the diminished or destroyed horizons of a life's possibilities; from powerlessness, from humiliation, from hunger. Yet not from the suffering and vulnerability to misfortune that affect us all as a necessary part of being human.

Mahu interrupted my thoughts, as if reading them. 'Well, time flies. Let us take to the boats. Good hunting.'

We walked over to a group of papyrus-reed boats. Servants stood ready to attend us on the hunt, their own skiffs already prepared. I had grown up sailing these lovely craft - so simple and so elegant. We partnered up. Khety appeared at my side looking anxious, but just as he was about to step onto the boat beside me, one of the men from the group stopped him with a rudeness that amazed us both. But I had no wish, in any case, to waste the next hour with Khety whining in my ear. The stranger introduced himself as Hor. He had with him his cat on a leather lead. It leaped at once to the front of the boat, and sat down, washing its front right paw, glancing at me expectantly, critically.

Hor, who seemed uninterested in conversation, produced a superb bow from a linen carrying cloth. He tested the tension of the bowstring with the thumb-ring. The fine threads - probably around sixty for a weapon of this quality - were neatly joined at each end to loops of tightly twisted sinew - a marvellous way to avoid fraying. I found, in a wooden box, a carved throwing stick I could use myself, as of course I possessed none to bring with me. There was also a weighted net and a spear in the box, in case we caught anything bigger. All pretty basic, and nowhere near as powerful as the costly sophistication of the bow.

As Mahu gave the signal and we moved in silence out onto the wide river, as smooth and rippling as a banner in a light breeze, towards a reed marsh further north along the river from the city, I was already desperate for the hunt to be over. The cat remained poised and keen on the prow, mesmerized by the far songs and hidden calls of the marsh. Soon the city disappeared behind the wide, tree-lined curve of the river. The eastern cliffs, where the tombs were being built, rose up on our right-hand side to form a high natural barrier to the river's course, but to the west the river widened and flattened into water marshes and thick, dark papyrus forests. Birds pitched their warnings as they drifted, circling in the high light.

The skiffs silently, one by one, entered the tall stands of the motionless green and silver reed marsh, and disappeared. As I punted along, I tried to keep track of the others; it was hard to keep one's gaze steady among the flickering verticals of the reeds. The hunting cat was up on all fours, pacing about its little territory in the bow, its head rising up to scent the air. Hor stood up, preparing his bow and glancing alertly through the reeds, as if looking for something. I looked back and saw, briefly, Khety some considerable distance behind me. He was trying to track my progress. I slowed my pace. He raised a hand, trying to signal, but then he disappeared again behind the dense forest of the reeds. Hor said gruffly, 'Don't lose the pace. We don't want to miss the fun.' I looked down to make sure the nets and throwing stick were near to hand.

Suddenly we came into a clearing among the reeds, and there were all the other skiffs balanced on their own reflections which stretched and wavered then came to rest. I saw Mahu, standing in his boat, observing the reeds and the sky. All was silent. Everyone listened.

Then he beat a pair of clappers together, shouted the hunting call, and the evening air filled with the sound of thousands of birds taking to the skies. Everyone hurled their sticks at once, tens of them whirring into the pandemonium of the suddenly risen flock, and those who possessed bows let their arrows hiss into the chaos. I took some kind of aim and threw my stick. The cat went crazy, dancing like a mad thing. There were shouts and cries, the skiffs separated to follow the hunt, and then the great air was filled with the flutter and thud of bodies tumbling down to splash into the water. The cat appeared from among the reeds with its catch, a bloodied duck, in its mouth. The iridescent colours of the feathers were marked with blood under the wings, but otherwise it seemed perfect in its moment of death.

I ducked down to grasp a spear. We had entered another forest of reeds. Suddenly I could see nothing of the other boats.

I looked up and found myself face to face with Hor. His bow was pointing directly at me. It was drawn back, and an arrow tipped with silver, and bearing the hieroglyphs of the Cobra and Seth, I now noticed, was poised in its tense embrace.

'You missed me last time,' I said.

'I meant to.'

'That's what they all say.'

He was not amused, and tightened the bow's tension. He could not miss me now, and he smiled. I held my breath. I thought: you idiot, to walk into this trap. This would appear a sorry accident, as if I had been cut down by an unlucky hunting arrow as it fell back to earth.

Then, suddenly, he fell sideways - from nowhere a throwing stick knocked him down. His arrow flew off with an almost comic twang into the reeds. I struggled to keep my balance, and almost fell into the water. Khety came into view, gesturing in fear. Hor stirred in the bottom of the boat, groaning and clutching his head. There was blood on the reed floor. I threw the weighted net over him, and as he tried to rise I pushed him over the edge and into the water where he thrashed and struggled, enmeshing himself ever deeper in the fine labyrinth of the net. I had no choice. I cast the spear deep into his chest, pushing him down under the surface. The spear met the tension of solid muscle, the resistance of bone. I stabbed and thrust again, and this time the blade passed right through into his body and out the other side. I drew it back and got ready to strike again, but it was not necessary. Even under the water he looked amazed, then dis-appointed. The water blurred, clouded red, then he slowly swung over onto his front.

I turned the skiff around and began to sail for my life. I glanced back. The body bobbed just beneath the water. The reeds slapped into the prow and my face. Luckily I was lighter by one man so my pace was faster now. I saw Khety again, also alone on his boat, ahead of me. I gestured for him to keep going. Behind me I saw Mahu turn to look in my direction; then came shouts and calls. I disappeared again into the hissing reeds. The cat worried and danced away at the dead bird, guiltily snatching little mouthfuls of feathers. I was gaining distance, drawing closer to Khety. He gestured to me to be silent as from the river came the sound of more boats, a
nd the louder sound of men call
ing. I had to assume that accomplices in this new assassination attempt were among these men, and indeed that Mahu himself had sanctioned it. No wonder he had been so insistent on my presence.

We moved deeper into the marsh. I motioned to Khety to slow down. Among a thicket of reeds we came to a stop and waited, barely daring to breathe, listening. I could hear the boats coming towards each other, and then the calls of warning and recognition as they appeared through the reeds. Moments of discussion followed. They decided to split up and fan out to search the marsh. I glanced around me. It was growing dark and becoming impossible to be sure which way lay the shore, and whether we could save ourselves upon it.

I wrestled the dead bird from the cat's reluctant mouth, its damned claws scratching my wrists, and broke open the bird's neck. Quickly I smeared the blood along the floor and the side of the skiff, and threw the body away. The cat glared at me with spite and anger at the waste, and began howling and sniffing the blood to see what could be saved. Then I motioned Khety towards me and climbed over onto his boat. As quietly as I could I pushed my skiff away into the reeds with my foot. It slowly disappeared into the rising mist, the cat on the prow staring balefully back at me.

We poled the skiff as silently and as deeply as we could into the dark reed forest and sat waiting.

'Good throw,' I whispered.

'Thanks.'

'Where did you learn that kind of accuracy?' 'I've hunted all my life.' 'Luckily for me.'

Then we heard it: the reeds parting stiffly to allow a skiff to pass. It was no more than twenty cubits from us. We could see nothing. I tested the bow, prepared an arrow. The bow's pure energy sang beneath my fingers. We waited, our breath held absolutely silent. Then came an urgent exchange: they had found the bloodied boat. We crouched down and waited for fate to take its course. Would they take the bait? We could hear them talking, as if they were in the next room. Then their voices gradually faded as they moved away, taking the other boat with them.

We sat there for a long time, still as crocodiles. Gradually the voices and the night lamps of the boats faded into the darkness, and we were left alone with the noisy evening life of the marsh, the newly appearing stars and, luckily, an early-risen half-moon: there was enough light in the sky to help us home, and the lengthening shadows would be our disguise.

'Thanks for saving my life,' I said.

I could tell Khety was smiling, pleased, in the dark.

'It seems that someone dislikes me here, Khety.'

'I didn't tell Mahu anything. Believe me.'

This time I decided I did.

'But why would he take such an obvious risk? Surely if he wanted me out of the way he would have found a subtler way to do it than inviting me on a hunt.'

'He's not that bright,' Khety said, with some kind of pleasure.

'Let's head back.'

'And then what?'

'Pick up the trail. The Harem. A night visit.'