The Assassins of Isis (30 page)

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Authors: P. C. Doherty

BOOK: The Assassins of Isis
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‘Let me repeat the heart of my argument. I have explained my theory, which I cannot fully prove, that General Suten was also growing suspicious, though about what I cannot say. Did he suspect his lovely wife and his valet Heby? Was he alarmed by the furtive secrecy of his chief scribe? Or had General Suten become deeply concerned over more serious matters? He must have been worried about the thefts in the Valley of the Kings, his archives held vital information about these. He certainly became quiet and withdrawn, his reservations were apparent, his change in behaviour obvious, even to his old servants in the mansion. More importantly, in his own way General Suten was voicing reservations about his family and household. The wall paintings of his tomb make hardly any mention of them. General Suten could become a major obstacle in a time of crisis, so the Khetra— Menna, Lupherna and Heby—plotted his death. You had to, to survive!'
Amerotke paused so the court could hear Lupherna's sobbing.
‘General Suten had to die, but how? An accident? He was a wiry, tough old man, often surrounded by other servants; the more suspicious he grew, the more careful he'd be. A fall from the roof? General Suten was a fighter and he might survive. A poison powder? That would provoke outcry. Whilst a hired assassin is a risk which could leave you vulnerable. But snakes, horned vipers? In a curious way this was the best method, especially after what General Suten had both spoken and written about.'
‘A risk, surely?' Lord Valu declared, although his voice lacked conviction.
‘Of course it was a risk,' Amerotke agreed. ‘But not as
great as being unmasked and arrested. So the trap was sprung. General Suten was drugged, the horned vipers released, and suspicion falls on Heby, which is spiced by rumours of the valet flirting with the general's pretty wife.'
Amerotke raised his hands. ‘A good lie always contains some truths. The Khetra knew about the poppy seed the general received at the Temple of Isis. We only have their word that he never told them or they never knew about it. Lord Impuki,' he turned to the High Priest. ‘Such powders can be bought?'
‘Yes.' Impuki nodded. ‘As can a pouch bearing the insignia of our temple.'
‘The rest,' Amerotke continued, ‘was also a mixture of truth and lies. Heby, of course, was well protected by a series of defences which I am sure Menna would have argued in court. Where did he get those horned vipers? Where did he store them? How could he have brought them up to the roof without anyone noticing? What real motive did he have for murder? What about General Suten's intention to face his own fears? Finally, and most importantly, we have the cord tied on the rail behind the drapes where General Suten's bed stood. Eventually someone, under Menna's direction, would have stumbled on that, if not me then Standard-Bearer Nadif, or some other official. You, Menna, and Lupherna were never suspected. After a little doubt, Heby would also be cleared and the Khetra would be safe. But blind chance intervened. The gods love to upset our best-laid plans. The snake man, prompted by Lord Valu's offer of a reward, made the surprising declaration that he sold those vipers to Heby. Now, if Heby had been calmer, that too could have been dismissed. Why should Heby show his face if he was planning murder? But you hadn't planned for such a mishap and that's where you made a terrible mistake. Your next was to assassinate that temple guard and draw attention to the criminal known as Djed.'
‘I know nothing of him!' Menna shouted. ‘What proof do you have?'
‘Heby's my proof, he became hysterical with fear. What could you do, assassinate Hefau? No, too suspicious. It was much easier to murder Heby. What went wrong? Did Heby accuse you of betraying him? Did he blame you, threaten you?'
‘He attacked me,' Menna replied coolly. ‘Bound and gagged me, rifled my treasures and fled.'
Amerotke stared at this fat, square-faced clerk. He quietly conceded he had made a mistake, overlooked something. Menna was a wily schemer; he appeared too calm, and kept looking intently at the Pharaoh Queen. Hatusu was unnaturally tense and Senenmut was whispering to her. Amerotke felt a prickle of unease. How dangerous, how cunning was Chief Scribe Menna? Yet it was too late now, he had no choice but to proceed.
‘Heby did not attack you,' Amerotke declared. ‘You killed him, you hid his body somewhere in that house, you bruised yourself and then Lady Lupherna came slipping along to your chamber to gag and bind you. No one thought of looking for Heby in the house. In a mansion that size, a corpse can be hidden away for a short while.'
‘Ridiculous!' Menna snorted with anger, looking to Valu as if for protection. ‘If I did all this, then who killed the guard? Who left the dagger and trinkets in the undergrowth near the path?'
‘Why, you did!'
‘I never left General Suten's mansion, nor did Lady Lupherna.'
‘No, that's not true. The guards left at the house were rather lax. You made them even more so. You're a soldier, Menna, you know a lazy sentry when you see one. Moreover, those men were concerned with Heby, not you. On that particular morning, long before dawn, garbed and masked, you left the house, scaled the wall, entered the grove behind
the house, came up behind that sleeping guard and sliced his throat. You then hastened along the trackway to throw down Heby's dagger and the jewellery you yourself had taken. It was a lonely time, in a deserted place, with very little risk. After all, you had every right to leave the house. You would have escaped attention,' Amerotke gestured at Nadif, ‘if it had not been for the sharpness of this officer.'
He paused.
‘When Nadif first freed you, you declared that Heby's attack had taken place only a short while earlier. Nadif was intrigued, because the guard who was killed was stone cold, his blood caked, whilst the blood on the dagger was also dry. More curiously, when Nadif studied the grove behind the house he could see that someone had stolen through there, but when he found the trinkets and dagger the undergrowth around was hardly disturbed. No one had passed through there, forced a way. It looked as if they had just left the path, dropped the dagger and. jewellery and returned, which, of course, is what really happened. You'd arranged for those trinkets to be found, just as the day before you'd organised information to provide false reports about Heby being seen in the city or along the Nile.
‘Nadif was also curious about the guards; they were not only sleepy but very heavy-eyed, and that troubled me. You would have been responsible for the food and drink given to them. Did you mix powders with their wine? I expect you did. During the night you invited Heby to your room, killed him, and hid his body. You left before dawn and returned to continue the deceit. Lady Lupherna came to your chamber to finish the web of lies.'
Amerotke closed his eyes and quickly prayed to Ma'at, then he leaned forward and opened his eyes.
‘Lady Lupherna, Heby did not flee! My manservant Shufoy and his fellow searchers have found his corpse near General Suten's mansion.'
‘You couldn't have—' Lupherna spoke before Menna
could intervene, a ringing shout which proclaimed their guilt. Menna tried to grasp her arm, but she pushed him off as the guards pulled them apart. ‘You couldn't have,' she moaned. ‘You couldn't have.' She was staring fixedly at Amerotke. ‘It wasn't supposed to be like this.' She abruptly recalled where she was. ‘Mercy!' she shrieked.
Amerotke sat fascinated. Lupherna was apparently broken, but Menna remained resolute. The judge started as Senenmut appeared behind him and dropped a small scroll into his lap. Amerotke quickly unrolled it and read the short phrase:
If the order is silence then it is silence
. He glanced up. Hatusu sat unmoved, although her breathing was rather quick and abrupt. Lupherna, her hands to her face, was rocking backwards and forwards.
‘My lady, Divine One,' Menna bellowed like a bull, ‘I know nothing of this. I swear by the Book of Secrets I—'
‘Silence! Gag him!' Hatusu screamed.
Amerotke sat in amazement as Senenmut sprang to his feet, shouting at the guards. Lupherna, crying hysterically, was bound, gagged and dragged from the hall by the Silent Ones, the deaf-mutes who guarded the House of Adoration. Menna was still shouting something about proclaiming the truth whether he was alive or dead, before he too was seized, a cloth stuffed into his mouth and his hands quickly bound. The Chief Scribe struggled like a bull; tables were kicked over, cushions flung across the slippery floor. A guard hit Menna full in the face but the scribe still resisted, and the High Priest of Isis, together with Valu and Nadif, moved quickly out of the way. Senenmut shouted for the hall to be cleared.
Hatusu rose majestically, slapping Amerotke on the shoulder and gesturing to him to lead her across to his own private shrine and chamber. Once inside, she drew the clasp bolts across, tore off her headdress and sandals,
the jewelled Nenes from around her shoulders, and slumped down into the high-backed chair. The judge went to kneel before her but she snapped her fingers.
‘Sit where you want!' She pointed to the serving table. ‘I'm thirsty, some watered wine.'
Amerotke poured this and handed it to her. There was a knock on the door; Amerotke opened it, and Senenmut almost threw himself into the room. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it, gasping for breath.
‘So he did find it!' he exclaimed.
‘Yes,' Hatusu sighed. ‘He must have. They must be kept in silence, total silence.'
‘They have been taken below to the House of Chains; each will be guarded by Silent Ones.'
‘They will have to die!' Hatusu whispered. ‘Whatever happens, they must go to the wood. Did you hear what Menna was shouting? Alive or dead. Alive or dead, the Book of Secrets will be known.'
Amerotke curbed his own angry impatience and sat silently. Senenmut, still leaning against the door, glanced sharply at him as if only now becoming aware of the judge's presence.
‘Ah! My lord judge.'
‘My lord judge,' Amerotke shouted, ‘is angry, his court has become a travesty. On reflection I am beginning to suspect the truth behind two questions which have occurred to me before but which I unwisely dismissed. First, why was the Divine One so angry at these thefts? Oh, I understand the blasphemy and sacrilege,' he added hastily, ‘but the robbery of royal tombs has occurred before and undoubtedly will happen again.'
‘Secondly?' Hatusu snarled.
‘Something Shufoy noticed. How your rage spilled out after the robbery of the tomb of Rahimere, Grand Vizier under your late husband.'
Hatusu was not listening to him but staring at Senenmut
with some unasked question which he answered with a nod of his head.
‘As you know,' Hatusu turned back to Amerotke, ‘my late, glorious husband was assassinated by a faction in the royal circle who then tried to oust me. Rahimere was the leader of those criminals. He'd hated me since I was a little girl, and kept a close eye on me, much closer than I thought. He drew up a Book of Secrets about me, scandal and gossip.'
‘Straws in the wind,' Amerotke scoffed.
‘No, no, much more serious.'
‘Such as?'
‘That my birth was not divine.'
‘Only the gods know that,' Amerotke replied. ‘What else?'
Hatusu drew a deep breath. ‘That whilst my husband was still alive and involved in the House of War, fighting the People of the Nine Bows, Lord Senenmut and I became lovers, and whilst my husband was away on campaign I was secretly delivered of a female child.'
‘Lies, of course!'
Hatusu gazed back serenely.
‘Lies, Divine One,' Amerotke repeated.
Hatusu's glance fell away; Senenmut stared at the floor.
‘In the struggle for power,' Hatusu's voice was just above a whisper, ‘Rahimere died. Well, you know the truth, Amerotke.'
‘In which case he didn't die, he was invited to take poison.'
‘He was a traitor, a murderer and a rebel!' Hatusu snapped.
‘Never mind that,' Senenmut intervened. ‘His corpse was handed back to his relatives for burial. Those were frenetic days, Amerotke, we were concerned with the living, not with the dead. To come to the point, he was buried secretly in the Valley.'
‘You had the power to discover where his tomb was.'
‘We didn't care where he was rotting,' Senenmut jibed. ‘He was dead, gone into the Far West, and that was the end of the matter, until about three months ago, when we discovered that Rahimere had kept this Book of Secrets, contained in a sealed casket, which was buried with him. Not just in the tomb but in the coffin casket itself.'
‘Who told you this? Ah!' Amerotke took the rings from his fingers. ‘The only person who could, Rahimere's wife. She wouldn't have known what to do with the Book of Secrets. Out of respect for her husband she wouldn't destroy it, so she had it buried with him. When I was in the Temple of Isis I heard that Rahimere's widow had gone there for treatment and died. She must have told Lord Impuki, and he reported it to the palace.' Amerotke shook his head. ‘Mysteries within mysteries,' he whispered. ‘That's why the disappearance of the four hesets was treated so sensitively. Any other temple would have been ransacked by troops from the Sacred Band. No wonder Lady Thena felt confident enough to take the law into her own hands and execute Mafdet; you are in their debt.'

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