another. His strength ebbing, he rammed his elbow into the chest of the man behind him.
The hold on his throat loosened slightly. He had only moments before it tightened again for the last time. Going limp, Meren heard a grunt of satisfaction. His feet touched the ground as his attacker began to release him. He quickly made fists. Jabbing backward with his thumbs, he gouged at the man's eyes. He heard a yelp, and suddenly he was free.
Whirling around, Meren kicked a massive, bare stom ach. The attacker grunted, buckled, and sank to his knees. He was about to punch the man when he slumped to the ground. Whipping around, Meren glanced about the darkened passage for further danger.
Perceiving no one else, Meren straightened from his crouch. He brushed a hand through his hair and smoothed the folds of his kilt. The years as a charioteer and warrior still came to his aid. This wasn't the first time his training had saved him from danger encountered in his duties to Pharaoh.
He drew a dagger that hung from the belt at his waist. Leaning against a wall, he contemplated the groaning Imsety. The fool had risked death by attacking a nobleman and would be punished-but he would be questioned first. As he watched the man on the ground, his charioteer burst into the passage and slid to a halt. He glanced from Meren to his victim, snorted contemptuously, and went silent. Imsety rolled onto his back, then pushed himself to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. He opened them. His teary gaze found Meren, and for once he found more than three words to say.
'My lord Meren! Merciful Amun, I am destroyed.' Imsety struggled to his knees and held out a beseeching hand to Meren. 'I thought you were a thief. I beg you, lord, please believe me.'
Meren regarded Imsety without expression, allowing the young man to babble. Imsety was squinting at him, his eyes red. His massive shoulders hunched, and he groaned as Meren lounged silently against the wall.
'I am dead,' Imsety said.
He crouched in the street before Meren. His head was bowed nearly to the ground in supplication. Meren heard him draw in a breath as he lifted his head to glance at the charioteer and saw the necklace bunched in the fist of the warrior. His features smoothed into blankness.
'Your clattering tongue has stilled,' Meren said softly. 'No matter. It will flap freely enough before you die.'
Imsety closed his eyes briefly. Meren twitched his dagger at Hormin's son, causing him to lurch to his feet.
'Come,' Meren said. 'It seems I'll sit in judgment of you before you go to the gods for theirs.'
He had no trouble in shepherding the dispirited Imsety back to his chariot and to his headquarters. He had his guards throw Hormin's son into a holding room in the small barracks behind his office. Imsety remained there, nursing his fear, while Meren bathed and changed.
While his body servant arranged the folds of a fresh kilt around him, Meren wondered how Kysen was faring at the village of the tomb makers. He had encour aged his son to return to the place many times, only to relent in the face of the boy's pain. This murder had offered an occasion to insist that Kysen confront old Pawero and leave behind old and haunting memories.
Meren felt his body servant tug on his wrist. He held it out so that the boy could fasten a studded wristguard in place; his warrior's garb would further intimidate the hulking Imsety. When the last tie of his gilt leather corselet had been tightened across his chest, he slipped a dagger in his belt and held out his hand for a gold-handled chariot whip.
He had contemplated wearing a short sword, but dis carded the idea. He wouldn't need it with his aides in attendance, and the sword would be too much. He preferred subtlety, though it would probably be lost on Imsety. Meren touched the gold band that held his head-cloth in place and dismissed the body servant. It was time to play the cruel aristocrat and strike fear into the heart of Imsety.
The barracks was a long, low building with a central hall. Meren entered the hall flanked by two aides to find several charioteers. Two guarded an interior door, while
102 Lynda 5. Robinson another sat by one of the support columns, mending a whip. Meren nodded at the sentries. They threw open the door, and one ducked inside the dark chamber. Imsety stumbled into the hall, shoved by the charioteer. Propelled by the guards, he lumbered over to Meren and fell to his knees when two hands shoved on his shoulders.
Meren slapped the coiled whip against his thigh de liberately. Imsety glanced at it. Meren caught his expression-one of dull resignation. He remained silent, his plan suddenly altered by this perception. Who had always obtained Imsety's cooperation? Not the brutal Hormin, but the clever Djaper. Meren gazed at the man on his knees while he held out the whip. An aide came forward to take it, while the other brought a chair.
He sat, never taking his gaze from Imsety. The man was obsessed with his farm. He wanted to go home. This Meren believed. What had Imsety been willing to do to obtain the farm and go home? Did he have the courage or the rashness to rob his own father? Meren drew his dagger. Laying it flat against his palm, he pretended to contemplate the iron blade. He'd taken it from a Hittite in a skirmish near Tyre. The handle bore a turquoise inlay and the pommel was of rock crystal. He watched the crystal reflect dim colors while he thought, then began to tap the flat of the blade against his palm.
'You're a fool, Imsety, and a stubborn one.'
Imsety stirred, but he had regained his ability to keep silent.
'Yes, stubborn. But how stubborn will you remain if I give Djaper a taste of my whip instead of you?'
His jaw stiff, Imsety widened his eyes and stared at Meren, who smiled at him.
Meren looked at the aide beside his chair. 'Abu, bring Djaper, son of Hormin, to me at once.'
Murder in the Place of Anubis 103
'No!' Imsety stretched out a hand to Meren, only to have it knocked aside by one of the guards. The other hit him on the side of the head, and he subsided back onto his heels. 'Please, lord, I beg of you. Don't hurt Djaper.'
Concealing his surprise, Meren watched Imsety strug gle with some inner perplexity. The effort distorted the man's fleshy features. His thick lips skewed to the side, and great furrows appeared between his brows. Meren decided to push him again. He nodded to Abu, who turned to leave.
'I will tell you all!' Imsety said.
Meren glanced back at his victim as if in surprise. 'Well?'
'We quarreled with my father.' Imsety paused and wet his lips. 'He would never have given me the farm. Not if he gained ten times the wealth he already had. We took the collar.'
'When?'
'The night-the night he was killed.'
'Come,' Meren said. 'Don't lose your newfound el oquence or I shall begin to think of sending for Djaper.'
'That night, we had gone to the house of a friend to let our anger cool. We came home and went to our beds, but later-Djaper had thought of a plan. We would devise a false robbery.'
'You looted Hormin's room,' Meren said.
Imsety nodded.
'And were to sell some of the booty.'
'I would have purchased my own farm.' Imsety said this last with a shrug. 'But the necklace was broken and needed repair.'
At a look from Meren, Abu produced the necklace, the beads cascading into Meren's hand. Most collars had end pieces made in the shape of animal heads that fastened together, but each edge of this one instead bore only the thin, smooth gold pin by which the finial should have been attached. Also missing was the metal counterpoise that should have hung down the wearer's back to hold the heavy collar in place.
Meren handed the collar back to Abu, then snapped at Imsety. 'You saw Hormin leave the house late after going to his concubine. That is why you did your stealing then.'
'How-?'
'Djaper is too clever for his own health, and you are not so stupid that you'd fail to reward yourself through his cleverness. Perhaps you decided stealing was too much trouble and killed Hormin instead.'
'No!'
Abu spoke for the first time. 'Let me take a cattle brand to him, lord. I'll make him confess.'
