Hunero's house was a narrow, two-story building that looked as if the taller buildings on either side were slowly expanding and compressing it.
Satet examined the dwelling from threshold to roof with a disapproving scowl. 'Humph. Left the old house for this, did she? That's Hunero. Always seeking to better herself when she's quite well off where she is. And what happens? She ends up with something not half as good as what she had.' She marched up the two steps before the door and banged on the dried and peeling wood. 'Never satisfied. Never got over being the queen's favorite cook. Always pining.'
She got no answer, and all she heard was the buzzing of flies. Dozens of them sailed in and out of the grilled windows high above the door. Satet pounded harder. A woman poked her head out the door of the neighboring house, muttered a curse at Satet, and slammed the portal shut.
'Donkey's consort!' Satet retorted. She began kicking the door and shouting, 'Hunero, I know you're in there. Let me in!' Drawing back her foot, Satet gave the door another kick with the full force of her strength.
'Owwwwww!' She grabbed her foot and pressed her free hand against the door.
It gave way, and Satet fell through. She landed on her hands and knees, foot throbbing, in a dark space. What little light the dusk provided showed her a lamp beside the door. Several flies tried to land on her face, and Satet brushed at them absently. With care for her jarred old bones, Satet crawled into a sitting position, lit the lamp, and maneuvered herself to her feet.
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.
Chapter 11
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
