‘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 should 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. ‘Birth 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 tension. 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.
