City of the Dead (4 page)

Guilt, uncertainty, and a disturbance of divine order. It was time to visit the temple and do what I must to appease the gods.

* * *

Men are often like wayward goats, who need nothing more than a gentle switch across the forelegs to guide them in the right direction. I spent the late afternoon goading reluctant work teams and Aswan granite into place, with thoughts of Mentu crowded behind more immediate crises.

I was forced to climb the pyramid three times, over twenty courses to the entrance, to inspect the changes to the corridor. Without the casing stones yet placed, the pyramid formed natural steps. But with each course nearly as high as my shoulder, the ramps were necessary to reach the entrance, though they circled round the structure and were crowded with gangs hauling blocks upward.

Once each day I continued all the way to the top, one hundred cubits above the bedrock, simply to catch a fresh breeze and
survey the plateau. From the ever-rising platform, I could see the valley temple, harbor, and even the Nile to the east, the village and quarry to the south, and the vast western desert. This day, as the sun rested, heavy and orange on the plateau’s edge, thoughts of disorder returned, along with my earlier desire to seek the gods’ favor in the temple.

I requisitioned a goat from the village, then crossed the desert to the valley temple that lay at the harbor’s edge. Eventually this temple would be used for the seventy days of purification of Khufu’s body. When completed, a processional up the causeway would escort his body to its hidden chamber in the pyramid where he would begin his journey to the west. But for now, the temple gave those of us laboring on the Horizon a place to honor the gods.

The sun’s death was complete by the time I reached the temple, and I cursed those who had delayed me. The darkness was like a heavy, forbidding veil about the temple, warning those who approached of the gravity of encountering the gods.

I climbed the steps to the impressive entrance flanked by two round columns twice the height of a man. Inside, torches and braziers attempted to light the black corners of the temple chambers, but succeeded only in casting ominous shadows upon the walls, each elaborately depicting scenes of the gods from floor to ceiling.

I breathed deeply, then dragged the reluctant goat inside. The gods demanded purity and exacted justice. I had none of the first, and feared the second. Upon my death, Anubis would weigh my heart against the feather of truth. Should my heart prove lighter than the feather, my soul would be judged worthy to pass into the paradise of afterlife. Yet did any among us truly believe his heart would not outweigh a feather?

I crossed through the first chamber, anxious to be finished with this necessary task. In the second chamber, a square recess in the wall held the figure of Ra, the sun god. Above it, carved in relief, was a depiction of Ra as a man, the sun disc balanced on his head, traveling in his sky boat through the day, then stepping into his night boat to sail the underworld by night. Beside the recessed figure, a three-legged brazier burned incense at knee height. Though the ceiling was lost in the shadows high above me, the incense seemed to hang just above my head, weighting the warm room with its heavy perfume.

I shivered, despite the warmth. The goat at my thigh bleated.

A flicker of shadow was all the warning I had before a silky voice spoke at my elbow. “You have come to offer a sacrifice?”

I jumped away from the voice, toward the burning incense, and spun. Firelight played across a face, familiar in spite of the years that had passed.

“Rashidi?”

The little priest bowed low, bringing his head to the level of my belt. His memorable pointed nose still dominated his features. He stood upright again, a full head shorter than I. “Hemiunu,” he said, his lips thin.

“It’s been a long time.”

“I have been serving in the Temple of Ra.”

I pushed the rope holding the goat to him, though he had no authority here. “I am sorry about the loss of your position in On.”

His small black eyes rose to meet mine and steadied there. “Are you?”

I had been careful that Khufu’s dismissal of the priests and moving of the Ra worship would be seen to come from the king
and not me. From the disapproval that radiated from Rashidi, I wondered if he suspected otherwise.

A flutter of white nearby sucked our attention toward the entrance.

“Hemi!” Merit drew up short and stood framed in the chamber entrance. She wore no heavy wig tonight, and her hair floated about her face. Her fingers drifted to her throat. “What are you doing here?”

I bowed to my love and the Great Wife. “I brought a sacrifice. I will ask the gods to restore ma’at after the death of Mentu.”

Rashidi led the goat into the shadows, and his voice wove its way back to us. “Ma’at cannot be restored when those the gods appoint refuse to obey.”

Merit and I watched the darkness where Rashidi had seemed to evaporate. She finally spoke. “He has always been strange, hasn’t he?”

I moved back toward the brazier, longing for the heat to penetrate my chilled bones. “Did you also come to offer a sacrifice?”

Merit sighed and studied the statue of Amun, seated on his throne, in the recessed wall. “I came to offer my questions.”

I rubbed damp palms together and faced her. “It is not easy to know the will of the gods.”

Merit slid beside me, her eyes still on Amun, touched my forearm with her four fingertips, and kept them there.

“Do you ever doubt, Hemi?” she said. “Doubt everything we have been taught about the gods?”

I tried not to move, so as not to disturb her fingers, and hoped that Rashidi was occupied with the goat. The familiar warmth spread from her touch, loosening the ever-present tension between us.

“I have more doubts than certainties, I’m afraid.” My mouth felt dry.

Her eyes roamed my face, and her other hand joined the first on my arm. “What doubts? Tell me.” She stood so close that the night’s chill now fled.

“The afterlife is promised if our hearts are pure,” I whispered. “But I know no one whose heart is pure.”

“Yes!” Her eyes lit with a conspiratorial glow. “It seems a futile hope, from the womb! How can we go on hoping to reach the afterlife, when in the honesty of our souls, we know we are unworthy?” A desert breeze worked its way into the temple and lifted wisps of her hair from her face. “And they are ever changing, the gods. So many, all competing. Atum for our parents. Ra for us.” She stared up at me, eyes bright. “Do you ever wish for one god who does not change, Hemi?”

Looking down at her there, with her fiery eyes and her beautiful lips, I felt myself in grave danger. I stumbled backward and let her hands fall. “I try to focus on a different kind of eternity, Merit. Pharaoh’s pyramid will be my immortality.”

Her chin dropped to her chest at the mention of Khufu. It is always this way with us, when we encounter each other alone unexpectedly. We pretend for a few moments that it is only the two of us. Then one mentions Khufu, and the spell is broken.

“He thinks of nothing else, either,” Merit said, a sadness in her voice. “He is frantic to see it finished as soon as possible. He flies into a fury when he hears of a delay.”

“Even Pharaoh fears his mortality.”

Rashidi appeared beside us again, as though summoned from the dust by the gods. He held a large alabaster bowl of raw meat and
entrails. Merit wrinkled her nose, then turned away. “I must return to the palace. The Beloved of Ra will be asking for me.”

I watched her go, wondering if my effort to appease the gods here in the temple had now been negated by the thoughts of Merit that were resurrected each time I saw her face.

Rashidi’s nasal voice drew me back to the sacrifice at hand. “I thought you desired to restore ma’at, not create more disorder.”

I flexed my shoulders and wished I had brought my staff. “The building project will ensure the afterlife for all of us. My attention there will bring divine order.”

He shrugged and moved toward the inmost chamber, through a doorway tall enough to admit a god. I followed. Inside, a larger fire burned on an altar, with hefty joints of oxen smoking at its center.

Rashidi dipped his bare hands into the bowl of gore and lifted dripping fingers. I looked into the flames, letting them burn away the image. The gods demanded my sacrifice, but did they insist that I enjoy the ritual? Rashidi tossed my offering to the flames, then intoned words too dark and deep for me to understand. I felt the weight of omen descend through the temple and settle on my shoulders.

Rashidi stared into the flames and spoke in flattened tones, as if reading my heart there in the embers. “You care only for your own goal, your own name, Hemiunu. You avoid what is necessary, what is important, to further your own ambition.”

I shifted and considered that it was time to leave.

“Only when you turn your back on your own ambition,” he continued, “and do what you know to be right, will the goddess Ma’at restore her blessing.”

Ashes from the charred meat clawed their way upward through the smoke-filled chamber. Some landed on my lips, and I thought I could taste the blackened flesh. Smoke burned my eyes.

“I must concentrate on the pyramid,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

Rashidi’s eyes reflected the firelight as he gazed at me, tiny double flames that seemed lit from within. “You must sacrifice yourself to bring justice.” His voice was like the hiss of a serpent in the fiery chamber, but then he lifted it to a surprising volume and delivered his prophecy like a hound baying at a feral scent. “Sacrifice yourself, Hemiunu! Or there will be more suffering, more pain, more disorder!”

I chose to leave the temple now, feeling that I had fulfilled my duties of sacrifice and had done all I could for the gods for one night.

As I crossed under the granite lintel, past the two mighty columns, and stumbled onto the sandy plateau, Rashidi’s voice seemed to echo behind me, over me, and out across the valley below. Like an ox-hide drum, calling men to judgment.

Sacrifice yourself, Hemiunu! Or there will be more suffering, more pain, more disorder!

Throughout the next day and into the evening I found myself looking over my shoulder in anticipation of the next disaster. I drove the men hard to make up yesterday’s slack, but we were forced to quit early, as it was the Day of Accession and the king’s yearly festival would begin in late afternoon with a procession from palace to temple.

I stood at attention outside the palace entrance, with thousands of others who thronged the road to the temple. Khufu emerged on his gilded sedan chair, carried on poles by four brawny slaves. He wore the double crown, red and white, and inclined his head gently toward his people, while a fan bearer on either side kept him cool in spite of this tremendous effort. I occupied my mind with calculations and a frustrated reassessment of schedules based on the recent shortened workdays, the tension of the numbers creeping up my back and shoulders.

When Khufu had made his obeisance to the gods and been deposited back at the Great House, I departed to my own more
modest home to get ready for the feast which would begin at sunset.

My preparations were simple. I shaved my face and head quickly, then placed my shaving knives in an even line from smallest to largest as is my habit. I ignored the usual cosmetics and jewelry, except for a gold armband to circle the midpoint of my upper arm, and donned a white robe with a gold belt. I would leave my staff behind. Though I was careful about my routine, I did not particularly care to spend much time in my house.
An empty
treasury, still waiting to be filled.

My haste to the Great House did not stem from excitement over the feast. These evenings of pomp and supposed hilarity never reached into my heart with their fingers of glee. And there were far too many of them. Before the Great Hall had grown cold from tonight’s celebration, the Festival of Hapi would be upon us, with games of skill and more feasting. I usually tried to excuse myself, to escape from these activities early. Tonight, however, I had a greater purpose.

I passed through the palace gate, under the mighty arch. The garden path led me to the palace entry, between two lines of palm trees and flaming torches. My gaze drifted upward to the palace walls. A woman watched me from where she sat on the deep ledge of a window.

The feast had already begun when I stepped into the Great Hall of Pillars. The room swarmed with nobles, officials, courtiers, and administrators, all jockeying for the best positions at the low stone tables that had been placed among the pillars. At the edges of the room, miniature replicas of the great pillars held alabaster lamps of burning oil atop their fluted capitals, bathing the painted walls in gold.

Rashidi’s words had struck deep, and although I could not walk away from the project, I also believed that ma’at would not be put right until I had found justice for Mentu. To this end, I planned to use my appearance at tonight’s festival to speak to the one man I believed could best handle the search for the killer.

Musicians lined the front of the hall, and I noted that the leading harpist in the kingdom had been engaged for the evening. His twenty-stringed harp was among the finest I had seen, and I felt a flicker of jealousy at the ornate column and neck. Music filled the Great Hall, mingling with the rising conversation and reverberating off the stone walls. The drinking had not yet begun and already the noise grated against my ears.

I searched the hall for the man I’d come to see. He would be easy to locate, the Nubian whom I had engaged to keep a watchful eye and a firm hand on the work site. Axum’s basalt-black skin and eyes as white and round as full moons were most intimidating, and even the bravest of the laborers could not stand up to the intensity of his gaze.

Slave girls came to anoint my head and adorn me with a necklace of lotus flowers. I allowed the anointing but could not be bothered by flowers. Across the room, Senosiris lifted a hand in greeting. His daughter stood at his side, watching the festivities with the wide eyes of one new to the pleasures of the privileged.

I spotted the Nubian, Axum, standing apart from the gaiety, at the back of the hall, his back braced against a mighty column.

“Axum!” My voice evaporated in the din. I started toward the Nubian, but a hand around my upper arm held me fast. Behind me, a slender woman pulled up close.

“I’ve been waiting for a man more exciting than these dull politicians to appear,” she said.

I had to bend my head to catch her words, and Tamit interpreted my movement as an invitation. She pecked a kiss on my cheek.

“You give me too much credit, Tamit. I am as dull as any other politician.”

She stifled a laugh and encircled my arm with both her own. “Then tell my why every woman in the kingdom without a husband has her eye on Hemiunu.”

I lifted my gaze above her head to find Axum again. He still stood against the far column. “I have someone I must speak to, Tamit. You will excuse me?”

She sighed like a woman who is bored with everything life has given her. “You will sit beside me for the feast, Hemi. I’ll be certain of it.”

“As you wish.”

Tamit’s flirtations were far from a novelty. Khufu’s cousin on his mother’s side had been a coy girl when the seven of us were young together, and she had since become a tenacious woman. She’d buried one husband in a grand mastaba in Memphis and was hard at work finding another.

It will not be me.

Axum raised his white orbs as I approached. His shaved head glistened in the torchlight. Though the desert night was cool, the torches, the bodies, and the hot food made the hall stifling as though it were midafternoon.

“Axum, I must speak to you.” The Nubian faced me fully, his attention mine. “You have heard about Mentu’s murder?” I asked.

A single, slow dip of his head was his only response, and his eyes never left my own. The festival swirled around us like a river rushing around an outcropped stone.

I raised my voice and leaned forward. “I have something for you to—”

The music cut off in mid-note, and the tumult of voices ceased a fraction of a moment later. I let my words hang in the air and turned to the front of the hall.

Khufu entered, trailed by his harem. He wore the double crown again tonight, as appropriate for his accession festival. In the five years since he had taken the throne, he had only solidified the unity of the Two Lands.

A courtier announced his presence. “The god Ra walks among you,” he intoned. “The Son of Ra, Horus on Earth, Your Great Pharaoh.”

We responded with a shout, “Life, Health, Strength!”

I tried to control the twitch of a smile. Khufu glided through the obsequious crowd, his outstretched arms deigning to touch the hands of a chosen few, his smile falling on others. He was loving every moment of this.

Every woman of the harem was dressed alike, I noted, like stones chiseled to match the others to perfection. They wore only short skirts, low on their hips, with ribbons wrapped about their upper bodies. Each was bejeweled with bracelets, necklets, anklets, and wreaths of flowers. They streamed behind Khufu as though he were the tip of the pyramid and they, the supporting stones.

I stood beside a statue of the cat goddess Bastet and waited in silence for Khufu to pass, though I chafed to speak to Axum before the seating began. The procession finally reached the back of the hall. I met my friend’s eyes, and Khufu steered away from me in a pretended insult, his smile turning to a wicked grin for a moment.

Yes, very amusing.

The seating began at once, with courtiers eyeing each other jealously as names were called and people took their places from Pharaoh’s seat outward. Two large tables ran along the sides of the hall, with a third at the head. Each hoped to find themselves seated at the head table. I turned to give Axum his charge, but the man had disappeared. I growled. I had hoped to be free to escape this torture whenever an opportune time arose.

Khufu’s snub was too soon erased, however. My name was called and I proceeded to the front of the room, where I would sit only a few chairs from the king. True to her word, Tamit was placed beside me. The red carnelians at her throat sparkled as she approached. She winked at me with pursed lips, and we settled into ornate wooden chairs with sloping arms and legs carved into lion’s paws.

“I always get what I want,” she said, smoothing her dress over her thighs.

I glanced around for Merit, but the Great Wife had chosen to wait to make her entrance.

The seating finished and conversation resumed. People leaned past piles of colorful fruit and great loaves of bread that loaded the tables to call out to friends placed farther down, and the Great Hall soon buzzed. I searched out Axum and found him placed near the end of the table to my left. The man’s eyes were on me still, which raised the hair on the back of my neck. Our conversation would have to wait through the formalities.

With a double somersault from the back of the room and a quick front flip, Perni the dwarf appeared at the center of the three tables, his feet splayed wide on the mosaic floor, his chubby arms upraised.

“Perni! Perni!” someone shouted. The crowd picked up the chant, banging hands on the table in rhythm. He bowed as if to
acquiesce, then began a slow dance in time with the clapping. This dance was all thrusting legs, leaps and twirls, and the crowd responded by picking up the tempo.

Tamit leaned against me and crooned into my ear, “Only a little longer, Hemi. Then you and I can find someplace quieter.” She squeezed my arm and raised her voice over the pounding fists. “You haven’t been to see my animals in such a long time.”

There are enough preening birds and strutting apes here to
amuse me.

The guests’ rhythm had reached an impossible pace, and the crowd roared as Perni’s feet inevitably tangled and he fell to the floor in a heap. The little man righted himself, bowed to Khufu who clapped louder than the rest of them, and skipped away.

Serving boys and girls poured into the room, offering ointment, wreaths, and perfumes, and ladling wine from alabaster bowls. The drinking began.

I had no desire to engage Tamit in conversation, so I chose the secondary evil, to speak to Oba on my other side. The older man needed only a small encouragement to set off on expounding the deplorable morality of the laborers, leaving me free to think of other things while nodding in agreement.

I caught sight of Axum again, still silent and watching. The man understood that I wanted something of him, and he would not leave before we had spoken.

It was time for the harem women to dance. I sighed and propped my elbows on the table. Already the flickering torchlight and noise had worked their way into my head. I rubbed my temples, hoping to relieve the tension.

I did not intend to watch the women dance, but there was a symmetry to their movements I found pleasing. They began in
unity, with slow steps, beating time on short sticks they held aloft. Female singers stood behind them and produced slow, clear tones that carried effortlessly through the heavy air.

Beat, beat, beat
. Twenty sticks and twenty feet sounded as one. Their measured steps brought them closer to the head table where Pharaoh was transfixed. Their unity was most satisfactory. I let my eyes roam over each one, appreciating the standards that guided Ra’henem, the superintendent of the harem.

Tamit was at my ear again. “I take it back,” she murmured. “It is not only the women without men who have eyes for Hemiunu.”

I leaned away but glanced at her. She inclined her head toward one of the dancers, at the edge of the group. I followed her look and found a petite girl, all wrapped with orange ribbons, breaking the symmetry to watch me. My mouth went dry and I looked away.

Tamit laughed. “Have no fear, Hemi. She won’t be allowed to do more than look.”

I shrugged and reached for a small loaf of bread.

“Besides,” Tamit said, running a finger over her lips, “I should claw her eyes out if she did.”

Turning away, I chose to scan the faces of those seated at the side tables and mentally recite each of their names. It was a game I played often, pushing myself to know everyone. I found that men felt appreciated when a superior called them by name and would therefore work harder. Most of the men’s faces were covered with sloppy grins at the sight of the harem dancers.

I spotted Sen’s daughter, Neferet, also watching the dancers as though memorizing their fluid movements. The dance ended with some sort of flourish I missed, and the crowd erupted with shouts and claps. The women twirled out, and musicians took their place, with men singing to the accompaniment of harps and flutes.

Already slave boys were replacing oil in lamps that had been fueled to blaze madly. I exhaled and used the back of my hand to wipe my forehead. Why must the Great Hall be kept so hot? The perfumed wigs and smoking torches were making my eyes swim.

Finally, the servers brought the meat. After Khufu had been served, platters of geese and various game circled the room. The ever-faithful Ebo stood behind Khufu, overseeing the service with a pleasant smile but watchful eyes.

When a boy’s ladle sloshed wine onto the table’s edge before Khufu, the pharaoh pushed back from the table, taking care not to allow the wine to drip onto his white robe. “Cursed boy! Have you just come from feeding the goats?”

The boy bowed and disappeared, and Ebo stepped in to wipe away the spill. Khufu smacked the servant’s arm. “Where do you get these boys, Ebo?”

Ebo’s smile never wavered. “I am sorry, Great One. I will attend you myself this evening.” The smoothness of his voice testified to many years of soothing Khufu’s tempers.

Tamit leaned against me. “Ebo is like a loyal pet, is he not? A faithful greyhound at the foot of his master.”

Pharaoh sighed at Ebo but returned to his seat, then raised a smiling face. “It is a night for laughter!” he shouted. He leaned forward, past the few that separated us. “My wife has not yet arrived,” he called down the table, too loudly. “Hemi, have you seen Merit?”