The City of Refuge: Book 1 of The Memphis Cycle (26 page)

XLI Among The Tombs

The wind sang through high valleys at the northern end of the city with the sound of distant, quiet voices. The cliffs, rising straight and stark from the level floor, seemed a forest of pillars threaded with narrow alleyways that served as a natural channel for the runoff of water from the area's infrequent but heavy rains. The water-borne debris had choked the paths in places; Khonsu could see the high water marks of old floods as he looked up along the straight-sided rise..

The water stains and rubble helped to disguise the carefully hidden openings of Akhet-Aten's tombs, but Khonsu's eyes caught some irregularities in the rock that seemed man-made. And yet he knew they were not what he was seeking. It had to be somewhere close by. He had been in that area three times and been stopped each time. Now he thought he knew why.

He was standing on the same spot where he had watched his horses bolting back to the city. He raised his head and looked down into the valley along the road leading back to Akhet-Aten. If he turned left and climbed the steep incline, he would reach the northern path, where he had encountered Lord Nebamun. And why would Nebamun have—

His thoughts were interrupted by a shout from Seti.

“Here! I've found something!”

Khonsu scrambled down the incline to the floor of the cleft. “Where are you?”

“Over here! There's a pathway opening to your left!”

Khonsu followed the sound of his voice and found Seti standing by a tall column of rock and staring at some dark marks on the stone. “Blood?”

“It could be nothing else,” said Seti. “Here's a partial handprint. See, the thumb, here, and the index and middle fingers beside it. The right hand. About shoulder level on me, maybe a little lower. And, see this smear, here.” He touched another mark that lay over a foot below it, “Also blood, but I think it came from whatever was injured: there was more of it. It was probably wet at the time because the mark is stronger.”

Khonsu eyed the smudges. “A man with two wounds, maybe? Where was he coming from?” He set his right hand over the bloody handprint, turned, and looked down the path. “There's more that way. As though the man bumped up against these sheer walls more than once.”

They followed the pathway on its upward slope, reaching a sharp, high cleft in the rock perhaps thirty paces along. The cleft was bracketed with what at first appeared to be chunks of broken rock, but turned out to be broken pieces of plaster that had once been tinted to match the surrounding rock.

Seti and Khonsu traded glances. Moments later they were holding lighted torches. Seti passed through the break first. Khonsu followed and stepped into a world of silent color and motion where mourners raised their hands to cover their faces, where a procession of attendants carrying grave-goods wound its way around three of the four walls, finishing against a wall depicting a feast.

Seti was standing in the middle of a scene of fantastic disarray, gazing disgustedly around, his fist on his hip. The room, which appeared to be an antechamber, was a shambles of broken stone and splintered wood. Pieces of richly ornamented furniture, beds, chairs, chests, all inlaid with gold and costly stones, had been smashed to allow the removal of the precious parts. Chests lay open and rifled, jars unstoppered and tossed aside.

Khonsu lifted his eyes from the destruction to gaze again at the wall carvings. Crisp and clear, painted with colors as vibrant as jewels. faces of individuals emerged with clarity and understanding, as though the artists had been personally acquainted with the mourners.

“Come through and look over here,” Seti called from beyond the doorway. “There's another room beyond this one. This tomb's a masterpiece!”

Khonsu crossed the threshold and found himself gazing upon a scene of banqueting. Guests, clad for a gala feast, sat before tables laden with food of wondrous variety. Dates, dozens of types of breads, sweets, roasted meats and fowl, vegetables of all sorts, wine and beer. Servants moved among the throng, adjusting floral collars, offering wine, placing cones of perfume on the guests' heads. The almost palpable sense of happiness and enjoyment contrasted with the dismal disorder of the chamber.

Khonsu toed a piece of broken pottery aside and frowned at the spatters of blood speckling the floor below it. “This wasn't all caused by thieves in search of loot,” he said. He raised his head and looked across the room at another mark on the wall.

“Someone came up hard against that spot,” he said. “Breast height, and it looks as though he were wounded. Chest, hand, hip, judging from the height of the bloodstains. But none at the level of a man's head, which was where Paser was struck. Could there have been more than one assailant?”

He looked away from the blood and back at the feast. The host and his wife sat at the center of the scene, smiling and happy, their arms about each other. To Khonsu's eyes there was something familiar about the face of the host. But even more compelling were the names written on the walls in beautifully detailed hieroglyphs.

“Look at these,” he said to Seti. “All the great ones are here.” He read the names aloud: Huya, the Major-Domo of the Dowager Queen Tiy; Merire, Steward of the Queen; Ay, the Fan-Bearer on the King's Right. He became Pharaoh in his turn. Tutu, the Chamberlain of the Lord of the Two Lands; Mahu, the Chief of Police; Ramose, the Granary Overseer, Huy, the Governor of the Palace. He was another Pharaoh, just before Ay. And there were others, names he had heard of as once having been the greatest in the land.

Seti was gazing thoughtfully at the carvings. “The most powerful of them was buried here,” he said quietly. “The Vizier, Nakht. My father often spoke of him. His father was a son of Thutmose IV by a Mittani princess, and Nakht was fostered by his uncle, Pharaoh. He outlived Akhenaten and survived into the first years of his successor, when he fell from power. He was sent here to preside over the dismantling of the city in the second year of the reign of Tutankhamun.”

Khonsu looked back at the blood for a moment. “This is a rich burial for someone in disfavor when he died. He must have had powerful friends willing to ensure that his burial was all it should be.”

“His son was still alive.”

“Yes,” said Khonsu. “Neb-Aten...”He looked around the tomb once more. The far wall, painted with another scene of the tomb-owner and his wife seated side by side, was flanked by life-sized, twin wooden statues of a king whose name had been cut away by swift adze-strokes. One of the statues held a bronze-headed mace in its hand, the other a staff.

A wide stone platter was set on the ground before the portrait. It contained loaves of bread, a garland of flowers that had just begun to fade, and another object wrapped in a twist of cloth.

Seti cast a quick look at the offerings, then bent his attention on the carved portraits. “Look Commander. Time is arrested here. Here's Nakht's son, Neb-Aten—our ghost—sitting beneath his parents' chair and holding his cat. He's caught forever in this moment of childhood. And yet, he would be older today than we are. How beautifully he's carved!”

Khonsu tipped the child an ironic salute, then looked again at the offerings. “These are fresh. Who could have put them here? I doubt it was the robber.”

He looked around again. “Well,” he said, “The burial seems intact, though it looks like someone took a maul to the wall in several places. They must have been looking for the entrance to the burial chamber itself. It can't be far.” He nodded to the black-painted wooden statues.

“I think they found it,” said Seti, frowning at a portion of painted wall midway to the left. It had been prized away from the rest and was half-hidden behind a basket and a handful of rushes. “This is plaster,” he said. “The entryway to the chamber was blocked and plastered, and then painted to match the limestone of the tomb itself. They hadn't broken through yet.”

Khonsu, moving forward to frown at the wall, pushed aside a box that had been blocking his way. He stopped with an exclamation of surprise. “There's more blood here!” he said.

“What?” said Seti.

“I saw it beneath this box as I shifted it. Here it is: a lot of it, too!”

Seti bent over the stain on the floor, stared, then straightened and looked around with new eyes. “This stool was smashed when someone fell on it,” he said. “And look: there's more blood over here! There was a fight here, all right. But over what? They didn't get into the burial chamber itself, and there was no lack of treasure here.”

“No,” said Khonsu. “No lack at all...”

“I don't pretend to understand the minds of thieves,” Seti remarked, turning away from the blood. “I don't think I ever want to. Whatever they were fighting over, they had enough to keep them busy here for a good long while.” He opened a chest and frowned at a disordered collection of jewelry. “How odd that the thieves didn't take this,” he said. “Could Paser have encountered them, fought them and been killed, and by his death frightened them into leaving the tomb for the time being?”

“I suppose it's possible,” Khonsu admitted. “But I doubt it. Paser was a thief, himself. And don't forget that Nebamun has told us he was the one who killed Paser. I don't think he was lying.”

Seti blinked. “I'd forgotten. I certainly can't imagine Lord Nebamun as a tomb-robber. Maybe Paser wasn't killed here at all...”

“Then we have another murder on our hands. And I don't understand why they left this place in that case. Have you dealt with tomb-robbers? They're a hard-boiled lot, without an ounce of superstition. They'd have had to hear of richer takings somewhere else, and that isn't likely.” He lifted the lid from a plain cedar box as he spoke, pushed the wrappings aside, and then sat back with a gasp.

Seti was bending over the offerings once more. “What is it?” he asked, looking up.

“Silver! More than I have ever seen in my life!” He took out a wide, shallow bowl, rubbed it with the hem of his kilt, and then held it up to the light. “Look here: it's exactly like that cup Paser said he found in the city!”

“What? Let me see!” Seti frowned at the bowl. “You're right. It must have been made by the same master silversmith. Well!” He broke off, frowning, and turned the salver over in his hands once more. He spoke slowly after a moment, “Could Paser have been one of the robbers? Could Lord Nebamun have caught him in the act, killed him here, and then left him to be found, as he told us?”

Khonsu nodded, but with an odd twist to his mouth. “It's possible. But now we are piling mystery upon mystery. Why was Lord Nebamun here at all?”

Seti lifted the cloth-wrapped object from the offering tray. “I wonder... Robbers came here recently. And someone bringing the sort of offerings usually made by a kinsman. Food and drink, flowers, and this. What is it?” He straightened and unwrapped the object, gazed at it for a long moment, and then wordlessly held it out for Khonsu to see.

It was the cup Paser had found, and which had vanished after his death.

Khonsu looked again at the guardian statues. “'A heavy, blunt instrument'.”

“Yes?” Seti said.

“There was a fight. Between a thief and another. And if what I suspect is correct…” He took the mace from the hand of the statue, examined it, and then handed it to Seti. “It is,” he said. “This was the weapon. There's blood on it. It was replaced after it was used. Is it too far a step to say that whoever left the offerings fought and killed the robber?”

“Not at all,” said Seti, who was still on his knees before the offering table. He sat back on his heels with a frown and looked up at the family. “The Vizier, Prince Nakht, his wife, the Princess Merit'taui, and their son, Neb-Aten.”

“There he sits, just as I thought,” said Khonsu, speaking slowly but with increasing intensity. “Holding his cat in his arms.”

Seti turned and gazed, then lifted his eyes to meet Khonsu's. “Someone stopped a robbery and protected the dead. But who? And why?”

“As to that,” said Khonsu, “I have a good idea, and I know how to pursue it. It's turning toward evening: we'd best get back to the city, to the artisan's quarter. There's something I think we need to see, and quickly.”

XLII

“This is where we met Mersu that night Paser left the city and was killed,” Seti said, looking around at the middle-class houses with a frown.

“Yes,” Khonsu agreed. “You went on to the palace, where you caught Paser trying to cause trouble. I went with Mersu, who showed me some things I found interesting, as I think you will, too.”

Seti stepped down from the chariot and bent to hobble the horses. “What was here?” he asked. “And, more to the point, what has it to do with Lord Nebamun and Paser's death?”

“You'll see,” said Khonsu. “It won't take long, if I'm right. But I want Master Sennefer to be a witness as well.”

Seti shrugged. “What is this place?” he asked, eyeing the battered and tumbledown structure. “Certainly not connected with the palace in any way!”

“This was the house given to the Master Sculptor Djehutymose,” Khonsu said. “He was the chief sculptor for Pharaoh Akhenaten. Mersu was his apprentice, and he told me he spent a good deal of time in his workshop, which is just behind the main part of the house.”

“Interesting,” Seti said. “But again, what has this to do with a robbed tomb and a killing?”

“Wait and see,” Khonsu said again. “If I'm right—and I can't imagine how I could be wrong—we'll be coming face to face with our ghost shortly.”

Seti snorted and frowned southward toward the palace complex. His frown cleared and he straightened as the Master Physician approached.

Sennefer was as restless and bustling as usual, and two spots of hectic color rode his thin cheekbones as he bowed to Seti and Khonsu. “You summoned me,” he said. “And I'm here. What do you want?”

“It's about His Grace,” Khonsu said. “I want you to witness something, and I may need you to confirm something I suspect. Come on inside.”

“In here?” Sennefer said, scowling at the holes in the roof.

“In here,” Khonsu said. “You'll find it worth your while.” He ignored the glances traded by Seti and Sennefer and led the way into the studio.

The place had not been disturbed since Khonsu's last visit. The dust on the shelf still bore the marks of the shawl that had wrapped the queen's sculpted head. The doorway behind the shelf had not been touched.

“Bar the door,” Khonsu said. “And be ready to lift some heavy objects.”

“What is it?” Seti asked as Khonsu went to his knees and opened the small, partially hidden doors.

“This is a cache of sculptures, portraits of the great ones of Pharaoh's court,” Khonsu replied. “They're plaster casts from life for the most part, intended to be used as models for portraits. I did see one that was a finished work. Most of the ones I saw have the name of the subject written underneath. They were hidden here when Master Djehutymose left the city. I didn't get to see all of them when I was here with Mersu the first time, but that can soon be mended.”

Seti looked over his shoulder. “Is there any room for me?” he asked.

“Not beside me,” Khonsu said. “But you can unwrap the pieces as I hand them out.

Seti bent down and peered into the dark recess of the cupboard. “What are we looking for?” he asked.

“A face and a name,” Khonsu replied. “You'll know it when you find it. Here's the first one. This isn't the one we're looking for.”

He watched as Seti drew the shawl away from the queen's face, shook his head at Seti's astonishment, and watched him put the bust to one side. Then he turned and reached farther into the cupboard.

They worked in silence, he retrieving the unwieldy plaster heads, then pushing them toward Seti, who unwrapped them, scanned them, and then set them aside. Once or twice Sennefer lifted one of the heads with an exclamation of surprise and turned it over to scan the notation underneath, but though his expression grew more and more intent, he did not speak.

Khonsu's shoulders were beginning to tire and he was starting to wonder if Mersu had been mistaken. He was kneeling within the closet, and he could dimly make out perhaps ten more wrapped bundles before him. He sighed, heaved another forward with a grunt, and handed it out to Seti, then sat back on his heels to drag his forearm across his brow and catch his breath.

Seti loosened the length of cloth that had been wrapped about the head, shook it free, and then drew a long, slow breath and was silent.

Sennefer leaned forward with a muffled exclamation and stared.

Khonsu, hearing the sound, slid backward out of the cupboard and climbed to his feet. He stretched cramped muscles with a wide-mouthed yawn, and then turned to see what the other two were doing.

Seti and Sennefer had set the bust on the low shelf and were bending over it.

“Well?” said Khonsu.

Seti moved wordlessly aside, and Khonsu found himself meeting the alert gaze of a young man of about twenty-five. The eyes were set in the hint of a slant, and the lips, cut a little on the full side but firmly chiseled, seemed to be moving into the beginnings of a smile. The straight, dark brows had been carefully painted in, as had the dark eyes. The years had not yet carved smile lines beside the mouth or left their mark about the eyes, but no one doubted who they were seeing.

Seti turned the head over and read the inscription that had been hurriedly scrawled on the bottom. “'Neb-Aten, son of Nakht the Vizier, son of Prince Ahmose. Commander of One Thousand',” he read calmly. Then he looked up. “Neb-Aten son of Nakht son of Ahmose,” he said. “Well, Commander, you were right. We have found our ghost.”

**   **   **

“But I thought he was dead!” Sennefer objected. “Damn it, didn't you say you had been at his tomb?”

“If he's dead, then he has a twin who walks the earth,” Seti said. “A twin who was assigned by Pharaoh to head this expedition, and who is second-ranking in the cult of Ptah.”

“But there
was
a tomb,” Khonsu said slowly. “And there was a body. I saw it and so did you, General.”

“Did you see it?” Sennefer repeated.

“I saw enough of it to suit me. But I have some questions now, as I suspected I would, and I need you, Master Sennefer, to answer them for me.”

Sennefer folded his arms. His eyes were drawn to the head once more. He cocked his head as Khonsu spoke.

“You're a physician. I think that you, looking at a face, can see the shape of the skull beneath the flesh. I want you to look at the body in that tomb and tell me if it could be Neb-Aten after all.”

Seti was eyeing Khonsu with respect. “Yes,” he said. “And tell us what else you can learn from it.”

**   **   **

Sennefer sat back on his heels and frowned at the swath of charred wrappings that still held the shape of a man. He held up the bronze bracer Khonsu had placed in the wrappings. “This had His Majesty's name on it. It can't be more than ten years old, if that much, and I seem to recall seeing one just like it on your wrist, Commander.”

“It's the same one, Master Sennefer,” Khonsu said. “I put it there. I thought Neb-Aten could use it in the Land of the West, since his tomb had been so thoroughly plundered.” He added, “You have seen what's here: can you tell us anything about the body?”

Sennefer lifted an eyebrow at the bracer and set it on the ground. “There's one thing I can tell you lads right away, but it'll keep. You, General: I can see a chest over there beyond the sarcophagus. Doesn't appear to have been opened. It should hold this one's innards, all nicely wrapped within their separate containers. Open it.”

Seti nodded. He pulled the chest toward him, broke the mud seal and unwrapped the length of finely knotted string securing the two knobs locking the top. He lifted the lid of the chest to show four alabaster jars topped with the heads of the four Sons of Horus, guardians of the deceased's viscera.

“Excellent,” said Sennefer. “Now just open one of those jars and tell me if it's empty.”

Seti lifted the jackal-headed stopper and looked into the jar. His brows drew together.

“Well?” said Sennefer when he remained motionless.

Seti looked over at him. “It isn't empty, Master Sennefer.”

“Tip it out,” said Sennefer.

“What?” Seti gasped.

“A squeamish soldier!” Sennefer snorted, “Empty the jar!”

Seti held the jar at arm's length and upended it with a distasteful grimace. A coil of rope and a wad of rags slid out and thudded to the floor. Seti stared, his elegant brows lifted almost to his hairline. He cast a glittering glance at Khonsu and Sennefer, swooped down upon the chest and opened another jar, this one with a stopper in the shape of a baboon's head. More rags fell to the ground.

He opened the other two in turn, found the same, and then looked over at Sennefer.

Khonsu, sitting on the edge of the sarcophagus and watching with a smile, said nothing.

Sennefer eyed the disordered pile of rags and string. “Well, now,” he said, “I can tell both of you that the occupant of this coffin and tomb was a healthy man. He suffered no dyspepsia, his bowels were never clogged, his lungs and liver were never subject to the sort of disorders that trouble normal humans. In fact, the only problem this fellow—” He poked at the charred wrappings with a fingertip, “—had was a gait that probably was unmatched in all of Egypt or, indeed, the world.”

“What do you mean?” asked Seti.

“I mean that he had no leg-bones, or any other bone of any sort. The fire would have consumed any flesh—but there would at least have been a skull left to look at, and certainly some teeth.”

Seti stared at the blackened dome half-hidden among the ashes. “But there—” he began.

“Ah, yes,” said Sennefer. “There.” He reached both hands into the disordered pile of ashes and lifted out a common clay cooking pot wrapped in fire-charred linen. He turned the pot in his hands and then tossed it to Seti, who caught it and stood staring open-mouthed at it.

“No man was ever born with a cook-pot for a skull,” Sennefer said scornfully. “You two surprise me, and that takes a lot of doing! You're both soldiers, not sheltered little we'eb priests! You have been in battles, and I would think you would know what is and isn't a corpse, but you were either blind or drunk the morning you came here and looked at this! And you, Commander, even had your hands in here when you set that bracer in among the wrappings. You put the thing atop what should have been the fellow's breastbone! Didn't you think there was something odd about the fact that there wasn't a breastbone to set it on? This time try looking with your eyes open: there's nothing here! No one was ever buried in this tomb! From what I have seen in the scant moments I have been here, Neb-Aten still walks beneath the sun as hale and hearty and full of mischief as ever, though all of twenty-five years older than he was when this tomb was sealed.”

Khonsu nodded. “Neb-Aten, son of Nakht, son of Ahmose,” he said. “His mother was Merit'taui, the daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.” He looked at Seti and said, “I remember now that Lord Nebamun told me his eldest daughter is named Merit'taui after his mother. An uncommon name outside the royal family. His father and grandfather were named Nakht and Ahmose, and he came to the temple of Ptah twenty-five years ago. It shows how preoccupied I was with my own problems that I didn't remember and make the connection. For that matter, he knew without being told that the cliffs collapsed above the smaller temple known as 'Maru-Aten'.”

Seti tossed the pot aside with a grimace and watched it shatter against the floor. “You had it all figured out, didn't you? You were two steps ahead of the rest of us!”

Khonsu was staring down at the blackened wrappings. “It wasn't a pretense at all along the track that night,” he said under his breath. “He was speaking the truth...”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Sennefer.

Khonsu looked up.

“The death wasn't a murder, just as he told us the day he surrendered,” Seti said slowly. “I would have thought it a matter for pride. He's protecting someone with his silence. But who?”

Khonsu had been frowning at the carved walls of the tomb depicting Neb-Aten as a young child sitting with his father. “I know who it is,” he said. “We need to speak with his Grace again. Quickly.”