Year of the Hyenas (22 page)

The prince
bent his
head and whispered, “Have you ever considered that perhaps she was
killed by a foreigner?” He looked solemnly at Semerket. “Or a vagabond…
?”

“I’ve
considered it,
yes.”

“But you don’t
believe
it.”

“No.”

“Well, I’m not
surprised then that you have no leads. Poor tactics, I’m afraid, to
concentrate your investigation here. How could you seriously believe
one of her own neighbors killed her?”

Semerket
became aware
of the hostile stares directed at him not only by the elders, but also
by the prince’s men. Assai again was glaring intently at him.

“One,”
Semerket said
firmly, forcing his tongue loose from his palate, “most victims are
murdered by people who know them. Two, the priestess had gone to attend
her shrines in the Great Place. Does it seem likely that a stranger
wandered in and killed her in a place so tightly guarded? Three, she
was blind. Though she was found on the other side of the river, I doubt
if she could have made her way there on her own, do you? More than
likely she was killed nearby, and her body thrown into the Nile.” He
paused. “Do you want me to go on?”

Pentwere
frowned.
“Have you any proof of these… allegations?”

Semerket shook
his
head. “No.”

The arm around
Semerket’s shoulders was suddenly like granite, and in a moment of
irrational panic he felt as if his breath were being slowly squeezed
from him. “Then I would advise you,” the prince said, a warm smile
still brightening his features, “to either find some proof, or move on.
The elders tell me that progress on my father’s tomb slows because of
you.” The smile faded. “We can’t have that.”

It suddenly
became
clear to Semerket what was occurring. The tombmakers had arranged for
someone who outranked the vizier to remove him from the case, under the
only pretext that would carry weight with the authorities—that work on
Pharaoh’s tomb suffered.

Seeing the
elders’
carefully expressionless faces, he also suddenly knew that guilt clung
to them like the oily soot of temple incense. What they were guilty of,
he didn’t know yet, or even if their unknown crime had anything to do
with Hetephras’s death. What nerve they possessed, Semerket marveled,
to defy so crafty a man as Vizier Toh, and how clever they were to
enlist the royal family in protecting them. But he was nevertheless
convinced that the tombmakers would never have dared to prevent such
an investigation on their own; someone had put them up to it.

Semerket bowed
low
before the prince. “I will keep the prince’s wise words in my heart,”
he said. Semerket was sure it never occurred to Pentwere, being royal,
that the dog would not obey.

SEMERKET JOINEDQARat the Medjay tower directly after his
encounter with the royals. Qar, too, urged Semerket to find some
evidence, and quickly, to keep the investigation alive.

“Once they pit
the
prince against the vizier,” the Medjay pointed out, “court politics
will kill it.”

To the north,
the
royal party had disappeared into Pharaoh’s unfinished tomb, ostensibly
to conduct its inspection. Semerket turned to Qar. “You’ve been
inside—what’s it like?”

“What?
Pharaoh’s
tomb?” Qar shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong—only priests and royals
are allowed inside, and the work gang, too, of course. We Medjays only
guard it—to make sure the likes of us can’t get in.”

Semerket made
up his
mind. “I want to see it.”

Qar laughed
loudly.
“You can’t! If you were caught, they’d expect me to execute you. Then
we’d have all those priests over here again to drive your blasphemous
stink out of it. I want to be spared that, if you don’t mind—for I hate
those fat, greasy priests.”

“I need
something…
anything. It’s the perfect hiding place, when you think of it.”

“Hiding place
for
what?”

Semerket
shrugged.
“All the stolen treasure from your plundered tombs, I suppose.”

Qar snorted
derisively. “Pharaoh’s tomb is the most public place in Egypt,
Semerket, particularly now when it’s almost complete. Every month
there’s some new inspection, some new ritual. Nothing could be hidden
in it. Better to count on something real.”

“Such as?”

“What about
that
brother of yours—the one who’s snooping in the bazaars? Have you heard
from him?”

Semerket shook
his
head, saying that he intended to make a secret visit across the river
to consult with Nenry. He would wait, he told Qar, until Paneb and
Neferhotep went again to Eastern Thebes in their “official capacity.”
He was resolved to know where the pair went, what they did there—and to
whom they spoke.

At that moment
a
terrific screech from high above drew their eyes upward. A hawk was
swooping down, dropping like a comet straight at them. At the last
moment the bird drew up, but Semerket felt the rush of air on his
cheeks as it dashed by. The bird fluttered manically around him in
circles, chittering and squawking at him. It then perched tensely on
one of the tower’s crossbeams, staring directly at Semerket, a tiny
thing of great loveliness, head cocked and large eyes alive with
intelligence. When Semerket put out his finger to touch it, the tiny
hawk chirped loudly and swooped off into the desert toward the Great
Place.

Semerket and
Qar
looked at one another, speechless. Qar traced a holy sign in the air
with shaking fingers. There could be no clearer omen. One of the gods
who took his form as a hawk—Horus or Khons—had attempted to communicate
with them. Semerket picked up his walking stick and Qar his spear, and
both set off together in the direction the hawk had flown.

They had
walked no
more than a few minutes before they heard shouts. A furlong ahead, a
party of Medjays came running toward them. Qar called back his
greeting, and waved his spear.

The two groups
met in
a wadi. The leader, whom Qar saluted as his superior, walked directly
to Semerket. His name was Captain Mentmose, he announced. Lean as a
stick, rigidly erect and grizzled, he addressed Semerket solemnly.
“Back there,” he said. “Something you seek… or so we think.”

Semerket
followed the
Medjays into the wash. His eyes scanned the Great Place, searching
everywhere. In the pathway above them, a small chapel had been carved
into the living rock. So well camouflaged was the shrine that he had
never noticed it before. He pointed to it, asking Qar what it was.

“The shrine of
Osiris,” Qar said.

Semerket
tensed. It
was to this shrine that Hetephras had been going the day she was
murdered. Far ahead, where the walls of the small wadi flattened
themselves into the sands, a Medjay stood. They walked swiftly to see
what he guarded.

At the
Medjay’s feet
was a ball of broken raffia fibers, crushed and filthy, almost hidden
between two small boulders. Semerket knelt to examine it. At one time
it had been bright blue in color, but now sand and grit had turned it a
dirty dun-colored hue. Something else had dis-colored it and Semerket
leaned closer to see. The stain was dried blood, black and odious.
Gingerly, he turned it over with his fingers. The thing was trimmed in
foil-covered bits of wax. Gently he pressed the raffia out from the
inside so that it might take on its original shape, and noted that the
fibers had been woven to resemble the gentle swoop of vulture wings.

Even if he had
not
seen the painting on the wall of Aaphat’s house or the small diorite
figure the sculptor Ramose carved, he would have known he held
Hetephras’s ritual wig in his hand—the one in which she had been slain.
Here at last was the piece of evidence that tied the murder to the
area, the proof that Prince Pentwere had taunted him to find not more
than an hour before.

Semerket
closed his
eyes, sighing; in that small sound was his unspoken prayer of thanks to
the gods. After a moment he asked softly of the Medjay, “How did you
find it?”

“It was odd,”
said the
Medjay, leaning on his spear. “We come by this wash every day on our
rounds, and never saw it there. But today, a stranger—”

Semerket and
Qar tore
their eyes from the wig to gaze at the man.

“A boy on a
donkey. A
prince, we thought, by the look of his robes, and by his side braid. We
knew that a royal party was going to inspect the tomb today, and
thought that perhaps someone had strayed from it. The lad never
responded to our shouts, though, and we could never quite catch up to
him. But he led us directly here—and pointed straight to these
boulders. That’s when we found it. But—this is the hardest part—” His
voice grew quiet with soft dismay.

“The boy was
not seen
again,” said Semerket.

The Medjay
reluctantly
nodded.

AS THEY TRUDGEDfrom the wadi, they
met the village elders and Prince Pentwere emerging from the royal
tomb. From his broad smiles it was obvious that the prince was not at
all upset by the “slowed progress” of the workers; nor had he noticed
the theft of the four pillars now in Hetephras’s tomb. The smile
cracked a bit when he noticed the Medjays and Semerket standing
directly below him in the wash.

“How now?”
Pentwere’s
fine, burly voice rang out in the stillness. “What is this, a search
party? There’s no need—we know our way out!”

Fawning
laughter broke
out all around him.

“Look at the
clerk’s
expression, my lord,” grinned Assai, teeth gleaming in his handsome,
black face. “He must be here to arrest us!”

Again everyone
laughed
at this jest. Only Semerket and the Medjays stood stern and silent
before them. Pentwere’s smile faded.

“Have you
something to
tell us, clerk?”

Semerket held
out the
blood-blackened wig in his hands. “Only that I have done what the
prince advised me to do.”

“What is that
rubbish
you hold there?” the prince asked.

“Proof.”

Pentwere
blinked.
“That noxious blue weed? Proof of what?”

“That the
priestess
Hetephras was slain here. In the valley, my lord, not in Eastern
Thebes. Not on the shores of the Nile, but here in the Great Place.
This is the priestess’s wig—we found it not a furlong from here. If you
doubt me, see it for yourself in portraits throughout the tombmakers’
village. In every one of them she wears it.”

Pentwere’s
eyes darted
about in panic. Helplessly he turned to Assai. It was he who shouted
down to Semerket, “How can that be called proof of anything, clerk? A
bit of trash in the desert can be whatever you choose to name it!”

At that moment
Paneb
emerged from the royal tomb, closing its door heavily behind him. He
came to where the others stood. It was a moment before the foreman took
in the sight before him. His eyes traveled from the prince to Assai,
and then down into the wash where Semerket and the Medjays stood. The
elders waited breathlessly, and Paneb looked about in confusion. Then
he saw the thing in Semerket’s hands.

Paneb’s eyes
widened,
and a half-scream choked his throat. He suddenly fell to his knees,
wailing, “All of the demons from hell have come for me!” Then Paneb—who
was known throughout the village for his fearlessness and hot
heart—fainted in the sands.

The prince and
his
companions rushed in the direction of their chariots, not once looking
at the foreman lying prone on the ground before them. The elders
gathered around the twitching Paneb, throwing glances over their
shoulders in the direction of Semerket. Their faces were no longer
indifferent masks; they looked instead as if they stared into the very
mouth of the Devourer itself.

LIKE THE RUMBLEof an earthquake, the
news of the discovery of Hetephras’s bloodstained wig spread from
house to house. Overnight, gloom and horror descended. Where before the
village had been a place of perpetual din, it was now silent and
trembling in the bitter desert air. People locked their doors and
huddled within their houses, waiting.

Semerket still
trod
the deserted main street and alleyways, seeking again to question the
villagers, but he met no one. Knocking on their doors brought no
answer, however loudly he pounded. Pricking his ears, he could
sometimes catch furtive whispers in a nearby alley. Yet when he rounded
the corner to catch the speakers, he found the street deserted, and
from the corner of his eye he saw a door quickly shut and bolted.

Semerket
waited.
Finding the wig was the shock he needed to jar the tombmakers from
their smug self-confidence. But their confidence did not so much
crumble as explode. The very night he found the wig, the village played
host to another uninvited guest—one more frightening than Semerket. She
arrived when the moon was at its most full. Some villagers later said
they had seen a prowling hyena outside the cemetery gates that changed
its shape into a woman’s, passing through the village walls as though
they were air. Others claimed to have seen a stain of clouds across the
moon’s face in the shape of a woman that descended as a swirling mist
into the village, while still others had seen her only as a moving
shadow on the walls, cast by flickering torchlight, silently going from
house to house.

A servant’s
child was
the first to see her. She woke on her pallet to find an old woman
beckoning to her from across the room. She blinked, and when next she
opened her eyes, the figure was bending over her. She could hear her
sighs, the child said, as the old woman held out her arms to embrace
her. As the child became more wakeful she realized that the woman’s
sighs and coughs were actually laughter, as if they came from the dry,
parched throat of a mummy. The girl screamed, but the woman fled.

Soon the old
woman’s
sighs turned to shrieks and wild gibbering in the night-filled streets
of the village, rising and falling in mad crescendos. Some claimed to
see mysterious lights parading past the cracks of their latched doors,
or to hear the babbling voices of a great company of ghostly companions.