Murder at the God's Gate Read online

  Murder at the God’s Gate

  A Lord Meren Mystery

  Lynda S. Robinson

  Cherry Weiner, my agent, is someone who will tell me the truth—even when I don’t want to hear it—who will encourage me, fight for me, and believe in my wildest ideas. She has been behind the concept of a mystery series set in ancient Egypt from the start, and has supported and inspired me as a writer. This book is dedicated to her in friendship with my unending thanks.

  Chapter 1

  Year Five of the Reign of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun

  Unas, pure one and servant of the god, was late. The last golden light of the sun god’s rays inflamed the gold-and-silver inlay on the face of the massive outer pylon gate as the priest skittered inside the temple of Amun. Feeling even more insignificant than usual, he listened to the slap of his sandals on the flagstones. His footsteps echoed off the walls. He glanced up, but the ceiling of the temple was so high that it vanished into darkness.

  The evening ritual was finished. Those not in residence within the temple grounds had been filing out of the god’s gate for some time. Was he the only one left? He hated being alone in the temple after dark, but he had to put his list of royal artisans where he could find it quickly tomorrow.

  Like an ant scurrying between the legs of an elephant, Unas hurried deeper into the temple darkness, past electrum-shrouded obelisks and pylons. He turned right before reaching the sanctuary, threading his way through groves of statues dedicated by kings and high priests. Now he couldn’t even hear the fading voices of his fellow priests as they left the temple on their way home.

  He passed a lamp stand, its light burning low and casting uncertain light on the brilliant painted scenes of men and gods in endless registers on the walls. He entered a side room where the linens and oils of the god were kept. His list would be safe here, and he could retrieve it without going all the way to the treasury in the morning.

  The room was lined with wooden shelves burdened with the rare oils, unguents, and linens used in the rituals of Amun. Unas wiped perspiration from his shaved head. He rubbed a palm on his kilt and transferred the papyrus roll to his dry hand.

  Squinting in the gloom, he retrieved the lamp and set it on a shelf next to bottles of perfume. He reached up and shoved the roll between the necks of two bottles at the back of the shelf. He stepped back and frowned. A pile of linens had been carelessly placed on the floor. Stooping, he reached out for the white folds, then turned his head.

  A sibilant hissing made him hold his breath. The shades of dead kings visited the god at night. He was sure of it.

  He could hear something right now, beyond the safety of the lamp’s glow, somewhere deeper in the temple. What if demons had wandered into the sanctuary? Unas flattened himself against the wall by the door.

  The hissing had turned to a murmur, low, guttural, with a background hum. He shivered as the chill of the stone he was pressed against penetrated his skin. Where were those cursed temple guards? Lazy, that’s what they were. They lounged around the outer pylons and traded stories and insults with the students on their way to the evening meal.

  There was a stab of fear in his gut. He clasped his amulet necklace to ward off evil and took a step out of the storeroom. He couldn’t stay here forever. He would slip into the hall and run for the pylons. Unas eased his toes over the threshold and froze.

  “Don’t be witless. They’re camped beyond the border forts where the army won’t look for them. Now are you going to help me or not?”

  Unas let out his breath and smiled to himself. He’d been a fool again. Everyone said he was too skittish about shades and demons. He recognized that voice, although he hadn’t heard it in the temple in a while. And the other, he knew it as well.

  Walking down the hall toward the speakers in the room where copies of sacred texts were housed, Unas nearly stumbled as he began to perceive the significance of the conversation. His steps faltered, then halted. His body grew cold, as if his ka, his soul, had flown to the netherworld, taking with it all warmth.

  What he was hearing couldn’t be real. He rubbed sweat from his upper lip. How could he sweat when he was so cold? The voices buzzed and hissed. They poured dangerous knowledge into his heart until he grew so frightened that he began to back down the hall. His arm hit the lamp stand. He whimpered and caught it before it fell.

  Unas stumbled into the storeroom again and closed the door. He gawked at the portal in horror and careened into one of the shelves that lined the walls. The impact disturbed a bottle of oil and he lunged for it. Catching the ceramic vessel before it fell, he replaced it, only to find his foot lodged in that pile of linens on the floor.

  He kicked it aside and heard a tear. He went still and listened. If the two in the small library heard him, they would kill him. No one saying such words would hesitate to murder to keep them hidden.

  No one came running to kill him, so Unas withdrew his foot. Dropping to his knees, he picked up the linens, but the stack wouldn’t move. The lowest piece of cloth was caught under a loose flagstone. He slipped his fingers beneath the stone and extracted the cloth. Something went clink. Something below the flagstone.

  Unas pried the flat stone up and slid it sideways to reveal a hole. Bowls. Who had put bowls under the floor?

  He picked up the top vessel in a stack of five and held it near the light. Unremarkable. A modest ceramic dish, shallow and painted in a common design, blue on a buff background. Unas’s fingers traced the lotus pattern on the inside rim, then paused at a series of ink marks.

  No, not marks—words. Words in the cursive script of a scribe. His lips moved as he read, then fell open as his heart refused to let them form the words at the end of the line. His stomach roiled, then cramped, and his hands shook. The bowl crashed to the floor and shattered.

  Unas started, then cringed and waited for the two evil ones to come for him. His skin grew clammy, and he lost all sense of the passage of time while he prayed for deliverance. He waited and waited. Nothing happened as he cowered on the floor in the midst of shards.

  Finally, when he’d decided that they must have gone, Unas gathered the broken pieces. With jerky movements and an occasional whimper, he straightened the flagstone, the linens, and his kilt. The broken bowl, he must hide it. But not here. If he took it away, perhaps whoever had concealed them wouldn’t realize one was missing.

  Glancing about the room, he spotted a small wicker box. He emptied it of unguent vials and stuffed the shards in it. After several moments of girding himself, Unas pressed the door open a crack and listened.

  He heard nothing but the indefinable sound of the vastness of the temple. He would take the long way out, through the four pylon gates in the direction of the avenue that led to the quay and the Nile. This route would take him farther away from those he hoped he was leaving behind in the temple.

  After poking his head into the corridor, Unas melded himself to the wall and trickled along it, then bolted to the innermost pylon. Poking, ducking, and sliding, he made his way to the court of gilded papyrus columns between the middle pylons. As he entered the court, he stopped to listen again. His ears almost hurt from the effort to perceive the tiniest sound.

  No footsteps tapped in his wake. No fists clutching knives appeared at his back. The evil ones had indeed left before him. Unas clutched his box under his arm and rushed by four towering obelisks.

  Unas hurried past a tall, striding statue of some dead king and darted to the doors in the outer pylon. He squared his shoulders as he spied two sentries standing inside the doors. They stared, but recognized him and opened the portals. The muscles in their arms bunched as they hauled at the weight of cedar studded with bronze and overlaid with gold. He
sidled out into the open.

  Two guards walked up, greeted him, and helped their fellows shove the doors closed with a hollow boom. They were in good humor. They always were as the time drew near for them to yield their post to the night porter and sentries.

  Unas hesitated. It was dark now, but he could hear the familiar flapping of the banners atop the tall, electrum-tipped poles that stood in front of each side of the pylon gate. He peered among the countless votive statues, painted white, red, green, and blue, solid and replete with inscriptions, in the forecourt. They had multiplied over untold generations as Theban citizens in search of the god’s favor placed them there.

  His breathing shallow and quick, Unas walked between two flagpoles and crossed the god’s avenue of sphinxes. He turned south, then sped away from the sacred precinct of Amun. When he was out of sight of the guards, he broke into a run.

  He pattered past shrine after shrine, house after house, turning north onto a street of workshops and homes owned by metalworkers, amulet makers, and scribes. His own house’s white facade and painted doorway had never seemed so welcoming. With one last glance over his shoulder, Unas ducked inside and slammed the door shut.

  Immediately he began to shiver. With the back of his arm he wiped sweat from his brow and bare head. Something was pressing into his side. He glanced down to find his hand pushing the wicker box into his flesh. He lifted it and knew fear all over again.

  What was he to do? He’d heard such evil, and he was only a pure one, not a lector priest or servant of the god. If he told someone, how could he be sure that the recipient of his confidence wasn’t a part of the evil as well?

  Unas gripped the box and crossed the reception room. On his way he caught his foot on Ipwet’s loom. He yelped, stumbled, and rubbed his ankle with a free hand. Kicking a spindle whorl out of his way, he hurried to the common room behind the reception chamber. He paused to listen to the rhythmic grinding coming from the roof.

  Ipwet was preparing dinner. The thought of food turned his stomach, and Unas dodged around the central column and through the doorway that led to their sleeping chamber. At last he could shove the box under his bed while he paced and thought.

  He glanced at the household shrine to the god Bes. Not a powerful god when compared to Amun, the king of gods. No help there. He would be hunted like a wounded hyena. They would destroy him if they found out he knew.

  Should he tell that charioteer? Not a fortnight ago the warrior and his master, the great Lord Meren, had come for some information about unguent. A strange request. And he’d been so frightened. Unas nearly ran into the wall opposite his bed as he remembered the visit of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh.

  The only reason he’d agreed to provide information was for the rewards. He had to flourish to please his wife. Ipwet was a young woman, much younger than he, who deserved a prosperous husband and fine possessions. If he could provide well, he might keep her affection, for women valued a man of accomplishment much more than a man who possessed merely youth. He turned and sat on the bed. Resting his forearms on his thighs, he hung his head over his knees and groaned.

  He didn’t want trouble. All he’d ever wanted was to be able to do his work well so that he could have a fine home and provide for the children he and Ipwet desired. So many other priests born to higher station grew fat on their privileges without having done anything to deserve them, while he worked long hours and made few mistakes. Others before him had risen through ability, so he still had hopes of greatness. Only now it seemed incongruous that he’d been so excited when his superior, Qenamun, had elevated him to chief of the pure ones of the treasury only last week.

  Now his promising future was threatened. Especially if he told the Eyes of Pharaoh anything. No more advances, no prospect of lucrative assignments that brought a share in the income from the god’s estates. Yet how could he not say anything?

  What he needed was to know the will of Amun. There was every possibility that Amun had guided his steps tonight so that he could foil the evil. Or a demon could have influenced him to seek out the hearing of the sinful words. Which?

  He hated dilemmas. He liked clarity and simplicity, like figuring the number of men required to drag an obelisk of a certain weight. Unas sank his head in his hands and moaned. He was a sparrow among vultures in this matter. They would pounce on him and snap his neck. He must give much thought to the choice of whether or not to speak and to whom. Haste could cost him his life.

  Taking a deep breath, Unas rose and walked toward the threshold. Then he remembered the inscribed bowl. Veering around, he glowered at the box under his bed. It seemed to shriek danger in a high, raptorlike scream. He should destroy it. Someone could find it and accuse him of unnameable atrocities.

  Unas snatched up the box and headed for the kitchen at the back of the house. Ipwet had come downstairs from the roof and was pressing out bread dough beside the dome-shaped oven. Faint wisps of smoke floated up through the vent hole in the roof She glanced up and gave him a quick smile.

  Her dark brown hair was tied back to keep it out of her way, and she wore her old gown, the one she used when doing heavy chores like grinding grain. He liked to watch her use the quern and grinding stone. Her arm muscles bunched as she shoved the stone back and forth, and her breasts bounced in time with her strokes.

  “Guess what?” Ipwet said. “Papa brought a duck this afternoon.” She breathed in. “Smell that, Unas. Is there nothing finer than roast duck?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Unas removed the box lid.

  “What is it?” Ipwet asked. She shaped a round loaf with her hands. “I hope it’s dates.”

  He fished inside for the shards. One stuck his finger, but he managed to gather most of the pieces in one hand. Lifting them from the box, he walked to the oven and cast them into the fire. For good measure, he emptied the box at the mouth of the oven and brushed the smaller pieces toward the flames. Ipwet slapped his hands.

  “What are you doing? You’ll ruin my fire!”

  Unas backed away as she shoved him. “I—I was trying to make it hotter.”

  “With broken pottery?” Ipwet knelt in front of the oven and peered inside. “If you’ve ruined my fire, you can just make another if you want any dinner.” She straightened and shrugged. “It seems fine. Whatever made you do such a stupid thing? Oh, never mind. Go away, Unas. I hate it when you hover over me.”

  He craned his neck to see over her shoulder, but the shards had disappeared into the flames. His palms felt damp. As he left the kitchen he rubbed them against his kilt.

  In the common room he went to a tall, narrow-necked jar in a stand, picked up a strainer, and poured beer into a cup. Gulping until he’d finished the drink, he poured another. Relief sprinkled over his body like one of those rare winter rainfalls. The bowl was destroyed, and he had nothing to fear. He was safe and could take his time in pondering what to do. Haste was an abomination. It led to mistakes; this time it could cost him his life.

  Night shrouded the forecourt at the temple of Amun. The threshold of the double doors, where a porter should have stood, was empty. An owl circled overhead, then swooped and landed on the head of a votive statue of some long-dead nobleman. The man must have been wealthy, for the figure had at one time been painted and gilded. After a century, however, the figure had been shoved aside to make way for the offerings of a new age. The sheet gold had been surreptitiously removed, and now the owl picked at chips of paint to reveal fine black diorite stone.

  A blur of white movement made the bird screech and launch itself into the air. A whisper of cloth as it moved against skin. The hush of a sigh. The statue seemed to give birth to a man who stepped away from its looming bulk.

  Transparent pleated folds caught the gleam of moonlight. A bronze bracelet reflected moonbeams, as did a gold ring with a flat bezel bearing hieroglyphs of the owner’s name. The man turned and watched the owl fly over the roofs of the shrines and buildings of the temple complex. Another, shorter
man joined the first and spoke in an almost inaudible whisper.

  “So you’re sure you know this eavesdropper.”

  The man who had dismissed the porter said, “Of course.”

  “You got a clear glimpse of him? There is no mistake?”

  “I assure you, lord. I know this pure one.”

  The short man nodded. “Then I will leave the matter in your hands. You know what must be done to keep us safe.”

  “I’m going at once to send someone to watch him. I know him. He will ponder and quibble and hesitate for days, long enough for an accident to take place.”

  “Just don’t wait too long. They gather at the palace, and my men in the desert have found a suitable place in which to begin the work.”

  “Haste is unwise. Such tasks must be done carefully, or they only create more difficulties than they solve.”

  “You can afford to be unruffled. You’re not walking the palace floor tiles with royal guards and suspicious and bloody-minded bastards like Meren.”

  “Calm yourself,” the robed figure said. “I will accomplish the deed in the fullness of its time. After all, our enterprise is blessed by the Hidden One, the great god Amun, who silences storms and protects his disciples.”

  The short man grunted. “Just you remember that he aids those who know when to strike with the swiftness of a thunderbolt and the deadliness of a cobra. I’m going home.”

  The robed figure bowed, and a film of linen swirled about his ankles.

  “Hail to thee, friend, and may Amun give you peace.”

  “By the god’s balls, one would think you murdered men every day after morning ritual.”

  “Not that often, my friend, not nearly that often.”

  Chapter 2

  Meren stood beside General Horemheb before the temple of Amun, enjoying the last of dawn’s coolness. He bent his neck back to peer up at the head of the colossal statue that crept toward him. A rhythmic work chant filled the air, punctuated by the gasps and grunts of almost two hundred bondsmen manning the lines that dragged the statue’s sledge. On the base of the statue stood an overseer who coordinated each tug of the lines with his chant and the clapping of his hands.