Murder in Mennefer, page 4
Imhotep felt his stomach fall. Damn and blast! Father, what have you done to us? “I believe Father had consulted with Prince Djoser on another commission. What of that?”
“It is true, your honored father did meet with Prince Djoser last month, but I was not present and thereafter Kaneferw said nothing to me about a royal commission. I know no details.”
“But surely there are other commissions to be had; my father was much sought after—”
“Aye, but without him presiding over the atelier we have little hope of more work. He was well known and liked and had an easy way with clients. I fear that people will now turn to the studio of Nakht.”
“Nakht? He—” Imhotep bit back on the disparaging remark about Nakht’s lack of skill as an architect. It was bad luck to speak ill of a blameless person. He stared down at the table, unable to think.
Ahmose finally asked, “Will there be anything else, young master?”
“What of you, Ahmose? We will not be able to pay you, without commissions.”
Ahmose would not meet his gaze. “I…too have spoken to Nakht. He is willing to take me on. I would stay here and help rebuild the business, but I cannot afford to work without pay. Times are hard, Imhotep. Jobs are few.”
“Yes, I understand. But will your injury allow that?” Imhotep said bitterly.
“I can still draw plans, if not labor on the construction. And it will not stop me from carving an offering for Kaneferw’s tomb, nor from overseeing the completion of the summerhouse. For those I will forfeit my customary wages.”
Abashed, Imhotep pickedup a piece of pottery from a nearby trestle table. He drew several characters on the ostracum and handed it to Ahmose. “Take this to your healer, or to Hau if you wish. Have him make a new poultice for your arm. That one will not last forever.”
“Many thanks, Imhotep.” Ahmose held his fist to his chest, then opened the door to the glaring sun of the day.
Imhotep pulled up a stool next to his brother, who was still lost in his calculations. While Sebhot checked the accounts, Imhotep sorted through his father’s project records. There were sketches of houses and mastabas, with arrows meeting at angles from the foundation to the roofline to show where the walls joined. Lintels and peaked pediments were carefully drawn in. It had been Kaneferw’s custom to include clever little symbols for altars, furnishings, and even occupants. One house had a cat in the courtyard; another, a family asleep on a roof. But other than paid receipts from the quarries and stonecutters for supplies and the granary and brewery for wages, there was nothing in the drawer aside from a sack of pine nuts, which his father loved.
Had loved.
Sebhot laid down his stylus and rubbed his eyes. He had tugged his sidelock hard enough to unravel it. “The additions and subtractions are correct, Tep. The entries are for commissions and payments, for expenditures for labor and materials, for household provisions. Everything seems to be orderly.” He shook his head. “Yet there is almost nothing left on which we can live, nothing. A month’s worth at best.”
Imhotep’s heart sank lower. “How can that be? I thought the atelier was more successful than that. If he put the profits back into the business, shouldn’t there be more to show, then? There must be some error.”
“I’ll redo the calculations.” Sebhot wielded his stylus as if it were a dagger. “But,” he added slyly, “I cannot work on an empty belly.”
This was not the time to point out Sebhot had already consumed two meals. Imhotep heaved a sigh. “Very well, I’ll fetch you a loaf from the bakery. Would that suffice?”
“And a honey cake?”
“Aye.” Imhotep welcomed the chance to stretch his limbs and clear his heart. Outside, he blew out his breath and trotted along the street toward the stall of Rudjet the baker. But despite Lord Re’s chariot blazing across the sky, there was a cold knot in his belly. Enough wages for a month, and no commissions pending. No trace of Father having made an investment in land or livestock. Yet there must be something! Sebhot will find some error. He must! Then he shall have all the honey cakes he can eat. He sighed. At least I have an excuse to see Rudjet’s daughter, Meresankh. Perhaps she will be assisting her father today.
But Imhotep arrived at the bakery so flushed that he was certain his blemishes stood out more than usual, and now he hoped she would not be there. He wiped his brow with the hem of his tunic before approaching the open-air stall.
Meresankh was present, arranging loaves for display. She paused as soon as he stopped in front of the racks, her dark eyes radiating sympathy. “Oh, Tep. I’m so sorry to hear of your misfortune. May the gods protect and guide your father.”
“Many thanks.” Torn between gazing at her lovely face and hiding his own, he asked for several loaves and a honey cake to turn her attention from him. Tall enough to reach the highest shelf, she chose the freshest bread for him.
“The honey cake is yesterday’s, I’m afraid.” She raised her delicate arched brows in question, and he nodded. Sebhot will devour it happily enough.
“But please accept an extra one to sweeten your sorrow, my friend.”
He mumbled his thanks and took his leave, savoring both Meresankh’s words and the extra honey cake on the way back to the atelier. All will be well. It must. Imhotep felt buoyed with every step. Sebhot, that clever heart, will find a miscalculation. He shall have earned a honey cake and more, by Thoth! But as soon as he saw Sebhot’s woeful countenance, he knew. There were no miscalculations. The family were all but poverty-stricken.
Ankh-kherdu blanched at the news. “I had no idea he was not putting money aside for us,” she said faintly. “None, none.” She looked reproachfully at her younger son. “You should have told me.”
Sebhot coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I-I-I wanted to, Mother, truly I did. But Father made me swear not to.”
“Always I knew of his ambition for the business,” she said, shaking her head. “But I never dreamed he would take it so far.”
Imhotep knelt by her chair. “We must reconsider Father’s funeral expenses.”
His mother shot him a look of outrage. “That we will not. I will do what I must to safeguard your father’s journey. I can—I will barter my silver bracelets, my gold ankh.” She touched the delicate charm at her throat, a gift, Imhotep knew, from Kaneferw on their wedding day. He placed his hand over hers.
“Not that, Mother. Not yet. I will find a way.”
She looked at him with such hope and gratitude, he felt as if he’d been transformed into a strong, capable man. Although he knew that he was not, he must act the part. “Wabet,” he called the slave. “Come help Mother to bed.”
At that, Kherry’s head bowed, her shoulders sagged, and she allowed Wabet to help her to her room.
“Perhaps I can hire my services out to assist shopkeepers with their calculations,” Sebhot ventured.
“Perhaps.” But Imhotep doubted it. Not once they learn of our failed circumstances. His skills as a bookkeeper will be suspect. No. He would speak to Chancellor Pepi about securing Sebhot a position as a temple scribe.
I must find work. And quickly. But first, I must attend to Father’s resting place.
On the ferry across the Nile to the City of the Dead, Imhotep opened his sack to check his supplies: several pots of paints; three brushes, along with some figs and onions; and a loaf of bread wrapped in a length of linen.
He looked longingly at the boats on the horizon. If his life had gone according to his expectations, by now he would be well on his way to the First Cataract and Nubia beyond.
As they neared the shore, Imhotep fingered the amulet at his throat and murmured a protective spell.
“Save your prayers, young sir.” The ferryman hawked and spat over the side. “Many’s the year I have ferried people hither from Mennefer and yon back to it. No ghosts float around at this time of day.”
Another passenger, a rangy man with several days’ growth of stubble, said, “Not ghosts, perhaps, but devils in the form of the Sons of Atum.”
“Eh?” said Imhotep. The Sons, he knew, were southern renegades who denied the superiority of Ptah and all other gods, claiming that Atum was the true creator of the universe, not Ptah or Re. The Sons were sworn enemies of King Sanakhe, who headed Ptah’s temple in Mennefer.
“They attempted a raid on the granary at the temple of Ptah,” said the man. “Killed a priest!” He shook his head.
“I knew they’d caused some troubles among outlying provinces far from Mennefer,” said the ferryman in a grim tone. “But lately, I have heard, they’ve been active in Heliopolis. It’s not good to hear of these terrorists so near Mennefer.”
Imhotep bit his lips. Heliopolis was not many marches north of the city.
“You mark me, there’ll be worse soon,” said the unshaven man darkly. “And you, young sir, may be needing stronger prayers. As will we all.”
At the landing Imhotep stepped off onto the shore and set off at a rapid pace toward the tombs.
“Do not dawdle,” the ferryman called after him. “Re’s own boat settles onto the west, and mine must be back on the eastern shore ’ere his disappears below the horizon.”
Imhotep knew the man was right about ghosts not being out in the daytime. He felt brave enough as he made his way through the ranked tombs toward the site of his father’s tomb. By dark, though, the spirits of the dead would be abroad. Most were benign, no doubt, but not all. Some were jealous of the living and desired vengeance. That is, assuming one believes all the tales of evil spirits. Though he’d grown up hearing them, Imhotep wasn’t sure he did. Nevertheless, there was no point in being reckless about such things. He would not linger here after sunset.
He hurried toward Kaneferw’s tomb near a spur of rock. Not as grand as that of a nobleman, his father’s mastaba nevertheless contained a resting place for his mummy, and two rooms to store food, furniture, and clothing for the afterlife. Imhotep circled the tomb. Its sloping walls, not quite as tall as he, were made of brick, with decorative niches all around the outside, thirty-two altogether. Imhotep had labored here himself, helping the masons lay the bricks. One especially deep niche would serve as a mortuary altar for visiting mourners once the tomb was sealed for eternity.
Imhotep closed his eyes, as the irony of it sank into his heart—Kaneferw, killed by the very things to which, as Overseer of Works, he had devoted his life: architecture and construction. He frowned and blew out his breath, banishing the melancholy thoughts. Father should have had the grandest mastaba of all. One that towers over the others, the size of two tombs; no, three—
But wait. Wait….
Why could one not place a smaller mastaba atop a larger one? No one had ever done it, but… The idea immediately captivated him. What a grand structure that would make! Expensive, no doubt, but the additional cost would not matter to a nobleman; they were always looking for ways to one-up their peers by constructing ever more elaborate tombs. For that matter, why not erect a third or even a fourth mastaba, each one smaller than the last, so that the finished tomb towered into the clear blue sky like a staircase for the gods?
Forgetting his grief for the moment, he took a large piece of broken pottery out of the sack he carried. With a small stone he scratched a rude diagram of his idea on the shard:
Chewing his lip, he gazed at it. He could see it in his heart’s eye, from the side as well. On another piece of pottery he drew a second sketch:
Yes, well worth pondering, but not now; there was much to do. He tucked the shards into his sack. Ducking his head to avoid cracking it on the lintel, he descended the steps into the tomb itself via the door in the western wall. Inside, the floor was littered with dust and bits of stone. The bas-relief wall carvings were complete but only three of the four murals had been finished. One portrayed a solemn Kaneferw standing before the throne of Osiris, awaiting his judgment by the scales of Ma’at; another of Kaneferw, stylus in hand, bent over a scroll in his studio. The largest was the family portrait: Imhotep’s handsome parents flanked by their sons, Sebhot far thinner than his current self. Imhotep sniffed at his own likeness, which he didn’t consider at all flattering. For one thing, it had been executed while he had still been wearing a youth’s sidelock. For another, he looked as thin as a stork.
Well, that couldn’t be corrected now. He must finish the fourth wall before the funeral. It depicted a robust Kaneferw on a hunt. Imhotep didn’t regard himself as much of an artist, but enough of the work was complete that he felt capable of adding the finishing touches: mostly painting in stands of papyrus, adding some color for water, and putting in a few more ducks.
Ample light came in through the door and the ventilation holes leading up through the mastaba above. These would be closed and filled in after construction was completed. Imhotep set to work, pausing only to attend to calls of nature and to wolf down some of the food he had brought.
Painting the reeds turned out to be trickier than he had expected. It wasn’t until he found himself with his nose nearly touching the stone, squinting at his work, that he realized the daylight was failing. He would miss the last ferry if he didn’t hurry. He packed up his brushes and paints and stepped out of the tomb.
He gasped. A figure hovered behind the mastaba. Prickles of fear spidered up his spine. He clutched his amulet to ward off the ghost and tensed to run.
5
A ghost with a bandaged arm. “Ahmose!”
“Forgive me for startling you.” Ahmose pointed down the hillside. “I came to visit my mother’s resting place, just over there. I thought to leave an offering at your father’s altar as well. I did not expect to find you here.”
“That is kind of you, Ahmose, considering the hour.”
“Ah yes, wandering spirits.”
Imhotep nodded.
“Have you not considered that our misfortunes occurred in the brightest light?” Ahmose drew a small stone carving from the sack slung across his chest.
Imhotep could barely make it out in the fading light. “Is that Osiris?”
“Aye. For protection.”
“Perhaps you should keep it for our journey home,” Imhotep half-joked. “Come, I will carry your sack to the ferry.”
“Nay, my friend Panehsy has rowed me over and waits for me at the bank. I would not trouble you, nor slow you down.” Ahmose cocked his head. “On the other hand, we could transport you as well, if you wish.”
Imhotep hesitated. If he hurried, he could just make the last ferry and cross the river before full dark. But Ahmose was in no shape to scramble down to the dock, and who knew how fast Panehsy rowed? “It grows dark, Ahmose.”
“I will take my chances with the devils, Imhotep. I fear them not.”
Imhotep blushed. “I will go, then. I do not wish to cause Mother worry—”
“Good boy.”
Imhotep, no longer considering himself a boy, bristled at the “compliment” but said nothing. He nodded curtly and waited until Ahmose turned his back, and then ran, heart pounding, to the ferry, where the ferryman waited impatiently.
He disembarked on the eastern bank just as Lord Re disappeared below the horizon. Murmuring protective charms, Imhotep rushed home, pursued by the night.
A fortnight passed following his encounter with Ahmose at the tomb. In that time, he had by his estimation walked a dozen marches in ever-expanding circles looking for employment—from the docks along the Nile, to Merisu’s tent in the heart of Mennefer, to the quarries and breweries in the outlands, even to the farms north of the city. No work. Crops had suffered in the drought. With food so scarce and taxes so severe, even the very young, the elderly, and the infirm labored at whatever work could be found. Thank the gods we have managed to scrape together enough for Father’s funeral feast tomorrow. But after that, where will our sustenance come from? How will I provide for Mother and Sebhot, for Wabet? I still have not found a job, nor has Sebhot. Imhotep’s innards churned. How many lectures had Kaneferw given him about financial responsibility? How could his father—advocate of the practical, the prudent path—have been so neglectful of his own responsibilities? How could he have been so careless?
Chancellor Pepi, in whom Imhotep had confided, had little to offer to enlighten him. “Our parents are not always the people we think they are,” he said. “I am sorry to hear of your money woes, Imhotep. Difficult though it may be, your father’s contracts must be honored lest his spirit be unable to proceed to the West. And of course, the law requires it.” He shrugged. “I, too, am puzzled and dismayed by his failure to provide for his family. Knowing him as I did, I am certain he never meant to leave you in this position.” He placed a sympathetic hand on Imhotep’s arm. “Perhaps I can be of some financial assistance—”
Imhotep shook his head. “I thank you, honored sir, but it would only shift my burden to one side without relieving me of it.”
Following his meeting with Pepi, Imhotep trudged slowly home, where he lingered in the punishing heat of the courtyard rather than bear more disappointing tidings to his mother. He collapsed under a fig tree’s listless leaves and rubbed his aching calves.
Weary now, he closed his eyes, conjuring Thoth, hoping for a sign. A feathery kiss brushed his cheek. His eyes flew open. Momo’s stared back. She licked the salty perspiration from his upper lip, tapped at him with her paw, and padded away, inside the house. He shuffled after her.
At the table, Kherry nibbled the meal Wabet had placed before them while Sebhot devoured his food. Wabet scurried in with another bowl when she spotted Imhotep, but he waved it away. “None for me, thank you.”
