Flowers of Evil, page 25
The women of the family sat in the grapevine-covered side yard of the farmhouse, shelling cowpeas while lunch simmered in the kitchen court, filling the house with a delicious smell of onions. At Bener-ib’s feet lay Brute the mastiff, who rarely left the two young sunets’ side. Paws extended, tongue lolling, he resembled a lion taking his ease.
“Maya keeps talking about buying some land in the country, but I almost hope he doesn’t.” Sat-hut-haru shook her skirt to empty the folds of accumulated pods. “I so love to come here. It reminds me of my own childhood. And there are always the other grandchildren around for the little ones to play with.” Maya, Papa’s secretary, was her husband.
Mama smiled, her slim fingers expertly splitting a pod and reaming out the beans. “It makes me so happy to hear you say that. I’ve sometimes wondered if it weren’t time to build onto the house, though. If everybody’s here at once, it becomes rather like a barrack.”
“No!” everyone cried in chorus.
“Don’t change anything,” Baket-iset pleaded from her couch. “Leave it just as it was when we were children.”
Neferet suspected that was more important for Baket-iset than for anyone, since her childhood—before the terrible accident that had left her paralyzed—must have been the last truly carefree period of her life. Back when she could still dream of being a temple dancer for the Hidden One. Of having a husband and children of her own.
Neferet turned to the woman of her heart, who sat beside her. “At least they don’t have to worry about you and me and Mut-tuy during the week. We can’t leave the dispensary except on weekends.”
“Should we not come so often, Lady Nub-nefer?” Bener-ib asked Mama apologetically. “We don’t want to be a problem...”
Mama laid an affectionate hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “No, no, my love. Don’t even think that way. You girls are as welcome as anybody. You’re all our troupe of Lovelies, like the divine girls who attend Lady Hut-haru!” She beamed about at the group of young women who surrounded her.
And Mama, Neferet thought proudly, the center of that bevy, is as beautiful as the goddess herself.
Despite her name, Neferet wasn’t sure she counted as a Lovely. While her two sisters took after their mother, she resembled Papa—broad and sturdy, with small eyes and a square jaw. She didn’t mind a bit. The youngest of the five children, she was especially close to Papa, and it was an honor to resemble him. She was smart like him, too. She and Bener-ib were sunets, physicians, who had recently given up their position at the palace and opened a dispensary in the modest neighborhood where Maya’s childhood home, a goldsmith’s workshop, stood. One might argue how smart that was, in fact, but it gave the two young women immense satisfaction to help people who might not otherwise have had access to a good doctor.
All at once, Brute jerked to attention, his eyes fixed on the road that led from the farm to the bank of the River. The women’s heads all swiveled as if they had been pulled by a string. There, against the ferny greenery of the reeds that bordered the water, a group of men had appeared. From afar came the sounds of excited shouts.
A shudder of uneasiness rolled up the back of Neferet’s neck. She shaded her eyes with her hand, straining to see. “There’s Maya—but where’s Papa?” The two men had gone out into the marshes that morning on Papa’s little reed boat. And although the River was necessary to life, it could also be a vehicle of death. In its waters lurked crocodiles, serpents, hippopotamuses. Sometimes at night, she had heard the roar of the enormous animals right there in the backwaters near the farm.
“Oh no!” Bener-ib murmured in a barely audible voice. She had lost so many loved ones that she was always quick to expect the worst.
Everyone was on their feet now. Brute took off toward the men at a run like a chariot horse heading into battle, with Neferet close behind. She wasn’t ashamed to hike up her skirts in the interest of speed. After her, the other women trailed.
Where is Papa? was the question that made Neferet’s heart hammer as she pounded down the earthen road. Great One, don’t let anything have happened to him.
Maya, recognizable by his short stature, was waving his arms at them now. The other men huddled over the drop-off at the bank, some of them kneeling. They seemed to be pulling at something, lifting it up the slope. At last, a prone form slid onto the land and lay there unmoving.
An anguished cry escaped Neferet despite herself, and she forced her winded body to a burst of speed. But at last, as she and Brute approached the men, Papa climbed up from the forest of reeds. Relief flooded through her, and she slowed down, daring to catch her breath.
“What’s happened, people?” she panted, mopping at her forehead.
Apart from Papa and Maya, she didn’t recognize any of the men who stood before her. They were deeply sun-darkened, like those who worked outdoors every day, and they were clad only in loincloths. The unfortunate who lay stretched upon the ground, on the other hand, was dressed in a shirt and long kilt. He was a grisly sight, water-logged and bleached by the River, starting to swell under the rays of the summer sun.
By this time, the others had caught up to the girl, and Mama threw her arms around Papa. “Thanks be to the Hidden One that you’re all right, my love. We saw Maya but not you, and I feared something might have happened.”
“I was below in the boat trying to lift this poor fellow up for the others to pull,” Papa explained with an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “These reed cutters had dragged him out of the water and asked if we could help them get him to the nearest habitation.”
He turned to the four workmen with a smile and clasped their hands in turn. “We’ll see to it the priests of Inpu get him and try to notify his next of kin. You’re sure nobody recognizes him?”
“No, my lord,” said the eldest of them. “Maybe he’s a city man.”
“Maybe. Thanks to you all.”
Bowing and murmuring, the reed cutters made their way down the bank and onto their boats. In a moment, the soft plashes of their poles could be heard propelling the reed crafts away through the papyrus.
“Whew,” said Maya, brushing down his kilt. He slipped an arm around Sati’s waist. “A fellow just goes out for a quiet paddle through the marshes, and here comes a corpse.”
“We need to get him out of the sun,” Mama said. She seemed quite unfazed by the unsavory deposit on their doorstep. “Mut-tuy, my dear, will you run back and bring one of the servants with the donkey cart and a sheet?”
For once, the adolescent obeyed without rebuttal, and the rest of the family stood around there on the road, staring in uncomfortable silence at the dead man as Brute sniffed him with interest.
“What did he die of?” Neferet asked. “Clearly no animal got him.”
“We couldn’t tell, my duckling. Perhaps you and Bener-ib can look him over and tell us. We need to find out who he is.”
Neferet squatted at the man’s side and lifted a water-shriveled hand. “He’s not stiff anymore—it must have been a day or two at least since he died, but he’s in pretty good shape.”
Bener-ib peered over her shoulder. “His hands aren’t calloused. He’s probably not just be a workman.”
Papa and Maya looked at each other in surprise.
“I don’t see any wounds,” Papa said. “And he looks too young to have dropped dead of natural causes.”
Everyone was crowding around curiously now, which helped to block the blinding sun. The man appeared to be in his thirties, his close-cropped curly hair still uniformly dark. It was difficult to make out the features, which had started to grow soft and blurry. He was slim in build despite the ominous swelling of the abdomen that had begun, with plenty of hair on his chest and limbs.
Bener-ib had continued to examine his hand. “There’s just this callus on his middle finger. I think he might have been a scribe.”
“Not very high position, though,” Nub-nefer said. “His kilt isn’t especially nice linen.”
“Very observant, my dove!” Papa said approvingly. “If you ever decide you don’t want to sing for the Hidden One anymore, I’ll bet the medjay could make a spot for you on the police force.”
But Mama gave a bitter sniff. “I’d rather die than work for that awful Mahu. Do we have to report this to him?”
“I shouldn’t think so. We’re a long way from the city of Waset. We can let them know in the village. The mayor will have jurisdiction.”
The clop of hoofs and the rumble of wooden wheels betrayed the approach of the donkey cart. Mut-tuy jumped out, and Papa and Maya, with the help of the driver, heaved the dead man awkwardly into the little vehicle. An acrid odor of manure still floated about it.
Neferet spread the sheet over the corpse and tucked in the edges. “Somebody’ll have to go back to the City to get the embalmer priests,” she said, wiping her hands on her hips.
But Mut-tuy, looking smug under her effort at casualness, said, “Oh, the steward’s already sent somebody. I told him what had happened.”
Papa gave her an amused glance. “Very enterprising, my girl.”
“I’d be surprised if they send someone out this far,” Mama said, watching the retreating wagon through visored eyes.
But Papa gave a chuckle. “Oh, I’m sure they will. The high priest is a fellow I went to school with when we were lads. I saved his honor with the schoolmaster once, and ever since, he’s been more than obliging.”
The others laughed.
Mama steered Sati and Mut-nodjmet toward the house. “Well, let’s go back, girls. We left Baket-iset alone, wondering what had happened.”
“I told her.” Mut-tuy said, and she definitely looked satisfied.
Neferet rolled her eyes. That girl’s getting above herself. She’ll be telling us all what to do if we let her. But she knew the adolescent was desperate to be part of the group—even more than most thirteen-year-olds. Her own parents had either died or abandoned her. It was her brother, her junior by a year, who took care of the little ones unless Mut-tuy was forced to. She seemed not to feel much kinship with her half-wild younger brothers and sister. She had even refused to apprentice as a goldsmith, following the path of her father and brother.
But there were more immediate problems. As the three remaining young women trudged back toward the farmhouse, Brute at their heels, Neferet said, “We need to find out who this dead man is so we can tell his family what has happened.”
“Maybe they’ll know in the village,” Bener-ib suggested.
“That’s what I’m hoping. Perhaps if we examine him more closely at the house before the priests of Inpu come, we’ll discover how he died or find some clue to his identity.”
The others had installed the dead man in the center of the salon, beneath the ceiling ventilator where any breezes that entered would blow over him. The thick mudbrick walls kept out the most ferocious heat, but even so, it wasn’t the time of year when one wanted a corpse around for too long.
The clatter from the kitchen made it clear that lunch was almost ready. Sati and Mut-nodjmet were already carrying stools out into the yard and setting them up under the grapevine, but Neferet said resignedly, “We’d better do this now, before we have a full stomach.” She whisked off the sheet while Bener-ib retrieved the basket of medical supplies they always carried in case of accidents. With Mut-tuy’s help, she turned the man on his face. There wasn’t a great deal of light in the salon, but some things were clear. His back was covered in dried dirt where it had lain on the ground, and the blood was sinking, giving his back half a sinister purple hue. There was no need to look further for a cause of death. A huge lump with tattered edges rose on the back of his curly-headed skull. Bener-ib poked gently with a finger.
“It’s fractured badly. Somebody hit him a terrible blow from behind,” she said. “There must have been blood, but it’s all washed away in the River.”
“I’ll bet robbers got him and threw him in afterwards to hide their crime,” Mut-tuy said. As usual, in the presence of murder, her eyes came alight.
Neferet wasn’t willing to let the thirteen-year-old guide the examination. “Or maybe he fell and hit his head trying to get into a boat.” She rolled the dead man onto his back once more and ran a finger along under the waistband of his kilt. Nothing was tucked there—no purse, no papers, no writing implement. “After siesta, we can go into the village and ask around. There can’t be that many literate people here.”
“If he’s from here,” Bener-ib said pensively. “If he fell off a boat, he could be from anywhere.”
Neferet replaced the sheet over the man’s body just as Mama’s voice called from out of doors, “Girls? Where are you? We’re ready to eat.”
“Come on, people. Let’s wash up in the kitchen. We have our task for the afternoon.”
The tables were set up under the vines, where gourds as well as unripe grapes hung down. The cicadas were so loud it was difficult to hear what everyone said, but there was no mistaking the savory smells that rose from the platters of flat beans and stewed onions. Papa passed a big bowl of lettuce dressed with herbed vinegar.
“What did you find out about the cause of death, my duckling?” he asked, as Neferet heaped the leaves on her dish.
“Somebody hit him on the head, or else he had an accident. His skull is fractured.”
Papa and Maya exchanged a look.
Sat-hut-haru said with distaste, “We’re not going to have a report here at the table, are we?”
Neferet made a face while her sister’s head was down. “Some of us are going to have to go back to the city tomorrow afternoon, so if we’re going to learn anything to tell his family we have to do it as soon as possible.” She turned to Papa and continued as if her sister had said nothing. “Where exactly was the victim found, Papa?”
“As I understood it, the reed cutters came upon him floating face up among the papyrus down near the end of that little island—you know, where there’s a kind of stream between the main bank and that separated hummock. It all gets flooded during the Inundation. I’ve taken you down there before.”
“He could have floated there from somewhere else, then. How long would you say he’d been dead, Ibet?”
“At least a day or two. He’s no longer stiff.”
“Iyah.” Sati sprang up from her stool and stalked away toward the house. “I’m going to eat with the children in the kitchen court.”
“If that doesn’t take away her appetite, nothing should,” Mut-tuy said under her breath.
Maya, who had obviously heard, gave her a dark look.
Mama turned to feed Baket-iset a spoonful of her food, and said dryly, “Perhaps when they’ve sickened us all, the girls will have some nice emetic to offer us.”
Neferet let out a big guffaw. “Funny you should say that, Mama. I cut an armload of castor beans and leaves out by the goose pen. I hope you didn’t have any other plans for them.”
“That’s fine, my love. I never poison anyone till the middle of the week.”
Everyone laughed, but Bener-ib gave a glance that might have been uneasy at her plate.
“Perhaps I ought to...ahem,” Maya edged up from his seat, his eyes flickering toward the house.
“Go on, my boy. I’m sure Sati would appreciate your company.” Hani chuckled. His secretary hustled off through the wide-open doorway, barely having to duck the rolled up fly mat. Being a dwarf had its advantages.
“Well, people, we’re going into the village to ask around about our dead man.” Neferet rose from her stool and brushed out her skirts.
“I’ll go with you in case there’s anything I can add. Nub-nefer, my dove, if the priests come for our Osir, you know what to do.”
“Of course, my love.”
Papa and Neferet headed for the gate of the little low-walled yard, and after a moment’s hesitation, Bener-ib and Mut-tuy hustled after them. Brute ambled alongside with his calm, possessive stride. The little party set out along the road that paralleled the River, surrounded by a cloud of dust. The sun hammered down on their heads and bare shoulders.
“This wasn’t the best hour, probably,” Neferet admitted. “Everybody may be sleeping.”
“We can wake the mayor. A dead man washed up on the shore is his responsibility.” Papa fanned himself with his wig. “You ladies are going to look like field workers after this noonday sun.”
“We’ll fit right into the neighborhood, then.” Neferet snickered.
A quarter-hour’s walk brought them to the small local village. They shopped there occasionally and attended local festivities, but the girls didn’t know it well. It was mostly unwhite-washed brick, the color of the surrounding land, shaded with palms and figs and pomegranates. The packed-earth street was sprinkled with modest houses surrounded by their yards, walled or otherwise. Pigs and geese wandered at liberty, foraging. A trio of young children ran shrieking around a house until someone yelled from the doorway, “Quiet, you brats! People are trying to sleep!”
Papa chuckled. “I doubt if we’ll have to wake the mayor after all.” He looked around, then pointed to a solid-looking house a little back in a grove of date palms. “Last time I came here, the mayor lived right there. He’s a man named Pa-shedu.”
There were no garden walls. The trampled earth and bushes might or might not have belonged to the mayor, and the guinea hens that gobbled and pecked seemed to be the same ones that roamed up and down the village. A donkey was hobbled in the shade of a fig tree. It looked up in curiosity as the little troop passed, but Brute didn’t dignify the animal with a glance.
The door stood open in the heat, the fly-mat hanging. Papa called out softly, “Is anyone home?”
Almost immediately, a wiry little woman on the far side of middle age pushed aside the mat and said in a deep voice, “What can I do for you?”
“We’re looking for the mayor, Pa-shedu, mistress. I hope we’re not waking the household.”
“Well, you won’t wake him. He flew into the West more than a year ago. I’m his widow. It’s me who’s mayor now.”
