Orphan of the Sun, page 16
‘It is not you that I fear. Not really.’
‘If you feared me, you would not be the first. You know that. And maybe I am getting used to it. There is someone I need to see. It isn’t Teti this time but someone who may hold the key to the problems of your family.’
Dedi looked incredulous. ‘Hold the … who? What are you talking about?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ said Meryt. ‘In any case I may be wrong.’
‘You can’t say that.’ Dedi stepped quickly across the roof and grabbed Meryt’s arm. ‘Tell me, Meryt!’
But Meryt said nothing, for standing at the bottom of the staircase, with Nebnufer between them, were two members of the Medjay police force.
Chapter Ten
‘Father!’ Dedi stared down at Nebnufer, her eyes wide with shock.
‘Don’t worry,’ Nebnufer told her. ‘We need to come up to the roof to talk, my child. This will affect the whole family, so you can stay if you wish.’
Meryt quickly decided to make herself scarce. She slipped out of the house, leaving Nebnufer to climb up to roof with the two policemen, followed by Wab and his sons. The Medjays’ visit was bound to be something about Userkaf’s goings-on, and she hoped that they put an end to his antics once and for all. Meanwhile, she walked determinedly to the southern end of the village. She would play her part, if she could.
Outside the gate, Meryt positioned herself so that whichever way Nofret returned from her job in the embalmers’ workshops, she would be able to spot and waylay the girl. She waited for what seemed like an eternity, tossing limestone pebbles from one hand to the other and tracing patterns in the dust. Foremost in her mind was her dream about Kha. She thought of Teti’s words: You must let your mind go. It will lead you to the truth if you allow it to … She went over the dream again. There was the amulet, lying in the dust. It was so hot that she could not touch it, and the gold began to melt away, leaving only the fragments of precious lapis lazuli and glass. But as she reached to grasp them, they too disappeared, leaving nothing on the ground at all.
Let your mind go. Meryt thought instead of Kha, standing in the moonlight, dressed in nothing but rags. He has nothing, she thought. It is not he who receives the amulets. Nofret’s story is a lie. She thought of Userkaf – arrogant, wielding the power of the gods. If Nofret was stealing the amulets for her master, he was using them for despicable ends. He had great magic at his disposal and Nebnufer’s downfall was his aim.
And yet … and yet … Meryt shook her head. Userkaf was not the sort of man to understand the fine workings of magic. He was a man of flesh and blood and wine. A man who longed for wealth and status and fine linen on his back.
Suddenly, the truth was so clear that Meryt could scarcely believe she had not seen it before. A sacred amulet was an object to be feared and respected. In the hands of the right person it could bring protection or destruction in equal measure. But this amulet was more than that. It contained enough gold and lapis lazuli to pay the wages of many men for months … She thought of the traders she had seen at the gate. Such men could easily dispose of precious objects, for they dealt in them all the time. Userkaf was not interested in the amulets’ power; their value was enough to set the village alight.
Meryt jumped up as she spotted the little figure of Nofret trudging towards her in the late afternoon sun. The girl had her head bowed and did not see Meryt until she ran into her path and spoke to her.
‘Nofret.’
Nofret stopped in her tracks. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
Meryt drew herself up tall, and assumed a dreamy expression. ‘The gods have spoken,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘They have come to me in my dreams and revealed the truth. Do you wish to hear it?’
Nofret took a step back. ‘Why … yes, of course I want to hear it,’ she said, her nostrils flaring nervously.
‘Come then,’ said Meryt. ‘We’ll go up the hillside and I shall tell you.’
Without a word, Nofret fell into step behind her and they walked silently through the eastern cemetery to the top of the hill. There, Meryt did not sit down, but turned to face the servant girl with her arms folded. Her heart was beating fast, for she could not be completely sure of her ground.
She took a deep breath. ‘You lied to me,’ she stated, as coolly as she could.
Nofret’s mouth dropped open. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The gods have revealed the truth. You lied to me,’ repeated Meryt, studying the other girl’s face. ‘You lied to me about Kha. He is innocent. Did you think that you could get away with such a falsehood?’
Nofret stared at her, and Meryt could tell that her mind was working quickly. Then, to her astonishment, the servant girl laughed. ‘The gods do not reveal such things so easily,’ she said.
Meryt’s confidence wavered. Nofret had seemed nervous at first, but now all signs of her fear had gone. But she was not going to give up yet. ‘You are a strange girl, Nofret,’ she said. ‘On one day you come to me for protection from the gods. On another you say they do not speak to me. Which is it that you believe?’
The servant girl pursed her lips, and shrugged. But Meryt caught a look of uncertainty on the other girl’s face, and took a step towards her. ‘What if I told you that I know what becomes of the amulets?’ she asked.
‘You can’t possibly know that!’ Nofret’s voice was scornful.
Meryt smiled. ‘Can’t I?’ She turned to face the great River Nile and the mortuary temples, a slight breeze lifting her hair. ‘I have seen the amulets fall apart,’ she said, resuming her dreamlike voice. ‘I have seen the value of their gold and of their lapis lazuli. I have seen the traders at the village gate and I have seen the gentleness of painter Kha.’ She spun around quickly to catch the look on Nofret’s face. ‘So tell me what you make of that, Nofret, servant of Userkaf!’
Nofret looked incredulous. ‘The gods revealed this?’
‘Yes,’ said Meryt. ‘They did.’
The servant raised her eyebrows, and fell silent. She wandered away from Meryt and sat down on a rock with her back turned. Meryt began to feel frustrated. Perhaps she had gone about all this the wrong way, for it had not had the effect she intended. She had hoped that Nofret would crumble when she heard about Meryt’s dream, and give away more information – perhaps even enough to blacken Userkaf’s name. But instead she had clamped her mouth shut like the jaws of a jackal around its prey.
She marched over to her. ‘So what are you going to do, Nofret?’ she demanded. ‘You can see that I know the truth. The gods will not protect you now.’
Nofret gave a cynical smile. ‘You know little, Meryt-Re,’ she said. ‘You have seen that the amulets are sold to traders. It would not take the powers of a priestess to work out such a thing. You think you are clever but you will not catch me out like that.’
Despite her relief at having been right, Meryt was stung. ‘You play with fire,’ she exclaimed. ‘You are a common thief and you stand in defiance of the gods.’
‘There’s something you don’t understand,’ said Nofret. She stood up and looked Meryt in the face. In the depths of her eyes, Meryt saw more than defiance and fear; there was a curious deadness there too. ‘I am a servant girl. A slave.’
‘I know that,’ said Meryt, puzzled.
‘But you do not know what it means.’ Nofret twisted her lips into an almost pitying smile. ‘My life cannot get any worse than it already is. I have nothing to lose.’
And with that, she pushed past Meryt and started back down the track to the village gate.
Meryt felt nonplussed, and a little lost. Her plan had failed, more or less; Nofret’s admission, such as it was, had got her nowhere. She was going to have to think the whole thing through much more carefully.
I have nothing to lose. Strange, powerful words that somehow shook Meryt to her core, for she could not say the same for herself. Despite the difficult times she was going through, she loved Set Maat and its people. She loved the tomb of her father and the knowledge that she came from a long line of craftsmen. She loved Tia and Dedi and Kenna, little Mose and Henut. When times were good she even loved Senmut, in her own way. Deep down she knew she had faith – faith in Teti, faith in her friends and faith in the future.
But Nofret had nothing. Nothing to lose. And yet, Meryt thought slowly, if she had nothing to lose then she surely had something to gain.
Meryt began to make her own way back, and as she reached the eastern tombs she thought she could hear more of a hubbub than usual. Curious, she quickened her pace and saw as soon as she passed through the gate that the main street was thronging with people.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked the Medjay guard.
‘Haven’t you heard? Nebnufer has been arrested.’
‘Nebnufer has been arrested!’ Meryt was shocked. She thought of the two men she had seen in Nebnufer’s house. Somehow she had imagined that it was Nebnufer himself who had summoned them. Surely this couldn’t be right! ‘But what for?’ she asked.
‘Stealing tomb equipment, that’s what I heard,’ said the guard. ‘The top Medjay men went round to his house. They found a pile of new copper tools in his storeroom – government stock. He’ll have some explaining to do by the sound of it.’
Meryt could scarcely take it in. ‘Stealing!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s ridiculous. As if Nebnufer needs to steal anything.’
The guard shrugged and grinned. ‘Well, that’s what they found,’ he said. ‘Guess it’s in the vizier’s hands now.’
Meryt felt cold inside. She had no doubt that Userkaf was somehow at the bottom of this, but once the matter was referred to the vizier it would be difficult to show it for what it was – or certainly to prove anything. The situation had escalated beyond her wildest imaginings.
She walked quickly towards Dedi’s house. To her dismay, there were clusters of people gossiping outside it. Nebnufer, she heard. Userkaf. Sennedjem. She decided not to disturb the household, and to return later. The kenbet is meeting … Everyone was talking about it. She broke into a jog, weaving her way through the crowds. And then she felt a hand on her elbow, and spun round.
It was Tia who stood there. ‘Meryt, I’m so glad I found you.’ Her eyes were sunken with weariness, and a faint twitch irritated the skin beneath her left eye. Meryt thought she had aged beyond her twenty-seven years, and she reached out to touch her aunt’s arm.
‘You look so tired,’ she said.
Tia’s eyes filled with tears, and she struggled to blink them away. ‘I’ve left Senmut with Baki,’ she said. ‘I told him I was going to make an offering to Peshedu.’
Meryt thought quickly. Whatever was happening at Nebnufer’s house, it would have to wait. ‘Let’s go to Peshedu’s tomb anyway,’ she said. ‘There, you can rest.’
Her aunt nodded, and Meryt took her arm. Together, they walked slowly to the western gate and the cemetery that now stood in shadow, long since abandoned by the morning sun.
‘How is Baki?’ Meryt asked, when they had left the milling people behind. ‘Is he any better?’
Tia’s bottom lip trembled. ‘He is knocking on the door of the Next World,’ she said, her voice anguished. ‘I am so afraid. I don’t know how long he has left.’
Meryt’s heart filled with guilt. If only she had made sure that her cousin received the linen charm when Teti had given it to her. She hoped desperately that Mose had done what she had told him. ‘Did Mose give you the balm from Teti?’
‘Yes. Thank you, Meryt. I used it on his wound, but I fear it will not be much help.’
Meryt frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Whatever you believe about Baki, this balm has come from Teti and she is sure it can cure him.’
Tia shrugged and was silent, breathing heavily as they climbed the hill. Meryt supported her until they reached the chapel courtyard, where her aunt leant against the wall in relief. ‘Let’s sit,’ she said. ‘I need to rest.’
She walked slowly to the chapel entrance and lowered herself to the ground just outside it. Meryt joined her and waited until her aunt’s breathing steadied, and she seemed ready to talk. ‘When did you last come here?’ she asked.
‘Yesterday,’ Tia told her. ‘And someone else had been here again.’
Meryt thought of Heria, hurrying down the hill back to the village. ‘I know who it is,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know why she comes.’
Tia looked at her sharply. ‘She? Who is it?’
Meryt studied her fingers. They still smelt slightly of the fragrant tallow that she and Dedi had used to make the perfume cones. ‘Heria,’ she said.
‘Heria!’ Tia’s eyes filled with wonder.
‘So you don’t know why either?’ said Meryt.
Tia shook her head. ‘No idea. She knew your father, of course.’ She sighed and lapsed into silence again, playing with the string of amulets that she wore around her neck. Meryt watched her. Tia was clearly exhausted, and troubled to the core of her being. She wondered whether to question her, but could see that she needed to speak in her own time.
‘Meryt, there is something I need to tell you,’ her aunt said eventually. ‘That’s why I came to find you.’
Meryt’s heart began to thump harder in anticipation, and she nodded. ‘It’s about Peshedu, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Tia swallowed, wringing her hands together. ‘I don’t know how … how …’ she trailed off, her eyes filling with tears once more.
‘Mose told me that you have angered him in some way,’ said Meryt, trying to help her. ‘But you are so gentle and good. I can’t imagine what you might have done.’
‘Oh, Meryt.’ Tia’s tears began to fall in big, heavy drops. ‘I have done so much. I doubt you will forgive me, when you know.’
‘I forgive you!’ cried Meryt in amazement. ‘What has it to do with me?’
She had to wait for several minutes before Tia could speak again. When she did, she spoke in little gasps, as though she were afraid to let the words out. ‘If it were not for me, you might still have a father, Meryt,’ she said. ‘And now Peshedu is punishing me for this with the death of my own dear son.’
‘No!’ Meryt shook her head in bewilderment. ‘Peshedu died of the coughing disease. That is what you have always told me. Is this not true?’
Tia made a little motion with her shoulders that was not quite a shrug. ‘Perhaps,’ she stuttered. ‘But he might … he might have lived if it were not for me.’
‘Men rarely recover from the coughing disease,’ said Meryt quietly. ‘I have always accepted this, Tia. You know that.’
‘Yes. Yes. But he was getting better. I know he was, for I was the one who nursed him and implored the gods for his recovery. And then …’ Tia stopped, and wiped her eyes with the edge of her dress. The kohl she always wore made a black smudge on the clean white linen, but she didn’t seem to care.
‘And then?’ Meryt prompted her.
‘The priests of Ptah had given me a spell,’ Tia carried on, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘I was to repeat it seven times a day at his bedside. But I grew careless. We were short of grain, for Peshedu’s treatment had cost us much, and Senmut began to complain that I cared more for my brother than I did for him. I did as much weaving as I could manage, and one day, news came that Paser the scribe wanted three new kilts. Peshedu was sleeping, so I left him and ran to Paser’s house with the kilts. I forgot that it was time to repeat the spell. Paser kept me waiting for … for … half the afternoon.’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘And when I returned, your father was …was …’
Tia could not finish her sentence, and Meryt felt a strange stillness. She imagined her father, lying on his sick bed, drifting towards the Next World for lack of the magic that could have saved him. The darkness that must have slowly crept up on him. The terror of dying untended and alone … She had never felt so close to her father’s death before – or to his life, that precious, precious life. It was as though the world were slowing down, going backwards, as Tia continued to speak. ‘He left me for the Next World without a word. I could only think that he was punishing me for abandoning him in his hour of need. He has never given me peace from that day to this.’
Meryt stared at Tia, unseeing, as the vision of a different world flashed before her – one in which she lived happily in her own father’s home, without Baki to taunt her or Senmut to fill her with guilt. In the house of her uncle she would have been only an occasional guest, the daughter of a respected sculptor in the Great Place and a playmate for her cousins, not a burdensome orphan to be resented and despised. She would have been happy, wanted and loved.
She tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat.
‘I tried to appease him,’ Tia carried on. ‘I made sure of his life in the Next World. All that he left behind was yours, but you were only two years old. I swore that I would care for you for your whole life if I had to. So he was given the best embalming and funeral. We paid for many amulets to be placed among his wrappings, and his tomb lacked for nothing. I hoped it would assure him that I never meant any harm.’
Meryt bowed her head. She felt almost sick. Her limbs began to shake. With a strangled cry, she buried her head in her arms and started to sob.
‘Meryt … Meryt … Don’t. Hush, please don’t. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,’ Tia’s voice begged, but it could make no difference now. Meryt rocked to and fro, lost in her own world of grief. ‘Hush, hush, please, don’t,’ Tia repeated, and Meryt felt an arm around her shoulders.
She couldn’t bear it. ‘Leave me alone!’ she cried, without looking up. ‘There is nothing you can do for me now!’
Tia said nothing more, and Meryt could not say when she felt the touch of her hand leave her shoulders. All she could feel was the life of the father that she had lost – snatched away from him as he lay abandoned and alone.
But some time later, as darkness began to fall, Meryt looked up to find that her aunt had gone. She crept into the chapel and laid down to one side of the altar, where she was sheltered from the cool evening breeze. She curled into a ball and waited for the velvety blackness of night to cloak her. Soon, the heavy weight lying in her chest pulled her down, down, into a dreamless sleep from which she never wanted to wake.
