Lynda Robinson: Eater of souls

Shaking his head, Meren said softly, "Sometimes a child needs the freedom to be just a little wicked."

Perplexed, Kysen studied his father, who looked away toward the reflection pools and gardens in front of Golden House. Then he sucked in his breath. "We are visited."

"By whom?" Meren asked.

Kysen pointed to an ebony-black Nubian wearing a short military kilt and thick gold wrist- and ankle-bands and carrying a spear. It was like watching a colossus walk, for Karoya was a royal guard, member of a select and secretive group. Karoya was one of the few men in the world who answered to no one, not even Meren or the great minister Ay. He was personal bodyguard to the golden Horus, the living god, ruler of the empire, the pharaoh Tutankhamun, aged fourteen years.

Sokar, chief of watchmen of the city of Memphis, rounded the corner of a street crowded with sailors, foreign merchants, vendors, and donkeys. He took big steps, leading with his ample belly, and changed course for no one. Children playing in the road scattered before his walking stick, which jabbed into the earth with a smack, sending flakes of packed earth into their faces.

One of his underlings hurried before him, shouting to warn of his master's approach. "Way! Make way for the chief of watchmen. Move your carcass, mongrel of the desert."

Each time his stick nearly impaled a passerby, each time his attendant snarled at some unsuspecting citizen, Sokar's shoulders lifted a bit higher and his chest expanded. He wasn't a man of great stature. An onlooker would note that most of Sokar's growth had taken a sideways path. He had a head like a fat mud brick, big, fleshy red lips, and a sparse forehead beneath a wig fatter than his head. His feet, encased in papyrus sandals, hadn't seen a washbasin or cloth in weeks, and he proceeded through the growing street crowds with the gait of a duck that has reached the end of its fattening period.

The belligerent expression on his face was moderated only by those protruding, feminine lips. Sokar was intensely annoyed at having his morning meal interrupted by a report from one of his more excitable watch leaders.

"Goat-witted fool," Sokar had muttered to himself as he stuffed the remains of a slice of date bread in his mouth. "Dragging me out for the murder of some farmer. I'll dock his rations, I will."

Sokar preferred reducing rations to administering beatings as punishment. He kept the confiscated grain and beer for himself. The attendant led him past a house concealed behind high walls and into a street hemmed in on both sides by narrow dwellings and a beer house with cracked and pitted plaster, tightly shut doors, and blank windows.

Upon turning another corner, they left the crowds behind to enter a lane that seemed more tunnel than street, so close were the surrounding structures. Littered with refuse thrown from upper stories and the droppings of geese, ducks, and donkeys, it was almost deserted. The only inhabitant lay across the bottom stair before a front door, his head hanging over a pool of vomit. Sokar followed the watchman into an alley opposite this door and stopped abruptly. Three men from the day watch stood with their backs to a prone figure. One of them held his hand cupped over his nose and mouth. Sokar's walking stick stabbed the ground near this man's bare foot; he jumped and bowed several times to his master.

Wiping a stray crumb from the shelf of his belly, Sokar launched into his habitual bellow. "This had better be worth my time, Min, or I'll have your beer rations for a month!"

"Yes, master. I-we-that is, it-" Min glanced over his shoulder, swallowed, and covered his mouth.

Fat furrows appeared between Sokar's brows. "What woman's weakness is this? Get out of my way."

He shoved the men aside and loomed over the body they'd been shielding from him. He was immediately assaulted by the odor of exposed and decaying raw meat. Sokar covered his nose and mouth while swiping at the hordes of flies buzzing around the body of a man lying on his back. He stepped back, almost stumbling.

The man had obviously been one who labored with his hands, one of moderate height, thinning hair, and skin turned almost black from working in the sun. His nose had been broken and had healed crookedly, but the parallel slashes across his throat were far more conspicuous than this facial flaw. The cuts exposed tendon and flesh and distracted the viewer from the bloody wound above his ear. But what had made Sokar retreat and nearly gag was the hole in the man's chest.

Something heavy and sharp had cleaved flesh and bone in slanting blows deep enough to expose the heart. But the heart wasn't there. In its place, stuck upright into the tangle of vessels, muscle, and chipped bone at the bottom of the cavity, was a feather. Cloud-white, a little more than the length of a man's hand, it seemed to defile the dead man by its very beauty and purity.

A fly launched itself off the exposed meat of the wound and buzzed at Sokar. The chief of watchmen yelped and flailed at it with his walking stick. The fly soared away to perch on the dead man's nose. Sokar straightened from his defensive pose and scowled at the other men.

"Fools!" he barked. "This is a peasant come from his farm to the city on some worthless errand. No doubt he came with fellows and quarreled with them. We do not concern ourselves with the doings of lowlings, however grotesque. Get a shroud-a heavy shroud-and send him to the necropolis. And bother me no more with such insignificances, or I'll set you to guarding dung heaps."

"But, master, the feather," Min wailed.

"An accident." Sokar cast a furtive glance at the body and its obscene decoration. "Some goose or other fowl strayed near the body and left it. You're nearly soiling your kilt over something that has an ordinary explanation. Some quarrel has ended in death and a little magic."

Keeping his gaze averted from the body and making the sign against evil, Sokar shook his walking stick at Min. "No more wild imaginings. If you bother me with something like this again, you'll regret it."

Sokar spun around and tramped out of the alley before anyone else could speak. Once he reached the street, his pace quickened, and he kept looking over his shoulder as if he expected the heartless corpse to get up and chase him. He went so fast that his attendant was forced to trot after him.

Back in the watch compound, Sokar called for beer and more date bread. He scurried into his workroom, shoved apprentices and citizens waiting to see him outside, and collapsed on a cushioned wicker stool. The seat creaked in protest at his weight. He settled into the cushion and wiped sweat from his forehead, nose, and upper lip.

Everyone knew peasants had been ordained to their brutal existence by the gods. The sacred ones had created the orderly society in which Egyptians lived, each man and woman assigned a place with certain work, certain duties. Some, like the dead man, led a rough, contentious life that ended in violence. Who knew why such low ones behaved as they did? No doubt some netherworld demon had caused the quarrel in which the farmer was killed.

Vengeful spirits of dead ones who had been abandoned by their descendants lurked in the darkness. Their kas had been left to starve for lack of offerings, and these miserable spirits often wrought havoc among the living. They incited evil as surely as a pretty woman evoked lust. And Min hadn't the sense to recognize such a common truth and behave accordingly.

Sokar sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Taking a long sip of beer, he picked up a length of papyrus that rested beside him on the floor. He drew a lamp closer, picked up a rush pen, and dipped it in water and black ink from a palette. Now, to continue his reports. Each day he composed one for the mayor, a copy of which would be sent on to the office of Lord Meren, Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh. When one's writings might be inspected by a great one such as Lord Meren, one chose one's subject and phrases most carefully.