Lauren Haney: Cruel Deceit

Re reached out, touching the shrine, blinding the eyes of all who glimpsed its far-off radiance.

The procession slowly approached the sanctuary.

Amonked rose to his feet and, taking the stool with him, stepped off to the side, out of the way. Bak ordered his men to stand at rigid attention, checked to be sure all was as it should be, and pivoted to face the processional way, stand ing as stiff and straight as they.

Following the standard-bearers, the musicians, the priests,

Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre Thutmose walked up the processional way in all their regal majesty. The regent who had made herself a sovereign wore a long white shift, multicolored broad collar and bracelets, and a tall white cone-shaped crown with plumes rising to either side above horizontal ram’s horns and the sacred cobra over her brow.

She carried the crook and the flail in one hand, the sign of life in the other. She looked neither to right nor left. Too far away to see well, Bak imagined her face set, an emotionless mask.

Beside her, walking with a youthful spring in his step, was Menkheperre Thutmose. The young man wore the short kilt of a soldier, which displayed to perfection the hard mus cles of his well-formed body. His jewelry was similar to that of his co-ruler. He wore a blue flanged helmetlike crown adorned with gold disks. The royal cobra rose over his brow, and he carried the crook and the flail and the sign of life.

Bak imagined eyes that never rested; a young Horus, very much aware of his surroundings.

Behind the priests who followed, and wreathed in a thin cloud of incense, came the golden barque of the lord Amon, balanced on long gilded poles carried high on the shoulders of twenty priests, ten to a side. A senior priest walked before the vessel and another followed behind. Golden rams’ heads, crowned with golden orbs and wearing the royal cobra on their brows, were mounted on stern and prow, with elaborate multicolored broad collars and pectorals hanging from their necks. A gilded shrine stood on the barque, its sides open to reveal a second, smaller shrine mounted on a dais. This con tained the lord Amon, shielded from view within its golden walls.

Spectators shouted for joy and threw flowers, showering the causeway with color and scent. Bak felt a tightness in his throat, the same awe he had felt as a child when his father had brought him to a long-ago procession, holding him high on his shoulders so he could see his sovereign and his god.

Farther along the processional way were more priests with censers and lustration vessels, followed by the gilded barques of the lady Mut and the lord Khonsu, both smaller than the barque of the lord Amon, but impressive nonetheless.

Musicians followed the magnificent glittering vessels, playing drums, clappers, sistra, and lutes. Singers clapped their hands and chanted. Dancers and acrobats, their ges tures often much alike, swirled around, turned somersaults, arched their backs to touch the path behind them.

The standard-bearers-noblemen chosen especially for the task-approached the sanctuary. Bak raised his baton of office in salute and heard the soft rustle of movement indi cating the Medjays behind him were shifting into a fighting stance, right leg forward, shields in front of their chests, spears tilted forward at a diagonal.

“Sir!” Bak heard off to his side where Amonked stood. “A priest has been found dead inside the sacred precinct. Mur dered. Will you come, sir?” Bak looked half around and saw the messenger, a youth of twelve or so years, glance at the procession. “If you can,” he added in a thin, hesitant voice.

Amonked looked appalled. “Not inside the god’s man sion, I pray!”

“Oh, no, sir. In a storehouse.” Looking apologetic, the boy added, “I tried first to find User, Overseer of Overseers of all the storehouses, but I had no luck. When I saw you and you weren’t in the procession… Well, I thought…”

Amonked glanced toward his royal cousin, uncertainty on his face. The musicians were turning toward the sanctuary, followed by priests preparing to usher the two sovereigns and the lord Amon to their first place of rest. His mouth tightened in a decisive manner and he waved off the youth’s bumbling words. “Very well.” He turned to Bak. “You must come with me, Lieutenant.”

“Sir?” Bak eyed Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre

Thutmose walking in lofty splendor not twenty paces away.

“What of your cousin? Will she not miss you?”

Amonked flung another quick glance her way. “With luck and the help of the gods, we’ll find that the dead man was truly murdered and of sufficient importance to warrant our leaving.”

Bak stepped aside, beckoned Imsiba to stand in his place, and hurried after Amonked and the messenger. He might never get another chance to stand before his men on so aus picious an occasion, and was sorry he had to leave. He would have to be content with catching up with the pro cession later, hopefully in time to watch the dual rulers make offerings to the gods before they entered the southern man sion of Ipet-resyt.

They hastened northward, passing behind the almost de serted booths and the crowds watching the procession with much oohing and ahing, clapping and shouting. Nearing the unfinished gate out of which the procession was filing, the boy led them down a lane between the westernmost construc tion ramp and a residential sector off to the left, avoiding the building materials piled well out of the way of paraders and celebrants. They turned to hurry along the base of the mas sive mudbrick wall that enclosed the sacred precinct of the lord Amon, passing its alternating concave and convex sec tions, gradually leaving behind the shouts of rejoicing.

“Through here, sir,” the boy said, turning into a small, unimposing doorway.

They stumbled along a dark passage that took them through the thick wall. Beyond, bathed in sunlight, lay the sacred precinct, an expanse of white-plastered buildings.

Crowded around Ipet-isut, which was painted white with brightly colored inscriptions and decoration, were shrines and chapels, housing, office buildings, and row upon row of storehouses. Unlike the great warehouses built outside the enclosure walls and closer to the river, most of which con tained bulk items such as grain, hides, and copper ingots, too heavy and ungainly to carry far, these held smaller items of higher value.

The youth ushered them down a lane between two rows of long, narrow, interconnected mudbrick buildings whose elongated barrel-vaulted roofs formed a series of adjoining ridges. Doors, most closed and sealed but a few standing open, faced each other all along the lane. Near the far end, a dozen men hovered around the open portal of a storehouse in the storage block to the right. Included among them were shaven-headed priests, scribes wearing long kilts, and three guards carrying shields and spears. A guard spotted them, and they pulled back from the door, making way for the new arrivals. Drawing near, Bak noticed the smell of burning and saw smudges of soot on most of the men.

Amonked’s eyes darted around the group. “A man is dead, the boy told us. Murdered.”

All eyes turned toward a priest, a tall, fine-boned man no more than twenty years of age. His kilt was as dirty as all the rest. Clearly distraught, he clutched the bright blue faience amulet of a seated baboon, the lord Thoth, hanging from a chain around his neck and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

“Yes, sir. Of that there’s no doubt.” He gulped air and clung to the amulet as if to life itself. “I was finishing a task before going out to watch the procession. I smelled smoke and came to look. When I opened the door, I saw him lying on the floor, the flames around him.”

“The rest of you came to put out the fire?” Bak asked.