Lynda Robinson: Heretic's dagger

Kysen presented Kar's parents to Meren before he left. Wersu was sitting on the floor in the kitchen at a low table. He was tent-pole thin, with a few wisps of silver hair remaining on his head, and a few brown teeth still left in his head. His wife was younger and retained some of the agreeable features of youth. Her hair was thick and curly, her skin soft from the application of oils. Qedet had a wide face and large, heavy-lidded eyes, and Meren could imagine she had once commanded admiration from many men. At the moment, though, she was squatting on her heels, rocking back and forth and moaning. Her eyes were red, and she kept wiping them with a length of a large piece of linen. Qedet was cleaning the linen by dipping a corner of it in a solution of water and natron salt and rubbing it to get rid of an ink stain.

Wersu shook his head over and over. "He wouldn't listen to me, Lord Meren. He just wouldn't listen. Just wouldn't listen. Paid me no heed at all. Just wouldn't listen."

"About what?"

"Work." Wersu regarded his wife sorrowfully while she rubbed the stained linen furiously "He wouldn't work. He thought it was owed him, his position. He was an unguent maker like I was. Could have been one of the best. He was apprenticed to the royal workshop. How many can say that? But Kar never saw it that way. Ungrateful, lazy. I tried to tell him, but he never listened. Just wouldn't listen."

Meren leaned against a wall beside the archway between the kitchen and living area. "You're saying Kar was too lazy to work."

"Ohhh," Qedet moaned and dabbed her eyes with a dry piece of the linen in her hands.

Wersu rubbed his forehead wearily. "Forgive me, great lord, but that is true."

"What did he do, then?"

"He drank, lord. He ate, drank and slept."

"My poor son," Qedet wailed as she wrung the soaked linen. "You didn't understand him. He was sensitive. Not like other boys."

Wersu scowled at his wife again. "He wasn't a boy. He had almost three decades, and he was a lazy sot."

Qedet shot her husband a venomous look, then saw Meren staring at her and lowered her gaze to the stain in the linen that was almost gone now.

"You told my son you could think of no one who might want to kill your son."

"Everyone liked Kar," Qedet said.

Grunting in disgust, Wersu pursed his lips. Meren lifted a brow, and the old man sighed.

"Kar was annoying, but that is all."

Meren spent a few more unproductive minutes talking the Wersu and Qedet. Then he went on a tour around the house, leaving the parents grieving in the kitchen. They seemed to be much like other parents, the mother doting, the father stern, both disappointed in their younger son.

He didn't expect to find anything incriminating in this house, but he liked to get a sense of people from their homes and possessions. Kar lived with his brother and parents in this house all his life; it might have something to say to him.

Beginning in the living area, Meren noted the only furniture besides the eating table was a stool made of cheap sycamore wood with a woven seat. The kitchen had baskets of food, but not in any great quantity-bread, onions, dates, leeks and a couple of wrinkled cucumbers. Bread and onions were the staples of the commoner class, Meren knew, as was beer. He'd seen no beer jars, but if Kar was a drinker…

Meren took an interior stair down to the cellar. Here he found one jar of dried peas, one of beer and one of fish oil. He opened a small reed basket filled with dates. Onions hung from the ceiling. A dozen or so jars stood empty along with several wicker boxes.

"No spices," Meren muttered. "No dried fish."

Leaving the cellar, he went upstairs and found himself in the main bedroom. Here sat a wooden bed with a plaited rush base and straw-filled mattress. The sheets were askew and looked as if they were seldom straightened. However, they were of good quality, probably the grade called fine thin cloth, almost as good as royal linen. Evidently unlike the linen in the kitchen, Qedet didn't wash these delicate sheets, for they had laundry marks. The portable stool that served as a lavatory stood over a pottery jar filled with sand. It hadn't been emptied. In a corner, rumpled and dirty, were a couple of loincloths and a kilt. Half a dozen empty beer jars stood around the bed. Meren surveyed the room with a frown. It appeared that the drunkard Kar had slept in the large master chamber.

In the remaining room opposite Meren found three sleeping mats, more clothing in a rickety wicker box, and a tarnished bronze hand mirror in a bag along with a comb and cosmetic set. It was peculiar that Wersu and Qedet shared a chamber with their oldest son. This was Wersu's house; he should have occupied the larger, better room.

Mounting the stairs again, Meren went onto the roof where a loom sat under an awning of palm leaves. Nearby he saw a small fireplace over which rested a tripod. Looking over the roof to the courtyard in front of the house Meren saw a beehive shaped grain bin. One lonely goose pecked at grain scattered on the ground. Beyond the courtyard the street was busy. A herdsman ushered cattle down narrow road while a man led a donkey loaded with palm fronds the opposite way. A self-important priest wearing a leopard skin cloak and carrying a walking stick thrashed at a group of boys who danced around and taunted him. Groups of women passed by with laundry in baskets on their heads; some carried water jars. It was a typical busy city street, dirty, noisy and cheerful. Kar's house was barren, deserted, quiet. The family hadn't even hired professional mourners to stand about crying and throwing ashes and rending their garments as people usually did. Meren doubted that Wersu could afford them.

Meren was glad to leave the house. It oppressed his spirits with its air of lost prosperity and strained relationships. The family of Wersu wasn't a happy one, but there seemed to be no undercurrents of violence that could have led to murder. Meren headed for the royal precinct.

The main Theban palace occupied by the royal women's household was called Hathor's Ornament. The steward who oversaw the running of the household, Lord Peya, sent Meren to the master of doorkeepers and porters, a man of foreign descent called Uthi. Uthi was one of those men who glided when he walked, spoke with hands fluttering and lisped.

"Kar?" Uthi's hands fluttered as he stood before Meren in the lofty reception chamber of the palace. "What would the great Lord Meren want with that lazy donkey?" When Meren didn't answer, Uthi went on. "Kar worked as a doorkeeper here for almost a year, great one. But he was never satisfactory. He fell asleep on duty, showed up late. Sometimes he left his post, but worst of all, he was drunk most of the time. The other doorkeepers and porters told me that when he received his ration payments he would at once spend them on more drink."

"What finally caused you to get rid of him?"

Uthi sniffed. "I like to think of myself as a tolerant man, o great lord. But three weeks ago when I told Kar his wages would be reduced because he was sleeping on the job, he abused me and tried to strike me. I fended him off with my staff. Luckily my assistant was with me, and he wrestled Kar to the ground. I think all that beer finally pickled his wits. That's the thanks I get for trying to serve the royal ladies so faithfully. Why, I only kept him on because he was in Princess Iaret's favor. If it weren't for her, he would have been cast out long before. And after all, what did he have to do but stand at a garden gate and open it occasionally."

"Princess Iaret favored a doorkeeper?"

Uthi must have sensed Meren's skepticism. "Oh, yes, mighty lord. Princess Iaret is a sweet lady, full of kindness and compassion. She is always giving aid to the lowest servants. She even speaks up for slaves accused of stealing. Her reputation for goodness is well know to the royal household."