Lynda Robinson - Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing

"So you spent the night drinking and playing with women."

Meren walked over to Ra and offered his hand. Ra took it, and Meren pulled his brother to his feet and shoved him back down on the bed.

"Last night was just another evening of pleasure, then." Meren leaned down and touched a bruise on Ra's jaw, a scrape on his elbow, a red mark over his ribs. "But if it was, dear brother, then why do you look like you've been in a fight to the death?"

Ra shrugged. "Sometimes making love can be like a fight to the death. But you don't want to know about that, do you? You'd rather believe I fought with Anhai and killed her. Why haven't you mentioned the others who might have done it? How about Bentanta?" Ra paused, then sat up straight in the bed.

"What's wrong? You're not worried about her, are you? Gods! No wonder you're hot to cast suspicion on me. I've heard how the family is planning to unite the two of you."

"The family isn't going to interfere in my life, So you're saying you spent the entire night at Green Palm."

"All of it that I remember."

"What part don't you remember?"

"How can I know, if I don't remember?"

"I grow weary of these evasions," Meren said. "Your companions had better support your tale, or next time I won't be so gentle in my questioning."

"Have you talked to Bentanta yet?"

"I will."

"Do. I'll be waiting to see how you manage it. I've seen the two of you circling each other like two wary leopards. And, brother, you're going to be disappointed about me. I left Anhai alive. I know you want me to be the murderer, because it would relieve you of the burden of being reminded of how you've cheated me."

"I never cheated you, and I don't want you to be guilty. Why would I want my own brother to be guilty of such a crime?"

"Then why are you treating me like a criminal?"

"I'm not, Ra. You've just forgotten who I am."

"You're my brother."

"I'm the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh. Before I am a brother, or even a father, I am the Eyes of Pharaoh."

"Poor Meren," Ra said as he slid down in the bed and covered his eyes with a forearm. "Always so serious, so merciless in duty. No wonder we never got along. Don't you see how empty you are?"

"What are you talking about?"

Ra lifted his arm and smiled at Meren. "Your life, brother. There's so little pleasure. You dislike me for being at ease with women, for knowing how to enjoy living, for being able to laugh."

"Did you kill Anhai?"

"You're the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh. You tell me."

Kysen found Meren in the roomy chamber that served as his office on the second floor of the house. Four painted columns with capitals shaped like lotus flowers supported the roof. Estate documents, accounts, and letters lay rolled up and tied in bundles on shelves and in leather cases. A tall ovoid water jar sitting in a corner bore a necklace of flowers. There was a niche in which sat a statue of the god Toth. An ebony-inlaid cedar chair sat on the dais reserved for Meren. Over its back had been thrown a heavy collar of gold. Kysen recognized the gold of honor given by pharaoh as reward for service.

The collar's owner wasn't seated on the dais. He was standing beside a carved alabaster chest. He opened it and withdrew three weighted spheres painted Nile-blue and green. He glanced at Kysen without expression and began tossing the balls in the air and catching them. Kysen made sure he'd closed the door. It wouldn't do for the noble Lord Meren to be caught juggling like a common entertainer.

Meren tossed a sphere while he caught another, and a third seemed to hang suspended in the air. "What of the haunted temple?"

So there was to be no discussion of what had happened between his father and Ra.

"Before dawn someone approached the valley, but Iry and the men frightened him off. They couldn't see who it was. Probably a villager. He ran away upon hearing the spirit noises."

"Nothing else? No other signs of interest?"

"None."

"I have been thinking," Meren said as he strolled around the chamber tossing the blue and green spheres. "Anhai can't have been dead more than half the night. Her body hadn't stiffened much, and we were able to get her out of the granary. Yet she had to have been dead several hours or she would have returned to her chamber. Anhai wasn't a fool, and she wouldn't have risked scandal by staying away."

Kysen tapped a sheet of papyrus he held rolled up in his hand. "True. She left some time between the beginning of Hepu's Instruction and the end of the feast. Unfortunately, there were dozens of guests and servants coming and going, in addition to the family. Reia says that the doorkeepers were busy at the front gate. No one saw her leave the house and go around to the granary court, but it was dark, and there are all those trees between the gate and the house. She could have kept to the shadows."

"Which makes me wonder why she would steal away to such a place."

"She could have gone down the back stairs and around," Kysen said.

"But the servants coming from the kitchen would have seen her." Meren caught all three balls in succession and put them back in the alabaster casket. "I've been trying to remember what I saw of Anhai last night. When she came in with Sennefer, we spoke briefly, and I remember Wah was there. Then Ra came, and she talked to him."

"And she had that quarrel with Bentanta."

"I don't remember seeing her after that. I was too busy enduring Hepu's reading." Meren went to his chair, picked up the gold necklace, and sat down. Swinging the collar from his fingers, he frowned. "Now that I think on it, Anhai seemed to stir up everyone's passion in some way."

Kysen grinned. "Of course, Sennefer must have been furious at her for allowing Ra to come near her. He was talking to Bentanta but watching Anhai. The unguent cone on his head was just starting to melt, and I remember thinking if he turned much redder, it would dissolve from the heat of his anger."

"He may have been angry at her, but Bentanta was furious. She even said she wished she had the courage to kill Anhai."

Kysen whistled and came to sit on the floor beside Meren. "Have you spoken to her yet?"

"I was going to after I saw Ra. But I… decided to gather my thoughts first. I'm worried, Ky. Ra thinks I want to blame him for this disaster, and then there's Bentanta."

"I suppose the gods wouldn't send us the good fortune to find that the murderer is a servant," Kysen said.

"No servant had a reason to kill her," Meren replied. "Nor can I imagine a servant would dare. Although I might suspect a servant were Anhai at court or allied with the queen."

The Great Royal Wife, Ankhesenamun, resented her husband's return to the old ways and restoration of Amun as chief god. She seemed to have lost her reason, at least in Kysen's view, when she conceived of a plan to depose pharaoh in favor of a Hittite prince. The plan had failed, and now pharaoh said she seemed to regret her traitorous behavior.

Kysen shook his head. "No, you're right. Anhai must have gone to the granary court with someone and been killed there. Ordinarily she wouldn't go there at all, so she must have gone with one of the guests or the family."

"Antefoker was trying to corner her all evening," Meren said. "And he vanished from the feast with Ra. We'll have to send someone to his house."

"But the only one at the feast who fought with her was Bentanta." Kysen looked up at his father, who was frowning. "Would you like me to talk to her?"

"No, my son. I'll do it. She would rout you in a heartbeat."

"I was hoping you'd realize that," Kysen said.

They both rose as a high, clear voice floated to them from the stairwell outside the office.

"Father!"

"Enter," Meren called.

Bener hurried into the room, dragging Isis behind her. Upon reaching Meren, she shoved her sister in front of her.