Lynda Robinson: Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing

"I rejoice in your good fortune, sister." To Imset he said, "May the gods bless your journey."

All he got in response was another toadlike stare. Meren was still trying to think of something to say to Imset when two figures stepped into the cool darkness of the entry hall. He blinked rapidly to adjust his vision to the lack of sunlight, recognized the newcomers, and felt blood rush to his head. The voice of his heart, the pulse, pounded in his ears. Nebetta and Hepu. The only sister of his father, and her husband.

Time stopped; then the years flowed backward in less than a heartbeat. He was hot and swimming in a lake of misery, lying in pain, trying to wake, trying to open his eyes. He was too weak to accomplish this one small act, and the weakness frightened him. He tried to cry out for help. His lips moved, but his voice wouldn't come out of his throat. He tried to speak again, and something cool and wet pressed against his mouth, bringing relief. The cold dampness brushed over his cheeks, forehead, eyes, and at last he could lift his lids.

Memory returned. His father was dead, and pharaoh had had him beaten into submission. Then Ay had saved him. Where was he? The damp cloth passed across his forehead again, and his blurry vision cleared.

His cousin Djet leaned over him and touched the cloth to his lips again. His cousin's great height made him seem to bend like an acacia tree. They were close in age and shared the sharp, angular jaw of their grandfather. Djet's eyes were more almond-shaped and glinted with biting humor. They had been close as boys, sharing the rough and raucous escapades of noble youths. Until the family had decreed that Meren take a wife. Soon after that Djet left, taking foreign posts that kept him out of Egypt. And yet, after all this time, there was no one Meren trusted more.

Djet set the damp cloth aside and sat back down on the ebony chair beside the bed. "You're awake at last. No, don't try to speak. I know what you want to say. Ay sent all the way to Babylon for me weeks ago. I know everything, damn you and your cursed uprightness and honesty. It's near gotten you killed. Why couldn't you have lied about believing in pharaoh's upstart god?"

"Father's d-dead."

"Because he was a stubborn fool."

Meren tried to get up. "My family!"

"Your wife and daughter are safe in the country." Djet shoved Meren back onto the cushions of his bed. He needed little strength to do it; Meren was shivering with the effects of his ordeal, starvation, and tortured thoughts. He was about to sink into another stupor when Djet lifted his head and pressed a cup to his lips. Meren drank in hot beef broth that steamed its way down his throat to his stomach.

Meren shoved the cup aside. "You shouldn't be here. You don't know the danger. The king is-"

"I know the danger. Now drink some water."

"Why did you have to come back now? I've begged you to come home for years, and you never would. But you come back now, when you could get yourself thrown into a crocodile pit for a misspoken word. You're mad. Go back to-uhhh!"

"You see. Babbling has cost you what little strength you have. Sleep, cousin. I'm here, and I'm staying until you're well and safe."

The words echoed through his weariness and pain, easing both, and giving him release from dread. No one would come upon him to do evil as long as Djet was there to keep watch. Djet was as formidable a young warrior as any in pharaoh's chariotry. He could rest. For the first time since pharaoh had killed his father, he could rest.

Someone was calling his name. Meren blinked and pulled himself out of the memory, only to come face-to-face with Djet's parents. He smiled coldly, hating the sight of them.

"Dear, dear Meren," Nebetta said in a voice that had always reminded him of spoiled honey-much too sweet, and sickening.

Walking with her into the reception room, where cool beer and bread awaited, Meren observed Nebetta's dead gray hair, faded eyes, and bulbous nose and cheeks. She had a lumpy body, and Meren was sure that its shape was caused by her having swallowed most of her character. For, like her husband, Nebetta was consumed with virtue. And all that tedious virtue and uprightness had collected inside her along with every unexpressed feeling of anger, every lie she never told, every fault she ever tried to squelch. She looked as if she was going to burst from swallowing all those sins. Meren was sure that when she came before the gods to give her confession, each denial of sin would be the truth, because Nebetta wasn't interesting enough to have transgressed.

What liveliness and beauty she'd inherited had been washed away in a continuous bath of bleaching morality. It was said that Nebetta had acquired her rectitude from

Hepu, and Meren had to admit that of the two, Hepu was the more obvious and overbearing. It was Hepu who respected his own excellence so much that he wrote books of instruction to be passed down to succeeding generations. He produced these tomes continually, and donated them to various schools and libraries in every major temple, whether asked to or not.

For most of his life Meren had ignored their pomposity and belief in their own worth-until the day Nebetta and her husband disowned Djet, when he was thirteen. Without warning and with no explanation Djet was cast out, banished from the favor of his parents. He had sought refuge with Meren's family, his face drawn with grief. Blue shadows highlighted Djet's dark eyes, and he lost weight. His sarcastic humor vanished. And no matter how much Meren coaxed him, he refused to speak of the thing that had cost him the love of his father and mother.

Years passed, but the rift only grew worse, until one day, soon after Meren had recovered from being tortured, Djet drank poison sweeter than the sweetness of his mother's voice. What kind of woman so reviled her son that she would drive him to kill himself? What kind of father would do the same? And what insane reasoning allowed his sister to think Meren would enjoy being welcomed home by these two?

Idut was talking to him. "Meren, you're not drinking your beer. Don't you like it?"

They were sitting in the reception chamber amidst carved and gilded chairs and beer jars festooned with wreaths of water lotuses, cooled by maids waving ostrich-feather fans. Nebetta was talking with Bener while old Hepu was speaking to-lecturing-Isis. Hepu didn't carry on conversations; he discoursed.

"Meren, I asked if you liked your beer," Idut said.

"I want to talk to you," he replied. "Now. Alone."

"Good, because I want to speak to you as well."

Surprised, he followed his sister back outside to the shaded walk that bordered one of the twin reflection pools. The sun was dropping below the front west wall, but the heat of its rays seemed as strong as at midday. Idut waved away two maids who had followed with fans, and they were alone.

Before the maids were out of sight, Meren burst out, "Did I not write you to say I wanted privacy? Did I not say I wanted to spend time with the girls? Don't you ever read what I write? No, of course you don't. You only read what you wish to read. And you invited Nebetta and Hepu. You know I don't like them. You don't like them. This house will be stuffed full of interfering, squabbling relatives."

"Families should be together," Idut said airily. "Relatives should continue in harmony."

"You sound like one of Hepu's books of instruction. The fool fancies he's written another Instruction of Ptahhotep."

"That's not respectful, Meren."

"You have to make them go away. All of them."

Idut touched his arm. "I must speak to you of something far more important."

"Don't avoid the subject-"

"Bener has a lover."

A goose honked. It spread its wings, flapped them at a rival, and hissed. Meren strove to comprehend what his sister had just said.