The processional way was lined with men, women and chil dren who had come from near and far to participate in the
Beautiful Feast of Opet. This, the grandest of the many fes tivals held throughout the year, celebrated their dual sover eigns’ renewal as the divine offspring of the lord Amon.
They were awaiting the initial procession of the festival, soon to make its way from Ipet-isut, the great northern man sion of the lord Amon, to the smaller southern mansion of
Ipet-resyt. The long parade of gods, royalty, priests, and dig nitaries offered the best opportunity through the eleven-day festival not only of adoring at close hand the lord Amon, his spouse the lady Mut, and their son the lord Khonsu, but of seeing the most lofty individuals in the land of Kemet.
The muted sounds of night had been torn asunder by the marching of the soldiers who had appeared at daybreak to spread out along the route. The soft sporadic laughter of a few half-awake individuals seeking the ideal spot from which to view the procession had become a roar of excite ment. Now, as the lord Khepre, the rising sun, attained his second hour in the morning sky, the few had swelled to many. The multitude of people jostled for position along the broad, slightly raised causeway, which was paved with crushed white limestone. Clad in all their finery, whether the rough linen of the poor or the most delicate of fabrics worn by the nobility, and wearing their most elegant jewelry, they stood shoulder to shoulder, all equally intent on sharing this most wondrous of occasions with the greatest of gods, his divine spouse and son and his two earthly children.
Acrobats and musicians performed, entertainers sang and danced, among temporary booths erected along the pro cessional way on ground still damp from the ebbing flood.
Hawkers walked back and forth, calling out their wares: dried meat and fish, fruits and vegetables, sweet cakes, beer and water, perfumes, oil for rubbing on the skin, flowers for the hair or to throw in the path of the gods, trinkets to re member the day, and amulets for protection. The smells of cooked meats, perfumes and flowers, and fresh bread vied with the odor of manure dropped by chariot horses held by grooms in a nearby palm grove, awaiting the time when, led by their noble masters, they would join the procession.
While soldiers held the crowd off the causeway, police walked among the spectators, searching out thieves and troublemakers, returning lost children to their parents, haul ing off beggars and men besotted by too much beer.
The hot breath of the lord Khepre and the receding flood waters, which lingered in immense low-lying natural basins all across the valley floor, filled the air with an uncomfortable heat and dampness. Not the slightest breeze stirred. Sweat col lected beneath broad collars and belts, wilted the ringlets on wigs and naturally curled hair, and made unsightly splotches on dresses and kilts. Hawkers gained more in a day than in a month, trading sweet-smelling flowers and perfume to over power the stench of sweat, water and beer to ward off thirst.
The mood of the spectators was light, forgiving, expec tant. All looked forward, each in his own way, to eleven days of piety and merrymaking.
“Lieutenant Bak.” Amonked, Storekeeper of Amon and cousin to Maatkare Hatshepsut, laid a congenial hand on
Bak’s shoulder and looked with approval at the company of
Medjays standing beside the barque sanctuary of the lord Amon. “You’ve a fine-looking unit of men, a credit to the land of Kemet.”
Bak smiled with pleasure. “I wish to thank you, sir, for ar ranging for us to participate in today’s activities. Never would I have expected such a splendid position along the processional way.”
The sanctuary, raised on a platform above the earth on which it sat, was long and narrow. A square-pillared portico open on three sides stood in front of a small enclosed chapel.
When the procession reached this point, the barque of the lord Amon would be placed upon the stone plinth inside the portico, where it would be visible to all who stood nearby.
This was the first of eight similar way stations where the di vine triad would rest on their daylong journey from Ipet-isut to Ipet-resyt.
The Medjays, though relaxed while they awaited their gods, stood tall and straight and proud. They wore their best white kilts and held black cowhide shields so well brushed they glistened. Spearpoints, the bronze pendants hanging from their necks, the wide bronze bands that formed their armlets and anklets were polished to a high sheen.
Amonked gave an unassuming smile. “If a man has a bit of influence and can use it for a good cause, why shouldn’t he?”
He was rather plump, of medium height, and his age somewhere in the mid-thirties, but he looked older. He wore an ankle-length kilt made of fine linen, an elegant broad beaded collar, and matching bracelets. The short wig cover ing his thinning hair gleamed in the sunlight, testifying to the fact that it was made of real human hair.
“Shouldn’t you be in the mansion of the lord Amon, sir?” asked Sergeant Pashenuro. “Are you not to be a part of the procession?” The short, broad sergeant, second among the
Medjays to Imsiba, had come to know Amonked several months earlier.
“I’m on my way to Ipet-isut now, but I’m in no hurry. I’m not serving as a priest this season, so I can’t go into the inner chambers, nor can I help carry one of the gods’ barques.”
Amonked took a square of linen from his belt and patted away beads of sweat on his face, taking care to avoid the black galena painted around his eyes. “I saw no reason to stand in the outer court for an hour or more, waiting, while our sovereigns make offerings and pledge obeisance to their godly father.”
Bak offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon that, even on an occasion as important as this, ordinary sol diers and police were not expected to wear wigs and large amounts of jewelry. The heat was close to intolerable and would worsen as the day went on. “Must you join the pro cession as it leaves Ipet-isut? Can you not wait here and join your lofty peers when they reach this sanctuary?”
Amonked smiled. “A most thoughtful suggestion, Lieu tenant, one I accept with gratitude.”
Bak exchanged a glance with Pashenuro, who hurried be hind the sanctuary and returned with a folding camp stool, one of several brought for use by Maatkare Hatshepsut,
Menkheperre Thutmose, and the senior priests while the deities rested.
Ignoring the curious glances of the spectators standing on the opposite side of the processional way, Amonked settled himself on the stool. After inquiring about Bak’s father, a physician who dwelt across the river in western Waset, he talked of the southern frontier and the fortresses along the
Belly of Stones, of the people he had met several months earlier. He played no favorites, speaking with officer, ser geants, and ordinary policemen with identical good humor and respect.
When the gossip faltered, Bak asked, “Have you heard anything of Maruwa, the man we found slain at the harbor last week?” He knew Amonked would have no official reason to be involved, but he also knew the Storekeeper of Amon was one of the best-informed men in the southern capital.
“Nothing.” Amonked lifted the edge of his wig and ran the square of linen beneath it. “According to the harbormas ter, Lieutenant Karoya has diligently questioned every man on Captain Antef’s ship and anyone else he could find who might’ve seen or heard anything out of order. Either all who were near the vessel were blind and deaf, or the slayer took care not to be noticed.”
“The more time Karoya allows to go by, the less likely he is to snare the wretched criminal.”
“Evidently he’s well aware of the truism.”
Bak smiled at the gentle reminder that he had verged on pedantry. “He may already be too late. If the slayer is a man of Hatti, he may well be on his way to his homeland.”
“Karoya shares your fear. He claims never to have reached so dead a dead end so early in an investigation.”
“He believes, then, that Maruwa was slain for a political reason?”
“So far he’s found no sign that the merchant was the least bit interested in politics. But he wouldn’t, would he, if
Maruwa was some kind of spy?”
Bak’s eyes narrowed. “Spy? Where did that idea come from?”
Amonked shrugged. “I’m not sure. Karoya perhaps?”
“I doubt he’s the kind of man to garb another man in bright, sensational colors without due consideration-or some kind of proof. I admit I don’t know him well, but he seemed far too cautious, too sensible. As is Mai. No, I’d look somewhere else for the source of that tale.”
The sharp blast of a distant trumpet pierced the air, an nouncing the lord Amon’s departure from his earthly home.
All eyes turned north toward Ipet-isut, and the many voices grew quiet, anticipatory. Movement could be seen at the large, south-facing pylon gate being built by Maatkare Hat shepsut into the tall, crenellated wall that surrounded the sa cred precinct. About half completed, the two towers rose slightly above the lintel recently placed over the doorway.
The facades of both towers were hidden behind long, broad ramps made of mudbricks and debris up which materials were transported.
Bak spotted the glint of gold and the white kilts of several men exiting the distant gate, holding high the royal stan dards. Musicians followed, the beat of their drums and the harsher sounds of sistra and metal clappers setting the slow, measured pace of the procession. A dozen or more priests came next, some perfuming the air with incense while the rest purified the way with water or milk. A breath of air stirred the long red pennants mounted atop tall flagpoles clamped to the front of Ipet-isut’s entrance pylon, much of which was concealed behind the enclosure wall. The hush broke and voices rose in expectation.
Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre Thutmose walked through the gate side by side. Bak noted the glitter of sun light on gold, garments as white as a heron. Priests sprinkled aromatic oils on the path before them, while honored ser vants waved ostrich-feather fans over their heads. The crowd went wild, cheering the royal couple whose task it was to stave off chaos and preserve the stability of the land.
“Ah, yes.” Amonked sighed. “Now the long day has truly begun.”
The music grew louder, fueling the spectators’ excite ment. A dozen priests followed their sovereigns, golden cen sors glittering through clouds of incense, crystal drops of water flung from shining lustration vessels to purify the earth over which the greatest of the gods would be carried.
The lord Amon appeared in the gateway, enclosed within his golden shrine, which stood on a golden barque carried high on the shoulders of priests. The long arms of the lord
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.
“We all had a hand in it, yes.” One of the guards, an older man, pointed at the young priest. “Meryamon called for help and we came running. Thanks to the lord Amon, it hadn’t yet gotten out of control and was confined to the one small room. On the floor mostly, burning some scrolls and…”
The words tailed off and he licked his lips, uneasy with the memory. “We dared not let it reach the roof for fear it would spread to the adjoining storage magazines. We keep aro matic oils in this block and if they were to catch fire…” He had no need to explain further. A major conflagration might have resulted, sweeping through, at the very least, this sector of the sacred precinct.
“You did well,” Amonked said, letting his gaze touch every man among them. “You’re to be commended for such swift action.”
Bak peered through the door. A small room had been walled off from the rest of the storehouse. Illuminated only by the natural light falling through the door, it was too dark to see well. The body lay in shadow, the floor around it clut tered with charred papyrus scrolls and the reddish shards of broken pottery storage jars. The dead man’s clothing was wet, as were the documents lying in the puddle around him.
The smell was stronger here.
“We need light,” he said, “a torch.”
The boy sped down the lane and vanished. In no time at all, he hurried back with a short-handled torch, its flame ir regular but free of smoke.
Bak took the light and stepped into the room. He tried not to breathe, but the stench of blood, fire, body waste, burned oil, and charred flesh caught in his throat. As accustomed as he was to death, he felt ill. Swallowing bile, hardening his heart, he walked deeper inside. Careful not to disturb any thing on the floor, he knelt beside the dead man. Amonked entered the room, gasped.
The body was that of a sharp-faced man of about thirty five years, small and wiry. The fire, which had burned many of the scrolls lying around him, had consumed one side of his kilt and had darkened and blistered the right side of his body. A blackened oil lamp, a possible source of the fire, lay broken at his feet. His throat had been cut, the gaping wound dark and ugly. The pool of blood around his head and shoul ders had been diluted by water, making it difficult to tell ex 32
Lauren Haney actly how much the man had lost, but quite a lot. Bak guessed he had been lifeless when the fire started. He prayed such had been the case.
“Do you know him?” he asked Amonked.
“Woserhet.” Amonked cleared his throat, swallowed. “He was a ranking scribe, but was to serve throughout the Opet festival as a priest. He’d been given the responsibility for this year’s reversion of offerings.”
The daily ceremony was one in which food offerings were distributed as extra rations to personnel who toiled in the god’s mansion and to others who petitioned for a share. Why would a man who held such an important but transitory and innocuous task be slain?
“I’d guess the slayer stood behind him, reached around him knife in hand, and slashed his throat with a single deep and firm stroke.” With an absentminded smile, Bak accepted a jar of beer from the boy who had brought them from the barque sanctuary over an hour earlier. “He was slain in much the same way as the Hittite merchant we found dead last week.”
The boy, wide-eyed with curiosity and thrilled at being al lowed to help, handed a jar to Amonked and another to
Meryamon. Taking the remaining jar for himself, he plopped down on the hard-packed earthen floor of the portico that shaded three sides of the open courtyard. After the dead man had been carried off to the house of death, he had brought them to this peaceful haven in one of several buildings that housed the offices of the priests and scribes responsible for the storehouses.
“You believe Maruwa and Woserhet were slain by the same man?” Frowning his disbelief, Amonked pushed a low stool into the shade and dropped onto it. “What would they have in common?”
“Both men’s lives were taken in a similar manner, that’s all I’m saying.” Bak gave the Storekeeper of Amon a fleeting smile. “To tie the two together would be stretching credibil ity. Unless there was a link between them that we know nothing about.”
“One man was burned and the other wasn’t,” Amonked pointed out. “Would not that suggest two different slayers?”
“Probably.” Bak rested a shoulder against a wooden col umn carved to resemble a tied bundle of papyri. “What task do you have, Meryamon, that delayed you in leaving the sa cred precinct?”
The young priest sat on the ground near Amonked. His eyes darted frequently toward the portal and the men hurry ing along the lane outside on their way to the gate, eager to watch the procession. Whether intentional or not, his desire to follow was apparent. “I distribute to the officiating priests items used in the sacred rituals: censers, lustration vessels, aromatic oils and incense, and whatever else they need.”
Pride blossomed on his face. “I perform the task throughout the Beautiful Feast of Opet, yes, but also for the regular daily rituals and the various other festivals.”
“A position of responsibility,” Amonked said.
Meryamon flashed a smile. “I daily thank the lord Thoth that I was diligent in my studies and learned to read and write with ease and at a young age.” Thoth was the patron god of scribes.
The leaves rustled in the tall sycamore tree in the center of the court, and Bak spotted a small gray monkey swinging through the upper branches. “So you’re not a man who serves the lord Amon periodically. You earn your bread within the sacred precinct.”
“Yes, sir. And I dwell here as well. I share quarters with several other priests who, like me, have yet to take a spouse.”
Bak glanced at Amonked, thinking to defer to him, but the
Storekeeper of Amon urged him to continue with a nod of the head. “Tell me of the men who helped put out the fire.
Why did they remain behind?”
“Most were passersby, heading out to watch the pro 34
Lauren Haney cession. The three guards, I assume, were ordered to stay, to keep an eye on the gates and patrol this sector of the sacred precinct.” Meryamon smiled ruefully. “Bad luck for them, having to stay while their mates were given leave to play.”
Bak felt as if he were fishing in a muddy backwater, pok ing his harpoon at random in a place he couldn’t see. “The room where Woserhet was found. What was its purpose?”
“It’s a records storage room, sir, a place where we keep scrolls on which are recorded activities conducted in that particular block of storage magazines. Each object is tracked from delivery to disposal. Like other men with similar tasks,
I make a note of each and every object I remove and return, and many of my own transactions are stored there.” A shadow passed across the priest’s face. “Or were.”
“The room received a moderate amount of damage, but a considerable number of scrolls lay on the floor. Do you have any idea how many records might’ve been lost?”
“I noticed a number of empty spaces-fifteen or twenty,
I’d guess-on the shelves along the walls and quite a few broken storage pots on the floor. So many jars would’ve con tained a significant number of scrolls, but the vast majority, I thank the lord Amon, were saved.”
Amonked broke his silence. “How well did you know
Woserhet, Meryamon?”
“Not at all, sir. I’ve seen him now and again and I knew his name, but I didn’t know he was responsible for the rever sion of offerings.”
Amonked looked skeptical. “Are you not the man who’ll supply ritual implements and incense to that ceremony?”
“Yes, sir,” Meryamon said, looking uncomfortable, “but I must deal with Ptahmes, the chief priest’s aide, not the man who performs the ritual. I had no need to know who he was.”
“There goes a singularly uninquisitive man,” Amonked said later as they watched the priest hurry away.
Bak and Amonked strolled into the lovely limestone court in front of the imposing pylon gate that rose before the man sion of the lord Amon. The last of the procession had moved on, leaving the enclosure empty and quiet. The banners flut tered lazily atop the tall flagpoles clamped to the front of the pylon. Birds twittered in a clump of trees outside the court, and a yellow kitten chased a leaf blown over the wall by the breeze. A faint floral aroma rose from a slick of oil someone had spilled on the floor.
Built fifteen or so years earlier by Akheperenre Thutmose,
Maatkare Hatshepsut’s deceased spouse and Menkheperre
Thutmose’s father, the court contained two small limestone chapels. In each, a central stone base supported a statue of the lord Min, a fertility god identified closely with the lord
Amon. One structure was of an ancient date, built many gen erations ago by Kheperkare Senwosret, and the other more recent, erected just fifty years earlier by Djeserkare Amon hotep, grandfather to Maatkare Hatshepsut.
“Were the scrolls set on fire deliberately to burn the body?” Bak asked, thinking aloud, “or to get rid of informa tion the slayer wished to destroy? Or did the slayer-or
Woserhet himself-accidentally tip over an oil lamp and set them on fire?” He did not expect an answer and he got none.
“Woserhet was a senior scribe who reported directly to the chief priest.” Amonked’s face was grave. “I never met the man, merely saw him several times at a distance, but ac cording to Hapuseneb, the chief priest, he was extremely competent and adept at dealing with difficult situations.”
“Not adept enough, it seems.”
Ignoring the mild sarcasm, Amonked rested his backside against the balustrade wall that rose up the outer edge of a broad but shallow stairway giving access to the older of the two chapels. “I fear I wasn’t entirely forthright when I stopped to chat with you earlier today. I’d received a disturb ing message from Woserhet and thought to have you go with me when I met him. Unfortunately, with the procession up 36
Lauren Haney permost in my thoughts-and in everyone else’s, I as sumed-I saw no need for haste.”
Bak gave him a sharp look. “You’d never met him and yet he wrote to you?”
“Hapuseneb must shoulder many tasks through the length of the Beautiful Feast of Opet. As a result, he’ll be unavail able much of the time. He told me he’d given Woserhet a special assignment and asked me to be available should he need me. He said Woserhet would explain if necessary.”
Amonked glanced at the kitten, his expression troubled. “I agreed and thought no more of it. Much to my regret now that we’ve found him dead.”
Bak leaned against the low outer wall of the beautifully symmetrical building, indifferent to its rich reliefs of the an cient king and the lord Min. The colors, though no longer as vibrant as they once had been, were still lively enough to please the eye and lighten the heart of a man far less preoc cupied than he. “Can you tell me what the message said?”
Amonked released a long, unhappy sigh. “It was short and direct, and I fear it deepens the mystery surrounding his death. He said he’d learned something quite shocking and requested a private meeting before nightfall this day.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.” Amonked stood erect and signaled that they must leave. “I feel I’ve let Hapuseneb down, and I don’t like to think of myself as a man who fails to live up to his prom ises.” He paused, obviously reluctant to speak out. “I hesi tate to ask you, as you must be looking forward to the festival as much as everyone else. But I wish you to discover what the message refers to and to snare Woserhet’s slayer.
Hopefully before the end of the festival when the lord Amon returns to Ipet-isut and you must travel on to Mennufer.”