Scroll of Saqqara(166)
Not far to the north they came across the thing they sought. The fountain lay in four grey pieces, the basin cracked and sifted with sand, the spout, once a pleasing likeness of the many-breasted Hapi, god of the Nile, broken and littered on the ground. Five or six stunted sycamores struggled to suck an existence out of the soil where the edge of the garden obviously used to be, and a few sorry palms raised rusty arms beyond them. Antef shuddered. “What a sad, desolate place!” he exclaimed. “This estate has not been scoured of its ghosts, Highness. I would not dare to try and rebuild on this spot!”
Hori hushed him with a wave of his hand and stood concentrating, all his senses alert. It seemed to him that he had been here before, although he knew such a thing was impossible. The layout of the ancient rooms, now simply lumps in the earth, the placement of the garden with its sycamores that once must have been spreading green glories, the palm forest beyond …
But no, he thought, allowing the melancholy of the hour to enter him. It is not a matter of the physical, this sense of familiarity. It is in the atmosphere of the ruins, challenging and yet quiet, dreamless and yet demanding something … something …
Then he knew. Tbubui’s house in Memphis, compact, slightly derelict, isolated, had this same quality of plumbless silence and watchful invitation. O Thoth have mercy, he thought. Is this it? Is this, was this, her home? Hapi’s disfigured face smiled up at him blankly, idiotically, from the churned sand at his feet. The gnarled sycamores were casting twisted shadows that snaked towards him as Ra quivered, pulsed, and slipped below the western horizon in his journey to the underworld. “Antef!” he called, a quiver of hysteria in his voice. “I have seen enough. Let us go.”
They made their way carefully back to the broken water-steps and Hori took the oars of the mayor’s skiff himself, pulling frenetically away from the sad and broken site almost before Antef had been seated.
“This cannot be right, Highness,” Antef said. “We must explore further.”
“That will be your job,” Hori replied. “I want you to visit every noble family in Koptos and discuss their histories. I will be in the library.” But he knew in his heart that it was right, that this lonely place had belonged to Tbubui and no other.
He and Antef spent a pleasant few hours at dinner with the mayor. The man was proud of his position and took a delight in recounting the town’s history, from the days when the great Queen Hatshepsut had rediscovered the ancient trade routes with Punt that had revitalized the town to the present, when the caravan routes were well established and decidedly mundane.
“What family has the monopoly on the taxes gathered from the caravans?” Hori asked. “Or do they belong to the town as a whole?”
The mayor smiled, pleased to find an interested listener. “In the days of the great Queen, when the route was first re-opened,” he explained, “the concession was given to one Nenefer-ka-Ptah for some service now lost to antiquity. The mighty Queen, an admirer of enterprise, made him a prince. Under his hand the caravans prospered and she was well pleased with him. It is said that he acquired great wealth and became a famous wizard and magician, as well as an astute businessman, but that is not for me to judge. His line did not last. The monopoly on the trade with Punt reverted to the Horus Throne and so it is to this day!” He sipped his wine with relish. His daughter and his wife watched him, smiling, obviously used to his hobby. “Pharaoh, your grandfather, always allows the town a generous reduction in its taxes to the crown,” he went on, “and of course we live in hope that the monopoly will not eventually go to one individual family. Koptos is peaceful and prosperous as it is.”
“Why did Nenefer-ka-Ptah’s line not last?” Hori asked. “Did the Prince’s offspring fall out of favour with the Divine One?”
“Oh no,” the mayor assured him. “The line died out literally. Nenefer-ka-Ptah and his wife drowned, I believe, and so did their only son Merhu.” He shrugged. “Such is the will of the gods.”
Her husband drowned, Hori thought, then mentally shook himself. “Such misfortune could be regarded as a punishment from the gods,” he commented. “Their will for a family that had transgressed the laws of Ma’at.”
The mayor shrugged. “Who knows?” he said. “It was many hentis ago and has little to do with the reason you are here in Koptos, Highness. I wish I could help you more.”
“Your hospitality is enough,” Hori reassured him. “Tomorrow I will begin my investigations in the House of Life. I will not impose on you for long, Noble One.”