“Young man?” Hori had needed several tries to get the words out.
“Yes. Merhu was only eighteen years old when he drowned,” the librarian said, adding anxiously. “Highness, are you sure you are quite well?”
Hori barely heard the question. “I would like to visit this tomb,” he said. “It is imperative that I see the body.”
The librarian looked at him curiously. “Your exalted position frees you from seeking the required permission, Highness,” he said. “The tomb is sealed and the entrance filled with rubble, but a day’s digging would free it.”
“Did Penbuy ask to have the tomb opened?”
“Yes he did,” the librarian said reluctantly. “On the morning he died. Highness, do not be offended if I ask, what is it that you seek?”
I seek the truth, and I am finding something more horrible than I could possibly have imagined, Hori thought. Aloud he said, “I am not offended, but I cannot tell you. Think carefully. There was no issue? No descendants?”
“None,” the librarian said firmly.
“Very well.” Hori rose, then settled himself behind the table. “Bring me the scrolls, and while I am reading, send to whatever workmen’s village exists in Koptos. I want that tomb exposed by tonight. Will you accompany me, and re-seal it when I am done? You see …” He paused, suddenly aware of the earring nestling in its pouch against his thigh. “A certain lady claims to be the descendant of this Nenefer, and thus of noble blood.”
The librarian was already shaking his head vigorously. “Impossible, Highness. Completely impossible. She is a charlatan. The ancient records exist here unbroken. Nenefer-ka-Ptah’s line died out with his son Merhu.”
Hori dismissed him and waited. Presently the librarian returned with an armful of scrolls, which he laid before the Prince. “My records show that Penbuy consulted all these,” he said. “They cover the period ten years before and fifty after the lives of the people you are researching. Would your Highness like refreshment?” Hori nodded absently and began to unroll the first scroll. When the librarian returned with a slave bearing water, wine and pastries, he did not hear, although some time later he ate and drank unconsciously.
He read quickly but carefully, and as he did so his apprehension grew. The Prince Nenefer-ka-Ptah’s grandfather had come to Koptos during the reign of Osiris Thothmes the First, Queen Hatshepsut’s father, as an Inspector of Monuments. His father had continued in the position and then Nenefer-ka-Ptah himself, upon his father’s untimely death, had been confirmed in it. The dates and brief, factual entries reeled slowly under Hori’s baffled gaze. Nenefer-ka-Ptah had been somehow involved in the great Queen’s audacious expedition to Punt, a land whose whereabouts had been lost until that time, and his service had been rewarded with an hereditary title and the caravan monopoly when regular trade began with Punt for myrrh and other exotic necessities. Five years later all three of them had died. The dates of their deaths were meticulously recorded. Also the date their holdings reverted to the Horus Throne. The symbol for “ending” had been placed after the entry recording the drownings, signifying that the line had died out with them.
More rapidly now, Hori scanned the other scrolls. No off-spring, no heirs, not even any claims on their property by close relatives. They had appeared out of nowhere and vanished back into oblivion. Penbuy had also consulted several scrolls to do with local folklore, and with a sigh Hori sipped more wine and pulled them towards him. The afternoon was advancing and the heat had intensified, but with it had come a hot breeze that ruffled his hair and stirred his kilt and he was not too uncomfortable. He began to read.
He had not gone far into the second scroll when he found the reason why the people of Koptos believed the ancient Prince to have been under a curse and his property haunted. “It was rumoured,” he read, “that this Prince had in his possession the magic Scroll of Thoth. How he came by it is not told, but he was already a cunning wizard when he found it, and through its power he became invincible. But Thoth, angered by his arrogance, decreed that he should be cursed and should die by drowning, and his ka should not rest.”
“I see you have progressed into the area of myth and folklore,” a voice spoke at his elbow, and Hori jumped, but it was only the librarian. “Such stories always spring up around tragic and mysterious family events, and there has never been much else to do here on hot summer nights but recount legends. At least among the commoners.” Hori stared up at him, disoriented. It cannot be, his mind was saying over and over again. It cannot be, cannot be, cannot be … But in his imagination he saw his father raise the knife and callously cut away a scroll from a dead man’s hand … saw the drops of Khaemwaset’s blood fall on the desiccated hand and one sully the scroll itself as he hurriedly plied the needle, panic making his fingers shake. It must not be, Hori thought, for if it is, we have entered a realm of nightmare where we are worse than impotent, where death cannot be contained but stalks among us masquerading as life, and we are tainted and corrupted beyond the power of any god to save us.