The Crocodile Makes No Sound Read online

  “I don’t know,” Hani mused. “They were at Pa-maru-en-pa-aten. I remember from my own visit that guards and priests were posted all around, but nonetheless, there were spots outside of anyone’s sight line. Still, your point is well taken.” He turned to his father. “Where are you going with this?”

  Mery-ra shrugged, looking innocent. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s too far-fetched to think our mystery man might have a henchman in the Beloved Wife’s household who was willing to look the other way, I suppose.”

  “Not at all. This whole business has the mark of a court intrigue upon it.”

  All at once, the image of the two ducks battering one another returned to Hani’s mind. Beware the wrath of the ladies. A slow wave of shivers lifted the hairs on his neck. “I think I know who the blackmailer may be,” he said, his heart sinking.

  “Who is he, my lord?” Maya whispered, leaning forward.

  “If I’m right, it’s not a he.”

  Mery-ra stared at him. “Oh, you’re in trouble, son.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Maya, innocent of court life, wasn’t so quick to see the answer. “Who, my lord? One of the Beloved Wife’s ladies-in-waiting?”

  “Well, it’s quite possible one of them is in league with her. But who stands to lose the most if the king’s favor toward Kiya continues?” Hani pressed.

  Maya’s eager face froze in horror. “The queen?”

  “Especially now that our girl is pregnant. So far, the queen has only presented her husband with daughters. The minute the King’s Beloved Wife gives birth to a son, Nefert-iti’s days of influence are over.” He shot a sideways glance at his father. “If I were she, I’d try to make my rival trip herself up too.”

  “You’d better watch your step, son. The power is all stacked on her side.”

  “She must have thought I was close to unmasking her after I talked to Kha-em-sekhem.”

  As if just then realizing the risk they’d run, Maya cried in horror, “Someone must have been following us everywhere we went.”

  Hani thought of Lord Ptah-mes trying so hard to stay out of the affair. The high commissioner might already have been compromised. But is my very friendship so dangerous? How could anyone know we discussed the case in his salon? He longed for Ptah-mes’s experienced advice and calm cynicism.

  Hani blew a hopeless breath through his mouth. “If this theory is true, then our princess is doomed. The only thing that could save her, as one of us just said, would be to eliminate her blackmailer.” He snorted grimly. “That’s certainly not on the table. So what do we do?”

  No one spoke. Maya’s face was anguished, Mery-ra’s grave and considering. The jovial grandfather had disappeared into another man whom Hani didn’t know very well himself.

  Finally, Mery-ra said, “You need to unleash the big dogs, Hani. Find some intercessor at court who is intimate with the queen. Have them beg her—or better still, persuade her—not to go through with her plan to ruin our girl. Even get Kiya’s father to make a state visit.”

  Hani laughed sarcastically. “I think you overestimate my influence, Father. I don’t travel in such circles. Even grandees piss themselves at the thought of falling under the displeasure of the Great Queen Nefert-iti. I’ve only ever seen her silently at her husband’s side at my initial audience, and frankly, I marvel that she even knows of my existence.”

  “Think, Hani. You must know someone.” His father pinned him with an urgent stare. “Do you know anyone in the queen’s family? What about your friend from Naharin? Could he press Tushratta to make a stink on his daughter’s behalf?”

  Hani shook his head, thinking hard. “It might be a mistake to reveal that I suspect her—because after all, this is only a theory. But in any case, if we found someone to approach her, they would have to offer her some scenario better than this one to tempt her to pull back.” He cast his eyes around him at the grapevine, the garden, and the ducks, hoping for another inspiration. “You know, ‘Don’t force her to disgrace herself; instead, leave her in favor, let her have her child, and then... something good will come to you as a result.’ Present the son as your own, or raise him and make him love you more than her... I don’t know.”

  Mery-ra turned to Maya and said, humor returning, “You’re good at embroidering stories, my lad. Think of something.”

  “If I were the queen,” Maya said fiercely, “I’d see to it that my rival didn’t come out of childbirth alive. Then I’d raise her son as my own and all the rest.”

  “Well, that’s a solution, all right, but I wouldn’t want to be the one to propose it to the queen,” Hani said, raising his eyebrows. He found it hard to draw a satisfying breath, as if the weight of this awful burden lay upon his chest physically.

  “You need an intercessor Nefert-iti trusts,” Mery-ra insisted.

  “Father, all my friends are under suspicion because they’re associated with the priests of Amun-Ra.”

  “Who’s her family?”

  “She’s a niece of the dowager Tiyi. Their family members are provincial aristocrats—priests and military men—from somewhere farther south. Khent-min, I think. Her father, Tiyi’s brother, is a cavalry officer who’s now something bloated at court. They call him the God’s Father, but he’s not a priest—the god in question is apparently Nefer-khepru-ra. That’s all I know. I’ve never met any of them personally except Lady Tiyi.” All you dear Great Ones, he thought miserably, scrubbing his face with his hands, my one prayer was to have nothing to do with the royal family.

  “Goodness, son,” Mery-ra said with a droll quirk of the mouth. “Your education has been wasted on you. You haven’t made any friends at court.”

  “No, but I seem to have made enemies.”

  “So, we have three objectives. First,” Maya said, ticking it off on his stubby fingers, “is to prove that it is, in fact, the queen blackmailing Lady Kiya. Second, to invent some scenario even more advantageous to her than ruining Lady Kiya. And third, to find an intermediary she would trust to be looking out for her interests.”

  “Who’s willing to risk losing her favor by telling her this,” Mery-ra added.

  Hani smiled bleakly. “Is that all?”

  ⸎

  Aziru and his brother and secretary were off to the hunt with Lady Meryet-amen’s predaceous nephew. Hani was immensely grateful that he didn’t have to accompany the Amurrites after all. Poor Aziru was becoming more and more impatient and caustic as the days passed with no summons, and Hani just didn’t have it in him to try to defend the king’s foreign policy. He had a sneaking suspicion that Nefer-khepru-ra had simply forgotten about the vassal king once he was off the palace grounds. Hani had hoped never to have to think again about the disaster that their behavior abroad had become, but it seemed destined to haunt him.

  The urgent need to resolve Lady Kiya’s dilemma was another thing that haunted him. He’d awakened with a headache that morning after a restless night—not the best preparation for the Feast of Drunkenness, which inevitably resulted in a grand, if sacred, hangover.

  Pipi was the only other member of the family up yet. He came lumbering sleepily into the garden pavilion and threw a mock punch at Hani, who fended him off, grabbed his arm, and wrestled him to the ground with a growl. The two of them laughed affectionately as they climbed to their feet and sat side by side.

  Hani was glad his little brother was returning to his playful self. Between the humiliation of exposing his financial disaster to his family and the sorrow of his daughter’s imagined loss, Pipi had been reduced to a tentative shadow of his normal good cheer, as if he were afraid any attempt at joking might be taken as not appreciating the debt he owed.

  “You’re up early, old man,” Hani said.

  Pipi gave a deep sigh of contentment. “I guess there’s no more excuse for me to stick around, Hani. Mut-nodjmet’s lover is out of the picture, so I might as well take her back. It’s been nice passing some time with you after all these years—seeing Father and the house, being
here for the festivals and everything. It’s like old times.”

  Hani clapped him on the shoulder, a warm tide of affection rising in his heart. “You’re welcome any time, brother. I don’t know why you’ve waited so long.”

  “I don’t know either.” Pipi fell silent. Then he said, “Maybe I felt I... I embarrassed you.”

  Hani shot him a surprised look. “Why? Because you have a space between your front teeth?”

  Pipi stared at him, nonplussed, then burst out laughing. That space was a trait they both shared. After a moment of fond grins, he said more seriously, “I always felt maybe the family was a bit disappointed in me. I never did as well as you—not in school, not in life...”

  “I wasn’t aware it was a competition, Pipi. You’re a good man, and you seem to be a happy one. What finer ambition could one harbor? I envy you. You’ll have the Judges of the Underworld in stitches at the weighing of your heart.” Hani smiled mischievously.

  Pipi’s little eyes grew misty, and he fell on Hani’s neck, cuffed his head with rough affection, and put an arm around him. “I love you, Hani. My big brother’s still looking out for me.” His voice had grown dangerously high-pitched, and he took a wobbly sniff.

  “Just promise me you’ll sell the horse, Pipi. Father will be coming up with a whole barge load of grain and cattle to pay off that debt. But never again, please.”

  “I swear to you, brother.”

  They sat in affable silence for a while, wigless, shirtless, and barefoot in the warmth of morning. Pipi’s head was closely shaved, the rolls of flesh at the back of his neck stubbled. He’d apparently made a similar perusal of his brother’s scalp, because after a moment he said, “I’d forgotten how curly your hair is, Hani. You take after Mother, don’t you?”

  “Not enough.” Hani laughed.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I can’t dance any more than you or Father can.” Hani stood up and awkwardly pranced a bit, one hand in the air, one at his hip. Seeing Pipi begin to laugh, he tried a few gyrations, clapped his hands, and already breathing hard, launched into a spirited series of kicks.

  Pipi immediately jumped up and joined in. Each of them tried to follow the other in their thoroughly graceless and thunder-footed dance, clapping and yelling “Hai!” from time to time. They bumped bellies, turned, and bumped butts, laughing like schoolboys and shouting “Hai!” louder every time until laughter threatened to render them helplessly weak. They fell apart, panting and full of hilarity.

  “Don’t let me stop you, children.” Nub-nefer had appeared on the garden path, a cup of milk in her hands. She grinned at her husband. “I see you haven’t waited until evening to lose your inhibitions.”

  “We’re filled with the goddess, my dear,” Hani said happily. He planted a kiss on his wife’s cheek. His headache had quite gone away.

  She caressed his sweaty face with a hand. “May there always be laughter in our house.” She took a sip of her milk. “Have you eaten?”

  “No,” the brothers answered simultaneously and laughed again, their arms companionably over one another’s shoulders.

  “I left bread out, not altogether fresh, and there’s milk. Help yourselves. The servants have the day off.” Nub-nefer seated herself gracefully in the one chair, and the men drifted into the house.

  As they passed through the salon, Pipi said, “I think we’ll leave today, Hani.”

  Hani looked at him, surprised. “Before the festival’s over? You may not find any ferries willing to go downriver. At least, not with sober pilots.”

  But Pipi seemed to have made up his mind. “I want to leave on a sweet note. Mut-nodjmet finds Waset a place of bad memories now, and there’s no reason to stay. Besides, Nub-nefer has a house full of guests without us.”

  “Whatever you want to do, brother. It’s been a joy to have you. Don’t make me wait so long next time.”

  They found the flat loaves of bread and tore one in half to share. Hani poured two cups of milk. He pushed one over to Pipi and, leaning against the table, drank from the other.

  At the door, their father watched, rubbing his eyes. “You lads are up early.”

  “Pipi’s going to take off today, Father. I think I’ll go boating in the marshes. I need a break from the city.”

  “You’re leaving us, my boy?” Mery-ra laid a hand on his younger son’s shoulder. “I guess it won’t be so long until I see you again, but don’t forget your brother. Waset will always be your home.”

  Pipi embraced his father, his mouth trembling with emotion. “Thank you for everything—both of you.”

  “That’s what family’s for,” Mery-ra said tenderly. “Now, if we could just find little Shu...”

  “Who?” Pipi looked confused.

  “Nub-nefer’s brother. The one who’s missing,” Hani said.

  Mery-ra moved off to find himself some breakfast, and his sons finished their bread and milk.

  “I’m going to the room to pack and see if Mut-nodjmet is up.” Pipi lumbered off into the salon and disappeared from sight.

  “Let’s go outside, Father. I’ll sit with you while you eat.” Hani picked up the two cups, and Mery-ra supplied himself with bread.

  “Do you think going out on the marshes is a good idea right now, son?” the old man asked uneasily.

  “I think the current is steady. It won’t be too strong out of the main part of the River.”

  “No, I mean...”

  “It’s going to be hard for anyone to follow me through the crowds of merrymakers today. Once I’m in the country, I’ll be able to see whoever’s around as easily as they can see me.”

  Mery-ra made a dubious noise.

  Hani had to admit that his father had a point. As soon as he was among the reeds alone, he would be vulnerable to the attack of a stalker. “No, wait. I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to start back to the new capital today. By the time I get there, the people I need to see will be back at work.”

  “Are you taking Neferet with you, then? She’ll be disappointed.” ​

  “She can go back with Pa-kiki tomorrow. This will leave me a little more time with Pipi, too, if we can find a boat.”

  By midmorning, the entire family was awake, laying plans for the evening’s festivities. Neferet had trotted out the phallus clappers and was pulling the string to make hers pop up with a loud clack. Before long, she was clapping it in the face of anyone she passed.

  “What is this, my dear? Homework for your anatomy lesson?” her father asked in veiled annoyance, having repeatedly fended it away from under his nose.

  “No, Papa,” she scolded him cheerfully. “It’s for the festival tonight.”

  “It’s probably not the only thing of that shape that’s going to be popping up once the merrymakers get a few jars of beer in their bellies and the girls start peeling off their clothes,” Mery-ra predicted. “Sure you don’t want to stay, son?”

  “I think the quiet deck of a boat is just where I want to be. I have some thinking to do. Plans...”

  He lifted an eyebrow at his father. “This is going to require some serious inspiration.”

  “Maybe you should stay and let the goddess fill you.”

  “She can fill me on the boat to Akhet-aten.”

  Hearing him, Neferet cried out, “You’re going back today, Papa?”

  “Yes, my dear. I have people to see.”

  “Am I going back with you?”

  Hani couldn’t tell if her words were a plaint or a plea. “You can wait until tomorrow and come with Pa-kiki, if you want.”

  But to his surprise, she said, “I want to go back with you. Lady Djefat-nebty just said, ‘See you after the holidays,’ and I don’t know if she means right after the holidays or a boat trip later. She thinks I live there with Aha.”

  Her responsible attitude pleased Hani. He’d been so distraught by all the drama of the last few days that he hadn’t even had the forethought to ask her. “Better to be safe. Pack your bag, then,
my dear.”

  Just after lunch, Pipi made his goodbyes and thank-yous to the family, and he and Mut-nodjmet waited in the garden while Hani and Neferet said their own goodbyes. Hani had expected Aziru and his hunting party to have returned, but they still hadn’t shown up. However, the Amurrite was used to his host coming and going and wouldn’t be surprised to find Hani gone.

  “I hope they bring us some game,” Hani said to Nub-nefer with a wink.

  Together, the four of them started off to the riverside. Already, the crowds were starting to gather on major streets and in open spaces. It was strange to see a throng outside the gate of the Ipet-isut, even though it was shuttered and its flagpoles empty. The spirit of the festival seemed less joyous and innocent than usual. To be sure, a few instances of mischief were always committed as inhibitions loosened, but this time, he saw a truly nasty expression on some of the faces around him. No small number of those people were out looking for trouble. Having been away in Kharu so much over the last few years, he hadn’t celebrated the feast in Waset for at least two years and maybe longer. The difference was noticeable. There were fewer decent, ordinary people of the working class and above. Judging by their clothing, the dissatisfied poor made up a high proportion of the leering faces. Perhaps dissatisfaction and poverty were swallowing up the working class, since Waset had been robbed of its temple economy and the vast number of prosperous bureaucrats who hired, commissioned, and paid people to work for them. He found the change disturbing. Please let Pa-kiki and his friends be careful. And let Sat-hut-haru and Maya stay home.

  It reassured him to see a medjay officer and his leashed baboon threading through the crowd. No one would trifle with the foul-tempered animal. But he was only one officer among many people.

  Hani noticed that he and Pipi had, as if by unspoken agreement, moved the girls between them so the pair of adolescents was flanked by two large men. He heard a whistle or two and a few crude remarks at the expense of Mut-nodjmet’s conspicuous bosom. The girl blushed self-consciously, her head up and her neck stiff.