Murder in the Place of Anubis Read Online Free PDF Page A

marsh.
    Bakwerner turned vermilion and stuttered. He found his tongue. "My lord, it is a lie someone has told you. I never did him harm. We fought, but Hormin fought with many. We've all heard someone killed him, but none of us has left the records all morning. I'm innocent—we're all innocent."
     "You tried to strangle Hormin three days ago," Meren  said. He rolled the papyrus roll shut and studied Bakwerner. "I am not a judge or a governor. I don't listen to petitions or excuses. Loosen your tongue unless you'd rather sing to the accompaniment of the whip or the stave."
     Bakwerner fell to his knees and babbled. "Have pity,  excellent lord. I am innocent. It's true that Hormin and I exchanged blows, but you don't know what he did. Three days ago I put the records for the taxes of the city of Busiris on a shelf belonging to Hormin. It was a mistake, my lord, an innocent mistake. But Hormin threw the records away in my absence. The whole of the taxes of Busiris, Gone. He said he didn't look at them, that they didn't belong in his shelf, so he threw them away."
    "So you killed him."
     "No! No, my lord. That is, I became possessed. He did it deliberately because he was jealous. He knew I was the better scribe. No, my lord, after we fought, I was drained of the fiend that possessed me, and I never touched Hormin again."
    "Then if you didn't kill the man, tell me what you know of those more capable of murder."
     Bakwerner sat back on his heels. His glance slid from the hem of Meren's kilt to the floor bedside him. "My lord, no one had more cause to desire Hormin's death than his own family. Look to the wife and sons of Hormin."
    "Yes?"
     "Hormin was a man risen from the people, the son of a butcher who caught the eye of a scribe of the fields. He rose to a great height for so humble a man, yet he  kept his wife instead of putting her aside and taking a woman of breeding. But Hormin kept his wife plainly, without costly jewels or robes, and he doled out little of his possessions to the sons, though they are grown." Bakwerner swallowed and lowered his voice. "And he was jealous of his own son. Djaper feeds upon knowledge the way a crocodile feeds on fish. The lad is twenty, but he already knows far more than Hormin did at twice the age."
     Meren walked around Bakwerner until he was directly behind him. He let the man sit on the floor waiting for him to speak. Bakwerner wiped beads of sweat from his upper lip.
    "Where were you during the night, Bakwerner?"
    The scribe almost turned his head, but stopped himself in time. "At home, my lord."
     Meren turned quietly away from the office of records  and tithes, leaving Bakwerner sitting on the floor in front of the shelves. Once outside, he set out in the direction of the house of the dead scribe along with the two charioteers who were his protection and his shadows. He liked walking. It gave him a chance to think without risking interruption from servants or courtiers.
     Ahmose had said that Bakwerner was a physical coward. It was rare for Meren to beat someone he suspected of a crime, though such methods were usual among the city police and other officials of the king. Having been the victim of such methods, he was convinced that if one asked questions with a whip, one only got the answers one wanted to hear, not necessarily the truth. The whip could be used later, if needed, after he flushed a few more birds out of their nests in the papyrus swamp.
     The problem was, as Master Ahmose had assured him,  that he would have trouble finding anyone who knew Hormin who did not want to kill the man.
     His task was to discover who had wanted to kill Hormin enough to risk doing evil in the Place of Anubis.

Chapter 3
     Meren could hear the wails and screams before he  reached the street where Hormin had lived. Word of the scribe's death had reached his family, and someone had already hired professional mourners to ply their trade on the small loggia that protected the entrance