Kysen felt that Meren had relegated the incident to a place of lesser importance while he struggled with far more weighty problems, especially that of the king's first military campaign. Of some concern were the bandit raids on small villages at the edge of the eastern desert half a day's sail from Thebes.
Then there were those letters from the family. One of the advantages of being adopted was that he could look upon the relationships between the members of the family without becoming embroiled in their complexity. In the last few years, he'd come to realize how great was Meren's burden as the oldest son.
Nakht, whom Meren called Ra, and one of Meren's stewards were fighting again. Although Meren had been persuaded to allow his younger brother to govern Baht, the family's great estate in the Thinite nome, Nakht's laziness assured the steward of the bulk of the responsibility. It had taken Kysen less than a day in Nakht's company to realize what governed his adopted uncle's life. He resented Meren.
As far as Kysen could see, Nakht wanted all of the privileges and prestige of Meren's position, but none of the responsibilities and hard work that came with it. And Meren indulged him because Nakht always managed to make his brother feel guilty for having inherited so much more than either him or their sister, as if he were responsible for having been born first.
Then there was poor Aunt Idut, who couldn't understand why Meren didn't advance her son to high office even though the boy was but fourteen and still in school. Idut cared more for pushing her son into great achievements before his time than for tending to her own affairs. Luckily Idut was busy training Kysen's sisters in the country at Baht.
He for one didn't envy either Bener or Isis. The complexities of beer brewing, the management of estate servants and farmers, the keeping of accounts, the mysteries of crops and weaving, all of these fell under their control.
It was from Idut that Kysen had learned of Meren's parents. The father, Amosis, had been a child of the god Set, evil-tempered, brilliant, a tyrant, who demanded that Meren excel at every skill, from those of a scribe to those of a warrior. He had punished Meren's slightest lapse, yet tolerated Nakht's indolence.
Idut he ignored except when he terrorized her along with her mother, Neith. Neith, a great beauty from whom Meren had inherited sculpted cheekbones and lithe height, never tried to curb her husband's rampaging temper. Instead she had devoted her life to forcing her children to accommodate it, cater to it, take the blame for it. As a result, Meren alternated between feeling responsible for the misbehavior and failings of his siblings and everyone else and furious resentment at his burdens.
With the embers of such old hurts and grudges perpetually smoldering in the family, Meren grew tense and distant with the arrival of letters from them. Once, Kysen had conceived of the idea of intercepting the letters and burning them, but he soon realized that if the letters weren't answered, the family would descend upon them, quacking and whining.
No wonder Meren avoided his brother and sister. The only family member who tended her own concerns was Meren's maternal grandmother, the ancient Wa'bet, whose guile and wisdom were as great as the green sea into which the Nile flowed. But Wa'bet lived to the north, near Memphis, and rarely traveled or tolerated visits from her family.
Kysen passed two laborers drawing a cart loaded with sun-dried mud bricks, a donkey laden with bags of wheat, and a group of boys on their way to school at one of the temples. Ahead of him, on the threshold of Unas's house, stood Ipwet's friend, Nebera. He'd sent word ahead for the metalworker to attend him, since he'd made the complaint to the police.
A purple bruise marred his left cheek, and his lower lip was swollen on the same side. Kysen glanced at the wounds, but said nothing. The report he'd read hadn't mentioned that Nebera had struggled with the thief.
Nebera, apparently unconcerned, escorted Kysen through the house. The front rooms seemed undisturbed, but the bedchamber looked as if a herd of goats had blundered through it. Chests sat with their contents strewn around them. Kysen stepped over shifts, loincloths, and kilts. His sandal hit a necklace of glazed ceramic beads. He sifted through the coverings of the bed, which had been ripped from it to reveal its base of leather straps. The headrest lay on its side under a short-legged chair.
A casket rested on its side by the bed. Rolled or folded papyrus lay scattered around it. Kysen picked up the documents and examined each of them. Unfortunately they were the same household records he'd seen before-records of expenses, several family letters, receipts, a copy of Unas's meager will. He stuffed the papers back in the casket.
Then he picked up a faience kohl tube and put it back in the cosmetic box. The box sat beside a tall, overturned stand that had once supported a water jar. The jar lay in pieces on the floor, forcing Kysen and Nebera to avoid stepping on jagged shards. The vessel had been painted-a frieze of blue lotus flowers on a buff background. Next to the shards lay an oil lamp, also broken, with its contents spilled over the plastered floor. Some of the oil had seeped into the plaster.
"Very well," Kysen said as he knelt beside the cosmetic box. 'Tell me what happened."
Nebera dropped down beside him. "I was sleeping on my roof three nights ago and woke when I heard a crash. I knew Ipwet had gone to stay with her parents and plan for Unas's burial, so it couldn't be her. I thought it was a thief who had heard that the house was uninhabited."
"So you went to catch a thief alone? What if there had been more than one?"
"I–I didn't think. I was so angry that someone would steal from Ipwet when she was bereaved that I crossed from my roof to the other house. I went halfway down the inner stairs and listened. I heard someone moving around in the bedchamber, so I went all the way down the stairs and crept up to the door. It was dark, but I could hear someone moving around and cursing."
"Whoever it was must have stumbled into that stand and dropped the lamp he was holding," Kysen said as he examined a perfume jar shaped like a fish. "You're sure the thief was a man?"
"Aye, lord. Though he kept his voice to a whisper, it couldn't have been a woman. He stumbled around in the chamber while I hid at the door. I think he was trying to find the way out, because he worked his way along the wall until he came to the threshold. I jumped on him as he came out of the room."
"And fought with him, I see."
Nebera gave him a pained smile. "I grabbed him from behind and got my arm around his neck, but the cur jabbed me in the gut with his elbow, and while I was bent over, he hit me a couple of times and then ran." Nebera touched his purple cheek. "By the time my ears stopped ringing and I could stand without growing dizzy, he was gone."
"So you never really saw him."
"No, lord."
"But you touched him," Kysen said. "You were close."
"Yes, but there was no light."
Kysen sighed. "When you grabbed his neck, did you have to reach down?"
"No. Oh, I see." Nebera sat back on his heels, and his gaze drifted blindly across the ruined room. "No, I had to reach up a little."
"You're sure."
"Aye, lord, the man had to be tall, taller than I am. And-and he was smooth."
"Smooth?"
"He wore only a kilt, and his upper body was well cared for. You understand. His skin wasn't that of a common laborer who works under the sun all day and cannot afford many baths and oils." Nebera's gaze came back to Kysen, and his eyes widened. "By the gods, he smelled of the perfume in skin oil. Not much, but some."