‘What does a person with written authority from the King want in a dump like this?’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt your rest but I need your help.’
‘I’m just a builder. What kind of help could I give a man like you? Or any of those performing monkeys that pass for our Lords and Masters?’
I liked his courage and his contempt. Something relaxed a little between us.
‘I’m looking for someone. A girl. A missing girl.’
He carried on eating voraciously as he spoke. ‘So why look here? No-one cares about missing girls, they’re glad to be rid of them. Shouldn’t you be down in the city?’
‘I’ve a hunch her family might be living here.’
He pushed the bread towards me. ‘Hungry?’
I took a piece and ate it slowly. I’d forgotten we’d had no food today.
‘Tell me about this missing girl,’ he said.
‘She would be a young woman. Beautiful. She would have been raised to a position in the city.’
He wiped his hands and face. ‘Not much to go on, is it?’
‘Someone would miss a girl like her.’
‘What colour are her eyes? What kind of face has she got?’
‘Her face is missing. Someone beat it off her.’
He looked at me, whistled and shook his head slowly, as if this information just proved his theory of the way of the world. Then he stood up abruptly and gestured to the door. ‘Come.’
The crowds parted swiftly along the narrow lanes to let us pass; this man was respected and feared. He was the Overseer, with the power to give and take away privileges, work and justice. He was as powerful as Akhenaten himself in this, his own domain. We came to the village’s only open area, covered by colourfully decorated linen shades that threw patterns on the hard dirt floor and the benches that ran the length of the space. Hundreds of workers from all over the Empire, from Nubia to Arzawa, from Hatti to Mittani, sat talking, yelling and even singing in their own languages. All were eating quickly, helping themselves from large bowls placed along the benches. The sentry boys at the boundary stone were missing out on all this. Women moved up and down serving thick barley beer in bowls. The noise and heat were incredible.
The Overseer stood at the head of the central bench. He knocked his staff of office on the wood three times and the place was immediately silent. All heads turned in his direction, attentive but keen to get back to the business of eating.
‘We have an important visitor,’ he announced, ‘and he wants to know if anyone’s missing a girl.’
There was a brief ripple of laughter, but it died fast when the Overseer slammed his staff down hard again. Everyone looked at me to see who was asking this question, and why. I knew I needed to speak.
‘My name’s Rahotep, Thebes Medjay. I’m investigating a mystery. No-one here’s done anything wrong, but it’s important to me to find the family of a girl who’s missing. I believe she worked in the city but that she came from among you. All I’m asking is, does anyone know of a family who might be concerned about their daughter or sister?’ The men stared at me. ‘Anything anyone wants to tell me will be confidential.’
There was a total, hostile silence. No-one moved. Then a young man at the back slowly stood up. I led him to a space on a bench away from the crowd. The Overseer left us to talk, saying, ‘I want him back at work in no time.’
We sat down opposite each other. His name was Paser. He had the hard, precise, honed physique of a skilled labourer, his hair locks white with dust, his hands already callused by the harshness of the stone that will be the most familiar thing-more than his wife’s body, more than his own children-he touches all his life. But he looked back at me with eyes that seemed intelligent; perhaps not clever, exactly, but thoughtful and independent.
‘Tell me about yourself, please.’
He looked suspicious. ‘What do you want to know? Why are you here asking questions?’
‘Why did you respond to my question?’
He looked down, his thick fingers crossed into each other. ‘I have a sister. Her name is Seshat. We grew up in Sais, in the western delta, but the town was falling apart; nothing to do all day but sit around waiting for work that was never going to come again. So we all travelled here praying we could find employment. We were lucky. When we got here father and I found construction work because my father’s a cousin of the Overseer, and Seshat went to the Harem Palace.’
Khety and I exchanged a glance. At last, an interesting connection.
‘When did you last see her?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Why?’
He hesitated.
‘Nothing you say will go beyond these walls.’
‘You are Medjay. Why should I trust you?’
‘Because you must.’
He had little choice, and eventually he spoke. ‘I’ve been working on new offices within the Harem Palace. Sometimes we were able to speak to each other. We’d find a quiet corner for a few minutes…’ He paused. ‘We used to see each other several times a week. We made an arrangement. But the last time she didn’t appear. I thought she might just be busy. She always sends my parents something every week. But this week…’ He shook his head. ‘Where is she?’
He took me to his parents’ house. They shuffled about, uncertain of the seating or standing protocol, awkward in my presence. In the back room, the grandparents worked. They nodded politely, and returned to their tasks. I was glad to notice the old gods were still displayed in the family shrine: amulets of Bes and Taweret, and statuettes of Hathor-the old protecting deities of the family, fertility and festival. The new religious iconoclasm had not yet conquered this little home.
The father, a middle-aged man, began talking about his daughter, his treasure: how well she was doing, the way her beauty and grace had given her a new opening in life in the Harem Palace. His pride. His joy. Their bright future. And all the time, although I could not yet be sure, I sensed in my bones that this man’s daughter was lying dead, brutalized, destroyed for eternity, on a slab. I saw the mother at the curtain, her face confused with worry at my presence, and at these questions. But I had no proof, and that was what I was here for. I could not be swayed by arguments of emotion, not now.
‘And you haven’t heard from her for some little time now?’
‘No, but she’s busy, you see. We can’t expect it. No doubt working too hard! They do work them hard, I know.’ The father smiled uncertainly.
‘I have to ask you a personal question. Does she bear any birth marks? Any marks on her body?’
The father looked puzzled. ‘Birth marks? I don’t know. Why are you here, asking all these questions? Why is a Medjay officer sitting in my home asking questions about my daughter?’ He now looked frightened.
‘I hope to find her.’
‘If you want her, why don’t you go to the Harem Palace and ask for her there?’
‘Because I am afraid she is not there.’
The truth was beginning to dawn on them. The mother stood, struck silent and still as a statue, at the entrance to the room. Slowly she pointed to her belly.
‘She has a scar, like a little star. Here.’
I left that house in a silence from which I knew it would never recover. The father’s gentle face had broken open as surely as if I had smashed it with a rock, wondering why I should have come into his home to ruin the contentment of his old age. The mother’s refusal to believe any of this was real. The son’s bitterness would refine itself, over time, into a pure hatred of the gods that had permitted the vicious destruction of an innocent life. I told them only that she had been murdered; I failed to find the courage to tell them the rest. But I promised to have the body returned to them for proper burial. All I could leave them with, besides this agony, was the scarab. I could only hope it would cover the costs of a good burial and all the necessary rituals. And after all, as far as I was concerned it belonged to the girl. The least I could do was help to make sure she would not be left to rot in some desert grave, not after what she and her kin had suffered already.