Death Comes as the End

  ‘Well–I’m not quite sure.’ Yahmose’s tone was still mild, but he watched her closely.

  ‘I think you’d better agree with your father, Yahmose. We don’t want any more–trouble, do we?’

  ‘I don’t quite understand. You mean–we don’t want any more deaths?’

  ‘There are going to be more deaths, Yahmose. Oh yes–’

  ‘Who is going to die next, Henet?’

  ‘Why do you think I should know that?’

  ‘Because I think you know a great deal. You knew the other day, for instance, that Ipy was going to die…You are very clever, aren’t you, Henet.’

  Henet bridled.

  ‘So you’re beginning to realize that now! I’m not poor, stupid Henet any longer. I’m the one who knows.’

  ‘What do you know, Henet?’

  Henet’s voice changed. It was low and sharp.

  ‘I know that at last I can do as I choose in this house. There will be no one to stop me. Imhotep leans upon me already. And you will do the same, eh, Yahmose?’

  ‘And Renisenb?’

  Henet laughed, a malicious, happy chuckle.

  ‘Renisenb will not be here.’

  ‘You think it is Renisenb who will die next?’

  ‘What do you think, Yahmose?’

  ‘I am waiting to hear what you say.’

  ‘Perhaps I only meant that Renisenb will marry–and go away.’

  ‘What do you mean, Henet?’

  Henet chuckled.

  ‘Esa once said my tongue was dangerous. Perhaps it is!’

  She laughed shrilly, swaying to and fro on her heels.

  ‘Well, Yahmose, what do you say? Am I at last to do as I choose in this house?’

  Yahmose studied her for a moment before saying:

  ‘Yes, Henet. You are so clever. You shall do as you choose.’

  He turned to meet Hori who was coming from the main hall and who said: ‘There you are, Yahmose. Imhotep is awaiting you. It is time to go up to the Tomb.’

  Yahmose nodded.

  ‘I am coming.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Hori–I think Henet is mad–she is definitely afflicted by the devils. I begin to believe that she has been responsible for all these happenings.’

  Hori paused a moment before saying in his quiet, detached voice:

  ‘She is a strange woman–and an evil one, I think.’

  Yahmose lowered his voice still more:

  ‘Hori, I think Renisenb is in danger.’

  ‘From Henet?’

  ‘Yes. She has just hinted that Renisenb may be the next to–go.’

  Imhotep’s voice came fretfully:

  ‘Am I to wait all day? What conduct is this? No one considers me any more. No one knows what I suffer. Where is Henet? Henet understands.’

  From within the storeroom Henet’s chuckle of triumph came shrilly.

  ‘Do you hear that, Yahmose? Henet! Henet is the one!’

  Yahmose said quietly:

  ‘Yes, Henet–I understand. You are the powerful one. You and my father and I–we three together…’

  Hori went off to find Imhotep. Yahmose spoke a few more words to Henet who nodded, her face sparkling with malicious triumph.

  Then Yahmose joined Hori and Imhotep, apologizing for his delay, and the three men went up to the Tomb together.

  III

  The day passed slowly for Renisenb.

  She was restless, passing to and fro from the house to the porch, then to the lake and then back again to the house.

  At midday Imhotep returned, and after a meal had been served to him, he came out upon the porch and Renisenb joined him.

  She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, occasionally looking up at her father’s face. It still wore that absent, bewildered expression. Imhotep spoke little. Once or twice he sighed deeply.

  Once he roused himself and asked for Henet. But just at that time Henet had gone with linen to the embalmers.

  Renisenb asked her father where Hori and Yahmose were.

  ‘Hori has gone out to the flax fields. There is a tally to be taken there. Yahmose is on the cultivation. It all falls on him now…Alas for Sobek and Ipy! My boys–my handsome boys…’

  Renisenb tried quickly to distract him.

  ‘Cannot Kameni oversee the workers?’

  ‘Kameni? Who is Kameni? I have no son of that name.’

  ‘Kameni the scribe. Kameni who is to be my husband.’

  He stared at her.

  ‘You, Renisenb? But you are to marry Khay.’

  She sighed, but said no more. It seemed cruel to try and bring him back to the present. After a little while, however, he roused himself and exclaimed suddenly:

  ‘Of course. Kameni! He has gone to give some instructions to the overseer at the brewery. I must go and join him.’

  He strode away, muttering to himself, but with resumption of his old manner, so that Renisenb felt a little cheered.

  Perhaps this clouding of his brain was only temporary.

  She looked round her. There seemed something sinister about the silence of the house and court today. The children were at the far side of the lake. Kait was not with them and Renisenb wondered where she was.

  Then Henet came out on to the porch. She looked round her and then came sidling up to Renisenb. She had resumed her old wheedling, humble manner.

  ‘I’ve been waiting till I could get you alone, Renisenb.’

  ‘Why, Henet?’

  Henet lowered her voice.

  ‘I’ve got a message for you–from Hori.’

  ‘What does he say?’ Renisenb’s voice was eager.

  ‘He asks that you should go up to the Tomb.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No. Be there an hour before sunset. That was the message. If he is not there then, he asks that you will wait until he comes. It is important, he says.’

  Henet paused–and then added:

  ‘I was to wait until I got you alone to say this–and no one was to overhear.’

  Henet glided away.

  Renisenb felt her spirits lightened. She felt glad at the prospect of going up to the peace and quietness of the Tomb. Glad that she would see Hori and be able to talk to him freely. The only thing that surprised her a little was that he should have entrusted his message to Henet.

  Nevertheless, malicious though Henet was, she had delivered the message faithfully.

  ‘And why should I fear Henet at any time?’ thought Renisenb. ‘I am stronger than she is.’

  She drew herself up proudly. She felt young and confident and very much alive…

  IV

  After giving the message to Renisenb, Henet went once more into the linen storeroom. She was laughing quietly to herself.

  She bent over the disordered piles of sheets.

  ‘We’ll be needing more of you soon,’ she said to them gleefully. ‘Do you hear, Ashayet? I’m the mistress here now and I’m telling you that your linen will bandage yet another body. And whose body is that, do you think? Hee hee! You’ve not been able to do much about things, have you? You and your mother’s brother, the Nomarch! Justice? What justice can you do in this world? Answer me that!’

  There was a movement behind the bales of linen. Henet half-turned her head.

  Then a great width of linen was thrown over her, stifling her mouth and nose. An inexorable hand wound the fabric round and round her body, swathing her like a corpse until her struggles ceased…

  V

  Renisenb sat in the entrance of the rock chamber, staring out at the Nile and lost in a queer dream fantasy of her own.

  It seemed to her a very long time since the day when she had first sat here, soon after her return to her father’s house. That had been the day when she had declared so gaily that everything was unchanged, that all in the home was exactly as it had been when she left it eight years before.

  She remembered now how Hori had told her that she herself was not the same Renisenb who had gone away with Khay and how she
had answered confidently that she soon would be.

  Then Hori had gone on to speak of changes that came from within, of a rottenness that left no outward sign.

  She knew now something of what had been in his mind when he said those things. He had been trying to prepare her. She had been so assured, so blind–accepting so easily the outward values of her family.

  It had taken Nofret’s coming to open her eyes…

  Yes, Nofret’s coming. It had all hinged on that.

  With Nofret had come death…

  Whether Nofret had been evil or not, she had certainly brought evil…

  And the evil was still in their midst.

  For the last time, Renisenb played with the belief that Nofret’s spirit was the cause of everything…

  Nofret, malicious and dead…

  Or Henet, malicious and living…Henet the despised, the sycophantic, fawning Henet…

  Renisenb shivered, stirred, and then slowly rose to her feet.

  She could wait for Hori no longer. The sun was on the point of setting. Why, she wondered, had he not come?

  She got up, glanced round her and started to descend the path to the valley below.

  It was very quiet at this evening hour. Quiet and beautiful, she thought. What had delayed Hori? If he had come, they would at least have had this hour together…

  There would not be many such hours. In the near future, when she was Kameni’s wife–

  Was she really going to marry Kameni? With a kind of shock Renisenb shook herself free from the mood of dull acquiescence that had held her so long. She felt like a sleeper awakening from a feverish dream. Caught in that stupor of fear and uncertainty she had assented to whatever had been proposed to her.

  But now she was Renisenb again, and if she married Kameni it would be because she wanted to marry him, and not because her family arranged it. Kameni with his handsome, laughing face! She loved him, didn’t she? That was why she was going to marry him.

  In this evening hour up here, there was clarity and truth. No confusion. She was Renisenb, walking here above the world, serene and unafraid, herself at last.

  Had she not once said to Hori that she must walk down this path alone at the hour of Nofret’s death? That whether fear went with her or not, she must still go alone.

  Well, she was doing it now. This was just about the hour when she and Satipy had bent over Nofret’s body. And it was about this same hour when Satipy in her turn had walked down the path and had suddenly looked back–to see doom overtaking her.

  At just about this same point too. What was it that Satipy had heard, to make her look suddenly behind her?

  Footsteps?

  Footsteps…but Renisenb heard footsteps now following her down the path.

  Her heart gave a sudden leap of fear. It was true, then! Nofret was behind her, following her…

  Fear coursed through her, but her footsteps did not slacken. Nor did they race ahead. She must overcome fear, since there was, in her mind, no evil deed to regret…

  She steadied herself, gathered her courage and, still walking, turned her head.

  Then she felt a great throb of relief. It was Yahmose following her. No spirit from the dead, but her own brother. He must have been busied in the offering chamber of the Tomb and have come out of it just after she had passed.

  She stopped with a happy little cry.

  ‘Oh Yahmose, I’m so glad it’s you.’

  He was coming up to her rapidly. She was just beginning another sentence–a recital of her foolish fears, when the words froze on her lips.

  This was not the Yahmose she knew–the gentle, kindly brother. His eyes were very bright and he was passing his tongue quickly over dried lips. His hands, held a little in front of his body, were slightly curved, the fingers looking like talons.

  He was looking at her and the look in his eyes was unmistakable. It was the look of a man who had killed and was about to kill again. There was a gloating cruelty, an evil satisfaction in his face.

  Yahmose–the pitiless enemy was Yahmose! Behind the mask of that gentle, kindly face–this!

  She had thought that her brother loved her–but there was no love in that inhuman, gloating face.

  Renisenb screamed–a faint, hopeless scream.

  This, she knew, was death. There was no strength in her to match Yahmose’s strength. Here, where Nofret had fallen, where the path was narrow, she too would fall to death…

  ‘Yahmose!’ It was a last appeal–in that uttering of his name was the love she had always given to this eldest brother. It pleaded in vain. Yahmose laughed, a soft, inhuman, happy little laugh.

  Then he rushed forward, those cruel hands with talons curving as though they longed to fasten round her throat…

  Renisenb backed up against the cliff face, her hands outstretched in a vain attempt to ward him off. This was terror–death.

  And then she heard a sound, a faint, twanging musical sound…

  Something came singing through the air. Yahmose stopped, swayed, then with a loud cry he pitched forward on his face at her feet. She stared down stupidly at the feather shaft of an arrow. Then she looked down over the edge–to where Hori stood, the bow still held to his shoulder…

  VI

  ‘Yahmose…Yahmose…’

  Renisenb, numbed by the shock, repeated the name again, and yet again. It was as though she could not believe it…

  She was outside the little rock chamber, Hori’s arm still round her. She could hardly recollect how he had led her back up the path. She had been only able to repeat her brother’s name in that dazed tone of wonder and horror.

  Hori said gently:

  ‘Yes, Yahmose. All the time, Yahmose.’

  ‘But how? Why? And how could it be he–why, he was poisoned himself. He nearly died.’

  ‘No, he ran no risk of dying. He was very careful of how much wine he drank. He sipped enough to make him ill and he exaggerated his symptoms and his pains. It was the way, he knew, to disarm suspicion.’

  ‘But he could not have killed Ipy? Why, he was so weak he could not stand on his feet!’

  ‘That, again, was feigned. Do you not remember that Mersu pronounced that once the poison was eliminated, he would regain strength quickly. So he did in reality.’

  ‘But why, Hori? That is what I cannot make out–why?’

  Hori sighed.

  ‘Do you remember, Renisenb, that I talked to you once of the rottenness that comes from within?’

  ‘I remember. Indeed I was thinking of it only this evening.’

  ‘You said once that the coming of Nofret brought evil. That was not true. The evil was already here concealed within the hearts of the household. All that Nofret’s coming did was to bring it from its hidden place into the light. Her presence banished concealment. Kait’s gentle motherliness had turned to ruthless egoism for herself and her young. Sobek was no longer the gay and charming young man, but the boastful, dissipated weakling. Ipy was not so much a spoilt, attractive child as a scheming, selfish boy. Through Henet’s pretended devotion, the venom began to show clearly. Satipy showed herself as a bully and a coward. Imhotep himself had degenerated into a fussy, pompous tyrant.’

  ‘I know–I know.’ Renisenb’s hands went to rub her eyes. ‘You need not tell me. I have found out little by little for myself…Why should these things happen–why should this rottenness come, as you say, working from within?’

  Hori shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Who can tell? It may be that there must always be growth–and that if one does not grow kinder and wiser and greater, then the growth must be the other way, fostering the evil things. Or it may be that the life they all led was too shut in, too folded back upon itself–without breadth or vision. Or it may be that, like a disease of crops, it is contagious, that first one and then another sickened.’

  ‘But Yahmose–Yahmose seemed always the same.’

  ‘Yes, and that is one reason, Renisenb, why I came to suspect. For the others
, by reason of their temperaments, could get relief. But Yahmose has always been timid, easily ruled, and with never enough courage to rebel. He loved Imhotep and worked hard to please him, and Imhotep found him well-meaning but stupid and slow. He despised him. Satipy, too, treated Yahmose with all of the scorn of a bullying nature. Slowly his burden of resentment, concealed but deeply felt, grew heavier. The meeker he seemed, the more his inward anger grew.

  ‘And then, just when Yahmose was hoping at last to reap the reward of his industry and diligence, to be recognized and associated with his father, Nofret came. It was Nofret, and perhaps Nofret’s beauty, that kindled the final spark. She attacked the manhood of all three brothers. She touched Sobek on the raw by her scorn of him as a fool, she infuriated Ipy by treating him as a truculent child without any claim to manhood, and she showed Yahmose that he was something less than a man in her eyes. It was after Nofret came that Satipy’s tongue finally goaded Yahmose beyond endurance. It was her jeers, her taunt that she was a better man than he, that finally sapped his self-control. He met Nofret on this path and–driven beyond endurance–he threw her down.’

  ‘But it was Satipy–’

  ‘No, no, Renisenb. That is where you were all wrong. From down below Satipy saw it happen. Now do you understand?’

  ‘But Yahmose was with you on the cultivation.’

  ‘Yes, for the last hour. But do you not realize, Renisenb, that Nofret’s body was cold. You felt her cheek yourself. You thought she had fallen a few moments before–but that was impossible. She had been dead at least two hours, otherwise, in that hot sun, her face could never have felt cold to your touch. Satipy saw it happen. Satipy hung around, fearful, uncertain what to do; then she saw you coming and tried to head you off.’

  ‘Hori, when did you know all this?’

  ‘I guessed fairly soon. It was Satipy’s behaviour that told me. She was obviously going about in deadly fear of someone or something–and I was fairly soon convinced that the person she feared was Yahmose. She stopped bullying him and instead was eager to obey him in every way. It had been, you see, a terrible shock to her. Yahmose, whom she despised as the meekest of men, had actually been the one to kill Nofret. It turned Satipy’s world upside down. Like most bullying women, she was a coward. This new Yahmose terrified her. In her fear she began to talk in her sleep. Yahmose soon realized that she was a danger to him…