House Of The Vestals by Steven Saylor Read Free Book Online

his design completed. On the very day that the great silver hoard was moved piece by piece into the chamber and the great doors were closed and sealed, the architect died. He left behind a widow and two sons who had just come into manhood. King Rhampsinitus called the sons before him and gave each of them a silver bracelet in token of his gratitude to their father."
    "A rather small gift," I said.
    "Perhaps. They say that King Rhampsinitus was prudent and evenhanded to a fault, neither tightfisted nor overly generous."
    "He reminds me of Cicero."
    Bethesda cleared her throat, demanding silence. "Once a month the king would have the seals broken away and would spend an afternoon in his treasure house, admiring his silver wares and counting his silver coins. Months passed; the Nile flooded and receded, as happens every summer, and the crops were good. The people were happy. Egypt was at peace.
    "But the king began to notice something quite disturbing: pieces of silver were missing from his treasure house. At first he thought he only imagined it, since there was no way that the great doors could be opened without breaking the seals, and the seals were broken only for his own official visits. But when his servants tallied up the inventory of his silver, sure enough, there were a great number of coins missing, and other small items as well.
    "The king was sorely puzzled. On his next visit there was even more silver missing, including a solid silver crocodile the size of a man's forearm, which had been one of the king's most treasured pieces.
    "The king was furious, and more baffled than ever. Then it occurred to him to set traps inside the treasure house, so that anyone sorting through the coins and coffers might be caught and held fast in an iron cage. And this he did.
    "Sure enough, on his next visit, the king discovered that one of the traps had been sprung. But inside the cage, instead of a desperate, pleading thief, there was a dead body." Bethesda paused ominously.
    "But of course," I murmured, looking up sleepily at the stars. "The poor thief had starved, or else been frightened to death when the cage landed on him."
    "Perhaps. But he had no head!"
    "What?" I blinked.
    "His head was nowhere to be found."
    "How strange."
    "Indeed." Bethesda nodded gravely.
    "And was more silver missing?"
    "Yes."
    "Then there must have been another thief with him," I deduced.
    "Perhaps," Bethesda said shrewdly. "But King Rhampsinitus was no closer to solving the mystery.
    "Then it occurred to him that perhaps the hapless thief had relatives in Memphis, in which case they would want to have his body back so that they could purify it and send it on its journey to the afterlife. Naturally, no one could be expected to come forward to claim the body, so Rhampsinitus decided to have the headless corpse put on display before the palace wall. This was announced as a warning to the thieves of Memphis, but the true purpose was to capture anyone who might know the truth of the thief's strange fate. The king's two most trusted guards-big, bearded fellows, the same ones who usually protected the seals at the treasure house-were assigned to stand watch over the corpse day and night and to seize any person who broke into weeping or lamentation.
    "The next morning, as soon as he had risen, King Rhampsinitus hurried to the palace wall and looked over the edge, for the mystery of the missing silver had come to dominate his thoughts, whether sleeping or awake. And what should he see but the two guards lying fast asleep, each of them with half his face clean-shaven-and the headless body gone! "Rhampsinitus ordered that the guards be brought before him. They stank of wine and their memories were muddled, but they did remember that a merchant passed by just as the sun was going down, pushing a cart full of wineskins. One of the wine-skins had sprung a leak. The guards each seized a cup and caught some of the flowing wine, thanking their good luck. The merchant had