“There you are!” Ra called as he entered the hall, flanked by the charioteer Simut and another guard.
Behind him came Kysen, supporting an aged woman who took three steps for every one of her escort’s. Ra marched over to Meren ahead of his guards. He planted himself with feet apart, arms folded across his chest, and gave Meren a contemptuous look that started at his carefully groomed head and ended at his gilded sandals.
“Where have you been?” Meren demanded.
“To Green Palm,” Ra said bitterly, “to prove my innocence before you tried me for murder. But you won’t be able to carry out your evil plan.” Ra stepped aside to make way for Kysen and the old woman. His arms swept out, indicating the two, and he glared at Meren as he burst out loudly, “I’m innocent, and—”
“I know.”
“This is Sheftu’s grandmother, who is a wise woman— What?”
“I said, I know you’re innocent.”
“But you’ve kept me prisoner!”
“Forgive me,” Meren said, feeling heat creep up his neck to his face. “I was mistaken. Sennefer killed himself in remorse.” He explained the accident that caused Anhai’s death while Ra listened with a dazed expression.
“But how do you know?” Ra asked.
Not wanting to mention Bentanta without privacy, Meren fell to studying the design on one of his bracelets. “Hepu has agreed that this is what happened. Now why have you brought this woman to me?”
“Nedjmet is a wise woman, Meren. Many villages consult her on matters of truth and controversy. She has given testimony of the manifestation of gods that has solved cases of theft, disappearance, and rape. I asked her to help. Tell the Lord Meren what you know, Nedjmet.”
Nedjmet had been listening with a hand cupped to her ear and her neck craning toward the speakers. She squinted at Ra, then tried to lower herself to the floor, but Kysen stopped her.
“Respected elder,” Meren said. “What have you to tell me?”
Nedjmet held up a finger. Its joints were swollen, the skin cracked, but it was steady. “Great lord, I am Nedjmet, a rekhet, a knowing one. Thy brother has come to me seeking testimony that he was in my house late on the night of the feast of rejoicing, and into the early morning. This I cannot do, for I slept without hearing anything that night. But a manifestation of the goddess Maat came to me when Lord Nakht entered my dwelling and asked for my help. Maat, goddess of truth, is with thy brother. His ka is untouched by the sin of murder.”
“There,” Ra said in triumph. “You see?”
Meren clasped his hands behind his back, lowered his head, and walked back and forth. It was well known that the gods manifested themselves to people in situations of great import. Once he’d seen a man swear his innocence in the matter of a theft, only to recant when visited with a manifestation that struck him blind. Knowing ones in villages throughout Egypt served as intermediaries between humble Egyptians and the gods, dispensing wisdom and aiding in judgments. It was a comfort that he had this additional testament to Ra’s honor.
“I am grateful for your help, knowing one. The wisdom of Amun already has revealed the truth of my cousin’s death. However, this manifestation is a further sign of my brother’s innocence. Kysen, have someone take the respected elder home, and tell Kasa that Nedjmet and her granddaughter are to be provided with a regular portion of grain and beer.”
The old woman bowed repeatedly as Kysen backed away from Meren and guided her out of the hall. The charioteers followed, leaving Meren alone with Ra. He met his brother’s accusing gaze, feeling like a criminal watching his miserable heart weigh down the feather of truth on the celestial balance scales before the gods. Forcing himself to speak, he told Ra the official version of the murders.
“Damn you, Meren. You wanted me to be guilty.”
“I didn’t. I know you, Ra. If you’d discovered that Anhai was using you … Don’t you see? You could have wanted revenge against them both, and you made things worse for yourself by refusing to be clear and honest with me.”
“I should have known you would blame me for your mistakes.”
“No, no, I don’t. I was wrong. I suspected the worst of you.” Meren drew closer to Ra, who maintained his rigid stance and scowled at him. “But I never stopped trying to find another explanation for these deaths. Do you think I’d have done that if I hadn’t wanted to absolve you?”
Ra’s scowl faded a bit. “I suppose not.”
“I have asked for forgiveness, brother. Will you bestow it?”
“The mighty Lord Meren, Friend of the King, is asking my forgiveness? I should sacrifice an ox in honor of this day. Oh, don’t glower at me. I’ll forgive you if you’ll get me appointed captain of charioteers.”
“Gods, Ra, don’t you ever learn?”
Ra turned on his heel with a smirk. “I knew you didn’t feel that guilty. I’m going home, brother. Don’t invite me to your next feast of rejoicing.”
Retreating to his office, Meren tried not to think of the ruins into which his relationship with Ra had fallen. Since most of his men were busy elsewhere, he sent to Kasa for a scribe to take down his report for the vizier. To his surprise, the boy Nu arrived with a scribe’s palette slung over his shoulder.
“What are you doing here? I need a scribe.”
Nu bowed low. “Master Kasa sent me because I’m faster and more accurate than his sons, lord.”
“Is that so?” Meren said. “We’ll see.”
Nu sat on the floor and took out his writing supplies. Meren plunged into the formal address of the report without pausing. When he reached the end of the long salutation, he stopped. Nu kept writing for a moment, then dipped his rush pen in fresh black ink and waited. Frowning, Meren walked over to gaze down at the papyrus stretched over Nu’s crossed legs. The address was perfect. The cursive hieroglyphs were clear, the words accurate.
“You’re talented for one so young,” Meren said.
“The lord is generous.”
“I must find some post for you where your skills can be honed. You’re wasted in a country house.”
Nu flushed with pleasure, and Meren gave him a slight smile. He intended to find a post that would keep him busy for a decade and in a place far away from his daughter. Perhaps he wouldn’t care. Service to the viceroy of Kush, far to the south in Nubia, would be most appropriate for Nu.
A knock interrupted him as he began to dictate again. At his response, Bentanta came into the room alone. Meren stuttered over a phrase, then hesitated.
“Leave us, Nu.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Bentanta said. “I came only to tell you I’m going home.”
“Leave,” Meren said to the boy, who was already on his feet. When they were alone, Meren offered Bentanta a chair, but she refused.
“You could have told me you’d solved Sennefer’s murder instead of sending a servant to tell me I was free. And I had to get the tale of Sennefer’s death from Idut,” Bentanta said.
“Forgive me. I was distracted.”
“You were ashamed.”
He looked at her wordlessly. That familiar feeling of annoyance he often experienced in her presence was growing again.
“And I hear Wah is dead of an accident. Such a number of mishaps. One is tempted to suspect them when they come in so great a quantity.”
“I ask your forgiveness,” Meren said as he stooped to pick up the unfinished report. “I’m sure you can see that my conclusions were reasonable, given what we knew.”
“Oh, of course. Quite reasonable, but you’re a greater fool than I thought if you expect me to believe this tale of suicide.”
Pretending to peruse the report, Meren said lightly, “People seldom question my judgment.”
“That, my lord, has had a noxious effect on your character.”
Lowering the report, Meren asked, “Are you here to take your leave or to quarrel?”
Bentanta alarmed him by closing the distance between them and taking the papyrus from his hands
.
“You’re in retreat,” she said, tapping his arm with the papyrus. “Routed and on guard against attack. Don’t you realize I didn’t want you to know about Djet any more than you wished to be told? Do you think I wanted to be dragged here to expose my foolish mistake, one of which I’m ashamed? We should find some way to measure mortification to see whose is greater.”
Meren snatched the report from Bentanta and walked away from her. “I can’t speak of this now.”
“All I want is your assurance that you’ll stop trying to find ways to be rid of me in order to save yourself pain.”
“You think I’d accuse you of a crime for such a reason? Why would you need consolation from my cousin for, for…”
“Don’t confuse the past with the present, Meren.”
“Don’t confuse what I do as the Eyes of Pharaoh with my private actions.”
“We haven’t spoken privately, not about Djet.”
He waited, but she didn’t continue. Keeping his back to her, he said, “Go home, Bentanta. There’s nothing for us to discuss.”
“Merciful gods, you really would rather face a horde of nomad bandits unarmed than—”
Turning quickly, he faced her with his courtier’s impassive mask in place. “Please don’t force me to be any more discourteous than I have already been.”
She met his gaze with a gasp of exasperation, then stalked out of the room. The last thing he heard was her voice sailing to him from the stairwell.
“Coward!”
Kysen came in, staring over his shoulder in the direction of her voice. He didn’t comment.
“Nento is hiding on the barge and refuses to return to the haunted temple.”
Fighting an onslaught of confused emotions he didn’t want to face, Meren finally responded. “What? Oh yes— well, we won’t be using the temple much longer. I’ve just received word from pharaoh.”
“Nento will be overjoyed. You’re distracted. Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing. Help me with these reports, Ky, and then I must go to Memphis. I’m going to take the girls with me. They’re too much for Idut.”
“Too clever, you mean.”
Meren collapsed in a chair and sighed. “Do you know I’m more weary now than when I arrived here for a rest? Interfering relatives are far more dangerous than ordinary murderers and spies.”
“They’re tolerable separately, Father, just not all at once.”
Meren picked up a royal letter from a stack on the table beside his chair. His eye caught a passage mentioning his promise to take the king on a raid, and he groaned. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he thought for a few moments, then sat up and slapped the arm of his chair.
“Ky, fetch those acrobats from the feast, and we’ll leave at once, before Aunt Cherit can find me and have that long talk she’s been wanting.”
“And what am I to do with the musicians and singers and acrobats?”
“They’re coming with us.” Meren swept his arm across the table piled with correspondence, sending the letters tumbling to the floor. “We’re going to have a feast, a sailing feast on Wings of Horus. Not with the pests Idut thinks I should invite, but with those who know the true meaning of the word rejoice.”
Kysen gave a loud whoop. “At last. It’s been months since you gave one of your entertainments. Maya spoke to me about it before we left Thebes. Said the whole court was complaining.”
“Maya has a fondness for singers. We’ll send for him too,” Meren said as he kicked his way through scattered papyri to find a clean sheet on which to write. “And I’ll tell him to bring lots of pomegranate wine. I’ve acquired a taste for pomegranate wine.”
“Oh?”
At Kysen’s tone, Meren turned to smile at him. “Only the wine, damn you. Only the wine.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Lord Meren Mysteries
Chapter 1
Memphis, Year Five of the Reign of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun
She could smell the darkness. Night in the land of the living was a feeble imitation of the obsidian nothingness that possessed her own lair, yet she could smell the darkness. Lifting her hard, jutting snout, she sucked in the textured scents—waters of the Nile, mud and refuse from the docks nearby, the faint smell of dung mixed with fish and smoke from a thousand dying oven fires.
The snout whipped around at the sound of a flute, a shriek of drunken laughter from the beer house. A claw, long, curved, with a honed blade-edge as sharp as a physician’s knife, scraped over the cracked mud brick of a wall. It snaked back into the shelter of the alley at the sudden appearance of light. Several of the living approached. Eyes with daggered pupils observed the strangers. Rapid, guttural chattering made her wince. Foreigners—in rank, unclean wool robes smelling of beer and sex. Bearing the torch that had assaulted her eyes, they stumbled past and swerved to disappear down the street.
Snorting to rid herself of the stench, she returned her attention to the beer house across the street. One of its wooden shutters was loose and warped, allowing light from within to escape and casting rippled shadows on the packed earth of the road. A larger group burst from the interior, arguing, giggling, swaying to the beat of a sailing song. Men from the docks. Of no interest, no relevance.
She grunted with impatience, something she never experienced below. But the evil one had been in the beer house since dusk. Leaning against the chipped plaster of the wall, she rubbed her haunches against the surface, scraping off more chips of plaster with her rough hide. All grew quiet again, and the light from the beer house began to dim as someone quenched lamps. Far away, in the palace district, a hound howled. At an even greater distance, out in the western desert, land of the dead, hyenas yipped and squealed.
The brittle wooden door of the beer tavern swung open again. She turned a yellow eye and saw, at last, the evil one. He was a small man, as befit his place among the living. A humble farmer with cracked, sunbaked skin, splayed, dirty feet, and three cracked teeth. This was the one who had offended, had transgressed in so callous a manner that she had heard the cry of injustice from below.
She sniffed the air again and caught the scent of a decayed ka, the soul of the evil one. The farmer came toward her. He would use the alley to cross this district of taverns and beer houses on his way to the skiff he’d left at the dock. As he marched unsteadily toward her, she felt the sudden burning rush of power spiced with anticipation. It boiled through her like rolling thunderclouds.
Slinking back into the deepest blackness, she crouched on her hind legs. Heavy, irregular footsteps announced the farmer’s approach. And over the sound of his tread she heard that for which she’d been listening all night. The steady, dull th-thud, th-thud, th-thud. The voice of the heart. It grew louder and louder, provoking her, taunting her, invading her skull and battering its low vault. Just as the noise threatened to shatter the bones of her head, she sprang out of the blackness and landed behind the farmer.
He turned and tottered, his mouth agape, his eyelids climbing to his brows. He had time for a rattling little screech before she bashed him in the head. The man flew backward and smacked into the hard earth. The moment he lay flat, she lunged, her forearm drawn back, claws spread wide. They cut through the air, impaled flesh, and sliced, severing the farmer’s throat. Drawing back, she shook her claw deftly to rid it of blood and stringy tissue while the farmer gurgled and stared up into a long, rigid maw studded with yellow fangs. She listened for that last escaping breath. Once it issued from the body, she stooped over the farmer once more—to do what had been decreed, what she existed to do, what was righteous, what this evil deserved.
KYSEN STRODE OUT of his bedchamber toward the hall of Golden House, the ancestral home of his family in Memphis. Dawn approached, and exhaustion nested in his body like a sated vulture. At the same time he had to endure the pounding mallet of dread that beat in time with his heart. He’d slept only a few hours after last night’s conversation with his father. Meren was one of the Eyes
and Ears of Pharaoh, confidential inquiry agent to the living god, the pharaoh Tutankhamun, but even one so favored as Meren couldn’t investigate the death of a queen without risking his life.
Kysen’s thoughts careened to a halt as he imagined the magnitude of the risk to his father. Nearly stumbling into the half-open doors to the hall, he placed his hand on the polished cedar and electrum and entered. The scene of splendor before him never failed to call up memories of his own childhood before Meren had adopted him, memories of bare walls, meager furnishings, poverty of spirit, and the devastation of joy.
Before him slender columns painted in green, blue, and gold rose above his head, while lamplight glinted off furniture trimmed in sheet gold or wrought in darkest ebony. He passed the master’s dais, on which stood his father’s chair with its elegant ebony legs ending in lion’s paws. Each carved paw had claws painted in gold. The solid sides and armrests were fitted with sheet gold engraved with hunting scenes.
The contrast between his memories and the hall faded as he approached his sisters, to be replaced by worry. He had searched for Meren without success earlier this morning. If his father wasn’t with Bener and Isis … His imagination crowded with thoughts of court intrigue, the enemies Meren had made in protecting and nurturing the boy pharaoh.
Cease. You’re weary and not thinking clearly. There’s nothing to fear at the moment. He hasn’t begun to study the death of Queen Nefertiti.
Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing Page 22