Lord Meren walked up to Userhet as if nothing had happened. Before he could utter a word, Userhet moved aside, pulled open the door, and bowed.
Meren gave him a look of surprise. "You knew I was coming?"
"No," Userhet replied. "But the divine Horus wishes to have speech with you. Go."
Userhet began pushing the garden door closed, forcing Meren to enter. Giving the door a final, satisfying bang, Userhet turned around and planted his staff in the earth. As he did so, he looked back at Djoser. Sometimes it did courtiers good to be shown how low their rank really was. As for Meren, he would have to rely upon the well-known discretion of the Eyes of Pharaoh.
Meren stopped just inside the garden, where royal bodyguards examined him as if he were a Libyan assassin. Too many strange things had been happening lately. He was still reeling from Djoser's unconscionable intrusion into his affairs. Now the overseer of the audience hall had taken a serious risk by allowing him in unannounced. Such a breach usually occurred only with pharaoh's permission, which meant something was wrong.
Meren felt as if a swarm of evil curses buzzed around his head. He had risked his life to search for Nefertiti's former cook, only to find himself at the mercy of her demented sister. He'd tried several times to reason with Satet, but the old woman kept sailing back and forth in time and never moored herself to the present for long. For now he'd left her in Bener's charge. Perhaps a few days in a normal household would do the woman's reason some good. He hoped so, for he still couldn't find the cook Hunero, or her husband, and now a new, more present danger threatened.
Who had killed Prince Mugallu? Who was murdering the citizens of Memphis? Evil was abroad in the city. Was it the twisted evil of men, or was it Ammut, risen from the netherworld? If Eater of Souls preyed upon the living, why had she come? Perhaps the gods were displeased with the people of the city, or perhaps some magician of great power had summoned her for purposes of his own.
The horror of Mugallu's death made that of Nefertiti seem placid. He hoped a living mortal was responsible for the killings; the alternative left him helpless unless he could find someone powerful enough to banish Eater of Souls back to the netherworld. And he knew of only one powerful enough to do that-pharaoh. Unfortunately, deep in his ka, he hid the fear that even the power of pharaoh couldn't help his people if the Devouress roamed the earth.
Meren heard someone call his name and looked up to find Rahotep striding down a path toward him. His legs were short in relation to his torso, so he took many more steps than Meren would to cover the same distance. Poor Rahotep had a difficult time looking princely. Without preliminaries, Rahotep launched into an inquiry.
"What are you doing here now? You'll ruin everything."
Immediately suspicious, Meren folded his arms over the transparent linen folds on his chest and said, "What am I going to ruin?"
"Go away," Rahotep said. "Pester the living god with your intrigues and plots later. He's with the Great Royal Wife and doesn't wish to be interrupted."
Knowing Rahotep, Meren grew alarmed. "By the wrath of Set, what have you done? No, not here."
He retreated from the bodyguards to the shelter of a kiosk. Rahotep had no choice but to join him. Feigning unconcern, the prince swaggered to the nearest chair and plopped himself into it. Meren suddenly swooped down at him, planted his hands on the chair arms, and gouged Rahotep with a stare.
"What have you done?" he repeated quietly.
Rahotep tried to retreat through the back of the chair, then covered up his agitation by taking the offensive.
"I've done what you should have. I've begun a reconciliation between pharaoh and the Great Royal Wife."
Meren's brows rammed together. "You? You have served as peacemaker? Her majesty tried to replace pharaoh with a Hittite prince, you fool."
Rahotep shoved Meren and got to his feet.
"Ha! That was a false letter, designed to be discovered and ruin the queen. Her majesty assures me of this." Rahotep glanced over his shoulder at the guards, then whispered, "From her own mouth I heard these truths. She is the daughter of a living god and does not lie."
"She's the daughter of a heretic."
"But a living god nonetheless. And she was wise to consult me. I managed to persuade pharaoh to listen to her explanation of that letter, and now he understands that someone wishes her majesty ill and seeks to divide her from her beloved king."
"Just who is this mysterious enemy of the queen?" Meren asked.
"She hasn't said."
"Not even to her benefactor, the great Prince Rahotep, true of voice?"
"Don't mock me," Rahotep said, his voice rising.
Meren couldn't help a sigh of impatience. "I haven't time for your self-important games. Have you considered that her majesty has always condemned pharaoh for returning to the old gods? Why would she suddenly change and reconcile with the one she condemns for destroying her father's grand vision? Think upon these questions, Rahotep, and while you're doing that, you might want to ask yourself whose name the queen will whisper to pharaoh when he asks her who sent that letter to the king of the Hittites."
Rahotep seemed to have lost the strength to shout. He swallowed, then found a water bottle hanging from one of the kiosk support poles and drank from it. He let water trickle over his face. Wiping his cheeks, he licked his lips and cleared his throat. Whatever he said was spoken so softly that Meren couldn't hear it.
"Speak up, Rahotep. No one can hear."
"I said-that is-well, you know how good I am at charming women."
"No, I don't."
"No? Odd. Everyone else does."
"What are you talking about, Rahotep?"
"I-um-I might have given pharaoh a few hints about how to manage the queen."
Meren lost what was left of his patience. Reshep, Mugallu, Djoser, and now Rahotep. Gods.
"Rahotep, you have the wits of a maggot. Get out of my sight."
"I did nothing wrong!"
"Your overweening pride has caused you to take liberties with pharaoh and insert yourself into the intimacies of the divine union upon which the kingdom depends. Leave, Rahotep, before my control gives way and I beat you like a grain tax cheater."
Meren wasted no time making sure Rahotep did as he was told. He stalked down a path that took him into a grove of trees near the great lake at the center of the garden. Once beneath the branches of the grove, he turned and quickly skirted the tree line until he came to the point nearest the lake.
As he caught sight of the water, he realized that the king and queen were sitting in a gilded and painted pleasure boat floating on the water. Their heads were close together, and they were engaged in intimate conversation. Between the lake and Meren stood the Nubian Karoya, his back to the royal couple, a scowl disfiguring his features. Karoya didn't like Ankhesenamun.
The bodyguard saw Meren as soon as he leaned out from behind a tree trunk. The Nubian never smiled, but his scowl did fade until he looked almost pleased. Meren was distracted from this unusual sight by movement in the boat. Ankhesenamun had gotten on her knees beside the king. She took his hand, which elicited a started look from Tutankhamun. Then she began to lean toward him.
Pharaoh, who was still only a youth despite his air of worldly responsibility, retreated. He bent backward as the queen continued to move toward him until his shoulder pressed against the curved stern of the pleasure boat. Unable to escape, Tutankhamun thrust out a hand to stop the queen. Ankhesenamun caught his wrist, then grabbed the other and pushed herself against the king.
Eyes wide, Tutankhamun turned his head aside. The queen smiled and breathed words into his ear before drawing a wet line on the skin of his neck with her tongue. The king gasped and jumped, which caused Ankhesenamun to lose her balance. She landed on her bottom, and her weight rocked the boat. Meren expected her to shriek at the king for causing her to fall; the queen familiar to him had little tolerance for accidents, mistakes, or the uncertainty of youth. But she didn't yell; she la
ughed, gently, with loving humor.
Evidently his wife's drastic change of nature was too much for pharaoh. He grabbed the oars and rowed the boat to the edge of the lake, talking rapidly the whole time. In moments Tutankhamun had helped his queen out of the boat, summoned Karoya, and had Ankhesenamun escorted out of the garden. Meren faded back into the trees.
Despite his serious nature and maturity, the king would find it difficult to face anyone so soon after that incident. Ankhesenamun always made Tutankhamun feel callow and gawky. On purpose, Meren had always believed. Having to deal with the news of the Hittite emissary's death was going to be hard enough without the king realizing there had been a witness to the way the queen had routed him. Meren waited awhile in the trees and fell to wondering if any man could be responsible for what had been done to Mugallu. After a while, he thrust such naive thoughts out of his heart and walked openly out of the grove and into the king's presence.
Chapter 10
The residence of the Hittite emissary boiled with activity, like a disturbed ant mound. Servants stood in corners and argued with each other. Guards marched around the privacy walls and hustled loiterers from the vicinity. Kysen arrived with the watchman Min and a squad of charioteers, to be told by the porter at the door of the death of a female slave and the disappearance of Prince Mugallu.
The chief of the prince's military escort, General Labarnas, wasn't in the house. With his own men behind him, Kysen strode across the kitchen yard to an area beside a storage building. There the general stood over the body of the dead slave, arguing with his men.
The argument stopped abruptly when Kysen appeared. Labarnas, a man with an imposing military reputation and the usual ill-concealed Hittite arrogance, turned on Kysen and shouted.
"What have you done to Prince Mugallu!"
Kysen paused in midstride, then closed the gap between himself and the general before replying smoothly. "I know that his highness is missing, and I have brought news, general."
They didn't know. He and Meren had assumed word from the streets would have reached the Hittites. He'd expected outrage, the usual Hittite accusations and demands, but these men looked like they expected to engage in battle at once. The general and his officers were dressed in bronze armor and boar's-tusk helmets. They bristled with swords, daggers, and spears.
"You Egyptians!" Labarnas snarled. "You beguile with your polished manners and sweet words, lure a warrior into taking his ease, and then, like cowards, strike when a man is most vulnerable. Prince Mugallu is dead, isn't he? Don't bother to spew whatever tale of accident and woe you've created." Behind him, the Hittite officers muttered to each other and gripped their straight swords.
"General, I come with no tale."
Labarnas stalked close to Kysen, causing the charioteers to close ranks. Labarnas ignored them and stuck his face close to Kysen's.
"Very well, son of the Eyes of Pharaoh. Tell me what has happened so that I can return to Hattusha and repeat the lies to my king."
He should never have come without a royal minister and a larger escort. Kysen looked down at Labarnas. Odd how a Hittite could seem as big as a colossus when he was at least three finger-widths less in height. It must be the relentlessly hostile temperament.
Kysen took a moment to marshal his wits. He drew in long breaths and released them without drawing attention to what he was doing. As he breathed, he called up scenes of Meren in the royal throne room sparring with a Babylonian prince, of his father facing down the poisonous old scorpion of a high priest of Amun in his own temple. He wasn't the son of a common artisan; he was the son of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh.
When he felt the muscles in his face loosen, the tension fade from behind his eyes, Kysen gave Labarnas a stare he hoped was as regal as his father's. Labarnas had been embellishing on his opinion of Egyptian corruption and treachery, but he sputtered into silence as Kysen refused to respond and assumed an expression of haughty distaste. To Kysen's amusement, Labarnas reddened and spat out an order.
"Speak, Egyptian."
"I have the unhappy responsibility to tell you, general, that Prince Mugallu has been killed."
"I knew it!"
Kysen went on as if the Hittite hadn't spoken. "Apparently he was pursued by some evildoer through the streets, cornered, and attacked."
"Where is the killer?" Labarnas growled.
"We don't know, but the Eyes of Pharaoh seeks the criminal as we speak. No evil deed escapes the inquiry of the Eyes and Ears of the King. The city will be closed off: the docks sealed, the desert routes patrolled. No one can escape."
"Not even me," Labarnas said.
"An unfortunate consequence of my father's vigilance in searching for your prince's murderer, nothing else."
The general pounded the bronze plate strapped to his chest. "I won't be slaughtered like a sacrificial goat."
"Had pharaoh decided to kill you," Kysen said gently, "you'd be dead, and your body cavities filling with desert sand, general. You would not be standing here shrieking insults at me like a hysterical tavern woman."
Labarnas blinked at him, then snorted to cover the grudging respect that came into his eyes.
"General, there is more."
Respect vanished in the face of wary distrust. "What more?"
Feeling like he was trying to converse with a bull whose bowels were blocked, Kysen described where Mugallu had died, the white feather. "He died of… of a wound to the chest."
When he finished, every Hittite was still and silent, even the general. Kysen forced himself to wait, to remain undisturbed beneath the hostile stares, to observe with calm the straining of muscles that told of the Hittite desire to attack and kill. Finally Labarnas spoke.
"Demon or man, the prince was slain by Egyptian device. The wrath of the great king of the Hittites will thunder across the sky, shake the foundations of pharaoh's palace, making him cower beneath his throne. It will rend the ears of his subjects and make them fall to their knees to beg for my king's mercy."
"In Egypt we have an ancient teaching that says a wise leader holds his judgment until all is known. If he doesn't, he risks appearing careless, partial-or worse, a fool-if his decision turns out to be wrong."
"We Hittites have our own saying, boy. It is better to strike first than to end up with your head impaled on a spear." Labarnas stepped back and examined Kysen from head to sandal. "This Eater of Souls, this tale of a demon rampant among the living who happened to find my prince instead of another worthless citizen, it's elaborate, full of misdirection. I should have expected a stratagem like this from Egypt. The world knows that behind all this, this magnificence-the gold-covered temples, the perfumed linen, those elegant Egyptian manners-lies a nature full of artifice, craft, and guile."
Kysen inclined his head to Labarnas. "I didn't know Hittites were so prone to compliments."
"You haven't distracted me, Egyptian. You were saying this so-called demon stabbed Prince Mugallu."
"We don't think the weapon was a dagger or sword," Kysen said.
"What, then?"
"Perhaps an ax." Kysen expected Labarnas to erupt into fury. Instead, the Hittite exchanged looks with his officers and gave Kysen a nod of satisfaction.
"Your tale makes more sense now."
"It does?" Kysen said faintly.
"It would take a war ax to subdue even an unarmed Hittite warrior."
What could he say to such reasoning? With so few men in his party, he wasn't foolish enough to describe Mugallu's death in greater detail. He glanced at the body in the linen sheet.
"The evil one killed this slave too? Then the killer was here."
"We found her in the garden," said one of the Hittite officers. "She was stabbed in the back."
"General," Kysen said. "I must see the place in the garden where she was found."
"You should be hunting the killer, not wasting time in gardens."
"I am hunting the killer," Kysen replied. "I won't need long, and I should be gone by
the time the prince's body arrives."
"Get on with your hunt, then, Egyptian. I give you two days to bring me the killer. After that, I go back to the great king to tell him what pharaoh has done to his favorite and emissary."
Not far from the lake in the royal garden rose an ancient fig tree. It had grown so tall it could be seen over the garden walls. Broad, deeply lobed leaves furnished abundant shade. Meren favored this tree above all others in the royal garden because its thick, rough leaves seemed to block out more heat. His tale of the death of Prince Mugallu had just come to an end. He was kneeling beside the seated king. As Meren fell silent, Tutankhamun jumped to his feet to pace over the woven Syrian mat that had been laid under the tree.
Tutankhamun stared across the hand-watered foreign blooms that formed long red-and-blue borders around the lake. He appeared to be fascinated by the blue sheet of water and the birds that floated on it. A line of green-winged teal paddled toward a lily pad in the water, each uttering that low, continuous quack that seemed to be their fanfare. Several pairs of swans floated in the opposite direction, scattering a flotilla of pintails.
When the king abruptly turned back to Meren, his skin had lost the flush the Great Royal Wife had provoked. Meren had seen that look of bewildered fear when he'd broken the news of the desecration of Akhenaten's tomb, and when Tutankhamun had learned of the treachery of one of his dearest friends. Few others had witnessed the transformation of pharaoh into a frightened youth. He heard the king's ragged whisper.
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