Drinker Of Blood lm-5

by Lynda S. Robinson

  "Of course." Did the priests think she'd been asleep since becoming queen?

  "Lo, the farmers of the god, the vintners and herdsmen, the scribes and gardeners, cooks, painters, and doorkeepers, they suffer from hunger, for we can give them no bread or beer."

  "Shedamun, I'm well aware of the suffering of pharaoh's people. You'd better come to the point, for we cannot risk a long meeting."

  "Yes, majesty. The high priest begs thy mercy. He pleads with thee to intercede with pharaoh on behalf of Amun."

  Nefertiti rose and nodded at her father, who helped the old man to his feet.

  "I understand your message," she said. Walking away from the priest, Nefertiti hesitated, but she'd already endangered her life and her father's. Not to go forward was to have risked all for naught. She turned and gave Shedamun a regal inclination of her head. "Thus says Nefertiti, great royal wife, mistress of the Two Lands, to the high priest of Amun. Indeed, the land of Egypt suffers. Chaos reigns, and my majesty believes that order must be restored. Maat-the truth, harmony and order of existence-must govern Egypt again."

  Nefertiti paused as she noticed that old Shedamun had tears in his eyes and was bowing repeatedly in gratitude.

  "The path to… restoration is fraught with peril," she said gently. "My majesty will labor to clear the path, but this work will take time. Meanwhile, converse between us must be as secret as the passage through the netherworld. Lord Ay will make the arrangements. It is my command that you send an unknown man to Horizon of the Aten to act as messenger. Thus says the great royal wife."

  "Thy wisdom and mercy are unequaled, O mistress of the Two Lands," Shedamun said. He pressed the hem of his robe to his damp eyes. "It's not easy to be brought so low, especially for the high priest."

  "Blessings of the gods be with you," Nefertiti said.

  She inclined her head. At her gesture, Ay took the priest's arm and urged him to the cabin door. With each step Shedamun turned his head this way and that, a frightened sparrow in search of hidden falcons.

  While awaiting her father's return, she paced. When the messenger arrived, she would send him to Thutmose the sculptor and keep him out of pharaoh's sight.

  Nefertiti wandered back to her chair with her thoughts flying. The high priest of Amun, once the most powerful man in the kingdom next to pharaoh, begged her help in restoring Amun. She recalled Shedamun's list of the god's holdings. The temple of Amun had been richer by far than any other. Amun's dependents were countless. His slaves numbered several hundred thousand. Once, his gold would have filled the pyramid of Khufu.

  "Perhaps the temple was a little too rich," she murmured. Tracing the carving on the chair back, she continued talking to herself in a whisper. "All that wealth. Does the mighty Amun really want that much? I know the high priest does; is that the same thing?" She pounded the chair with her fist. "Restoration must bring back the favor of the gods."

  Sinking into the chair again, Nefertiti rested her chin in her palm and pondered the danger of questioning the gifts her husband's ancestors gave to Amun. For many years they'd endowed the god with riches beyond any other deity. After all, it had been Amun who gave victory to Pharaoh Ahmose when he defeated the Hyksos invaders. It had been Amun who gave Thutmose the Conqueror the power to create the empire.

  "When pharaoh withdrew his devotion, Amun took back the empire and opened the way for invaders again. Amun visits his wrath upon Egypt. And upon me."

  On the floor of the cabin a beetle, sacred creature of the god Khepera, waddled across the mat. It was said that a great beetle rolled the sun before it from east to west. Akhenaten called such beliefs nonsense. The sun was the sun, the Aten, the fount of all life. The Aten needed no help getting across the sky. "Little scarab," she said to the insect, "will you ask Amun if he will accept me as his servant again? I'm not sure I'm worthy to join the company of Ahmose and the Conqueror."

  At the sound of the door creaking open she looked up. Ay came toward her.

  "Shedamun is gone."

  "You know what will happen should Akhenaten find out we've but spoken to a priest of Amun," Nefertiti said.

  "Daughter, we've discussed the peril already."

  "I could have done this without you, and you wouldn't have been involved in the danger."

  Ay came to stand with the chair between them. "I've been speaking to Shedamun for months."

  A sudden chill overtook Nefertiti, and she shook her head. "You've seen what he does to traitors."

  "I've seen what his heresy has done to you, to your children, to Egypt." Taking her arm, Ay led her onto the deck.

  The Nile was as black as the sky, and the only sound heard above the water hitting the side of the yacht was the cry of a heron. The only light came from a lamp near the gangplank. Ay's attendants, soldiers all, stood guard with Sebek.

  As she listened to the heron, Nefertiti's heart jumped in her chest. For almost the space of an hour, she had forgotten her babes. She closed her eyes, willing tears away. Pain wrapped its cloak of torment around her once more, and the course ahead seemed beyond her strength. Yet for a brief time her pain had receded; she hadn't believed it possible. Her father had been right. She had work to do if her remaining children were to live in the favor of the gods. And she must think of young Smenkhare and Tutankhaten now that Tiye was gone.

  Smenkhare was heir, was he not? The youth had grown up torn between his mother's traditional beliefs and Akhenaten's heresy, and the older he grew, the more restive he became. Yet Smenkhare was wise beyond his years and might prove an ally. She would talk to her father about seeking the boy's collaboration, but she was reluctant to risk his life. Egypt needed an heir, for the only other male of Amunhotep's body was the child Tutankhaten.

  Someone must try to put things right, someone expendable. Nefertiti smiled grimly. Who better to risk the wrath of pharaoh than a grieving woman who held her life cheap? For she was willing to conduct her treasons in the very house of the king. The gods might protect her if she labored to restore their temples. And if Akhenaten discovered her betrayal before she had convinced him to allow the restoration?

  She didn't think she'd mind dying. It was the path to her lost children.

  Chapter 20

  Memphis, reign of Tutankhamun

  Meren's eyes flew open as he thrust himself upright, his hand already grasping a dagger. Spinning from his sitting position, he dropped to the floor, crouched, and slashed at the air with the blade. When it hit nothing, he waited, his gaze darting from shadow to shadow. The only sound he heard was his own hard breathing.

  Finally he realized where he was-the house of the pirate Othrys. Was it morning already? Feeling foolish, he rose, his shoulders sagging with weariness. Last night he'd barely escaped the men who hunted him. They'd followed the guard only a little way before two of them retraced their steps and ran into him.

  It had been a bloody fight. If his attackers had been royal troops, he might not have survived. But they hadn't been, and he'd killed them instead and made his way back here. Neither his guard nor Naram-Sin had returned, and Othrys had sent men looking for them. Meren had fallen asleep waiting for them, wondering who had tried to kill him and how his attackers had known where to find him.

  Sleep would be impossible now that his heart was ramming itself against his ribs, so Meren washed and dressed. As he finished, Othrys slammed his chamber door open without asking permission to enter.

  Meren scowled at him. "Did you find them?"

  "Who? Oh, Naram-Sin. Don't be deceived by his manner. He's a trained warrior. He came back shortly after I sent men looking for him. The guard is dead."

  Sighing, Meren shoved the Greek wig on his head and said, "I am sorry."

  "I'll find out who did this, but that's not why I'm here." The pirate stepped into the doorway and said, "Come."

  An old woman followed him into the room. Her head hung between her shoulders because her back was bent with age. This crooked posture caused her ash-white hair to swing for
ward, covering her face. She wore a stained, wrinkled long-sleeved garment that hung about her thin body. The old woman carried a basket of wet laundry in her arms and shuffled with tiny steps. Meren stared at her in surprise, for at home no laundress would ever have business with him. She minced to a halt before him, and Meren surveyed her from gray head to small feet. Small feet. He knew those little feet, and he was certain they didn't belong to an aged laundress.

  "Bener!"

  His daughter's head snapped up, and he beheld a grinning, self-satisfied young woman. She dropped her basket and flung herself into his arms. Meren forgot his astonishment and squeezed her hard, burying his face in the rough wig that surrounded her head.

  "Father," she whispered. "I've been so frightened for you."

  Her voice jolted him from the luxury of relief. He straightened and held her at arms' length.

  "Damnation. What are you doing here?"

  "Abu got word to us that you were here. He sent a message through my laundress, as I was using her to get messages to Cousin Ebana."

  Meren was staring at his daughter in disbelief. "The laundress would be questioned and her basket searched."

  "She was questioned, but they didn't search. Not this particular kind of laundry."

  Meren glanced into the basket at the clean, wet bundles. His eyes widened as he recognized them, and he looked at Bener with renewed astonishment. Then he scowled again.

  "You must have avoided Kysen as well as the king's spies, for I know he wouldn't allow you to come here."

  "Father, there's no time for arguing. I've important news."

  Othrys came to stand beside Bener. "She's right. Listen to her, and scold later."

  Wavering between fear for Bener and the knowledge that she and the pirate were right, Meren nodded. Bener smiled with pride as she recounted her successful ruse for passing messages and told what she, Kysen, and Ebana had discovered.

  "So Ebana sought help from an old friend in the office of records and tithes," she said. "This man owes Cousin Ebana many favors, and he has arranged to meet both Turi and Mose."

  "How?" Meren asked.

  "Ebana's friend is overseer of records and royal gifts, and he has sent word to each separately that there has arisen a question of title to the lands awarded them by pharaoh. Each thinks a rival claimant has appeared and that the overseer wishes to speak with him and take his part in the dispute."

  "And the meetings?"

  "Ebana instructed his friend to tell both Turi and Mose to meet him on his way home, as his days are full of tasks at the moment. They are to meet at that old shrine behind the grain magazines of Ptah. You remember the place."

  "Yes. It hasn't been used since the days of Amunhotep the Magnificent's grandfather, and it was old then. It's still standing?"

  Bener nodded. "Each man thinks the overseer is meeting him to get an account of his case to present to the vizier's judges. Kysen and Ebana will be waiting instead, and they want you to be there to question the Nubians."

  "I see," Meren said. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "How will Kysen leave the house undetected?"

  Bener was grinning again. "I've offered him the use of my disguise."

  It was Meren's turn to smile. He could imagine Kysen's disgust at having to dress like a woman, much less an aged laundress.

  "Father," Bener said. "Cousin Ebana says you'll be able to discover the guilty one once you confront him, but I don't see how he can be so confident."

  Meren gazed over his daughter's head at nothing, his thoughts traveling years into the past. "I'd forgotten how much my cousin and I think alike."

  "But how will you discover the criminal?" Bener repeated.

  "The less you know, the better." Meren remembered to be irate with his daughter. "And you're never to come here again. Stay home, where you belong. No following Kysen to the shrine this evening."

  "Fear not, Father. Kysen and I made a bargain. He let me come to you, and I promised not to go to the shrine."

  "Good," Meren snapped.

  Othrys clapped his hands together. "Excellent. I'll be rid of you soon, and all will be well."

  Meren glared a warning at the pirate, who caught his look and changed the subject.

  "Now, lady, before you set off on your long journey across the city, allow me to give you a morning meal. Food, drink, and time with you will improve your father's foul humor."

  One of the hardest things Meren had ever done was allow his daughter to shuffle out of Othrys's house alone with that basket of laundry. He worried about her the rest of the day. Even struggling with the mystery of Nefertiti's death proved but a temporary distraction. So far, he'd managed to knock a few chips from the stone barrier that encased his memories of that time and protected him from the pain they evoked. Keeping out of sight in his chamber until dusk, Meren took out the papyrus upon which he was writing his recollections of Horizon of the Aten.

  Nefertiti had taken ill about a week before she died and had gradually grown worse, as had her younger children a few years earlier. Everyone had taken her symptoms for those of a plague that appeared periodically in Egypt, usually from the vassal lands of the Asiatics or from Nubia. Ten days of illness, gradual worsening, then death.

  Now that he knew the signs of poisoning by the tekau plant from his physician, he could see that the queen had exhibited them shortly before he'd arrived at the palace with foreign correspondence Ay wanted her to see. Upon entering the small audience hall where Nefertiti usually received him, he'd been told that the queen had taken ill with a fever. Later she had received him despite her suffering; the ague had made her skin hot to the touch, red, and dry. So great had the fever been that she'd become disoriented during the interview.

  Upon reflection all these years later, Meren realized that it had been that first attack of fever that had misled the physicians and everyone else. A virulent fever was the first sign of the plague. The queen's disorientation, her eventual delusions and blurred vision, had been attributed to the fever, as had that rapid and loud voice of the heart. Although the physicians had noted that the queen had not broken out in red marks-another sign of the plague-before she died, the significance of this had been lost in the shock of her death and the grief that had followed.

  Indeed, even in the intrigue-ridden imperial court, where poison was always an unspoken menace, no suspicions had been voiced. The queen's illness had extended over a long period of time. Meren, and certainly everyone else at court, was accustomed to suspecting poison when a death was sudden and the cause unknown.

  In the days that followed Nefertiti's first attack of fever, Meren had seldom left the queen's apartments except to go to Ay with reports of his daughter's health. As she worsened, he sent for his mentor, and after that, Ay rarely left her. Meren remained as well, but he kept himself hidden when pharaoh appeared to grieve over his wife and exhort her to rally. In the end, not even pharaoh's pleading helped. Nefertiti suffered fits in which her body contorted violently. Then she became senseless, and on the tenth day after her illness, she died.

  Meren knew who had put the tekau poison in the queen's drink and food-her favorite cook, at the instigation of her steward. But the steward had been an obsequious place seeker and a coward. He would never have acted alone. If only he could remember more, especially of the daily routine at the palace. Then he might find some sign of the queen's killer.

  Until he could recall more, he would continue to review the lists of those who had been Nefertiti's enemies. The more he explored the events surrounding the queen's death, the longer the list of enemies grew. Of these, the greatest had been the Hittite emissary to the royal court, Yazilikaya. In the last years of Akhenaten's reign the Hittite had found his attempts to allay pharaoh's suspicions and keep him inactive against his king's maneuvers thwarted by the queen.

  And at the last, when the kingdom and Akhenaten had both deteriorated almost beyond recall, pharaoh turned to Nefertiti for help in a way that had shocked all
of Egypt. As with many events deemed great transgressions against the right order of things, the whole kingdom now ignored them. It was as if these events had never happened. Akhenaten's actions during the last few years of his reign were never mentioned. Even Tutankhamun dared not speak of what his brother had done. And, unwilling though Nefertiti had been, her acceptance of Akhenaten's plans had plunged her into the swirling void of chaos that pharaoh created.

  All public record of it had been expunged; such a thing had never been done, at least, not within the memory of anyone living. It was unnatural. There weren't words for it, and the gods had rebelled against it. Perhaps their displeasure at the transgression had been the real cause of Nefertiti's death, and Akhenaten's.

  Meren's rush pen faltered as he tried to write the next line. The habit of secrecy was too great. He couldn't yet bring himself to write of Akhenaten's last offense. Laying down the pen, he folded the papyri and stuck them beneath his tunic so that they were held in place by his belt. He couldn't leave the record in Othrys's house. His only alternative was to carry it with him, and it was time to meet Kysen and Ebana.

  Othrys and several of his men accompanied Meren as far as the magazines of Ptah. The pirate vowed that Meren would be less noticeable walking in their midst than he would be alone. In late afternoon, in the hour or two before darkness, the streets of Memphis teemed with pedestrians, subjects of pharaoh from every station in life returning home from a day's labor.

  Temples emptied of priests, students, artisans, and supplicants. Government offices disgorged their workers-scribes of accounts, tithes, granaries, storehouses, and treasures. Port officials went home, as did maids, women market vendors, gold-workers, overseers of cattle, outline draftsmen, carpenters, and fishermen. Meren kept his head down and made way for the chariots of grand noblemen returning from court or from the temple of Ptah. Like Othrys and other more ordinary citizens, he stumbled over boy students who hurtled through the crowds with their scribes kits dangling from grubby fingers.