Tcha had never been presentable. He was as emaciated as a body fresh from the embalming table, short because of bowed legs, and scarred from beatings that were the rewards of unsuccessful thievery. Although no more than six years older than Kysen, he looked older than Meren. His skin had the cracked, baked appearance of a field at the end of the season of Drought, and three of his upper front teeth were missing. Their absence caused a lisp in his speech. Brittle, dried-reed hair formed greasy plates that issued from the crown of his head and snaked over his ears and forehead and down to the back of his dirty neck.
Indeed, Tcha had always been painful to the eye and to the nose, but he’d never emitted anything resembling a pleasant odor. And he’d never covered himself in more magical amulets than a pharaoh’s corpse. Nor had he painted his grimy body with expensive honey. Yet here Tcha stood, his arms, legs, neck, waist, and head encircled with old string, twine, and narrow papyrus rope from which he’d strung countless amulets. And he was evidently reluctant to speak of his strange appearance.
“Tcha, I asked you what you’d done to yourself.”
“Precautions, O great master,” Tcha muttered. He stuck his arms behind his back as if this action would hide all the amulets.
“Precautions against what?” Kysen asked.
Tcha’s eyes darted from shadow to shadow, corner to corner. “Against evil, lord. There be great evil abroad.”
“Blessed Toth and Anubis,” Kysen said with an increasing grin. “You’ve thought of a way to protect yourself against the city police. That spell you screeched at me was for use against crocodiles, you know, not men. And if you wear all those amulets while skulking around some artisan’s house, you’ll clatter like a sistrum.”
“The master is wise,” Tcha mumbled as he snaked a glance up and down the Street of Foreigners.
“In truth, Tcha, many of those amulets are only for funerary use. Look at this. You have Djed-columns, the girdle amulet, the four sons of Horus, the amulet of the headrest, heart scarabs. Are you planning a journey through the netherworld soon? Don’t tell me you plan to rob Osiris and the other gods.”
Tcha started, then laughed with a sound like a throw stick scraping polished granite. “Thy jest is most humorous, great master.”
“You only need a few amulets to protect yourself from harm,” Kysen said as he tried not to smile. He noted that most of the amulets were cheap faience, but a few were of more expensive but damaged stones. He saw a green jasper turtle, a double lion in carnelian, and an amethyst falcon. “I recommend wearing one Eye of Horus, one scarab, and perhaps the ankh, sign of life, so that you will continue in this existence. But why in the name of Amun have you coated yourself with honey?”
“Mistress Ese give it to me. She says that which is sweet to the living is foul to demons.”
Shaking his head, Kysen went to the tavern door and opened it. “True, but if you insist on creeping about your business in that condition, you’ll end up fodder for crocodiles no matter how many spells you chant. Keep your distance from me, Tcha. The next time I see you, you will have bathed in the Nile. At least five times. With soap paste.”
He left Tcha and entered the Divine Lotus, still shaking his head. He forgot the thief with his first glimpse of the tavern interior. He’d heard that Ese had expanded the place and refurbished it. She was known for changing the tavern’s appearance so that her patrons were continually surprised and delighted. But this time Ese had surpassed her own reputation for the exotic. She had turned the Divine Lotus into a Mycenaean Greek villa.
Kysen stepped into a megaron, a Greek great hall nearly the size of the one in his own home. The walls shone with brightly painted frescoes of women in Mycenaean dresses with tight bodices that bared the breasts, flounced skirts, and gold rosette earrings. Some of their hair was pulled up and knotted at the crown, while a ribbon bound a long coil of it that hung down the back. Designs of running spirals, zigzags, and stripes bordered the frescoes and the ceiling.
A circular central hearth provided heat, for even in Egypt the nights often brought a chill. Woven cushions and mats were strewn in groups around the hall to form private clusters lit by alabaster lamps. The place was crowded, as usual, but Kysen noticed that tonight most of the customers were foreign, Greeks from Crete and Cyprus, Libyans, several nomads. He saw traders from the great Mycenaean city-states—Argos, Corinth, Pylos, and the city of Mycenae itself. Others he knew to be nobles and merchants from the islands of Rhodes, Melos, and Samos. One group around a lord from Rhodes included captains of ships from Byblos and Tyre, and even a Hittite overland trader.
Those who preferred to conduct their pleasures less visibly sat against the walls or leaned on one of the four tall columns that surrounded the hearth and supported a clerestory that allowed light in during the day and provided an escape for smoke. In corners and places away from the hearth lurked the less grand denizens of the Divine Lotus. The door behind Kysen opened a crack. Tcha slipped inside and scuttled around the perimeter of the hall to join a hive of charlatans, villains, and corrupt minions of corrupt officials. It was as if a ring of corrosion surrounded a central core of bronze ridden with its own, less visible defilement.
Kysen threaded his way through the groups of customers. He paused to acknowledge a greeting from a trader who regularly bribed dock officials to let him ship in unrecorded luxuries that he sold to Egyptian clients. Returning the bow of a dealer in perfumes who had fled Corinth after sleeping with a nobleman’s wife, Kysen took a stool beside the hearth and surveyed the megaron.
Strange that the place was so devoid of Egyptians this evening. He saw a few in the rooms beyond, even a particularly bloodthirsty Nubian prince playing a game of senet with one of the tavern women. The prince led royal expeditions deep into the southern wild lands in search of leopards, elephants, and rare spice trees. At least once during a regnal year his expeditions were attacked and robbed by savage tribes who seemed to know their exact route.
Kysen paused in his survey of the patrons. He leaned to one side in order to get a better view of a dark corner of the megaron. There, among the less accomplished villains, sat Prince Rahotep. Wearing a plain kilt and no jewels, he was slumped on a stool against a wall, alone, his hands fastened around a drinking cup big enough for three men. As Kysen watched, the prince hiccuped, bent over his cup, and sucked wine like a cow at a drinking trough. Then he came up for air and cradled the cup against his chest, all the while wearing an expression more suited to an embalming shed than a tavern.
Rahotep had always been given to bouts of sorrowful drinking. Kysen had noted that lately the episodes were growing more frequent. He and most of Rahotep’s friends refused to go with the prince on these outings. Inevitably, when he’d had a cup or two of wine, Rahotep would grow quarrelsome. After his fourth or fifth cup, he stopped fighting, stopped talking altogether. He sank into a private world of anguish from which he wouldn’t surface for the rest of the night. After hours of black silence, Rahotep vanished. Then in a day or two he’d reappear wearing his old brash manner, oblivious of the irritation of his friends. Kysen turned his back on Rahotep, who was deep in his misery and wouldn’t notice him.
A serving boy brought Kysen beer in a double-handled chalice of the hard, eggshell-thin pottery for which the Greeks were famous. Ese had gone to much expense to acquire the finest of such vessels for the use of her guests. Kysen was admiring the tall stem of the chalice that flared out into a graceful bowl when he noticed that the people around him had stopped talking and were staring over his head.
He turned to face a curtain of blue, white, and green flounces. Lifting his gaze, he saw hips bound by a tight skirt. He continued his visual climb and found two small mountains of flesh surrounded by a tight bodice. Above these he encountered a rounded face framed by tight Greek curls of dark brown tinted with red.
Two dark eyes met his. They were eyes that could convey any emotion their owner wished. Most often, in the great hall, they held graciousness combin
ed with a hint of the exotic and promises of the pleasures of Hathor. Kysen had seen them as they truly were—flat, with a serpent’s lack of pity, glittering with cold resentment, alight with the amusement of a cat playing with a wounded field mouse.
She spoke in a low, rough voice that sent hot spears of reaction through her male guests and caused her tavern women to fall silent. “May Hathor bless you, Nen.”
“She has blessed me beyond wishing by your presence, Mistress Ese.”
“That Syrian wine you asked for has arrived,” she said.
He’d ordered no wine, but Ese had already left, giving him no choice but to follow her. The din of conversation, gaming, and drinking rose around him once more as he stood and went after the woman. Ese walked out of the hall to an inner stairwell. Instead of ascending the stairs, she opened a door and vanished. Kysen hurried after her. As he pulled the door closed, he glimpsed a shadow sailing into the stairwell. By its shape and the odor of honey and decay, he knew it was Tcha.
Shutting the door, Kysen found himself in an open garden court with a central reflection pool. Ese was reclining on a couch beneath an awning at the opposite end of the pool. A Syrian slave waved a white ostrich feather fan over her mistress. When Kysen approached, Ese pointed to a cushion on the ground beside the couch. He lowered himself to it and accepted wine in a vessel of unusual design, a bronze drinking cup shaped like the head of a gazelle. The modeled nose was made to be set in a stand.
“You have become Mycenaean,” Kysen said.
“For the moment.”
“After this, what will you become?”
Ese lifted her face to the silver moonlight. “Babylonian, perhaps.” She glanced down at him. “Perhaps a Hittite.”
“Not a wise choice.”
“I choose what provokes interest and what tantalizes.”
Ese lay unmoving, her stillness the watchful ease of a lioness as she contemplates the hunt. Kysen had yet to become accustomed to the woman’s outward calm and inner vigilance.
Kysen stared up at her, trying not to fall victim to perfection of skin, softly curling hair, and an indomitable will. “You’ll choose to become a Hittite.”
“I will?”
“It is the most daring of choices.”
A flash of contempt showed in the woman’s eyes. “I’ll tell you something. Men are stupid to waste gold on places like my Divine Lotus.”
“All of us?”
“Shall we compare? Are women’s thoughts dominated by their genitals?”
“We farm and hunt and build great temples,” Kysen protested.
Ese gave him an unimpressed glance. “Only after your urges have been assuaged. Without relief, none of you could build a straw hut.” She burst out with abrupt violence, “You disgust me.”
She wasn’t looking at him; she was looking at the past. The violence of her speech had been provoked by whatever invisible scene floated before her eyes.
“I regret that misfortune has been your lot in your dealings with men.”
Ese dragged her gaze back to him and nodded, as if he’d confirmed some judgment she had already formed. “I have heard a rumor about you.”
“Oh.” He was suddenly wary. There shouldn’t be any rumors about Nen.
“One of my women said a vegetable seller at the docks told her you chased down a thief who tried to steal her best melon.”
“Is that all?”
Leaning over a table set beside her couch, Ese dipped her fingers in an alabaster pot filled with perfumed salve and began rubbing it on her throat. Kysen followed the path of her fingers as they swept down and across a smooth curve. Then he pressed his lips together and jerked his gaze back to his wine. He was angry with himself for falling victim to Ese’s manipulations. He knew she never did or said anything out of innocence. He looked up at her again and found her watching him with a faint smile of derision. He felt like a foolish, tumescent boy.
“You may not be as stupid as most,” she said. “You’re a selfish conniver, a trader in information to the one who can pay the most, yet you prevented an old woman from being robbed of a simple melon. Do you know how much one melon means to such as she?”
Kysen scowled at her. “The wretch pushed the aged one into the dirt. I hate men who use their fists on—”
“Yes?”
“I have more important things to do than prattle about old women. I want you to set your women and your band of—shall we say servants—to making inquiries.”
“What kind of inquiries?”
Kysen slowly inspected the garden court for intruders. “Nothing urgent or perilous. I want to find anyone who served her majesty, Queen Nefertiti, the justified, during her last months.”
“No.”
“No? Why not?”
“I keep away from the affairs of pharaohs, living or dead, and I especially shun prying into the secrets of Great Royal Wives.”
“I’m not interested in secrets. I’m interested in hiring servants who know court ways.”
“You aren’t. You couldn’t afford to hire them. What are you really after, Nen?”
Kysen threw up his hands. “There’s no hidden purpose this time. I’ve been paid well for my previous work, and now I’ve put aside enough to employ a few servants. Think, mistress. If a man intends to rise high enough to attract the notice of great ones, he must learn from others how to conduct himself in a manner pleasing to them.”
He bore Ese’s scrutiny in silence. Repeating his arguments or decorating them with particulars would increase the woman’s disbelief. Setting down his wine, he sighed and shook his head.
“Of course, if you’re unable to provide this simple information, I’ll get it somewhere else. I only came to you because you’re so reliable. And if I must part with a fee, I would rather it go to you.”
“I had no idea you cared so much for me.”
Kysen grinned at her. “You’re a beautiful woman, and you’re right. I was more concerned that I remain a valued customer, so that you would look upon me with favor, should I need your assistance in my rise among the great ones.”
“Ah, now the plan is revealed. But I think not all of it. You don’t actually need the servants of this queen.”
“I am counting on the… the disgrace under which they fell to make them eager to take any position, even if it wouldn’t provide the kind of maintenance usual for a royal servant.”
“At last, dear Nen. Something believable comes from your pretty mouth.”
Ese put her wine aside and sat up. She stared past him into the moonlit water of the reflection pool. A frog hopped off a lotus leaf into the water with a plop. A faint breeze brought the scent of fresh water and lotus flowers to Kysen, and he inhaled it, cherishing the renewal it brought to his body and ka.
Suddenly his hostess stood and walked past him to the edge of the pool. She turned and came back to him, the softness of her face hardened by calculation. Facing him, she raked him with a glance from hair to sandal.
“Very well. But finding such people will take months, if I can find them at all.”
“I don’t want to wait.”
Ese tapped her forefinger against her chin. “Then I think we will have to go to Othrys.”
He hadn’t anticipated this. The last man he wanted to bring into this inquiry was Othrys. There was enough danger without involving a man with the scruples of a cobra.
“It seems a trivial matter for Othrys.”
Again he was subjected to that ruthless appraisal that made him feel like a sacrificial bull.
“Sweet, conniving Nen,” Ese breathed. She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “You’re a lovely boy, but even the beauty of the gods won’t persuade me to enter into this questionable arrangement without precautions.” Her fingers left his skin, but she lowered her voice to a whisper. “If you want me to hunt down the servants of a dead heretic queen, you will accept my conditions. Say yes, exquisite one, or I shall be displeased.”
He’d come too far t
o refuse, and he’d seen the results of Ese’s displeasure. “How could I say anything else to you, whose beauty surpasses that of the moon?”
“Someday I’m going to cut out that facile tongue of yours,” Ese said. “Come.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Othrys.”
“There’s no need for haste.”
“Why the reluctance?” Ese asked. “Do you have something to hide from Othrys?”
“Of course not.”
“How fortunate for you,” Ese said. She indicated a door in the wall surrounding the garden court.
Struggling to maintain his air of unconcern, Kysen bowed to Ese. Of all the results of this encounter, he’d least expected to be dragged to a meeting with a barbarian who slit throats as skillfully as butchers slaughtered pigs. He could still feel the pirate’s cold razor blade cutting into the flesh above the hollow in his throat, feel his own blood trickle down his neck in hot, tingling little rivulets. Even as he withdrew from the memory, a voice from his ka sounded in his head.
You sent Abu to look after Father, and came here alone. A stupid conceit. And it’s likely to get you killed.
Chapter 7
Meren had beached his small sailing boat upriver of the cook’s village at dusk. He’d roasted a pigeon he’d shot with his bow and eaten it with the bread and dried figs from home. The journey to the cook’s village hadn’t taken a full day, but he’d enjoyed the escape from his life of responsibility and ceremony.
At home he dressed in the garb required by his rank. His court robes were elaborate, although made of the finest linen. They confined his movements, often making him feel trapped. The heavy gold and electrum broad collars weighed down his shoulders and chest and reminded him of the invisible burdens he carried. Thick bracelets laden with lapis, malachite, and carnelian added to the feeling that he was carrying a pyramid stone. When he stood in the sun, the metals on his body heated, calling up the old nightmare sensation of Akhenaten’s cursed sun disk brand searing his flesh.
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