The crowds thinned as they made their way to the rear of the enormous grain magazines of the temple of Ptah. The high, arched vaults would overflow with grain after next harvest. When they reached the rear of the buildings, only a few stragglers passed them. Othrys stopped at the corner of the last magazine and peered around the corner. Meren came to stand beside his host and looked into the uneven and neglected lane that came to a dead end at the shrine. A dog trotted out from between two buildings, but it saw them and retreated. Nothing else moved.
Othrys backed away from the corner and turned to Meren. "I leave you here. If you don't come back to my house, I'm not going to look for you."
"Your concern for me is touching," Meren said.
"By the earth mother, I've done more than any of your precious Egyptian friends."
Meren smiled and bowed slightly. "Forgive my foul temper.It comes from being forced to wear this cursed wig. It itches worse than these leggings."
"But no one would recognize you in it," Othrys replied.
"You have my gratitude and my friendship," Meren said. He offered his hand, and they exchanged a warrior's grip. "If I live, you will receive proof of my thankfulness."
"Farewell, Egyptian. I'll go home and pronounce curses on those who plot your destruction. May fate be with you."
In moments, Meren was alone. The carnelian orb of Ra was sinking behind the city's tall buildings when Meren stepped into the lane. Elongated shadows cut across his path, and the air seemed to turn gold with the sun's passage. He could smell water from the submerged fields of Inundation, along with the odor of cooking fires. Ahead of him stood the shrine. It had been built as a part of a temple complex hundreds of years ago, when the city was much smaller. Memphis had encroached upon its perimeter walls, and finally the little temple had been abandoned, its buildings quarried for their stone.
All that remained was this little square structure, a processional kiosk that everyone referred to as a shrine. Its columns were square, and it had a central staircase leading up to a threshold from which the doors and shutters had vanished long ago. The doorway was flanked by two tall windows, and the whole of the outer surface was carved. Meren had visited the place as a youth and remembered seeing raised reliefs of a pharaoh, Sesostris, presenting offerings to a god.
Meren reached the shrine. Avoiding the stairs, he went to one of the windows and surveyed the interior. Devoid of furnishings, it was littered with trash blown from the lane- scraps of a papyrus sandal, dead palm leaves, a few feathers, and sand. Meren walked around to the back. A storehouse had been built so close that he had to enter the space between the two buildings sideways. He hadn't been there long when four men appeared in the lane. As they approached the shrine and stepped out of a long shadow, Meren breathed more easily. Abu and Reia walked ahead of his son and Ebana. All of them were armed. Slipping from his hiding place, Meren waited beside the shrine. Abu saw him first and saluted. At his movement, Kysen grinned, called to Meren, and ran to him.
"Father!" Kysen halted abruptly and studied his father.
"I'm well, Ky." Meren dragged his son into his arms for a brief, rough embrace and released him,
"What happened?" Kysen said as the others drew near. He held out a dagger, which Meren took and slid beneath his belt. "How could pharaoh believe you would-"
Meren held up his hand. "Later." He grasped Ebana's arm. "Cousin."
There was no need for words. One glance at those features that were so like his own wiped away years, and they were back at his father's estate in the country, daring each other to spend the night in the ghost-infested desert. They smiled at each other, and for once bitterness and accusations of betrayal failed to divide them.
Ebana put his fists on his hips and grinned at Meren. "If you keep getting yourself into such peril, I'll have to give up being a priest of Amun and become your bodyguard."
"I've missed you," Meren said.
Ebana's smile faded. "Our estrangement wasn't my fault."
"Ebana, don't."
"I know. This isn't the time. With your permission, cousin. Your men should find cover in the darkness of the shrine, as should we."
The kiosk had a central chamber flanked by a smaller room on each side, formed by rectangular pillars. It was gloomy in the larger room in spite of the gaping doorway, and dark in the smaller rooms except near the windows. Abu and Reia melted into the shadows of the two western pillars inside a flanking chamber while Meren and Kysen took a pillar on the east and Ebana the remaining one.
They'd just taken their places when an obsidian figure walked into view from the direction of the magazines. It was Mose. Long strides brought him to the foot of the stairs. As he mounted them, Turi hurried around the corner of the storehouse and to the front of the shrine. The two guards stared at each other in the fading light, then exchanged queries in their native language. In confusion they continued their exchange as they ascended the staircase and entered the shrine.
Meren waited until they were well inside before moving. In silence he slipped around the pillar and put himself between the two men and the doorway.
"Greetings," he said, causing the Nubians to whirl around and reach for their daggers.
As they moved, Kysen, Ebana, and the rest appeared, their weapons drawn. The Nubians froze in the act of drawing their blades.
"Hands away from your daggers," Meren commanded.
Abu relieved them of their weapons as Kysen joined Meren.
Ebana took a position at the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, and watched the lane. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly, cousin."
"Aye, Father," Kysen said. "We can't stay long. And we can't drag them through the streets. I told Ebana we should have abducted them from their homes and secreted them somewhere."
Meren shook his head. "There's no need. A few words with these two should suffice to prove me innocent."
"A few words?" Kysen gave him a startled look.
Walking over to the silent Nubians, Meren looked up at them, for they were almost a foot taller than he. "Repeat these words. Majesty, life, health, prosperity."
Turi and Mose exchanged blank looks. Then Turi spoke.
"Majesty, life, health, prosperity."
Kysen gave Meren an inquiring look. "This makes no sense."
"It would if your heart wasn't weighted down with ignorance from being of common blood," Ebana said from his post by the doorway.
Kysen flashed a disgusted look at Ebana but said nothing.
Meren signaled to Reia. "Take him out and release him."
Reia escorted Turi from the shrine, and Meren faced the remaining Nubian.
"Royal bodyguards are like slaves at court, like furniture. Are they not, Mose?"
The Nubian said nothing. His features seemed as expressionless as those of a lizard.
"And furniture does not make noise," Meren continued. "Certainly a noisy guard is a worthless one. And chatter isn't the way of a Nubian warrior. Is it, Mose?"
Kysen drew nearer and breathed his words. "By the wrath of Montu, Father."
Meren nodded to his son, then whipped out his dagger without warning and touched the point to the ebony skin over Mose's throat.
"Say the words, or by the gods I'll make you scream them."
All he got in response was the same impassive regard he'd come to expect from any Nubian royal guard.
Drawing close to the man, Meren spoke softly. "Remember the time I captured the leader of the miserable Asiatics who murdered everyone at the fortress called Might of Horus? Remember how long it took him to die out in the desert?" Meren withdrew his dagger and tapped his fingers on the blade. "It's so easy to attract the creatures of the desert to a bleeding body-snakes, scorpions, ants… vultures."
Mose stared into his eyes and shook his head.
Meren smiled at him. "You have family, don't you, Mose?"
This time Mose blinked. Meren darted at him, placing the blade at his throat again. "Speak. In the voice you
used in the tent that night, not with your usual accent."
"Too late," Ebana said.
Meren withdrew the dagger and joined his cousin in looking out the doorway. Soldiers with scimitars and shields approached down the lane. Dozens of bows pointed at the shrine from the corners of the grain magazines. Above all the others, Meren recognized the black head of Karoya.
"Curse it, how did Horemheb know? Abu, Kysen, bring the Nubian."
Meren stepped into the half-light at the top of the stairs. The approaching soldiers stopped. Motionless, Meren waited without surprise as the troops parted, revealing pharaoh. He was almost jolted from his composure when he saw who was behind pharaoh. Bener stood beside a guard, who was holding her arm. Once again she was dressed as an aged laundress.
Horemheb appeared at pharaoh's side. "Take them."
"No!" Tutankhamun said. Horemheb whispered to the king, but Tutankhamun shook his head and silenced the general with a slice of his hand.
The king walked toward the shrine, and Meren descended the stairs. They met in the empty space between the troops and the shrine.
"Golden one, you shouldn't have come."
Tutankhamun's smile was bitter. "I had to. I have to know the truth. Why did you do it? Have you been a traitor all this time?"
"No, majesty. I am as I always was, thy servant. I would give my life-"
"Don't. I'll hear no protests of loyalty. I'll commit you to trial in secret to save your family the disgrace, but I'll hear no protests of loyalty from you."
"Then will thy majesty hear proof of his servant's innocence?"
"What can you say that will excuse what you did?"
"I can say nothing, but there is one whose words will end this deceit."
Horemheb marched to them. "Forgive me, majesty, but it's growing dark."
Tutankhamun waved the general into silence. "I will listen."
Meren summoned Kysen, and Mose was brought out of the shrine between him and Abu. Ebana followed. Tutankhamun frowned as he recognized his guard, and he turned to Meren.
"Command Mose to speak the words I instructed him to speak before you came, majesty."
"What confusion is this?" Horemheb asked.
Raising his hand, pharaoh continued to stare at Meren without responding. Meren met the king's gaze directly. He hoped that some small remnant of faith in him still existed within this youth for whom he felt both the love of a father and the reverence of a subject. Tutankhamun still hesitated.
"Majesty," Meren whispered. "You hold my life. I beg you, don't crush it beneath your sandal."
For the briefest moment the boy closed his eyes, and his face contorted with pain. The spasm passed, and the king met his gaze once more.
"Mose, speak."
Mose's lips pressed together. At the silence, Tutankhamun's eyes widened. Meren gave the Nubian a nasty smile.
"Pharaoh is quite unaccustomed to disobedience, Mose."
Horemheb suddenly stalked over to the guard and said, "Yes. I suggest you do as the divine one commanded before I make you."
When the Nubian remained silent, Meren sighed and said, "I see I must remind you of our conversation in the shrine, Mose. The desert, your family? Speak."
His gaze darting from Horemheb to Meren, Mose opened his mouth. Ebana's dagger prodded him in the ribs from behind, and the words came out at last.
"Majesty, life, health, prosperity."
At first there was silence. Then the king took several steps that brought him closer to Mose, and Meren joined him.
"Say it again-no-say this. Say, 'Majesty, where are you?' "
As if the words were dragged from him like pyramid blocks on a sledge, Mose complied. "Majesty, where are you?"
Slowly the king turned to face Meren, his face pale. "Like you. His voice sounds like yours. There isn't even an accent."
"Yes, majesty. And now we must ask who bribed him to pretend to be me and feign that attack on you, and why. I think you'll find, Horemheb, that Mose has suddenly acquired much wealth."
"Mose," the king said. "I command you to respond."
But Mose wasn't attending to pharaoh. As Meren watched the Nubian, alarm writhed like a cold snake in his belly, for Mose's gaze was directed over the pharaoh's head, over the heads of the men surrounding them, at the rooftops. When the guard's eyes widened in terror, Meren moved. At the same time, Mose lunged at them. His hands fastened on the king, and the Nubian dragged the boy against his chest like a shield. Instantly Meren tore the king from Mose's grip and felt a stinging jolt in his side. Ignoring the pain, he twisted and plunged to the ground with the king beneath him.
Above him all was confusion and noise.
Horemheb shouted, "Not the one on the roof, the Nubian! Get the Nubian Mose!"
Dust flew into Meren's face as men ran by. He heard arrows whistling and blades clashing, but he was more concerned with lifting himself so that he could assess the danger to the king, who was swearing and spitting dirt underneath him.
Planting his hands on the ground beside pharaoh's head, Meren lifted his upper body. Pain arced through him, and his left arm collapsed. The chaos above him descended and wrought havoc with his senses. He seemed to be living just outside his body.
With vague surprise he looked on as Horemheb pulled him off the king and laid him on his back. Tutankhamun rolled over, crouched beside him. Pharaoh's mouth moved, but the sound of his words seemed delayed. Meren was even more astonished when the king bent and gripped something sticking out of the ground close to Meren.
When Tutankhamun broke the end of an arrow, the agony that resulted told Meren that the missile was buried in his side, not the ground. Meren searched for the wound and clamped his hand over the point of entry. Horemheb was still beside him while the king propped Meren's head on one leg.
"What are you doing here?" Meren snapped at the general. "Find the bowman."
"Every man I have is chasing him and Mose, including your son and your cousin and your charioteers. Don't tell me how to hunt criminals, Meren. I found you, didn't I?"
"You let Mose get away?"
"Damn you, Meren. The men closest to the king were trying to protect him from the bowman, and the ones farther away didn't know Mose was a criminal."
"My apologies, old friend," Meren said.
Grimacing, he looked around at the wall of men surrounding pharaoh, then up at the king. Tutankhamun was regarding him with a mixture of anxiety and relief.
"It wasn't necessary to prove your innocence in so dramatic a manner," the king said. He placed his hand over Meren's bloody one. "I already believed you."
Meren smiled, but his lips contorted with pain. "My heart exults in thy majesty's safekeeping."
Pharaoh said something in reply, but to Meren the king seemed to recede into the distance. He blinked, which was a mistake, because he found he couldn't lift his eyelids. The noise and confusion returned, grew louder, and then faded into a whirlpool of blackness.
Chapter 21
Horizon of the Aten, the independent reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten
Nefertiti watched Akhenaten stalk along the edge of the reflection pool at the riverside palace. In spite of the heat, he wore a cloak over his robe and paused often to lift his face to the sun. His gold leather sandals sent pebbles flying into the water as he scuffed along. Finally he returned to the shade of the acacia tree beneath which Nefertiti's chair rested and stood before her.
"I no longer remember how many times we've argued about this, beautiful one. I'm weary beyond enduring, and your discontent grieves me."
"I've always told you the truth, husband. The army grows restless with the Hittite jackal prowling the borders of the empire."
"And I repeat-the Asiatics live in chaos. It is their normal state. Once Mitanni held sway; now the Hittites dominate. One day the Assyrians may claim that right. Such internecine squabbling means little to Egypt, as long as our trade routes remain safe."
Nefertiti rose and put her hand on Akhenaten'
s arm. "And how long will they remain safe, husband, if the Hittites come to think Egypt is soft?"
"Fighting unnecessary battles wastes the blood of my people and displeases the Aten," Akhenaten said as he patted her hand.
Moving closer, Nefertiti looked into her husband's obsidian eyes and made her voice low and rough. "My love, is it not better to fight a few small battles to warn the Hittites than to allow them to mistake Egypt's resolve? If they become stronger and thus overconfident, it's certain that we'll have to spill much more blood later than if we push them back now."
"Hmm. Perhaps, beautiful one, perhaps."
Nefertiti watched her husband's interest fade. It was becoming more and more difficult to get him to attend to foreign business. He was engaged in some inner struggle having to do with the Aten. That much she knew. But the nature of the struggle and what it meant for Egypt was still a mystery to her.
Akhenaten was smiling at her. Drawing her along with him, he strolled beside the reflection pool. Slaves scurried up to ply fans above their heads.
"I'm so fortunate to have my beautiful one as great royal wife," Akhenaten said. "You relieve me of many burdens, my love, and free me for more important work with my father the Aten. Because of your help, I'm beginning to receive complete Maat-divine truth-from the sun disk. Soon all of Egypt will live in truth."
Nefertiti stopped and turned to look at him. "But the- the difficulties with some continue."
The black fire of his convictions flared in Akhenaten's eyes and then vanished with frightening abruptness.
"Fear not, my love. All will be resolved in time." He smiled and began walking again. "Let us not speak of such unpleasant things. You're going to your sister again. I don't like it, these visits to the city of the false king of the gods."
Akhenaten directed a sideways glance at her, but Nefertiti only gave him a smile of amusement.
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