screen was his. Voices of women and their laughter came to him from open doorways and the street below as they worked to prepare the evening meal. He took a long sip of beer from a glazed cup. His first day in the tomb-makers' village was almost over, and he had yet to speak with the draftsman Woser. The beer turned sour in his stomach as he remembered going to Woser's house with Thesh.
The scribe had warned him of Woser's illness, which had been growing upon him for over a week and had worsened during the previous two days. Thesh attributed Woser's inability to keep food in his belly to his dissatisfaction with being a draftsman. Woser longed to become a sculptor, to the amusement of the whole village. Woser sculpted as if he were blind.
Kysen had insisted upon seeing Woser, but when Thesh conducted him down the main street past curious servants and artisans' wives, they could hear retching sounds from a house near the end of the road. Kysen exchanged glances with the scribe as they paused on the threshold of Woser's residence. Like most of the houses in the village, it consisted of four rectangular rooms running one behind the other.
Thesh stuck his head in the doorway. Beyond him Kysen could see a family common room strewn with cushions along one wall. High, narrow windows close to the ceiling let in little light, but he noticed a block of limestone in one corner around which were littered a sculptor's tools. Near the door lay a table, ink pots, pens, and sketches of a tomb shaft. He heard Thesh suck in his breath. The scribe drew back from the doorway abruptly, grimacing. Kysen glanced at him in surmise, only to clamp a hand over his nose and join Thesh in withdrawing several paces from the door.
'Hathor's tits,' Thesh mumbled through the hands that covered his mouth and nose.
Kysen lowered his own hands, took a cautious sniff, and moved several steps farther away from the house. 'Woser's sickness isn't only of the belly, it seems.'
'I forgot,' Thesh said. 'His wife mentioned he hadn't been able to go far from his chamber stool yesterday. She had me check the calendar to see if it was an unlucky day, but I could find no evil signs. She says he's run afoul of a demon.'
Kysen cocked his head to the side and listened to the renewed sounds of gagging and moaning issuing from Woser's house. Clearing his throat, he said to Thesh, 'Perhaps if we wait until this evening, he will feel better.'
'Yes, yes.' Thesh nodded violently. 'I expect a phy sician from the city this morning who will attend him. By this evening, yes.'
They had quit the vicinity of Woser's house immediately. After that, Thesh had informed him that several of the artisans who dealt with Hormin were on duty in the Great Place, the Valley of the Kings, restoring the walls and interior of an old tomb of the last dynasty. And so it was that Kysen found himself in the resting place of Pharaohs, where the dead kings mediated between the forces of chaos and order.
Thesh brought him to the Great Place by the work men's route over the cliffs that bordered western Thebes. The path arced into the royal valley down three stone steps bounded by a wall on one side and a guardpost on the other. Past the steps he entered the realm of the dead, guarded by the royal necropolis police, the medjay, and by the gods themselves. The valley held hundreds of royal tombs, but also, at its center, living huts and warehouses containing supplies for the workers such as food, pigments, copper chisels, and the oil and wicks used to light the interior of the tombs.
Once on the valley floor, Kysen beheld an array of V-shaped channels filled in part with flints and debris from the slopes above. Into the sides of these channels were cut entrance shafts to tombs. None of them were for the living god, Tutankhamun; the king was young and there was plenty of time in which to plan his house of eternity.
Kysen had spent the remainder of the day talking with four men who had dealt with Hormin in the making of his tomb, only to find that they had been in the Great Place on the night of the murder. The artisans worked in shifts, eating and sleeping in the huts in the center of the valley, guarded by the medjay. Of those who knew Hormin, only Thesh, Useramun, and Woser had been in the village two nights ago.
Shoving away from the wall on which he leaned, Kysen turned to find Thesh staring at him. In that fleeting moment he perceived apprehension, which enhanced the faint laugh lines at the corners of the scribe's eyes. Then the lines smoothed and Thesh smiled at him.
'Have you rested from the journey? The trip to the Great Place is arduous for those not accustomed to desert travel.'
Kysen set his beer cup on the top of the wall and re turned Thesh's smile. 'Much rested, I thank you. And now I would see this master painter, Useramun.'
'Before we go, I must tell you that Beltis has come back.'
Concealing his surprise, Kysen glanced over his shoulder to the street below. He could see two serving women carrying a water jar between them, and several men returning to their homes for the evening. No Beltis.
'She came while you were washing,' Thesh said. 'If you hadn't been inside, you would have seen her procession. Beltis enters the village as if she were a princess appearing on a feast day.'
'I will speak to her as well.' Kysen passed Thesh on his way to the stairs that led from the roof to the street along the outside of the house.
Thesh followed him. 'Do not be surprised if she finds you before you come to her.'
'Why?' Kysen paused at the top of the stairs.
Cocking his head to the side, Thesh pursed his lips in the first sign of ill humor Kysen had seen in him.
'Beltis never allows a possible admirer to languish in the depravation of her presence.'
A typical scribe's answer-delicate, circuitous, and nasty. Kysen grinned at Thesh.
'You would set me on my guard.'
Thesh merely lifted a brow. It was all the answer Kysen was going to receive, so he turned and descended the stairs, stepping into the blackening shadows of the street. A long line of open doorways stretched before him. Wavering light from oil lamps offered some relief from the darkness. Thesh stepped to his side and ges tured to a house opposite his own.
A few steps brought them into the bright glow issuing from the house. Kysen remembered little of Useramun except his brilliance as a painter. The older boy had always seemed to have his nose nudging the tip of a reed brush. The glow from the house increased as they approached. Kysen blinked and realized that Useramun had to have lit dozens of lamps to create such radiance. Thesh opened his mouth to call out a greeting, but Kysen put a hand on his forearm, silencing him. A querulous voice was speaking.
'You sent him away on purpose.' The voice was young, and cracked with the strain of adolescence.
A second voice, lilting and low, answered. 'Abjure me not, you petulant colt. The master painter of the temple of Ptah offered him a place. Was I to deny him the opportunity to work in so high a station?'
'You sent him away because he was my friend!'
The second voice chided softly. 'By Hathor's tits, Geb, you've grown into a nagging bitch.'
Kysen waited, but there was no retort. He glanced at Thesh and noted with amusement that the scribe's face had reddened. He released his hold, and Thesh called out a greeting. They were bidden to enter.
Stepping into the common room, Kysen squinted at the dazzling light. Whitewashed walls reflected brilliance, and on every one of them glowing scenes of wildlife and the countryside that turned the room into a fantasy. Kysen glimpsed a vignette of a reflection pool with the fish darting through azure waters. To his left waterfowl sprang from a marsh, startled into flight by a hunter armed with a throw stick. Every feather, every line was executed with vibrant mastery. Suddenly Kysen knew, without doubt, that he was in the presence of unparalleled skill. Now he remembered more of Useramun-even the master painters had held him in awe.
A youth bowed to them and scuttled out of their way to reveal a man who rose from a cushion set between two of the myriad tall lampstands that cast daylike brightness on the room. The man came forward, stopping in front of Kysen, and chuckled. Goose bumps formed on Kysen's arms. He'd heard such a laugh before-one filled with concupiscent anticipation. He'd heard it at court, among noblemen about whom his father took care to warn him. At once wary and intrigued, Kysen felt a tension within his body he usually only felt in the royal palace or in the manors of certain princes. That chuckle came again, and before Thesh could speak the man before Kysen stepped closer.
'The servant of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, life, prosperity, and health to thee.' Useramun's gaze trailed viscously over Kysen. 'Especially health.'
'Useramun!' Thesh hissed at his neighbor.
