'He's weak from loss of blood, lord, but he will re cover. You know how head wounds bleed.'
'If he dies, I'll flay that woman alive, with a flint knife.'
'Yes, lord, but he's not going to die.'
'Good, because I've already killed this night, and I've no stomach for more.'
Refusing to leave Kysen in the care of Thesh and his wife, Meren sailed downriver with him to the royal precincts. From the dock he summoned a litter, and soon he had deposited his son in bed, Beltis in a cell, and himself in his own chamber. He left orders for Hormin's wife and son to be held until he could assure himself that they, too, hadn't been involved in the looting of the rich tomb.
Having left men to guard it, he could afford a few hours' sleep after receiving assurance from his physi cian that Kysen's wound wasn't serious. Like the dregs of old beer, echoes of fear for Kysen disturbed his sleep. He awoke bleary-eyed and apprehensive. Only a visit to his sleeping son's room dispelled his anxiety.
His first act was to dispatch runners to the palace and the Place of Anubis announcing the capture and death of the murderer of Hormin, for he had no doubt that Woser had been the killer. A full explanation would have to be extracted from Beltis, however. He didn't look forward to the ordeal. Talking to Beltis left him feeling soiled.
It was also urgent that he find out whether, by some curious happenstance, Hormin and the others had been involved with the queen's treason. The possibility was remote, but real. As he dined on shat cakes and roast duck followed by figs and grapes, he was preparing to send for Beltis when Kysen walked in, carefully, trailed by Remi's nurse, Mutemwia. She waved an ostrich-feather fan at Kysen and shook a sistrum.
'Out, out, demons of the dead.'
Kysen winced as the little cymbals mounted on the sistrum chimed. He cast a glance of appeal at Meren, who clapped his hands for silence. Mutemwia subsided, but muttered charms under her breath.
'I'm sure Kysen values your concern and care for him, Mut, but you're hurting his head.'
'Better a sore head than one possessed by a dead spirit.'
'Mut, you may conduct your spells and charms in Kysen's bedchamber, but not in his face.'
Mut bowed. 'As you wish, lord.'
After she left, Meren dragged his ebony chair to rest before the worktable, found a cushion for it, and pointed. Kysen sat, grimacing as he lowered his body. Meren leaned on the worktable and surveyed his son. Kysen was pale, and his eyes had violet smudges beneath them, but he appeared strong.
'How are you?' Meren asked.
'A thousand fiends of the underworld are dancing on drums in my head.'
'You are supposed to be in bed.'
'I know you must have the truth from Beltis, and I know part of it, perhaps enough to shake her.'
'Don't you think all these hours spent alone in a cell will have intimidated her?'
'In truth, Father, I suspect she's used the time to think up lies to save herself. But I may be able to rout her.'
'Very well.' Meren sent for Beltis and returned to Kysen. 'I'm doing this because you won't rest easily until we have the whole truth, and because I must know for certain that this qeres unguent came from that tomb and isn't a royal or sacred supply.' He quickly told Kysen about the queen's treason and the unguent.
As he finished, Abu entered and stepped aside to allow the concubine Beltis to come in. A guard behind the woman shoved her into the room and shut the door while Abu took up a scribe's kit from a shelf and squatted on the floor so that his kilt stretched tightly across his lap. Placing a piece of papyrus on this surface, he inked his reed pen and waited.
Beltis hadn't noticed Abu. She was glancing from Meren to his son and back again, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Meren let the silence stretch out. This woman had almost killed Kysen, and he was having a difficult time restraining the desire to strangle her and cast her into the desert for the vultures and hyenas to devour her flesh.
He noted with satisfaction that her upper lip was sweaty. She toyed with a bracelet at her wrist with quick, jerky movements. At last she burst out in speech.
'Woser forced me to come with him!'
Meren only lifted one brow and continued to stare at her.
'He planned it all,' she rushed on, 'days ago, he planned it all. Hormin wanted another room in his house of eternity, and when the laborer began cutting the back wall to test the strength of the rock, he knocked through the side of another tomb. But I knew nothing of this until Hormin told me, the day before he died.'
Kysen glanced at Meren. 'That, at least, is probably true.'
Meren tapped his fingers on the worktable, ignored Beltis, and mused, 'I seem to remember that a laborer fell to his death in the Great Place recently.'
Beltis skewed her gaze away from him, but he waited.
After another few moments, Beltis's endurance broke again. 'Hormin told me he made Woser kill him. He didn't trust the laborer, and anyway he didn't want to-'
'Share?' Kysen asked.
'Yes.' Beltis cast a sideways glance through eyes that had almost closed. 'But I knew how great a sin he'd committed. I knew it was wrong, and all along I urged my master to relent and seal the old tomb. But he wouldn't listen to me. I prayed day and night to the gods, but he wouldn't listen. Woser was to take jewels and other valuable things from the tomb and bring them to Hormin at the Place of Anubis.'
'He went, but never came back with the jewels,' Kysen said. 'You must have been furious to find him dead and the riches gone.'
'But I didn't kill him,' Beltis said, her face lighting up with triumph. 'You know who did. I'm innocent.'
Meren laughed and shoved himself away from the worktable. He walked around Beltis, inspecting her dirty shift and dusty hair. She pursed her lips. He knew she wanted to spit at him and dared not.
'Innocent of Hormin's death, perhaps.'
'I don't understand,' she said.
'I see you've forgotten that Bakwerner and Djaper are also dead.'
'Also killed by Woser in his mad efforts to conceal his guilt,' Beltis said smoothly.
Meren glanced at Kysen, who leaned back in his chair and smiled at Beltis. The woman stirred uneasily at this sign of contentment.
'Father, do you know how active our Beltis has been at the village?'
'No,' Meren said. 'Do tell me.'
'Our Beltis is a locust. She hops from man to man. And she wanted me to see her do it. She flaunted her relations with Useramun the painter and with Thesh and Woser. And then she came to me.'
Meren lowered his lashes so that he didn't reveal his anger to the concubine. The thought of that woman in terfering with Kysen fed his wrath and disgust with her.
'Possibly,' Kysen went on, 'possibly she thought I would wilt like a plucked lotus once she'd bedded me. A stupid presumption, but then her experience is limited.'
'It is not!'
'For after she'd gone and I overheard Useramun and Thesh, I began to think about all of us-all of us favored by the concubine.' Kysen listed the names on his fingers. 'Hormin she used for what he could provide. But the others, Useramun and Thesh, they are men of appeal, each in his own way. When she went to the tomb-makers' village, she could enjoy herself with men of much greater beauty than her master. Even I am more pleasing than Hormin.'
Beltis gave them a complacent smile, which vanished at Kysen's next words.
'But not Woser.'
Meren laughed as he perceived Kysen's reasoning. 'Not Woser indeed. Skinny, beak-nosed, lacking in wealth.'
'Yes,' Kysen said. 'If you were to stand us in a line, we who have been favored, Woser alone does not belong. I knew Beltis tolerated Hormin because of his possessions rather than his appearance. She favored Useramun and Thesh for their beauty, for they offered her no wealth. Woser certainly wasn't going to change his looks.' Here Kysen paused to watch Beltis wipe perspiration from her chin. 'But perhaps he offered something else.'
'Your head is broken,' Beltis said with a sniff. 'These are fancies of sickness.'
'After I realized how solicitous you'd been to a man you ordinarily wouldn't allow near your rubbish heap, I
