lips together.
'I didn't mean to shout at you.'
He had difficulty in concealing his admiration and his surprise. It was as close to a request for forgiveness as he'd ever heard from a living god.
'Thy majesty is much beset.'
Tutankhamun came to stand before him. 'My majesty wishes you to reconsider your advice.' He touched Meren's arm briefly. 'You of all of them should have faith in me.'
'I do, majesty.'
'Then consider well, for I'm not done with this matter, and neither are Horemheb and Tanefer.'
'As thy majesty commands.'
'Don't affect obedience in private, Meren. I know you're going to do just as you wish.'
'I give you my promise, majesty. I will ponder long and well.'
'And before you leave, tell me what mischief your cousin has been spreading. Ah, you didn't think I knew about his visit.'
'Thy majesty is all-knowing,' Meren said. He told the king of the death at the foot of the statue. 'Such an affront to thy majesty's image must not go without inquiry.'
'There's more,' Tutankhamun said. He walked over to Meren. 'Tell me the whole of it.'
'It seems that Ebana imagines that this pure one was in my pay.'
'And was he?'
'Only indirectly, majesty.'
'Do you think they killed him for it?'
Meren shook his head. 'I don't know. If Parenefer had the pure one killed, why bring the matter to my attention and risk my conducting an inquiry?'
'But you will anyway,' the king said. 'So perhaps they're attacking before you do, to distract.'
'Aye, majesty. I'll know more after Kysen makes his examinations.'
'Very well. I can see you wish to go, but don't forget my words. I want to lead my armies, Meren.'
He left the king then, relieved to escape without having pushed the boy into fury with his defiance. As he went, he realized that this matter of the king's campaign was no longer a councillors' squabble. Now it was a matter of state-an affair of life and death.
Almost an hour after leaving the king, Meren stepped through the gate in the wall surrounding his town house in the palace district of western Thebes. The charioteers behind him took the path to the left around a reflection pool, through another gate in a wall, and past the house to the offices and barracks that lay to the rear. The porter closed the gate, leaving Meren standing alone in the shade of the first of a double row of acacia trees that lined the walk surrounding the pond in front of the house.
As he had left the king, he'd come face to face with the high priest of Amun in the throng outside. After the confrontation with pharaoh, he'd been in no mood to tolerate Parenefer. He could still hear the old man's high voice grating like a bronze saw against granite.
'Ah, the lord Meren, in secret conversation with the son of the god as usual. How great is the fortune of the Two Lands that its young lord should so depend upon the council of a servant.'
He grew cold all over again in remembering the sudden quiet that had settled over the courtiers and government officials. The stares, most of them sly or calculating, none of them revealing the rankling envy and fear Parenefer had taken care to feed. Meren pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.
Even Horemheb had looked at him strangely. But the damage was done. He had to remember that scorpions like Parenefer were always lurking, and they had yet to sting him fatally.
Opening his eyes, he shaded them and glanced at the small family chapel, shining white in the sun of the front courtyard, before walking down the path to the house. In the distance he heard the whinny of his favorite thoroughbred from the stables. Kysen might be back from the temple of Amun by now.
The morning's confrontation with Ebana still worried him. It wasn't like his cousin to make open accusations that led nowhere. He speculated that Parenefer had instigated the trouble, perhaps as revenge for the placing of that statue in front of his temple, perhaps for some other evil and obscure reason he had yet to discover. Parenefer would have known that Unas's death would attract his attention. It could be that the high priest had decided that an attack was better than waiting to be accused of eliminating a suspected spy.
In the house, Meren gave orders for the preparation of a large meal, then retreated to his apartments. He'd bathed, changed, and gone to his office behind the house by the time Kysen sought him out. He retrieved his juggling balls and was tossing the three leather spheres. His hands made soft padding sounds as the balls hit them.
It wasn't long before his son came into the room, carrying a pitcher of beer and two goblets. Setting these aside, Kysen picked up a fourth ball and tossed it at him. Meren grabbed for it and missed. Another ball hit his arm while the others fell and bounced at his feet.
'You still haven't managed that fourth one,' Kysen said as he poured beer.
Meren stooped and picked up the balls, storing them in a cedar box. 'Not when it's thrown at me.'
'Did the juggling settle your temper?'
'What temper?'
'Come, Father, I saw your expression this morning. And Ebana always manages to stir you to hornet madness.'
Meren shut the lid of the cedar box and picked up his goblet of beer. 'The inquiries at the temple, what of the death of the priest?'
'Some day you must tell me about him.'
Meren took a long sip of beer before speaking. 'The priest.'
'I'm not sure whether he died accidentally or not. Ebana might have been trying to goad you,' Kysen said. 'Unas appears to have been an excitable little moth of a man, over-diligent and clumsy as well. Most likely, he missed his step and fell through his own carelessness. There are no marks to betoken a struggle.'
'However?'
'However, if someone did discover his connection with you, well, this could be Parenefer's way of warning you to keep away. And there is a difficulty.'
'What difficulty?'
'Unas's wife said that he went to the statue early because of a message given by a boy from the master sculptor asking for the meeting. Yet the sculptor says he sent no message. I believe him, for he's the one who brought the accident to our attention, and he has a reputation for straight dealing and honor.'
'Have you found this boy messenger?'
'No. He's vanished.'
Meren set his cup aside. 'It could be that the wife is lying, or she may have been mistaken about who sent the message.'
'I've sent Abu to see her again. He's good at scaring the truth out of people.'
'If Unas didn't fall by accident, the murderer would have to be someone who knew the arrangements for work at the temple, those of the guards, the porters, the priests, and the royal artisans as well.'
'In other words, someone from the temple, or his wife or her lover.'
'Lover?' Meren asked.
'Yes, a man much younger than Unas, who no doubt attracts the attention of many women.'
'I see,' Meren said. 'Yet another example of the delights of marriage.' He went to his chair and slumped into it. 'God, I'm sick of questioning everyone's motives, of suspecting even the slave who pours water over me in the bathing stall.'
He looked up at Kysen, who was regarding him with surprise. 'Even I can grow weary of stratagems and machinations, Ky.'
'Is that why you took me for your son? To have someone so beholden to you that you could trust him completely?'
'No.'
They held each other's gaze, and Kysen finally lowered his.
