Only in this way could he guard the safety of the king.
'Am I right, Meren?'
'What?'
'Don't fall asleep,' said Tanefer. 'Brother of my heart, I've just wagered this gold ankle band that you've refused to favor the Lady Bentanta.'
Meren held out his hand, and a maid placed a silvers dish laden with his favorite figs in it. He rose and went to a couch. Lowering himself to a half-reclining position on its cushions, he bit into a fruit.
Unfortunately, Tanefer and Ahiram followed him. Tanefer dropped on a leather cushion near his elbow, plucked a fig from Meren's bowl, and took a bite.
'He won't answer, Ahiram. What say you? Has he let her into his bed?'
'I would, me,' said Ahiram between gulps of wine. 'A widow-gods, think of her experience, and she's still young enough to-'
'Ahiram,' Meren said softly. 'You really should learn not to flap your tongue about women.'
'Then settle our wager,' Ahiram said.
Meren lay back on the couch and stared up at the plastered ceiling and green-and-white frieze of papyrus fronds that bordered it. 'I regret that you've been reminded of the loss of your father by this whole question of a new campaign next harvest.'
He glanced at Ahiram, but the Syrian was staring at Tanefer as if the younger man held the secrets of the underworld. Tanefer studied his fig, then took another bite.
Meren had expected to provoke a string of complaints, Ahiram's forte. His laments at his ill fortune were well known at court, and he could spend an entire evening listing injustices done to him, reasons why his plans for achievements hadn't succeeded (always someone else's fault), slights received. Meren often learned interesting things from these tirades.
'I know the old king abandoned your father to those rebels and bandits,' Meren said.
'Dung-eaters in the pay of the Hittite king.'
Meren tried again. 'How it must sting to have been raised as an Egyptian, to be trained to take your father's place and continue in friendship with the empire-and then have those who promised so much fulfill nothing.'
Ahiram looked away and shrugged. 'That was long ago.'
'Not so long,' Tanefer said. He was staring into the pool of wine in his goblet.
Meren watched the way the corners of his mouth drooped, and for once regretted the necessity of probing old hurts. Tanefer's mother had been a princess, daughter of the king of Mitanni, who came all the way from the banks of the northern Euphrates to wed pharaoh's father and vanish into his palace as one of several lesser wives.
He remembered Gilukhepa. A woman, like many in the household of pharaoh, dissatisfied with her allotted place in the shadow of the great Queen Tiye. Over the years, her dissatisfaction had putrefied. She had tried to bathe Tanefer in that putrefaction, but her son possessed a merry and magical ka that could no more live upon misery than a crocodile could walk like a man.
He surrounded himself with beauty, having built one of the most gracious and largest houses in Thebes. He kept entire workshops of artisans who decorated his houses, created his jewelry, armor, and weapons, designed his tomb. Tanefer had a gift for beauty. Most of the young men around pharaoh envied him his easy yet regal manner, his brilliance in battle, his barbed wit.
'You could have been king,' Meren said.
Tanefer set his goblet down on the floor and began tossing a fig in one hand. 'My uncle is dead, murdered by one of his cousins no doubt, and my relatives vie for what is left of Mitanni. Think you I wish to leave the font of civilization to lie in a bed of serpents?'
'Byblos is a magnificent city, and rich,' Ahiram said. 'I wouldn't refuse to rule it, me, should the empire find its testicles again.'
'That kind of campaign would take years,' Meren said. 'Think of the cities that lie between Egypt and Byblos.'
'We wouldn't have to fight if the old king hadn't-'
'Peace! We're here to enjoy Meren's food.' Tanefer slapped Ahiram on the back and whispered a lurid jest.
Ahiram barked his laughter. Having won his game of senet, Kysen came over to join in their merriment. Meren was left free to approach Djoser and Rahotep, who were listening to the musicians. Words of the song floated up to him as he took a chair beside them. My beloved rules my heart. Oh how long is the hour since I lay with her.
The harp's music rippled through the air, and Meren could see that its tranquility was at odds with Djoser's thoughts. Evidently Rahotep was trying to amend his friend's poor spirits in his clumsy way and hadn't succeeded. Djoser's foul mood contrasted with his fine raiment. Of all of them, he was the one most attentive to dress. At the moment he was contemplating his sandal, a rich object of gilded leather. Djoser liked sandals. Meren once estimated he had a pair for each day of the year.
Rahotep was still trying to cheer his friend. He was generous; for once he'd found someone to whom he could compare himself easily and always rank himself the better.
'It isn't every man's fate to be a warrior,' Rahotep said. 'Many of the great of Egypt weren't. Remember architects Amunhotep, son of Hapu, and Imhotep, who was also a sage and magician. Why, Imhotep designed the great step pyramid and is revered as a god.'
Djoser downed half a goblet of beer, then wiped his mouth. Even this much drink couldn't seem to quell his agitation. His eyes darted from side to side, and he appeared to shrivel inside his skin as he spoke.
'You didn't puke on the battlefield. You didn't drop your own scimitar. You didn't lose governance of your horses and have to be rescued from your own chariot.'
Djoser gulped down the rest of his beer and slurred his words. 'I have to prove my worth. Everyone is laughing at me, but I'll kick their laughter back in their throats. No one should laugh at a prince…'
Meren exchanged glances with Rahotep.
'I'll see that he's taken home,' Rahotep said.
Meren nodded. 'Has your humor restored itself?'
Rahotep began to store the senet tokens in compartments inside their box. 'Ahiram wouldn't have dared put his hands on me if I had full royal blood.'
'His temper will be his downfall,' Meren said. 'I've seen him so maddened that I thought he'd touch pharaoh himself.'
He could see that Rahotep didn't believe him. He'd known these men for most of his life, but Rahotep was the only one who bore common blood, and was the only one who constantly remembered it. His mother had been a peasant who caught the eye of pharaoh. And with every breath he drew, Rahotep regretted that she'd never been anything more than a concubine. He even hated his appearance, for he'd inherited his mother's wide, flat face and spreading nose, which he deemed to be peasant traits. Kysen had often remarked that Rahotep would appear far more princely if he weren't constantly digging his little finger in his ear.
Meren listened to Rahotep discounting the concerns of Djoser, consigning them to insignificance beside his own burdens, and knew that he'd been right to invite his friends home. There was much fuel here to heat the cauldron of strife that was the court. To keep it from bubbling over, he needed to listen to howls of discontent, to keep his ear alert for the sounds of hounds metamorphosing into jackals and hyenas.
Chapter 7
North of Thebes, at the edge of the eastern city, the waters of the Nile had cut deep into the bank, causing eddies and slowing the current of the river. Here lay a small marsh, between the river and the beginning of cultivation. Ebana guided his chariot carefully along a road made of the back dirt produced by digging canals.
The going was slow, for it was late, and only the moon's light illuminated his way. Finally he pulled up and dismounted. He removed a spear from the case attached to the chariot and walked down a dike to the marsh, where a papyrus-stalk skiff awaited him.
