Priests and citizens scurried through the great pylon gate of Amunhotep the Magnificent in the ceaseless traffic that surrounded the house of the god. Artisans clambered up and down the scaffolding around the king's statue as if no word of violence had reached them. No doubt Parenefer had seen to it that none had.
Meren walked past the statue, glancing at the base, which stood almost as tall as he. Progress had been made, for a draftsman had drawn in the double cartouches of the king's coronation and given names- Nebkheprure Tutankhamun. The elongated ovals of two cartouches enclosed two sets of hieroglyphs, neither of which was finished.
On the left he could see the pointed end of a reed leaf at the top of the cartouche, and below the leaf, the beginning of a head of a bird. All that lay within the second cartouche was the circle of the sun and the beginnings of the outline of a beetle. When the drawing was complete a sculptor would carve the design in sunken relief.
He went inside the god's gate and heard murmuring. Priests of every rank clustered in knots and whispered. He turned left, went through a door, and took a path that led away from the sanctuary itself to the separate building called the House of Life. Like all the buildings within the temple enclosure, it was covered with carved and painted reliefs depicting the god, his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu. Before the door of polished cedar a crowd of priests, students, and servants milled, kept back by a pair of guards.
The group blocking his way parted and fell silent as he approached. He saw the guards exchange glances, trying to decide whether it was more dangerous to keep him out or let him in. They were disadvantaged, however; no nobleman of his rank would even stop to ask permission to enter. Meren passed between the two men and through the half-open door without a glance in their direction.
'Lord?'
He looked over his shoulder in surprise. The guard who had spoken cleared his throat.
'There be cobras within.'
He nodded and left the man staring after him. Before him lay a columned central hall in disarray. Chests lay open, their contents strewn about where scholars had dropped them in their haste to escape. He listened to the hollow dripping of the water clock. He stepped over the scattered contents of a scribe's kit, avoiding the spray of ocher dust.
Beyond the thicket of columns was a doorway; he was walking toward it when he heard voices to his left. Entering a corridor that ran the length of the building, he found Ebana talking to several men outside the third room along the corridor. As he approached, Ebana glanced up, stopped in mid-sentence, then gestured to a guard. The man ducked inside the room and reappeared, followed by a servant holding three hunting cats in his arms. They bustled past Meren, who could hear a loud strumming from the cats as their tails lashed back and forth in contentment.
Ebana stepped in front of the threshold as he approached. Meren was surprised to see Prince Rahotep leaning against the wall outside the room. Rahotep was in shadow, but he moved into the light issuing from the room to reveal a face dewed with sweat. For once his bluster had been quelled. He wiped his forehead with a shaking hand. He ignored Meren.
'You're sure they're all in there?' he asked Ebana.
'All five of them, except for what the cats consumed. I told you it was safe to move.'
'What if one of them escaped?' Rahotep peered down the corridor in the direction of the central hall. 'It could be hiding behind a column.'
'It's safe to go home,' Ebana snapped. 'By the gods, Rahotep, you weren't even touched.'
'Don't go,' Meren said.
Rahotep slumped against the wall and licked his lips while he goggled at Meren. 'You saw more in the hall?'
'No, but I wish to talk to you.'
Ebana folded his arms over his chest, still barring the entrance to the room, as Meren stood before him. 'What do you here? This is a matter for priests, not charioteers and spies.'
'I'm here at the command of pharaoh, cousin, so unless you wish to defy the king's wishes, stand aside. I want to see Qenamun before Parenefer arrives. You did tell that guard to let him know I was here, did you not?'
Ebana stepped aside, and as Meren brushed by him, he whispered, 'Did you come alone, cousin? How brave of you.'
Meren paused to meet Ebana's obsidian gaze. 'I never fear to enter the sacred precincts of Amun. It seems that death stalks only priests here.' He glanced at Qenamun's body and then back to Ebana, who scowled at him so that the scar on his temple seemed to leap into prominence.
Meren began to examine the chamber. Qenamun lay on his back on a table in front of a wall of shelves, his feet resting in a stone mortar and his head on the remains of a clay bowl. Beneath him and on the floor around the table lay plates of dried herbs, jars, wax figures.
Qenamun looked as if he'd fallen asleep. His nails and lips were pale, while his lower body had already taken on the purple hue Meren recognized. He'd asked Nebamun, his physician, about this color and received the explanation that without its soul, the body could no longer support blood, which then sank, as water flows down a slope.
He touched Qenamun's arm. It still bent. Along it on both sides were scattered the puncture marks of the cobra. Dried blood on his left thigh marked the site of another strike. Meren counted seven in all, five of which were concentrated on the upper arm.
He turned away from the body to glance about the workroom. Several heavy jars had been upset on the floor. Between two of them lay a basket with its lid askew. He opened it and beheld the remains of several cobras, their dark bodies ripped open to expose gnawed flesh. He counted five heads, then replaced the lid.
Turning to Ebana, he said, 'You were here? How did this happen?'
'We'd just returned from the quay market,' Ebana said. He nodded his head in Rahotep's direction. 'Rahotep wanted a dream book he'd commissioned from Qenamun, and it was supposed to be in that chest. He stuck his hand in and found the cobras.'
Meren went to a wall of built-in shelves, from the center of which projected a wide table. There lay a cedar- and-ebony casket. It was rectangular, its greatest side slightly more than a cubit long. He looked inside, but the box was empty except for a scattering of rush pens.
Rahotep's pale face appeared around the edge of the door. 'Someone put the snakes in there on purpose.'
Ebana rolled his eyes. 'Gather your wits. Of course it was planned.'
Meren was occupied with sorting through the stacks of documents on the shelves. One row was devoted to copies of chapters of the Book of the Dead. Another consisted of various theologies of the major gods-Ra, Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Set, as well as Amun. He found Rahotep's dream book under the story of the contentions of Horus and Set, along with an incomplete set of interpretations intended for Prince Ahiram.
'Qenamun's interpreting abilities seem to have found favor with quite a few of our friends,' Meren said as he pulled several papyrus rolls from the shelf. He read the dedications of a few. 'Here is one for Princess Hathor, another for Prince Djoser, and this one seems to be a dream divined for General Horemheb.'
'How can you stay in there? It stinks of death,' Rahotep said. 'Gods, I need air!'
He clamped a hand over his mouth and fled. Meren watched him vanish without comment while he ran the tips of his fingers over a papyrus roll bearing the name of Prince Djoser. He plucked another roll from a shelf and found a scribe's palette beneath it. Pausing, Meren touched the palette's gilded wooden surface. His glance caught the gleam of alabaster behind another stack of texts. He pushed them aside to reveal ink pots.
He looked at Ebana. 'Where did Qenamun keep his palette?'
'In that box.' Ebana pointed at the cedar-and-ebony chest.
'Then someone removed its contents, concealed them, and put the cobras in their place, knowing that Qenamun would be likely to stick his hand in the box without paying much attention to what he was doing.'
He turned back to the shelves and began filling Qenamun's casket with documents.
'What are you doing?'
'Taking what seems meaningful.'
Ebana stalked over to him and grabbed Meren's wrist as he reached for Djoser's papyrus. Their gazes locked,
