Meren turned around and walked toward the boy. 'Nu, you're a fortunate lad.'
'My lord?'
Nu backed up and hit the column with the back of his head. Meren stopped within arm's reach, studying his quarry in silence until Nu swallowed and lowered his gaze to the floor.
'Look at me.'
Nu lifted his eyes to meet Meren's, and they widened as Meren smiled at him.
'Yes, you're a fortunate lad, Nu. Most men would have killed you for interfering with their daughters.' He paused upon hearing a choking sound from Nu. 'I, however, am not a hot-bellied man. I ask for explanations before I kill. Explain, Nu.'
Nu's mouth worked, but nothing came out of it.
'I can't hear you, boy.'
'I, I, I…'
The slap of sandals on the packed-earth floor saved Nu for the moment. Meren turned to find Bener rushing out of the house, breathless and wild-eyed.
'What are you doing here?' Meren snapped.
'A message, Father.' She thrust a folded and sealed packet at him.
Meren snatched it from her, glaring. He was about to order her home when his eye caught the inscription on the letter: Kysen. He opened it and read swiftly.
'Everlasting damnation. Fiends of the netherworld!'
Nu scuttled behind the column while Bener gawked at him.
Meren rounded on her and pointed. 'Go home, daughter.'
'But Father, Nu is only an apprentice. Aunt has imagined things. And she's only trying to distract you because you're angry with her.'
'Go, at once!'
Bener vanished, and he turned on Nu. 'Come out of there, you worthless little sneak.'
Nu stumbled from behind the column and sank to his knees. Touching his forehead to the floor, he waited in silence. Meren touched the sheath that housed his dagger, but the cold metal didn't spur him to action. It brought him back from the brink of violence. Reason returned. He knew his daughter, and she'd been telling him the truth. Most of it.
'As I said, you're a fortunate lad. My daughter's word is as the word of the goddess Maat, lighter than the feather of truth. You may go.'
Nu rose and slunk past him, only to start when Meren lifted a hand.
'This isn't the end of our conversation.'
'Yes, my lord.'
Nu scurried away, leaving Meren alone on the porch staring into the distance. Worry over his daughter warred with a new concern. Kysen was coming. No doubt he'd arrive before Meren could rid himself of this infestation of relatives. Nento would be with him. Both were ostensibly traveling with the trading flotilla for convenience. No one would think it odd that Kysen had invited Nento to break his journey at his father's house.
But curiosity had always been a family trait. All Meren could do was pray to all the gods of Egypt that his unique preparations would be enough protection against the invasion his sister had arranged for the feast of rejoicing. But prayers wouldn't be sufficient.
He would send Reia and his men out to patrol the countryside. Lord Paser's ship had sailed past him this afternoon again. Paser could have moored farther south and even now be lurking about, spying. But he was more worried about others. The powerful priests of Amun had vowed a truce in their relentless and secret warfare against the boy king Tutankhamun.
Meren wasn't sure their promise extended to the heretic king who tried to banish Amun and the other gods from Egypt. Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's brother, had denuded the fabulous temple of Amun, wiped out his name, beggared his priests. These acts had made Akhenaten's very name anathema. And there were those among the restored priesthood who would give their lives if they could destroy Akhenaten's body and thus deprive him of the afterlife. Ultimate vengeance. A vengeance that Meren had sworn to the king he would prevent.
Unfortunately, he'd experienced the cruelty of which Akhenaten had been capable. His own cousin Ebana had suffered a far worse fate. Determined to wipe out any potentially powerful enemies of his heresy, Akhenaten had ordered Ebana assassinated. Ebana had escaped, but his wife and son hadn't. To Meren's dismay, his cousin had blamed him for not preventing the attack, and nothing he said had ever changed Ebana's attitude. Ebana currently served the high priest of Amun in opposition to pharaoh, while an incongruous twist of Meren's fate had put him in the position of protecting the body of the man who had killed his father and nearly brought about his own death.
He folded Kysen's letter and smiled. If he didn't love the king as a son, would he be fighting so hard for Akhenaten's life in the netherworld? A difficult question, and one to which he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.
Chapter 3
Before dawn on the third morning after confronting the apprentice scribe, Meren slipped out of the house with a tray bearing food, wine, and an alabaster lamp. He walked swiftly down the avenue between the reflection pools to the small chapel where lay shrines to the gods and to his ancestors. A flight of steps took him to the entrance, which was flanked by two painted columns. Shoving open the carved doors with one hand, he entered.
The yellow glow from the lamp illuminated the painted murals on the walls, pictures of his family, his parents, his grandparents, and those who had gone before them. Deep in the heart of the chapel lay golden shrines housing images of Amun; of Osiris, god of Abydos; of Montu, god of war; and others. But it wasn't these Meren intended to visit. Instead, he turned to his right and went to a narrow niche in the wall.
There stood a double statue of his parents, together in death as they had been in life. The sculptor had carved them in their finest clothing, sheer linen draping their bodies. Ornate wigs covered unruly hair; gold hung from their necks, wrists, and ears. Meren whispered prayers for the dead and offered food and wine. When he was done, he stared at the images, wondering why he never felt like they heard his invocations. Yesterday before dark, he'd visited Sit-Hathor's eternal house. He always felt that his wife listened to him. He'd told her all the things he could tell no one else, and he never worried that she might disapprove. She'd always been on his side-after she'd learned to love him, that is. When they first married, Sit-Hathor had thought him a nuisance. But she'd changed her opinion, unlike his father.
In life he had rarely pleased his father, whose quick temper and demands for perfection had made Meren want to fight him rather than comply. And his mother? What he remembered most about her was her constant pleading. Do as your father says. Don't make trouble. Why must you disagree with your father?
One of his earliest memories was of playing in the garden and being called inside by his nurse, Herya. The woman was washing his face when, with sudden violence, his father burst into the room carrying his toy hippopotamus. Appearing like a giant demon from the underworld, Amosis hurled the wooden miniature to the floor. It hit with a loud crack, making Meren scream and burst into tears while Amosis railed at him for cluttering up the garden.
Of course, Meren hadn't understood what Amosis was saying. The sudden terror wiped out all else from his heart. And when his mother came to comfort him, all she said was that Father didn't like him to leave his toys lying around. Don't make trouble, don't provoke Father's temper.
What was it in his makeup that made Meren refuse to placate tyranny? Even so young, he had resented unreasonable abuse. And as the years went by, resentment grew until one day-he couldn't have been more than twelve-Meren realized that he didn't respect his parents. He resented the deference the world demanded he pay to them, disbelieved his father's glamorous reputation as a courtier, governor, and warrior. The gods had proved Meren right. The day came when Amosis's temper pitted him against a heretic pharaoh and cost him his life.
Useless to be proven right at such a cost. Meren glanced down the line of figures arrayed beside his parents until he came to one standing apart on a pedestal in the corner. Djet stood as he had in life, wide of shoulder, long,
