striding legs, that sad, brooding expression. After Djet had died it was Meren, not Djet's parents, who had provided for his cousin's afterlife. He'd commissioned the statue from the royal sculptor who had carved so many hauntingly beautiful images of the royal family at Horizon of Aten.
'Greetings, Djet,' Meren whispered. 'I've brought your favorite spice bread, and some good Delta wine. And I've come to ask you a favor. Could you intercede with the gods to make my relatives vanish? Your cursed mother and father are here, and Idut has invited your brother. You know what an ass Sennefer is, trying to mount every pretty serving woman on the manor, bragging, expecting me to play witness to his prowess.'
Tearing off a piece of bread, Meren took a bite and sighed. 'Fortunately Uncle Thay, Uncle Bakenkhons, and their families couldn't come. I've managed to avoid the others by taking the girls sailing two days in a row. But tonight there's a feast. That's Idut's fault. You know how she is. She ignores how everyone quarrels and just proceeds as if the family were loving and cooperative.'
Taking a sip of wine from the glazed pottery cup, Meren sank to the floor and gazed up at Djet's unmoving features.
'I thought I had everything arranged. I would come home to quiet and peace. No great crowds, no danger, away from the spies at court and in the temples. Now the house is stuffed with prying relatives. I made Idut promise to get rid of them after tonight's feast, but if she doesn't, I'm going to have to send them away myself, which will get me into even more trouble. I might as well throw myself to the Devourer right now.'
He stood and put the bread back on the altar in front of Djet's image. 'I miss you, Djet. Ebana hates me now, you know. Why did I have to lose the two of you? Both of you were more brother to me than Ra. Of all the family, he's the only one who hasn't promised to come. He left so he wouldn't have to see me. And on top of everything, Great-Aunt Cherit says Grandmother Wa'bet has decided I should marry again.' He sighed. 'I think I prefer court intrigue, royal machinations, and murder. I can't think clearly when I'm surrounded by relatives.'
Drawing closer to Djet, Meren lowered his voice so that it was barely audible.
'If you have any answers, send them to me in a dream.' Shoulders slumped, Meren turned away. He couldn't remember how many times he'd asked Djet to answer one imperative question-why he'd killed himself. In the last few years, he'd stopped asking. What did it matter? Djet was gone.
'Stop brooding, you fool,' Meren said to himself. Kysen would be here soon, and he would have to be alert. Heading for the door, Meren stepped in a patch of light coming into the chapel from one of the windows set high in the walls. Bright sunlight. How long had he been in here?
Leaving his offerings, he stepped outside into a world already bereft of what little coolness the night offered. Before him lay the entry gate, to his left, the sprawling white facade of the main house. The loggia was supported by papyriform columns, while the doorway was decorated with a frieze of red-and-green palmetto leaves.
Inside lay the family quarters, the great central hall, and his office. To either side of the house, in courts separated by gated walls, lay giant granaries, cattle pens, and a well court. To the rear were the kitchen, storage rooms, servants' quarters, and stables.
Baht wasn't so much a house as a small village. The smaller houses used by his uncles, cousins, and other relatives clustered beside the main one, just outside its walls. Already a train of donkeys bearing grain baskets was plodding through a side gate on its way to the granary court. As Meren walked back to the house, he saw the steward Kasa marching around the corner of the house on his way to the cattle pens. He was at the head of a line of assistants-his two sons, three cattle herders, and the unfortunate Nu.
Seeing the youth reminded Meren of another problem. Bener had tried to persuade him that she spent so much time with Kasa because of her interest in writing. Meren wasn't convinced. But he'd reserved judgment because he feared he'd been hasty. Perhaps he'd spent too much time steeped in intrigue and deception not to look for it where it didn't exist. Bener wasn't a deceitful girl. She wasn't a fool. He shouldn't assume she would succumb to Nu's pretty face.
He was pondering this dilemma on the front steps when the clatter of hooves signaled the approach of a chariot. Turning, he saw his cousin Sennefer clatter down the avenue toward him. Too fast.
'Sennefer, pull up!'
His cousin hauled on the reins. Meren backpedaled as a wall of horseflesh thundered down on him. A hoof pounded the stone step he'd been standing on. Meren cursed and jumped farther back. Grooms rushed down the avenue from their post beside the gate. Sennefer hopped to the ground and threw his reins at the men.
'Ha! Meren, you jackal, I haven't seen you in months and months.'
Sennefer clapped him on the back. Meren suppressed another sigh and tried not to sound too morose. 'Greetings, Sennefer.'
'Give me beer, cousin. It's a hot sail and a dusty drive from my place to yours.'
'You can go back.'
Laughing, Sennefer hit him on the back again. 'And miss one of Idut's feasts? Besides, the daughter of the mayor of Abydos has become importunate. Why do they always try to suffocate you, Meren? They demand that you spend time with them, suck you dry, and then want more.'
'Someday you're going to get a dagger in your heart for interfering with married women, Sennefer.'
'It's not my fault,' Sennefer said as they reached the reception hall. He broke off to smile at a serving maid who offered a bowl of water for his refreshment. 'What do you expect? There are so many, and they want me, they beg. I can see it in their eyes.'
Meren waved the serving maid away, and when she was gone, Sennefer continued.
'You see. That one was ready to jump behind the nearest bush with me.'
'She didn't even look at you, Sennefer.'
Shaking his head, Sennefer led the way into the central hall and collapsed on a couch with his beer. 'You always were jealous.'
'Oh, certainly.'
He didn't care what Sennefer thought. Sennefer had always been an impoverished version of his younger brother Djet. Sennefer bragged of his exploits; Djet kept quiet and drew into thrall countless admirers of both sexes. Sennefer boasted incessantly of his courage in battle when it was known he never participated in anything more dangerous than a skirmish with unarmed thieves; Djet had received the gold of bravery from pharaoh. Meren stopped listening when Sennefer began to lecture him on how to seduce his serving maid. Then his guest said something that caught his attention.
'Did you say your wife wants a divorce?'
Sennefer waved a hand. 'She says she wants children. I can't help it if she's barren. And she thinks she's going to get my estates in the Hare nome. What an imagination, eh?'
'You can't make her stay if she wants to leave.'
'She won't leave without the riches she wants, believe me. Anhai's first love is wealth. I swear, Meren, she's counted every piece of food, every pot, every grain of barley and wheat we ever produced since the day we married. If there was gain in it, she'd market the sands of the desert and the dung in the cattle pens.'
'You shouldn't criticize your wife to me,' Meren said. He was going to kill Idut. He was trying to think of an excuse to leave before Sennefer could recall more misery to impart when Isis burst into the hall, obviously aggrieved.
'Father, Remi says he's going to jump into the garden pool.'
Meren looked at her in surprise. His household did not come to him with the small misbehaviors of a three- year-old grandson. 'Where is the nurse?'
'Aunt Idut sent her to help in the kitchen because of the feast tonight, and I'm watching him.'
Waving his daughter away, Meren said, 'Then simply tell Remi not to jump in the pool.'
'I have, but he said he's going to do it anyway, to retrieve his toy chariot. You know he'll do it, Father.'
'By the gods, Isis, if he does, haul him out.'
His charioteers would have recognized the irritation in his voice and decamped. Not his daughter. She smoothed the pleats of her spotless robe and tossed a thick lock of hair from her wig over her shoulder.
'I can't,' she said. 'I would ruin my costume.'
Meren narrowed his eyes and studied Isis. Why hadn't he noticed that she was arrayed in elaborate dress? There were more pleats in her robe than feathers on a duck. Her eyes were painted with kohl and green paint, her arms and shoulders laden with electrum and carnelian. He should have noticed, but he thought of Isis as a babe. Yet dressed as she was, she looked older than Bener.
