Frowning, he glanced at Sennefer, who had been snickering during the exchange. He intercepted a predatory stare at his daughter. Jolted into awareness, he stood up so that his body blocked Sennefer's view. His cousin smoothly drew his gaze back to Meren, only to falter at the image of death he found there.
Lowering his voice so that only Sennefer could hear him, he said, 'Attempt it, and I'll cut your cock off and make you eat it.' Sennefer gave him a look of outraged innocence that was ruined by the way he swallowed hard as though nauseated. Turning to Isis, he said, 'Come, I'll attend to Remi. If you don't intend to take care of him, don't say you will. Find a maid to do it.'
As he followed Isis, with Sennefer in tow, he passed servants busy cleaning the chambers and hall in preparation for the feast. The garden lay in a walled enclosure behind the house. Its pool was deeper than the reflection pools in front and large enough to support one or two pleasure craft of the type designed to hold several people. In contrast to the barren fields and desert, the garden at Baht was lush with carefully tended greenery.
Generations of his family had cultivated willows, sycamores, pomegranates, and fig trees here. Incense trees graced painted earthenware pots. Arbors of grapevines provided secluded alcoves in which to rest. Flowers bordered the pool in thick beds. Meren scanned the court for the small figure of his grandson and found him bending precariously over the edge of the pool.
Raising his voice, he called, 'Remi, stay back.'
Like Meren's pet hounds and his thoroughbreds, Remi only heard what he wanted to hear. Meren's second call was drowned by the splash Remi made as he dove into the water. Cursing, Meren raced across the garden, leaped over a flower bed, and dove in after the boy. The exertion caused the newly healed skin over his shoulder wound to pull. He'd jumped in an area thick with water lilies that could bind him underwater.
Fish slithered against his body as he sliced through the water. Shadows from the water lilies obscured his vision. Searching the dappled haze, he spotted the gleam of bronze and a little hand reaching for it. Meren darted for the bottom, snatched Remi and the toy chariot, and thrust himself up and out of the water. Bursting into the open, he winced as the child's weight stressed his shoulder. Remi sputtered, then laughed and grabbed the toy. Swimming one-handed, Meren reached the side of the pool and handed Remi to Isis.
His hair was plastered to his forehead and hung down over his eyes. Gripping the edge of the pool, he hoisted himself out of the water and stood dripping beside Sennefer and Isis. All at once he noticed there were more people in the garden than he'd realized. Nebetta and Hepu huddled beside a grape arbor and gave him disapproving looks. No doubt they were scandalized at his departure from the demeanor of a great lord. Hepu probably had written a whole Instruction on the subject. He glared back at them, and they scurried out of the garden, muttering to themselves.
Then he heard a soft laugh. Lungs heaving, blinking back the water that dripped from his hair to his eyes, he turned to behold two elegantly dressed women standing beside a flower bed. One was Sennefer's wife, Anhai. The other was Bentanta, one of the few people alive who could make him blush. Anhai was chuckling at him. Thank the gods, Bentanta wasn't smiling at all.
'What are you doing, Meren?' Anhai asked. 'I thought you were one of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, not a nurse.'
'I was-'
He stopped in midsentence as Anhai suddenly laughed, stepped toward him, and patted his cheek. She had a laugh like the chimes of a sistrum, one that evoked good humor in everyone. Meren forgot his embarrassment as she smiled at him.
'You're an amazement,' she said. 'You're one of the few who can call himself Friend of the King, you're entrusted with pharaoh's secrets, well-being, and defense, you're quite pleasing to look at, and you love your family.'
'I thank you, Anhai, but-'
She went on as if he hadn't spoken. 'While I am cursed with a man who not only can't keep his place at court but also hasn't the seed to give me even one child in the dozen years we've been married.'
Meren felt his jaw come unhinged. He'd forgotten for a moment what Anhai was like-a ka filled with putrescence and surrounded by a fine layer of jeweled charm. He stared at her while she appeared to reflect upon her words with pleasure. Bentanta had the diplomacy to appear engrossed in an examination of the water lilies. He didn't return Anhai's smile, and stared as she left the garden with an air of having gained some great victory.
Isis, who was holding Remi's wet hand, also stared at Anhai's retreating back. 'I don't like her. Come, Remi, you're going back to your nurse before you get my gown wet.'
Meren regained his composure and glanced at Sennefer. His cousin was one of those men who make up for a lack of stature by cultivating an abundance of muscle. At the moment every one of those visible was flushed, as was his face. He had a short, sharp nose that reddened almost to the color of wine. He muttered something Meren didn't catch, then excused himself and rushed after his wife.
Meren was left alone, wet and uncomfortable, with Bentanta. She didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave, and he was slow to recover his composure. Bentanta was a childhood friend grown into a woman of grace. Once he'd swum naked in the Nile with her, Djet, and Ebana, but their lives had taken them along different paths. She was a widow with children the age of his own. Once she'd served the great queen Tiye, mother of Tutankhamun, and Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten and daughter of Ay. She was as well versed in court intrigue and imperial diplomacy as he, but of late she'd retired from service to Tutankhamun's queen, Ankhesenamun, to live quietly.
But whether a private person or a royal attendant, Bentanta was a formidable woman. And the last woman in Egypt before whom he wished to appear in nothing but a clinging, wet kilt.
He cleared his throat. 'Blessings of Amun be upon you, lady. I didn't know you were coming to the feast of rejoicing.'
Bentanta left off her examination of the water lilies and gave him a stare that seemed to slice through his body and probe his ka.
'There's no need for foolish courtesy, Meren. I know you weren't expecting me. Neither was your sister. I'm here because I was visiting Anhai, and she insisted that I come with her.'
'You sound as if you don't want to be here.'
Her lashes fluttered, and she gave him a smile as false as the gilt on a coffin lid. 'Of course I want to be here. I came to see you.'
Wary, he gave her a skeptical look. 'Oh?'
'I've much leisure time now that I'm no longer at court, time to reflect on the happy memories of childhood. This reflection has given me a desire to renew old friendships, like ours.' She turned her back on him and walked away. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, 'You can stop looking like a trapped gazelle, Meren. I only mentioned friendship, not marriage. My view of husbands isn't much more cheerful than Anhai's.'
She left him standing by the pool, dripping, his kilt clinging to his hips. He shoved damp hair from his forehead, looked down at himself, and cursed. This morning he hadn't bothered to don anything other than a kilt. He might as well have been wearing a loincloth.
Sputtering curses at his own lack of judgment, he stalked back into the house to his private apartments. Zar was already there, instructing bathing attendants. The man seemed to know what he would need before Meren did. A convenient and at the same time unsettling habit. Meren glared at the servant, went into the bathing chamber, and stepped into the limestone bathing stall. As a bathing attendant poured water over him, he wondered that his skin didn't steam from the irritation that boiled within him.
He consoled himself with the thought that he only had to survive the rest of this day and the evening's feast. Then everyone would be gone, those slugs Nebetta and Hepu, Great Aunt Cherit, the lecherous Sennefer, Anhai,
Bentanta, all of them. Then he'd have peace, and the freedom to do what he'd promised pharaoh he would do. And if Idut didn't get rid of his relatives, he was going to throw them out himself.
Chapter 4
Lord Paser was a man of unique appearance; of this he was quite certain. He prided himself on his closely
