between the kitchen and the living chamber. She had dropped a bowl of water.
'Thief, thief, thief, thief, thief!' the lady screeched.
Meren winced at the shrill trumpeting sound of her voice. He was sure Egyptian women developed blaring voices that could be heard across a battlefield from keeping order among their children. The shrill voice rose higher; the goose honked and hissed. Meren thrust his dagger into his belt and covered his ears.
'Peace, old woman! Do I look like a thief?'
The woman's mouth snapped shut. Her jaws pressed together and spread out as they do when back teeth have been lost.
'What are you doing here, boy?'
Startled at being addressed in so familiar a manner, Meren blinked, then said, 'I'm searching for a woman called Hunero, who was favorite cook to the Great Royal Wife, Nefertiti, the justified, and I seek her husband, Bay, also.'
'Hunero is down in the yard milking the donkey, young one.' The old woman vanished back into the kitchen without another word. Meren was about to follow when she reappeared, carrying another bowl of water, which she set near the goose.
'There, Beauty. Drink deep, my sweet, my little gosling. She's a little treasure. She's a little daub of honey, she's a-'
'Did you say Hunero was in the yard milking a donkey?'
'A goat, fool. Milk a donkey, what a mad thought.'
'Aged one, there is no one in the yard.'
'My name is Satet, boy. You should know that if you're a friend of my sister's.'
Satet seated herself on a stool and stroked the goose named Beauty with a trembling hand. Meren guessed that she had six or seven decades, a great age seldom achieved by those of humble rank. Like many who attain a revered age, Satet had shrunk as her years increased until she was the size of a twelve-year-old boy.
Unfortunately, her skin hadn't shrunk as her bones did, and now she looked like a huge bag into which had been tossed a collection of children's bones. Her neck was pleated with more wrinkles than a courtier's robe. Wobbly blue veins protruded from her skin like earthworms. Her hair had been shorn in a haphazard manner so that it hung in thin, irregular lengths.
However, her age and frailty didn't concern Meren. He was disturbed by the slight but constant nodding of her head, her strange conversation, and the fact that she had stuck at least a dozen wooden combs in her hair at different angles.
'Satet,' Meren said, 'where did you say Hunero and Bay have gone?'
'Oh, them? They're not here.'
'I know, but where have they gone?'
'They left, all of a sudden, like nomads in a drought.
One day Hunero came to me and said they were leaving, going to the city to seek fortune. A lot of folly, that is.'
'Did Hunero say which city?'
Satet was stroking Beauty again. The goose shifted her weight from one foot to the other, marching in place as she rubbed her back.
'Aged one, about Hunero.'
'Oh, she'll be back soon. She just went to fetch honey from the hives out back.'
Suppressing a sigh of exasperation, Meren drew near the seated woman. 'Do you live here alone?'
'Of course, young one. Do you see anyone else here? That lazy Bay convinced Hunero they'd be safer in the city, among lots of people.'
'Safer, why safer?' Meren squatted so that his head was level with Satet's and caught her gaze. 'Please, aged one, tell me why they felt safer in the city.'
A voice came at him from behind. 'No one knows why they left.'
Meren's hand went to his dagger again. Looking over his shoulder he watched a youth come toward him. Unarmed, he carried a sagging basket in both hands, which he set beside Satet.
'I have brought your food and supplies, good grandmother.'
Meren's hand dropped from his dagger hilt. This boy was no danger. He bore no weapon except for a small flint knife stuck in the waistband of his kilt. He was tall, but thin as youths are before they attain the musculature of manhood. Satet patted his head and trailed her wrinkled fingers through smooth, soft hair that gleamed as though it had been recently washed.
'Your name?' Meren asked.
'I am Tentamun, master. Bay paid me goods worth many copper
'So you aren't related to Satet. Where did they go, and when?'
'They left, oh, almost a week ago. Five or six days, I think. But Bay refused to say where they were going, and now no one in the village has heard from either Hunero or her husband Bay.'
Satet gave Tentamun a playful slap on the arm. 'I told you, boy, Hunero is in the yard milking the donkey.'
'Yes, revered grandmother,' Tentamun replied with patience.
'Did anyone see which way they sailed?' Meren asked.
'No, master, but I happened to be up early the morning they were to leave, and I saw a temple trading ship pass by going south. I haven't seen Hunero or Bay since that vessel sailed by.'
'South,' Meren repeated.
He pondered his situation. He couldn't chase all the way to Nubia in hopes of finding the city in which his quarry chose to hide. He wasn't going to pry the truth from Satet, if she even knew what the truth was, without a great deal of patience and time. He couldn't stay here. Satet would have to go with him back to Memphis.
'You're certain no one knows where the couple went?' he asked Tentamun.
'Yes, good master. Their leaving has been the talk of the village. Even the headman doesn't know, and we're all worried about Satet.' Tentamun swept his arm around in a half circle. 'After all, they took almost everything with them, even their cookware. We don't think Hunero and Bay are going to return.'
Meren remained silent for a moment, assessing Tentamun's direct look and the way his hands lay comfortably on his thighs as he knelt, resting on the backs of his heels.
'I think you're right. Those two aren't coming back. And I am left with a problem. My master, a great noble, has need of an experienced cook to train several in his household. I was sent to find Hunero. My master detests failure, but perhaps he will forgive me if I bring Satet.'
'Oh, but-'
'You can cook, can't you?' he asked the old woman.
'Better than that conceited Hunero,' Satet said with a sniff. 'I was placed in the household of the high priest of Ptah in Memphis. Hunero says she'll get a place even more grand than that. I told her she's imagining above herself. She thinks she's going to be a royal cook, of all things.'
His head was beginning to ache from trying to follow Satet in her voyages through the past and present and back again. Meren spent a while longer satisfying Tentamun that the old one would be safe in his care. Then the youth left, his departure unnoticed by Satet. She was too busy shrieking for her pet cat.
'Treasure, here Treasure, where is mother's little girl?'
Meren covered his ears and glanced around the living chamber. He would sleep on a pile of mats tonight and leave for Memphis with Satet in the morning. He only hoped she would remember him then.
He slept lightly, waking every few hours. Most of the time he woke because Satet was roaming around the house. She napped throughout the day, rather than sleeping through the night. Once he came awake with a jolt to find the old woman's snores from the single bedchamber echoing off the bare plastered walls. Painfully alert, Meren listened to the deep groaning bark that came with each intake of breath. He had a vague memory of something moving beside him.
Looking around, he could see little in the blackness. He assumed Beauty was still nestled in her basket stuffed with linen scraps. The feeling of air disturbed by the movement of a body remained with him. Was it the remnant of a dream, the cat Treasure, or worse, a demon?
