'What demon would bother with this neglected and peculiar household?' he mumbled.
Meren rose and went to the door. Pulling it open, he stood searching the yard, the garden, the barren fields. He heard an owl and looked up. A black silhouette crossed the sky, descended, and settled on the gatepost. Meren couldn't make out the flattened face, but he could see the black feather tufts.
Without warning the great bird's head swiveled around, then twisted back in Meren's direction. With a hoot that sounded across the horizon and reverberated from the desert cliffs, the creature sprang into the air. Wings flapping, it climbed the sky, its cries fading before Meren lost sight of it.
He remained at the door to listen for what had startled the owl. In the yard all was stillness. It was so quiet he could hear the north breeze whistle through the vent in the roof. Finally he perceived movement. Treasure, a fat black-and-gray bundle of meanness and gluttony, jumped onto the gatepost and sniffed the spot where the owl had perched. Meren watched the feline stalk along the wall and leap to the ground outside the yard. A black spot, she moved with deliberate care into the fields. Nothing else moved. The cat. He'd sensed the cat leaving the house. After assessing the likelihood that the source of his awakening might be something more sinister, Meren went back to his makeshift bed. Once inside the house, all he could hear were Satet's resounding snores and her intervening snuffles. The cat had startled the owl. He closed his eyes only to open them wide at the eruptions coming from Satet's bedchamber. If it hadn't been the cat that had frightened the owl, it had been those snores.
Now Kysen knew where Ese had gotten the inspiration for her imitation Greek house. He glanced at the guard on either side of him, then raised his gaze up past the brilliant frescoes to the people on the second floor who leaned over a balustrade and stared down at him silently. His escorts had halted him beside the circular central hearth, and the balustrade went around the entire square walk. Above it rose the clerestory window, now dark and sprinkled with stars. Ese had thrust him into the care of these two spear-carrying want-wits and ordered them to take him to Othrys. That she hadn't come with them said something about the relationship between her and the Greek.
A silver-haired Mycenaean in a long robe appeared and shuffled across the hall. Those in his path gave way. Many of them were accomplished bandits and pirates who stepped aside for no man, so Kysen knew immediately that this Greek was an intimate of Othrys. The farther into the hall the man came, the quieter its occupants became. Silver Hair's steps faltered and ceased as he drew near Kysen. He squinted, then drew a sharp breath and scuttled back the way he'd come.
Conversation failed to resume, and Kysen tried to look unconcerned that everyone seemed to be staring at him. A boom signaled the closing of a door somewhere within the house. It was a deceptive place, appearing to be one moderately large building when it really occupied the entire space of the two adjacent dwellings as well. Why hadn't such a large residence attracted the attention of the mayor and the royal officials concerned with foreigners?
Another boom sounded, closer, and then Silver Hair reappeared, entering from a door painted to look like part of a fresco of leaping dolphins in sea waves. Taking short, careful steps, Silver Hair came to them, made a signal with his hand, and was off again. One of the guards shoved Kysen, and he followed. When they left the hall, Silver Hair picked up the pace and led Kysen through a maze of rooms and corridors.
All at once they came into an antechamber crowded with more guards, then a room filled with shelves bearing clay tablets, papyrus, and flat pieces of stone and shards of pottery. Almost every tablet, papyrus roll, stone, and shard had writing on it-the wedge-shaped script of the Asiatics, the odd scratchlike characters of the Mycenaeans, and copper tablets covered with a script he'd never seen. A good proportion of this varied collection of documents bore signs of violence, either burning, damage from weapons, or both.
The center of the room was clear of shelves and held several low tables. Scribes sat on the floor or on stools surrounded by tablets, shards, and papyrus. Kysen could see only two men without a stylus or rush pen. One was the odorous Tcha. The man in leggings, sandals, and a blue tunic cinched with a gold belt was Othrys.
Silver Hair approached with silent delicacy, hovering behind his master. Othrys paid no attention to his servant or to Kysen. He was a well-built man of middle years, his arms, legs, and chest thick with hillocks of muscle. Puckered scars interfered with the smooth expanse of skin a shade or two lighter than cedar. In spite of the scars, his skin had the tautness of a youth, not a battle-weary barbarian pirate.
Kysen watched Othrys carefully, trying to discern his intentions. He gained nothing from staring at eyes the color of the sky at midday. He wasn't used to sky eyes. They seemed cold and pale compared to the warm shades of brown and black so much more common in Egypt. However, they did go with hair the color of old honey and streaked with gold from the sun. He was still assessing Othrys when Tcha's whine rose above the whispers of the scribes.
'I tell you he's dead! The jackals dragged him away, and I swear upon my own ka, I can't find our-' Tcha glanced at Kysen. 'I can't find our belongings.'
'By the Earth Mother, he's run off with the spoils,' Othrys said.
Tcha had been squatting on the floor, but he had never been able to stay in one place for long. The thief jumped to his feet and darted in one direction, then another as he rattled on. 'Not run off, killed. There was a hole hacked in his chest. A hole, I tell you!'
'Who is dead?' Kysen asked. He brushed by Silver Hair and confronted Tcha. 'Who is dead?'
Tcha slid a narrow look at Kysen, then at Othrys.
'My cat.'
Folding his arms, Kysen said, 'You don't have a cat. No cat would keep company with one as filthy and ill- mannered as you.'
'Be at ease,' Othrys said in a light purring tone that encouraged neither ease nor further conversation.
'Most worshiped prince,' Silver Hair murmured. 'I have brought the one called Nen to you, from Mistress Ese.'
The servant retreated. Kysen turned his attention back to his host to find that Othrys had been surveying him calmly, rather like a mongoose contemplating a cobra. Othrys had the most unwavering stare he'd seen, other than pharaoh's. But the golden one's stare was that of a living god contemplating an invisible horizon between mortality and divinity. Othrys's stare was a javelin piercing a man's ka. Kysen always felt that the barbarian's sky-hued gaze masked the fact that he was debating whether he would kill his guest now, or later.
'Thunderbolts and quakes, Nen, be seated while I deal with this fluttered fool.'
'It's to be later, then,' Kysen said to himself.
'What?'
'Nothing,' Kysen replied.
Tcha's relentless movements brought him back to Othrys. 'I tell you, great master, there be a fiend abroad in Memphis.'
'There are always demons who torment the living,' Othrys said.
Flapping his arms in agitation, Tcha burst into a tirade. 'He had no heart! And there was a feather. Heart and feather, feather and heart. Do you know what that means, great master?'
Othrys rolled his eyes and shook his head.
'Judgment,' Kysen said. He was growing vaguely uneasy, no doubt because Tcha wouldn't keep still and chattered absurdities.
Othrys threw up his hands. 'What judgment?'
Tcha licked his lips, but couldn't make his voice work. Kysen answered for him.
'He seems to think the missing heart and the feather- was it a white one? Ah. He seems to think the missing heart and the white feather are signs of a different kind of creature. Which causes me to fear for the health of old Tcha's wits.'
'By the Great Earth, cease this cloudy talk. What creature does he fear?'
Kysen met Othrys's impatient gaze with a frown. 'What creature? The one who crouches beneath the balance scales of judgment on which souls are weighed against the feather of truth and rightness.' Kysen's frown deepened. 'She is called many names, but the Book of the Dead calls her Ammut, the Devouress… Eater of Souls.'
The whispering of the scribes vanished. Even Othrys was silent, while Tcha grabbed a handful of the amulets strung about his body. His lips moved in a silent recitation of a protective spell. Then Othrys managed a question in a faint tone.
'I assume the Devouress eats-'
