herself to a worthless alliance. Now he began to feel sorry for Reshep. The fool genuinely believed he'd been bestowing a great prize upon Isis and her father.
'I could wish you hadn't placed yourself in a situation where I was forced to refuse you before others,' Meren said. 'But you anger me with your presumption. Few men would try to ally themselves with a Friend of the King upon such short acquaintance. Indeed, I know little of your family, your home, your accomplishments and future plans, but-'
'Father!' Isis jumped to her feet, glaring and breathing hard. Then she burst into imprecations and accusations. 'You think I'm still a child. You treat me as if I were younger than Kysen's little boy. You've shamed me beyond bearing!'
Meren turned on her so quickly she started and shut her mouth with a snap. Kysen put a hand on her arm, or she might have backed up. Saying nothing, Meren lifted a brow and directed a soul-freezing look at his youngest daughter. No one moved.
Finally Meren spoke in a quiet, implacable tone. 'It grows quite late, daughter. I'm certain Lord Reshep doesn't mean to keep you from your rest. May the goddess for whom you are named give you peaceful sleep.'
Kysen took his sister's arm again and pulled her down the dais steps while he muttered, 'Come along, before he gets any calmer.'
Meren turned back to Reshep in time to catch the young man looking at him. In a brief, almost imperceptible moment, he glimpsed a cauldron of flaming oil. Then it was gone.
'You propose an alliance too soon,' Meren said.
Reshep merely looked at him.
'What ails you, man?' He was growing annoyed at the way Reshep kept staring at him in silence, but before he could ask him to leave, Kysen returned.
'Father, we have another visitor.'
'Tell him to go away.'
Kysen whispered in his ear. 'This one you might want to see. It's Tcha, the one I told you about.'
'Oh. Reshep, leave my house, and don't return until-'
He heard a great clacking and clattering. It was coming closer. Then the noise was among them, and it smelled. Meren watched what appeared to be a tent of amulets with hair scurry into the hall and propel itself to the foot of the dais.
Everyone backed up as a wave of honeyed putrefaction roiled up at them.
'I sawit! I sawit, I sawit, I sawit! It was huge, and then it vanished. The demon, the creature.' Tcha lifted a dirty arm and pointed at Kysen. 'You think I'm stupid, you think I lie, but now you'll see. Tcha never gets no praise for his good deeds, never gets enough payment. And now you couldn't give me enough gold to go back there. No, not Tcha!'
Meren, Kysen, and Reshep all stared at the trembling mass of fear that babbled at them. Reshep sniffed, then got up from the master's chair to put it between him and Tcha. Meren found this to be the only value of having his house invaded by the thief.
'Kysen, is this, this… Is he saying he's seen a demon? Get him out of here.'
Kysen began flapping his hands at Tcha to drive him out of the hall.
'Wait, great lord! I can't go out there. It-she is out there.'
'Go away, Tcha,' Kysen said. He gave the thief a light shove with the tip of one finger.
'No, wait, wait, wait.'
Kysen poked him each time he said 'wait.'
At last Tcha scrambled out of his reach and exclaimed, 'You don't understand. This time Eater of Souls has killed the Hittite emissary!'
Chapter 9
Sokar was in an even more foul mood than usual. The idiot Min had roused him from sleep, and if this was another instance of the watchman trying to make himself look important by inflating the significance of his discovery, he would miss his rations for two whole months. Stomach swaying, sandals flapping, the chief of watchmen followed his underling to an alley near the area inhabited by foreigners.
Rounding a corner, Sokar marched into darkness lit only by Min's sputtering torch. To his consternation, two men were already there standing in the shadows near the body. Sokar's face reddened. His stomach and chest inflated, and he barked, 'Here! What are you doing? Robbing a corpse, no doubt. Min, arrest these two.'
As he spoke, the two turned to face Sokar. He could hardly make out their features or anything else about them until one stepped into the torchlight. He was big, this one. Sokar was suddenly grateful Min was with him. Furious that this man had intimidated him, Sokar poked a finger in his direction.
'You, who are you, and what do you here? There will be no robbery of corpses or gawking. Another useless one has been killed in the city. He's probably some country farmer stumbling into a thief, like the others. Min, this foolishness isn't worth my attention. Get rid of the body.'
Sokar glared at Min, but then he looked again at the quiet stranger beside the watchman, caught sight of his scimitar, the horse whip stuck in a bronze and turquoise-beaded belt. A charioteer!
'Officer,' Sokar purred, his stomach deflating. 'I didn't know. This is a paltry matter. Please allow me to remove this offal from the street. I beg you, don't let this miserable discovery annoy you.' He heard an unknown voice speak quietly.
'What others?'
The question had come from the other man still in the shadows, and it irritated Sokar again.
'Who demands answers of the chief of watchmen? Show yourself.'
The stranger stepped into the torchlight. Sokar's eyes caught the glint of a gold broad collar, wide-shouldered height, cloud-fine linen. Curse his ill luck. This was a nobleman. Wrinkling the skin on his forehead, Sokar noted the obsidian black of the man's hair, brows, and lashes. Their darkness made his skin, a tawny brown, seem lighter than it was.
He'd seen this man before. Envied those straight brows and that charioteer's frame. As Sokar struggled with his memory, he noted the man's gleaming eyes, the color of fine cedar polished with beeswax. Hollows beneath prominent cheekbones, angular lines to the face, the personal dignity of a pharaoh.
'Lord Meren!' He'd been gawping at the Eyes of Pharaoh like a baffled donkey. He snarled at Min. 'On your knees before the great lord and Friend of the King.'
Sokar grunted as he struggled to the ground and lowered his forehead. 'O great lord, forgive this humble servant. I didn't know it was you in the darkness.'
'Tell me, chief of watchmen, do you always make such pronouncements without having seen the victim?'
Speaking to the ground, Sokar launched into denial, only to be silenced when the Friend of the King stalked over to him.
'You said this was another useless one killed in the city.' The words were said slowly, pronounced clearly, each like the sting of a scorpion. '
Sokar stopped breathing. He sensed danger, to himself. If there was one thing at which he was accomplished, it was sensing and wriggling out of danger. He shoved himself upright and sat on the backs of his heels. Then he gave Lord Meren a round-eyed yet humble look.
'Others, great lord?' Sokar wiped sweat from his upper lip. 'Oh, the others. Foolish country visitors who sailed into the wake of thieves. I beg my lord not to disturb himself over such unimportant things. My reports-'
'Said nothing of murder, said nothing of more than one, and certainly nothing of several that were alike.'
Sokar smiled and bowed even as he shook his head. 'Alike, O great one? No, no. Not alike.'
Min lifted his head, his mouth open, but Sokar glared at him, and he quickly put his forehead to the ground. Sokar's smile returned as he again faced Lord Meren, but the nobleman wasn't looking at him. He was watching Min with an intense fierceness Sokar had seen in the eyes of a kestrel as it hovered, heaving into the wind, looking for prey. Sokar heard the voice of his heart grow louder, so that it seemed to inhabit his ears. His stomach began to
