after the comfort of a hired man?
Zulaya picked up a faience cup from a tray beside his chair. 'You may have water, but no beer. I want your heart alert.'
Tentamun's palms were damp as he took the cup and sipped. All his thoughts seemed to falter, then stop, although Zulaya remained gracious and seemed unconcerned.
'Are you hungry?'
Tentamun wished the man would simply kill him. 'No, master.'
'Good.'
Zulaya arranged the folds of his robe, then rested his hands on the arms of his chair. His fingers spread over the gleaming cedar. Each of them was encircled with a ring. The rings all consisted of a tinted red-gold hoop threaded through an engraved bezel of lapis lazuli, malachite, or amethyst. Tentamun watched the splayed fingers slowly curl around the chair arm, then open, then close again. When the movement ceased and the hands went limp, Tentamun lifted his gaze.
His master leaned forward and spoke in a confiding tone. 'Now, dear youth, we will begin again. I want you to search your heart. Think carefully, with precision and clarity, back to that day when the scribe came seeking the former royal cook. I am going to listen to your tale again and again. And you, my dear youth, are going to repeat all you know until you can describe this unknown scribe in a much more accurate manner than you have previously.'
'But I have described him, master.'
'Not well,' Zulaya said, his smile recalling delightful childhood games. 'I want you to do it well, in the manner of harpists who compose songs and epics of the gods.'
'But-'
'And if you find yourself unable to comply, I'm sure Nebra will be happy to help you find the words that will give me a most vivid image of this mysterious scribe.'
As Tentamun rubbed his damp palms on his thighs, he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Zulaya's gaze. He met the colored-glass stare of Nebra, who gave him a smile that was the mirror of Zulaya's.
'I find that Nebra's presence somehow inspires people to great descriptive feats,' Zulaya said while Tentamun remained trapped in that lifeless stare. 'I'm sure he will do the same for you, dear youth.'
Sokar paced around his office. His was an irregular route because of the chests and wicker boxes strewn across the, floor. A plague of charioteers had descended upon him after he'd fallen into disfavor with the Eyes of Pharaoh. They'd taken every note and document from the last six months and left without telling him his fate.
He was so disturbed that he'd been imagining monsters in the dark. Of course, he'd been drinking to assuage his sorrow at being so unjustly treated. That was why the shadows had jumped at him in ghastly forms. That was why.
But his men had seen the monster too. They said it was the demon that was preying in the city. Should he tell anyone? No. They would think he was telling a tale to get himself noticed after incurring the wrath of Lord Meren.
'Min is to blame for this. Oh, misfortune and ruin. I'm undone, and all because of a few lowborns.'
Sokar wiped sweat from his upper lip and dried his hands on his kilt. He tried sitting on his stool, but that only brought him a better view of the wreckage of his office. He got up and hurried to a table where his aide had left food for him, including a fresh date cake. Breaking the loaf in half, Sokar took a bite and lapsed into the thoughtless haze that often accompanied his eating. More comfortable, he wandered back to his stool and sat down again. He shouldn't become so upset over a scare in the night.
He was almost through with the cake when he glimpsed a small pile of ostraca, the pottery shards and flakes of limestone upon which notes were often taken. On top of the pile lay a large shard from a water jar. It was covered with notes, notes he'd forgotten. The remains of the cake dropped from his fingers. He licked crumbs from his lips. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Sokar maneuvered himself to his feet and picked up the shard.
'The two old dead ones from the house.'
He had refused to go when one of his men reported these deaths. He'd had enough to do without dragging himself across the city to look at corpses of two old fools who'd gotten themselves killed, probably by a thief. What if this incident was like those others! Sokar scanned the notes. No, the old ones had been stabbed. Sokar sighed and tossed the shard back on the pile.
'Amun be praised. I'm safe. Or am I?'
He thought hard. Had he remembered to include this case in his report? Yes, yes, he had, and he'd even inquired if the couple had family in the city. They didn't, so he'd ordered them given burials in the cemetery reserved for the poor. Certainly they wouldn't get embalmed. There would be no elaborate rituals performed by funerary priests, but that was the fate of the poor and the unknown. It wasn't his fault. Nobody could say it was his fault.
Sokar's body slumped as he sighed again and went to his food table. He reached for a water bottle. Downing most of its contents, he picked up the remaining half of the date cake, a jar of beer, several spice buns, and some figs. Piling these on a tray, he added fish cakes, a honey loaf, and a melon. He picked up the tray and went back to his stool, where he placed it on the table next to him and began eating.
He'd been so worried after having offended Lord Meren that he hadn't eaten very much. But time had passed, and no demand that he be replaced had come.
Either Lord Meren had forgotten him, or the Eyes of Pharaoh had decided that Sokar's offense wasn't so very great.
'After all,' he said to himself with his mouth full of fish cake, 'who were they but common laborers? And a cursed barbarian Hittite.'
He would go about his business, perform his duties as usual. He couldn't be blamed for anything. Sokar gulped down some beer and yelled for his aide.
'Get in here and clean up. How can I work in this refuse heap?'
Kysen strode out of the house with Bener and Isis close behind him. On the loggia Abu waited with a chariot and a squad of men.
Bener spoke before he could. 'You found Father. Where is he?'
'The lord is in his sailing boat, lady.'
Isis let out a sigh, and Bener turned to Kysen with a smile of relief. 'I told you he wasn't in danger. He's weary of being surrounded by guards. You know how he craves solitude.'
'On the river?' Kysen asked. His father had eluded the men guarding him not long after the banishing ceremony performed by pharaoh.
'He could have told us what he intended instead of vanishing in the middle of the city,' Isis said. Her eyebrows climbed her forehead as they did when she was vexed. 'Father never thinks of us, only of himself.'
Her siblings turned on her.
'If I were you, Mistress Run-away,' Bener said, 'I wouldn't accuse others of faults that weigh down my own heart. Especially not Father.'
Kysen made a rude noise. 'You know her. She thinks if she sulks and berates Father with cruel remarks he'll relent. I am amazed at her ability to ignore a lifetime's experience to the contrary.'
'Go quickly,' Bener replied with a glare at her sister.
'I can send someone to you if there's news of the demon hunt.'
Kysen jumped into the waiting chariot along with Abu. They drove to the canal nearest the house, where a boat carried them to the river. It was late in the day, only a couple of hours before dark. Fishing boats, pleasure craft, and freighters alike swarmed in the waters, and Kysen was forced to wait impatiently while the sailors of his own craft wove through the traffic upstream. Finally they sailed far enough from the docks to leave the crowds behind.
The waters were rising with the approaching flood, making the Nile wider. On this blue pool a craft about the size of a fishing boat floated toward him, its sail furled. In it sat Meren, his hand on a steering oar. Kysen's boat surged forward with the breeze and cut across the river to meet Meren's craft in the midstream. Meren guided his
