'I will not ask you to tell me where your father has gone,' the king said. 'I know you well enough to imagine what I'd be forced to do to you to get the answer.'
'My father is innocent, golden one.'
'They found his dagger in my tent.' Tutankhamun held up a bandaged arm. 'My blood is still on it. Shall I show it to you?
'Majesty, someone stole the dagger and pretended to be my father,' Kysen insisted.
Tutankhamun shook his head. 'I heard him. I'd put out the lamp because my head hurt from drink. The tent was black, and he awakened me. He said, 'Majesty, where are you?' and I called to him.' The king rubbed the bandage on his arm. 'If I hadn't felt his movement as he sprang at me, his dagger would have found my heart instead of my arm.'
What could he say against the word of the living god?
'Majesty, you know my father. He has come close to death countless times in thy service, to save thy life.'
Fidgeting with his bandages, the king asked in a distracted voice, 'Why did he do it, Kysen? It makes no sense-unless these charges against him are but the surface of a deep and secret poison.'
'He is innocent, golden one.'
'Is he possessed? My magician priests tell me that evil demons can occupy the ka of an upright man and drive him mad. Meren hasn't been himself of late. Is he possessed?'
'No, majesty.'
Without warning the king grabbed Kysen's arm and jerked him. '
Feeling the hand of pharaoh on him banished Kysen's thoughts. His heart blank with shock, he could only stare at the hand on his arm. The fingers were long, and one bore a ring with a bezel carved with the royal cartouche. As Kysen blinked at the hand, Ay whispered to the king. Tutankhamun's hand dropped, and he stepped away from Kysen.
'My majesty is grieved beyond bearing at this treason,' he said quietly.
As Kysen watched him warily, a change came over pharaoh. Grief faded, washed away by a tide of cool resolution and an aristocratic ruthlessness. The king clapped his hands. The war band parted to reveal two guards standing behind them, carrying a lidded basket between them. They brought it forward and set it in the middle of the war band.
The king walked over to it. 'Bring him.'
The Nubians hauled Kysen to the basket. At pharaoh's command Ay opened the container. Within lay hands. Right hands. Kysen counted eleven pale gray extremities, each with its dressing of blood and chopped veins.
Kysen had been in battle. He lifted his gaze to the king's and raised a brow. Tutankhamun clapped his hands again, and another basket was set beside the first.
'Lift the lid,' pharaoh commanded.
His body numb, unable to refuse though he feared what he would find, Kysen fastened his hand on the wicker lid and opened it. A face stared up at him with parched eyes. Thin lips drew back over dry yellow teeth. Puckered skin covered the stalk of a neck that had no body to go with it.
Kysen almost smiled at the horror. 'I know him not.'
Pharaoh moved around the head sitting in its wicker nest in a cloud of sweet-smelling linen to stand close to him and speak as softly as a concubine in a private garden. 'This is but a thief, the bandit leader we defeated before your father tried to kill me.' The king leaned closer and whispered. 'I cut off his head myself, Ky. I wanted to know what it felt like, to hack at flesh with an ax. Tell me where your father has gone and why he tried to kill me, or by the gods I'll do the same to you.'
For a brief moment Kysen's eyes closed as revulsion claimed him. Then he opened his eyes, knelt, and exposed his neck.
'Thy majesty must deal with me as he has with the bandit, for I don't know where my father has gone.'
A barrage of curses startled him. The king's air of viciousness disappeared in a fit of rage. Guards scuttled out of his way as Tutankhamun stalked back and forth, hurling epithets. Abruptly Kysen lowered his gaze to conceal his suspicion that the king had been engaged in a ruse that had failed. When the stream of curses ceased, pharaoh pointed at him.
'Meren told you I promised not to punish his family, didn't he?'
Confused, Kysen could only shake his head.
Tutankhamun stalked to him, halting but a pace away. 'I am pharaoh, and pharaoh keeps his word. But I shouldn't have given such a promise. I see that now.' Crossing his arms over the electrum-and-turquoise broad collar on his chest, Tutankhamun eyed him. 'But I never promised not to question his family. Shall I question your sisters, Kysen? Ah, fear at last.'
'Majesty.' Kysen's voice shook, and he paused to control it. 'I beg to speak to you privately.'
Maya spoke for the first time. 'Impossible.'
'Go away, Maya.' The king glared at his escort. 'Stand at a distance, all of you.'
When they were alone the king sighed and said, 'Get up, Ky. I hope what you have to say will ease my grief. To lose Meren…' Tutankhamun looked away. 'Speak.'
'I swore to my father that I would never reveal what I know,' Kysen said. 'But his life is forfeit if I don't speak. Many weeks ago Lord Meren and I discovered an old and evil secret, one that will cause more grief to thy majesty.'
Tutankhamun gave him a sharp glance. 'Out with it.'
'We discovered that Queen Nefertiti did not die of the plague but was poisoned.'
To Kysen's admiration, pharaoh gave no hint of astonishment or outrage. The cloak of royal dignity remained, and the only indication of the king's distress was the great stillness that came over him. At the boy's slight nod, Kysen continued.
'Lord Meren has been trying ever since to discover the evil ones who were responsible, for he knew at least one still lived. We searched for the queen's favorite cook, but she and her husband were murdered before we could question them. Only a short time ago, we obtained the names of three men known to have the power and the opportunity to devise such evil. My father contacted two of them, and as he was about to summon the third, these evil rumors began. Then someone tried to destroy Lord Meren with this attack upon thy majesty.'
The king had been watching Kysen closely. 'You're lying to save your father. If this story was true, the evil one would have simply tried to kill Meren.'
'No, majesty, for my father is hard to kill, and even if he was killed, I would still remain.' Kysen smiled bitterly. 'And if they killed my father, I would hunt the evil ones from here to the lakes of fire in the netherworld. And if I was killed, Abu would take up the task. No, disgrace is far more effective. Is thy majesty not separated from the one man who can tell the truth?'
Tutankhamun shook his head wearily. 'The murder of a queen, a fantastic tale that seems conveniently designed to relieve Meren of his guilt. And if he wishes to tell me the truth, why is he not here? And why have most of his charioteers vanished?'
'Golden one, Meren has served loyally thy whole life-'
Kysen stopped because the king suddenly narrowed his eyes and drew a sharp breath.
'Yes,' Tutankhamun said softly. 'He has. When I was a child, he was appointed as one of my tutors and guided me faithfully-once Akhenaten and Nefertiti were dead.'
Dread enveloped Kysen's heart. 'Thy majesty doesn't suspect my father of murdering either.'
'To be pharaoh, Ky, and stay alive is to suspect where one least wishes to. Your father taught me that.'
The king eyed him silently for a moment. 'Your father was with Queen Nefertiti a great deal in his capacity as Ay's aide, was he not?'
'Yes, majesty, but-'
'And if she'd lived, the queen would have been regent and Lord Meren but one of many who served her father. She would have been first in my heart, and she would have had power until I came of age.'
'If thy majesty would but send for the three men my father suspected-' Kysen began.
'Let your father give himself up to my majesty,' the king said. 'Convince Meren to surrender, and I will listen to this wild tale again.' The king turned and signaled to Ay and Maya.
