Drinker Of Blood (30 page)

Ebana took a position at the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, and watched the lane. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly, cousin."

"Aye, Father," Kysen said. "We can't stay long. And we can't drag them through the streets. I told Ebana we should have abducted them from their homes and secreted them somewhere."

Meren shook his head. "There's no need. A few words with these two should suffice to prove me innocent."

"A few words?" Kysen gave him a startled look.

Walking over to the silent Nubians, Meren looked up at them, for they were almost a foot taller than he. "Repeat these words. Majesty, life, health, prosperity."

Turi and Mose exchanged blank looks. Then Turi spoke.

"Majesty, life, health, prosperity."

Kysen gave Meren an inquiring look. "This makes no sense."

"It would if your heart wasn't weighted down with ignorance from being of common blood," Ebana said from his post by the doorway.

Kysen flashed a disgusted look at Ebana but said nothing.

Meren signaled to Reia. "Take him out and release him."

Reia escorted Turi from the shrine, and Meren faced the remaining Nubian.

"Royal bodyguards are like slaves at court, like furniture. Are they not, Mose?"

The Nubian said nothing. His features seemed as expressionless as those of a lizard.

"And furniture does not make noise," Meren continued. "Certainly a noisy guard is a worthless one. And chatter isn't the way of a Nubian warrior. Is it, Mose?"

Kysen drew nearer and breathed his words. "By the wrath of Montu, Father."

Meren nodded to his son, then whipped out his dagger without warning and touched the point to the ebony skin over Mose's throat.

"Say the words, or by the gods I'll make you scream them."

All he got in response was the same impassive regard he'd come to expect from any Nubian royal guard.

Drawing close to the man, Meren spoke softly. "Remember the time I captured the leader of the miserable Asiatics who murdered everyone at the fortress called Might of Horus? Remember how long it took him to die out in the desert?" Meren withdrew his dagger and tapped his fingers on the blade. "It's so easy to attract the creatures of the desert to a bleeding body—snakes, scorpions, ants… vultures."

Mose stared into his eyes and shook his head.

Meren smiled at him. "You have family, don't you, Mose?"

This time Mose blinked. Meren darted at him, placing the blade at his throat again. "Speak. In the voice you used in the tent that night, not with your usual accent."

"Too late," Ebana said.

Meren withdrew the dagger and joined his cousin in looking out the doorway. Soldiers with scimitars and shields approached down the lane. Dozens of bows pointed at the shrine from the corners of the grain magazines. Above all the others, Meren recognized the black head of Karoya.

"Curse it, how did Horemheb know? Abu, Kysen, bring the Nubian."

Meren stepped into the half-light at the top of the stairs. The approaching soldiers stopped. Motionless, Meren waited without surprise as the troops parted, revealing pharaoh. He was almost jolted from his composure when he saw who was behind pharaoh. Bener stood beside a guard, who was holding her arm. Once again she was dressed as an aged laundress.

Horemheb appeared at pharaoh's side. "Take them."

"No!" Tutankhamun said. Horemheb whispered to the king, but Tutankhamun shook his head and silenced the general with a slice of his hand.

The king walked toward the shrine, and Meren descended the stairs. They met in the empty space between the troops and the shrine.

"Golden one, you shouldn't have come."

Tutankhamun's smile was bitter. "I had to. I have to know the truth. Why did you do it? Have you been a traitor all this time?"

"No, majesty. I am as I always was, thy servant. I would give my life—"

"Don't. I'll hear no protests of loyalty. I'll commit you to trial in secret to save your family the disgrace, but I'll hear no protests of loyalty from you."

"Then will thy majesty hear proof of his servant's innocence?"

"What can you say that will excuse what you did?"

"I can say nothing, but there is one whose words will end this deceit."

Horemheb marched to them. "Forgive me, majesty, but it's growing dark."

Tutankhamun waved the general into silence. "I will listen."

Meren summoned Kysen, and Mose was brought out of the shrine between him and Abu. Ebana followed. Tutankhamun frowned as he recognized his guard, and he turned to Meren.

"Command Mose to speak the words I instructed him to speak before you came, majesty."

"What confusion is this?" Horemheb asked.

Raising his hand, pharaoh continued to stare at Meren without responding. Meren met the king's gaze directly. He hoped that some small remnant of faith in him still existed within this youth for whom he felt both the love of a father and the reverence of a subject. Tutankhamun still hesitated.

"Majesty," Meren whispered. "You hold my life. I beg you, don't crush it beneath your sandal."

For the briefest moment the boy closed his eyes, and his face contorted with pain. The spasm passed, and the king met his gaze once more.

"Mose, speak."

Mose's lips pressed together. At the silence, Tutankhamun's eyes widened. Meren gave the Nubian a nasty smile.

"Pharaoh is quite unaccustomed to disobedience, Mose."

Horemheb suddenly stalked over to the guard and said, "Yes. I suggest you do as the divine one commanded before I make you."

When the Nubian remained silent, Meren sighed and said, "I see I must remind you of our conversation in the shrine, Mose. The desert, your family? Speak."

His gaze darting from Horemheb to Meren, Mose opened his mouth. Ebana's dagger prodded him in the ribs from behind, and the words came out at last.

"Majesty, life, health, prosperity."

At first there was silence. Then the king took several steps that brought him closer to Mose, and Meren joined him.

"Say it again—no—say this. Say, 'Majesty, where are you?' "

As if the words were dragged from him like pyramid blocks on a sledge, Mose complied. "Majesty, where are you?"

Slowly the king turned to face Meren, his face pale. "Like you. His voice sounds like yours. There isn't even an accent."

"Yes, majesty. And now we must ask who bribed him to pretend to be me and feign that attack on you, and why. I think you'll find, Horemheb, that Mose has suddenly acquired much wealth."

"Mose," the king said. "I command you to respond."

But Mose wasn't attending to pharaoh. As Meren watched the Nubian, alarm writhed like a cold snake in his belly, for Mose's gaze was directed over the pharaoh's head, over the heads of the men surrounding them, at the rooftops. When the guard's eyes widened in terror, Meren moved. At the same time, Mose lunged at them. His hands fastened on the king, and the Nubian dragged the boy against his chest like a shield. Instantly Meren tore the king from Mose's grip and felt a stinging jolt in his side. Ignoring the pain, he twisted and plunged to the ground with the king beneath him.

Above him all was confusion and noise.

Horemheb shouted, "Not the one on the roof, the Nubian! Get the Nubian Mose!"

Dust flew into Meren's face as men ran by. He heard arrows whistling and blades clashing, but he was more concerned with lifting himself so that he could assess the danger to the king, who was swearing and spitting dirt underneath him.

Planting his hands on the ground beside pharaoh's head, Meren lifted his upper body. Pain arced through him, and his left arm collapsed. The chaos above him descended and wrought havoc with his senses. He seemed to be living just outside his body.

With vague surprise he looked on as Horemheb pulled him off the king and laid him on his back. Tutankhamun rolled over, crouched beside him. Pharaoh's mouth moved, but the sound of his words seemed delayed. Meren was even more astonished when the king bent and gripped something sticking out of the ground close to Meren.

When Tutankhamun broke the end of an arrow, the agony that resulted told Meren that the missile was buried in his side, not the ground. Meren searched for the wound and clamped his hand over the point of entry. Horemheb was still beside him while the king propped Meren's head on one leg.

"What are you doing here?" Meren snapped at the general. "Find the bowman."

"Every man I have is chasing him and Mose, including your son and your cousin and your charioteers. Don't tell me how to hunt criminals, Meren. I found you, didn't I?"

"You let Mose get away?"

"Damn you, Meren. The men closest to the king were trying to protect him from the bowman, and the ones farther away didn't know Mose was a criminal."

"My apologies, old friend," Meren said.

Grimacing, he looked around at the wall of men surrounding pharaoh, then up at the king. Tutankhamun was regarding him with a mixture of anxiety and relief.

"It wasn't necessary to prove your innocence in so dramatic a manner," the king said. He placed his hand over Meren's bloody one. "I already believed you."

Meren smiled, but his lips contorted with pain. "My heart exults in thy majesty's safekeeping."

Pharaoh said something in reply, but to Meren the king seemed to recede into the distance. He blinked, which was a mistake, because he found he couldn't lift his eyelids. The noise and confusion returned, grew louder, and then faded into a whirlpool of blackness.

Horizon of the Aten, the independent reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten

Nefertiti watched Akhenaten stalk along the edge of the reflection pool at the riverside palace. In spite of the heat, he wore a cloak over his robe and paused often to lift his face to the sun. His gold leather sandals sent pebbles flying into the water as he scuffed along. Finally he returned to the shade of the acacia tree beneath which Nefertiti's chair rested and stood before her.

"I no longer remember how many times we've argued about this, beautiful one. I'm weary beyond enduring, and your discontent grieves me."

"I've always told you the truth, husband. The army grows restless with the Hittite jackal prowling the borders of the empire."

"And I repeat—the Asiatics live in chaos. It is their normal state. Once Mitanni held sway; now the Hittites dominate. One day the Assyrians may claim that right. Such internecine squabbling means little to Egypt, as long as our trade routes remain safe."

Nefertiti rose and put her hand on Akhenaten's arm. "And how long will they remain safe, husband, if the Hittites come to think Egypt is soft?"

"Fighting unnecessary battles wastes the blood of my people and displeases the Aten," Akhenaten said as he patted her hand.

Moving closer, Nefertiti looked into her husband's obsidian eyes and made her voice low and rough. "My love, is it not better to fight a few small battles to warn the Hittites than to allow them to mistake Egypt's resolve? If they become stronger and thus overconfident, it's certain that we'll have to spill much more blood later than if we push them back now."

"Hmm. Perhaps, beautiful one, perhaps."

Nefertiti watched her husband's interest fade. It was becoming more and more difficult to get him to attend to foreign business. He was engaged in some inner struggle having to do with the Aten. That much she knew. But the nature of the struggle and what it meant for Egypt was still a mystery to her.

Akhenaten was smiling at her. Drawing her along with him, he strolled beside the reflection pool. Slaves scurried up to ply fans above their heads.

"I'm so fortunate to have my beautiful one as great royal wife," Akhenaten said. "You relieve me of many burdens, my love, and free me for more important work with my father the Aten. Because of your help, I'm beginning to receive complete Maat—divine truth—from the sun disk. Soon all of Egypt will live in truth."

Nefertiti stopped and turned to look at him. "But the— the difficulties with some continue."

The black fire of his convictions flared in Akhenaten's eyes and then vanished with frightening abruptness.

"Fear not, my love. All will be resolved in time." He smiled and began walking again. "Let us not speak of such unpleasant things. You're going to your sister again. I don't like it, these visits to the city of the false king of the gods."

Akhenaten directed a sideways glance at her, but Nefertiti only gave him a smile of amusement.

"The temple is closed, the priests dispersed or dead, and Amun is gone. Otherwise I wouldn't go to Thebes, even to visit my dear sister."

Kissing her cheek, Akhenaten said, "It is a great comfort to know that you live in truth as I do, my beautiful one. I don't know what I would do if that weren't so."

Court business delayed Nefertiti's journey to Thebes for a few days. As the stubble in the fields shriveled under the heat of the Aten, so her ka withered in ever-present grief for her children. While she struggled in silence, the court adapted itself to Akhenaten's growing preoccupation with the Aten's revelations. An easy task, for all that the living god desired instantly came to be.

She sent Ay to the hidden messenger chosen by Shedamun with instructions and embarked at last for Thebes. The days sailing upstream should have been peaceful. They would have been if not for the nightmare. Always the dream began by the river's edge.

Clad in a shift, she scooped mud from the river bottom and mixed it with straw. When she had a mound of the ooze prepared, she picked up a bucket and poured the mud into wooden molds to make bricks that would dry in the sun on the bank. She worked in the heat until she had seven rows of bricks that stretched along the bank as far as she could see.

She was kneeling over her latest effort when Akhenaten appeared from the sky. Pharaoh landed in the middle of her bricks, squashing them to shapelessness, and strode toward her. As her husband trampled the neat squares, she protested, but Akhenaten only smiled and kept walking until he stood over Nefertiti.

Wearing his double crown, Akhenaten was naked and carried his golden crook and flail. Pharaoh planted his feet apart, right in the middle of two of Nefertiti's best bricks.