Meren leaned back in his chair and gazed up at a column shaped like a bundle of lotus flowers. Beyond the loggia where they were finishing the afternoon meal, real flowers, the blue and rose lotus, floated on Maya's pleasure pond in the glare of sunlight. He had arrived a short time earlier after watching the king at archery practice.
While he, Tanefer, and Horemheb had watched the king, Prince Djoser joined them and immediately mentioned the pottery shard story Kysen had begun to foster. While Tanefer and Djoser speculated on Meren's odd interest in pottery, Ahiram appeared, boisterous and in determined good spirits.
He'd been watching the wrestlers and now put forth the opinion that Meren saw plots and conspiracies in every shadow and whisper. The fool priest had probably tripped over his own kilt when he fell off the king's statue. Meren did his best to appear as if he knew more than he was telling and then turned his attention back to the king.
Tutankhamun had chosen a heavier bow than usual, and the practice hadn't gone well. With every miss, the boy's mouth had settled into a tighter line until it resembled the seam between two pyramid blocks. The tighter the line, the more quiet grew the warriors and officials around the king.
Ahiram had made things worse. At the last miss, he'd spoken up to say that the fault lay in whoever gave his majesty that bow, which was far too heavy for one so young. Tutankhamun had reddened and snapped the bowstring past his wristguard, causing a nasty burn. That ended archery practice. The priest of Montu had rescued everyone by divining in the remains of his sacrifice that today was not a good day for the bow and arrow.
With the king's young pride assuaged, Meren left the court. He'd noticed that the priest had offered his explanation after Tanefer had strolled over to have a quiet word with him. Meren decided to speak with Ay about Tanefer's diplomatic abilities. They could be of use in a position of greater authority, if the prince could be persuaded to accept the responsibility.
Now Meren lifted his silver cup to a servant, who hefted a wine jar out of its stand and poured dark, sweet liquid into it. He was stuffed with mutton and fresh bread, which meant that at any moment Maya would abandon inconsequential chatter about his family. He thrived more on the discussion of people's problems than on food, and had a habit of plying his confidants with rich victuals on the supposition that a full stomach encouraged a loose tongue.
Maya knew this strategy didn't work on Meren, but he tried anyway. He'd been trying for years. His latest interest appeared to be Meren's lack of a wife.
"It's been too many years, my Falcon. Sit-Hathor lives in the netherworld, and you're still here."
Maya glanced at him sideways with heavy-lidded, tilted eyes.
"Lady Bentanta, now, there's a woman worth marrying. As beautiful as the Nile."
"Change the subject, Maya."
"Very well."
Maya had agreed too readily, making Meren immediately wary.
"Don't you think that this argument about the king leading the army has been going on far too long?"
Meren glanced at his friend, said nothing, and lifted a brow.
"This incessant quarreling is giving me foul humors," Maya said when he realized Meren wasn't going to respond. "It disturbs my ka to have Horemheb shouting in my ear for several hours each day. I've been to war too, you know. I understand the risks, and that's why I recommend caution. But I tell you, I'm thinking of going to the king if my courage is questioned once more by that son of a commoner."
This time Meren straightened up in his chair. "There's no need. Today I suggested a plan by which the king can practice at war without actually engaging in it."
He explained his design to Maya, whose whole face brightened as he realized the compromise Meren offered.
"It won't please Ay, you know." Meren nodded. "But he'll recognize the necessity."
"Nevertheless," Maya said, "Horemheb still disturbs me."
"How so?"
Maya dismissed the servants fanning them and scooted his chair closer to Meren. He continued in a low voice.
"I've heard disturbing talk-talk that says Horemheb chaffs at the constraints put upon him. He's furious at how the army and the empire have been neglected. They say he thinks Ay is too old, and the rest of us too cautious, and that Egypt needs a bold leader of prime years, not a b-"
"Meren!"
Maya jumped out of his chair at the shout, and Meren almost grabbed for his dagger as Tanefer burst out of the house.
"Pharaoh sent me to find you," Tanefer said as he snatched up a jar and gulped down water.
Out of breath, he wiped sweat from his brow and upper lip before going on. "The temple of Amun is in chaos. One of the priests has been killed-again. The one you questioned about the pure one who fell off the king's statue, that lector priest, Qenamun. Dead of the bite of the cobra, if you can believe it."
Meren knew they were watching him. He frowned and stalled while he thought.
"What can I do about a priest getting struck by a snake, Tanefer?"
Tanefer gave him a wincing smile. "Someone put five cobras in his scribe's chest. He stuck his hand in and came out with a fistful of them. Hardly a mischance, do you think? I know of few cobras that jump into chests all together and shut the lid."
"Five? Five?" Maya asked.
Meren ignored the treasurer. "When did this happen?"
"This morning some time," Tanefer said. He stabbed a piece of mutton with his dagger and began to eat it. Between chews he said, "Word spread over the city quickly, of course. I'll wager old Parenefer would have liked to keep the thing quiet, but it happened in the House of Life, and there were too many people, most of whom fled when the cobras got out. And now pharaoh commands you to inquire."
Tanefer swallowed another piece of mutton and grinned at Meren. "The divine one's words were: 'My majesty likes not this plague of death among my priests of Amun.' What he really meant was-"
"That he likes not this plague of murder among the priests of Amun," said Meren, giving Tanefer a stern look. He turned to the open-mouthed Maya. "Thank you for the meal, my friend."
Maya waved him away. "Go, go. Five cobras, by the gods. Five."
"Don't you want to go along?" Tanefer asked him. "Perhaps they haven't killed them yet and we can help."
Color drained from Maya's face, which caused Tanefer to chuckle and Meren to step between them before Maya recovered enough to start a fight. He requested the services of one of Maya's servants, penned a note, and sent for Kysen, Abu, and a squad of charioteers to meet him at the temple. Parenefer wouldn't like him descending in force, but the time for diplomacy was over.
Two priests dead. Two who worked together. Not by chance. That he refused to believe. Something was wrong at the temple of Amun, more wrong than was usual, that is.
He drove his chariot to the ferry that would take him across the river to the temple. He would understand if someone were to kill Parenefer or one of the other chief prophets. The temple of Amun was the richest of all in Egypt, possessing wealth beyond imagining; its power almost compared with that of the king. The rivalry between the priests of Amun and those of the other great gods-Ra, Osiris, Set, Hathor, Isis-sometimes reached fatal dimensions. But these seemingly meaningless killings of a lowly pure one, and then a lector priest, this Meren couldn't understand.
Did Parenefer suspect both of being his agents? No, the old man was too clever to rid himself of spies so clumsily. Indeed, if Parenefer were behind these deaths, they would have appeared natural, or at the most, unquestionably accidental. Which meant that Parenefer wasn't behind them.
If this were true, he would have to look elsewhere for the culprit. Who else had the gall and the power to cause the deaths of two priests? Only someone with a great deal at risk, someone of power. Like a high government official-a nobleman-a courtier. No, his suspicious heart was running rampant. He didn't know enough to make such a conclusion. He would have to wait for the truth to show itself.
Priests and citizens scurried through the great pylon gate of Amunhotep the Magnificent in the ceaseless traffic that surrounded the house of the god. Artisans clambered up and down the scaffolding around the king's statue as if no word of violence had reached them. No doubt Parenefer had seen to it that none had.
Meren walked past the statue, glancing at the base, which stood almost as tall as he. Progress had been made, for a draftsman had drawn in the double cartouches of the king's coronation and given names- Nebkheprure Tutankhamun. The elongated ovals of two cartouches enclosed two sets of hieroglyphs, neither of which was finished.
On the left he could see the pointed end of a reed leaf at the top of the cartouche, and below the leaf, the beginning of a head of a bird. All that lay within the second cartouche was the circle of the sun and the beginnings of the outline of a beetle. When the drawing was complete a sculptor would carve the design in sunken relief.
He went inside the god's gate and heard murmuring. Priests of every rank clustered in knots and whispered. He turned left, went through a door, and took a path that led away from the sanctuary itself to the separate building called the House of Life. Like all the buildings within the temple enclosure, it was covered with carved and painted reliefs depicting the god, his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu. Before the door of polished cedar a crowd of priests, students, and servants milled, kept back by a pair of guards.
The group blocking his way parted and fell silent as he approached. He saw the guards exchange glances, trying to decide whether it was more dangerous to keep him out or let him in. They were disadvantaged, however; no nobleman of his rank would even stop to ask permission to enter. Meren passed between the two men and through the half-open door without a glance in their direction.
"Lord?"
He looked over his shoulder in surprise. The guard who had spoken cleared his throat.
"There be cobras within."
He nodded and left the man staring after him. Before him lay a columned central hall in disarray. Chests lay open, their contents strewn about where scholars had dropped them in their haste to escape. He listened to the hollow dripping of the water clock. He stepped over the scattered contents of a scribe's kit, avoiding the spray of ocher dust.
Beyond the thicket of columns was a doorway; he was walking toward it when he heard voices to his left. Entering a corridor that ran the length of the building, he found Ebana talking to several men outside the third room along the corridor. As he approached, Ebana glanced up, stopped in mid-sentence, then gestured to a guard. The man ducked inside the room and reappeared, followed by a servant holding three hunting cats in his arms. They bustled past Meren, who could hear a loud strumming from the cats as their tails lashed back and forth in contentment.
Ebana stepped in front of the threshold as he approached. Meren was surprised to see Prince Rahotep leaning against the wall outside the room. Rahotep was in shadow, but he moved into the light issuing from the room to reveal a face dewed with sweat. For once his bluster had been quelled. He wiped his forehead with a shaking hand. He ignored Meren.
"You're sure they're all in there?" he asked Ebana.
"All five of them, except for what the cats consumed. I told you it was safe to move."
"What if one of them escaped?" Rahotep peered down the corridor in the direction of the central hall. "It could be hiding behind a column."
"It's safe to go home," Ebana snapped. "By the gods, Rahotep, you weren't even touched."
"Don't go," Meren said.
Rahotep slumped against the wall and licked his lips while he goggled at Meren. "You saw more in the hall?"
"No, but I wish to talk to you."
Ebana folded his arms over his chest, still barring the entrance to the room, as Meren stood before him. "What do you here? This is a matter for priests, not charioteers and spies."
"I'm here at the command of pharaoh, cousin, so unless you wish to defy the king's wishes, stand aside. I want to see Qenamun before Parenefer arrives. You did tell that guard to let him know I was here, did you not?"
Ebana stepped aside, and as Meren brushed by him, he whispered, "Did you come alone, cousin? How brave of you."
Meren paused to meet Ebana's obsidian gaze. "I never fear to enter the sacred precincts of Amun. It seems that death stalks only priests here." He glanced at Qenamun's body and then back to Ebana, who scowled at him so that the scar on his temple seemed to leap into prominence.
Meren began to examine the chamber. Qenamun lay on his back on a table in front of a wall of shelves, his feet resting in a stone mortar and his head on the remains of a clay bowl. Beneath him and on the floor around the table lay plates of dried herbs, jars, wax figures.
Qenamun looked as if he'd fallen asleep. His nails and lips were pale, while his lower body had already taken on the purple hue Meren recognized. He'd asked Nebamun, his physician, about this color and received the explanation that without its soul, the body could no longer support blood, which then sank, as water flows down a slope.
He touched Qenamun's arm. It still bent. Along it on both sides were scattered the puncture marks of the cobra. Dried blood on his left thigh marked the site of another strike. Meren counted seven in all, five of which were concentrated on the upper arm.
He turned away from the body to glance about the workroom. Several heavy jars had been upset on the floor. Between two of them lay a basket with its lid askew. He opened it and beheld the remains of several cobras, their dark bodies ripped open to expose gnawed flesh. He counted five heads, then replaced the lid.
Turning to Ebana, he said, "You were here? How did this happen?"
"We'd just returned from the quay market," Ebana said. He nodded his head in Rahotep's direction. "Rahotep wanted a dream book he'd commissioned from Qenamun, and it was supposed to be in that chest. He stuck his hand in and found the cobras."
Meren went to a wall of built-in shelves, from the center of which projected a wide table. There lay a cedar-and-ebony casket. It was rectangular, its greatest side slightly more than a cubit long. He looked inside, but the box was empty except for a scattering of rush pens.
Rahotep's pale face appeared around the edge of the door. "Someone put the snakes in there on purpose."
Ebana rolled his eyes. "Gather your wits. Of course it was planned."
Meren was occupied with sorting through the stacks of documents on the shelves. One row was devoted to copies of chapters of the Book of the Dead. Another consisted of various theologies of the major gods-Ra, Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Set, as well as Amun. He found Rahotep's dream book under the story of the contentions of Horus and Set, along with an incomplete set of interpretations intended for Prince Ahiram.
"Qenamun's interpreting abilities seem to have found favor with quite a few of our friends," Meren said as he pulled several papyrus rolls from the shelf. He read the dedications of a few. "Here is one for Princess Hathor, another for Prince Djoser, and this one seems to be a dream divined for General Horemheb."
"How can you stay in there? It stinks of death," Rahotep said. "Gods, I need air!"
He clamped a hand over his mouth and fled. Meren watched him vanish without comment while he ran the tips of his fingers over a papyrus roll bearing the name of Prince Djoser. He plucked another roll from a shelf and found a scribe's palette beneath it. Pausing, Meren touched the palette's gilded wooden surface. His glance caught the gleam of alabaster behind another stack of texts. He pushed them aside to reveal ink pots.
He looked at Ebana. "Where did Qenamun keep his palette?"
"In that box." Ebana pointed at the cedar-and-ebony chest.
"Then someone removed its contents, concealed them, and put the cobras in their place, knowing that Qenamun would be likely to stick his hand in the box without paying much attention to what he was doing."
He turned back to the shelves and began filling Qenamun's casket with documents.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking what seems meaningful."
Ebana stalked over to him and grabbed Meren's wrist as he reached for Djoser's papyrus. Their gazes locked, and neither moved.
"This is a matter for the temple. I will investigate."
"Let me go, Ebana."
He felt the grip on his wrist tighten until his hand was almost numb. Sighing, Meren whipped his wrist back against Ebana's thumb and then yanked in the opposite direction, freeing himself. Ebana balanced on the balls of his feet, but Meren made no other move.
"Why are you so worried about my presence here?"
Ebana's body tensed, then the muscles in his face, arms, and legs seemed to slacken. "Because you transgress. It is for us of the temple to seek out the criminal responsible for this-this-"
"Murder," Meren said as he tapped the casket with a papyrus roll. He resumed filling the casket with papyri. "Do you know when Qenamun last opened this casket?"
"No."
Meren rested his forearm on the casket lid and contemplated his cousin. "You're not a fool. As soon as you realized this was murder, you began to make inquiries. My charioteers will be here soon to question everyone who dealt with Qenamun. Neither they nor I will leave until we get the answers we need."
They stared at each other, but broke off at the sound of tapping. The noise grew louder until the high priest marched into the room with his stick. Two guards lumbered in after him.
"What is this invasion of the sacred place of Amun!" Parenefer's bellow rebounded off the plastered walls.
"I've already sent word to Vizier Ay and his majesty of this misfortune. Presumptuous young barbarian, get yourself from here at once."
Parenefer's face had turned the color of red jasper as he leaned on his stick and paused to catch his breath. Then, at his signal, the guards gripped their scimitars, ready to draw them. Ebana backed away from him, and Meren took a step away from the shelves so that his right arm was unhindered.
Parenefer said more calmly, "I'm certain the divine one will agree that the priests of Amun are more capable of handling this matter than an outsider."
"And I'm sure that his majesty wishes to search out the evil that has taken place in the house of his divine father Amun himself-through me."
Parenefer walked over to the table where Qenamun's body lay and glanced at it. Yellow light from a lamp flickered in the depths of his eyes, but they showed no reaction to the sight of the dead priest. His voice slithered around the room.
"You're a Friend of the King, Meren, but make no mistake. You test your power when you tread upon the sacred prerogatives of Amun."
Out of the corner of his eye Meren watched the knuckles of a guard grow white on the hand that gripped the hilt of his scimitar. The air in the workroom was foul, and it suddenly seemed thick with the smell of malice.
"There has already been one untoward occurrence this day," Parenefer said.
He lifted his walking stick and touched the basket containing the dead snakes. Something inside shifted, causing the container to shiver, and Parenefer smiled at Meren.
"None of us want another misfortune. Do we, my lord Meren?"