Lynda Robinson - Slayer of Gods

His thoughts slowed, and Meren pushed himself away from the column, his gaze fixed on a stand of reeds in the lake. Like a leopard crouched in tall grass he waited while a piece of information from one place, and a fact from another drifted together with inconsequential remarks from yet another source. Not daring to move, hardly breathing, he held still while his view of certain events shifted with the suddenness of a whip stroke.

At last, his heart racing, he whispered, “Damnation.”

“There you are.” Anath walked onto the loggia holding a small cloth bundle. “I found the resin.”

“ Damnation, Anath .” Meren was still staring at the reeds.

“What is it?” she asked, staring at the lake. “I don’t see anything.”

He looked at her then, and she went still.

“What?” she said with a sharpness that woke him from his stunned trance.

“By the gods!” He slapped the column. “It was there all along, and I didn’t see it.”

“Meren, you’re not making sense.”

“The transfer of the deed to Thanuro’s land. The gift from pharaoh.” He grabbed Anath. “The transfer was recorded in year sixteen of Akhenaten’s reign.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Anath, Thanuro died in year fifteen.”

There was a small pause. Then Anath said lightly, “No, I don’t think so.”

“I’m certain of it. I’ve been over those cursed documents too many times. Even the script is engraved in my memory. The deed was finalized a year after the priest was supposed to have died. Which means either someone took the land pretending to be him, or he never died at all.”

“It’s merely a confusion,” Anath said. “There are thousands of such transfers every year, and some of them are bound to be wrong.”

“Ordinarily I’d agree,” Meren said. “But not this time, because two things happened the year before that transfer. Thanuro died. And Zulaya appeared in Egypt.”

“So did many people.”

“You still don’t understand. Remember what Yamen told me about his murderer when he was dying? He said, ‘He’ll sacrifice you as he does all who know him.’ ” Meren clapped his hands in excitement. “And then he said something that has always bothered me. He said, ‘He is in my heart. There is no other who knows him.’ That phrase always seemed familiar, but I didn’t place it until just now. Then I remembered that not long ago the king was reading Akhenaten’s hymn to the Aten.”

Anath’s brow wrinkled and she shook her head.

“Don’t you see? Those are Akhenaten’s words, written about his relationship to the Aten. Yamen was telling me that the guilty one made sacrifices and recited Aten hymns. He was a priest. Thanuro.” Meren prowled the loggia as he thought, murmuring to himself. “And Thanuro is Zulaya.”

He stopped, staring out into the painful brightness of the garden. Suddenly years dropped away, and he was back at Horizon of the Aten, and memories, obscured by pain and deliberate forgetting, cleared to the definition of a newly painted fresco. He was walking through the royal courts, the temple gateways, the queen’s palace, glancing at a priest, then moving on, concerned with his own survival, giving the man little thought. This man whom the queen distrusted, this priest, like all others, shaved his head, his eyebrows, his face. He wore the garb of a priest, and affected the stately demeanor of one who dealt with a god.

Meren heard Anath speaking to him, but he held up a hand for silence. He’d only seen Zulaya once, briefly, and then it had been in a dark, crowded tavern. Could it be? Meren tried to fit the image of the priest with that of the merchant. Zulaya was older than the man Meren remembered. He no longer shaved his head, eyebrows, and face. He wore the raiment of a foreigner, even the hairstyle of an Asiatic. The difference was just drastic enough to conceal an identity no longer of any use. Meren felt Anath’s hand on his arm and dragged his attention back to her.

“You’re certain Zulaya is the priest Thanuro?” Anath’s confused smile faded. She held Meren’s gaze for a long time. “Yes, I can see that you are.”

“Of course I’m certain. Don’t you see it too?”

Anath dropped the resin bundle and shook her head. “Oh, my dear love. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. None of us noticed the discrepancy in the dates.”

She walked toward the doorway that led to the reception hall, turned, and looked at him sorrowfully. “No, Meren. I’m sorry you noticed it at all. Father?”

A tall shadow appeared in the doorway, cast by a figure approaching from the lamplit hall. Meren took a step back as Zulaya neared, followed by half a dozen armed men. Zulaya was holding Khufu, stroking his patched fur as he regarded Meren. Looking from Anath to Zulaya, Meren’s eyes widened. Pain followed his confusion, then he smothered his emotions. In the space between one heartbeat and another Meren went from elation to misery and fury, and on to battle readiness.

Zulaya inclined his head. “I trust your son has recovered by now, Lord Meren.”

Meren transferred his gaze to Anath, his heart pounding as he stalled for time. “Your father is dead.”

“My mother told me who my real father was when I was six,” Anath said. “Did you really think a man as aged as Nebwawi could sire a child? He was an arrogant fool to believe it, but then, he never bothered to wonder about anything having to do with my mother or me.”

“None of this is relevant to our problem of the moment,” Zulaya said.

Meren eyed the men who had moved around him to form a half circle. “Now I understand your habit of elusiveness while you’re in Egypt, Zulaya, although I don’t think anyone would recognize you in your present guise. You’re the Aten priest, Thanuro.”

“That’s not important.”

“True, Zulaya. What’s important is that you bribed the steward Wah to poison the great royal wife Nefertiti, and for that you will die.”

Zulaya stroked Khufu and said, “My dear Lord Meren, you’re in no position to speak of who is going to die.”

Bener carried a bowl of soup and a wooden spoon into the house from the kitchens, her spirits light with relief at her brother’s awakening. Kysen’s illness had frightened her as much as being abducted. She paused to blow on the soup, for it was too hot to be consumed. Chunks of heron meat floated in the broth along with cabbage and beans. Kysen liked heron, and she’d ordered the soup prepared hoping to tempt him. He’d rested after Father left with Anath, but he was awake now.

She paused in her cooling efforts to look over her shoulder. A charioteer lurked at a distance, her ever-present companion when she wasn’t with Anath. Who was it? Bener scowled as she recognized Lord Irzanen. That arrogant son of a sow had ruined her plans to charm incriminating admissions out of Lord Usermontu’s son. It was beyond her understanding why he thought he had a right to interfere. Besides, if she hadn’t been forced to take him to task for his rudeness, she wouldn’t have been captured by that enormous dark creature with the knife.

No, don’t dwell upon it . Her sleep was invaded by demons, her dreams bizarre versions of the endless hours spent in that tiny, airless room. Bener swallowed hard to rid herself of tears that would betray weakness. She’d never contemplated dying, never really known what it was to fear for her life until she was abducted. Now she understood why Father was always so concerned for her welfare. But the trouble hadn’t been her fault. Father’s enemy was far more clever and powerful than any he’d ever fought. That was the crux of the matter.

It wasn’t fair. In spite of the ordeal, Bener knew she could be of help if everyone would stop treating her as if she was lackwitted. All her efforts to help Father had come to ruin because of the abduction. No one would remember her clever heart now that she’d nearly gotten killed, and Father was too frightened of losing her to admit she had been making progress. If she’d continued with her investigations, she would have discovered the most secret of secrets Pendua and Usermontu possessed.