Lynda Robinson: Slayer of Gods

Now she wouldn’t be allowed even to read royal dispatches, much less do anything adventurous. Bener scowled at Irzanen, who reddened and looked away. Turning her back on the young man, she blew on the soup again and proceeded through the reception hall. As she passed the master’s dais she saw a small wicker box. Setting the soup down she picked it up and opened it to reveal the piece of bone Father had found at the well where poor old Satet had drowned. Bener sighed, thinking of the lively old woman whose goose still terrorized the kitchen yard. Neither Kysen, nor Bener or Meren, were willing to believe Satet simply fell into the well, but so far no witness to the contrary had been located.

Bener closed the box lid, slipped the container under her arm, and took the soup to Kysen’s room. Her brother was sitting in bed with his back propped against the headboard of polished cedar inlaid with ivory. Bener handed the soup to Kysen. When he’d finished half of it, she produced the wicker box and lifted the lid.

“I found this in the hall.”

Kysen glanced at the fragment. “Father told you not to interfere.”

“I’m not interfering. I want to know where to put it.”

“Give it to me.”

Bener put the box on top of a chest. “You don’t need it. Nebamun said you wouldn’t be able to remain awake for long, and I can see you’re already tired from holding the soup bowl.”

“I may look tired, but I can’t sleep,” Kysen said. “I’m weary of sleeping. I’ve done too much of it.”

Bener regarded him for a moment. His face had lost most of its color, and his eyes seemed twice as large as they’d been before his illness, probably because of the hollows under them and in his cheeks.

“I’ll play for you,” she said. Then she smiled. “You always told me my music put you to sleep.”

Kysen looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“I think I saw Anath’s lute outside Father’s rooms.”

Bener hurried down the corridor that led to the master’s suite, retrieved the instrument, and returned to find Kysen had lain down again. She sat on a cushion beside him and strummed the lute. Sooner or later she was going to persuade Father to speak of his relationship with Anath. She liked the Eyes of Babylon, who had the kind of adventures for which Bener longed. But Anath had changed since her last stay at home. She seemed more deliberately charming and far more biddable than Bener remembered.

To put Kysen at ease Bener played an old tune said to have been composed in the time of the pyramid builders, a slow, soft melody. Then she played one her sister Isis had composed. As she finished she shifted the lute to a more comfortable position, and something caught on her gown. The body of the instrument had been constructed from a large tortoise shell, and when she reversed the instrument she found a jagged hole in it.

“Son of a she-goat!”

Kysen jerked and opened his eyes. “Huh?”

“Look at this.”

She thrust the lute at him and jumped to her feet. Snatching the wicker box, she grabbed the piece of bone, took it to Kysen, and fitted it into the hole in the tortoise shell.

“It’s tortoise shell,” she said.

They looked at each other.

“Anath,” Bener whispered. “Remember the night Satet was killed? I’d commissioned those musicians to play for Father again to help him relax and rest.”

“You think she concealed herself among them?”

“But why would she kill the old woman?” Bener dropped the tortoise shell fragment and looked at Kysen. “Oh, no.”

Kysen pounded the bed. “Where is she?”

“Father took her home to fetch something.”

They exchanged horrified glances. Kysen shoved the lute away and struggled to get out of bed. Bener grabbed his shoulder.

“No, you’re too weak.”

“I have to-”

Bener gave him a hard shove. “I’ll do it.” She ran to the door and spotted Irzanen, who came alert at her sudden appearance.

“What’s wrong, lady?”

“Find Abu and Reia. Summon every man.”

“But-”

Bener wasn’t Lord Meren’s daughter for nothing. She pulled herself up and lowered her voice an octave.

“Summon the charioteers at once, or by all the gods I’ll see you condemned to the farthest desert mine in the empire!”

Irzanen vanished, and Bener returned to Kysen. Her brother was trying to get out of bed. Cursing under her breath, Bener helped him stand, and they began to walk to the hall.

“He hasn’t been gone long,” she said as they walked.

“We must go carefully,” Kysen said. “Father is safe as long as she doesn’t know we’ve discovered her crime. Gods, Bener, what evil do we confront that perverts even the Eyes of Babylon?”

“She’s in the pay of the murderer, and she’s been spying on us all along. Think about it. No wonder Father came upon her that morning. She’d been here all along to kill Satet.”

“I’ll go to her house,” Kysen said as they entered the hall. “You stay here in case we miss them and they come back. I’ll leave Irzanen and Reia with you.”

Bener opened her mouth, but shut it again when she read the expression on Kysen’s face. It wasn’t long before she was standing at the front door watching chariot after chariot clatter along the avenue and through the gates. She waved dust out of her face. Biting her lip, she sat down on the top step and fixed her gaze on the street beyond the open gate, and waited.

Meren said nothing as Zulaya stared into his eyes with a hungry excitement that was as disturbing as the peril to which his folly had led him. He had always liked Anath, and her years of expertise and proven service had made him trust her from the first. Lulled by friendship and trust, his habitual wariness had failed to warn him against her, and he’d succumbed to a seduction so obvious he blushed to remember it.

Despite his experience, he, who had scoffed at men whose passions made them foolish, had been blinded by a woman’s charm and daring. Yet he should have recognized the hints-how she’d inserted herself into his investigation, how she’d tried to delay his questioning of Sebek. At Horizon of the Aten she had directed him to a place she probably knew would contain no evidence that could harm her father. At every turn she’d encouraged him to suspect anyone but Zulaya. She had been against questioning the merchant, and she’d urged him to submit to the abductor’s demands once Bener had been taken.

“I think our discussion should be held inside,” Zulaya said. He set Khufu down and went into the hall.

Meren followed him, but not before one of the guards relieved him of his dagger. Anath walked past him without a glance to confront her father.

“This is madness. You should have let me kill him long ago, when it became clear he wasn’t going to be manageable.”

Zulaya sat on the master’s dais, picked up grapes from a side table and popped one in his mouth. “You were always so impatient, little jewel. I haven’t spoken with him, and already you foretell disappointment. I admit I wasn’t planning to meet our guest until we poisoned his son for the second time, but we must all put up with little disruptions and inconveniences.”

Meren almost shivered as the complexity and ruthlessness of Zulaya’s intentions became clear. Struggling to hide how shocked and off balance he was, he tried to keep his features arranged in a facade of mild surprise. He could see little resemblance between Anath and Zulaya. Only a slight hint in the way their eyes tilted at the outside corners. No, their resemblance lay not so much in features as in their easy manner, an air of self-reliance, and a daring that was coldly calculating and never escalated into recklessness.

To give himself time to think, Meren walked up to the foot of the dais stairs and asked, “The queen found out you were keeping the spoils of the temples you looted for the Aten, didn’t she? That’s why you had to risk murdering the great royal wife. But you had to trust old Wah, the steward, to help you, and he was weak. Was that why you decided to vanish? Why didn’t you simply kill him?”