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Lynda Robinson: Slayer of Gods

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Lynda Robinson Slayer of Gods

Slayer of Gods: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Whatever the case, his enforced rest was now at an end, no matter how much his family might object. Meren walked around the well, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“No one heard her cry out,” Anath said, as she rejoined him. “No one heard her fall. Her body was stiff?”

“Yes. I think she died a few hours ago.”

“She was a servant of yours?”

Meren leaned against the wall that surrounded the well and surveyed the trampled ground. “You might call her so.” He narrowed his eyes as something gleamed in the growing sunlight. “What’s that?”

Anath followed the direction of his gaze, picked up an irregularly shaped piece of light-colored pottery and turned it over.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Meren took it from her. It wasn’t pottery after all. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it was a piece of ivory.

“What is this doing here?” he murmured to himself.

Anath gave the shell a glance and shrugged. “It’s litter, Meren. Like that piece of basket over there, and those shards of pottery.”

“Perhaps.”Meren slipped the ivory in his belt and shoved away from the wall. As he did so the woman he’d questioned hurried to him and bowed.

“Lord Meren, what will we do? We can’t take water from the well.”

“Have a magician priest purify it,” Anath answered.

Meren nodded. “I’ll send someone when I return home.”

“The lord is most kind and generous,” the woman said.

As he and Anath left, the woman was surrounded by her friends and plied with questions.

Anath glanced at them over her shoulder, then shook her head at Meren. “It seems to be dangerous to live in your household.”

“Satet might have tripped on the well stairs, Anath.”

“You don’t believe that.” Her demeanor was calm. Unlike more sheltered women, violent death didn’t disturb her.

“She might have tripped,” Meren repeated. “But you’re right. Since I began to investigate a certain crime, too many people have been killed.” Meren glanced at Anath’s calm expression. “Have you ever read one of the copies of the inscriptions from the pyramids of the ancient ones? There is one that speaks of great evil-the sky darkens, the vaults of the heavens quiver, and the bones of the earth tremble. If I can’t find the one whom I seek, he will cause all that to happen. I fear for the harmony and balance of Egypt.”

“One man will do this?”

He stopped and looked down at the Eyes of Babylon. “One man, Anath, succeeded in banishing the gods of Egypt. I no longer ask what one man can do if he has the courage, or the madness with which to accomplish evil.”

Chapter 2

By midday Meren had arranged for Satet’s embalming and burial in the commoner’s necropolis. A consultation with Nebamun, who had examined the body, confirmed Meren’s suspicion that there was no way of knowing whether the old woman died by accident or design. The mysterious circumstances behind Satet’s death made him even more anxious to get to Syene and find Nefertiti’s chief bodyguard.

When he returned from the investigation and burial arrangements, Anath visited with Bener. The Eyes of Babylon swept into his house as if it were her own, calling out to his daughter.

“Bener, where are you? I sail the Great Green to see you, and you’re lying about somewhere, I vow!”

Bener had appeared in the main reception hall, eyes wide, mouth open at the sight of Anath. Then she’d given a whoop and launched herself into the older woman’s arms. The two had laughed, hugged, and left Meren standing by himself in the lofty chamber while they hurried off to find Kysen.

Slightly annoyed that Anath could dismiss their impending business so easily, Meren muttered to himself. “You’d think she was sixteen instead of twenty-nine, by the gods.”

Now Meren was walking beside the reflection pool in the private garden behind the house. Beyond the wall he could hear the rhythmic creak and slosh of the shaduf, the long wooden pole with a bucket at its end that lifted water from a nearby canal. It supplied the pipes and small ditches that fed the garden’s pool, trees, and flower beds. The north breeze kept the heat away for the moment, but soon even shade would fail to ward off the power of Ra, the sun. The cool months were still many weeks away, and Meren wished he could speed their arrival. Ordinarily the heat was something he ignored, but during his enforced idleness he’d had time to think about it, which only made his recovery more tedious.

He paused to stare at the rows of incense trees resting in their protective ceramic containers-frankincense, tamarisk, and myrrh shrubs. Anath had been recalled at his request because she was one of the few he could trust with the secret of Nefertiti’s murder. She wasn’t a member of a rival faction at court, and they were childhood friends. In her offhand and rebellious way she’d always been his ally, ever since that day many years ago when she’d fallen into a canal during a game of chase with her playmates. Meren had plucked her from the water just as a crocodile tried to snatch her in its long, slimy jaws.

He was wasting time in memories. Turning quickly, Meren beckoned to a maid and told her to summon Abu, the commander of his charioteers. When Abu arrived, Meren was leaning against an old horseradish tree.

The charioteer saluted. “Yes, lord.”

“Are the preparations made for tomorrow’s sailing?”

“There you are.” Anath came down the graded path toward him, her gown a bright red contrast to the dappled shadows cast by the shade trees. “Oh, Abu. Greetings.”

She sailed past the charioteer with a nod and joined Meren. “What’s this about going south? You’re not completely healed.”

“I’m well enough,” Meren said, trying to hold his temper. He was sick of everyone treating him like an old man. “The journey is necessary, and I must speak with you before I leave.” He glanced at Abu. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes, lord, but the Lady Bener isn’t pleased. She says-”

“Abu, please refrain from telling me what she says.”

Unperturbed, Abu nodded and left.

“Aren’t you curious about why you were summoned home?” he asked as Anath bent to touch the petals of a cornflower. Once again, he admired her exotic beauty and confident manner.

“The king said you would tell me, and he instructed me not to ask Ay, so I know it’s a grave and secret matter.” She held his gaze. “The Divine One seems much troubled, distracted even, though he tries to hide it.”

“I know that all too well.”

Anath suddenly dropped to the ground, crossed her legs, and straightened her skirts. She patted the earth beside her and grinned at him.

“Sit down, Lord Meren, Friend of the King, Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, and confide in me.”

Giving up the effort to impress his guest with the gravity of her position and what he was about to impart, Meren sat.

“My tale begins in Horizon of the Aten. You will remember the last years of Akhenaten when his hatred of the old gods increased with each circuit of the solar boat of Ra.”

Anath’s merry expression vanished, and her tilted eyes darted around the garden looking for eavesdroppers. “Your father was killed, and so were your cousin’s wife and child.”

Meren’s heart pounded against his ribs, and his mouth tightened. “I speak of the days after. When I served under Ay.”

Her brow furrowing, Anath said softly, “I remember. You were often at the palace of the great royal wife, or on some mission of diplomacy for Ay. I was studying the language of the Asiatics.”

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