• Пожаловаться

Lynda Robinson: Slayer of Gods

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Lynda Robinson: Slayer of Gods» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. год выпуска: 2009, ISBN: 9780759524842, издательство: Grand Central Publishing, категория: Исторический детектив / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Lynda Robinson Slayer of Gods

Slayer of Gods: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Slayer of Gods»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Lynda Robinson: другие книги автора


Кто написал Slayer of Gods? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Slayer of Gods — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Slayer of Gods», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

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.”

“You were quite diligent, as I remember,” Meren said with a brief smile. “You turned up in the most unexpected places-the royal granaries, the office of correspondence, the barracks.”

“I went where there were people who spoke Babylonian.” Anath drew her dagger and began tossing it, catching the hilt and tossing it again. “You’re greatly troubled, or you wouldn’t avoid telling this tale by discussing my activities. Go on, Meren.”

The flying dagger was distracting. When Anath threw it into the air again, he snatched it and kept it. “Very well. I’ll tell you what I know, and what I have guessed.” His memories were so clear, they could have been recorded on papyrus…

He remembered the day he and Ay returned from a journey to Thebes only to hear appalling news. Horizon of the Aten was abuzz. From the house of the master sculptor Thutmose, to the great Riverside Palace of pharaoh, people spoke of nothing else. When Ay heard the rumor, he dropped his wine goblet. Meren had been sitting with his mentor in the antechamber before the throne room of the Great Palace, and jumped to his feet startled. Courtiers and ministers stared at them. Oblivious, Ay rushed out of the ceremonial center with Meren close behind. Jumping into his chariot, Ay ordered the driver to the Riverside Palace, the private residence of the king and queen. Meren drove after them down the long Royal Road that stretched across the city. Dust flew in his face, and Meren glanced to his right. Behind the perpetual haze of suspended dust he glimpsed the horizon formed by the cliffs to the east. He dared not take more than a glance, though, because Ay was charging toward the battlements of the palace as if a desert fiend were after him.

He caught up with Ay at the soaring golden gates in the perimeter wall. Hurrying to catch up with his mentor, he had no time to catch his breath as they raced by royal guards, the queen’s steward, Wah, and a shocked chamberlain who tried to announce them. He finally drew even with Ay as the older man threw open the doors to his daughter’s reception hall. They halted on the threshold, stunned.

Surrounded by servants and priests, standing in a shaft of light shining through one of the high windows, Nefertiti turned to face them. Ordinarily her appearance was startling because of her beauty-those enormous eyes, fragile jaw, and hollow cheeks, that long and graceful neck mirrored in even more elegant legs. But what brought them to a standstill was the crown she wore-the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, the crown of a king.

Meren glanced at Ay. The older man’s hands were clenched at his sides as he stared at the sight. Upon Nefertiti’s brow rested the red crown of Lower Egypt, wide and flaring out to hold the inner white crown of Upper Egypt. Ay made some kind of sound only Meren heard, then walked up to his daughter. With a jerky motion of his hand he dismissed the attendants and priests standing around the queen. Nefertiti hadn’t spoken. She swallowed hard, lifted the crowns from her head,and set them in a box held by her chief priest, Thanuro. He hesitated, as if he was considering staying, but Meren jerked his head toward the door, and the priest left. In moments they were alone with the great royal wife of Akhenaten.

Ay stared into her eyes and hissed. “Set and Anubis protect us. Are you mad?”

“Do you think this is my idea?” Nefertiti retorted, her voice rising. She pressed her lips together as if to suppress the violence of her emotions. “This was only a fitting. The crowns aren’t finished.”

“You’re going to let him make you pharaoh?” Ay’s voice cracked. He took a deep breath and began again. “This is madness.”

Throwing up her hands, Nefertiti walked away from them as she spoke. “He says the idea came to him in a vision from the Aten. I am to become king jointly with him. That way he can entrust the daily business of government to me and concentrate on his reformation. You know how he hates diplomacy and administration. It’s almost impossible to get him to make decisions about who is to fill various posts or about distribution of grain supplies, much less deal with foreign kings.”

Ay stalked over to Nefertiti and grabbed her arm. “You can make those decisions without becoming pharaoh. Women don’t become kings. Kings are men, the sons of the great Amun, king of the gods.”

“If I’m pharaoh I can make decisions without bothering Akhenaten, which means he won’t have to tolerate as many interruptions in his campaign to establish the Aten as the only true god.”

Nefertiti gently disengaged Ay’s hand from her arm, and Meren saw the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. “Don’t you see? He didn’t ask if I wanted to be pharaoh. I have no choice.”


Across the gulf of years the words echoed in Meren’s mind as he sat beside Anath. I have no choice. Had Nefertiti ever had a choice in what befell her?

He glanced at Anath, who had taken back her dagger to polish it with a length of her red robe. “A little more than a year later, she was dead.”

“A great pity,” Anath said, the dagger resting in her motionless hands. “And a tale of great evil. Akhenaten perverted the rightness of things, Meren, but that’s hardly a secret, even if no one speaks of it openly.”

“I told you about it because you were too young to know how things were back then. I felt-most of us felt that chaos ruled. Akhenaten was driving Egypt away from harmony and balance, abandoning all that was right and true. In those final years, Nefertiti was trying to bring him to see reason. It was slow, and she had to go carefully, but she thought she could bring about reconciliation with the old gods. She was working with the priests of Amun.”

Anath scooted around to face him and whispered. “Do you mean she was actually speaking to them? If the king found out…”

“He didn’t,” Meren said. “But all her work came to nothing because she died.”

Nodding, Anath said, “The plague.”

“No.”

Her eyes became slits as she regarded him silently.

“She was poisoned by her steward, Wah. He supplied the poison, and her favorite cook used it over a period of time until she collapsed.”

Anath said a spell against evil under her breath. “By all the demons of the underworld, Meren, what are you saying?” The color ebbed from her face while her breathing sped up. She darted more glances around the garden, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “How do you know this?”

Meren told her about accidentally discovering the truth from Wah before he was killed. “Since then I’ve been trying to find out who ordered Wah to kill Nefertiti, but every time I come upon someone who might be able to help, they’re murdered.”

“This is impossible,” Anath muttered.

“I assure you, it’s not. I wish it were.”

Anath stared into his eyes for a long time, as if she could read the truth in their agate darkness. Finally she nodded once, and Meren knew she had accepted what he’d said. She would never question him again.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Slayer of Gods»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Slayer of Gods» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Slayer of Gods»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Slayer of Gods» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.