Lynda Robinson - Drinker Of Blood

Meren heard a crackling sound and looked down to find that he'd crumpled the documents in his hands. He forced his fingers to release and smooth the papyrus.

"So," he said quietly, "Dilalu isn't just a merchant of weapons."

Gathering the tablets in his hands, Kaha smiled proudly and shook his head. "He's a mercenary."

"A clandestine mercenary squatting in pharaoh's capital and sending forth chaos throughout the empire," Meren replied.

Kaha's smile faded.

"You know this matter is not to be spoken of," Meren said.

"Of course, lord."

"Destroy those tablets-no, wait." Meren smoothed his palms over the documents in his lap. "Put them in a records box, Kaha, and hide them."

"But where, lord?"

"Go to the foreign minister's office and put them in the midst of the correspondence from the reign of Amunhotep the Magnificent, may he live forever."

"But the Magnificent ruled for many dozens of years, lord. There is more correspondence there than there are water drops in the Nile."

Meren was shuffling through his papyri. "What? Yes, I know. Don't forget to mark the storehouse and the location of the box within it, or we'll spend years trying to recover it."

"Aye, lord. Lord?"

Meren stopped perusing documents and looked at the young scribe.

"I never would have thought of the foreign records storehouse. How does one acquire such, such-"

"Guile?" Meren asked.

Kaha cleared his throat. "Artfulness," he said with certainty.

"I suppose it's a gift from the gods," Meren said as he ran his finger down a line of hieroglyphs. "That and spending so much time at court."

"Yes, lord." Kaha went back to his tablets with a contemplative expression.

Before Meren could begin to ponder the implications of the scribe's discovery, there was a knock at the door.

"Enter," he called.

When the door swung open to reveal the rounded form of his oldest daughter, Meren dropped his papyri to the floor and went to greet her.

"Tefnut, my rotund little gazelle." He took both her hands and kissed her cheek, leaning over his daughter's large belly. "Are you certain there are still three months before the birth?"

Her face flushed with the exertion of climbing stairs, Tefnut grinned at him and responded breathlessly, "I'm certain. Father, I've something to discuss with you."

"Come sit down."

He led Tefnut to his chair and found a stool for her feet, which were swollen. Tefnut groaned and pulled at the skirt of her loose gown. Kaha brought a tray with a water jar and cups. While Meren poured, Tefnut regained her breath.

"I've missed you, daughter."

"In this large household?" Tefnut swept her arm around, indicating the sprawl of the family town house, the gardens and service buildings, the barracks of the charioteers. "You're too busy to miss me, Father."

Meren handed her a cup. "When you are gone, part of my heart is missing."

Over the rim of the cup, Tefnut's eyes widened, and she swallowed hard. Her surprise was the measure of his guilt. Meren had only recently come to the understanding of how inattentive he'd been toward his daughters. Heedless of their need for his approval, he had given them over to the care of nurses and then his sister after his wife died. In the years that passed, he'd given them brief encouragement, kissed them when they were hurt or especially clever, and sent them on their way. His reward had been to see hopelessness in their eyes. Now he was trying to amend his neglect.

Tefnut seemed speechless, so he went on. "You are my eldest, the first to capture my heart with your toothless little smile."

"Toothless!"

"All babes are born toothless."

"Oh." Tefnut's eyes glittered with unshed tears.

"Daughter, I know you never understood why I adopted Kysen. You resent him, and it's my fault."

Shifting in her chair, Tefnut shook her head. "I don't resent him anymore, Father." She placed a hand on her belly and smiled. "Having this child within me has given me a little wisdom, I think. All parents need a son to carry on for them. Daughters go out of the house, to begin families of their own, to become mistress of a new house. Sons remain behind."

"Do you know how hard it was to see you go from my house to one of your own?" Meren grabbed the water jar and filled another cup.

"I'm sorry, Father."

Sighing, Meren picked up the cup. "It's the way of the world. Where is that big hippo of a husband of yours anyway?"

"Sunero has gone to the docks to buy cedar and spices for us to take home. Which brings me to what I wanted to discuss. I want to take Isis with me when I leave."

"You're leaving already? You just arrived."

"No, I'm not going yet, but when I do, Isis should come as well." Tefnut leaned forward and put her hand on his arm. "I've spoken to Kysen and Bener, and they agree. Isis needs time to grow in wisdom and time to forget her disgrace. She can't do that here with you."

"But I have forgiven her!"

"Which only increases her shame, Father."

Meren threw up his hands. "I don't understand her. She goes from extreme to extreme, from being swollen with pride to prostrate with contrition."

"True," Tefnut said, "but once she is away from the scene of her disgrace, I think she'll begin to sail a more steady course. She just needs calm waters in which to guide her skiff, Father."

Giving his daughter a wry smile, Meren said, "Perhaps you're right. And at least she'll be away from all her admirers. I've had offers of marriage from three men of my acquaintance since I returned to Memphis. But I can't allow Isis to choose a husband until I'm sure she won't drive her mate to insanity."

Tefnut laughed and clutched her belly. "Ooo! I think I woke the babe."

Forgetting about Dilalu and the army officer Yamen, Meren lost himself in wonder as Tefnut guided his hand to feel the kick of his second grandchild. Only two. He was thirty-four and had only two grandchildren. Men his age usually had many more. But Tefnut had been slow in conceiving, and Kysen was divorced from his wife. Bener had so far refused to marry the candidates Meren had suggested, and Isis wasn't ready. Meren was discussing likely husbands for his middle daughter with Tefnut when the summons came from the palace. The king commanded the presence of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh.

The king was touring the royal workshops near the palace when Meren responded to his summons. As he left his town house, the scribe Dedi had thrust a thick set of documents in his hands and requested that he read them. Meren held them now as he strode down the avenue between long lines of workshops. The air was filled with the din of hammering and the shouts of workmen. He walked around a stack of cedar logs that had just been delivered from Byblos. The long, straight wood was valued in Egypt almost as much as gold. It was used in rich furniture and in the great warships and royal barges that made Egypt the maritime power that she was.

Although the stack of logs was high and represented a royal fortune, Meren paid it no heed, for he had glimpsed what Dedi had written on the first document. It was a summary of his and Bek's searches into the career of the officer Yamen. The man was the son of a minor noble of Imu, a nome capital in Lower Egypt. Being a younger son and not possessed of a fortune, he'd spent most of his life in the army. Yamen had been fortunate, however, in that his father was a friend of General Nakhtmin, and the general had promoted the young man's interests, assigning him to important jobs in his service.

Yamen had held titles such as scribe of accounts of the division of Amun and scribe of recruits before being assigned to the general's staff. Meren leafed through the documents behind Dedi's summary. The last ten years or so had seen Yamen's rise in importance. He now regularly undertook missions of inspection as a royal envoy to foreign vassals of the empire. Yamen was now a "king's messenger to all foreign lands," but still attached to General Nakhtmin's staff.