Lynda Robinson - Drinker Of Blood

Until he could recall more, he would continue to review the lists of those who had been Nefertiti's enemies. The more he explored the events surrounding the queen's death, the longer the list of enemies grew. Of these, the greatest had been the Hittite emissary to the royal court, Yazilikaya. In the last years of Akhenaten's reign the Hittite had found his attempts to allay pharaoh's suspicions and keep him inactive against his king's maneuvers thwarted by the queen.

And at the last, when the kingdom and Akhenaten had both deteriorated almost beyond recall, pharaoh turned to Nefertiti for help in a way that had shocked all of Egypt. As with many events deemed great transgressions against the right order of things, the whole kingdom now ignored them. It was as if these events had never happened. Akhenaten's actions during the last few years of his reign were never mentioned. Even Tutankhamun dared not speak of what his brother had done. And, unwilling though Nefertiti had been, her acceptance of Akhenaten's plans had plunged her into the swirling void of chaos that pharaoh created.

All public record of it had been expunged; such a thing had never been done, at least, not within the memory of anyone living. It was unnatural. There weren't words for it, and the gods had rebelled against it. Perhaps their displeasure at the transgression had been the real cause of Nefertiti's death, and Akhenaten's.

Meren's rush pen faltered as he tried to write the next line. The habit of secrecy was too great. He couldn't yet bring himself to write of Akhenaten's last offense. Laying down the pen, he folded the papyri and stuck them beneath his tunic so that they were held in place by his belt. He couldn't leave the record in Othrys's house. His only alternative was to carry it with him, and it was time to meet Kysen and Ebana.

Othrys and several of his men accompanied Meren as far as the magazines of Ptah. The pirate vowed that Meren would be less noticeable walking in their midst than he would be alone. In late afternoon, in the hour or two before darkness, the streets of Memphis teemed with pedestrians, subjects of pharaoh from every station in life returning home from a day's labor.

Temples emptied of priests, students, artisans, and supplicants. Government offices disgorged their workers-scribes of accounts, tithes, granaries, storehouses, and treasures. Port officials went home, as did maids, women market vendors, gold-workers, overseers of cattle, outline draftsmen, carpenters, and fishermen. Meren kept his head down and made way for the chariots of grand noblemen returning from court or from the temple of Ptah. Like Othrys and other more ordinary citizens, he stumbled over boy students who hurtled through the crowds with their scribes kits dangling from grubby fingers.

The crowds thinned as they made their way to the rear of the enormous grain magazines of the temple of Ptah. The high, arched vaults would overflow with grain after next harvest. When they reached the rear of the buildings, only a few stragglers passed them. Othrys stopped at the corner of the last magazine and peered around the corner. Meren came to stand beside his host and looked into the uneven and neglected lane that came to a dead end at the shrine. A dog trotted out from between two buildings, but it saw them and retreated. Nothing else moved.

Othrys backed away from the corner and turned to Meren. "I leave you here. If you don't come back to my house, I'm not going to look for you."

"Your concern for me is touching," Meren said.

"By the earth mother, I've done more than any of your precious Egyptian friends."

Meren smiled and bowed slightly. "Forgive my foul temper.It comes from being forced to wear this cursed wig. It itches worse than these leggings."

"But no one would recognize you in it," Othrys replied.

"You have my gratitude and my friendship," Meren said. He offered his hand, and they exchanged a warrior's grip. "If I live, you will receive proof of my thankfulness."

"Farewell, Egyptian. I'll go home and pronounce curses on those who plot your destruction. May fate be with you."

In moments, Meren was alone. The carnelian orb of Ra was sinking behind the city's tall buildings when Meren stepped into the lane. Elongated shadows cut across his path, and the air seemed to turn gold with the sun's passage. He could smell water from the submerged fields of Inundation, along with the odor of cooking fires. Ahead of him stood the shrine. It had been built as a part of a temple complex hundreds of years ago, when the city was much smaller. Memphis had encroached upon its perimeter walls, and finally the little temple had been abandoned, its buildings quarried for their stone.

All that remained was this little square structure, a processional kiosk that everyone referred to as a shrine. Its columns were square, and it had a central staircase leading up to a threshold from which the doors and shutters had vanished long ago. The doorway was flanked by two tall windows, and the whole of the outer surface was carved. Meren had visited the place as a youth and remembered seeing raised reliefs of a pharaoh, Sesostris, presenting offerings to a god.

Meren reached the shrine. Avoiding the stairs, he went to one of the windows and surveyed the interior. Devoid of furnishings, it was littered with trash blown from the lane- scraps of a papyrus sandal, dead palm leaves, a few feathers, and sand. Meren walked around to the back. A storehouse had been built so close that he had to enter the space between the two buildings sideways. He hadn't been there long when four men appeared in the lane. As they approached the shrine and stepped out of a long shadow, Meren breathed more easily. Abu and Reia walked ahead of his son and Ebana. All of them were armed. Slipping from his hiding place, Meren waited beside the shrine. Abu saw him first and saluted. At his movement, Kysen grinned, called to Meren, and ran to him.

"Father!" Kysen halted abruptly and studied his father.

"I'm well, Ky." Meren dragged his son into his arms for a brief, rough embrace and released him,

"What happened?" Kysen said as the others drew near. He held out a dagger, which Meren took and slid beneath his belt. "How could pharaoh believe you would-"

Meren held up his hand. "Later." He grasped Ebana's arm. "Cousin."

There was no need for words. One glance at those features that were so like his own wiped away years, and they were back at his father's estate in the country, daring each other to spend the night in the ghost-infested desert. They smiled at each other, and for once bitterness and accusations of betrayal failed to divide them.

Ebana put his fists on his hips and grinned at Meren. "If you keep getting yourself into such peril, I'll have to give up being a priest of Amun and become your bodyguard."

"I've missed you," Meren said.

Ebana's smile faded. "Our estrangement wasn't my fault."

"Ebana, don't."

"I know. This isn't the time. With your permission, cousin. Your men should find cover in the darkness of the shrine, as should we."

The kiosk had a central chamber flanked by a smaller room on each side, formed by rectangular pillars. It was gloomy in the larger room in spite of the gaping doorway, and dark in the smaller rooms except near the windows. Abu and Reia melted into the shadows of the two western pillars inside a flanking chamber while Meren and Kysen took a pillar on the east and Ebana the remaining one.

They'd just taken their places when an obsidian figure walked into view from the direction of the magazines. It was Mose. Long strides brought him to the foot of the stairs. As he mounted them, Turi hurried around the corner of the storehouse and to the front of the shrine. The two guards stared at each other in the fading light, then exchanged queries in their native language. In confusion they continued their exchange as they ascended the staircase and entered the shrine.