Lynda Robinson - Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing

"Since we began talking you've done nothing but try to distract me with foolish accusations and insults. You were always stubborn. I remember Djet used to say you had the ka of a donkey."

"And I'm not the only one spouting insults."

"Forgive me," he said. "Now tell me what Anhai had that you wanted."

"It's not your concern."

Meren threw up his hands. "Listen to me! I'm not your childhood companion anymore. This isn't the nursery. If you don't speak, I have to find answers by my own methods, and they are those of the Eyes of Pharaoh."

She was looking at him in astonishment. Then her eyes narrowed, and her lips curled. His frustration grew as he realized he hadn't intimidated her at all.

"It's easier this way, is it not?" she asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Easier to deal with me as the Eyes of Pharaoh. Ah yes, I see." She waved her arm in the direction of the family. "You keep them at a distance. You keep everyone at a distance, except your children, whom you command. What frightens you that you must conceal yourself behind rank and duty?"

He almost let his mouth fall open. Clamping his lips shut, Meren scowled at the woman facing him. She had always been irreverent, full of pride. It came of spending the years of her youth under the tutelage of Queen Tiye and Nefertiti.

"You know I speak the truth," Bentanta said. "That's why you're speechless. I'm sure no one else has ever dared to confront you with the truth."

He was losing this battle, and he didn't want to hear any more of Bentanta's false truths. She was trying to vex him, stampede him in the direction she wished him to go. Narrowing his eyes, he studied her. Her hands were curled into fists. He hadn't noticed before because they were half hidden in the folds of her overrobe.

"I desire no conversation of so personal a nature," he said. "Since you refuse to tell me the truth, you leave me no choice but to make more formal inquiries."

"Don't threaten me, Meren."

He would have replied, but a crash and shouts sent him whirling around to face the group beneath the willows. Sennefer lay facedown over a collapsed chair. Hepu and Wah were trying to pull him off it. Idut was shrieking, while Bener tried to calm her. Isis stood by gawking, and Nebetta hovered over the men, calling her son's name.

Meren broke into a run, rounding the reflection pool and reaching Sennefer as Hepu and Wah lifted him off the fallen chair and laid him on the ground. Shoving Wah aside, Meren knelt beside his cousin. He hardly noticed Bentanta standing behind him.

Sennefer's eyes were closed, but he was muttering, calling out. Meren touched his forehead. It was hot, and he was breathing unnaturally. Nebetta, who was kneeling opposite Meren, began to cry.

Meren ducked as a flailing arm nearly hit him in the face. Sennefer cried out and sat up, hitting blindly. Meren pinned his arms to his sides and shouted orders. In moments several of his men came rushing into the garden.

"He's ill with drink. Help me get him to his chamber. Idut, send for my physician. Out of the way, Aunt Nebetta. You do him no good by hindering us."

It was a struggle to get Sennefer to the guest house and into his chamber. He fought them the whole way. The physician arrived while Meren and Hepu were trying to keep Sennefer in his bed, but as Nebamun attempted to examine him he subsided. Hepu comforted Nebetta while the physician looked at Sennefer's eyes, felt his skin, looked in his mouth. Before Nebamun could finish, Sennefer stiffened. Then his body began to jerk, and Nebetta screamed. The physician produced a wooden spoon from the wicker box he'd brought containing his instruments and medicines. This he forced between Sennefer's teeth.

"No!" Nebetta cried. "What are you doing to him?"

Hepu held her back when she tried to swoop down on her son. Meren went over to them and spoke to Hepu.

"Take her out of here. She shouldn't see this." He didn't wait for Hepu's agreement. Shoving them, he propelled them outside and shut the door before they could protest.

He returned to Sennefer's bedside. Nebamun was removing the wooden spoon from Sennefer's mouth. The violent spasms had ceased, and he appeared to have lapsed into a stupor. Nebamun pulled a sheet over his patient.

"What's wrong with him?" Meren asked.

"A moment, my lord."

Nebamun pulled a papyrus roll, thick with many sheets, from his physician's box. He unrolled it and leafed through the sheets. His finger ran across lines of cursive hieroglyphs, then paused at a group of words written in red ink. Hesitating, his finger tapped the red script. The finger moved again, down the page. Nebamun flipped through more sheets, reading in silence with constant glances at Sennefer. Finally he closed the papyrus roll and placed it back in the box.

"Well?"

"Many illnesses follow similar courses, my lord."

"Can you help him?"

"I think not, lord." Nebamun knelt beside Sennefer, who hadn't moved. "I've found the sacred writings about this illness. A fever, the possession by visions. The voice of his heart grows weak."

"But in the garden it wasn't," Meren said.

Nebamun inclined his head. "He seemed drunk, lord?"

"Yes."

"And his speech was slurred."

"Yes, yes. Can't you do something?"

"I fear not, lord. These signs are grave, and…"

"Nebamun, you're trying not to say something. I've no time for vacillation."

"I think he's been poisoned, lord."

Meren looked down at Sennefer. "Poisoned?"

"This illness is too sudden to be an illness, and we've found no signs of magic, lord."

Meren waved a hand for silence. He walked back and forth by Sennefer's bed, thinking rapidly. If Sennefer had been poisoned, there was more danger than he'd thought. But why would someone poison Sennefer? And how could it have been done? Sennefer ate the same food everyone else ate. It was prepared in the kitchens and served from large containers, with several people sharing the same portions.

Meren went back to Sennefer, knelt, and touched his cousin's arm. They hadn't been close. Meren and Djet had been like brothers, but Sennefer had been older and had his own friends. They shared blood and childhood memories, nevertheless, and now Sennefer was dying.

"How long?"

"His ka will fly to the gods before sunset, lord."

Feeling as if he had stumbled into a nightmare, Meren smoothed the sheet that covered Sennefer and stood. "I'll have to tell his parents. You will remain here, Nebamun."

At the door he paused, wishing he didn't have to perform this ugly task. Beside the door sat a tall jar with a clay seal around its top. Another sat beside it, its seal broken. Meren's glance fell on the writing that had been incised into the clay before it dried. Abruptly he turned around and searched the room. His gaze fell on a small table bearing a flagon and cup.

Nebamun darted out of his way as Meren rushed across the room. He picked up the flagon and inhaled its fragrance. Setting it back down, his fingers touched the pool of liquid in the cup.

"Wine, Nebamun."

"Wine, lord?"

Meren picked up the flagon again. His fingers drummed a rhythm on its side.

"Yes, wine," he said. "Lady Bentanta's special pomegranate wine."

Lord Paser was once again satisfied with the cleverness of his heart. Indeed, he was practicing more guile even than his recent unwelcome visitor. He sat beneath the awning near the bow on the small freighter while one of his retainers plumbed the depth of the water as they sailed south. A sailor manned the rectangular sail, and at the stern another man steered with a long, narrow paddle.

This boat wasn't yellow and green. It had no paint at all to distinguish it from the dozens of other small craft that swarmed with it upstream. Having been chased away from his pursuit of Kysen, Paser had pretended to sail north toward Memphis. But on the way he'd spotted this little freighter. It belonged to a small temple of the ram-headed god Khnum in an insignificant town near Elephantine. The complaints of a small temple in such a paltry town wouldn't be listened to, so he commandeered the freighter.