Lynda Robinson: Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing

"No. Nothing. Help me with these reports, Ky, and then I must go to Memphis. I'm going to take the girls with me. They're too much for Idut."

"Too clever, you mean."

Meren collapsed in a chair and sighed. "Do you know I'm more weary now than when I arrived here for a rest? Interfering relatives are far more dangerous than ordinary murderers and spies."

"They're tolerable separately, Father, just not all at once."

Meren picked up a royal letter from a stack on the table beside his chair. His eye caught a passage mentioning his promise to take the king on a raid, and he groaned. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he thought for a few moments, then sat up and slapped the arm of his chair.

"Ky, fetch those acrobats from the feast, and we'll leave at once, before Aunt Cherit can find me and have that long talk she's been wanting."

"And what am I to do with the musicians and singers and acrobats?"

"They're coming with us." Meren swept his arm across the table piled with correspondence, sending the letters tumbling to the floor. "We're going to have a feast, a sailing feast on Wings of Horus. Not with the pests Idut thinks I should invite, but with those who know the true meaning of the word rejoice."

Kysen gave a loud whoop. "At last. It's been months since you gave one of your entertainments. Maya spoke to me about it before we left Thebes. Said the whole court was complaining."

"Maya has a fondness for singers. We'll send for him too," Meren said as he kicked his way through scattered papyri to find a clean sheet on which to write. "And I'll tell him to bring lots of pomegranate wine. I've acquired a taste for pomegranate wine."

"Oh?"

At Kysen's tone, Meren turned to smile at him. "Only the wine, damn you. Only the wine."