Drinker Of Blood (32 page)

She was gratified when the three priests bowed in response to her words. Nefertiti went to her father, and Ay settled her cloak on her shoulders. Unnefer scuttled over to her, bowed, and whispered so that only she could hear.

"I've been remiss, most divine queen."

"Oh?"

"The high priest most adamantly instructed me to pray for the health of pharaoh, may he live—forever."

Nefertiti's hands stilled their smoothing of the cloak. She lifted her gaze to Unnefer and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"The high priest is concerned about pharaoh's frequent illnesses. The wind Shu carries such news to all parts of Egypt. It is well known that pharaoh is not as he should be." Unnefer lowered his voice. "Many fear that one day soon the hawk will fly to the sun."

She let the priest wait for her reply. She gazed at one of the clay lamps while her fingers continued their slow dance across the fabric of the cloak. When she finally spoke, Unnefer started.

"Pharaoh is in excellent health. The wind distorts sound, Unnefer. Pay no attention to the howling it creates. Those foolish enough to do so imperil their own lives by rushing toward noises that don't exist. They sometimes run off cliffs and get themselves killed."

She got out of the house without doing violence to the priest. Her departure was abrupt, but it was better than murder. When the door shut, she stood with her back to it. Taking deep breaths, she waited for her wrath to ebb.

Ay touched her arm. "What did he say to you?"

Nefertiti heard her voice quiver as she whispered, "The whole purpose of that meeting, it wasn't restoration. It was to see how I would react to pharaoh's death."

Nefertiti stepped into the deserted and dark street. Sebek drifted ahead through the blackness.

"We could have them killed."

"No. We need them as much as they need us. Besides, if there's one thing being a queen has taught me, it's that knowing who your enemies are is an advantage beyond the riches of Punt."

"At least now we know," Ay said. "Pharaoh would kill the Amun priests, and they would kill him."

"By the netherworld, Father, how am I to bring the two together?"

"An excellent question, my child."

Nefertiti sighed, slipped her hand through her father's arm, and glanced back at the fisherman's house. "If I fail, I'll be the one who dies."

Memphis, reign of Tutankhamun

Meren was dreaming in a foreign land. He could see himself, for his ka had left his body and floated above the sunlit chamber in which he lay. The room was painted like the sea—swirling waters of blue and green, cresting white waves—and his golden couch floated in the middle of it all. Around him swam the voices of those he knew—Kysen, Bener, Ebana, even Ay. They were talking about him. He wanted to join in the talk, but no one saw fit to wake him. He tried to wake himself without success. His eyelids were fastened together as if with carpenter's glue. His ka drifted from one person to another and tried to make each listen to no avail.

Then he heard a voice that shouldn't have been there—he heard the voice of pharaoh. At the sound of Tutankhamun's voice, Meren's ka plummeted back to his body, and his eyes fluttered open. His gaze fastened on the person nearest him, his physician, Nebamun, who nodded at him with satisfaction. Next he found Kysen staring down at him with a tense look of apprehension, and beside him hovered Bener, whose clasped hands showed white knuckles. Near the foot of his bed stood his cousin, arms folded over his chest. Ebana smiled slightly and nodded at him.

On the other side of the bed Ay waited, leaning on his staff of office and shaking his head. A movement beside him attracted Meren's attention. He turned his head and was jolted fully awake at the sight of pharaoh in blood-stained kilt, wrist guards of leather and gold, and uraeus diadem. Meren shoved himself upright and cried out at the stab of pain in his side. The king, Nebamun, and Kysen grabbed his arms and helped him lie down slowly.

Ebana merely lifted a brow. "You know better than to move like that with an arrow hole in your side."

Meren looked down at himself and found his torso crisscrossed with bandages. Nebamun inspected the padding over the wound and determined that it was still in place while Meren discovered he was in his room in his own home.

"The fresh meat poultice will remain until tomorrow," the physician said to Kysen and Bener. "Then I'll replace it with oil and honey. There will be a fever, but it should pass in a few days if he rests."

"Well done," Bener said to the physician. Nebamun bowed and began gathering his instruments.

"I trust Nebamun," the king said, "but I'll send one of my physicians so that I may have a report of his condition daily."

Kysen and Bener bowed.

"Thy majesty is the embodiment of kindness," Kysen said.

Bener nodded. "I'll watch over him day and night, golden one.

"I'm not dying," Meren said, knowing he sounded like a querulous babe. "I'm grateful to thy majesty—" He flicked a glance from the king to Ebana to Kysen.

"Where is Mose?"

"Horemheb is still looking for him," Ebana said. "I'll see if there's word." Meren, furious to be trapped in his bed, watched his cousin leave.

Bener was talking to Nebamun, and Kysen joined them. Shifting his weight, Meren found Ay's staff sailing over him to lay across his legs.

"You're not getting out of that bed."

Meren scowled at him. "I've had worse wounds than this. The arrow went clean through."

Sighing, Ay removed his staff and turned to the king. "I leave him to you, majesty."

"Yes," Tutankhamun said. He waved his hand in an economical gesture that sent everyone retreating from the chamber.

Once they were alone, pharaoh drew a chair over to the bed and sat. After a small hesitation, he put his hand on Meren's arm.

"I must beg your forgiveness. I should never have believed—but I heard your voice, and there was your dagger." Tutankhamun shook his head and fixed a sorrowful look on Meren's bandages.

"Majesty."

"Hmm."

"The divine incarnation of the god does not beg forgiveness."

"Goats' dung!" The divine incarnation bit his lip. "Perhaps not, but the mortal in him does. I hunted you like an escaped slave."

"Does thy majesty beg forgiveness often?"

"Fear not. Ay is the only other of whom I've asked it."

"My heart is glad."

The king jumped to his feet, shoved the chair aside, and stalked up and down the length of the bed. "This isn't the time to lecture me on royal dignity and divinity." He stopped at the head of the bed and stared down at Meren. "I know it all. When I sent for Kysen, he told me about Nefertiti."

If he hadn't been in pain and weary from the ordeal of being a hunted criminal, Meren wouldn't have burst into a blasphemous tirade of curses before pharaoh. As it was, he mastered himself only when too violent a movement made him gasp.

"You can't blame Kysen," Tutankhamun said. "He was trying to save your life."

A curt nod was all Meren could manage through the pain.

The king smiled ruefully. "You must have come close to your quarry. Whoever commands Mose must be the murderer of—" He glanced around the room but didn't finish. "I haven't told anyone. Not even Ay. Especially not Ay."

"I'm glad, majesty." Meren shifted his weight so that it didn't press on his wound. "The evil one must have had Mose followed with orders to kill him when the opportunity occurred. Majesty, thus far, almost everyone I've suspected, or about whom I've inquired, has died."

"Then you must keep this safe," pharaoh replied. He held out the packet Meren had slipped beneath his tunic—the record of his inquiries and memories.

Meren took it from the king. It was stained with blood and crumpled, but still intact. "I suppose there is good in Kysen's blunder. It will be a great deal easier to pursue my inquiries now that I don't have to conceal them from thy majesty."

"You shouldn't have—no, I understand why you kept this secret." Tutankhamun closed his eyes for a moment before continuing. "But you can't protect me from the truth. I was there, too. I may have been a child, but I remember some things."

Meren waited for the king to continue, but he could see that Tutankhamun had retreated into a silent realm of unhappiness, where dwelt many of his memories of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Then the grieving boy vanished, to be replaced by the young king.

"You must end this soon, Meren. Find the demon responsible. Do it quickly, but secretly. I want no public airing of this crime. It will give the priests of Amun an opportunity to renew their campaign to vilify my family."

"Aye, majesty, but—"

The chamber door burst open. Horemheb stalked into the room, followed by Kysen.

Bowing quickly to the king, he said, "Majesty, we chased Mose across the city. He was trying to reach the docks, but someone killed him before we could recapture him."

"How?" the king asked.

Horemheb nodded at Meren. "Another arrow from above, through the back. Several, that is. Someone wanted to make certain the Nubian wouldn't live to be captured." The general wiped sweat from his brow. "With the golden one's permission, I must direct the search for this murderous bowman."

When Horemheb was gone, Tutankhamun pulled the chair back to the bed and sat again. Kysen stood on the other side of the bed. All of them contemplated Horemheb's report. Finally the king spoke.

"You weren't surprised that Mose is dead."

"No, majesty," Meren said. "Remember what I said of the evil one. And I've had time to think since I've been a fugitive. As the Eyes of Pharaoh, I've dealt with many evildoers, both petty and great. But in all my experience, this killer is the most demonic. He spares no one; he trusts no one. And because he butchers all who can identify him, he remains safe, untouched, unknown. I wonder how long he's been preying upon the unsuspecting among us."

Kysen knelt beside Meren, and his glance rested on his father's wound. "Indeed. He has no remorse, no allegiance to anyone but himself. He is a drinker of blood."

Meren rested the back of his arm on his forehead and sighed. "Majesty, you were a child when the queen was killed, but you were in her household. Do you recall what happened to any of her servants?"

"No." The king leaned forward in his chair. "Wait. I think I remember… After Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Smenkhare died and I became king, Ay mentioned the disposition of servants from the royal households. He was talking to one of his underlings. I remember that many retired with estates granted by me, and Ay said it was for the best. I suppose he meant that some of them were stained by their fanatic service to my brother and that to keep them would create strife and factions at court when we needed desperately to heal and forget."

Tutankhamun's brow furrowed with the effort to recall more. "Many of the highest in Nefertiti's household retired—the steward, of course, the captain of the queen's guards, her overseer of vineyards, her priests, the overseer of horses, her personal maids." The king spread his hands wide."I can't remember anything else."

"I've had to be most clandestine in my inquiries regarding them," Meren said.

"Aye, Father, but we still leave a trail of bodies wherever we search."

"Mother of the gods," Tutankhamun whispered.

Meren and Kysen looked at the king. He turned an incredulous stare on them.

"The guard."

"Mose, golden one?"

"No—Bakht. The one whose death you kept forgetting to investigate. Remember, I favored him because he would tell me wonderful stories of times past."Tutankhamun wet his dry lips. "And the ones I loved best were those from the years of my childhood, when he served as a guard in the household of Queen Nefertiti."

Meren turned to Kysen. "Where is Abu?"

Kysen left in search of the charioteer. The king made only one remark while they waited.

"I liked his stories because he never mentioned the heresy or the strife. He talked of our adventures sailing skiffs on the Nile, of the festivals, of the kindness of Nefertiti. And I remember trying to see the queen when she fell ill. I insisted on dragging my nurse to the queen's chambers, even though she told me I couldn't visit. Bakht was on guard that day, and he wouldn't let me in her apartments. He was most kind and promised to pass on my prayers for her health."

Abu arrived, out of breath and disheveled. He prostrated himself before the king, but rose on Tutankhamun's command.

With great care Meren propped himself up on his elbows. "Abu, before I was forced to flee, I had you inquire into the death of that royal guard."

"Bakht, lord."

"Yes. What have you discovered?"

Abu glanced at the king.

"You may speak freely," Tutankhamun said. "Lord Meren and I are completely reconciled."

"Did you not speak to the overseer of the royal menagerie?" Kysen asked.

"Aye, lord. He insists that the baboons wouldn't have attacked a man who fell into their enclosure. The males would scream and bare their teeth and make a great noise, but he is most adamant that they wouldn't try to kill him."

"But he's dead," Meren said.

The king threw up his hands. "And the report said he had many wounds."

"Did you progress no further?" Kysen asked.

"Many perilous days have passed since the lord gave the command about the royal guard." Abu rubbed his chin. "I think I may have asked Nebamun to look at the body." He paused, then nodded. "Yes, I did ask him, because I remember that we weren't sure if it was too late and Bakht had already gone into the natron in the place of Anubis."

Nebamun was summoned, and he remembered his journey to the place of Anubis.

"I was able to see the body, majesty, but before I could write a report for Lord Meren—" The physician stopped with his mouth open.

"Continue, man. I know what intervened."

"The wounds that killed the royal guard were from a knife. An extremely sharp knife, not the ragged tears that one sees in animal attacks. Certainly the bite of a baboon would never make a wound so deep as to hit the spine."