Slayer of Gods (15 page)

“Damnation,” Meren said, setting his cup down quickly. “Why didn’t you say so? We have to find them.”

“Nonsense. Press a little harder, Mistress Anath. Ah, yes. That’s the spot where the fiend
is
trying to bore a hole through my skull.”

“Taharqa,” Meren ground out, his patience gone.

“Listen, my friend. They should be back tomorrow. If they aren’t, then we can look for them. Or rather, you can. I’m not trotting
off into the desert. Now run along and let my servants tend to you. I must take my afternoon nap, and then we’ll have the
evening meal. I’ve sent for dancers from my tribe. You’ll like them.”

The next day came and went with no sign of Sebek or Meren’s charioteer. Meren prowled Taharqa’s compound and cursed himself
for not hurrying south, even though there was no certainty that Sebek would be there when he arrived. The following morning
saw Meren in the street with his chariot preparing to set out with guides and his men when an old man in a dusty kilt and
headcloth appeared in the company of his charioteer. The two trudged wearily down the road, slowly closing the gap between
them and Meren. The charioteer saluted, and his parched lips moved with difficulty.

“Lord, this is the one called Sebek, whom you seek. We would have been here sooner, but we encountered a small party of Nubian
raiders. The garrison escorts ran them off.”

Anath stepped into the street, heard this and asked, “What escort?”

“I provided a letter to the garrison commander asking his assistance,” Meren said. He turned to the charioteer. “Excellent
work.” He handed the old man a leather water bottle and motioned for another to be provided to the charioteer. “Abu, see that
they are fed. Then bring Sebek to me in my chamber.”

Meren watched Sebek walk slowly into the compound, then motioned to one of his men. “This interview will be recorded. Send
Intef. He’s not as quick at recording as Bek, but he’s accurate.”

“What are you doing?” Anath appeared at his side as he headed for the house.

“Preparing to question Sebek, of course.”

“But a formal interview might endanger him.”

Meren stopped on the front steps and regarded Anath solemnly. “Anath, my sweet, Sebek will be in danger until he talks to
me. After that, he’ll be much safer because it will be too late to prevent him from revealing whatever it is that the evil
one wishes to conceal. You know this.”

“Oh, I suppose you’re right. It’s just that I trust no one, not even your famous charioteers.”

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching them at the moment, Meren bent down and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re
worried about me, aren’t you?”

“I’m not certain I care for this ability of yours to read my heart,” Anath said with a wry smile.

“Fear not,” Meren said. “This drinker of blood has tried many times to get rid of me and failed. I’ll wager he’s stopped trying.”

Anath gave him a disgusted look and continued up the steps. “Meren, I’m the Eyes of Babylon. Please don’t say fatuous things
to me.”

He watched her progress, the curve of her hips as they moved beneath the dark blue of her shift, the gold-brown smoothness
of her bare arms. “Forgive me,” he called with a note of amusement in his voice. “I forgot to whom I was speaking.”

She didn’t answer or turn around. Meren grinned and followed her inside. A little over an hour later he was seated in his
chamber beside Anath when Sebek was escorted into the room. The old man must have had close to six decades. His silver hair
was close-cropped to frame a face like a brooding jackal. He had the superior height of his Nubian mother, but his skin was
like the Black Land after it lay beneath the summer sun—faded brown and parched. Deep furrows lined his brow and formed
crevices
that went from his nose to the outside corners of his mouth. Yet despite these signs of age Sebek’s body was well muscled.
His body had not begun to sink in on itself as many did with age.

Meren accepted Sebek’s humble greeting. Anath remained silent and watchful.

“Finding you has been difficult,” Meren said.

“I beg forgiveness, lord.”

“It is recorded that you received a grant of land near Heliopolis, but you never went there. Why is that?”

Sebek glanced around the room at the charioteer who was serving as scribe, at the guards who stood beside the door, at Anath.
Meren watched as a familiar shuttered look passed over the old man’s face.

“I found that I missed my homeland, lord.”

Meren rose, causing Sebek to bow his head. He drew near the old man and said quietly, “Come with me.” He crossed the room
to the farthest corner, out of earshot of anyone. Sebek stood before him with his gaze lowered. “Lift your gaze, Sebek.” When
the guard looked directly at him, he went on. “I have come about the death of the great royal wife Nefertiti, the justified.
I think you know why.”

Sebek’s
eyes
widened, but he remained silent.

“Sebek, I have a great deal of patience, but in the last few months I’ve nearly been killed several times and the experience
has made me irritable and impatient. Therefore I will be more direct than is my custom. I have discovered that Queen Nefertiti
did not die of the plague as was thought. She was poisoned.” He stopped at the garbled sound that came from Sebek.

“By all the gods of Egypt, I knew it!” the old man said in a low, urgent voice.

Gratification flooded Meren. At last he’d found someone who’d witnessed the events surrounding the queen’s death and had lived
to speak of it.

“Pharaoh, may he live in health and prosperity, has ordered me to pursue her killer, and this I will do. I must know what
you know, and you must tell me quickly, for the evil one responsible for her majesty’s death has great power. He has killed
many to preserve his secret. If he knew I wanted to speak to you, he’d have killed you. Your safety lies in telling me everything
you know. Once you’ve spoken, there is no profit in killing you.”

Sebek wet his lips. “I… never knew for certain what happened, lord. To speak against great men, it is impossible for a low
one such as I.”

“Sebek, I haven’t time for your humility. Pharaoh commands that you speak.”

“Yes, lord.”

Meren nodded and returned to his chair. Sebek sat on the floor facing him. Meren glanced at Intef, who was sitting cross-legged
on the floor with a sheet of papyrus stretched over his kilt. The charioteer dipped his rush pen in black ink.

“Regnal year five,” Meren began. “Under the Horus of Gold, Who Elevates the Crowns and Satisfies the Gods, King of Upper and
Lower Egypt, Nebkheprure, Son of Ra, Tutankhamun, given life.” He glanced at the scribe. “Write the date, Intef, and say, ‘On
this day, thus testifies the guard Sebek before Meren, hereditary prince, the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh.’ ”

Meren inclined his head at Sebek. “Begin as you will, and speak of the events surrounding the illness of the great royal wife,
Nefertiti, justified.”

Sebek glanced around the room at Meren, at the charioteer serving as scribe, the others beside the door, and finally at Anath.
His brow wrinkled as he beheld her, and he almost spoke, but seemed to think better of it. Turning his gaze back to Meren,
Sebek cleared his throat and embarked upon his testimony.

It was year fourteen of the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten, the heretic. The day the queen fell ill I was standing guard outside
her rooms, waiting for her majesty to appear for a great reception. This was after pharaoh had scandalized the whole of the
Two Lands by making the great royal wife king at his side. Such a thing had not been done before, to make a wife king while
pharaoh lived. All of us were amazed.

I remember the confusion among us guards. How were we to conduct ourselves before a woman who was a king? I puzzled over this,
prayed to Amun to guide me
—
secretly, because, of course, to pray to Amun was forbidden. The god did not answer, and I could tell that her majesty’s heart
was full of confusion too. For a full day after pharaoh told her what he planned she kept to her rooms and refused all nourishment
.

Finally the priest Thanuro came to us bearing instructions from the minister Tutu. We were henceforth guards of a king. The
ceremonies and rights of a pharaoh were to be performed for the great royal wife. Such orders did nothing to dispel our confusion,
for a king is a man. That is what the word means. How can a woman be a king?

We did as we were ordered. Pharaoh’s word was accomplished, but we were unhappy. Queen Nefertiti was great of heart, a defender
of order, harmony, and the old gods. Her dismay failed to ebb as the days passed.

On the morning of the great reception of the viceroy the queen—I must call her so, for that is what she would have wished—the queen was agitated. A guard hears things, you understand, and I was there when she spoke of her reluctance to appear
yet again in the raiment of a king. Her hands shook, and she was flushed. She even raised her voice to her women, something
she hardly ever did. She refused to eat until one of the noble ladies, one who was a close friend, persuaded her to sample
a dish of lamb in a dill sauce. The queen complained of a queasy stomach, and sent for her physician. The physician gave her
a tonic, but her majesty found it bitter and didn’t finish it
.

After an hour of ministration the queen felt able to dress. I was outside her bedchamber while she readied herself for the
ceremony. At last she appeared. It was a sight I will never forget, for she seemed aflame. Her eyes glittered with the brightness
of Ra, and her skin was as red as carnelian. Her neck seemed too fragile to hold up the double crowns of a pharaoh, and she
swayed slightly as she walked
.

The Lord Meren was there when she entered the audience chamber and collapsed. Many were there. We carried her majesty back
to her bedchamber and summoned the royal physicians. They stared and poked and mumbled. Then they gathered in a corner like
a flock of pigeons and fumbled with medical scrolls and argued
.

Meanwhile I sent a guard to pharaoh’s quarters and set more men around the queen’s rooms to make sure no one came in who didn’t
belong there. Her women tried to persuade her to take an infusion ordered by the physician, but all the queen would take was
water
.

Days passed during which her majesty seemed to get better only to grow worse. When she improved, her women could persuade
her to take food. There was a little maid, a favorite of the queen’s, who could always convince her to eat a small meal in the morning. Until she grew worse. Once the plague took hold for good, the queen ordered herself
moved to the smaller palace where she wouldn’t be a danger to pharaoh and her daughters
.

My men grew afraid, but I told them if anyone tried to leave, I would kill him. The great royal wife had been good to us,
given us increased rations to feed our families, sponsored our sons in the army and navy, given rich gifts at births and marriages.
She defended us against complaint and interference. When had any of us served such a mistress? The queen even sent her physician
to my wife when she was dying. Never has there been such a queen.

And so we stayed. Some of her women were afraid to attend her. They pretended to be sick to escape the duty. Most remained,
though, even when it was clear that the queen would die. The weaker the queen grew the fewer people she received. She sent
Prince Tutankhamun away as soon as she became ill. The priest Thanuro annoyed the queen, always had, and she refused to see
him at all
.

I remember how hard it was to stand guard. To see the parade of physicians dwindle as hope faded. The palace was filled with
whispers and chants against disease demons
.

Two days before she died the queen summoned me and ordered her bed carried into the sunken garden. My men and I obeyed and
set the bed between two columns facing the greenery. The queen smiled at the sight of the poppies and cornflowers growing
there, and one of the women started crying. The laborers crept around the garden watering the flower beds and weeping silently.

The next day a noblewoman sent a dish prepared by her own hand
,
but the great royal wife was too ill to do more than taste it. Prince Usermontu came several times from pharaoh to inquire
after her majesty. The last time he stayed but a moment and hurried away. Then pharaoh came, and we remained on duty throughout
the night. The maids said that the queen had sunk into a stupor from which no one could wake her, not even pharaoh. We knew
then that her end approached.

I was almost asleep on my feet early the next morning when a great wail startled me. I rushed into the queen’s chamber and
saw the living god throw himself across the body of the great royal wife. Lord Ay was holding the queen’s hand. He just sat
there staring at nothing while pharaoh wept. Suddenly the king rose up over her, threw back his head, and bellowed like a
fiend of the underworld. Then Prince Usermontu came in and shouted at me to leave. Soon after that the priest Thanuro appeared
with a company of pharaoh’s guards and dismissed the queen’s guards. I never saw the queen again.