Slayer of Gods (21 page)

Kysen had seldom seen his father in a rage. The Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh was known for his brilliance, for his mastery of
intrigue and diplomacy, but above all for his precise self-control. For years Kysen had tried to emulate his father’s discipline,
and he marveled now that Meren could restrain his fury at Bener in order to question her about her abductors.

The sun was up by the time the physician Nebamun had examined her. She had washed and eaten, and now she was resting on a
couch beneath an arbor in the garden. Anath had joined them, and she and Kysen were watching Meren guide his daughter through
another description of her or-deal His gentle queries were designed to prod her memory, but there was little to be gained.

“Take time to think,” Meren said. “You heard nothing unusual while you were being held? No other voices, no animals, no children,
no sounds like someone grinding grain or paddling through water?”

“I’m sorry, Father. I suppose there was no unsealed window or vent in the room.” Bener’s eyes were red from weeping, but she
was calmer. She looked tired and unhappy.

“And you’re certain you’ve never previously heard the voices of the ones who held you.”

“Yes, I’m certain, but there were three of them, I think.”

“Were they voices of young men or old ones?”

“Neither.” Bener sighed. “They could have had twenty years or forty.” She brightened and sat up on the couch. “But they weren’t
noblemen.”

Meren approached her and asked, “How do you know?”

“They spoke more like Kysen did when he first joined the family,” Bener said.

Kysen said, “That’s hardly surprising. There are far more commoners than nobles.”

“But it does mean they weren’t foreigners,” Anath said, “which eliminates Dilalu and Zulaya, who employ Asiatics for the most
part.” She sat down beside Bener and hugged her. “I was so worried about you.”

Bener rested her head on Anath’s shoulder. “I thought they were going to kill me.”

Kysen watched Meren as he walked away, his arms folded over his chest, his head down. Meren strolled among the flower beds
for a while, and then slowly walked back to the group under the arbor.

“You should get some rest, Bener,” he said. “But before you go I give you this command. You are never again to involve yourself
in my work.”

Bener jumped to her feet. “But, Father, it’s not my fault that I was taken.”

“Perhaps not, but had you remained within your proper sphere, the idea of abducting you might not have occurred to the murderer.”

“But—”

“Silence!”

Meren’s roar made Kysen jump. Anath gave a start and scowled at Meren. Bener skittered backward and would have stumbled had
Kysen not steadied her. Meren’s glittering gaze fixed on his daughter, and Kysen was suddenly glad he hadn’t been the one abducted.

“I have spoken, and there will be an end to your defiance,” Meren said, his voice vibrating with suppressed anger. “And to
ensure your compliance I’m assigning a bodyguard to watch you.”

“Father, no,” Bener said, her eyes filling with tears.

“Now, Meren,” Anath said, rising from the couch. “I know you’ve been badly frightened and that your fear prompts you to do
this, but you must see that Bener wasn’t at fault.”

“Stay out of this,” Meren snapped.

Anath’s eyes narrowed, and Kysen held his breath. The Eyes of Babylon didn’t tolerate dismissal well, but to his surprise
she seemed to relent. Her gaze softened. Indeed her whole body seemed to soften. Her voice lowered and took on a sensual quality
Kysen had never heard.

“Meren, my love, please,” Anath said.

She approached his father with a hip-swinging walk that astounded Kysen. He watched the golden girdle on her hips sway, noted
the way the long strands of gold and turquoise beads that hung from it swished between her legs. She stopped beside his father,
regarded him with her hands clasped behind her back and her head tilted up to meet his gaze.

Meren barely looked at her, and Kysen could see that he’d grown wary.

“What?”

“If you’re determined to have your poor daughter watched, allow me to do it. Better a woman than one of your hulking charioteers.”

Meren’s mouth had settled into a straight line, a sign of determination, but Kysen watched the line slowly curve. It wasn’t
a smile, but it was close.

Kysen glanced at Bener, who gave him a pleading look. He said, “It’s a good idea, Father. Anath can watch her more closely
than a man could.”

“You give your word she won’t escape your attention?” Meren asked.

“Of course,” Anath said. “I’ll stay here for a few days. She needs someone right now.”

Meren brooded silently, then nodded. “Very well.”

“Good,” Anath said. “Come, Bener. We’ll go to your room. I have a potion from a wise woman of Babylon that will help you get
some sleep.”

As the two women left Kysen went to stand beside Meren. “Father, what was that all about?”

“What?” Meren asked as he watched the women.

“Meren, my love? I’ve never heard a woman address you like that.”

“I am happy to have provided you with a new experience,” Meren said.

Kysen waited, but Meren said nothing further. It was useless to ask any questions. When his father decided to be circumspect,
only a royal command could make him reveal anything. Something had happened between Anath and Meren on the journey to Syene.
There was a subtle intimacy in the way they talked to each other, an almost tangible and equally intimate tension between
them. Kysen raised his brows and gave his father a sideways glance, but Meren refused to meet his eyes.

There had been other women, of course, but Meren had never allowed any of them to behave toward him as Anath had. An unspoken
assumption lay between the two that each had a certain right to the other. It was this understanding that was the source of
Kysen’s amazement and which convinced him, as he left his father in the garden, that Meren and Anath were more than lovers.

The waning of the day saw Kysen in his guise as Nen enter the house of Othrys. Othrys had saved Meren’s life not long ago,
and he was privy to their search for Nefertiti’s killer. The pirate lived in a labyrinthine dwelling of Greek design with
a hall dominated by circular central hearth and a clerestory window high above it. Two muscle-burdened guards became his intimate
friends the moment he appeared, watching his every movement, preventing him from straying. A steward guided him through the
maze of rooms and corridors, on to a loggia and into a garden. Soft, haunting music was coming from somewhere, and the farther
they went into the garden the closer they came to the source.

Finally Kysen spotted the place from which the notes issued. In the midst of a stand of trees sat a small pavilion unlike
anything Kysen had seen. It was constructed of creamy limestone, but the lintel over the door was of white marble carved with
spirals. Two slim, engaged half columns flanked the portal. Of green marble, they had been carved with alternating bands of
spirals and hatched chevrons.

Kysen had never realized just how wealthy piracy had made Othrys. To have imported marble of such high quality and install
it in a house rather than a temple or tomb, such extravagance on the part of a commoner was unheard of. Kysen walked up the
front steps after the steward and closely followed by his silent, weapon-laden friends. As he crossed the threshold a young
woman passed him. Kysen glimpsed lapis lazuli eyes and long waves of hair the color of red gold.

She hardly glanced his way, but Kysen saw her long enough to notice several things. She wore a fortune in gold and blue enamel
jewelry—a necklace of bracelets the beads of which had been shaped in the form of rosettes and spirals, and all covered in
minute granulation. She wore a costly embroidered gown of sea green secured with gold and silver pins, and she bore a great
resemblance to Othrys. Kysen dragged his gaze away from her when one of his guards glared and shoved him.

Othrys was sitting in a chair playing a harp. The steward spoke briefly to his master and left. The guards followed him, but
they stopped just outside the door and stood watching Kysen. Othrys took no notice of his guest and continued to play. The
pirate was a well-built man near Meren’s age, but unlike Meren the hillocks and knolls of his muscles were crisscrossed with
scars, white slashes against the light brown of his skin. Like Meren his body was hardened from physical exercise and the
exertions of battle, but in place of a dark, concealing gaze were eyes of the glaring white-blue of the sky at midday. He
was wearing a blue tunic and gold belt, leggings and sandals.

Othrys seemed in no rush to speak to Kysen. He plucked a last note on the harp and gazed out of the wide, open windows of
the pavilion. They were as tall as a man and five times as wide, allowing the outside to come in along with the breeze. Finally
the pirate sighed and turned to Kysen.

“So, your father didn’t die.”

“He sends his thanks and begs to be allowed to show his gratitude for your help in his time of desperation,” Kysen said.

Othrys smiled and set the harp aside. “Spoken with true Egyptian courtliness and breeding, but I’m certain I’ll have occasion
to ask Lord Meren to repay his debt to me.”

Kysen refrained from commenting. He could imagine many favors Othrys might need from his father, but few Meren would be willing
to grant. Othrys rose and went to a long table where he poured wine into two fluted stone goblets and handed one to Kysen.

“May the good will of the Earth Mother bless you, friend Kysen. It’s late in the day for business.”

“The business of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh knows no late hour,” Kysen replied.

“Ah, you mean the days of pharaoh’s agents are long. I assume you’ve come about Dilalu,” Othrys said. “I got your message
and sent men in search of him, but learned nothing. He’s hiding somewhere, and his people are silent about him, which is odd.
Usually I can bribe someone to talk.”

“He’s frightened. We came to blows at the Divine Lotus.” Kysen frowned. “He’d been warned by someone that he was in danger,
because he had mercenaries concealed somewhere in the tavern. They even tried to take me prisoner.”

“How could Dilalu know you were going to be at the Divine Lotus?” Othrys asked as he sat down again and turned his face to
the breeze. “It’s more likely that he’s cheated someone in a trade and must protect himself from the wrath of his victim.”

“Perhaps. A dealer in weapons and mercenaries makes enemies easily.” Kysen set his goblet down. “I must go.”

Othrys glanced at him. “I heard you met Zulaya and have become well acquainted with him.”

“More gossip from Mistress Ese?”

“Many people find it wise to make themselves familiar with those to whom Zulaya grants his friendship. The event is so rare.”
Othrys lifted his face to the breeze again, closed his eyes, and said softly, “Beware.”

“I fail to see the sense in your wariness of Zulaya,” Kysen said. “Neither my father nor I have discovered anything about
him that would mark him as more dangerous than any of a dozen such men. Besides, he wasn’t even in Egypt until after—” He
glanced back at the guards and lowered his
voice
. “He didn’t come to Egypt until after the queen was murdered.”

Othrys set his wine down and picked up a round ivory spice box carved with winged griffins. He shook a bit of powderlike spice
from it into his goblet and swirled the liquid.

“I’m not surprised. That’s the way he conducts business, at a distance, so that nothing can be traced to him. He might not
have been in Horizon of the Aten, but his agents could have done his bidding. There were hundreds of foreigners there. Merchants
came in with the trading ships endlessly. And there were the foreign delegations to the court, emissaries from other rulers,
retinues of the vassal princes, all trekking out to those cursed desert altars and parading at Akhenaten’s jubilees and celebrations
of the Aten.”

Suddenly alert, Kysen said, “You were there?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You never told me.”

Othrys shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”

Kysen barely heard him. This was one of those times when his view of things changed abruptly and drastically. He’d always
assumed Othrys had been in Memphis or the Greek city-state of Mycenae or on one of his pirating expeditions at sea. Othrys
was toying with the lid to the ivory box. Kysen walked back to Othrys, studying him closely.

“How long were you there?”

“How should I know? I was there off and on many times over the years until the court moved back to Memphis and Thebes.”

“When the queen was killed?”

The pirate’s hands stilled with the lid to the ivory spice box in them. “Aye, by the Earth Mother. I was there when she was
poisoned, my friend. And if you value your pretty head you’d better not ask me if I killed the queen.”

Kysen heard a menacing note in the pirate’s voice and cursed to himself. He’d made a dangerous blunder, one any novice could
have avoided. So he smiled his father’s ingenuous and deceiving smile.

“Be at ease, Othrys. Had I any suspicions of you, I would never have asked such a question. At least not here, not without
a company of royal archers and a squadron of charioteers behind me.”

Othrys left off his executioner’s stare and laughed. “Forgive me. In my trade one doesn’t survive without an overabundance
of suspicion.”

“As one whose task it is to be suspicious of all, I readily forgive,” Kysen said with a bow. “And I must give you my thanks
and go. I must meet with a mutual acquaintance, Tcha.”

“You’re welcome to him, my friend. I’d sooner face a thousand sea demons than come near that walking garbage pit.”

Kysen left the pirate’s house in a state of agitation. Reia was waiting for him outside, and Kysen told the charioteer about
his discovery as they walked through the streets of the Caverns.

Soon they both fell silent. Othrys had been at Horizon of the Aten all along and hadn’t mentioned the fact. Why? Had his information
about Dilalu, Yamen, and Zulaya been false, a ruse to distract attention from himself? Kysen began to look around as they
moved through alleys and streets, but he detected no sign that they’d been followed. As they neared the appointed meeting
place, his wariness faded. Had Othrys’s slip been incriminating, he’d have sent men to deal with Kysen and Reia immediately.
Or would he?