As Meren pulled his scimitar from the gut of the dead thief, a hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of his head. At the same time, his weapon was knocked out of his hand and a scimitar blade pressed against his side.
Meren saw Tutankhamun spring to his feet. Several of the war band rushed to the king, who thrust his arm out to prevent them from charging. They stood still while the raider moved away, using Meren as a shield. Quiet settled over the hamlet. The coppery smell of blood mixed with the odor of dung and straw. From beyond the settlement came sounds of pursuit and death. The twins, Horemheb, and a few others turned in their direction but made no sudden move toward the raider who held Meren.
From the corner of his eye Meren could see that the man was the leader the king had tried to kill earlier. He had a short, curled beard and long hair tied back with a gold ribbon. Blood oozed down his arm and the sleeve of his wool tunic. The raider's gaze darted from one opponent to another and settled on Tutankhamun. In accented, broken Egyptian, the man spoke to him.
"I kill this tall one you don't let Zababa free."
It took Meren a few moments to translate the mangled vowels and bad grammar. He caught the king's eye and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake.
Tutankhamun wiped sweat from his chin with the back of his arm. "Let him go."
Meren edged his hand toward the raider's blade. Zababa made a quick, light slash, and Meren gasped. The blade hadn't cut deep, and he pressed a hand against the wound.
Zababa held his blade over Meren's ribs. "Give chariot and promise no harm to Zababa."
The king's attention never left Zababa. Meren could see the boy's effort to hold the man's gaze. That meant that somewhere, a warrior was drawing back an arrow and waiting for the royal signal. Meren understood the king's dilemma. Tutankhamun dared not give the signal for fear Zababa would live long enough to kill him. Zababa's blade dug into Meren's flesh, and he clamped his teeth together to keep from making a sound.
"Promise now."
"Wait!"
Meren met the king's warning gaze and nodded, trying to make known his trust in the boy's judgment.
"You may have the chariot," Tutankhamun said, "but only if you free my man first."
"Give promise, little lord." Zababa jerked on his hair, but Meren set his jaw and refused to cry out.
"I promise," Tutankhamun said. "With Amun as witness, I, Tutankhamun, king of Egypt, promise you freedom if you release my servant."
Meren heard Zababa grunt and felt the scimitar slip a little as the thief called out, "King of Egypt? The little lord is king of Egypt?" A bark of laughter made Meren grit his teeth. "Give chariot, Egypt."
Meren could see Tutankhamun's strained features as he signaled for a chariot. When the vehicle arrived, Meren was dragged to it. He had almost decided to risk hitting Zababa when the king's young voice boomed into the night.
"Leave him. I gave you a promise, Zababa. The promise of a king. I give you another. If you take him, if you kill him, I'll hunt you down. I'll find you, and I will stake you out in the desert. With my own blade I'll peel the skin from your body and feed it to the jackals. But first I'll hack your cock off and roast it before your eyes. Before all the gods of Egypt, I swear I will do this."
Meren felt the thief's body tense. Millennia seemed to pass as the young king and the bandit engaged in a contest of wills.
"Pharaoh keeps his word," Meren said at last.
With a curse, Zababa gave him a sudden shove that sent Meren toppling out of the chariot. Stumbling, Meren almost fell, but arms caught him and lifted. Meren found himself leaning on the king as the thief barreled past them. Lord Uben-Ra, the youngest of the war band, followed Zababa with his bow. Tutankhamun shouted, and the youth lowered his weapon.
Horemheb came to Meren's side, lending an arm. He and the king lowered Meren beside the wounded Hety.
"Karoya?" Tutankhamun asked. Horemheb nodded in the bodyguard's direction. Across the village, Karoya's dagger wound was being dressed.
"His injury isn't bad, majesty."
Someone brought a lamp, water, and bandages, and Horemheb went to work on Meren.
"It's only a shallow cut, damn you."
Horemheb dabbed at the wound with a wet cloth. "Then this won't take long, so be quiet."
"Majesty, you should have let Uben-Ra kill that bastard Zababa," Meren said as he winced.
"My promise was given before Amun."
"A promise to a man who nearly killed me," Meren said.
Meren looked up to find the war band hovering about, waiting for the king to send them after Zababa. "Be it given to my ministers, or to that desert scum, my promise is the promise of pharaoh. I won't break it." He sank down beside Meren. "Of course, anyone who didn't hear me when I promised won't know to let Zababa go free. Will they?"
Meren noticed that Tutankhamun was careful not to lift his eyes until Uben-Ra, Seti, and Hor had drifted away in the direction of Zababa's flight. He also saw the strained look in the boy's eyes, the haunted air he remembered from his first encounters with death and blood. Meren's mouth twisted in a pained smile. "Such is the logic of princes. It circles and undulates like the crotch of a whore."
A warrior stumbled. Meren heard the war band's shocked silence, but the king was grinning at him. Laughter burst out of the boy as Meren had intended, dissipating the heart-tearing tension that was the legacy of battle.
"By the gods, Meren," the king said, "you're as irreverent as a Babylonian and as unpredictable as a desert storm."
After disposing of the thieves' bodies, the occupants of the hamlet were allowed to return. The royal party returned to their camp, which had been set up out of sight of the threatened villages but still near the desert's edge. The perimeter was formed by shields driven into the ground, so close together that they formed a wall. Two gaps had been left to allow movement in and out, but each was guarded. Within the square palisade, at the center of the camp, lay pharaoh's tent, surrounded by those of his officers. Tutankhamun's tent was more a pavilion. It was divided into curtain chambers and furnished with a portable throne, a folding camp bed of gilded cedar, and all the other luxuries with which a living god must travel. Before the royal tent stood tall poles bearing streamers and standards of battle.
Late though it was, however, the king wasn't in his tent. He and his war band were celebrating his first victory. Meren remained with his royal charge to see the downing of several cups of delta wine before retiring. He was resting on his own camp bed now after washing and having his cut seen to by the royal physician. Through the fabric of his tent torchlight danced, and he could hear the laughter of the war band. Finally, after the moon had set, even the young king tired. The war songs faded, and the camp was blanketed in silence. But Meren was still awake.
After what seemed like hours of trying to drift off, he sat up in frustration. Despite the wine, his body felt as taut as a bowstring. He told himself it was the aftermath of going into battle with pharaoh. In all the years he'd been a warrior, he'd never had to do that. He had never gone to war with Akhenaten, and the pharaoh Amunhotep had been too old to fight by the time Meren came of age. Having the responsibility of the boy's life during combat had been terrifying.
Meren tried to put the evenings events behind him, but then his thoughts drifted to the attempts to ruin his honor. Someone was frightened enough to risk exposure by concocting such incidents. The list of possible evildoers was obvious—Dilalu, Yamen, perhaps Prince Hunefer.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, Meren rubbed his eyes and muttered, "I think not Hunefer. He hasn't the wits."
He wasn't getting any sleepier. Sighing, Meren donned a cloak against the night chill and left his tent. Outside it was still dark, but the stars were fading. He walked through the phalanx of tents that surrounded the king's pavilion, past the open-air camps of the infantry escort and the lines of tethered horses. Meren paused to greet Wind and Star. Their nickering and the nuzzles of their soft noses calmed the whirlwind of his thoughts. He fed them handfuls of grain while he sought more peaceful thoughts, thoughts that would allow him the tranquillity of sleep.
But even with Wind and Star, peace seemed unattainable. Perhaps if he could be alone… Untying the horses, he took them with him out of the palisade. The sentries saluted him as he passed, and soon he had walked the animals out of sight of the outlying guard posts. He sometimes did this after a battle, when sleep proved impossible.
Going was slow; even his leather sandals provided little protection from rocks. As he tried to see in the dark, Meren realized that over the past weeks he'd felt as if he was moving in a black desert, with unseeable dangers and less power to protect himself than he had at this moment to keep himself from stumbling over rocks.
He hated feeling powerless and surrounded by invisible evil. He might gain control if he could remember something of those last days of Nefertiti's life. So far his attempts had failed. He'd buried his memories so effectively that they might as well have been sealed in the innermost vault of the great pyramid. Those days belonged to the time after Ay had persuaded Akhenaten not to kill him. Pharaoh had released Meren but kept him within reach by assigning him to Ay's service. Thus he'd remained in Horizon of the Aten while his young wife and family stayed in the country, away from danger.
His duties as Ay's aide often brought him to Nefertiti, and he'd spent a great deal of time in the queen's palace, bringing and receiving messages. Over the years he'd seen the queen mature, and from this vantage as an intimate of Ay, he became privy to the growing divergence of opinion between her and pharaoh. She had concealed this division from all but her father. Even Akhenaten hadn't guessed the extent of her reservations about the Aten. That much he remembered, but such recollections were only general ones. It was as if he were looking back at that time through a length of ash-covered funeral garment—his vision obscured by the gauze and cinders.
After a few attempts at remembrance, Meren found himself sleepy at last. He started back to camp, but was weary and decided to ride Wind. Riding bareback was a useful skill, one used by messengers and scouts. Every charioteer learned, for he might need to ride should his chariot be damaged in the midst of battle. There still wasn't much light, so Meren proceeded at a walk, but as he neared camp, he heard shouts and the blast of trumpets.
Kicking Wind into a trot and hauling Star behind him, Meren covered the remaining distance quickly. He approached the outlying post at a near canter. As he passed them, the guards shouted.
"There he is! He's here!"
Racing into camp, Meren hauled on Wind's harness as he was met by a phalanx of infantry, charioteers, and officers. In moments he was surrounded. Taken aback, Meren surveyed the men until he found Horemheb. The general was shoving his way through the crowd.
"General," Meren said, using his friend's title before others. "What passes here?"
As Ra brought forth the light of morning, Horemheb stalked over to him, his face wiped clean of emotion. He grabbed Wind's harness and spoke in a rough voice.
"Why?"
Meren's gaze cut from Horemheb to the men surrounding him, seeing wariness, astonishment, rage. "Where is pharaoh?"
"I'm here.
Men parted, and Tutankhamun limped toward him. He was bleeding from a cut on his temple. There was a gash on his left biceps, and he held a wad of cloth pressed to a wound on his right forearm. The boy came close, despite the protests of the physician who trailed behind him, pleading, and the attempts by Mose and his bodyguards to put themselves between him and Meren. Wiping a trail of blood from his eye, Tutankhamun braced his legs wide apart and fixed Meren with a gaze of bewildered horror. Horemheb started to say something, but a slash of the hand from pharaoh commanded silence. Stunned, Meren gaped at the king.
Tutankhamun took an unsteady step toward him and said, "By the god my father, why, Meren?" Those words held the anguish of a lost soul.
Shaking his head, Meren tried to speak, but the king snatched the hem of his kilt, twisting his bloodied fingers in the material and drawing close so that only Meren could hear his violent whisper.
"Tell me, damn you. What evil demon possessed you?"
Meren put his hand on Tutankhamun's, but the boy snatched it away.
"Majesty, I don't understand."
The king's harsh laugh sent an uneasy mutter through the men surrounding them. The physician scurried forward, but Tutankhamun motioned him away and kept his scimitar stare on Meren.
"What I don't understand is why you came back after you tried to kill me. Didn't you think I'd recognize your voice, even inside the blackest tent?"
Horizon of the Aten, the independent reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten
In the queen's palace Nefertiti was dressing for the morning devotion to the Aten. A maid held up a polished electrum mirror, and she regarded the paint that had been applied to her eyes. She waved the mirror away. Never had she expected to experience pain upon regarding her own reflection. After her last visit to Memphis, she could hardly look at herself, for the sight of her well-fed perfection only called up the memory of what she'd seen.
She'd gone to visit her former tutor, Tati, in a village near the capital. She had stopped at Memphis—White Wall, old capital of the Two Lands—and confronted the results of Akhenaten's new policies. Pharaoh was diverting to the Aten the entire endowments of the great gods of Egypt.
She had driven past the temple of Ptah on the way to the royal palace and found it closed. The dwelling of the artisan god who fashioned the world was deserted. Lay priests, god's servants, and lector priests no longer walked its columned courtyards. Where they had gone, she didn't know.
Vanished also were the officials of the god's granaries, his cattle herders and stonemasons, the makers of incense, and the painters who adorned the walls of the temple and lived in the city-within-a-city that surrounded the temple. So many depended on Ptah for their life and work.