Egypt was fortunate to have Tutankhamun, who embodied the ideals of what pharaoh should be in both body and character. Tutankhamun's face was as handsome as his mother's, the great and powerful Queen Tiye. He had inherited her large, dark eyes, heavy-lidded, thick-lashed pools that reflected a ka too sensitive for the burdens of a god-king. At the same time and despite his youth, the king's courage was unquestioned. Indeed, Meren was having a difficult time restraining pharaoh's desire to test himself in battle rather than in training exercises.
Meren felt a pang of sympathy for the boy. Not yet fifteen, Tutankhamun had inherited the throne of Egypt when he was only nine, after the divisive reign of his heretic brother. Having come of age lately, Tutankhamun found himself caught up in the aftermath of Akhenaten's disastrous policies. He had to control the virulent hatred of the priesthood of Amun, who lusted after the riches and power of which the heretic had robbed them.
Corruption had spread, plaguelike, among temple personnel and government officials, threatening Egypt from within, while the Hittites perched at the edge of the northern empire, ready to strike. Such were the burdens of pharaoh, a youth who walked with the dignity of his ancestors, the pyramid builders, and possessed a compassion born of grief for the dead brother and sister-in-law whose names he dared not speak.
While Ay was talking to pharaoh, Horemheb wandered over to lean against a column near Meren. "You've had reports about this troublemaker among the petty kings of the north?"
"The one called Pilsu?"
"Aye, that's the one."
The king turned to Meren again. "Ah, you're together. Then we will speak of the disturbances among the towns near Ugarit."
Horemheb nodded. "We have read the reports, majesty."
"So, does this carrion threaten the trade routes?" the king asked.
"Not yet, majesty. At the moment Pilsu busies himself by stirring up discontent among the chiefs of the towns."
Tutankhamun sighed. "Another of these interminable disputes."
"As long as they squabble among themselves, they have no time or strength to give trouble to thy majesty," Meren said smoothly.
"Just see to it that Pilsu grows no stronger than he should," Tutankhamun said. "I'll not have trade interfered with."
Horemheb bowed. "Thy majesty's word is accomplished."
"Do you think Pilsu is a tool of the Hittites?" Meren asked the general.
"Have you heard it?" Horemheb countered.
"No, but it wouldn't be the first time the Hittites have fed the fires of a petty dispute and then interfered on the pretense that their interests were threatened."
They both looked at the king, who cast an inquisitive glance at Ay. The old minister shook his head. Everyone went silent. The king picked up a token from the game board sitting on the table beside his chair. Toying with the carved ivory, he spoke slowly.
"Perhaps it's time my majesty recalled one of the royal spies from the north."
Meren exchanged a wary glance with Ay. Summoning an agent from his sphere of duty was a great risk.
"Majesty," Ay said, "when such a one is recalled, there is always a chance—"
Tutankhamun slapped the ivory game piece down on the table and gave a sharp sigh. "I know that. I've seen what happens." The king turned suddenly to Meren. "Have I not, Eyes?"
"Indeed, majesty." There had been times when the king escaped Ay's vigilance and exposed himself to peril, involving Meren along the way.
"Then my majesty has spoken. Ay, recall one of your own at once."
"Yes, majesty."
"Now, what remains?" the king asked.
Ay shook his head, as did Horemheb. No one else seemed ready to speak until Maya looked up from a stack of papyri in his hands.
"A small matter, golden one. Last night a royal guard was killed in the menagerie."
At this remark, the councillors broke up into groups again. No one was interested in the death of a common guard. Maya was rolling the papyri and placing them in a document case when the king spoke.
"Which guard?"
"Oh," Maya said. He furrowed his brow and glanced at the document case. "Oh, yes. He was called Bakht, majesty."
Meren was thinking about Dilalu again. Something wasn't right, and he was going to find out what it was. At once. Tonight. He would send Kysen to the foreign quarter of the city.
"Meren!"
Waking from his deep concentration, Meren bowed to the king again. "Majesty."
"I said that this Bakht was pleasing to me. For years he has told me stories of his adventures in Nubia and in the north. He has—had even gone across the great sea to the Mycenaean Greek cities. Maya says he was killed in the baboon pen. He fell in."
"A terrible accident, majesty."
"Bakht didn't like baboons, Meren."
"The males can be fierce, golden one."
"I don't understand why he would be there," the king insisted. "Bakht avoided them."
"If he was afraid of the baboons and happened to fall into their pen by accident, his screams might have enraged the males."
Tutankhamun looked unhappily at Meren. "I suppose you're right."
"I am sorry, majesty."
"Still, my majesty will rest better once you have inquired into the matter. And Maya, Bakht is to have a good embalming. Let the priests of Anubis be informed."
The council session broke up with a wave of the king's hand. Not wanting to be waylaid by pharaoh and forced to set a date for taking his majesty on a military expedition, Meren slipped inside the palace. He hurried through corridors made bright by the exquisite wall paintings of the king's artisans.
Since discovering that Queen Nefertiti had been murdered, Meren had been trying to recall the events surrounding her death. Unfortunately, his heart had been scoured of many memories of that time. His years at Horizon of the Aten had been filled with fear. He'd been so young when his father had been killed—eighteen. The fear had acted as a burnishing stone on papyrus, polishing away unwanted ugliness.
Now, when he needed those memories, he was finding it difficult to reconstruct them. He was thinking of writing what he did remember in a secret record. The act of writing usually helped him recall tasks he had to complete; it might help his memory. He could always destroy the record. He would have to destroy it, for it would be too dangerous a thing to have about him for long.
Walking past lines of royal bodyguards, Meren found his way to his chariot in the forecourt of the palace and took the reins from a groom. Wind and Star, responding to his voice, trotted down an avenue lined with sphinxes. Now that his duties at the palace were over for the day, he could plan how best to find out more about Dilalu.
Whatever the method, he didn't want the merchant to know he was being scrutinized. Kysen was the best man for that task. His adopted son had been born to a commoner family of artisans from the royal tomb makers' village in Thebes. His accent wouldn't betray him in the unsavory sections of the city known as the Caverns. While Meren could pass himself off as many things, he had difficulty hiding his aristocratic origins from native Egyptians. In addition, he was too well known in Memphis. No, skulking around the dissolute taverns and perilous streets of the Caverns was an activity at which Kysen was far more accomplished.
Abu, Lord Meren's aide, slid along a dark street, his back pressed to a wall that seemed to consist mostly of cracked plaster or exposed and crumbling mud bricks. He dragged with him an odorous little man who squealed and grumbled with every step.
"I was coming, me. Would I ignore the command of the great Lord Kysen? Got lost, I did. Terrible twisty and winding is these lanes."
Abu paused long enough to cuff his charge on the ear. "Close your mouth, Tcha. The gods alone know how such a babbling dung-eater came to be a thief."
"Thief! Tcha is no thief. Ask Mistress Ese. Ask anyone."
"Another word, and I'll stuff you in a refuse heap and undertake this task myself."
Evidently Tcha believed Abu, for he clamped his mouth shut and allowed himself to be dragged through the winding, cramped, and littered streets. They hurried down an alley. On one side rose the high wall of a house that marked the beginning of the foreign district. At the corner of the house a shadow separated itself from the darkness in front of Tcha, who immediately yelped. The shadow lunged at him, and a hand fastened over the thief's mouth.
Kysen shoved the struggling Tcha against the opposite wall of the alley and hissed, "Silence, you simpleton! I don't enjoy touching you, but I'm not letting go until you're quiet."
When Tcha nodded vigorously, Kysen stepped away from him and tried to make out the thief's features in the moonlight. He could see little, but he knew Tcha, an emaciated little wretch who more resembled an embalmed corpse than anything alive. With his bowed legs and scars from numerous punishments from the authorities, Tcha was a leather-skinned, gap-toothed witness to the harshness of the life of a poor Egyptian. Kysen sniffed and took another step away from the thief. Unlike most Egyptians of whatever wealth, Tcha seemed to dislike bathing. Kysen knew that in daylight Tcha's body would be covered with dirt that seemed to have ground itself into his skin, while his hair would lie in greasy plates issuing from the crown of his head. They would snake over his ears and forehead, and down the back of his neck.
Kysen said without much rancor, "I told you to meet me here at full darkness, Tcha."
"Got lost."
Abu loomed over the thief. "You know every crack in every wall of this city."
"I thought you would be eager to be allowed to rob a rich man without fear of arrest for once."
Tcha began to sidle away from Kysen. "O great master, gracious of heart, divine of beauty, my poor talent is of no use to one so powerful."
Abu reached out and clamped a hand around Tcha's neck. Tcha squawked but stopped trying to get away.
Kysen contemplated the scrawny shadow that was the thief. He'd contacted Tcha after his father returned from the palace this morning. The little burglar had been astonished and then greedily pleased that he was to be allowed to rob a merchant's house. He'd agreed to pilfer Dilalu's correspondence in the process. What had happened in the intervening time to put Tcha in such fear?
Kysen darted forward and whispered to Tcha. "You've found out who Dilalu is, haven't you?"
"A merchant. He's a merchant, by the blessings of Amun."
"Correct," Kysen said. "So there's nothing to fear. Bring him, Abu."
Kysen led the way through the streets of the foreign quarter. Here lived traders from the Greek islands and mainland cities, artisans and merchants from the city-states of Byblos, Tyre, Ugarit, and the great lands of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. They passed several noisy taverns, encountering shrinking and cloaked figures that vanished as soon as they appeared. Finally they came upon a quieter street. Its only waking inhabitant was a fat, flat-headed cat sitting beside a porter asleep in a doorway. It hissed at them and stalked away in search of a feline fight.
Kysen slithered down a passage beside the cat's house and around the back of the building. There rose a pungent and mountainous refuse heap. At the foot of an exterior staircase, Kysen halted and grabbed Tcha by the arm.
"This is the house. To your work." Tcha squirmed but Kysen tightened his grip and bent down to whisper in the thief's ear. "Listen to me, you carrion feeder. You'll do as you agreed, or I'll send you to the granite quarries."
As he'd expected, the threat of actual work, especially such taxing labor, caused Tcha to become as docile as an aged donkey. The wretch nodded, and Kysen released him.
"Remember, confine yourself to a few metal vessels or jewels."
Kysen watched the thief remove a linen bag from the recesses of his kilt. Tcha hesitated only a short time before scrambling to the staircase. Kysen signaled to Abu, and they melted into the darkness beyond the refuse pile.
Waiting in nighttime always seemed longer than waiting during the day. Kysen pressed his back against a wall and slid down to crouch beside Abu, whose gaze swung in an arc, watching for any hint of trouble. Kysen's back and legs were growing numb when Tcha's head popped over the roof coping. He rose as the thief scrambled downstairs and launched into a foot-pounding run. When his quarry darted past, Abu stuck out his foot. Tcha hit the ground with a smack, but would have jumped to his feet and kept on running if Kysen hadn't grabbed him. Releasing his captive when Abu fastened his hand around Tcha's neck, Kysen snatched the linen bag.
"Empty. Tcha, you're too miserable for the quarries. I'm sending you into the desert—"
"Lord," Abu said. "The wretch is frightened. More than usual, that is."
Kysen peered at Tcha, who was shaking as if he were on some foreign snow-topped mountain. Dropping the bag, Kysen folded his arms and spoke calmly.
"What happened?"
"Merciful Amun protect me." Tcha whimpered and seemed to melt onto the ground, where he groveled at Kysen's feet. 'Let us flee this place at once, lord. At once!"
"Not until you explain."
Constantly glancing at the house of Dilalu, Tcha said, "I went up to the roof, me. Like always. There was another sleeping porter there, but I always slide through a roof vent or a window if it's large enough. I got inside through the door this time, and then—merciful Amun." Tcha moaned and began to rock back and forth on his haunches.
"Curse you, Tcha, get on with it," Kysen said. Tcha's fear was beginning to affect his composure.
"Know why there's only sleeping porters on guard? Because inside there's black giants.'"
For a moment Kysen's thoughts stilled. Then he asked, "Do you mean the merchant has Nubian guards?"
Tcha's head bobbed so rapidly Kysen was certain it would snap off his neck.
"They was awake. All of them! I went down the inside stairs and nearly ran into them at the bottom, but Amun was watching and slowed my steps. I saw them before they saw me. Dozens of them, all armed with knives and spears and bows and axes and—"