He would send Abu to make inquiries. But the unguent— that inquiry he would pursue himself. If he wanted to know about cosmetic salves and perfumes, he could do no better than to seek the wisdom of the king's perfume makers in the royal workshops near the palace. His trip to the Place of Anubis and other plans would have to be delayed.
The Place of Anubis. What a bizarre place to frequent in the darkness. Few went to the Place of Anubis in daylight voluntarily. It was crowded with dead souls waiting for restoration to their bodies. It reeked of decay. The living deserted the Place of Anubis at night. Therefore, if Hormin went there, he must have had a reason of preeminence, a life-threatening reason or one that promised such reward that fear was a small price to pay.
In either instance, Hormin went in such haste that he hadn't bothered to change a kilt soiled by a rare unguent. The unguent, it was a sign, a mysterious one, as was the heart amulet and the broad collar. Like the connections between Hormin and his family and acquaintances, they were signs to be read. Like those wedge-shaped jottings the Babylonians used, they seemed indecipherable.
The unguent. He would need permission from the king to visit the royal workshops and question the chief perfume maker. He went to his bedchamber, readied himself for a call on the palace, and was at the doors to the king's audience chamber in less than an hour. He approached the royal guards in their bronze and leather corselets, only to pause. He'd been so preoccupied with the puzzle of the unguent that he hadn't paid attention to his surroundings. Abu and three of his charioteers had escorted him, but had fallen back as he neared the royal audience hall. Now he glanced about and noted the crowds of courtiers milling near the doors.
"Meren, you harem raider, you."
"General of the King's Armies, Horemheb," Meren said as he inclined his head at the armed warrior who emerged from a cluster of officials.
"I'll stomach no titles and piss-sweet courtesies from you. I've had a belly full of them today."
Meren studied Horemheb's scarred face and lowered his voice. "What's wrong?"
"I know not." Horemheb talked through a pained smile that wouldn't deceive a nursling. "We were listening to the delegation of the Mycenaean Sea Peoples when one of the king's personal servants sidled into the hall and peeked at his majesty from around a column. The king suddenly dismissed everyone, including the vizier, who is furious."
As Horemheb ended, the doors of the audience hall burst open and Pharaoh's overseer of the audience hall poked his head between them. He whispered to one of the giant Nubian guards. The guard, who like all of the king's war band revealed less emotion than a votive statue, merely raised an arm and pointed at Meren.
The overseer of the audience hall started as he caught sight of Meren, then pushed the doors open, came out, and shut them again. Rearranging his ankle-length formal linens, he cleared his throat and raised his voice so that he could speak in his accustomed boom.
"The living god, the justified, living in truth, Golden Horus, the divine one, son of Amun, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, his majesty Nebkheprure Tutankhamun summons into his shining presence the prince, the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, Count Meren."
The doors, heavy with their enormous height and laden with sheet gold, creaked on their hinges as they swung open again. Meren glanced at Horemheb in alarm. Pharaoh never behaved in haste during formal audiences. Divine majesty forbade such unseemliness. A chill settled over him, for a pharaoh had summoned him suddenly once before, and he'd been cast into horror. Abu made a quick movement as if to prevent him, but Meren glared at him, and he stepped aside.
Meren joined the overseer of the audience hall, who, despite his treasured dignity, grabbed Meren's arm and shoved him into the hall. Meren gawked at the overseer, who pushed him away from the doors and slammed them in his face. As they shut, Meren whirled around and put his back to them, expecting scimitars and daggers.
Meren pressed his back to the golden doors. His gaze met a sea of columns taller than the tallest trees, their electrum surfaces aglow with the light of thousands of tapers and candles in tall stands. He searched the shadows between the columns, but could see no one. At the end of the long hall, on a high dais, sat the golden throne of the king, but the living god wasn't on it. He was sitting on the last step of the dais, talking to an ancient man in a short wig and flowing robe. The old man was on his knees, whispering in the king's ear.
Tutankhamun shook his head, glanced at Meren, and waved the servant away. The man vanished through a door behind the dais. Meren walked swiftly to the king and knelt, touching his forehead to the floor. He could see a golden sandal.
"Rise," the king said.
Meren straightened. The king wore his formal robes. A cloth of the finest linen covered his head, fastened by the Uraeus diadem. His neck, arms, and legs were laden with gold and lapis and turquoise, but he'd laid aside on the throne the double scepters, the crook, and the flail. The high windows on one side of the audience chamber cast light on the king, and he gave off a glint like his father the sun.
Tutankhamun sighed and rubbed his temples. He almost smeared the heavy paint on his eyes. Abruptly he stood and walked away from the throne. Meren followed him until they were standing well away from the throne and some distance from any of the columns.
Catching Meren's arm, Tutankhamun pulled him close and spoke quietly. "Do you think they can hear me?"
"Who, majesty?"
"Anyone who's listening."
"No, majesty."
The king sighed again. He winced and rubbed his temple again. "She has betrayed me."
Meren felt his heart still. He stopped breathing.
"The queen?" he asked.
Tutankhamun nodded, studying Meren's face.
Meren became silent again. Ankhesenamun, daughter of the pharaoh Akhenaten, whose royal blood gave Tutankhamun one of his strongest claims to the throne. The girl had worshiped her fanatical, mad father. She'd never forgiven Tutankhamun for returning the kingdom to the old gods. Meren had never questioned Tutankhamun about her, for her relationship with her father had been close. Like her older sisters, she had been married to Akhenaten.
When he died, it had been Tutankhamun's duty to marry Ankhesenamun. Five years older than Tutankhamun, she had taken her elevation to Great Royal Wife as her due, yet hated her husband for what she saw as his betrayal. She had fought the restoration of the old gods, fought the return to Thebes from the upstart capital her father had built. All this she had done with a fanaticism and spite that rivaled her father's.
And now she had betrayed the king. She surrounded herself with zealots who had served her father in the old solar religion of the Aten. Had she betrayed the king with one of them? Or had she plotted an equally evil crime—the king's death?
Whatever the case, Tutankhamun had made a mistake in interrupting his audience. He was adept at intrigue, yet heartbreakingly precipitous when unnerved. His youth was the reason, and his youth endangered him.
"Sire," Meren said in as low a voice as possible, "how has she betrayed you?"
The king met his gaze, and he beheld the suppressed fury of outraged majesty. "She wrote to the Hittite king. The bitch wrote to my greatest enemy and offered to marry one of his sons if he would come and kill me."
"Merciful Isis."
Meren found his throat muscles thickening with tension. The Hittites rivaled Pharaoh in power. They nibbled away at the edges of the empire and fostered rebellion among the vassal states of Palestine and Syria. One day Egypt and the Hittites would go to war. If Ankhesenamun had succeeded, the war could have been brought upon them now, when Pharaoh was still a youth and ill-prepared to face the vicious multitudes of the Hittites.
"What am I to do?" The king drew his ceremonial gold dagger.
"You cannot kill her."
"She has committed the worst sin against me."
"She is the Great Royal Wife, daughter of a pharaoh. The kingdom has suffered strife and instability for too long, majesty. The execution of a queen will do great harm and shake the people's faith in you, no matter how innocent you are, or how strong."
Tutankhamun sheathed his dagger. His gold wristband and bracelets clattered with the violence of his movements. He lifted a tortured face to Meren.
"She hates me," he said. "She hates for me to touch her—and she has endangered my people. I could forgive her for hating me, but not for the other."
"Nor should you, for either. What have you done?"
"Naught." The king waved his hand in a gesture of weariness. "I wanted to find her and kill her, but I did as you taught me and waited while I recited a prayer, then I sent for you."
"And Ay?"
"She's his granddaughter. He loves Ankhesenamun. I haven't the courage to tell him."
He noticed what was not said: that the king had discovered the queen's treason, not the vizier, not his eyes and ears. It was startling how well Tutankhamun had learned Meren's lessons in intrigue. Then he remembered the old servant. He was called Tiglith, a Syrian slave who had attended the royal children for longer than Meren had been alive. Tiglith served in the queen's palace.
"Majesty, you must continue your audiences."
"I know." The reply came out softly, belying the rage in the king's eyes.
"All of the queen's servants will have to be replaced, but we must avoid creating a stir in your golden hive of a court."
"I will give her a new palace."
Meren smiled grimly. "The one near the temple of Isis in Memphis?"
"Aye," the king said. "The high priest there detests her. The whole city hates her. And you, my friend, will supply the slaves and attendants. Set your people to the task at once."
Meren fell in step with the king and they paced back and forth in front of the throne.
"The arrangements will take time, majesty, and she must be watched. May I have leave to—see to her majesty's comfort until she goes to Memphis?"
The king nodded, then halted abruptly and turned to Meren. "You should know I gave Tiglith certain orders. In the next few days Ankhesenamun will find herself growing more and more listless and unable to get enough sleep."
"Thy majesty possesses the wisdom of Tom." Meren hesitated, but the king's furrowed brow and lack of color spurred him on. "Perhaps word could be spread that Ankhesenamun believes herself with child and sent word to thy majesty at once. You were so overjoyed you were forced to dismiss everyone for fear of betraying your dignity. And now you will surround her majesty with the best physicians, the most careful of attendants, so that she and her child are cared for as befits the wife of the living god."
"I am such an attentive spouse."
"And I must be seen to go about my customary duties."
Distracted, the king's voice assumed its normal tone. "You've brought news?"
"Another death, Golden One. The son, Djaper, was poisoned yesterday or last night."
He summarized the events for the king and obtained permission to visit the royal workshops. Leaving Tutankhamun to deal with Ay, he quit the audience hall openly and made a show of obtaining a royal bodyguard who would gain him admittance to the workshops near the palace. As the Nubian marched ahead of him, he was joined by his own men. They walked beneath a succession of pylons and turned south, heading for a walled complex near the Nile. Once clear of the royal palace and its crowds of officials and courtiers, he spoke quietly to Abu, who fell back with two charioteers and sauntered off in the direction of Meren's house to begin arrangements for the queen.
Unable to do more at the moment, Meren resigned himself to continuing with his original plans. He mustn't show concern. Any disruption in his pursuit of the murderer of the Place of Anubis would attract the attention of those with evil intentions. Such attention risked not only his life, but that of the king. The High Priest of Amun maintained vigilance, ever watchful for a weakness in the young Pharaoh. The Hittite ambassador would know of any disturbance at once, and seek out its cause.
Thus he and his remaining charioteers went to the royal workshops, passing easily by the posted sentries at the gate. Long rows of workshops lay before him, their awnings protecting the bent heads of jewelers, sculptors, goldsmiths, weavers. He glanced briefly at a shop where several men and women carved lapis lazuli, carnelian, and agate for use in royal jewelry. At the intersection of the packed earth path with another, a procession of laborers bore supplies to a reed shelter where scribes checked and recorded them and sent them on for distribution to artisans.
The bodyguard stopped at a workshop that rivaled Meren's house in size. Meren would have known what it was from the smell of heated fats and spices issuing from it. Before him lay a wide, open courtyard formed by a low wall. Inside sat a line of domed ovens. Opposite them lay open fires and braziers tended by several women. Two youths were stoking the ovens while a third thrust a heavy pot of resin into one of them. Meren followed the guard inside the workshop. He entered a room that resembled a small audience hall in size.
Glancing at shelves bearing countless pots, vials, and stoppered jars, he saw the guard address a man who resembled one of the ovoid jars on his shelves. The man hurriedly put aside a box of spice on a counter that ran the length of the room. He waddled over to Meren and dropped to his knees, wheezing. Presenting himself as Bakef, the king's master perfumer, the man touched his forehead to the floor. When he'd made his obeisance, the guard had to help him stand.
"It is my honor to serve and obey, mighty prince." Puff, puff, wheeze.
To Meren's questions about the unguent
qeres,
Bakef had no immediate reply. He fluttered his pudgy, pale hands.
"Qeres, qeres."
Meren held out his hand, and a charioteer placed a scrap of cloth from Hormin's kilt in it. He tossed the scrap to Bakef. The perfumer snatched it and held it to his nose. Beads of sweat had formed on the tip of it. He sniffed again.