Strange that the place was so devoid of Egyptians this evening. He saw a few in the rooms beyond, even a particularly bloodthirsty Nubian prince playing a game of senet with one of the tavern women. The prince led royal expeditions deep into the southern wild lands in search of leopards, elephants, and rare spice trees. At least once during a regnal year his expeditions were attacked and robbed by savage tribes who seemed to know their exact route.
Kysen paused in his survey of the patrons. He leaned to one side in order to get a better view of a dark corner of the megaron. There, among the less accomplished villains, sat Prince Rahotep. Wearing a plain kilt and no jewels, he was slumped on a stool against a wall, alone, his hands fastened around a drinking cup big enough for three men. As Kysen watched, the prince hiccuped, bent over his cup, and sucked wine like a cow at a drinking trough. Then he came up for air and cradled the cup against his chest, all the while wearing an expression more suited to an embalming shed than a tavern.
Rahotep had always been given to bouts of sorrowful drinking. Kysen had noted that lately the episodes were growing more frequent. He and most of Rahotep's friends refused to go with the prince on these outings. Inevitably, when he'd had a cup or two of wine, Rahotep would grow quarrelsome. After his fourth or fifth cup, he stopped fighting, stopped talking altogether. He sank into a private world of anguish from which he wouldn't surface for the rest of the night. After hours of black silence, Rahotep vanished. Then in a day or two he'd reappear wearing his old brash manner, oblivious of the irritation of his friends. Kysen turned his back on Rahotep, who was deep in his misery and wouldn't notice him.
A serving boy brought Kysen beer in a double-handled chalice of the hard, eggshell-thin pottery for which the Greeks were famous. Ese had gone to much expense to acquire the finest of such vessels for the use of her guests. Kysen was admiring the tall stem of the chalice that flared out into a graceful bowl when he noticed that the people around him had stopped talking and were staring over his head.
He turned to face a curtain of blue, white, and green flounces. Lifting his gaze, he saw hips bound by a tight skirt. He continued his visual climb and found two small mountains of flesh surrounded by a tight bodice. Above these he encountered a rounded face framed by tight Greek curls of dark brown tinted with red.
Two dark eyes met his. They were eyes that could convey any emotion their owner wished. Most often, in the great hall, they held graciousness combined with a hint of the exotic and promises of the pleasures of Hathor. Kysen had seen them as they truly were-flat, with a serpent's lack of pity, glittering with cold resentment, alight with the amusement of a cat playing with a wounded field mouse.
She spoke in a low, rough voice that sent hot spears of reaction through her male guests and caused her tavern women to fall silent. "May Hathor bless you, Nen."
"She has blessed me beyond wishing by your presence, Mistress Ese."
"That Syrian wine you asked for has arrived," she said.
He'd ordered no wine, but Ese had already left, giving him no choice but to follow her. The din of conversation, gaming, and drinking rose around him once more as he stood and went after the woman. Ese walked out of the hall to an inner stairwell. Instead of ascending the stairs, she opened a door and vanished. Kysen hurried after her. As he pulled the door closed, he glimpsed a shadow sailing into the stairwell. By its shape and the odor of honey and decay, he knew it was Tcha.
Shutting the door, Kysen found himself in an open garden court with a central reflection pool. Ese was reclining on a couch beneath an awning at the opposite end of the pool. A Syrian slave waved a white ostrich feather fan over her mistress. When Kysen approached, Ese pointed to a cushion on the ground beside the couch. He lowered himself to it and accepted wine in a vessel of unusual design, a bronze drinking cup shaped like the head of a gazelle. The modeled nose was made to be set in a stand.
"You have become Mycenaean," Kysen said.
"For the moment."
"After this, what will you become?"
Ese lifted her face to the silver moonlight. "Babylonian, perhaps." She glanced down at him. "Perhaps a Hittite."
"Not a wise choice."
"I choose what provokes interest and what tantalizes."
Ese lay unmoving, her stillness the watchful ease of a lioness as she contemplates the hunt. Kysen had yet to become accustomed to the woman's outward calm and inner vigilance.
Kysen stared up at her, trying not to fall victim to perfection of skin, softly curling hair, and an indomitable will. "You'll choose to become a Hittite."
"I will?"
"It is the most daring of choices."
A flash of contempt showed in the woman's eyes. "I'll tell you something. Men are stupid to waste gold on places like my Divine Lotus."
"All of us?"
"Shall we compare? Are women's thoughts dominated by their genitals?"
"We farm and hunt and build great temples," Kysen protested.
Ese gave him an unimpressed glance. "Only after your urges have been assuaged. Without relief, none of you could build a straw hut." She burst out with abrupt violence, "You disgust me."
She wasn't looking at him; she was looking at the past. The violence of her speech had been provoked by whatever invisible scene floated before her eyes.
"I regret that misfortune has been your lot in your dealings with men."
Ese dragged her gaze back to him and nodded, as if he'd confirmed some judgment she had already formed. "I have heard a rumor about you."
"Oh." He was suddenly wary. There shouldn't be any rumors about Nen.
"One of my women said a vegetable seller at the docks told her you chased down a thief who tried to steal her best melon."
"Is that all?"
Leaning over a table set beside her couch, Ese dipped her fingers in an alabaster pot filled with perfumed salve and began rubbing it on her throat. Kysen followed the path of her fingers as they swept down and across a smooth curve. Then he pressed his lips together and jerked his gaze back to his wine. He was angry with himself for falling victim to Ese's manipulations. He knew she never did or said anything out of innocence. He looked up at her again and found her watching him with a faint smile of derision. He felt like a foolish, tumescent boy.
"You may not be as stupid as most," she said. "You're a selfish conniver, a trader in information to the one who can pay the most, yet you prevented an old woman from being robbed of a simple melon. Do you know how much one melon means to such as she?"
Kysen scowled at her. "The wretch pushed the aged one into the dirt. I hate men who use their fists on-"
"Yes?"
"I have more important things to do than prattle about old women. I want you to set your women and your band of-shall we say servants-to making inquiries."
"What kind of inquiries?"
Kysen slowly inspected the garden court for intruders. "Nothing urgent or perilous. I want to find anyone who served her majesty, Queen Nefertiti, the justified, during her last months."
"No."
"No? Why not?"
"I keep away from the affairs of pharaohs, living or dead, and I especially shun prying into the secrets of Great Royal Wives."
"I'm not interested in secrets. I'm interested in hiring servants who know court ways."
"You aren't. You couldn't afford to hire them. What are you really after, Nen?"
Kysen threw up his hands. "There's no hidden purpose this time. I've been paid well for my previous work, and now I've put aside enough to employ a few servants. Think, mistress. If a man intends to rise high enough to attract the notice of great ones, he must learn from others how to conduct himself in a manner pleasing to them."
He bore Ese's scrutiny in silence. Repeating his arguments or decorating them with particulars would increase the woman's disbelief. Setting down his wine, he sighed and shook his head.