"Where is Ahiram?" Kysen asked.
"He discovered that Rahotep was supplying a brace of hounds and refused to attend," Meren said. He wiped gritty sweat from his forehead, then touched a cut on Kysen's inner forearm. "You're holding your bow too close."
Kysen grunted. "My right wheel hit a rock and I lost my balance."
Meren nodded, and they lapsed into silence as a breeze riffled down the length of the valley and cooled their skin.
"Has nothing come of your conversation with the lector priest yesterday?" Kysen asked.
"Naught. Qenamun's manner is as deft as his reputed skill with magic."
"Ebana dislikes him."
"So you said. However, being a schemer hardly distinguishes Qenamun from the rest of us." Meren waved his hand toward a group containing Djoser, Tanefer, and Rahotep. "Who among our friends does not indulge in stratagems and maneuvers? Rahotep is jealous of Tanefer-though he spouts accolades to his own perfection-and seeks advancement over everyone from pharaoh. Djoser's blood is turning to bile as his envy of us all increases."
"But they're outmatched in scheming by Parenefer and Ebana."
Meren gave his son a glance of sympathy. Kysen had spent the last few days attempting to inquire among Unas's fellow priests about his work, movements, and sympathies, only to have Ebana insist upon being present at each exchange. Thus he'd learned nothing of consequence.
Their only progress had been Abu's discussions with Ipwet and Nebera. At the time her husband died, Ipwet was in the company of several other young wives making barley bread. Inquiries at the royal workshops resulted in Abu concluding that Nebera had arrived there too early to have made a side trip to meet and kill Unas.
"It may be that I'm seeing evil and scheming where there is none," Meren said.
"Still, the porter Huni was readmitted to duty just in time to sleep through a fall to the death. I don't like the coincidence. But when I questioned the chief of porters, he said he'd decided to give Huni another chance to serve. Since Ebana was there when I saw him, I can't be sure if he was telling the truth."
Meren sighed and took another sip of water. "Suspicions plague me as well, but we can hardly fall to beating the man with such little cause. He's under the protection of the temple."
"I hate inquiries among the great," Kysen said as he rubbed his injured forearm. "And that cursed temple swarms with people, yet no one admits knowing anything."
"You haven't found the boy who brought the message to Unas, have you?"
Kysen shook his head. "And no one at the temple admits sending for him. Ipwet says she paid little attention when the boy spoke to Unas, so she can't be sure what he really said."
"Poor Unas," Meren said. "He doesn't seem to have been important to anyone."
"Hark you," Kysen said. "That porter will have some accident soon, or vanish to one of the temple estates on the Nubian border."
Meren sat forward on his stool, rested his arms on his knees, and shook his head. "And if he does, we'll reconsider our approach, but I've other matters to worry about as well."
"Ah, your fortnight is up, and the king is going to demand that you take a stance on this matter of the campaign."
"He's going to be furious, and I don't like disappointing him. His life is so full of cares and duties."
"He lives the life of a god."
Meren glanced up at Kysen's disbelieving tone, but he didn't argue. Kysen's childhood before adoption had been as filled with pain as Tutankhamun's. His father had sold him after having failed to beat him into a state of craven submission. It wasn't Kysen's fault that he sometimes couldn't imagine the life of a king to be an ordeal.
Meren rose, wincing at the ache in muscles that had taken many jolts as his chariot raced across the desert floor.
"Time to return home. The calendar marked this as a day of fortune, so I'm hoping I'll be spared another evening listening to Horemheb and Tanefer plan the provisioning of troops and the supplying of border forts. And if I'm blessed, the king won't remember my promise to take sides for a few days."
They left Tanefer and the other hunters gorging themselves on roast gazelle, and by the time the sun had reached its apex and begun its descent, they reached the house. In a short time Meren was standing in his bathing stall while a servant poured jar after jar of cool water over him. Reluctantly he signaled an end to the luxury and stretched out on the massage table nearby while his body servant rubbed oil into his skin.
While he was lying there, he perused several letters from his family. There was one from his sister, complaining that he neglected his daughters and should have visited them long ago. Was he neglectful?
Isis and Bener had to learn the skills of running a great estate and women's accomplishments that he couldn't teach them. Tefnut, his eldest, lived far away, in the delta with her husband. He missed them all, especially at night when he came home and caught himself listening for their bright laughter.
There was another letter, from his younger brother Nakht, whom he'd always called Ra. Meren unfolded the papyrus, skimmed the first few lines, and let it drop to the floor. More complaints about how Ra's judgment was always questioned by their steward.
Meren lowered his head to his crossed arms. He felt pressure build up at his temples, as if his head were being squeezed in a grape press. It was as if the members of his family grasped his arms and pulled in different directions; he felt that he was about to split down the middle. He whispered a request to his servant, who began to rub his head.
He was drifting off to sleep when the rubbing at his temples stopped. His eyes flew open, and he tensed and raised his head to see Abu entering the chamber, carrying a flat limestone flake, an ostracon, used to take notes to conserve papyrus. Meren sat up and wrapped a bathing sheet around his hips. His body servant vanished into his bedchamber.
"Forgive me, lord, but a report has arrived from the city police. The house of Unas has been robbed, or rather, it has been rifled. They don't think anything was taken."
"Have they caught anyone?"
"No, lord. The wife was visiting her parents, and the neighbor, Nebera, reported the crime."
Abu held out the ostracon. Meren took it and perused the report. Had it occurred at any other house, such a petty offense would have never been brought to his attention. He handed the report back to Abu as Kysen came in, freshly dressed, his hair damp.
"You've heard?" he asked. "I think Abu and I should visit the house tomorrow."
"I hope you discover more than the city police did," Meren said.
His thoughts racing, he stood and padded into his bedchamber. The others followed. He dropped his bathing sheet and allowed his body servant to wrap a clean kilt around him. Kysen tossed him a belt, and he waved his servant out of the room before wrapping it around his waist.
"I grow weary of sparring with intransigent priests," he said.
Kysen looked up from his perusal of the theft report. "But you said we couldn't provoke an open quarrel."
"That was before this new stroke." Meren rubbed the sun-disk brand on his wrist as he thought, then slipped a leather-and-bronze wrist band over it. "We must flush the birds from the marsh, Ky."
"The shards?"
"Aye, the shards. If they're significant, they may be just the goad we need to harry our prey into the open. But we can't tell the priests about them too directly. I suggest you let slip the tale of your discovery when we attend this evening's banquet at Prince Sahure's."
He smiled at Kysen. Many courtiers also served as priests in different temples. Word would spread to the priests of Amun like the blast of a desert storm.
"You think someone will come to rifle our house?" Kysen asked.