"My noble cousin. How fortunate is this humble cupbearer of the god to find you here."
Kysen wondered how was it possible to grow cold under the heat of the Egyptian sun. The hair on his arms almost stood up as he glanced around the circle of priests.
"I missed you as well, Ebana," Kysen said.
Ebana's raptorlike smile looked artificial. He drew nearer, coming within an arm's length while the priests tightened their circle.
"One would think," Ebana said, "that one of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh would be too occupied with royal business to go shopping in the markets on this side of the Nile."
Kysen glanced around the circle of bald heads. There were five pure ones, none of whom looked as if they spent much time in scholarship. Thick necks, chests as wide as barges-they could have passed for mercenaries. They stood still in the middle of the market and formed an island before which waves of citizens parted. He knew better than to let them see his uneasiness. He'd been right in not chasing after whoever had dropped that masonry.
"How long have you been here?" he asked. It was a demand. Ebana's false smile vanished.
"Watch your tongue, boy."
"Someone just tried to drop part of a house on me."
"So you fled to the east bank?"
"It happened here," Kysen said. "After I left the house of your pure one, Unas."
He kept his gaze fixed on Ebana's face, but all he perceived was a brief squint of his eyes, quickly gone. Then Ebana smiled a smile of true pleasure and spoke in tones of spice and sweet wine.
"What say you, Qenamun? Is my cousin not unfortunate? You should perform a divination for him or study his birth day. After all, he should be warned of approaching dangers so that he can stay home and avoid them."
Qenamun fingered a pleat in his kilt. "It would do me honor to serve the son of Lord Meren."
The last thing he desired was a magician priest of Amun delving into his fate and fortune, performing spells about him, divining the future of his ka. A man like Qenamun could do great harm with his knowledge of the mysteries of the gods.
"I don't need magic," he said. "I need truth."
Ebana lost his smile again. "Are you accusing-"
"There you are. I found her. Taste these and tell me I'm right. I have the best palate in Egypt, and these are the best honey cakes in Thebes." Rahotep pushed his way into the circle around Kysen, his arms full of round loaves covered with honey glaze.
"Kysen," Rahotep said. "What luck to meet you. Now you can settle a wager. I say Ebana should hire the baker of these honey cakes, for they're fit for the good god." He shoved a cake into Ebana's hands.
As the circle of priests loosened, then broke and dissolved, Kysen took one as well. To cover his relief, he bit into the cake.
"You've been in the market with Ebana?" Kysen said.
"Yes. You know me, always hungry, and these cakes come to me in my dreams. If Ebana doesn't hire her, I will." Rahotep tried to stuff an entire cake in his mouth.
"How long have you been with him?"
"How long?" Rahotep gave him a curious glance. "A goodly time, I suppose. What do you mean?"
"Oh, naught, my friend. It's just that I didn't know you and my cousin were such comrades."
"Ebana is going to sell me two foals from his black thoroughbred. You know I'm the best judge of horses in the Two Lands. They'll make a wondrous pair for my war chariot. We've agreed on a price, goods worth one hundred deben of silver."
Kysen had been watching Ebana while Rahotep boasted and swaggered, but the man revealed nothing. He stood with a honey cake in his hand and stared back at Kysen with his lips quirked in a half smile, unruffled as the golden Horus falcon, cool as the waters of the Nile at night. Taking up the challenge, Kysen listened to Rahotep, his gaze never wavering from Ebana's, and ate every bite of his honey cake. At last Ebana's voice cut across Rahotep's narrative.
"Perhaps you've had a warning from the gods, cousin. It may be that you should remain on the west bank. I would be grieved to find one day that you truly had gone into the west, to the land from which no man returns."
Kysen turned on his heel and walked away. "Fear not. If I do die, I promise to come back as the winged ba bird of the soul and take you with me."
Chapter 9
By the time Meren reached the palace precinct, the king had already finished his sacred duties and was at one of the practice areas near the royal quay on the west bank of the river. As he dismounted from his chariot, Meren surveyed the temporary encampment of the king's war band. Shields set into the earth formed a perimeter patrolled by the royal bodyguard. The fourth side of the rectangular enclosure was formed by the riverbank. Within the enclosure, grooms had unhitched horses from their chariots and tethered them to munch from feed baskets. An open tent had been erected where the king's campstool, armor, and extra weapons lay.
Near a stand of palms, two of the younger officers wrestled to the taunts and jeers of their fellows while others from the Valiant Bows regiment embedded five copper targets in the earth at the opposite end of the camp. Meren glanced over the riverbank. One of the royal warships had anchored offshore. Sailors stood watch on its deck for crocodiles and hippos, as did dozens of others in skiffs that formed a ring around one bearing the king.
Tutankhamun was standing between two older officers. He saw Meren, shouted, and waved the staff he was holding. Meren bowed to the king, then handed the reins of his chariot to a groom and walked to the riverbank to join Horemheb and Tanefer, who were among the king's advisers in attendance. Charioteers of the king's war band lined the bank on either side of this group to watch the coming contest.
Cheers rose from the group surrounding the wrestlers. One of the men had been pinned to the ground. Meren glanced at them as he greeted his friends. Horemheb nudged him with an elbow and nodded in the direction of three priests hovering at the edge of the water. Meren recognized the first prophets of the gods Ra, the sun falcon; Montu, god of war; and Set, who ruled chaos and the desert. The priests watched the king, their bodies arching out from the riverbank, noses almost twitching with unrest.
"Fools," Horemheb said under his breath. "Every time the king engages, they fall to praying as if they'll be blamed for each cut and bruise. They've already performed their sacrifices. What else is needful? The gods will watch over his majesty without their hovering."
On the water, a second skiff approached that of the king. Two men used poles to maneuver their craft in a charge at the king while a third attacked with a staff. The attacker was only a little over the height and weight of the king. Tutankhamun raised his own staff and blocked an overhead blow, then brought his weapon underneath to rap his opponent on the thigh.
The opponent swept his staff in an arc, aiming for the king's chest, but Tutankhamun used the momentum from his last blow; his staff swung up and cracked against the other. At the same time, the king leaned back, lifted his leg, and rammed his foot into his opponent's chest. The man overbalanced. His arms flailed, knocking one of his comrades with his staff as he lost footing and plummeted into the water. A cheer went up from the charioteers.
Meren smiled as the king waved his staff at them. The victory had been real. It would do the boy no good to allow him false accomplishments. Indeed, to flatter him unnecessarily would ruin any chance of his developing into a warrior who could lead the army and the kingdom. While the king's skiff headed for shore, the royal charioteers broke into groups for archery practice.
Meren turned back to Horemheb and Tanefer. "His majesty seems more cheerful than he has been of late."
"Ha!" Tanefer slapped Horemheb on the shoulder. "That's because we persuaded Ay to sit in judgment of Prince Hunefer's suit this morn instead of the king. His majesty hasn't seen a dispatch or treasury report or a foreign emissary since midday yesterday."