"Change the subject, Maya."
"Very well."
Maya had agreed too readily, making Meren immediately wary.
"Don't you think that this argument about the king leading the army has been going on far too long?"
Meren glanced at his friend, said nothing, and lifted a brow.
"This incessant quarreling is giving me foul humors," Maya said when he realized Meren wasn't going to respond. "It disturbs my ka to have Horemheb shouting in my ear for several hours each day. I've been to war too, you know. I understand the risks, and that's why I recommend caution. But I tell you, I'm thinking of going to the king if my courage is questioned once more by that son of a commoner."
This time Meren straightened up in his chair. "There's no need. Today I suggested a plan by which the king can practice at war without actually engaging in it."
He explained his design to Maya, whose whole face brightened as he realized the compromise Meren offered.
"It won't please Ay, you know." Meren nodded. "But he'll recognize the necessity."
"Nevertheless," Maya said, "Horemheb still disturbs me."
"How so?"
Maya dismissed the servants fanning them and scooted his chair closer to Meren. He continued in a low voice.
"I've heard disturbing talk-talk that says Horemheb chaffs at the constraints put upon him. He's furious at how the army and the empire have been neglected. They say he thinks Ay is too old, and the rest of us too cautious, and that Egypt needs a bold leader of prime years, not a b-"
"Meren!"
Maya jumped out of his chair at the shout, and Meren almost grabbed for his dagger as Tanefer burst out of the house.
"Pharaoh sent me to find you," Tanefer said as he snatched up a jar and gulped down water.
Out of breath, he wiped sweat from his brow and upper lip before going on. "The temple of Amun is in chaos. One of the priests has been killed-again. The one you questioned about the pure one who fell off the king's statue, that lector priest, Qenamun. Dead of the bite of the cobra, if you can believe it."
Meren knew they were watching him. He frowned and stalled while he thought.
"What can I do about a priest getting struck by a snake, Tanefer?"
Tanefer gave him a wincing smile. "Someone put five cobras in his scribe's chest. He stuck his hand in and came out with a fistful of them. Hardly a mischance, do you think? I know of few cobras that jump into chests all together and shut the lid."
"Five? Five?" Maya asked.
Meren ignored the treasurer. "When did this happen?"
"This morning some time," Tanefer said. He stabbed a piece of mutton with his dagger and began to eat it. Between chews he said, "Word spread over the city quickly, of course. I'll wager old Parenefer would have liked to keep the thing quiet, but it happened in the House of Life, and there were too many people, most of whom fled when the cobras got out. And now pharaoh commands you to inquire."
Tanefer swallowed another piece of mutton and grinned at Meren. "The divine one's words were: 'My majesty likes not this plague of death among my priests of Amun.' What he really meant was-"
"That he likes not this plague of murder among the priests of Amun," said Meren, giving Tanefer a stern look. He turned to the open-mouthed Maya. "Thank you for the meal, my friend."
Maya waved him away. "Go, go. Five cobras, by the gods. Five."
"Don't you want to go along?" Tanefer asked him. "Perhaps they haven't killed them yet and we can help."
Color drained from Maya's face, which caused Tanefer to chuckle and Meren to step between them before Maya recovered enough to start a fight. He requested the services of one of Maya's servants, penned a note, and sent for Kysen, Abu, and a squad of charioteers to meet him at the temple. Parenefer wouldn't like him descending in force, but the time for diplomacy was over.
Two priests dead. Two who worked together. Not by chance. That he refused to believe. Something was wrong at the temple of Amun, more wrong than was usual, that is.
He drove his chariot to the ferry that would take him across the river to the temple. He would understand if someone were to kill Parenefer or one of the other chief prophets. The temple of Amun was the richest of all in Egypt, possessing wealth beyond imagining; its power almost compared with that of the king. The rivalry between the priests of Amun and those of the other great gods-Ra, Osiris, Set, Hathor, Isis-sometimes reached fatal dimensions. But these seemingly meaningless killings of a lowly pure one, and then a lector priest, this Meren couldn't understand.
Did Parenefer suspect both of being his agents? No, the old man was too clever to rid himself of spies so clumsily. Indeed, if Parenefer were behind these deaths, they would have appeared natural, or at the most, unquestionably accidental. Which meant that Parenefer wasn't behind them.
If this were true, he would have to look elsewhere for the culprit. Who else had the gall and the power to cause the deaths of two priests? Only someone with a great deal at risk, someone of power. Like a high government official-a nobleman-a courtier. No, his suspicious heart was running rampant. He didn't know enough to make such a conclusion. He would have to wait for the truth to show itself.
Priests and citizens scurried through the great pylon gate of Amunhotep the Magnificent in the ceaseless traffic that surrounded the house of the god. Artisans clambered up and down the scaffolding around the king's statue as if no word of violence had reached them. No doubt Parenefer had seen to it that none had.
Meren walked past the statue, glancing at the base, which stood almost as tall as he. Progress had been made, for a draftsman had drawn in the double cartouches of the king's coronation and given names- Nebkheprure Tutankhamun. The elongated ovals of two cartouches enclosed two sets of hieroglyphs, neither of which was finished.
On the left he could see the pointed end of a reed leaf at the top of the cartouche, and below the leaf, the beginning of a head of a bird. All that lay within the second cartouche was the circle of the sun and the beginnings of the outline of a beetle. When the drawing was complete a sculptor would carve the design in sunken relief.
He went inside the god's gate and heard murmuring. Priests of every rank clustered in knots and whispered. He turned left, went through a door, and took a path that led away from the sanctuary itself to the separate building called the House of Life. Like all the buildings within the temple enclosure, it was covered with carved and painted reliefs depicting the god, his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu. Before the door of polished cedar a crowd of priests, students, and servants milled, kept back by a pair of guards.
The group blocking his way parted and fell silent as he approached. He saw the guards exchange glances, trying to decide whether it was more dangerous to keep him out or let him in. They were disadvantaged, however; no nobleman of his rank would even stop to ask permission to enter. Meren passed between the two men and through the half-open door without a glance in their direction.
"Lord?"
He looked over his shoulder in surprise. The guard who had spoken cleared his throat.
"There be cobras within."
He nodded and left the man staring after him. Before him lay a columned central hall in disarray. Chests lay open, their contents strewn about where scholars had dropped them in their haste to escape. He listened to the hollow dripping of the water clock. He stepped over the scattered contents of a scribe's kit, avoiding the spray of ocher dust.
Beyond the thicket of columns was a doorway; he was walking toward it when he heard voices to his left. Entering a corridor that ran the length of the building, he found Ebana talking to several men outside the third room along the corridor. As he approached, Ebana glanced up, stopped in mid-sentence, then gestured to a guard. The man ducked inside the room and reappeared, followed by a servant holding three hunting cats in his arms. They bustled past Meren, who could hear a loud strumming from the cats as their tails lashed back and forth in contentment.