We were greeted at the pier by a guard of honor, wearing crisply pleated uniforms of immaculately clean linen and chain mail polished so highly that it glittered. Their swords and spear points were bronze, and I noticed that Lukka took in their weaponry with a swift professional glance.
Nefertu was met by another official, dressed only in a long white skirt and gold medallion of office against his bare chest, who introduced himself as Mederuk. He led us, one and all, to the palace where we would await our audience with the king. Helen and I were put into a sedan chair carried by black Nubian slaves, while Nefertu and Mederuk took a second one. Lukka and his men walked, flanked by the glittering honor guard.
Helen was beaming with happiness. “This is truly the city where I belong,” she said.
I belonged back at Menefer, I thought, at the great pyramid. The longer I remained here in Wast, the less likely my chances of destroying the Golden One and reviving Athene.
Looking through the curtains of our sedan chair as the Nubian bearers carried us up the rising avenue, I saw that Nefertu and Mederuk were chatting gaily like a pair of old friends catching up on the latest gossip. They were happy. Helen was happy. Even Lukka and his men seemed to be satisfied that they would soon be employed in the Egyptian army.
Only I felt restless and unsatisfied.
The royal palace at Wast was a vast complex of temples and living quarters, soldiers’ barracks and grain storehouses, spacious courtyards and pens for meat animals. Cats roamed everywhere. The Egyptians revered them as sacred spirits and gave them free rein throughout the palace complex. I thought that they must be very useful against the mice and other vermin that inevitably infested granaries.
Our quarters in the palace were — palatial. Helen and I were given adjoining huge, airy rooms with high ceilings of cedar beams and polished granite floors that felt cool to my bare feet. The walls were painted in cool solid blues and greens, with bright reds and golds outlining the doorways and windows. The windows of my room looked out across tiled rooftops toward the river.
I saw that whoever had designed the room had a strict sense of balance. Exactly opposite the door from the hall stood the door to the terrace. The windows flanking it were balanced on the blank wall by paintings of window frames, exactly the same size and shape as the real windows, their “frames” painted the same bright colors.
Half a dozen servants were there to look after us. Slaves bathed me in scented water, shaved me, clipped and combed my hair, and dressed me in the cool, light linen fabric of Egypt. I dismissed them all and, once alone in my room, found my dagger amid the clothing I had left in a pile at the foot of my bed. I strapped it onto my thigh once more beneath my fresh Egyptian skirt; I felt almost naked without it.
Those false windows bothered me. I wondered if they hid a secret entrance to my room. But when I scanned them closely and ran my fingers across the wall, all I detected was paint.
A servant scratched timidly at the door, and once I gave him permission to enter, he announced that the lords Nefertu and Mederuk would be pleased to take dinner with my lady and me. I asked the servant to invite Nefertu to my room.
It was time for me to tell him the truth about Helen. After all, she wanted to be invited to stay in Wast. She wanted to be treated like the queen she had been.
Nefertu came and we sat on the terrace outside, under a softly billowing awning that kept the sun off us. Without my asking, a servant brought us a pitcher of chilled wine and two cups.
“I have something to tell you,” I said, once the servant had left, “something that I have kept from you until now.”
Nefertu smiled his polite smile and waited for me to continue.
“The lady with me, Helen: she was the Queen of Sparta, and a princess of the fallen Troy.”
“Ahh,” said Nefertu, “I was certain that she was no ordinary woman. Not only her beauty, but her bearing showed royal breeding.”
I poured wine for us both, then took a sip from my cup. It was excellent, dry and crisp, cool and delicious. I took a longer swallow, savoring the best wine I had tasted since Troy.
“I had suspected that the lady was an important personage,” Nefertu went on. “And I am happy that you have been honest with me. Actually, I was about to question the two of you rather closely. My lord Nekoptah will want to know everything about you and your travels before he grants you audience with the king.”
“Nekoptah?”
“He is the chief priest of the royal house, a cousin to the king himself. He serves mighty Merneptah as first councillor.” Nefertu sipped at his wine. He licked his lips with the tip of his tongue, and darted a glance over his shoulder, as if afraid that someone might be listening to us.
Leaning closer to me, he said in a lowered voice, “I am told that Nekoptah is not content merely to have the king’s ear; he wants the king’s power for himself.”
I felt my eyebrows climb. “A palace intrigue?”
Nefertu shrugged his thin shoulders. “Who is to say? The ways of the palace are complex — and dangerous. Be warned, Orion.”
“I thank you for the advice.”
“We are to meet with Nekoptah tomorrow morning. He desires to see you and the lady.”
“What about Lukka and his troops?”
“They are quartered comfortably in the military barracks on the other side of the palace. A royal officer will inspect them tomorrow and undoubtedly admit them to the army.”
Somehow I felt uneasy. Perhaps it was Nefertu’s warning about palace intrigues. “I would like to see Lukka before we go to dinner,” I said. “To make certain he and his men are well taken care of.”
“That is not necessary,” said Nefertu.
“It is my responsibility,” I said.
He nodded. “I’m afraid I have made you suspicious. But perhaps that is all to the good.” Rising, “Come, then. We will visit the barracks and see that your men are happy there.”
Lukka and his men were indeed comfortably quartered. The barracks was nothing like the luxury of my own royal apartment, but to the soldiers it was almost heaven: real beds and a solid roof over their heads, slaves to fetch hot water and polish their armor, food and drink and the promise of a night’s whoring.
“I’ll keep them in check tonight,” Lukka told me, a hard smile on his hawk’s face. “Tomorrow we parade for the Egyptian officers; I don’t want them hung over and disgracing you.”
“I’ll join you for the inspection,” I told him.
Nefertu almost objected, but stopped himself before saying a word.
As we left the barracks and headed back toward our apartments I asked him, “Is there some problem with me being present at the parade ground tomorrow?”
He smiled his diplomat’s smile. “Merely that the inspection will be at sunrise, and our meeting with Nekoptah is shortly afterward.”
“I should be with the men when they are under inspection.”
“Yes, I suppose that is right.” But Nefertu did not seem overly happy about my decision.
We dined that evening in his apartment, a room about the same in size and decorations as my own. I got the feeling that Nefertu was delighted at his good fortune in finding us. It is not every day that a civil servant working in a small town far from the capital is invited to the royal palace and housed in such splendor.
Helen told her story to him and Mederuk, the official who had met us at the pier. She held them fascinated with her tale of the war between the Achaians and Trojans, and seemed quite proud to place herself at the center of it all.
Mederuk stared at her shamelessly all through the dinner. He was a man of middle age, his hair gray and thinning, his body overweight and soft. Like all the Egyptians, his skin was dark and his eyes almost black. He had a bland round face, virtually unlined, almost like a baby’s. His life in the palace had left no traces of laughter or pain or anger on that chubby, insipid face. It was as if he carefully erased all evidence of experience each night and faced each new day with a freshly molded blankness that could not possibly offend anyone — nor give any hint of the thoughts going on behind that bland mask.