"Meren!"
Waking from his deep concentration, Meren bowed to the king again. "Majesty."
"I said that this Bakht was pleasing to me. For years he has told me stories of his adventures in Nubia and in the north. He has-had even gone across the great sea to the Mycenaean Greek cities. Maya says he was killed in the baboon pen. He fell in."
"A terrible accident, majesty."
"Bakht didn't like baboons, Meren."
"The males can be fierce, golden one."
"I don't understand why he would be there," the king insisted. "Bakht avoided them."
"If he was afraid of the baboons and happened to fall into their pen by accident, his screams might have enraged the males."
Tutankhamun looked unhappily at Meren. "I suppose you're right."
"I am sorry, majesty."
"Still, my majesty will rest better once you have inquired into the matter. And Maya, Bakht is to have a good embalming. Let the priests of Anubis be informed."
The council session broke up with a wave of the king's hand. Not wanting to be waylaid by pharaoh and forced to set a date for taking his majesty on a military expedition, Meren slipped inside the palace. He hurried through corridors made bright by the exquisite wall paintings of the king's artisans.
Since discovering that Queen Nefertiti had been murdered, Meren had been trying to recall the events surrounding her death. Unfortunately, his heart had been scoured of many memories of that time. His years at Horizon of the Aten had been filled with fear. He'd been so young when his father had been killed-eighteen. The fear had acted as a burnishing stone on papyrus, polishing away unwanted ugliness.
Now, when he needed those memories, he was finding it difficult to reconstruct them. He was thinking of writing what he did remember in a secret record. The act of writing usually helped him recall tasks he had to complete; it might help his memory. He could always destroy the record. He would have to destroy it, for it would be too dangerous a thing to have about him for long.
Walking past lines of royal bodyguards, Meren found his way to his chariot in the forecourt of the palace and took the reins from a groom. Wind and Star, responding to his voice, trotted down an avenue lined with sphinxes. Now that his duties at the palace were over for the day, he could plan how best to find out more about Dilalu.
Whatever the method, he didn't want the merchant to know he was being scrutinized. Kysen was the best man for that task. His adopted son had been born to a commoner family of artisans from the royal tomb makers' village in Thebes. His accent wouldn't betray him in the unsavory sections of the city known as the Caverns. While Meren could pass himself off as many things, he had difficulty hiding his aristocratic origins from native Egyptians. In addition, he was too well known in Memphis. No, skulking around the dissolute taverns and perilous streets of the Caverns was an activity at which Kysen was far more accomplished.
Abu, Lord Meren's aide, slid along a dark street, his back pressed to a wall that seemed to consist mostly of cracked plaster or exposed and crumbling mud bricks. He dragged with him an odorous little man who squealed and grumbled with every step.
"I was coming, me. Would I ignore the command of the great Lord Kysen? Got lost, I did. Terrible twisty and winding is these lanes."
Abu paused long enough to cuff his charge on the ear. "Close your mouth, Tcha. The gods alone know how such a babbling dung-eater came to be a thief."
"Thief! Tcha is no thief. Ask Mistress Ese. Ask anyone."
"Another word, and I'll stuff you in a refuse heap and undertake this task myself."
Evidently Tcha believed Abu, for he clamped his mouth shut and allowed himself to be dragged through the winding, cramped, and littered streets. They hurried down an alley. On one side rose the high wall of a house that marked the beginning of the foreign district. At the corner of the house a shadow separated itself from the darkness in front of Tcha, who immediately yelped. The shadow lunged at him, and a hand fastened over the thief's mouth.
Kysen shoved the struggling Tcha against the opposite wall of the alley and hissed, "Silence, you simpleton! I don't enjoy touching you, but I'm not letting go until you're quiet."
When Tcha nodded vigorously, Kysen stepped away from him and tried to make out the thief's features in the moonlight. He could see little, but he knew Tcha, an emaciated little wretch who more resembled an embalmed corpse than anything alive. With his bowed legs and scars from numerous punishments from the authorities, Tcha was a leather-skinned, gap-toothed witness to the harshness of the life of a poor Egyptian. Kysen sniffed and took another step away from the thief. Unlike most Egyptians of whatever wealth, Tcha seemed to dislike bathing. Kysen knew that in daylight Tcha's body would be covered with dirt that seemed to have ground itself into his skin, while his hair would lie in greasy plates issuing from the crown of his head. They would snake over his ears and forehead, and down the back of his neck.
Kysen said without much rancor, "I told you to meet me here at full darkness, Tcha."
"Got lost."
Abu loomed over the thief. "You know every crack in every wall of this city."
"I thought you would be eager to be allowed to rob a rich man without fear of arrest for once."
Tcha began to sidle away from Kysen. "O great master, gracious of heart, divine of beauty, my poor talent is of no use to one so powerful."
Abu reached out and clamped a hand around Tcha's neck. Tcha squawked but stopped trying to get away.
Kysen contemplated the scrawny shadow that was the thief. He'd contacted Tcha after his father returned from the palace this morning. The little burglar had been astonished and then greedily pleased that he was to be allowed to rob a merchant's house. He'd agreed to pilfer Dilalu's correspondence in the process. What had happened in the intervening time to put Tcha in such fear?
Kysen darted forward and whispered to Tcha. "You've found out who Dilalu is, haven't you?"
"A merchant. He's a merchant, by the blessings of Amun."
"Correct," Kysen said. "So there's nothing to fear. Bring him, Abu."
Kysen led the way through the streets of the foreign quarter. Here lived traders from the Greek islands and mainland cities, artisans and merchants from the city-states of Byblos, Tyre, Ugarit, and the great lands of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. They passed several noisy taverns, encountering shrinking and cloaked figures that vanished as soon as they appeared. Finally they came upon a quieter street. Its only waking inhabitant was a fat, flat-headed cat sitting beside a porter asleep in a doorway. It hissed at them and stalked away in search of a feline fight.
Kysen slithered down a passage beside the cat's house and around the back of the building. There rose a pungent and mountainous refuse heap. At the foot of an exterior staircase, Kysen halted and grabbed Tcha by the arm.
"This is the house. To your work." Tcha squirmed but Kysen tightened his grip and bent down to whisper in the thief's ear. "Listen to me, you carrion feeder. You'll do as you agreed, or I'll send you to the granite quarries."
As he'd expected, the threat of actual work, especially such taxing labor, caused Tcha to become as docile as an aged donkey. The wretch nodded, and Kysen released him.
"Remember, confine yourself to a few metal vessels or jewels."
Kysen watched the thief remove a linen bag from the recesses of his kilt. Tcha hesitated only a short time before scrambling to the staircase. Kysen signaled to Abu, and they melted into the darkness beyond the refuse pile.
Waiting in nighttime always seemed longer than waiting during the day. Kysen pressed his back against a wall and slid down to crouch beside Abu, whose gaze swung in an arc, watching for any hint of trouble. Kysen's back and legs were growing numb when Tcha's head popped over the roof coping. He rose as the thief scrambled downstairs and launched into a foot-pounding run. When his quarry darted past, Abu stuck out his foot. Tcha hit the ground with a smack, but would have jumped to his feet and kept on running if Kysen hadn't grabbed him. Releasing his captive when Abu fastened his hand around Tcha's neck, Kysen snatched the linen bag.