"Thus ends the matter of the one called Eater-"
"Egyptian! Egyptian, who are you to send for me as if I was a miserable vassal?"
Labarnas roared into the kitchen with Abu, Reia, and several charioteers right behind him. The Hittite saw Meren first and headed for him, only to be halted by Reshep's body blocking his path. Labarnas was in mid-roar, and his voice cracked. He stepped back and bumped into Abu, but didn't seem to notice. Muttering something in his own language, he made a magical sign before scowling at Meren.
"Why have you dragged me to this place?"
"You said you wanted the one responsible for your prince's death." Meren nodded at Reshep. "This is the one."
Labarnas looked down at the body, the crocodile mask. He walked around to the head, kicked the hippo hide that covered Reshep's thigh, and grunted.
"I've seen this one."
"On my ship, when Prince Mugallu visited," Meren said as he walked over to join Labarnas. "Mugallu insulted him, and this man avenged himself."
"Is this how you Egyptians settle a quarrel?" Labarnas planted his fists on his hips. His voice was as loud as a rock slide. "Hittite warriors with differences face each other and fight under the open sky of the storm god. Prince Mugallu was struck down by cowardice. I will tell my king, the Sun, how you allowed his intimate friend to be slaughtered like an ox."
"Reshep killed many, for far less than the insults Prince Mugallu gave him."
"After your pharaoh insulted the prince deliberately!"
Meren sighed, walked over to a chair that had been brought for his use, and sat down. "Labarnas, do you know how irritating you are?"
"Irritating? I'll irritate you, you perfumed, soft-skinned lotus sniffer."
Meren held up a hand. It was a gesture he used to command silence among his charioteers, and he'd employed it without thinking. Labarnas stopped his tirade, then looked annoyed at himself for doing so.
"Allow me to finish before you lose your temper. You irritate me, Hittite, because you make accusations without knowing what has occurred. You take offense against pharaoh and all Egyptians as though your only purpose in coming to Egypt was to provoke a war. And you accuse me of negligence regarding Prince Mugallu and imply that there's some plot against your king."
"Everyone knows that you Egyptians are born to deceit. You construct plots as easily as you construct great temples and palaces of gold and lapis lazuli."
Meren leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Exactly."
"Don't smirk at me, you cursed Egyptian." Labarnas frowned. "What do you mean, exactly?"
"Engage in a bit of reasoning, general. If I'm so versed in deceit and trickery, could I not have found a way to murder Prince Mugallu without placing myself or any Egyptian under suspicion?"
"No doubt you tried and failed."
Rising, Meren shook his head and walked over to Labarnas. He swept his arm in the direction of Reshep's body.
"The diplomacy of death, my dear general, requires subtlety, a delicacy of construction, and above all, simplicity of design." Meren lowered his voice and said softly, "You can be assured that if I had wanted to kill Prince Mugallu, he, you, and your whole party would have been allowed to leave Egypt first. Then, once you were past the great border fortresses, well into the barren lands between them and the nearest city to the north, you would vanish. Quickly, in silence, as though a desert storm had swept you away into the vast emptiness of the frontier and buried you beneath a mountain of sand."
Holding Labarnas's gaze with his eyes, Meren paused with a slight smile. "Oh, I would search for you, send word to your king, invite him to send Hittite troops to search. All in vain. Until one day, on an expedition deep into the Sinai, your troops would find the remains of a battle, and nothing but ashes from flaming arrows, and bones dressed in Hittite armor."
No one moved. Sounds of the house search reached them, but no others. Finally Labarnas gave a sharp bark of laughter.
"Did I not say pharaoh's people worshiped the god of deceit? You've just proved me right, Egyptian."
"Then you understand that these murders were the work of this one man. Remember the thief, the tavern woman, and the farmer."
Labarnas bent and touched the crocodile mask on the snout, then rose and eyed Meren. "When I tell the great king, I'll still blame pharaoh for not providing safe lodging for the emissary."
"Of course."
"I want to leave at once."
"I will beg pharaoh, may he have life, health, and prosperity, for permission."
"Hmmmph. For an Egyptian, you're almost tolerable. I would have killed you, had I been successful in escaping with you that night."
"I know," Meren said.
"But now," Labarnas said as he turned to leave, "I think I would have paid dearly for it."
"May Amun protect you on your journey."
"And may the storm god bless your fate, Egyptian. The next time we meet won't be in some gold-encrusted audience chamber but on a battlefield."
"You sound certain."
"I am, Egyptian. I am."
The moment Labarnas was gone, Meren turned to Abu. "Still no sign of the cook and her husband?"
"No, lord. We found the man who rented this house to them. He's a priest of Ptah, holder of the office of keeper of the cattle of Ptah, which means he knows little except that he assigned the managing of the property to one of his servants. The actual owner lives in another town."
"Find the real owner, Abu."
"It will take time, lord."
"Find him, and find out how the cook came to rent this place from him. Curse Reshep a thousand times. Seeing him has addled Satet's wits so that I fear she'll never regain them."
"Lord, she had little left in any case."
"She could make sense on occasion, if she really desired it." Meren glanced around the kitchen. "Someone has cleaned this house recently."
"Satet, lord."
"Perhaps. But the couple's possessions are still here. They should be here."
"Aye, lord."
Meren watched Reia free Beauty from her cage and toss scraps of bread to her. "Abu, it would be well to discover if there is or was any connection between Reshep and the cook or her husband. There probably isn't, but thoroughness is a virtue."
"Yes, lord, but it's almost dawn."
Meren glanced up at the diffuse light coming through windows. Abu was reminding him that his duty demanded that he report the discovery of Eater of Souls to pharaoh.
"What am I to say to the living god, Abu? That Reshep killed people who interfered with his desires? That anyone who irritated him got his heart cut out? What monstrous fiend infested his ka?"
"He was possessed by a demon, lord."
"And by the ghost of a mother who raised Reshep to believe in his own perfection and a father who drank and failed to attend to his son's raising."
The light coming through the windows grew brighter. "I must go to pharaoh with my report."
Officially, Meren's task was to guard against anything that might threaten pharaoh or Maat in Egypt. He, and others like him, used their unique blend of clandestine knowledge-gathering and overt intimidation against the myriad threats to the divine order. Yet Tutankhamun seemed most enthralled with the more mundane aspects of Meren's duties.
Bound by rigid royal tradition and duty, he fed his desire for freedom and release from unending ceremony by listening to tales of the struggles and extraordinary behavior Meren encountered. This, as well as Tutankhamun's personal trust, was why Meren was one of the few in all the world who could ask for admittance to the presence of the living god at any time.