Nebamun had finished his examination of the body by the time Kysen reached him. He was in the library consulting astrological charts and rubbing his shaved head in thought as he read. Kysen leaned on the door-sill.
"He died of the knife wound, didn't he?" Nebamun looked up from the papyrus he'd spread across his crossed legs. "Assuredly. There was no sign of poison, and anyway, there was all that blood. But look at the writings for the day Hormin was born. They foretell a happy life." "Do they say anything about his death?" "No." Nebamun rolled up the papyrus and shook his head. "The men say there were no marks of the use of magic in the drying shed, and I found none on the body. He bit his fingernails, so I doubt if anyone could collect them for use in a spell. But there's always hair. We'll have to see what Lord Meren finds at his house."
"I can't think of any magic more potent than being stabbed with an embalming knife," Kysen said. "You'll send the body back to the embalmers for purification and treatment?"
"Yes, but you know his ka is likely to be wandering lost since he was dispatched by violence in so sacred a place. It will take powerful spells to restore his soul to his body."
Kysen didn't answer. He'd had to become accus tomed to dealing with disturbed spirits just as he'd accepted that he would always meet evil. It was the price of being the son of the king's intelligencer. Yet sometimes dealing with malevolence made him feel contaminated. There'd been the time when that Babylonian merchant went mad and killed all those tavern women after raping them. He'd almost wished his father would relinquish his post by the time the merchant was caught.
After dictating his own observations to one of the scribes in the library, Kysen went to his father's office in search of the boxes containing Hormin's possessions and objects from the place of his death. He was lifting one of them from the floor to a worktable when he heard Meren's voice at the door.
"By the demons of the underworld, that is a family of cobras."
Kysen looked up and grinned. Even angry, Meren hardly looked old enough to be his father. At thirty-four he still kept the figure of a charioteer, and silver refused to appear in his cap of smooth black hair. Kysen's friends teased him that he would never get another wife because all the court maidens vied with each other for Meren's attention.
"Disturbed your plumb line, did Hormin's family?" Kysen asked.
Meren frowned at Kysen and stalked into the room. He dropped into his favorite ebony chair, slouched down in it, and cursed again. Kysen watched Meren drum his fingers on the arm of the chair, saw his features relax and then grow worried.
"You're staring at me," Kysen said.
"Mmmm."
Kysen pressed his lips together and pretended to straighten the lid of the box in front of him. He stilled when Meren spoke.
"You know about the village of the tomb makers."
"The water carrier told me."
"Did he recognize you?" Meren asked.
"He's new to the village," Kysen said. He let his gaze roam about the room, touching stacks of papyri, a water jar. "His father serves the painter Useramun. I remember Useramun. His hips wiggled when he walked, and he was always throwing tantrums if the plaster on tomb walls wasn't smooth enough for his paint."
"Any evil that touches the servants of the Great Place is important to Pharaoh. They're probably not involved, but I must make sure."
Rounding the worktable, Kysen took a stool near his father. "We can send for the chief scribe in the morning."
"You know that's not what I want to do."
"You want to go to the village?" Kysen flushed when his father lifted one of his straight brows. Meren could make him feel foolish more easily with a lift of those eloquent brows than by using a thousand words.
"I don't want to go," Kysen said.
"I can't do this, Ky. Word would be all over Thebes in minutes if I went there. Half the court would dog my
Murder In the Place of Anubis 69 steps out of curiosity or to make sure I didn't interfere with the work on their tombs. And how much do you think I'll get out of the scribes and artisans?"
"Little," said Kysen. "Oh, you don't have to tell me. I know. I'm the one who speaks their language. I'm the one who knows them-at least, I did know them. It's been ten years."
"Perhaps it will do you good to go back."
Kysen shot to his feet so quickly that his stool toppled. Ignoring it, he glared at his father, turned away, and placed both hands flat on the worktable.
"The fire pits of the netherworld, that's what that place was to me," Kysen said. "It's taken all this time for me to restore my ka, and you want me to go back there. You know what it was like. You saw me when Father tried to sell me in the streets of Thebes-the welts, the bruises so black I'd have been invisible on a moonlit night."
Rising, Meren went to Kysen. Kysen started when his father put a hand on his.
"You haven't seen your blood father since that day. Ky, I think facing him has become a great fear in your heart, and it grows larger the longer you ignore it. Hate makes festering sores in your ka."
"Gods!" Kysen shook off Meren's hand. "Shouldn't I hate him? You said it wasn't my fault that he beat me, though he never touched my brothers. It took you three years to convince me of my innocence, but I tell you, if I go back there, he'll make me see the ugliness within my heart."
"There is no ugliness in your heart. It's in Pawero's heart. Face him, Ky. You're no longer an eight-year-old child and helpless. Ah, you didn't think I knew your greatest fear. Go back to the village. You need to face Pawero, if only to make him admit his guilt."
"And while I'm chastising my monster of a father, I'm to spy on the villagers."
"Like a dutiful son," Meren said.
"This dutiful son remembers setting fire to the bed of your oldest daughter."
"And does he also remember copying chapters from The Book of the Dead for three months afterward?"
Kysen had been leaning against the worktable. He snorted and bent to right the fallen stool. When he was finished, he found his father standing beside him, studying him with that compassionate yet determined expression that had become so familiar. Meren had decided what was best for him, and nothing Kysen could say would change his heart.
"When do I go?"
"Tomorrow morning," Meren said. "I'll send word to the lector priest not to let the water carrier go home for a while. It may take a few days to question everyone without revealing what you're about."
"What if they know who I am-to you?"
Meren said, "They don't."
"What do you mean?"
Resuming his seat in the ebony chair, Meren gri maced. "I hadn't meant to tell you, but I've kept watch over the doings of your father and brothers. And I told him not to reveal who bought you. No one knows who you are now."
Kysen walked away from Meren to stand with his back against a wall. Hugging himself, he studied the man to whom he owed so much.
"I could kill him."
"You won't," Meren said calmly.
Making fists with both hands, Kysen forced himself to go on. "Sometimes, when Remi tries my patience to the breaking point, sometimes I almost-sometimes I
Murder in the Place of Anubis 71 want to-something happens to me. A demon takes possession of my ka, and I almost raise my hand to him." Kysen waited for condemnation with his head bowed.
"But you don't. You've never hit Remi, and you won't. Not until he is old enough to understand such punishment, and then you'll be fair and kind, for that is your nature."