I opened the door and bellowed for the guards lounging at the foot of the stairs. They came hurrying up.
‘Escort my lord Meryre to his quarters,’ I declared. The High Priest looked as if he was going to resist. ‘If he objects, bind his hands.’
Meryre puffed himself out, fat fingers plucking at the beaded shawl around his shoulders.
‘I shall go to my own quarters,’ he said. ‘I need no escort.’
He walked down the stairs. The guards looked at me; I nodded and they let him by.
‘Follow him,’ I ordered. ‘As long as he goes where he should and stays where he should, don’t interfere!’
I returned to the chamber.
‘Do you think Meryre is a traitor?’ Sobeck asked.
I sat back on the cushions. ‘He could be, but there again, half of Egypt knew about our mission. I do wonder what would have happened if the raiders had been successful.’ I picked up some bread and broke it. ‘If that had been the case, we would all have been past caring wouldn’t we? But to answer your question bluntly, Sobeck, yes, I suspect Meryre is a traitor, though proving it is another matter.’
‘Is he part of the conspiracy or the cause of it?’
‘I don’t know, Sobeck. It’s like watching the haze in the desert; it distorts and confuses, a veil which hides the truth whilst deceit clouds our judgement, yet I am sure that an invisible cord binds Meryre to the usurper.’
‘So why does he want to go on this embassy?’ Nebamun demanded. ‘Is it a pretext to make contact? To tell the usurper, this false Pharaoh, everything he knows about what’s happening and plotted in Thebes?’
‘Both,’ I replied. ‘I have been invited along as a guarantee, as an act of good faith for the rest of the Royal Circle in Thebes. Of course, once we get there no one knows what might happen. I would not be the first to die of marsh fever in the Delta.’ I shook my head. ‘I think that’s the truth, though there is something else I can’t grasp about this attack.’
‘But how did they know we were here?’ Sobeck sipped from his wine. ‘Oh, I know our flotilla could be glimpsed along the Nile, whilst our arrival here would be known to their spies. But the information that the Prince was actually in Colonel Nebamun’s house?’
‘I kept something back from Meryre.’ Nebamun moved a cushion to reveal a small polished coffer. He opened this and pulled out a piece of bloodstained papyrus. ‘We took this from one of the Hittite officers, a crude map, look!’ Nebamun traced the drawing with his finger. ‘The bend in the river, the shallows, the papyrus grove, the city and the small quayside below my house.’
The papyrus was stained and ragged, covered in signs and symbols I couldn’t understand.
‘It could be the work of Meryre,’ Nebamun continued, ‘a member of his entourage or indeed any one of their spies. We had spies in the Delta, much good they proved,’ he added grimly, ‘whilst the usurper must have spies in Memphis, the White-Walled City, the garrison-home of General Horemheb. Ah well,’ Nebamun smiled, ‘it is not all bad news. A courier arrived late last night.’
‘Yes?’ I asked expectantly.
‘Horemheb and Rameses are on the move. I have been ordered to prepare the Horus and Isis regiments.’
‘Did we make a mistake, Mahu?’ Sobeck asked. ‘Bringing the Prince here? Perhaps we should have not quartered all our mercenaries in the city but kept them down near the riverside?’
‘Of course I made mistakes,’ I snapped. ‘It’s like being in the Red Lands. Everything is masked by a haze. What is real? What is a mirage? Who’s telling the truth and who is lying? People like Meryre are hoping we will make a mistake. We are praying they will. They certainly made one this morning. They never reached this house in time. Colonel Nebamun, you are a soldier: how many battles are won or lost by luck, mere chance?’
The Colonel merely smiled. ‘I’ll have your mercenaries brought back,’ he promised. ‘The barracks will feed and provide for them. They can camp by the riverside.’
‘Why don’t we drag that priestly little turd from his chamber?’ Sobeck exclaimed. ‘Put him on trial, take his head and send it to the usurper as a present?’
‘Another mistake,’ I countered. ‘A high priest of Egypt formally executed without a proper trial? The usurper would love that. The Royal Circle would crumble, break up. Even Ay and Horemheb would ask by what authority I carried out such an act! Putting him under house arrest is bad enough. More importantly,’ I scratched my head, ‘Meryre has powerful supporters, amongst both the priests and certain elements of the army, not to mention those who just love to meddle, to stir the shit for the sake of the stink.’
‘So you’ll go no further?’ Nebamun asked. ‘You won’t journey north?’
‘How can we?’ I sighed. ‘I still don’t truly understand what Meryre wants. We are like a boat in a mist, or a traveller in a sand storm, merely blundering about.’
‘The Hittite confirmed one thing.’ Nebamun pushed away a silver-edged plate and sat cradling his wine cup. ‘I have heard stories, tales of cruelty about the rebel camp at Sile. How the invaders are practising the cruelties of the Hyksos invaders, torturing and burning people. I considered them wild rumours, but he mentioned a House of Darkness, a Field of Fire. I suspect the usurper is showing mercy and clemency to all who accept him and utter ruthlessness to those who don’t. No wonder our spies have achieved little success. Well.’ He made to rise. ‘All I can do is wait for fresh orders or the arrival of General Horemheb. What will you do, Lord Mahu?’
‘I don’t know.’
I rose to my feet, thanked Nebamun for his kindness and returned to my chamber with its cot bed and few chests. A stark chamber, a soldier’s room, with little ornamentation, though I found it restful enough. I slept for a while and rose late in the afternoon. I visited the Prince. He was now fast asleep. Djarka was squatting the other side of the bed, weaving a small basket, something he did whenever he was troubled or agitated. I took his writing tray out to the roof. The ground beyond the wall was still being searched by Nebamun’s troops, his soldiers dragging aside the undergrowth, looking for corpses or any of the invaders who might have crawled away. I squatted down even as a piercing screech rent the air. Another scream followed. I went to look. The soldiers had found two of the enemy wounded, dispatched them and were now dragging their corpses along the path.
I sat down with my back to the wall. In the script I had learnt in the House of Instruction as a Child of the Kap, I tried to make sense of the problem vexing me. First, the factions of the Royal Council were beginning to show themselves. Four groups in alclass="underline" Ay and his granddaughter; Horemheb, Rameses and the military; the administrators like Maya and Huy; and the Atenists led by Meryre. And myself? Friend to all, ally to none. My allegiance was to the Prince. Secondly, a usurper, a false Pharaoh, had invaded the Delta, aided and abetted by the priests Khufu and Djoser. Thirdly, the usurper was supported by Hittite gold and silver, not to mention troops, as well as Egypt’s enemies in Canaan. Fourthly, the Royal Circle had been informed of the usurper’s invasion. Meryre’s offer to negotiate seemed a wise move by all accounts; it gave Horemheb and Rameses time to collect troops. Meryre had demanded my co-operation. Did the High Priest hope from the start that I’d bring the Prince and Ankhesenamun with me? Fifthly, at the same meeting of the Royal Circle, Meryre had protested how the members of the Aten cult were being secretly assassinated by the Shabtis of Akenhaten. Immediately after that meeting General Rahmose, one of Meryre’s most ardent supporters, was murdered. Sixthly, Ankhesenamun had implicated herself in Rahmose’s death, assuring me that she had forged an alliance with Meryre, probably with the connivance of Ay. So why the attack on me? A murderous assault which was intended to frighten rather than harm? Seventhly, on the day afterwards, Meryre demanded that his people be given shelter and protection at the powerful fortress of Buhen and that the Prince be moved for his own safety from the dangers threatening in Thebes. Eighthly, why didn’t the usurper march south? Why did he delay in the Delta? Ninthly, why the attack on Nebamun’s house? True, our flotilla had been noticed on the Nile, as had our landing at Memphis. But all this information could have been supplied by spies.