As the sun cast lengthening shadows across the city, we sat in my apartment, I on a soft couch covered in painted silk, Nefertu on a wooden stool where he could look past me to the terrace and the rooftops beyond.
“Nekoptah has been strangely silent and inactive,” said the silver-haired bureaucrat. “Most of the time he has remained shut up in his own quarters.”
“He won’t give up the power of this kingdom without a struggle,” I said.
“I believe the sudden emergence of Prince Aramset as a force to be reckoned with has stunned him and upset all his plans,” Nefertu said. “And for that, we have you to thank, Orion.”
“Meaning that Nekoptah blames me for it.”
He laughed — a soft chuckle, actually, was all that Nefertu would allow himself.
“And the lady Helen?” I asked.
Nefertu’s face took on that blank, expressionless look of a professional bureaucrat who wishes to reveal nothing. “She is well,” he said.
“Does she want to see me?”
Turning his eyes away from me slightly, he replied, “She has not said so.”
“Would you tell her that I wish to see her?”
He looked pained. “Orion, she is allowing her husband to woo her all over again. The husband that you sent to her.”
I got up from the couch and walked toward the terrace. He was right, I knew. Still, I wanted to see Helen one final time.
“Take my message to her,” I said to Nefertu. “Tell her that I will be leaving for good once the ceremony with the king is finished. I would like to see her one last time.”
Rising slowly from his chair, the old man said tonelessly, “I will do as you ask.”
He left, and I stayed on the terrace, watching the evening turn from sunset red to deep violet and finally to black. Lamps winked on all across the city, matched by the stars that crowded the clear dark sky.
A servant from the prince arrived with a set of packages and an invitation to supper. The packages contained new clothes: not an Egyptian-style tunic or skirt of white linen, but a leather kilt and vest similar to what I had been wearing for so many months. I laughed to myself. This outfit was handsomely tooled and worked with silver. It included a cloak of midnight blue and boots as soft as a doe’s eyes.
Aramset was becoming a true diplomat. I wondered how my stained old outfit smelled to him. Servants answered my clapping hands and prepared a bath for me. Finally, bathed, perfumed, decked in my new kilt, vest, and cloak — with my old dagger still strapped to my thigh — I was escorted to Aramset’s quarters.
We dined quietly, just the two of us, although I saw a quartet of Lukka’s men standing guard just outside the door to the prince’s chambers. Servants brought us trays of food, and the prince had them sample everything before we tasted it.
“You fear poison?” I asked him.
He shrugged carelessly. “I have surrounded the temple of Ptah with soldiers, and given them orders to keep the chief priest inside. He’s in there brooding, and hatching schemes. I have suggested to my father that Nekoptah and his brother officiate at the ceremony three days from now, the two of them together.”
“That should be interesting,” I said.
“The people will see that the priests of the two gods are as alike as peas in a pod.” Aramset smiled. “That should help to get rid of any plans Nekoptah may have about setting up Ptah above the other gods.”
I bit into a melon and thought to myself that Aramset was handling court politics rather well.
“Your father is… well?” I asked.
The prince’s youthful face clouded. “My father will never be well, Orion. His sickness is too advanced, thanks to Nekoptah. The best that I can do is to make him comfortable and allow the people to continue believing in their king.”
Aramset seemed in total control of the situation. There was nothing left for me to do here. Within three days I could take up my quest to find Anya, wherever that would take me. Still, I thought, it would be good to see Helen one more time.
A servant came rushing into the room and fell to his knees, skidding on the polished floor and almost bumping into the prince.
“Your royal highness! The high priest of Ptah is dead! By his own hand!”
Aramset leaped to his feet, knocking over the chair behind him. “By his own hand? The coward!”
“Who shall tell the king?” the servant asked.
“No one,” snapped Aramset. “I will see this suicide first.” He started for the door.
I went with him, and motioned the Hittite guards to accompany us. One of them I sent for Lukka, with orders to bring the rest.
We crossed the starlit courtyard and entered the vast temple of Ptah. Up the stairs and along the corridor to the same office where surly Nekoptah had first received me.
He lay on his back, a huge mound of flesh with a deep red gash across the rolls of fat of his throat. In the flickering light of the desk lamp we saw his painted face with eyes staring blankly at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling. His golden medallion lay over one shoulder, blood already caking on it. The rings on his stubby fingers glinted in the lamplight.
I stared at the rings.
“This is not Nekoptah,” I said.
“What?”
“Look.” I pointed. “Three of his fingers have no rings. Nekoptah’s fingers were so swollen that no one could have taken the rings off without cutting off the fingers themselves.”
“By the gods,” Aramset whispered. “It’s his brother, made up to look like him!”
“Nekoptah murdered him, and he’s roaming free in the palace right now.”
“My father!”
The prince bolted off toward the door. The Hittite guards cast me a confused glance, but I motioned for them to go with Aramset. He was right: His first duty was to protect his father. Nekoptah could go anywhere in the palace, disguised as his twin brother. I doubted that he intended to harm the king, but Aramset was right to go to him.
I knelt over the dead body of poor Hetepamon for a few moments, and then suddenly realized where Nekoptah would strike next.
I got to my feet and ran for Helen’s quarters.
Chapter 45
I understood the high priest’s murderous plan. His goal was to undo the alliance between the Achaians and the Egyptians, to show the king that Prince Aramset had brought the barbarian menace into the very capital of the land. Who knows, I thought as we raced through the palace toward Helen’s apartment, perhaps he will get Menalaos to kill the prince.
If he has Helen he has control of Menalaos, I knew. Even if he doesn’t murder the prince, if he can get Menalaos to run amok in the palace, Prince Aramset’s newfound influence with his father is gone. Nekoptah returns to power with a haughty “I told you so.”
Past startled guards I ran, guided by my memory of the palace’s layout. But there were no guards at Helen’s door. It was slightly ajar. I pushed it open.
Nefertu lay sprawled on the floor, a jeweled dagger sticking out of his back.
I rushed to him. He was still alive, but just barely.
“I thought… chief priest of Amon…”
His eyes were glazed. Bright red blood flowed from his mouth.
“Helen.” I asked, “Where did he take Helen?”
“The underworld… to meet Osiris…” Nefertu’s voice was the faintest whisper. I could feel his pain. He tried to breathe, but his lungs were filled with blood and agony.