Eater of souls (16 page)

"You can't be sure of the reason they left."

When Meren didn't answer, Kysen tossed a bundle of documents at him. Meren caught them and threw them back at his son's head. Kysen dodged it and grinned.

"What were those words of great prudence you spoke to me not long ago? Ah, yes. You said that I shouldn't vex my heart over things that can't be changed." Kysen waggled his eyebrows. "You said it makes a man intemperate."

Meren sat up straight and pounded the chair arm again. "Am I intemperate? Am I not known for my calm, my lack of ire?"

"Then you're not disturbed by the knowledge that our new friend Lord Reshep is coming to take dinner with us tomorrow for the third time this week?"

Meren shoved himself to his feet so quickly his chair nearly tipped over. He caught it and shoved it out of his way.

"What did you say? No, I heard. I can't endure this much longer. To Reshep, people are but mirrors of his own perfection. I don't understand why Isis encourages him."

"Bener says it's because she's never met anyone more magnificent than herself. She's in awe of him, and entertained by the new experience. I think she likes him because he's so much like her."

"She is not. Isis may be a bit vain, but she has good sense and a kind soul. In some ways she's much more practical than Bener."

Kysen looked doubtful.

"I suppose it's too late to claim the press of royal business," Meren said.

Kysen nodded. "Yes, because I think I hear his self-impressed voice. He must be in the great hall."

"But it's not even morning!"

They both turned to face the door as Abu knocked and opened it. His face expressionless, the charioteer announced that Lord Reshep was in the great hall seeking speech with Meren.

"Tell him I'm sick," Meren said.

"Oh, Father."

Abu didn't leave; he simply fixed his gaze on Meren and waited.

"Father, the king asked you to become acquainted with Reshep."

"I have, and I don't like him. He thinks he's prettier than my daughter. Every time we meet I get the feeling he expects me to fall to my knees and touch my forehead to the floor. Reshep is worse than Prince Rahotep. At least Rahotep's pride and conceit are mere varnish to cover his fears of unworthiness. Reshep really believes in his own perfection, his right to the best place, his unparalleled beauty. He makes me want to vomit."

"This is what you'll tell the golden one?" Kysen asked.

Meren's brows knitted together, and his chin jutted forward. "Yes. That's what I'll tell pharaoh, may he live forever in health and prosperity."

Kysen exchanged glances with Abu, who spoke quietly.

"Lord, are you certain you want to make an enemy of this man?"

"He's of no consequence."

"If the lord will allow me?"

"Speak, Abu. You will anyway."

"The lord would be wise to remember his daughter. Making an enemy of this man might make an enemy of her."

"She'll forget him."

"As the lord's oldest daughter forgot her suitor."

Meren glared at Abu. Tefnut had married the suitor he'd been certain she would scorn and forget.

"Very well, you interfering, presumptuous—"

"Your guest is waiting in the great hall, my lord."

Kysen grinned again, provoking a stream of curses from Meren as he stomped out of the office. With Kysen trailing behind him, Meren walked into the great hall. The chamber was shrouded in shadows that obscured the lotus-flower tops of the columns. Alabaster lamps rested at the four corners of the master's dais, and a servant stirred a breeze with an ostrich feather fan. The breeze caused the lamplight to waver. Shadows danced across the plastered and painted floor of the dais, and over the face of Lord Reshep. Meren strode across the hall and stopped abruptly. His lower jaw came unmoored. Reshep lounged in the gold-and-ebony master's chair, looking as if he were its owner. Meren resisted the urge to haul the intruder out of his chair—a great feat, since Reshep was admiring the hall as if he owned that too. Then Meren saw Isis.

His daughter was perched on a cushion at Reshep's feet, and she was murmuring something in a near-whisper.

Meren quietly moved nearer while he signaled Kysen to make no sound. He heard bits of a song, something about love mixed throughout her body. That tune ended, luckily, but then he heard another begin. She was singing that her heart chases his love.

Meren quickened his steps and said loudly, "A late visit, Reshep."

To his consternation, Reshep didn't get up. His wide, thin lips spread out in a smile Meren preferred to call a smirk. As Meren came up the dais steps with Kysen right behind him, Reshep held out his hand. Isis placed a delicate gold wine cup in it.

"I'm so pleased you're still awake, Meren."

He'd been about to tell the young man to get his ass out of the master's chair, but being addressed without his title robbed Meren of speech. He planted himself in front of Reshep and gaped.

Kysen wasn't so aghast. "You forget your manners. Rise and address my father as you should, Reshep."

"I have been doing that," Reshep said with an even wider smile.

Meren watched the corners of his mouth reach the edge of his face. "Why do you smile at me as if you're about to disclose some amazingly pleasurable revelation? Isis, you should be asleep."

"We knew the best time to find you alone would be late at night," Isis said, without concern for Meren's irritation.

Meren looked at his daughter with suspicion. Only yesterday she'd explained how her aunt, Idut, had given her the secret to making a friend, or ensnaring a lover. "Aunt Idut says that a man loves nothing better than talking about himself. He charms himself with such talk the way a snake charms a mouse."

Isis had gone on to say that she'd found that an admirer's attention remained on her much longer if she asked him about his life, his titles, his family. Reshep was the only man who hadn't needed encouragement to propound on such subjects.

Suspicious, Meren asked, "Why would you need to find me alone? And I'm not alone." He exchanged mystified glances with Kysen.

"Kysen doesn't count," Isis replied as she placed her hand on Reshep's arm.

Even at this late hour Reshep was freshly bathed and dressed in a kilt that looked as if it had only been worn for a few moments. Meren felt dirty and disheveled standing in front of him.

"What do you want?" Meren asked without bothering to conceal his impatience.

"I want to give you most fortunate news," Reshep said. His smile spread farther and threatened to climb to his ears. "I have consented to allow Isis to be my wife."

Folding his arms over his chest, Meren buried his fury in humor and laughed lightly. "I think not."

"Naturally it took Isis a while to persuade me, but after she told me of the greatness of your family—what?"

Reshep paled and appeared to sink inward. He looked lost for a moment, disbelieving, then bewildered.

"You refuse me? You refuse me." The young man said it over and over, as if to force himself to believe the impossible.

Meren had controlled his anger at the man who presumed to court his daughter and nearly make her commit herself to a worthless alliance. Now he began to feel sorry for Reshep. The fool genuinely believed he'd been bestowing a great prize upon Isis and her father.

"I could wish you hadn't placed yourself in a situation where I was forced to refuse you before others," Meren said. "But you anger me with your presumption. Few men would try to ally themselves with a Friend of the King upon such short acquaintance. Indeed, I know little of your family, your home, your accomplishments and future plans, but—"

"Father!" Isis jumped to her feet, glaring and breathing hard. Then she burst into imprecations and accusations. "You think I'm still a child. You treat me as if I were younger than Kysen's little boy. You've shamed me beyond bearing!"

Meren turned on her so quickly she started and shut her mouth with a snap. Kysen put a hand on her arm, or she might have backed up. Saying nothing, Meren lifted a brow and directed a soul-freezing look at his youngest daughter. No one moved.

Finally Meren spoke in a quiet, implacable tone. "It grows quite late, daughter. I'm certain Lord Reshep doesn't mean to keep you from your rest. May the goddess for whom you are named give you peaceful sleep."

Kysen took his sister's arm again and pulled her down the dais steps while he muttered, "Come along, before he gets any calmer."

Meren turned back to Reshep in time to catch the young man looking at him. In a brief, almost imperceptible moment, he glimpsed a cauldron of flaming oil. Then it was gone.

"You propose an alliance too soon," Meren said.

Reshep merely looked at him.

"What ails you, man?" He was growing annoyed at the way Reshep kept staring at him in silence, but before he could ask him to leave, Kysen returned.

"Father, we have another visitor."

"Tell him to go away."

Kysen whispered in his ear. "This one you might want to see. It's Tcha, the one I told you about."

"Oh. Reshep, leave my house, and don't return until—"

He heard a great clacking and clattering. It was coming closer. Then the noise was among them, and it smelled. Meren watched what appeared to be a tent of amulets with hair scurry into the hall and propel itself to the foot of the dais.

Everyone backed up as a wave of honeyed putrefaction roiled up at them.

"I sawit! I sawit, I sawit, I sawit! It was huge, and then it vanished. The demon, the creature." Tcha lifted a dirty arm and pointed at Kysen. "You think I'm stupid, you think I lie, but now you'll see. Tcha never gets no praise for his good deeds, never gets enough payment. And now you couldn't give me enough gold to go back there. No, not Tcha!"

Meren, Kysen, and Reshep all stared at the trembling mass of fear that babbled at them. Reshep sniffed, then got up from the master's chair to put it between him and Tcha. Meren found this to be the only value of having his house invaded by the thief.

"Kysen, is this, this… Is he saying he's seen a demon? Get him out of here."

Kysen began flapping his hands at Tcha to drive him out of the hall.

"Wait, great lord! I can't go out there. It—she is out there."

"Go away, Tcha," Kysen said. He gave the thief a light shove with the tip of one finger.

"No, wait, wait, wait."

Kysen poked him each time he said "wait."

At last Tcha scrambled out of his reach and exclaimed, "You don't understand. This time Eater of Souls has killed the Hittite emissary!"

Sokar was in an even more foul mood than usual. The idiot Min had roused him from sleep, and if this was another instance of the watchman trying to make himself look important by inflating the significance of his discovery, he would miss his rations for two whole months. Stomach swaying, sandals flapping, the chief of watchmen followed his underling to an alley near the area inhabited by foreigners.

Rounding a corner, Sokar marched into darkness lit only by Min's sputtering torch. To his consternation, two men were already there standing in the shadows near the body. Sokar's face reddened. His stomach and chest inflated, and he barked, "Here! What are you doing? Robbing a corpse, no doubt. Min, arrest these two."

As he spoke, the two turned to face Sokar. He could hardly make out their features or anything else about them until one stepped into the torchlight. He was big, this one. Sokar was suddenly grateful Min was with him. Furious that this man had intimidated him, Sokar poked a finger in his direction.

"You, who are you, and what do you here? There will be no robbery of corpses or gawking. Another useless one has been killed in the city. He's probably some country farmer stumbling into a thief, like the others. Min, this foolishness isn't worth my attention. Get rid of the body."

Sokar glared at Min, but then he looked again at the quiet stranger beside the watchman, caught sight of his scimitar, the horse whip stuck in a bronze and turquoise-beaded belt. A charioteer!

"Officer," Sokar purred, his stomach deflating. "I didn't know. This is a paltry matter. Please allow me to remove this offal from the street. I beg you, don't let this miserable discovery annoy you." He heard an unknown voice speak quietly.

"What others?"

The question had come from the other man still in the shadows, and it irritated Sokar again.

"Who demands answers of the chief of watchmen? Show yourself."

The stranger stepped into the torchlight. Sokar's eyes caught the glint of a gold broad collar, wide-shouldered height, cloud-fine linen. Curse his ill luck. This was a nobleman. Wrinkling the skin on his forehead, Sokar noted the obsidian black of the man's hair, brows, and lashes. Their darkness made his skin, a tawny brown, seem lighter than it was.

He'd seen this man before. Envied those straight brows and that charioteer's frame. As Sokar struggled with his memory, he noted the man's gleaming eyes, the color of fine cedar polished with beeswax. Hollows beneath prominent cheekbones, angular lines to the face, the personal dignity of a pharaoh.

"Lord Meren!" He'd been gawping at the Eyes of Pharaoh like a baffled donkey. He snarled at Min. "On your knees before the great lord and Friend of the King."

Sokar grunted as he struggled to the ground and lowered his forehead. "O great lord, forgive this humble servant. I didn't know it was you in the darkness."

"Tell me, chief of watchmen, do you always make such pronouncements without having seen the victim?"

Speaking to the ground, Sokar launched into denial, only to be silenced when the Friend of the King stalked over to him.

"You said this was another useless one killed in the city." The words were said slowly, pronounced clearly, each like the sting of a scorpion. "
What others? "

Sokar stopped breathing. He sensed danger, to himself. If there was one thing at which he was accomplished, it was sensing and wriggling out of danger. He shoved himself upright and sat on the backs of his heels. Then he gave Lord Meren a round-eyed yet humble look.

"Others, great lord?" Sokar wiped sweat from his upper lip. "Oh, the others. Foolish country visitors who sailed into the wake of thieves. I beg my lord not to disturb himself over such unimportant things. My reports—"