Servant of the Gods (29 page)

Giving her a look, he said, “I would guess this is about what we felt last night.”

“Have you ever sensed anything like that?”

Shaking his head, he said, “No. Dark magic, thankfully, only attracts a terrible few. Sadly, many of them are dangerous, and some are quite mad. They usually bring their own doom upon themselves.”

Hearing what was said as he joined them, Kahotep added, “I can’t disagree with Awan.”

Kahotep looked at Irisi, the same thought in all their minds as the others arrived one by one.

The only dark wizard they knew of was rumored to be the Grand Vizier Kamenwati – who, although he’d fallen out of favor with the King of late – still possessed a certain amount of power, owed to him by those who’d sought favor from him in the past and profited from it.

Those ties were likely to be more than just monetary, or physical, they could very well also be magical.

As they talked, more of the others arrived.

“Did anyone else get any sense of what its purpose was?” Irisi asked.

Several heads shook.

“What does it mean?” Nafre asked, her soft brown eyes worried.

“I don’t know either,” Irisi answered, “but it can’t bode well.”

She paced. It seemed she’d picked up that habit from Khai and suddenly she missed him with an intensity that shook her, even though they’d been parted for only a short time.

If it weren’t for Kamenwati she could see him openly, they could marry, have children…and part of her yearned for that.

She’d held the King’s son Menes several times, one of the few people Paniwi trusted and allowed to do so. Irisi delighted in playing with him, in listening to the child’s happy chortles. He was a healthy baby.

Khai was willing to risk being more open but she wasn’t. Not yet. They’d been discreet. So far as they knew, Kamenwati wasn’t aware of their relationship. It was Khai’s life at stake, but it was her choice to take that chance. Not for all the world was she willing to do it. To lose him and all possibility of a future together was more of a risk than she wanted to take. She loved him too much. Even if all they could manage sometimes was a simple kiss.

Blowing out a breath, she said, “All we can do then is wait.” Remembering the days before they’d lost Banafrit, she added, “Just in case, though, lay in extra stores and check the ones you have to be sure we have enough in case of need.”

She didn’t know what impulse made her say it…

Kamenwati’s majordomo was waiting when he awoke the morning after the ritual, prostrated on the floor beside Kamenwati’s bed awaiting his instructions. Kamenwati left him there for a time, taking the moments to break his fast first. As instructed a female slave awaited him along with his usual hearty repast. He was ravenous, almost ravenous enough to feed from his majordomo, but he controlled it. That wouldn’t do. It was reassuring to know as he ate of the more common but fine foodstuffs provided him that, if they weren’t as satisfying to his Marid-self, they still were very much so to his human self.

Reaching out, he drew the slave to him.

Informed of his needs, she turned her head and let him to her do as he would, although she didn’t know the full extent of his requirements.

He pleasured himself of her and then fed deeply, sucking her dry no matter how hard she fought him. Both satisfied and finished, he let her body fall, knowing his majordomo would take care of the refuse.

Wiping his hands, he gestured to his man finally.

“There’s much I missed during the days I was ill,” Kamenwati stated, his speech giving the majordomo the right to respond.

The man couldn’t do so unless Kamenwati spoke to him.

Bowing his head respectfully as he rose to his feet, the majordomo said, “Indeed, my lord. What is it you wish to know?”

“The King?”

“Still lives, as do Paniwi and the child. An attempt to slip an asp into the child’s garden met with failure.”

“The man who attempted it?”

Bowing, the majordomo said, “He paid the price for his failure.”

Kamenwati waved him to continue as he cut a piece of fruit.

“The King sent to ask if you were recovering and to say he was praying to Sekhmet and Isis for your recovery.”

The Goddesses of healing and magic.

With a smile meant only for himself, Kamenwati wondered if Narmer would have done so if he’d known what it was that had rendered him ill, and what he intended to do with the results. It was amusing to speculate.

“And my estates?”

“Do well as always, my Lord,” the majordomo said, and then added as an aside. “Also, the little priest sought you while you were…ill. He was turned away.”

The little priest from Isis’s temple, where Kamenwati’s escaped slave stood as High Priestess.

Even the thought was enough to spark rage.

Anger burned. The knife slipped and cut the base of his thumb, the pain sharp and bitter. Blood oozed thick and dark from the small wound.

Let them call her High Priestess. To Kamenwati she was a slave, his slave, and his property. His. One day he would have her in his hands again and she would pay for a long time, until her suffering gave him no more satisfaction, and then he would sacrifice her to Set, alive, cutting her living heart from her breast. As Isis’s priestess, her death at his hands would give both he and Set a great deal of power and Set some redress for Isis’s interference in the matter of Osiris.

The little priest had wanted speech with him. Kamenwati considered it. It was unusual. The man feared him.

Straightening, Kamenwati narrowed his eyes. “He wasn’t due.”

What did the little priest want or know? He’d thought to be Isis’s High Priest until Banafrit had chosen the slave.

Did Kamenwati now have something to punish her with?

With a shake of his head, the majordomo kept his face impassive as he confirmed that fact. “No, my lord, he wasn’t.”

“Why then the visit?” Kamenwati asked as much of the air as anyone.

Knowing this the majordomo remained silent, having no answer.

“It’s been some time since I’ve been to visit the King,” Kamenwati said. “There are affairs I must attend to. Send someone to this priest. I want to know what it was he wanted to tell me so much that he came on a day he wasn’t expected.”

The little priest wasn’t so bold as to have presumed, so he must have thought it important enough at the time.

What had been so vital the little priest was willing to risk Kamenwati’s wrath to speak of it?

Did the man finally have the means for Kamenwati’s revenge?

Suddenly it mattered very much to him to know what it was the little priest thought he should know.

Not that he would show any sign of it. That wouldn’t do at all.

A few hours at the palace should suffice, a brief visit to his cousin to assure him that his Grand Vizier was well enough, ready to resume his duties and to see what had passed at the palace in his absence.

Changes were coming, although they didn’t know it.

The Darkness was rising again.

He wanted to be sure their guard was still down and weakening.

Soon, he would be King in Narmer’s stead…

The messenger waited for Saini impassively, his dark eyes still but implacable. He wouldn’t leave until Saini gave him an answer, Saini knew, but Saini suddenly didn’t wish to give him one. He was done. It was over. He’d been foolish, but now he saw the error of his ways. Inside, Saini shook, he trembled, but as much as he wished he could pretend he’d never started down this path, he knew he had.

If there were any day he wished to take back other than the day the Lady Banafrit had died it was the day he’d spoken to a stranger in the market – the Grand Vizier’s man, although Saini hadn’t known it then.

A question here, a question there, and suddenly Saini had found himself spewing all his frustrated ambitions into the ear of a stranger over several cups of beer.

That had been all it took. His anger and frustration, no, more, his bitterness with the Lady Banafrit for choosing another over him, had led him down this path… Now he knew why Banafrit had chosen as she had. He was weak, a lesser vessel.

Now what would he do?

The messenger waited. Saini knew there would be no returning without an answer – the messenger knew what the punishment for failure was, as did Saini.

“Tell the Vizier I’ll be there after moonrise in two days time,” Saini lied, to give the man something before someone saw him and took notice. He wanted to weep for fear.

One didn’t lightly cross the Grand Vizier.

The messenger looked at him, but said nothing. An answer was all he’d needed.

With a nod, he ran lightly away.

It wasn’t an appointment Saini intended to keep.

Terror went through him at the thought.

He would keep close to the temple during the next few days and weeks, stay within the walls. Eventually even Kamenwati would give up, surely. And the Grand Vizier couldn’t touch him on temple grounds...

Could he?

It was well after moonrise and the little priest still hadn’t come. Nor did Kamenwati believe he would or had ever intended to. His jaw tightening, he wasn’t well pleased. Did the little priest dare to think he could ignore the summons of the Grand Vizier? Rage turned his vision red.

Nor had his visit to the King the previous day gone well, either.

By all indications Kamenwati’s absence had scarcely been noticed nor was his presence as desired as it had once been in the days when his glamour held Narmer tight in its grip.

Since he’d been gone, the King had taken the reins of power back into his own hands, after all of Kamenwati’s slow, careful effort to extricate those reins from him with honeyed words and gentle persuasion. Now neither the Generals nor the Priests and Priestesses required an audience with the Grand Vizier first, as had once been arranged by Kamenwati, to see the King. They had only to send a request for his time.

In fact, General Khai had been meeting with Narmer when Kamenwati arrived. Kamenwati had walked in unannounced as had always been his habit in the past. Both Narmer and Khai looked somewhat perturbed by unexpected presence, as if he were an interruption.

Narmer himself had asked Kamenwati to wait outside while he spoke to his General.

His General. The King’s. Narmer’s.

Khai. A foreigner named General over all of Egypt’s armies.

The tall, handsome general had looked at him evenly. Once upon a time, one such as he wouldn’t have dared look at Kamenwati without the proper respect and a touch of dismay, or even fear.

They all had.

General Khai’s confidence and calm were irritating.

All in all, that day hadn’t gone well. Nor had the days since, and now the little priest thought he could avoid his summons?

Kamenwati still had power. Considerable power. If only of a different kind.

His jaw tightening, Kamenwati narrowed his eyes and sent out a Summons.

He would have the little priest here. Now.

Saini hadn’t been asleep. He hadn’t slept well. Apprehension had dogged him all day. Beside him his wife slept peacefully. He’d never spoken to her of his meetings with the Grand Vizier. It was better she didn’t know. The longer it went on the more he didn’t want to think of those visits much himself.

His stomach was in knots as he tried not to toss and turn, thus waking her and her questions,.

Dark magic hit him like a blow in the solar plexus, all of the air escaping his lungs sharply.

He bit his lip to keep from crying out and stumbled out into the main room of their quarters, hoping he hadn’t woken her.

Another wrenching pain tore through him.

How? He was in Isis’s own house…he should be safe from even the Grand Vizier here.