Andre Norton - Shadow Hawk by Shadow Hawk Read Free Book Online Page B

us," the high priest rebuked him.
    Even in his weakened, dizzy condition, Rahotep sensed that there was more to this than the conventional answer of a priest. He watched the stern face with the narrowness of a war captive reading either life or death in the movement of his victor's eyebrows. So he noted that the Voice of Amon was clad now not in his ordinary dress of linen shawl and skirt but in the inner and outer kilts of high ceremony, his shawl replaced by a leopard skin, one of its dangling, gold-taloned paws clipped to his jeweled cincture. High feast day, Rahotep wondered dazedly. Yet it was not dawn—or had the night worn away so swiftly?
    Khephren made a gesture and four of the underpriests crowded into the room, taking up the bed on which Rahotep lay as if it were a noble's litter. Kheti stood away from the corner, where he had been squatting, as if to raise protest, but his captain signed him to silence. Something was afoot, but Rahotep was beginning to trust the high priest. He had done all that he could do. The outcome would be the affair of Amon-Re and His Voice.
    The bed was borne out into the space before the altar. There was the grayness of predawn outside the outer ranks of pillars. When the priests put down their burden, slightly to the left of the Amon image, Kheti went down on his knees beside the bed, lending his shoulder to Rahotep's support so the captain could see clearly those gathered there.
    Pen-Seti he had in a measure expected, also Unis—with a backing of guardsmen and Anubis priests. Drawn up opposite them was an even smaller group consisting of Methen, Hen- tre, and the Lord Nereb, with two of Rahotep's archers to back them.
    Khephren took his place before the high altar. In his hand a sistrum of gold wires and turquoise beads swung to make a sweet tinkle. One of the lesser priests flung powder on a censer, and the blue curls of incense twined upward like lazy serpents.
    "Voice of Amon!" That was Pen-Seti, his silhouette against the wall behind him that of a bird of prey. "Release unto us these despoilers of tombs, these blasphemers of the Great Ones, so that Anubis may deal with them as is lawful."
    Khephren's face was expressionless, but Rahotep, watching, caught the faintest of eye flickers in his direction, and now he believed he knew what the high priest had been suggesting earlier. He hunched himself up against Kheti and stretched out one hand to the altar where the blood-stained jar still rested undisturbed.
    "I appeal to the judgment of Amon-Re. May the Great One, in His everlasting wisdom, decide the truth or falsehood of my deeds!"
    "To Amon-Re has this man appealed, to Amon-Re the judgment!'
    Pen-Seti's lips twisted, his hands jerked at his shawl. To a lesser man than Khephren he might have voiced the protest now to be read in every line of his body. But somehow here and now he did not quite dare to challenge the other. There had never before been any trial of wills between them, but over the years the Voice of Amon had achieved a position that overawed his fellow priests.
    "To Amon-Re the judgment!" That full-voiced agreement came from Rahotep's own party, and a few of those among Unis's followers nodded in a surly fashion.
    Khephren twirled the sistrum, and two of the Amon priests brought forward a small wooden shrine, immeasurably old, immeasurably sacred, for it contained "Amon-of-the-Road," the Amon of travelers, which had been brought out of Thebes by that first Pharaoh who had added Nubia to Egypt.
    The Voice of Amon prostrated himself before the shrine and then arose and broke the seal of its fastening. From the interior he brought forth and held up in both hands over his head the ancient statuette. And those watching, nobles and guards alike, went to their knees, shading their eyes with their right hands.
    Rahotep heard through the silence the faint sound of Khephren's unsandaled feet upon the stone, knew that he was approaching the bed. Yet the captain kept his head bent,