The Season of the Hyaena (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) by Paul Doherty Read Free Book Online

clever. What guarantee did we have, apart from a personal oath, that, once victorious, these two panthers might not turn their troops south and march on Thebes? Ay must have been thinking the same, for he interrupted our conversation, bringing the meeting back to order, proclaiming that we would all take the oath the following morning. In the end that was our best guarantee. Whilst Tutankhamun was alive, the hyaenas who surrounded him would not turn on each other. Already proclamations were reminding the people that the Prince was the grandson of the Magnificent One, Amenhotep III, of the sacred blood and the royal line. Not even Rameses, for all his treachery, would dare raise his hand against Tutankhamun and commit such blasphemy.
    The council chamber doors were flung open. We drifted out along the passageway, past Nakhtimin’s guards, into the courtyard, where our various retinues were waiting. The sun was now beginning to set, and the breeze was cool. I regretted my magnanimity in giving General Rahmose my cloak. I looked around. He was following Tutu and Meryre into the shadows of the gateway leading out. I glimpsed a white-robed figure abruptly detach itself from a group of priests waiting for their master. At first I thought this man was a messenger bearing important news. He moved swiftly, silently, like a racing shadow, a blur of white. I caught the glint of steel. Rahmose was turning, fearful, still weak with the fever. He could do little to protect himself. The white-garbed figure crashed into him and both men went sprawling. Rahmose’s scream rent the air as the knife rose and fell.
    The assailant sprang to his feet as if to escape through a door back into the warren of passageways of the palace. Two of Nakhtimin’s spearmen followed in pursuit. The man reached the door even as I hurried forward. The door was locked. The man turned and Nakhtimin’s spearmen, ignoring my shouts, loosed their shafts. One spear took the man straight in the belly, pinning him to the door behind, whilst the other drove deep into the man’s chest. He shook and screamed, arms flailing even as the blood gushed out of the gaping wounds. The spearmen withdrew their shafts and the corpse slid to the ground.
    I hurried across with the rest. The courtyard resounded with cries and shouts, the clatter of drawn weapons. Meryre and his group clustered around Rahmose. He lay twisted, one arm going backwards and forwards like the wing of a pinioned bird, heels drumming on the ground. Pentju the physician, who had remained silent throughout the entire council meeting, was crouching beside the fallen man. He could do little. Rahmose’s eyes were already glazing over in death, mouth spluttering blood, fingers trying to stem the jagged cuts to his neck, throat and chest. He was a dead man in all but name. I glanced across. The assassin lay slumped in a bloody heap. I went and turned the body over. A young man, smooth-faced, head shaven like that of a priest, but the palms of his hands were coarse and his arms criss-crossed with scars.
    ‘A soldier?’ Maya asked. ‘Disguised as a priest? He was holding this.’ The Treasurer handed over a scarab displaying the throne names of Akenhaten. It was crudely done, the clumsy hieroglyphs painted white on the hardened black stone. Ay, surrounded by his guards, inspected both corpses and shrugged.
    ‘Mahu,’ he demanded, ‘find out what happened.’
    ‘I might as well try and get a stone to sing,’ I shouted back. I crouched by the corpse of the assassin. The scars on his wrists and arms were superficial, and beneath the blood-soaked robe I could detect no other mark or wound, but on the hardened soles of his feet I glimpsed what I considered to be green dye.
    ‘Grass,’ I declared, staring at Pentju. ‘He was a man used to walking on grass, and those scars on his wrists and arms? I suspect he was a gardener. Meryre!’ I shouted.
    ‘My lord?’
    ‘This man was not one of yours?’
    The little