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

Nefertiti emerged: her arrogance, her pride, the relationship between herself and her father Ay, her persecution of Khiya, Tutankhamun’s mother, secretly feeding her potions and powders so she would never conceive. That was the truth which drove him away.’ Pentju added bitterly, ‘That’s what sent Akenhaten out into the Red Lands to find what he had lost.’
    ‘And his treasure?’ I asked.
    ‘At the time of his disappearance the City of the Aten was in chaos. The plague was raging like Sekhmet the Destroyer. You saw it, Mahu, streets littered with corpses, the funeral pyres on the cliffs above the city turning the sky black with their smoke. I suspect Akenhaten and a group of his priests, donkeys laden with the treasure they might need, slipped out of the city.’
    ‘Would they go north?’ I asked. ‘To Canaan?’
    ‘That’s possible. Akenhaten’s mother, Queen Tiye, and all her kin from Akhmin were once Shemsu. They wandered from Canaan, across Sinai into Egypt. They made Egypt’s Gods their own but they never forgot their own God, the God of Canaan, all-seeing, all-powerful, not to be worshipped in idols or statues. They regarded the Sun Disc, the Aten, as His symbol.’ Pentju shrugged. ‘You know this as well as I do.’
    I did, but I was trying to make sense of what we had been told.
    ‘I kept quiet,’ Pentju sighed, ‘because I know the truth. The creature at Avaris is an impostor, possibly one of the priests.’
    ‘But still a danger to us?’
    Pentju clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Mahu, it was dangerous as soon as we became Children of the Kap, the Royal Nursery.’ He picked up his water skin and walked away. I dozed for a while in the shadow of the crouched lion.
    ‘Sir?’
    I woke with a start, hand going to my knife. My captain of mercenaries stretched forward his right hand, caked with blood.
    ‘We found a corpse, my lord, a priest, naked and trussed like a chicken for the pot, throat slashed from ear to ear, his body concealed beneath a bramble bush between a clump of persea trees. One of my lord Meryre’s entourage has identified him. The assassin must have lured him there and killed him.’ He lifted an eyebrow.
    ‘And taken his robes,’ I finished. ‘One priest amongst many, eh, Captain?’
    ‘Like flies on a turd, my lord.’
    ‘And the assassin?’ I asked.
    ‘A gardener, a rose-tender from the inner garden. My lord, General Rahmose was wearing your cloak, the striped one.’
    ‘I know he was wearing my cloak, Captain, and it is one which is eye-catching, a gift from a friend. But,’ I got to my feet and clapped the man on the shoulder, ‘we’ll have to wait and see if the hunter returns for a second try.’
    I wanted to confront Ay, Meryre and the rest, but hot temper is ill suited to the search for the truth, so I went to my own quarters. The young Prince was already in the House of Adoration, a small suite of chambers I had set aside for him. I checked the windows and doors, as I always did, ensuring that, despite the heat, they were shuttered and closed. Every entrance was guarded by at least three mercenaries, with the strictest instructions that they were to allow no one in except myself, Djarka or Sobeck, and that they were never to leave unless two others were on guard. I handed my own dagger to the sentries and went through into the antechamber, which smelt of cassia and frankincense. In the small bedchamber beyond, Tutankhamun was already lying beneath the sheets on his bed. The headrest, a brilliant blue and gold, glinted in the lamplight, the post at each end carved in the shape of Bes the Dwarf God, so beloved of children. Between the posts, at both top and bottom, a line of Uraei, spitting cobras, the protectors of Egypt’s rulers. I pushed aside the linen hangings, and the little boy pulled himself up, face crumpled with sleep, his wide dark eyes making him seem like a little owl awakening in its nest.
    ‘Uncle Mahu!’
    ‘I have come to check the oil