Slayer of Gods Read online

  CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR

  SLAYER OF GODS

  “With a seamless blend of fact and fiction, the author makes ancient palaces and historical figures seem extraordinarily real. A compelling story does the rest to keep the reader hooked.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An exquisitely detailed story based on historical fact. The reader becomes totally involved in Meren’s world.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A wonderful historical fiction novel… authenticity and plausibility. Historical fiction and mystery aficionados will derive joy from SLAYER OF GODS.”

  — www.Booknbytes.com

  “A dramatic ending and a historically plausible interpretation of events, along with a few surprises…an entertaining historical mystery.”

  — www.Bookloons.com

  “A fine frenzy of action… required reading for veterans of the earlier volumes.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Also by Lynda S. Robinson

  Drinker of Blood

  Eater of Souls

  Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing

  Murder at the God’s Gate

  Murder in the Place of Anubis

  Copyright

  This book is a work of historical fiction. In order to give a sense of the times, some names or real people or places have been included in this book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of nonhistorical persons or events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2001 by Lynda S. Robinson

  All rights reserved.

  Originally published in hardcover by Mysterious Press.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  The Grand Central Publishing name and logo are registered trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: September 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2484-2

  Contents

  CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR SLAYER OF GODS

  Also by Lynda S. Robinson

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Historical Note

  Chronology with Selected New Kingdom Rulers of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Dynasties

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  SLAYER OF GODS

  To my uncle, David Womack,

  whose love of family and sense of honor

  remind me of the qualities

  so valued by the ancient Egyptians.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Dr. Bill Petty of Museum Tours for reading this manuscript, for his help in imaging the details of everyday life in ancient Egypt, and for an unforgettable tour of Egypt. I’m grateful to him for doing what I thought impossible—getting me to Horizon of the Aten. Bill, you would have made a great advisor or general to King Tutankhamun. I would also like to express my appreciation to two Egyptians, Mostafa and Khaled, for their expertise and hospitality.

  I am also indebted to Dr. James Allen, Curator, Department of Egyptian Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, for his insights into the events in the waning years of Akhenaten’s reign, and most especially his research regarding the fate of Queen Nefertiti. Readers will find his article, “Akhenaten’s ‘Mystery’ Coregent and Successor” fascinating (in Amarna Letters, Volume I, KMT Communications, San Francisco, 1991).

  I would also like to thank the members of Chicago House, the University of Chicago mission in Luxor, Egypt, for their gracious reception, especially Dr. Carlotta Maher and Dr. Raymond Johnson, director. From them I learned the unhappy news that the great temples at Karnak and Luxor are in even greater danger than most people realize. It may be that—despite the valiant efforts of the Egyptian government and archaeological missions from around the world—many magnificent reliefs will be gone in a short fifty years. Many factors contribute to the loss of such archaeological treasures—a rising water table and modern pollutants among them. It is a great comfort to those of us who admire the achievements of our ancient ancestors that so many archaeologists, both Egyptian and non-Egyptian, are striving to save this unique cultural heritage.

  In Egyptology researchers are constantly uncovering new information, but in the Amarna period—with which this series deals—our knowledge is often sketchy. The story that follows is based on one of several theories of events that took place during the reign of Akhenaten. As always, any errors of fact are mine.

  Historical Note

  The events upon which Slayer of Gods is based took place in mid-fourteenth century B.C. when one of history’s unique individuals inherited the throne of Egypt—Akhenaten, the heretic king. It was Akhenaten who took the unprecedented step of abandoning the worship of Egypt’s ancient gods, especially the one called Amun. Eventually he even disestablished Amun’s powerful priesthood in favor of a minor sun deity called the Aten.

  The temple of Amun had benefited from royal patronage since—under the god’s banner—Akhenaten’s ancestors overthrew foreign rule and established the New Kingdom. Now it was fabulously rich and even owned foreign cities and slaves by the tens of thousands. Such a rich temple had to have been a rival to pharaoh’s power.

  Strife between Akhenaten and his enemies became so grave that the king had to move the royal court and government away from the centers of traditional power—Thebes and Memphis. He built an entirely new city filled with soaring monuments to pharaoh’s new god and beautiful, expressive art. It was called Horizon of the Aten, and there Akhenaten remained, growing more and more fanatical in his persecution of Amun, until he died.

  Akhenaten’s chief queen was the hauntingly beautiful Nefertiti. She plays a prominent role in the reliefs of her husband’s reign and may have wielded a great deal of actual power. She bore the king six daughters, and it is the affectionate scenes of the royal couple with their children that are among the most poignant in Egyptian art.

  After the twelfth year of Akhenaten’s reign, Queen Nefertiti’s figure mysteriously vanishes from royal monuments and correspondence. The reason for her disappearance is unknown. Akhenaten followed his beautiful queen in death a few years later. After a brief period of uncertainty during which another brother of Akhenaten called Smenkhare may have ruled, the boy king Tutankhamun inherited the throne of Egypt.

  Tutankhamun (first known as Tutankhaten) was either Akhenaten’s younger brother or his son. He succeeded when he was between the ages of nine and sixteen and soon began a complete reversal of Akhenaten’s policies. The royal court moved back to Memphis, and Amun was restored. Tragically, Tutankhamun died young after a reign of ten years, leaving his successors to carry out the restoration he began.

  Chronology with Selected New Kingdom Rulers of the

  Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Dynasties

  Late Predynastic Years B.C.

  c. 3000

  Early Dynastic

  Dynasties 1–2 ?–2649

  Old Kingdom

  Dynasties 3–8 2649–2134

  First Intermediate Period

  Dynasties 9–10 2134–2040

  Middle Kingdom

  Dynast
ies 11–12 2134–1797

  Second Intermediate Period

  Dynasties 13–17 1783–1626

  New Kingdom

  Dynasties 18–20 1550–1143

  Late Dynasty 18

  Amunhotep III* 1391–1353

  Amunhotep IV/Akhenaten 1353–1335

  Smenkhare 1335–1333

  Tutankhamun 1333–1323

  Ay 1323–1319

  Early Dynasty 19

  Horemheb 1319–1307

  Ramesses I 1307–1306

  Seti I 1306–1290

  Ramesses II 1290–1224

  Third Intermediate Period and Late Period

  Dynasties 21–30 1070–343

  Conquest of Egypt by Alexander 332

  Chapter 1

  Memphis, year five of the reign of the pharaoh Tutankhamun

  Beauty the goose shuffled slowly through the forest of legs that blocked her way. She fixed her shortsighted gaze on the hard-packed earth in search of the occasional cricket. Around her, in the breezy coolness of late evening, servants gossiped in the kitchen yard. Oblivious to the sounds of lute, harp, and flute that floated from the house, Beauty never paused in her quest even when she encountered feet arrayed in a line in front of her. Above her women’s voices droned on, chattering and laughing.

  Beauty’s small, flat head and beak remained pointed toward the ground. She took another step and pecked at a bare toe. Never lifting her beady gaze from the spot directly in front of her, Beauty took two more waddling steps, eyed another set of toes, and snapped at them. They danced out of her way.

  She continued down the line of toes, never lifting her head, never varying from her course, certainly not avoiding the feet, until she reached the back gate. There she nipped at the ankle of the porter in one last ill-tempered and satisfying attack before she sauntered beyond the high wall that enclosed Golden House, the great mansion of Lord Meren, the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh, Friend of the King, and advisor to the young ruler of the Egyptian empire, Tutankhamun.

  Had she been a young, fat goose, Beauty would have soon ended up stewing in a pot. But since she was a pet, everyone had to put up with her menacing ways. She lived up to her name, however. The boldly patterned plumage on her head attracted attention. She had a black crown, hind neck, and facial marks against a white face, a black lower breast, and russet cheek patches and upper breast. Her short, thick neck was no hindrance to her bullying ways, nor was her small bill.

  Not long after the goose terrorized the kitchen staff the animal’s owner came into the yard, her pace quick in spite of swollen joints and frail bones. “Beauty, where are you? Come to your mother, my little daub of honey.”

  Satet passed among the servants congregated in the kitchen yard calling the goose’s name. She questioned many, always receiving a wave in the direction in which the goose had traveled, and receiving as well complaints from those ambushed by her evil-tempered pet.

  “You know she’s aged,” Satet replied. “You should get out of her way.”

  Hurrying toward the gate, Satet nodded at the guard. “You’re not supposed to go wandering,” he said. “You know Lord Meren dislikes it.”

  “I’m not going to get lost again,” Satet retorted. “I’m searching for Beauty, and she can’t have gone far, so I’ll be back quickly.”

  Before the guard could reply, Satet scurried into the dark street, muttering to herself. “Lord Meren indeed. He cares about me only because my sister served Queen Nefertiti.”

  The old woman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The furnacelike heat of day had ebbed from the hard ground beneath her feet, and her mood lightened the farther she walked from the gate. She was weary of being confined to the grounds of Golden House. True, it was a great estate within the city of Memphis, but Satet liked to travel about, visit the markets, docks, temples, and the wells at which people congregated to exchange news.

  It was also true that her wits tended to wander a bit, but she wasn’t mad and didn’t deserve to be pestered and watched all the time. After all, it had been her sister, Hunero, who’d been Queen Nefertiti’s favorite cook. Lord Meren said Hunero had poisoned the queen’s food, but Hunero had been murdered too, and now Meren wanted Satet to tell him anything she could about Hunero’s life that might be of use. But Satet didn’t remember anything important. How could she? Queen Nefertiti had died years ago—eleven according to Lord Meren. Or was it longer? Oh, it wasn’t important, because the lives and doings of great ones had nothing to do with her. Exploration was far more interesting.

  Ever since Lord Meren brought her here from the country Satet had taken advantage of the opportunity to see the sights of pharaoh’s greatest city, the capital of the vast Egyptian empire. Looking for Beauty when she wandered away served as the perfect excuse to explore the city.

  Satet glanced up and down the street. Moonlight showed nothing to her left, but to her right she glimpsed something on the ground. Satet picked up a scrap of flat bread, the remnants of someone’s meal devoured in a hurry while on the run. Beauty was following a trail of food. Setting off down the street, Satet shook her head and grumbled.

  “Wouldn’t have to sneak off to enjoy myself if that boy would leave me alone.”

  She always called Lord Meren “boy,” ever since they’d first met in her sister’s old house. He’d been suspicious of Hunero from the beginning, and once that boy got hold of an idea, he didn’t let loose until he was completely satisfied he knew everything there was to know. Only last night he’d been after her again to recall Hunero’s doings when she’d worked for Queen Nefertiti.

  It wasn’t fair, because Satet hadn’t been there. Hunero had been far away, in the queen’s household in the city called Horizon of the Aten. Satet hardly recalled anything her sister said about what went on in that city in the middle of nowhere. Oh, she knew it had been built by Nefertiti’s husband, the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, who had nearly destroyed Egypt with his attempts to banish the old gods in favor of his own. But Satet had barely listened to Hunero’s ramblings about the old days at Horizon of the Aten. It had nothing to do with her.

  “Can’t help it if I don’t remember,” Satet whined to herself. “Hunero was always bragging about being in service to the queen—may she live forever with the gods—but that was years ago. Who can remember all her boasts?”

  Satet turned into another street. This one was wider, with old houses on either side that leaned toward each other. Ahead of her someone stepped into a house and closed the door, leaving the street deserted. If she shouted for Beauty, she’d rouse the whole street and get into trouble, so she half whispered, half hissed.

  “Beauty!”

  A flap of wings answered her, and Satet caught sight of Beauty as she snapped up something from the street and gobbled it down. The little beast had almost reached the well on the far end of the street. Satet hurried. She was approaching her seventieth year and had to stop a couple of times to catch her breath. The second time, she slowed her pace because Beauty was busy eating something beside the well. No sense hurrying now.

  She might get back to the house and have to talk to that boy again. He’d been around too much lately. Wia, one of the family servants, said it was because he’d taken an arrow while fighting a traitor. The wound had festered, causing fever, and demons of infection invaded his body. No doubt the traitor’s evil ka, his soul, had tried to avenge itself upon Lord Meren.

  Whatever the case, the boy had been confined to his bed, and the whole family had descended upon Golden House. Fear reigned for weeks, but he was strong, his ka equal to the challenge of fighting off the demons of disease. Now he was recovering, which meant that he had the strength to pester Satet. After being subjected to several sessions of his meaningless questions, Satet had finally lost her temper the previous evening.

  “Why do you keep asking me these things? I don’t know if Hunero spoke to any strangers during the queen’s illness. Why don’t you ask her?” When Meren reminded her that Hunero was dead, s
he’d fended him off. “Then why don’t you go to Syene and ask the queen’s bodyguard? Sebek ought to know more than anyone. Quit pestering me, boy.”

  Satet was proud of herself for thinking about Sebek. The bodyguard was probably dead, but if a journey to the great southern city of Syene would take Meren away from the house, she wouldn’t have to listen to him for a good long time. Of course, his daughter Bener would try to stop him from traveling. She wanted him to rest. She said he wasn’t well enough to walk around his garden, much less go on a journey. When her father wouldn’t listen to her and insisted on joining his charioteers in the practice yard, Bener had brought in an ally, Lady Bentanta.

  A childhood friend of Meren’s, Bentanta wasn’t intimidated by him as most were. She’d come in response to a message from Bener and had spoken a few words to the invalid in a low whisper. The great Lord Meren, Friend of the King, warrior and royal confidant, had immediately left the practice yard and retired.

  “Wonder what she said to him,” Satet muttered to herself.

  Whatever it had been, it was powerful enough to keep the boy in his bed. Lady Bentanta had remained at his side for almost a week, and during that time they fought. Then one day shouts had erupted from the boy’s chamber. Lady Bentanta burst out of the room, turned around and yelled. Satet had never heard anyone yell at Meren. Everyone held him in awe and quite a few feared him. But not Bentanta. She’d stood in his doorway with her hands on her hips and shouted.

  “If you don’t rest, I’ll be back!”

  “A fearsome threat,” came the bellowed reply. “To avoid another of your visitations, I’d stay in this bed as still as a corpse on the embalmer’s table for a year!”

  After that scene Meren’s mood got worse. That’s when pharaoh sent a troupe of musicians to cheer his friend. They’d been so successful that Bener now had them play every night until her father was lulled to sleep. Once he’d regained his full strength he’d be off chasing murderers and other evildoers. The possibility cheered Satet as she reached the well.