Free Suzanne Robinson by Heart of the Falcon Page B

for a few hours, and also make an addition to your staff of musicians.”
    The king glanced at Seth with a perplexed frown on his lips. “If you wish. It seems a trifling favor.”
    “Hardly worthy of your notice, Majesty, but the chief harpist is temperamental. You know he can be uncooperative if he’s in a mood.”
    “What are you up to?”
    Seth turned to the king, his eyes wide and innocent.
    “Oh no.” Tutankhamun raised a hand in protest. “Don’t say anything. I know you. You’re not going to tell me, so don’t bother with that performance. Let’s go. My difficult royal spouse expects me to join her for the evening meal.”

4
    Anqet scurried along the busy avenue after the blind man and the youth who led him. Two royal guards followed her, scimitars dangling at their sides.
    She called to the blind man. “Master Harkhuf.”
    Her bundle of possessions slung over her shoulder, she trotted to catch up with the two. Harkhuf might not be able to see, but he traveled as if everyone knew it and would get out of his way. In most cases they did. He paced along with a sure gait, one hand on the boy’s shoulder, the other holding a walking stick with a silver top shaped like a duck’s head. Anqet managed to overtake the man as he turned a corner.
    “Please, Master Harkhuf, I don’t understand. How can I be a singer for the divine pharaoh?”
    Harkhuf stopped abruptly, forcing his guide to totter off-balance for a moment. Pedestrians filed around the guards and their charges.
    “How?” the man snorted. “Foolish girl, the son of the god has spoken.”
    “But Pharaoh has never heard me.”
    “Presumption! Of course he has never heard you. I received instructions to acquire you. It has been done.”
    “But whose instructions?”
    Harkhuf swiveled his head in her direction. Wrinkled eyelids remained closed over sightless eyes.
    “One of Pharaoh’s servants brought commands. Don’t dawdle, girl. My time is precious to me, if not to you.”
    Anqet walked beside Pharaoh’s chief harpist, determinedto make the man listen to her. “Master Harkhuf, I have no wish to be a court singer.”
    The blind man paid her no heed other than to swat at her with his stick. Anqet cast a glance over her shoulder at the two guards. Their faces were blank, but she knew they wouldn’t allow her to leave.
    A few minutes walk took them to a sentried gate set in a high white wall. Inside the gate was a small city. Single- and two-storied blocks of buildings lay on either side of a central path. As she rushed after Harkhuf, Anqet passed the workshops of stonemasons, lapidaries, sculptors, metalworkers, carpenters, and leatherworkers. At the lapidaries’ she paused to eye a pile of stone flakes: the red-orange of carnelian, the azure blue of turquoise, the deeper blue of lapis lazuli, and the flamboyant green of malachite.
    Shepherded by the harpist, Anqet quickly arrived at the living quarters of the female singers of the royal household. There Harkhuf left her. Anqet couldn’t understand what had happened. This morning she’d risen, fearing Lady Gasantra would have her beaten. The night’s events between herself and Count Seth had convinced Anqet that she must leave. In a way, she was grateful that she was forced to make a plan.
    Last night Anqet had decided she would appeal to her old suitor, Menana. He was young and shy, but a good boy. She would go to his estate first. They would marry. She had visions of them marching upon Nefer with a hoard of retainers, casting Hauron’s minions into the Nile. If Hauron was there, she would throw him to the crocodiles.
    Menana was the answer to her problem. He knew of her love for Nefer and wouldn’t stand in the way of her desire to keep her home. If she allied herself with him, she would be safe from commanding green eyes and licentious hands.
    With her plan set, Anqet was saying good-bye to Tamit when Harkhuf descended upon Lady Gasantra’s household like a hawk upon a flock of