Free The Eye of Horus by Carol Thurston

ropes have scratched my back.” Merit reached for a blanket and wrapped it around her.
    “Put fresh padding on her couch,” I told Merit, then spoke to Aset. “Will you promise to drink all the juice and water Merit brings you?” She nodded. “And rest when you feel tired?” This time she was not so quick to agree. “Tuli is impatient for you to be well, so you can play with him. So am I.” At that, laughter sparkled in her eyes, all the reward I needed for sitting through the night with a sick child.
    I handed a packet of dried sage to Merit to steep in hot water, to help soothe her throat. “You also can have all the fruit you want,” I told Aset. “Do you like watermelon?” She nodded, making her curls dance. “Then rest for now.” I pointed to the dog. “Him too.” I picked up my goatskin bag. “I will return tomorrow to see if you have followed my instructions.” By the time I reached the door her eyes were closed in pretend sleep.
DAY 13, SECOND MONTH OF HARVEST
    I was down by the river, tending a man who had dislocated his shoulder while loading one of Pharaoh’s trading vessels, when I heard someone call my name.
    “Tenre! Hallo.”
    I was sure my ears deceived me. Then the crowd of soldiers and vendors parted, and I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. “Mena!” I shouted, and ran to him.
    “You said this was where I would find you when I returned.” He clapped me on the back, pulling me into the embrace of brothers, then made a show of drawing away to cast his eyes over me. “Let me see how you fared without me.”
    Mena and I first found kinship in playing ghoulish pranks on the priests in the temple school. Later, it had been his unfailing optimism that sustained me through the lower grade of the priesthood, a requirement for entry to the Per Ankh and medical training. But once there, neither of us could stomach the decision not to treat, so we set out to test every prescription handed down from the time of the great Imhotep, and ended by bribing a slave in the Per Nefer to look the other way while we discovered for ourselves how the great vessels lay between the heart and lungs.
    “Did you just arrive?” I asked, fearing that he had long since returned to Waset and now was about to embark again, without even seeking me out. I could see that he was much changed, more by his eyes than the white at his temples.
    He pointed to where three bearded slaves coaxed a pair of skittish horses from the deck of a twin-masted ship. “With General Horemheb. Have you not heard that he comes to take the Princess Mutnodjme for his wife?”
    “I beg most humbly that you will forgive my intolerable ignorance, Lord Merenptah.” I bowed my head to hide the grin I could not keep from my face. “Surely the messenger you sent ahead to announce your glorious coming must have been waylaid by pirates on the Great Green Sea. Otherwise, with or without the General who names himself Greatest of the Great and Most Powerful of the Powerful, every whore in this backwater of Pharaoh’s great empire would have been waiting to greet you.”
    He burst out laughing, a sound I have sorely missed these past five years. ‘Thank the gods you are not changed, Tenre. Do you still spend your nights with your scrolls instead of a woman, or is it a wife that has turned your brown eyes so solemn?”
    “Hardly,” I scoffed. “Most women I see are already big with child, but perhaps with you here my luck will change—unless you are the one who has settled into middle age.” I caught a glimpse of the boy he used to be before his face turned serious again.
    “Not yet and not likely, though I confess I grow weary of seeing men spill their guts and brains for no good reason. I can still hear their moans in my sleep, and wake with the noxious odor of their rotting flesh in my nose. But if you are through twisting that poor fellow’s arm, let us go find a cool mug of beer.”
    I nodded, anxious to hear where he had been and what