Free The Eye of Horus by Carol Thurston Page A

he had learned, for we had made a pact the night before he sailed. He would learn all he could from the wounds men suffer in battle while I did the same from the ills of the men, women, and children who tend Amen’s fields. On his return, we would combine our newfound wisdom to rewrite the scrolls of the ancients.
    “I swear I do not remember it being so infernally hot here,” he commented, as we settled in the garden of the Clay Jar, a tavern popular with soldiers and seamen. “But tell me how you earn enough to eat by treating women and children?”
    “Everyone prospers since the young Pharaoh returned to the city of Amen.” I paused to wet my throat. “You remember Nofret, my widowed aunt? Well, it is our habit to take the evening meal in my garden, where she regales Khary, the man I have hired to cultivate my herb garden, and me with gossip. So I’ll wager I knew before you that your General would take the Princess for his wife. What I want to know is how you came to be with him.”
    “I was sent to our garrison at Zarw, where my General prepared a campaign into Canaan. One day when he was practicing with his bow, the shaft of an arrow splintered as he released it, driving a thin sliver of wood into the soft underside of his arm. Horemheb is not one to take notice of such a small thing, so by the time I saw it the wound had gone putrid and looked as bad as it smelled. I poulticed it with moldy bread, mumbled a magic spell, and had him eat radishes sufficient to send ten men to the latrine. He believes I saved his life as well as his arm, and so must have me always at his side.”
    I smiled, remembering how it has always been with us, but in the next instant his face changed from day to night. “The ambassadors of our onetime allies may have returned to court, Tenre, but they come without treaties or tribute because Tutankhamen has nothing to bargain with.” Word of the General’s failure to regain the territory lost by the Heretic Akhenaten had already filtered back to Waset, but Horemheb returned triumphant anyway because he brought long-owed tribute from the Canaanites and their Shasu brethren. “My General comes to acquire more than a royal princess,” Mena continued. “He needs more troops, and Ay will see that he gets them.” He sat back. “Once Horemheb chases the Hittites back to Hattusas, the throne will be his.”
    I knew Mena too well to believe he spoke in jest. “Akhenaten taught the priests of Amen a lesson they mean never to forget,” I reminded him. “It will take a clever hand to tame a lion and crocodile at the same time.”
    “Horemheb will pull their teeth. Power lies with the strong now, Tenre, not in the blood. Do not forget that the General rose through the ranks under the wily old Master of the Horse, who now sits on Tutankhamen’s right hand.”
    “Ay sat beside Akhenaten as well,” I reminded him, “and look where
he
is!” That we spoke of the Beautiful One’s first husband was proof to me that the gods play games with our thoughts. “But since you mingle among the high-and-mighty, tell me what has happened to the Heretic’s Queen.”
    “Mutnodjme’s royal sister? I have heard only that she lives somewhere in the land of the lotus, likely not far from here.”
    “Then perhaps I can tell
you
something, though it must be as physician to physician.” With those words I bound his tongue and could trust him not to share the confidence. “She is Consort to a God’s Father named Ramose, keeper of Amen’s accounts, and has borne him a daughter.”
    Shock and then chagrin crossed Mena’s bronze face, so he understood full well what an alliance between a powerful priest of Amen and a daughter of the Magnificent Amenho-tepcould portend. “Like a cat, that one always lands on her feet.”
    “Her claim to the throne is without equal,” I reminded him, “not only as the daughter of Osiris Amenhotep but because she once sat at Akhenaten’s side. Now she plays a new game