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his command by Unis aroused a smoldering anger he was not soon to forget.
    "It takes more than a fancy stick in your hand to make an officer, Lord. And it takes other than the Lord Unis to break one," the Nubian replied calmly.
    "You are also son to the Lord Ptahhotep?" It was the Lord Nereb from the north who broke in eagerly.
    "This is the Lord Rahotep, son to Ptahhotep and to the Lady Tuya, heiress of the Striking Hawk Nome," Methen began, but Rahotep would have none of that.
    "I am Rahotep, but beyond that nothing now, not even a captain of Scouts."
    "Yon remain the son of Ptahhotep," persisted the officer. "Are you of a like mind with your brother, that Pharaoh does not rule in Nubia now?"
    "If there is again a Pharaoh— Is rumor true then, has a prince of Thebes taken the double crown and would move against the Hyksos?"
    "It is true. He has sent forth his messengers to summon an army. But here I find only a dead man to answer—"
    "Your message has been rightfully delivered to Ptahhotep, in whose name it was sealed." They had forgotten Pen-Seti, but the priest's glare went from the royal messenger to Rahotep. "Anubis guards His own." He pulled his shawl about his bony shoulders and strode off.
    "There was authority for raising troops in the name of Pharaoh in that message?" asked Methen.
    "To my belief, aye."
    Rahotep smoothed the fur between the cub's ears. The little one gave a muted purr. Rahotep was beginning to think, to form the shadow of a wild plan. A shadow plan to serve a shadow lord. But dare he attempt it? He smiled at the Lord Nereb.
    "Within these walls my hospitality is limited, Lord. But still have I some claim on shelter. Will you be my guest this night?"

 
    Chapter 3
     
    INTO THE JACKAL'S JAWS
     
    There were four of them in that small, windowless room, and outside its single door lounged two of the archers who had accompanied Rahotep from Kah-hi. An elderly man in the dress of a scribe sat on the one stool, his back against the wall, his tired face very sober. Hentre, who had faithfully followed his nomarch's fortunes to the end, who had remained in a foreign land to serve his lady and her son afterwards, was realizing in that moment the slowness of age just when he wished to give his best.
    "The message roll was sealed into a jar—"
    "And placed within the tomb chamber itself?" Rahotep demanded impatiently. If that had been done, there was no hope at all for his sketchiest of plans.
    But Hentre and the Lord Nereb shook their heads in a duet of negation.
    "I arrived too late," the royal messenger said. "The Lord Ptahhotep's inner tomb chamber had already been sealed."
    "So the jar was set in the mortuary chapel before the eye window of the Watcher." Hentre took up the report once more.
    "In the mortuary chapel—" Rahotep moved on his pile of mats, his eyes closed as he tried to pull from the depths of memory a vision of a place he had only visited once and then so worn with grief that he had had little attention for his surroundings.
    The local tombs of noble families were cut in the cliffs on the western wall of the river valley. There was a settlement there of those whose lives were spent in serving the dead, the embalmers, the coffin makers, the professional mourners, the priests of Anubis, the guards who warded off tomb robbers.
    Ptahhotep's tomb was a fine one, with separate chambers for members of his immediate household, and a maze of passageways, most with dead ends, designed to thwart robbers. But flat against the cliff, blocking off the sealed and concealed entrance, was the mortuary chapel where sacrifices would continue to be offered in the names of those who slept within.
    "It must be done tonight." The captain opened his eyes.
    Hentre stirred and held up a protesting hand. "They will be alert for such a move, Lord. It will but give them the excuse they seek to pull you down—"
    Rahotep got to his feet. "I go as a son to visit his father's tomb. I go alone—what evil can they