Read The Season of the Hyaena (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) for Free Online Page A

his own. I took the dagger from beneath my robes and began to beat the handle against the tiled floor. The clamour died.
    ‘My lords.’ I smiled round in a show of confidence. ‘Let us deal with the facts. Queen Nefertiti is dead. She took poison. I know she did. I gave her the cup. I felt her body shudder in my arms; her corpse has been mummified and lies in a tomb in the eastern cliffs above the City of the Aten. A usurper has appeared in the Delta, financed and supported by the Hittites. He has suborned some of our regiments because they are hungry, leaderless and have not been paid in months. It is easy to march across a desert, but the great cities of Egypt will not open their gates so readily. Now, let us turn to this Akenhaten, whoever he is! We know what happened in the City of the Aten. How our Pharaoh quarrelled with his wife Nefertiti and banished her to a palace in the north of the city. He then withdrew himself, taking first his elder daughter and then the Princess Ankhesenamun as his Queens. He had children by both. However, the babies died, as did his elder daughter, Meritaten. What else do we know?’
    ‘We too were banished from his presence,’ Huy offered.
    ‘Of course you were.’ I smiled. ‘And then there was the reconciliation,’ I repeated facts they all knew, ‘between Akenhaten and Nefertiti: she now reincarnated herself as her husband’s co-ruler, adopting the title Semenkhkare-Ankheperure. For a while both reigned together, then Akenhaten disappeared and Nefertiti tried to rule under her new name. She plotted our deaths and had to be removed. A regency council was set up under God’s Father, Ay. We decided that Akenhaten’s vision was nothing but sand in the wind and moved back to Thebes. We have our Pharaoh, Prince Tutankhamun, to be crowned. So, this usurper is false. He must be dealt with, captured and executed.’
    ‘But what happens if he is the true Pharaoh?’ Meryre demanded.
    ‘You go on and on about that!’ Anen, the High Priest of Amun, shouted. ‘Do you know something, my lord, we don’t?’
    I stared at Meryre, eyebrows raised. ‘A good question, my lord.’
    Meryre looked as if he was going to deny everything, but I held his glance.
    ‘Akenhaten,’ he declared slowly, ‘believed we had all deserted him. He no longer confided in me but in a gaggle of chapel priests, led by two: Khufu and Djoser. At the time of Akenhaten’s disappearance, these two and other acolyte priests also vanished. However, before you ask where, you must recall how the pestilence had swept the city. Men died and were given quick burial; others fled.’
    ‘So it is possible,’ I persisted, ‘that when Akenhaten disappeared, went out into the Red Lands, those precious priests, led by Khufu and Djoser, followed suit, taking his personal treasure with them?’
    ‘That is a possibility,’ Meryre conceded.
    ‘And it is also possible,’ I demanded, ‘that Akenhaten was murdered by these priests, who then took his treasure, including the Royal Seals, and fled along the Horus Road into Canaan and the power of the Hittites?’
    Again Meryre agreed. I watched that sanctimonious face and the others grouped around him. Did they really believe Akenhaten had returned? Were they simply guilty of wishful thinking? Or were they part of some far-fetched plot?
    ‘And on your most sacred oath,’ I asked quietly, ‘you know nothing of this usurper?’
    ‘I object.’ Meryre curled his lip.
    ‘I simply asked, my lord. Now I shall give the Royal Circle my advice. We should play for time. Let us send the high priest Meryre as our official envoy. You, my lord, will soon discover if this is our true Pharaoh or some puppet.’
    ‘Why me?’ Meryre demanded.
    ‘You are the High Priest of the Aten. You will simply be our messenger. I shall join you.’
    Ay gazed in surprise. Rameses was smiling behind his hand. Horemheb was looking at me strangely, as if noticing me for the first time. Huy and Maya were all