His eyes detached themselves from Amenti. She didn’t understand a word he said anyway. There was no reason to face her, and yet he could only turn away from the cat for a moment. Barely a breath later, his attention was once again glued to her billowing, black form. She was the only one listening to him. The only one who sat with him and endured and accepted his anger. So he crouched down to offer her a hand, and she nuzzled her head against it. Her soft fur calmed his nerves.
“I made a mistake,” he finally confessed to her. “A stupid mistake, because I underestimated my opponent.” He sighed. “You know I’m not like that, but lately, I’m always so ... angry. Even obsessed with something that can’t be grasped. Trapped in my short-sightedness.”
Amenti’s grunt confirmed him. She was actually listening.
“I just don’t know where to start. Every time I try something, I get distracted by Fatrada and look what it got me.” He shook his head. Everything could have been so much easier. “This wouldn’t have happened if Maathorneferure wasn’t... if she wasn’t so obsessed with taking out her discontent on me. I probably sound like a little kid.” Without further ado, he hung his head. Since when did a man cry to a cat?
Another meow made him look up, straight into those friendly emeralds who promised to keep all his secrets. She was the only one who would never say a word about what he said, and perhaps the gods meant well for him.
The tightness in his chest made him sigh. His throat constricted and the rage that still seethed within him found the ugliest words he could think of. He was in no position to speak ill of Maathorneferure, and there was no way he was going to ask the gods for anything and be in their debt later – but he wanted to vent the feeling. Slowly, he withdrew his hand, severed contact with Amenti, and looked at her for a moment. Her eyes seemed to scrutinise him like a neatly inscribed stone slab and the next breath that left his lips was no longer silent.
“I hate her,” it came over him. “I hate her with every fibre of my body and yet ... I would probably still help her if she asked me for something...” He pressed his lips together and took a breath. “And yet right now, I want nothing more than for Osiris to take her to his realm and punish her for her mere character.”
Amenti’s gaze sparkled. The light moved in them whenever the fire flickered and it bathed the cat’s features in shadows that wrapped menacingly around her small muzzle. Her white teeth gleamed from beneath narrow lips, stretching from side to side like a smile. An ugly grin that shone brighter than the moon. He blinked, repressing the illusion, which vanished in the same breath. What remained was Amenti in the flickering light of the torches. Her silky fur shone and her small paws led her towards the main path. She left him behind without giving him a single meow. Perhaps she wanted to show him he had to go back. Back to the palace, where Fatrada would be waiting. She and Maathorneferure.
Someone had to save Fatrada, no matter what. And the only person capable of doing so bore his name. He was the only one who knew that something wrong had been done, and he was also the only one who was fighting a petty war with the Third Great Royal Queen.
Once again, the tjati took a deep breath before pulling himself to his feet. It took him a moment to find the strength in his legs to hold himself up. Only then, when his steps looked firm and determined, did he step out of the alley and back into the warm light of the main path. He had to show himself strong. Stronger than anyone would believe him to be. In the end, there was no one he could turn to but Amenti – not like a cat could have tipped him off. He had to solve every problem that arose on his own. He had to master it, be the vizier that Ramesses saw in him, and overcome the problem. All he needed was a plan. One that would corner Maathorneferure and protect Fatrada.
His shoulders tightened as he drew closer to the palace. Nothing in him was allowed to fall victim to the obvious sense of unease. No one was allowed to see behind his façade. No attack surfaces were allowed.
His feet crept across the floor, gliding over shadows until he reached the entrance to the palace, the unease of which brought with it a touch of palpitations. Silence ate its way through the ranks of two guards, while two others carried a boy out. A thin body with sunken cheeks. Assou recognised him without looking closely.
It was his messenger. The boy who had given him and Fatrada the papyrus. The wanted child who had fallen for a better offer. Perhaps he had been blackmailed. He didn’t know by what means this child had been tricked into switching his priorities, but he knew this boy had met his end.
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“Vizier!” A guard rushed towards him. “May the gods protect you. I see you are well.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” He couldn’t take his eyes off the child’s scrawny body.
“Well, first there’s that conspiracy you tried to overpower on your own, and then there’s this boy.” The sigh of the man next to him weighed heavier than the stone slabs they used to write on some days. “A slave said he’d been sent on a mission by you a few times – with generous pay, of course. It’s hard to understand why such a boy would take his own life outside your study.”
On his doorstep. As if this boy had tried to reach him before something terrible had happened to him.
“And,” the guard continued, “the Eye of Horus has been drawn on the opposite side of your door.”
He was seen. Maathorneferure wanted to show him he couldn’t run away. She always had him in sight. She also knew how to use an errand boy or how to get the slaves to swipe some information. Even the footmen could be bought. Most of them did quite a lot for a single gold coin and Maathorneferure knew how to lay her hands on the royal gold. She could pay whoever she wanted and everyone would fall to her feet.
“I see,” Assou replied. It wasn’t the best answer he could have come up with, but it was the only one.
“Do you think an enemy within the walls is responsible for this?” The guard’s concern made the tjati take his eyes off the boy, whose body, marked with blood, looked corrupted.
“Nothing more than a warning that I must have overlooked,” he then replied. “It’s nothing for you or our pharaoh to worry about. I will take care of it.”
“If you say so, then we trust you, Vizier.” The guard’s confidence grew, and although Assou couldn’t promise he could fix it all, there were still people who relied on his skill. They trusted him to fulfil his duties and go above and beyond. The palace could go up in flames and every one of them would sigh in relief if he said he would take care of it.
In moments like these, he would have liked to have been one of them. A man who endeavoured to be safe and yet thought no further than he was told. It had to be easy to leave life’s decisions to everyone else.
The thought made him smile. As a young boy, he had often thought about what it would be like to follow in his father’s footsteps; to know he had power and could make decisions that would help the country. The result had sobered him when he had lived the first days of the vizier’s life. Slaves had died and new ones had to be brought. An eternal routine that sometimes slipped away from him because people were more mortal than Ramesses wanted to see. Apart from that, he hardly had time to make decisions that would improve things. All he had left were friendly words for the pharaoh.
Through him, he had brought kindness. It had made him understand what his father had meant by saying that a good vizier made a good king. Assou had made him good. Better than he already was and even if he should have been proud of it, the walk through this city proved his decisions hadn’t borne fruit everywhere.
He had been blind. Almost like a guard who simply followed orders. In the end, he too was nothing more than a man following a well-trodden path. That made him weak as a vizier. It made him simple and put him on the same level as Maathorneferure. Perhaps even lower. For she saw further than he did and she had made her plans long ago. She knew what place belonged to her, and she also knew what she had to do to gain more power. Almost as if she had done nothing else all her life.
“May the gods have mercy on him,” was all he could wish the boy as he turned away from the guard and aimed for the entrance. Whatever had happened, he had to take a step back and look at things from the outside. He had to keep a clear view and – above all – he had to banish Fatrada from his thoughts.
Barely audible, Assou entered the palace and let his dirty feet scatter a few grains of sand. No one came to meet him until he reached the door to his study. It wasn’t until he reached the point where blood was soaked into the stone of the wall that a female slave met him. Her thin body mustered all its strength to scrub away the Eye of Horus, which gleamed bloodily, with a worn cloth. The water in the container next to her was already a deep red colour.
“I apologise, Vizier,” she breathed when she saw him. “I haven’t been able to remove the dirt yet.”
She hadn’t even been able to wipe away part of it, and yet Assou nodded at her as if what she said wouldn’t be a problem. His eyes lingered on the drawing. Straight lines, skilfully traced. Whoever Maathorneferure had paid for it, they possessed a wondrously beautiful handwriting. Simultaneously, her warning was like a joke. The Eye of Horus was known to see everything. It knew who played by the rules and who didn’t – and so it also knew who Maathorneferure was. Nothing remained secret from the all-seeing eye and yet she tried to frighten him with it, proving her poor character.
Still, the gods hadn’t punished her yet and even if he wanted to believe that one day it would happen, that didn’t help him at the moment. Fatrada wouldn’t last for years. Not in the arms of a woman who would do anything to upset him. And if not even Horus understood what kind of woman was defiling this palace, then Assou would let them all know.
He looked at the drawing on the wall one last time. Then he turned away to enter his study and shut the door firmly behind him. The decision, which weighed heavier on his shoulders with every breath he took, was the only right one.
He would kill Maathorneferure. She would be gone by the feast in Meritamen’s honour at the latest. No one would notice because all eyes would be on the pregnant Great Royal Queen. And in the end, no one would look round for him because he was the king’s vizier. Until then, Fatrada had to be protected – her soft, fragile body cradled in safety. Even if he had to act just as dirty as Maathorneferure.