CHAPTER 14
THE SECOND DUELThe next day I leave for Waset to make enquiries about Ma-nan. It is not easy to locate him. As far as I can establish he has not been seen since the duel. The people who might know — the dispossessed priests of Amun scattered about the town, living very different lives from the ones they lived before — are resentful and suspicious and will tell me nothing. I wonder if he has returned north to Men-nefer where I presume his family once lived. I hope not, for the journey will waste precious time.
My persistent enquiries produce at last a hopeful lead. One of the kitchen servants in my father’s old palace is brought to me. He is a thin, ungainly man, standing first on one foot and then the other, his eyes darting here and there, as though watching out for enemies a
