Lion Head Mesa ingemuo

backdated to may 18

germanicus was led beneath the red world.

he knew the passageways.

the imperator was bowed into pharaoh's throne room. he gave a sharp nod to the egyptian who sat upon the throne. "mereo offers its condolences to akashingo at this time."

"lady qiao has informed me that the queen was poisoned. what have you discovered thus far?"

empty. empty. empty as a boneyard. empty as a charnel house. satsu's spirit had flown on falcon wings to the underworld. he knew that Ma'at would judge her truly, for there had been no malice in his queen.
but ramesses was devoid of feeling now. he scarcely stirred as the roman was ushered forward. only a flick of his eartip evinced that he had heard anything. "mereo is my outpost. its condolences are assumed."
did the roman fool mean to bait him? pharaoh grew further into himself, tendrils of ice surrounding his heart.

the eagle cleared his throat. "as akashingo broke from the saints, so does mereo break from the palace. it is more fitting this way, pharaoh. i offer soldiers to stay for a time."

he said no more. ramesses was mercurial and germanicus was disinterested in inviting more wrath than what might already come.

well. perhaps he should have expected this. ramesses was not truly surprised, but he was moved by a swift snap of annoyance, that the cur should press his advantage so soon. pharaoh spread his forepaws in a sarcastic show of acceptance. 
"did crowfeather reach the mountains?" the royal man droned, though his lapis gaze probed germanicus with a sharp watch for any reaction. "he did not want to be a prince here. maybe he meant to be a lover elsewhere."

there was no reaction from pharaoh that indicated he meant to move against mereo. germanicus knew better than to trust. the backlash came in the form of a quiet word. "he did, great one." and he would say no more, though his heart ached for a sudden and harsh moment.

"i have moved to expand into the sunspire. i will report again when the pack has been raised. for now, i wish to know if you would like a soldier left behind when i return to mereo."

there were not many guards here, and ramesses now had children.

what an ugly dance this was. crowfeather had come. germanicus did not expound, and so pharaoh was content enough to entertain himself with notions of a grim and loveless meeting. but then again perhaps the good new roman wife was also unbothered by the extracurriculars of good roman husbands.
he leaned his head back against the curve of the redrock throne.
emptiness again, spoiling any sport ramesses might have taken in the moment.
"yes. were you made a father this year, roman? do we have one commonality now?"

germanicus had no sympathy spared for ramesses. the pomposity of the man invited his own trouble. "i will bring my choice to you before the week's close." he reasserted himself as leader of the mereo contingent.

"four, your majesty. two sons and two daughters." 

did ramesses mean to relate to him? how odd. the eagle found it distasteful.

ramesses enjoyed that germanicus stood at such attention before him. he had neither told the man to relax nor called for a meal. the dog was here on akashingo's orders, whatever he wanted to claim otherwise. and while he was aware that germanicus was trained to stand as long as ramesses saw fit, he still took the gritty little pleasure from it.
"mereo's imperator is virile," came his dry remark. "the queen delivered twin girls and my heir, siptah. you will meet him. in fact, given what has happened, i want you to train him. he is barely a boy. but he must learn to protect himself."
his voice had taken an icy edge. 
"akashingo will have a new queen after the mourning time has passed. i would like to see you and your wife present for the ceremony." germanicus understood politics after a fashion. if mereo wanted to stand alone, then they would be tested like any other ally.

ramesses was tormented. he forged ahead. germanicus found it unclear as to whether he wanted to find the queen's murderers. 

"if the situation permits, we will attend," he demurred. pharaoh was not foolish enough to alienate his strongest ally over a missed invitation to a second needlessly lavish celebration.

"who do you suspect has taken queen satsu's life, pharaoh?" he asked directly, turning the discourse back to where it belonged.

ramesses smiled with a soft violence at germanicus' answer. the next question posed turned his face to marble, and for a long moment he did not speak, letting silence lengthen into thick linen between them. "i have no suspects yet," he said in a smooth monotone. "that is the task for which i requested soldiers."
ramesses crossed his forepaws. "perhaps your wedding present to me might be an agreement upon a marriage in the future." he did not expect the eagle to accept; he wanted to see germanicus offended. 
he did not like the man. and he liked him far less now.

it had been weeks and ramesses had not considered a single face.

his queen was dead and he had not chosen a suspect. the palace might be filled with them. 

"i will conduct interviews this afternoon and tomorrow. in the morning i intend introductions to prince siptah."

ramesses had a further request. it angered the imperator. his countenance did not shift. "we are romans. romans do not arrange marriages for their small children."

"and it is a pity," ramesses quipped. "most of your women turn to greek fishmongers in the end. how is arsenio anyway?" he laughed uproariously at his own joke. the sound cut away. "consider it, roman. acquaint yourself with civilized nobility."
he loathed every moment that followed. "hold your interviews in the open-air throne room. i will not announce it so that you may have surprise as a tool."
his delicate nostrils flared.

pharaoh's laughter broke against the unmoving visage of the imperator. ramesses provided him with a single specific source of annoyance. 

"arsenio is leading the expansion into the mountains." how he wished the man was here to see this despicable, poisonous movement upon a gameboard.

"intelligence received by mereo tells us that the saints have returned to the strath. at least two of them, and with the potential for repopulation. could they have come here, pharaoh?"

germanicus was the most unfit person to ever grace a throne room. ramesses wanted to throw something at him: a berry-pit. a gnawed bone. anything to make him so much as blink. the eagle seemed to suck all air from the room barren of satsu's presence.
ramesses was suddenly riddled with exhaustion. he wanted to close his eyes now and sink into grateful sleep which turned the hollow feeling into velvet darknesss for a while.
germanicus spoke of the saints. ramesses blinked and seemed to sharpen. his former self wavered into view. "you knew where they were and you have not moved to destroy them?"

"my wife was soon to deliver our children. mereo faced other threats. it has not been possible to travel two weeks' time and will not be for the foreseeable future."

pharaoh was of course selfish and the eagle predicted a response to reiterate that.

"do you believe they could have come here? nyra knows the location of akashingo." germanicus sought to prod ramesses back into position.

"yes, i suppose they might have sent brawny, hideous spies to use some sort of poison inside the palace itself," ramesses snapped, slumping against his throne-back. "it is more likely that someone inside the palace has done this thing, though i can think of no motive for any of my subjects. not one that would lead to murder."
belatedly he nursed a private anger that arsenio would be head of his own pack. it meant he would have to charm a fish-reeking mercenary as an equal. was there no end to the egregious slights to him and his own?
"you are an outpost of soldiers and did not move upon our mutual enemy. had i known you would become an ineffective pack of domestically bound husbands i would never have suggested your foundation in the sunspire."

pharaoh grew more and more petulant. germanicus was weary.

"do not forget that those husbands are the only obstacle between the saints' return to their former advantageous place of power."

his own voice was dry.

"if we are finished here, pharaoh, i wish to begin my work."

ramesses stared at the man for a long, furious moment. and then his face closed again. the battle-readiness appeared to leach away. "leave me. i will arrange a meeting for you and the prince."
the lazuli stare dragged away from germanicus. the brief spate of anger in his veins fell to embers and then to ash. his heart was rife with pain, and hardened by the imperator's presence.
ramesses did not move for a long time after germanicus had gone.